Businesses and City Tourism Commission Circle Up to Bring a Perfect Storm Against Aldermen

By Pauline Masson – 

A number of downtown business owners are unhappy with aldermen according to two local business owners who launched a tsunami of complaint against the board of aldermen Tuesday evening for not giving them the respect they feel they deserve. 

Ann Trent, president and CEO of Bigfoot 4×4 and Jenifer Blakely owner/operator of the Cigar Vault and The Landing Airbnb each identified the downtown business district, the Pacific Partnership and the City Tourism Commission as being unhappy with the board of aldermen and calling for change. 

They want more respect and they want the aldermen to personally pitch in on their promotional events.

It was not possible to see on YouTube how many individuals accompanied the speakers but a hardy round of applause could be heard as each concluded their speech.

I have to tell you . . . this was painful to watch. I have witnessed a lot of things said at city board meetings that should not have been said in that setting, but this hate rally against those elected to serve all the citizens — all the citizen —  was the most demoralizing thing I’ve seen in my time as a reporter here.

Ms. Trent said members of Business community feel that they were not getting the support that they should, especially as important members of the Pacific community.

“While it is true that some of us cannot vote, we employ thousands of persons, pay taxes and license fees and contribute items and cash to public events,” she said.

“The last 30 years of my life I have been working in marketing. Bigfoot is one of the five biggest marketing vehicles of all time,” Ms.Trent said. “My entire business is marketing. That’s what we do. How we get noticed. That’s what all our job is.”

All due respect to Bigfoot. We all love Bigfoot. We are all happy that Bigfoot chose to move its headquarters to Pacific. But it’s a fairy tale to compare this giant example of Americana – grown over 40 years – with the all the products and services that Pacific businesses offer.

Ms. Trent wasn’t finished.

“I must tell you that when this board recently seem to laugh at our efforts, that our time and effort wasn’t even appreciated, not only was it demoralizing, to be frank it was extremely rude,” she said.

I’m not aware of who laughed, or when, but we’re all grown-ups here. Aldermen are not elected to serve one segment of the population. We need to have public conversations about the needs in all the business districts, all the people,  and how we can help aldermen to fill those needs.

Ms. Blakely began her presentation with the acknowledgement that businesses and residents may have different needs.

“I’ve met this week with a number of business owners, and after having conversations with them and the residence I’ve come to the conclusion that my needs as a resident are not the same as my needs as a business owner. And unfortunately you are the alderman for both of those groups,” she said.

She went on to say that it is the business district that deserves the action of the aldermen.

“The mayor was correct when she said it (the swimming pool) was a ‘want’ not a ‘need.’ That is a fact. Our city is not in a position to invest in something that is going to lose money at this time. There are people who say we have a feral cat problem. I don’t feed them I don’t see them,” she said. “But I do believe that putting money in a feral cat program and a broken pool are going to have a negative impact. Especially when you take that money from things that move Pacific Forward,” – like tourism, which happens to be the business she is in.

“We need our alderman to build relationships with local businesses,” she said. “Relationships can make a difference. It can be the difference between success and failure.”

The notion that aldermen should provide funds and respect to downtown businesses to the exclusion of people who want a swimming pool or people who worry about feral cat goes against every tenet of good government.

“We also would like to see our alderman at events, the open house, city wide cleanup day, the car show, working alongside us to help make these events succeed,” Ms. Blakely said. 

I frankly would rather see them hold more committee meetings with experts to iron out the needs at the swimming pool, the entire parks, traffic and the need to increase our police department.

Our aldermen are not elected to promote a single business district such a downtown or a single business. We elect our aldermen to spread their time, energy and city funds to the benefit of the entire population – the big businesses in the industrial park who want good traffic, the parents with families that need the necessary recreation for the growth and health of their children, the will of the residents to support our city even when everyone does not get their wishes, the people who are caught up in unfriendly water bill up-charges. We need a larger police department. 

I can understand Partnership Committee members wanting to see aldermen glad handing at the car show or open houses, but the reality is Aldermen are elected to manage the business of the city, not the businesses of Tourism Commission or Partnership volunteers.

Ms. Blakely was upset because of what she described as “the Klance mess.” But from where I sit, Klance Staging received the favorable zoning to park its trucks at the entrance to one of city parks because officials kept reminding each other of Klance’s generosity to the city in providing the bleachers.

The Tourism Commission, Pacific Partnership and downtown business community have undoubtedly created good and supportive relationships with each other. Good for them. The goal now might be to work on their relationship with the aldermen. For people who lay claim to their great promotional skills, war with the aldermen seems counter productive.

If there ever was an ideal time to create strong relationships among city officials, businesses, marketing experts and town boosters it is now when we could pool our best efforts to craft attractions that would lure Route 66 centennial motorists off the mother road to spend time and money in Pacific

If the downtown businesses coalition wants credit for their public events, they should have it. Pacific residents turn out for car shows, fairs, farmers’ markets, festivals, open houses, parades, rodeos, and even street sales. We love these events and compliment the Partnership and Tourism Commission for their good work. We have other work for the aldermen to do.

In the words of basketball great Charles Barkley – “I may be wrong. But I doubt it.”