Desperation or genuine concern for the downtown?

I had to wonder whether some of council's sudden outpouring of concern for the extra costs borne by retaillers and restaurateurs over the new licence fees was really a genuine turn-around show of empathy for them, or just electioneering in face of growing public dissatisfaction over this issue?

Yet there we were, Monday night, in almost harmonious agreement undoing what the majority of us agreed to only two weeks before. Five out of nine last time, that is.

Monday night, BIA executive member John Gabrielle made a plea for council to suspend the fees for the newly-required licences for downtown patios, cafés and merchant displays. He made the point that the downtown merchants were already paying a lot of taxes (in the form of an increasing BIA levy as well as other municipal property taxes). And, he said, the two years of construction downtown had hurt business (not to mention the recession).

Despite the already difficult tax burden on the downtown businesses, council, in its wisdom, decided to add to their woes with new fees for putting out a simple table or rack of clothes. And then we sent around a letter on Friday afternoon, last week, without warning, demanding merchants remove their belongings and go buy a licence (when the town office was closed Saturday). See my previous post.

And then on Monday, as John spoke, the heavens opened up and the blinding light of common sense shone into the darkness so all those who voted for this previously could bathe in its glow. And then vote to defer what we had argued about vociferously only a few weeks before.

With one exception - Deputy Mayor Cooper - we all agreed to this request (you'll have to ask her for her reasons, but I think she just didn't want to participate in any hypocrisy. And that was a tough call. I would have liked to grumble something about making your bed and having to sleep in it, but my concern for the plight of the BIA rose to the fore.)

It just seems such a about-face that it's hard not to question the motives of the Five who supported these fees so recently. After all, this issue has, from what I've seen, hurt their re-election chances considerably. Maybe they all decided some damage control was needed.

I commented that I would prefer to see us remove the fees entirely. I'm not sure why we need the whole Byzantine application process at all. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler just to pass a bylaw that says "these things can go in these places as marked on this drawing, and nowhere else. If you're not sure about that, come and talk to us." But that's another fight for a new council - and a whole lot more of that blinding light.