Freedom Flyer 10

Marc Emery said one way to get rid of a BIA is for merchants opposing the organization to garner enough support to get themselves elected to the executive, then reduce the budget to zero, effectively eliminating the organization. The only other way to abolish a BIA is to gain support of one third of the members and one third of the assessment, said Mr. Emery.

He said that can be difficult to do because a major store might not vote to abolish the BIA, and that store might hold a big chunk of the assessment, thus giving one store a bigger vote.

One disgruntled former member of the Georgetown RIA is Bill Apgar, former owner of Thinktinkers Learning Centre on Main Street. Tbinktinkers, which sold children's books and educational items. opened In April of 1986 and closed down in Jan. 1987 due to "lack of volume," Mr. Apgar said.

"For new business starting up you start paying the bucks. The BIA to me is still pretty much an unknown," Mr. Apgar said.

"It looked to me that they took a shot at (beautification) and just gave up on it, the BIA is not a very high profile operation as far as I'm concerned," Mr. Apgar said.

He sald he would have opted out of the BIA program if such an action was allowed.

Like several other businesses contacted, Mr. Apgar wasn't sure what his BIA taxes actually were, but added "It was a fairly good chunk of money".

Mr. Apgar said his business "didn't benefit at all from anything they (BIA) did."

"I don't think they have the big picture. It's sort of piecemeal," he said.