Downtown: The Real Problem

I learned a very valuable life lesson at the ripe old age of 25 when I was starting my first business. I had just applied for my first ever business loan and was sitting in the office of Ms. Kay Nicholson at Fulton Federal Savings & Loan in Roswell, Georgia. There was some rule or policy of the bank that I didn't like and I was running off at the mouth about it. Kay just let me run with it but when I finished my diatribe she calmly and softly said, "always remember who holds the purse strings".

Some of the people involved in our Downtown revitalization programs should listen to Miss Kay's advice. The Canton City Council has complete and absolute control of the purse strings. Period.

And the fact is that the Canton City Council has been disproportionately GENEROUS to the downtown area with TAX DOLLARS that belong to the ENTIRE CITY.

Some examples include, the almost completed Waleska Street Streetscapes Project. Some things included in this Downtown project are new brick sidewalks and crosswalks, freshly paved roads, new waterlines, a statue, welcome monument and sign, fresh new landscaping, new awnings on buildings, new street lights on the bridge.

Another major new Downtown project known as the Main Street Connector Project will start very soon on East Marietta St. extending from Main St. Downtown to the 4 way stop. It too will include new sidewalks, new paving and other attractive features similar to Waleska St.

The now famous "Christmas/Holiday Lights" are almost all located Downtown even though they really are citywide lights paid for by citywide taxes.

New privately owned construction projects Downtown are subsidized with tax dollars in the form of reduced or waived water & sewer hookup fees. Cannon Park located Downtown has beautiful new lighting, trees along Main St. are getting lights put in their branches and Main St. has special deluxe "pedestrian lights" not seen in other parts of town.

The Downtown Theater, bought and renovated with citywide tax dollars, is receiving a new audio/visual system giving it the ability to show movies. The Main Street program including all the nice events it has Downtown is funded with citywide tax dollars. There is a salaried position which is 100% devoted to promoting Downtown. And there is more. Much more. All for Downtown.

Folks, every single item mentioned here was paid for with your tax dollars. Every single penny of those tax dollars is 100% controlled by your Canton City Council. Yet some of the very people who are benefiting the most from this generous and disproportionate spending of your tax dollars continue to berate, vilify, chastise and slam the Council. Now the latest war cry is "The Canton City Council Does Not Support Downtown".

To be clear, this only applies to a small but VERY vocal minority of Downtown folks. Most Downtown folks understand what is happening and why it is happening but choose to be nice. Nice is always better. We appreciate you.

So what is the reason for all this wailing and carrying on by this small group? Earlier this year the Council was presented a proposal by the Main Street Director to create a new tax, specifically on the rental car business, and the revenue would be used to give free rent to new Downtown businesses to help them get started. At first glance this sounded like not a bad idea, right? But it is a Council Member's job to dig deeper than "first glance".

In keeping with the responsibilities of my job, when I saw this item on the agenda a week or so before the meeting where the proposal would take place, I called the Main Street Director to ask some questions. Simple questions such as, Where has this been successfully done before? What are the specifics of the program? What is the accountability of the beneficiaries? What are the requirements for participation? How many car rental agencies will have to pay? Have you asked for their input since they will be funding the program? Have you looked at alternate ways to fund the program?

She did not have the answers so I suggested that she get the answers before the meeting because I was going to ask them again in the meeting. Folks this is how it is supposed to work. No surprises, no gamesmanship, no unnecessary drama in the public meetings. Be prepared. ALL Canton employees, including elected officials, are a team. It is critical to have open, two way communication between all groups, committees, and individuals.

Now here we are almost a year later. The rental car tax did not pass, the questions are still not answered, yet some Downtown folks are all upset and bent out of shape about not getting their special new tax to benefit Downtown via the free rent program. The most obvious, simplest, first thing they could do is to just check the closest location where a free rent program is offered and ask, "Hows it going?" In this case it is Riverstone Plaza. Lets see how it is working for them. Well, because nobody has yet bothered to ask Riverstone, I finally asked a couple of weeks ago. The answer: In the almost one year that Riverstone has been offering free rent, only one tenant has participated. The result: The business folded up and skipped out the day the free rent ran out.

And now the Council is being asked to approve even more funding specifically for Downtown that includes Downtown Rent Subsidies. And because we refuse to do this, we get accused of not supporting Downtown. My friends, the Canton City Council loves Downtown as evidenced by all the extra money we approve specifically for Downtown. The latest request is for an extra $20,000 for a billboard on I-575 promoting Downtown. Well excuse me for being a little skittish and I really don't mean to be picking on or bullying anybody, but where is the documentation showing that this will work? So far we have seen nothing.

Back to the free rent program, after digging even deeper, I learned that in fact there are some cases, not in Canton but in other places, where a free rent program has "succeeded", depending on your definition of success. It does appear that the successes are few and far between and there is a downside even with them. It also appears that a free rent program is not the best use of the Taxpayer's money. If the Main Street Board believes they can prove otherwise, we will listen.

In any event the Canton City Council does understand the overall value of a vibrant, growing, and successful Downtown and we will continue to support Downtown. In the coming weeks the Council will be presenting a plan for solid and sustainable economic prosperity not only for Downtown but for the entire City. This plan is time tested and has proven successful in communities throughout the country. Stay tuned.