Beyond Public and Private.

• Position: Letters - Letter to the Editor

As someone who has successfully opposed formation of two local Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) in San Leandro, California, I was disappointed by Jesse Walker's article ("Beyond Public and Private" November), which betrayed a lack of insight into the subject. His characterization of BIDs as somewhat consensual belies the reality, at least in california. Most BIDs in California are created by a small, active group of politically well-connected businesses seeking to impose their vision on the majority of politically less-active businesses. If it were consensual, then the other businesses would voluntarily contribute, rendering a BID unnecessary.

In California, once the municipality has initiated the process, BIDS are theoretically subject to a vote by affected businesses, but the vote is illusory. A successful protest of the BID needs 50 percent of the businesses to affirmatively protest in writing. All businesses that do not properly protest are counted in favor of the BID. This sets up an almost insurmountable barrier: Large percentages of any electorate fail to vote in almost any modern election.

Effective protest is further discouraged through a deliberately consumer-unfriendly process. Notices of the BID are typically sent to businesses in highly technical, arcane language. No form of protest or return envelope is provided. This discourages all but the most literate, knowledgeable, and motivated of businesses from challenging the process. If a business owner speaks a foreign language, tough luck. The business roll often includes businesses no longer operating, but their silence nevertheless counts in favor of the BID.

Once the BID bureaucracy is in place, it does what all bureaucracies do: It focuses on its own self-perpetuation and growth. No matter how inefficiently it delivers services, it will publicly celebrate its putative successes and ignore the tax cost to businesses.

BIDS are essentially perpetual since it is rarely worthwhile for any individual business to expend the energy to oppose bureaucratic entrenchment. As practiced here in California, BIDs are in no sense even quasi-consensual. A few organized businesses seek to compel other businesses to pay so that they might impose their preferences on how capital is deployed. That's called a tax. An associate editor from reason should have few kind words for additional taxes, no matter how pretty the surrounding rhetoric.

Michael Jacobowitz

San Leandro, CA

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