Pumping Up the Crime Threat to Take More of Your Money

The City Council et al. are at it again, trying to pump up the perception of downtown crime in order to levy a tax on downtown business owners.

Here are the realities of crime in greater and downtown Wilmington:

*Crime reports across all of Wilmington were down 21% over 2009.

* Crime reports in downtown Wilmington were down 30% over 2009.

This is a massive decrease. 

Yet still the city and others are still pumping up the threat of downtown crime in order to fund a "municipal service district," which is basically a way to put an additional tax on downtown property owners.

Does anyone think the money generated by this tax won't be used to pay for other things than this questionable 'downtown service district?' (The meager services provided by this 'service district' include cleaning up the non-existent graffiti downtown faster than it is cleaned up now.) 

The City Council is going to use that money to try to plug its budget gap.

It's unfair.  Property owners shouldn't be made to suffer because of the city council's profligate spending.

Here's city council's next great idea: instead of simply taxing property owners downtown, they want to tax every business that stays open after a certain time.

[T]he City Council is mulling ideas of its own. One is a privilege license tax which would apply citywide to any business that stays open past a certain time, with the revenue helping finance more police.

Aren't you glad that the council is giving you the 'privilege' of doing business in their town?

And the good news is that, the more they tax, the fewer businesses there actually will be, so there might actually get to be a point where you're the only business left in town!

So, for one lucky person, the City Council's idea of being 'business-friendly' might actually work out.