To the editor,
Re: Downtown marketing group considered, June 13.
The last thing we need is another business improvement area to snatch taxes.
This year fellow merchants and commercial property owners who pay an extra tax levy voted overwhelmingly to dissolve the DNBIA. We saw little downtown improvement for the $460,000 a year taxpayers contributed.
What is needed is to go back to a grassroots volunteer way of doing things. Forget about a few parties coming after money from the rest. The Victoria Crescent Association has been set up to do just that.
Shop, restaurant and property owners have banded together and we are holding Beard-O-Rama, a Bathtub Days Street Fair next month, Crescent Day in August and a back-to-school event, all being done and promoted without a BIA and its salaries and administration costs.
Our association is also working magnificently with the city, RCMP and other organizations to build a better downtown neighbourhood. We hardly got a thing from a BIA, except for higher taxes.
Dave Lawrence, vice-president, Victoria Crescent Association
