A business improvement district (BID) is a defined area within which businesses are required to pay an ADDITIONAL TAX (or levy) in order to fund projects within the district’s boundaries. The BID is often funded primarily through the levy but can also draw on other public and private funding streams. DOUBLE TAXED!

These districts typically fund services which are PERCEIVED (FEELINGS NOT FACTS) by some businesses as being inadequately performed by government with its existing tax revenues, such as cleaning streets, providing security, making capital improvements, construction of pedestrian and streetscape enhancements, and marketing the area.

The services provided by BIDs are supplemental to those already provided by the municipality. The revenue derives from a TAX assessment on commercial property owners, and in some cases, residential property owners.

BIDs have been accused of being by their very nature undemocratic, and that they concentrate power in a geographic area into the hands of the few. Small businesses who fall below the BID levy threshold, although not liable to pay the BID levy, are often priced out of an area because BIDs tend to increase rental values BECAUSE OF THE IN CREASED TAXES LEVIED ON THE PROPERTY OWNERS.

Neither the people who live there, nor the many intriguing small shops and businesses, have been allowed to vote or have even been consulted.