BID praised, condemned

SANDPOINT — The downtown improvement district was lauded, castigated and mulled by business owners at a Wednesday meeting that  ended with a bumper sticker.

The decal that Rich Curtis, of Exit Realty saw long ago, stated what business owners who supported the local business improvement district, and those who opposed it, had in common.

“If you live in Sandpoint, you’re lucky enough,” Curtis said.

Curtis is among Sandpoint business owners who want to chuck the BID and the tax that it collects from business owners.

He isn’t against the Downtown Sandpoint Business Association — which operates using the BID tax.

He just thinks the association has lost its way.

On the issue of the sticker, however, he agreed with the rest of the business owners who attended the evening meeting in Panhandle State Bank’s community room

“I’m all about promoting Sandpoint,” he said.

It was the forced BID tax that he opposed, he said.

More than 50 people, many of them local business owners, attended the meeting and listened to opponents who have resurrected an initiative to kill the BID, as well as proponents of the taxing entity.

Ben Tate of Finan McDonald Clothing said the tax was the only way to ensure funding for the Downtown Sandpoint Business Association, which advocates for downtown businesses, markets and organizes events that bring tourists to town.

Opponents argued that most of the work to make Sandpoint’s downtown area tourist-friendly and attractive, could be done by a volunteer staff. The BID’s one, full-time, paid employee should be cut to save administrative costs, and money for downtown beautification and marketing should be raised through donations.

Tate disagreed. The volunteer model was tried decades ago by a similar business association that dissolved, he said.

“One thing is clear,” he said. “You have to have a paid staff.”

Otherwise he said, a volunteer manager would spend the bulk of his or her time fundraising and getting little else done.

Downtown parking and the maintenance of sidewalks was an issue that downtown business owners like Ward Tollbom of Hen’s Tooth Studio wanted to see improved.

“I’m a one-issue guy,” Tollbom said.

In his tenure on the DSBA, he said, the city reduced parking instead of increased the spaces that draw customers.

“Downtown parking is atrocious,” Tollbom said.

Steve Mayer of Pend O’reille Winery said he approved of the DSBA as a central organization to promote the downtown business community.

“The most important thing we can do is make downtown an inviting place,” he said.

Opponents pointed out that more than 60 percent of money raised by the BID is used in administration.

Pierre Bordenave, of Inter Mountain Resources, who is DSBA’s treasurer said he joined the organization because he was initially opposed to it.

“I had a lot of issues myself,” Bordenave said. “I was disappointed in the administrative costs.”

What he learned, he said, is that the DSBA spends less money on administration than most successful businesses.

If you want to change the focus of the DSBA, Bordenave said, then join it.

“Decisions are made by those who show up,” he said.

Other business owners such as David Luhrs, of Foster’s Crossing, were concerned that the downtown events he supports with the BID tax, draw business away from his store on the north side of Fifth Street, several blocks from downtown.

On event days, he said, “I can feel the difference in traffic flow.”

The result: “Our business drops,” he said. “To pay for that, to me, is a problem.”

The BID began a decade ago with a focus on improved parking and sidewalk repairs, Curtis said. That focus has been lost.

“Sidewalks should be done before beautification,” he said.

The meeting, which was praised by many business owners as a positive step toward airing grievances did little to resolve differences.

It was, however, a soap box for what is right in Sandpoint.

“This town is special,” Dan Mimmack, a DSBA board member and owner of Northwest Handmade, said. “You know this town is a special place.”

An inviting downtown, he said, “raises the level of awareness that Sandpoint is a special place to be.”