The Business Improvement District will be back on Asheville City Council’s agenda. Again? Of course. The pursuit group wants it, so they must keep tweaking it and staging implementation to appease protesters. Tons of information are provided in the staff reports, but that does not make the concept of an extra layer of government with a 7% tax a good idea. One is compelled to vomit one’s hands and say, “OK. You want government to control everything. Let’s surrender.” I haven’t completely read the reports yet. I’m sure I’ll encounter more that irks me as I proceed. But I was particularly annoyed at the comment:
Staff noted there were also a couple of incidences of people taking more than their share of dots and voting all on the NO BID line. So, on the whole, the data is not representative nor accurate.
I must wonder if that is why the “None” I wrote on the butcher paper was excluded from the comments printed. I gave it all my dots after asking if I could put them all on one category and getting an affirmative answer. It never occurred to me that I should have given a less-fortunate BID supporter at least half my dots as their fair share. All I can say is, I was very happy to see a lot of dots, and a lot of people putting, usually one, dot on that line item. There was enough anti-BID sentiment in the room to justify all the dots. That staff did not simply subtract the cheating votes they witnessed indicates (1) there were too many dots to sort out, or (2) the pursuit group needed an excuse to minimize the opposition.
(You may pick up the staff reports from this page.)
