INC NEWS - Column: City cuts would hurt arts scene in Durham (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

>From today's column in the Herald-Sun...

> The process for non-city agency funding was deeply flawed this year, and there appears to be a significant disconnect between the wants of the people and the actions of the city staff... The zero-sum game being played by city staff threatens to undermine the fabric of what make Durham so great. Our elected officials pour millions of dollars into economic development projects because of their long term impact on the community. Arts and culture are no different. (Herald-Sun, 06/04/08)


Forum: DDI's shell game with our money
by John Schelp and Larry Holt, guest columnists
Herald-Sun, 7 April 2006

Downtown Development Inc. (DDI) receives more than $180,000 in taxpayer subsidies annually ($47,500 from the county and $134,027 from the city). By contrast, downtown booster organizations in Raleigh, Winston-Salem and Wilmington receive no taxpayer money for operations. Instead, they raise money from the private sector.

As part of annual budget deliberations, the city is getting ready to evaluate non-profit applications for city funds, one of which will be DDI. We believe that DDI has a history of using these taxpayer monies to build up downtown at the expense of other Durham neighborhoods and that these funds would be better and more fairly spent funding deserving non-profits that provide services to Durham citizens.

First, as part of its development strategy, DDI actively recruits existing Durham businesses to relocate downtown from other Durham locations, which DDI staff admitted in a letter to the editor: "If we are informed that a business is nearing the end of its lease in a location outside of downtown, we will discuss with the business whether it would be interested in locating downtown" (9/22/04, Herald-Sun). 

It's not good public policy to move businesses from one part of Durham to another and pretend it's new business recruitment. Nor is it good policy to move jobs from one part of Durham to another and pretend it's new job creation. 

Motricity, Glaxo, Little Consulting, and Duke all moved offices to American Tobacco from other parts of our city. While these efforts may benefit Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting, let's not pretend they're something else. 

We now learn that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants wanted to bring 400 jobs from New Jersey to our downtown and couldn't find enough space! [so they went to the Chapel Hill line]

Moving old jobs around Durham and losing 400 new jobs downtown is not "economic development." It is, in fact, nothing but a shell game.

And sadly, this shell game can have multiple losers. 

DDI recruited PeaceFire Galleries to move downtown from another location in Durham. After moving downtown and struggling to stay financially afloat while downtown street construction drove away its customers, the gallery went out of business and we have another vacant downtown storefront. Losers: PeaceFire's proprietors, the neighborhood it left and, ultimately, downtown Durham.

DDI actively lobbies for millions in corporate welfare for Capitol Broadcasting while gateway business districts such as Fayetteville Street and Northeast Central Durham get crumbs. DDI pushed hard to secure more than $60 million taxpayer dollars for Capitol's American Tobacco and Durham Bulls. The city then announces that seven key areas in neighborhoods that surround downtown will receive what comes out to a whopping $35,715 each. Seems like our priorities are messed up.

DDI's predatory tactics, which prop up downtown at the expense of other Durham neighborhoods, are troubling. It's especially troubling when they are subsidized by taxpayers. If DDI received no taxpayer money, they would have every right to lobby the city and county for whatever they wanted. 

But why are local taxpayers subsidizing DDI to turn around and lobby elected bodies to spend millions of our tax dollars on wealthy corporations like Capitol Broadcasting? ...

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Letter: Downtown Durham Inc. outgrew public funding
Herald-Sun, 10 April 2006

The April 7 column by John Schelp and Larry Holt about Downtown Durham Inc. had points that encouraged me to share my experience sitting on the community review board for city grants. The board is made up of city staff and community volunteers. The goal was to learn about each applicant and report back those that fit the criteria laid out by City Council so the council could grant funds with some consistency. 

Each group of three volunteers had about 12 grants to review. DDI was in my group of grant applications. They rated very low on the city's list of goals. I am sure this list has changed over the years as new council members have been elected. 

When it came to the question of whether other funding sources are available, DDI rated particularly low, because they have no new sources of income and rely on the city and county as the major job producers for the Central City Area. Also fairly new to the criteria is positive impact on youth. DDI again scored low based on the application they put forward that year. 

Investment in the ring around Downtown is needed to take the loop to where DDI and all of us want it to go, rather than back to where we started. With its new private sector stakeholders, if DDI opened its boundaries to help business districts like Old Five Points, and Angier Avenue, its numbers would rise and it could still score high for public investment from what I reviewed. 

In summary given the growing Downtown economy, and DDI sticking to its original charter of ballpark to ballpark, library to Brightleaf, public money is better spent on other non-profits. The areas championed by DDI are going to rapidly infill even without grant money. 

Richard Mullinax
Durham

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