Check it for yourself
If you are a small town in the USA looking into establishing a Main Street program and my writing is giving you pause and making you wonder if funding this is a bad idea, run some figures and estimate how much new business they would need to bring in to pay you back the amount of money they want.
I don't believe it makes any sense for a small town to pay that kind of money to a local economic development non-profit year in and year out. You would probably need exponential local growth for that to make ANY sense.Because IF they manage to bring in enough NEW (presumably recurring) taxes year one to cover the costs involved for the city, if they don't repeat that success next year, you can FIRE them on the spot and pocket that money every additional year. If they do NOT cover the costs of what you are paying out of city coffers, why are you paying them at all? Fire them, invest that money in something else that actually benefits your citizens and be permanently better off.
If you are a small town with an existing local Main Street affiliate wondering if I'm a loon or if I have a valid point about Main Street America not working, you can check it for yourself.
2. Witness to Destruction has more ranty gossipy backstory on the drama in Aberdeen. I have added a Main.Street tag there. If you are trying to defend yourself and insist I'm a lunatic, that's your best bet for proving I'm some unhinged lone voice in the wilderness who should be ignored.
3. Take the figures the local Main Street program has put together singing their own praises and ASK yourself if "new businesses in downtown" are REALLY new taxes for the town coffers or refugees from a dying mall or similar AND ask HOW and why they moved to downtown.
Go to the business owners and ASK why they chose this location. See if you can find out if the Main Street program had anything to do with it or if they just happened to move there unrelated to the existence of the local program.
If it's a local business that moved within city borders, check if they are paying more or less in taxes since moving. If local businesses don't want to answer those questions, you may be able to check tax receipts to estimate if business is better or worse.
IF Main Street is moving businesses to downtown from elsewhere in town AND improving their bottom line, it MAY represent a bump in new taxes.
If they tell you "Business is down because there's no parking here and it's a constant uphill battle to get customers," then it's a net loss and they might be better off at some other location in town that Main Street may have talked them out of to try to make the Main Street program look good.
The butcher shop that moved to downtown Aberdeen after the mall in South Aberdeen closed constantly had people on the street with a sign trying to promote it. It makes me suspect they weren't seeing the level of business they saw at the mall.
If the goal is economic development and business is down while they work harder to survive, you are wasting money to support a local Main Street program.
You may also be able to check aggregate figures and general health of the town before the program started and after they started. You may be able to confidently document that the town was measurably better off when that money was going to something else.
If there was something you killed to pay for this, you may have data on what that was accomplishing and you may be able to make a very strong case that the Main Street program is a waste of money for the city.
