Lomb21 is the landlord Guy Laren. His is not a bad idea, but you've certainly pointed out the impractical parts of it, Tony.
We already tried this in 1987-88: it was called the University City Special Services District, or the UCSSD. You'll still see some of the green and purple UCSSD decals on the doors of supporter households around the neighborhood. A board of community volunteers ran it for about 6 months - so there were no administrative costs, no office expenses except for mailings requesting donations - just the equipment, supplies and workers who cleaned the sidewalks. We didn't have a safety crew. We solicited donations from every landlord, business owner, institution and homeowner in University City. Some of the landlords contributed. Enthusiastic homeowners contributed. The institutions did not contribute. The most energetic landlord, hosting all of our meetings and calling all of his colleagues for their support, was Dan DeRitis - at the time, at Campus Apartments. After many of our letters asking for donations went unanswered, four of us went door to door to every storefront in the neighborhood to ask businesses to help out. Many of the folks we met in the stores claimed not to be the business owners, not to know who the owners were or how to get in touch with them, and/or not to understand what we were saying. Few business owners were interested in what happened in the wider neighborhood - or even a few doors down the street from their storefronts! The most enthusiastic business supporter, hosting several receptions to encourage donations, was Daniel Liberatoscioli, owner of the Restaurant School. After about 6 months, UCSSD had to shut down the operation because we didn't have enough donations to complete our trial year. Was the time wrong? Were we the wrong volunteers? Would a new crew be more successful? Or is it simply the case that when it's a volunteer effort, too many beneficiaries are willing to let "somebody else" pay for it? Based on my very "hands-on" experience with the UCSSD, I don't think a volunteer effort is viable. I support the UCD and the BID because they are structured to avoid the pitfalls of voluntary working and donating. It would take a VERY concentrated effort by a VERY dedicated group of volunteers, and VERY strong community financial support (which we have not seen for either UCSSD or UCD) to pull off even a bare-bones sidewalk cleaning operation. Guy, if you can do it, that's great. - Melani Lamond In a message dated 6/8/07 10:20:39 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Lomb21, do you have a name? > > Of course there is a way -- if "the community" is prepared to pay for it. > And it'll be a big bill -- in the millions of dollars. Even if you assume UCD > contains waste, etc., you're still talking about recreating a substantial > agency. > > The "businesses that would have been the source of the NID/BID" would > largely consist of Penn and Drexel, in dollar volume. That's because these > businesses are huge in this neighborhood and dwarf other economic activities. > We do > not have a broad-based business sector in University City; we have what you > see around you. > > So in funding your CID, you face a narrow range of choices. Either you > accept you're working with Penn, and plan to work amicably with Penn, because > you > need Penn's money just as badly as Ray does; or you figure out how you're > going to persuade some other entities in the community to come up with a > reliable funding stream derived from another source. > > In the first choice, you've essentially recreated UCD. > > Melani Lamond, Associate Broker Urban & Bye, Realtor 3529 Lancaster Ave. Philadelphia, PA 19104 cell phone 215-356-7266 office phone 215-222-4800, ext. 113 office fax 215-222-1101 ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
