Dear Board Directors of the Georgetown Business Improvement District,

We are writing as Georgetown business owners who have been decimated during this unprecedented economic and health crisis. Our businesses are fighting for survival. All of us are tapping cash reserves, and some of us are being faced with the harsh reality of closing our doors for good.

The BID is acting like its business as usual.

It is unconscionable that the BID Board has not already taken action to eliminate programs in the budget, make staff cuts, and repurpose money to a relief effort that directly puts money back into business owners’ pockets.

We demand the following:
# 1. Review the BID’s budget and allocate money to a relief effort
that puts money into the pocket of the business owner.
# 2. It’s time for the Board of Directors to start making budget cuts
– there is no need for a full-time staff making six-figure
salaries while business owners have gone weeks without revenue.
# 3. Immediately suspend payment of the BID tax due in September 2020.

The Georgetown BID must be a responsible fiduciary to its taxpaying members and must ACT NOW. The BID exists for the BENEFIT of small business, and yet Georgetown’s businesses have been dying and the BID has done little to save them from failure. We must reevaluate how we move forward doing business, and the BID should be more directly accountable to ALL businesses, both big and small. Sacrifice must be shared and mutual.

Respectfully,
The Small Business Community of Georgetown