Reply to Can someone explain why we need an undemocratic business improvement district in Silver Spring?

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Reply to "Can someone explain why we need an undemocratic business improvement district in Silver Spring?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What benefit? Cleaner streets? More activities planned to draw people to the area? more collective marketing? Ya, sure they benefit, but they are playing a tax to cover the costs. I still don't get the complaint.[/quote]

Are you familiar with taxation without representation? [/quote]

Nonsense. The people who put this in place either are elected officials or subject to them. There’s no lack of representation. [/quote]

Rarely do we vest an unelected board with taxing authority. Rarer still is a board whose composition is determined by how much land someone owns or how much money they make. There are good reasons this is rare. The council’s own staff said the proposal was inequitable. Riemer pushed ahead anyway. [/quote]

The taxing for a BID is still done by the government, who then puts the money into the account managed by the board and staff. Or, in some places, the tax is part of the jurisdiction forms, but the money goes directly into their account. Either way, it isn't the BID that has the taxing authority.[/quote]

Of the course the government collects taxes. It’s what governments do. A handful of big landowners are using the government’s taxing power to fund a program that they will primarily govern.

Both the tax rate and how the money is spent should be governed by a democratic process, not governed by who owns the most land. Really, the BID is one step removed from ancient voting laws. How would the program have been harmed by democratic governance?[/quote]
They are going to create a privately owned city without any ability for democratic input. Remember how supine all the politicians were about stopping Peterson from kicking out kids cooking off in the fountain or mothers breast feeding? Imagine that but for all of DTSS, not just Ellsworth. [/quote]

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