To the editor,
Re: Downtown marketing partnership considered, June 13.
Didn’t the previous business improvement area cohorts learn the last few times? BIAs here in Nanaimo turn into a mess.
In March, 81 per cent of property owners and businesses voted to get rid of the Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association because it was doing little but take tax money.
Late last year, the city even pulled $230,000 of matching funding, taken from every general taxpayer in the city, because no other municipality in North America gives such relief to a business group.
In 2008, the city tore apart and restructured the Downtown Nanaimo Partnership Society because it too had lost touch with members and the city and was spending way too much on administration and wages.
Trouble is, tax-grabbing groups like these take too much of a cut for their own interests and affairs and then leave the entire downtown area still in disrepair.
Tim McGrath, Nanaimo