by Mike Martin for the Columbia Business Times
Mr. and Mrs. Columbia Small-Business Person, please ask yourselves some
questions before voting April 6.
Is the narrative about expanding business opportunities in Columbia really
about you? Do you need a shovel-ready site or a city subsidy to install
electrical infrastructure? Do you have $10,000 to apply for Tax Increment
Financing? Do you or your firm operate a Transportation Development
District?
Has billionaire developer Stan Kroenke offered to lease his long-empty Osco
building to your business at a great rate? Has Regional Economic Development
visited your office -- ever? Are you able to build a big headquarters similar
to the new City Hall? Are you getting lots of work from the local high and
mighty?
If you answered "no" to these questions, then I want to talk about the snow
job you've been receiving from city government, the Chamber of Commerce, Council
candidates and others who say they're dedicated to improving our local business
climate right around election time.
In Columbia, economic development is too much about land
development. If small businesses and the residents who work for them
want to prosper, this narrow-minded, trickle-down philosophy that scolds
Columbia's bohemian streak and fails to foster small startups in consistent and
meaningful ways must end.
Pinnacle of absurdity
Columbia Daily Tribune publisher Henry J. Waters has, during the
past year, illustrated how little the local establishment supports the average
small-business person.
Calling himself "The Butterfly," Waters became the loudest voice in last
year's push to use eminent domain against Bengals Grill owners Jack and Julie
Rader and the small-business people, including Adam Dushoff, who operate
Addisons and Sophia's restaurants.
Lining up behind Hank: a big-money army, from developer Jeff Smith to
Realtor Otto Maly. And leading the charge at City Hall was not that guy in the
vest the Chamber of Commerce can't wait to be rid of, or those Council people
who vote for bikes and chickens, but "business-friendly" City Manager Bill
Watkins.
That these establishment cronies would so easily "go nuclear" to secure
land for a new State Historical Society museum is beyond the pale. But just as
bad: Local business people herded into believing that their only real support
lies with these establishment cronies.
We're told that the enemies of capitalism — Columbia City Council members
Karl Skala, Barb Hoppe; Ragtag Cinema and True/False Film impresario Paul
Sturtz; and Jerry Wade (post-Bob McDavid) — are wrecking the local
economy.
This thinking would represent the pinnacle of absurdity if Hank Waters
weren't sitting in judgment, once again, as the "endorser-in-chief" of April's
candidates and issues. But he is.
Little bohemia
If those City Council members aren't enemies of capitalism, you ask, why
are they focusing on chickens and bicycles instead of shovel-ready development
sites?
Smart business people don't ignore large demographics. For many small
businesses, profiting in Columbia means selling goods and services to our
bohemian brethren — they of the chicken coops and solar panels and biking to
work instead of driving the car.
It means emulating successful entrepreneurs such as Sturtz and his business
partner, David Wilson, or the restaurateurs behind Main Squeeze and Café
Berlin. It means John and Vicki Ott's Berry Warehouse renovation, not the
latest TDD-hungry Walmart.
It means what one downtown insurance agent wrote the Columbia City Council
when the eminent domain push almost snuck through on the Council's automatically
approved Consent Agenda.
"Amidst this troubled economy, owning property in The District is a good
thing," he wrote. "Many stakeholders have nurtured their investments for
decades, waiting to see them mature. I don't know them personally, but they
have been part of the solution to revitalize downtown. They are proud of their
investment decision and excited to be part of downtown commerce. They have
struggled to keep their small businesses alive, paid their property taxes and
stood beside other District business owners while nurturing their retirement
nest eggs.
"Eminent domain can be a nest egg thief. Don't pull the rug out from under
these folks."
Those "enemies of capitalism" the Chamber of Commerce dislikes voted down
eminent domain and left the rug in place for those small business people in the
District relying on their land holdings -- not our tax dollars -- to fund their
retirements.
Remember that when you vote April 6.
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