As I see things, the Sidney Business Association is a self-supporting entity operating with an inordinate number of volunteer hours.
It would appear to me to be an organization with a singular vision that raises its own funds and ploughs those moneys back into promoting Sidney as a destination and a place for consumers to spend their money.
They do that by publishing thousands of Sidney Business Guides annually, they beautify and promote Sidney through their banner program, they publish monthly the Beacon, and then there is the Sidney Summer Market, one of the largest in western Canada and one that is visited by thousands on Thursday evenings during the summer and which I know inspires additional visits during the year. It has inspired me and mine. All of this and more they do with no cost to the taxpayer and minimal cost to the business community.
As I understand, a business improvement association would be reinventing the wheel and would receive funding through forced taxation of the business community. That begins to sound like taxation without representation. With the SBA if I don’t like what they are representing I don’t have to support them. Do I have that option with the BIA?
Bill Buckley
president,
CARE Funeral Services