Freedom Flyer 8

JOHN McLEOD
Assistant Business Editor

Shed a small tear this morning for some business folks up on Avenue Rd. who - in addition to the usual imposed-by-government woes like taxes, mountains of paperwork, taxes, the WCB, taxes, etc. - are struggling valiantly against the incredible intransigence of North York City Hall.

For years now, merchants on the upscale stretch of Avenue Rd. between Lawrence and Wilson have been trying to rid themselves of a Business Improvement Area (BIA) which in effect is another level of taxation they can do quite nicely without, thank you.

But North York municipal politicians - particularly local Ald. Milton Berger - don't seem much interested in allowing democratic principles to apply to mere business taxpayers.

The long raging battle is over the Avenue Road Business Improvement Area, an agency set up by North York City Hall in the late 1970s through provincial enabling legislation. Its mandate was to make improvements to this particular business section - trees planted on sidewalks, etc. - and charge the costs back to the merchants.

Critics of the BIA - which initially spent about $60,000 a year of merchants' money - argue that it was originally set up without proper consultation with the business folk involved and, by arbitrarily spending their money, is an unnecessary extra layer of taxation.

In 1982, a group headed by Bob Adams, president of an equipment rental business, presented North York council with a petition - representing 196 of the 300 businesses involved - asking that the BIA be abolished. Council refused.

So Adams and his upstarts ran their own slate of candidates, won electoral control of the BIA management, chopped the agency's budget to the bone and called a special members' meeting that voted 75-2 to have the BIA disbanded. Still no action from council.

The battle raged all through 1985, but the best the merchants could do was to get council, in mid-December, to order a survey of Avenue Rd. merchants on the future of the BIA.

Trouble is, the survey seems to have been stacked in favor of the BIA by its major supporter - Ald. Berger.

In a recent letter to merchants extolling the BIA as "a good tool to keep a business community and the surrounding residential neighbourhoods from deteriorating," the alderman explained that any ballots not returned in the survey will be considered votes in favor of the BIA.

That, of course, is equivalent to Brian Mulroney saying if you don't vote in the next federal election your ballot will automatically be counted as a vote for his Conservative candidate.

And, says BIA critic and current secretary Judy Emslie, correctly, it is "absolutely ludicrous" that North York council would have allowed Berger to slip this vote-slanting rule into the BIA survey.

"We've already had at least 25 calls from people who haven't received their ballots," Emslie reports. "One businessman entitled to three votes discovered that his accountant had thrown the ballots in the garbage." Other anti-BIA types note some merchants on City Hall's mailing list have moved out of the area, while others want to remain neutral.

Emslie, who complains that "we've been had" by the alderman who wants to keep the BIA "because it makes him look good with voters to whom he can brag about being responsible for the improved look of the area," vows the fight still can be won.

"We expect to still get enough anti-BIA votes despite this tactic," she predicts - adding, however, that "even if we do, council still could refuse" to disband the BIA. "In that case, we'll get a lawyer and fight on, or try to get the Ontario government to intervene."

Chief critic and current BIA president Bob Adams insists Avenue Rd. merchants aren't just being cheap.

"A lot of us are spending loads of money for business improvements - there are three major jobs under way on the street right now - and are more than willing to contribute on a voluntary basis to street improvements," he says. "But we're not prepared to put up with arbitrary charges imposed by a BIA that just become another layer of taxation. That's just not proper."

In the meantime, Adams says his group will continue to control the BIA's board of management and "keep the budget as small as possible."