Resist the BIDding of the Olympia Downtown Association

author : Pat Tassoni topic : Olympia City Council | Olympia Downtown Association

by Pat Tassoni

Follow-up Inquiry into the ODA

Acting on the information that Beth Ward presented with her article, "An Inquiry into the ODA", which originally appeared in last month's issue of The Voice of Olympia, I reviewed the city files on neighborhood associations, specifically the Olympia Downtown Association. It is clear that the ODA does not meet the city's eligibility standard for classification as a neighborhood association because they have repeatedly violated the annual reporting requirements through the entirety of the city file, which dates back to 2002 (the 2004 report was absent from the file). And yet the city, in their love-affair with the ODA, gives them thousands of dollars year after year to the possible detriment of other neighborhood associations that received only partial funding or none at all from this limited resource.

Olympia Municipal Code 18.86.060(A) requires that neighborhood associations annually report on why 'renters or lessees' are not allowed in the organization and whether or not they are to be included in the future. The ODA does not grant FULL membership, including organizational voting rights, to rental residents. The ODA has not properly reported this condition to the city of Olympia year after year. This requirement is not too hard to understand as evidenced when another association referenced it in their application process. OMC 18.86.060(D) states essentially that the city needs to notify the offending neighborhood association, the ODA, of their non-compliance and possibly suspend them.

I believe that because of The Voice's intrepid inquiries, the city developed a new annual form (dated June 8, 2005) that dumbs-down the reporting process even further for neighborhood associations. At the time of this writing, the ODA still has not reported their exclusive membership. In the community's interest, the ODA should at the very least return all its ill-gotten funds from the city's Neighborhood Matching Grant program.

The city should end its love-affair with the ODA

Perhaps the Olympia Downtown Association is not an honest or capable corporate citizen as they claim or as the city of Olympia automatically gives them credit. They have been the instigators and proponents of anti-homeless and anti-youth legislation for nearly twenty years. And they are still pushing an agenda that needs to be examined even more closely now, given the reporting discrepancies detailed above. It's interesting to note that the current ODA president and main spokesperson, Jeff Kingsbury, and former spokesperson, Joe Hyer, are both running -- thus far uncontested - for city council this year. I guess they want to supersize their discrepancies and further dilute the chain of command between the city and the ODA.

The Olympia Downtown Association is a non-profit corporation that works tirelessly for the profit of a few and, despite their rhetoric, are not necessarily community-minded. Only half of their current Board of Directors live in the city of Olympia. Their anti-homeless and anti-youth legislative initiatives have cost the city thousands of dollars to 'study' and have repeatedly divided an otherwise caring community.

The Olympia Downtown Association only represents a fraction of the estimated 540 businesses downtown with a current membership of 230, at least 20% of whom are associates without qualifying businesses downtown. A number of downtown businesses actively avoid the ODA.

Currently the ODA is at its historic high-water mark in membership but is now proposing mandatory membership of all businesses into what it claims is the next evolution: a Business Improvement District. A BID is a special tax district in which businesses or property owners downtown would decide to add an additional fee to their tax bill that they can decide to spend later. Nothing is stopping the ODA as a non-profit to raise and spend money voluntarily without creating a new taxing district except the likelihood that small businesses can't afford to contribute or may not voluntarily choose to be a member. But through business/asset bullying, all businesses downtown would be compelled to do their bidding.

The primary purpose of the district would be to operate a publicly funded and constructed parking garage. Studies have shown that the majority of parkers downtown are business owners and their workers. Businesses could invest in a shuttle or subsidize their workers' use of alternative transportation to free up the streets for consumer needs. It would be less expensive than demanding a parking garage. The Downtown Neighborhood Association conducted a survey of residents. The preliminary results show that residents were more interested in improved public transportation than a parking garage. If a parking garage is so needed, surely a private entity would have already seen the merits of building one. Their plan sounds too much like plundering public resources for private gain.

The city's Comprehensive Plan and city priorities seek to develop downtown as 'Mixed-Use' with some residential, some retail, some commercial, etc. Declaring downtown a business zone is not consistent with such community-minded plans and priorities. Such a zone downtown could approach a sense of community if it included improved business guarantees such as fair trade, living wages, mandatory recycling and waste reduction, and additional consumer protection requirements; residential discounts; and enhanced public accommodations including open access to restrooms.

A BID would be unfair to the two captive markets downtown, residents and local consumers. Since the BID would compel financial contributions from all businesses (something the ODA has not been able to accomplish otherwise), the cost of which would undoubtedly be passed onto the consumer, the raising of rent and all other prices downtown would result. And the consumers won't necessarily have a vote on the formation of the district or how the funds are to be spent. If I'm not mistaken this country was founded on the slogan, "No taxation without representation!" It seems the ODA is behind the times.

The only upside to their BID proposal that I see is an implied statement that downtown Olympia is no longer 'struggling' since they are so pleased with downtown they are considering raising prices across the board. Hopefully, their consistent negative campaign over the decades that downtown is struggling which has pitted them as 'underdogs' to the 'controlling interests of the youth and homeless' under the construction of 'safety' is finally finished. Goodbye to their clever attempts to deprive vulnerable populations of their civil rights. Actual crime downtown as documented by the Olympian and the police department has remained fairly constant -- and was never really high. Fear of crime and fear of 'others' are the flames fanned for decades by the ODA. Downtown is safe -- just ask those who live downtown.

Hopefully enough local businesses can come together to oppose the ODA's BIDding so we can maintain downtown's mixed-use character. We regular citizens, flesh and blood persons, are second-class citizens without a right to vote on the issue that will certainly affect those of us who value downtown Olympia.