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Listen to this articleImagine walking down the street and coming across a game of three-card monte. The fast-talking dealer, the excitement in the air — it’s enticing, it’s flashy, and it promises quick rewards. The man in front of you is beaming, counting his winnings.
Those familiar with the game know better. Three-card monte is a classic confidence game — the dealer and his crew create the illusion of victory to lure unsuspecting citizens. The only way to win is not to play.
The same holds true with the RDDC’s proposed Business Improvement District (BID). What has been marketed to the public as “vitality” for downtown is, in reality, just empty patter designed to distract from their gaming of the system.
At its core, a BID is a strategically crafted policy designed to benefit major real estate interests. Essentially a special taxing district, all properties within a BID are required to pay an annual fee. Although the city is responsible for collection, the additional tax revenue and any other grants or funds received are under the BID’s control. Day-to-day operations of the BID would fall to the existing leadership of the RDDC, operating under a board controlled by downtown’s most substantial property owners.
The community is largely unaware of how a BID actually works, or how they have been cut out of the process. Charismatic figures, lobbyists and even elected officials were enlisted early on to lend credibility to the BID effort. Their job was to draw in the crowd and divert attention from deeper policy examination. Public engagement led by the RDDC has consistently been one-sided, with conversations and feedback designed to manufacture consent for a Downtown BID. It’s a striking conflict of interest that the RDDC, who would directly benefit from the passage of this legislation, is responsible for gathering public feedback about it.
It’s no surprise that the BID’s most vocal cheerleaders would benefit the most from its creation. One outspoken developer has been engaged with the RDDC’s BID planning efforts since their first failed attempt a decade ago. In 2022 he openly acknowledged in a public interview that a BID would reduce his costs by having his expenses paid by others. “Within a BID system, the RDDC essentially goes away. … And my main street enhancement district taxes go away, too. So in that particular instance, I’m actually saving taxes.”
His interests are guaranteed to be well represented on the BID Board of Directors. Not just because the board is required to have a majority of property owners by New York State law, but because voting is weighted by parcel ownership.
If you own more parcels, you own more votes. His company owns at least seven.
As a result, a downtown BID would be controlled by a small clique of real estate investors and big business like RG&E (a foreign-owned company). They will make decisions and direct the spending of millions of additional property tax dollars doing what’s best for their businesses.
But what about the interests of the 10,000 neighbors who live downtown, or the 200,000 residents of our city, the vast majority of whom do not own any of the 600-plus parcels? Despite all city taxpayers subsidizing BID services, the process of creating this special taxing district does not require a vote by the general public, only downtown property owners. Past urban development policies, like redlining, actively prevented Black residents from owning property, limiting opportunities to build generational wealth to invest. The BID’s structure not only fails to address these inequities, but by locking voice to property ownership it denies Black residents an equal opportunity to represent their interests. This is not only wildly undemocratic, in the context of our community’s history, it is a systemically racist policy.
In Rochester — the city that celebrates the legacies of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, champions of universal suffrage and civil rights — we should not even be considering a policy that requires property to vote.
Democracy hinges on the voices of the people being heard and respected. If you’re a property owner wary of being overshadowed or taxed for someone else’s boutique services, a small business owner with the potential to be priced out, a resident apprehensive about unaccountable private security, a supporter of civil rights, or a unionist who recognizes union busting waiting in the wings, I urge you to reach out to City Council immediately, before it’s too late. BIDs are notoriously difficult to remove once installed.
In 2014, City Council members stopped a BID in its tracks, correctly recognizing that taxation and land management should not be privatized but remain under public control with council’s direct oversight.
A decade later, the RDDC is playing the same game, gambling the future of our downtown on an unnecessary and unjust power grab. City Council has the power to stop this fundamentally flawed legislation from continuing any further … they can simply choose not to play.
Kelly Cheatle’s unusual art career has taken her across the globe, designing and directing the creation of massive-scale community-built sculptures. Both light-hearted and lion-hearted, Kelly combines her extensive design, logistics, and marketing experience to champion equity and the arts in our community. Unwavering in her commitment to the common good, she fearlessly challenges the status quo when it falls short of serving the people and is a passionate advocate for informed decision-making.
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