Reviving our Troubled Business Climate

By Barbara D. Kogerman

With today's economic challenges, now is not the time to sacrifice business development that can improve our city's bottom line. Raising revenues will help fund services our citizens need and require.

They ask after a business's lunch hours. They ask for irrational changes in national branding for local franchisees. They demand control over the kinds and number of activities they will permit at the mall, way beyond reason,chasing away potential mall revenues. They add odd requirements to things as mundane as a trash enclosure that can add literally hundreds of thousands to the cost of doing business in the city. And on and on.

Instead of recruiting or welcoming new businesses into the city, they present a list of regulations and a "no appointments permitted" process.

We need a hassle-free, welcoming business environment that will allow us to compete for businesses to come into our city, instead of chasing them into our neighbor cities.

Then, after we bring management expenses under control, we can restore or add services that our neighbor cities provide their citizens--Senior services, after-school activities, and humane animal care, among others.