INC NEWS - DDI needs reform, stop undermining neighborhoods (Sunday Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Guest column: American Tobacco gets lion's share of
subsidies (Herald-Sun, 19 June 2005)

In its ongoing lobbying for the proposed $35 million
theater next to Capitol Broadcasting's American
Tobacco Campus [Herald-Sun, June 16], Downtown Durham,
Inc. forgot to mention that the current theater
proposal is much better than the earlier Clear Channel
debacle they were pushing. 

Why? This time, better efforts were made to include
the public in the discussion. Thanks to more community
involvement, we have a better deal for the theater
than the original boondoggle that DDI pushed.

It's misleading for proponents of the new theater to
repeatedly say the project was all about the American
Dance Festival. 

Senior Duke vice-president Tallman Trask III told me
two years ago that Duke was going to build a
performance hall on its Central Campus "to replace an
aging Page Auditorium and keep ADF in Durham." Now
taxpayers are suddenly looking at $18 million in
public subsidies for something Duke was already going
to build with its own money. And ADF is suddenly
looking at a $9 million bill to build its own black
box rehearsal theater and office space.

We all need to take a look at the "downtown" money
flowing south of the railroad tracks to benefit
Capitol Broadcasting: $16 million for the Bulls, $43
million for the new parking decks and now $18 million
for a new theater. When is enough going to be enough
for Capitol Broadcasting?

In the middle of this controversial mess is DDI -- an
organization which receives more than $180,000 in
taxpayer subsidies annually. 

As part of its strategy, DDI attempts to recruit
existing Durham businesses to relocate downtown from
other Durham locations. DDI should either stop
cannibalizing existing Durham business districts -- or
lose its generous subsidy from taxpayers.

DDI's predatory tactics are troubling. DDI president
Bill Kalkhof admitted actively recruiting existing
Durham businesses to move downtown in a Sept 22 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."

It's not good public policy to move businesses from
one part of Durham to another, with no net growth, in
the name of "economic development." This is nothing
but a shell game. 

The rich get richer while gateway business districts
like Fayetteville Street and Northeast Central Durham
can only watch while business subsidies flow to the
American Tobacco District.

Why are the taxpayers giving DDI $181,000 a year, so
that DDI can turn around and lobby elected bodies to
spend more of our tax dollars, including these
generous subsidies for American Tobacco and the
proposed theater? This is a conflict of interest for
DDI.

Finally, DDI defends getting $181,000 from taxpayers
because the downtown property tax base has increased
since their organization was formed. Never mind that
most property tax values have increased everywhere
over the past 12 years. And it's silly for DDI to
argue that they're responsible for just about all the
investments downtown. Nonsense. 

Is an increased property tax base in downtown really
the best metric with which to measure the success of
downtown revitalization? Increased property values due
to investment and renovation are certainly important. 

But, from a citizen's or visitor's point of view, you
cannot walk down Main Street and see a "tax base." 

If you stop anyone on Ninth Street and ask them to
describe the success of this commercial district -
what they like about it and why it thrives - they
won't say it's because the "tax base" is high.

They'll tell you that there are people and energy on
the street, a good mix of shops and restaurants with a
unique character. This has already happened in most
other downtowns across the state and country.

By contrast, downtown Durham still suffers from the
same vacant storefronts and resulting lack of people
and energy on the streets, as it did when DDI surfaced
in 1994. The success of downtown Durham is still
missing this critical element - activity on Main
Street. 

DDI may tout American Tobacco as a recent success
story. But our Main Street is unfortunately as dead as
ever, despite DDI's decade of public subsidies.

The City Council and County Commissioners should
stipulate, in writing, that DDI can not recruit
existing businesses to relocate from anywhere else in
Durham. Or, DDI shouldn't get a dime of taxpayer
money.


John Schelp lives in Old West Durham.