INC NEWS - DDI's shell game with our money (today's Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

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!


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? 

Second, we need to demand the same kind of
accountability from DDI that we demand of other
non-profits. While downtowns across the country are
booming, downtown Durham is still dominated by vacant
storefronts and empty, lifeless streets, much as it
was when DDI surfaced in 1994. And from where we sit,
it looks like organizations such as Self-Help Credit
Union have contributed as much to downtown
revitalization as DDI. While DDI touts American
Tobacco as a recent success story -- and it is a
lovely addition to the Bull City -- our Main Street is
as moribund as ever. 

Last year, a consultant told City leaders that
downtown was "desolate and potentially frightening" to
visitors. This despite the hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies DDI has
received over the past decade.

And who can forget DDI's debacle pushing Clear Channel
to manage our new theater? Thank goodness the
community was able to stop that nonsense.

Our City Council should think carefully about how it
spends taxpayer monies here. At the very least,
council should stipulate that DDI will not receive
taxpayer funds unless it promises not to recruit
existing businesses to relocate from other parts of
Durham.


Larry Holt and John Schelp are Durham residents.