By CHAD CAIN
and DAN CROWLEY
Daily Hampshire Gazette Writers
NORTHAMPTON — A judge ruled yesterday that the Northampton Business Improvement District should disband immediately, putting people out of jobs, calling a halt to street cleaning and jeopardizing holiday lights and New Year’s Eve fireworks.
Some downtown shopkeepers interviewed shortly after the decision was announced were in tears, and others appeared clearly dismayed.
Hampshire Superior Court Judge John A. Agostini ruled yesterday that the city failed to comply with state law when it created the BID five years ago, and as a result, he ruled it “null and void,” ordering all operations to “immediately and permanently cease.”
Agostini found that the city failed to check each signature on a petition to create the BID to determine which ones matched the assessor’s office’s records of ownership. It also failed to confirm that each accepted signature was written by an owner or an authorized proxy, and failed to reject illegible signatures, the judge ruled.
“The Northampton Business Improvement District was not validly established and is and has always been null and void,” Agostini wrote in a 20-page decision.
He ordered that the city must within seven days send a notice directly to all property owners within the BID district that the organization was not legally established.
The long-awaited outcome of the civil lawsuit filed by Alan Scheinman and several property entities owned by Eric Suher is yet another twist in a controversial saga since the BID was created by the City Council five years ago.
“We’re very disappointed with the decision and what it means for downtown Northampton,” said Natasha Yakovlev, executive director of the BID.
Several BID supporters also expressed extreme disappointment in the decision, which brought some to tears as they talked about the demise of the organization championed by the late Daniel Yacuzzo.
“People didn’t understand how much the BID did,” said Patty Arbour, who owns the Artisan Gallery at 162 Main St. “I think we’re going to see the ramifications of that. I do feel like it (the lawsuit) was driven by greed and ego.”
Bud Stockwell, who owns Cornucopia Foods in Thornes Marketplace, expressed devastation at the ruling. “The effects will be immediate,” Stockwell said.
The end of the BID means a loss of downtown cleaning, money for the holiday lighting program downtown, the fireworks at the First Night New Year’s Eve celebration, and snow removal on downtown sidewalks done by BID to supplement the city’s work. Additionally, sponsorship of numerous other events such as the SidewalkSales and Restaurant Week, will be lost.
Stockwell said the likelihood that anyone else will follow Yacuzzo’s lead and try to re-establish the BID are slim.
“The BID is gone. It’s over,” Stockwell said. “This has been a very trying four years of dealing with this lawsuit and being vilified by the opponents. It’s just a sad day for the city of Northampton.”
Scheinman said he is pleased that the judge validated arguments he and others made that the BID was created illegally.
“The decision is a scathing condemnation on the BID and the city,” Scheinman said. “The judge went through it meticulously, point-by-point in great detail on how the BID failed to meet the requirements … This is about as tough as they come.”
He said the city prospered long before the BID was created and will continue to do so long after the BID is forgotten. He challenged the city and the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, saying they should bear some responsibility for cleaning downtown as they did before the BID’s creation.
“The sky is not falling,” Scheinman said. “Not only did the city exist before this, but it prospered.”
Mayor David J. Narkewicz said he was disappointed with the outcome of the case, which divided the downtown business and property owners.
“Now we have a decision from the judge and it’s a resounding decision,” Narkewicz said. “For me, we need to look forward. I need to pull together our key stakeholders and figure out where to go from here.”
The mayor said he believes the BID, which he voted in as a member of the City Council in 2009, has been a valuable asset to the city. Narkewicz said he is particularly concerned about increasing business and entertainment competition in the region, noting that the BID’s demise comes at a time when MGM Resorts International received a license to build a casino complex in downtown Springfield less than a week ago.
“We’re going to have to have a conversation as to how we work together to try to replace some of the work they (the BID) had been doing the last several years,” Narkewicz said. “This is exactly not the time for the downtown to be divided and we really need to come together and work together as a community.”
Suzanne Beck, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said the decision will remove a polarizing issue that has been hanging over the heads of business leaders since planning for the organization began about eight years ago.
“Now we can find a different way to move forward and focus on what we do agree on,” Beck said.
She said the basic needs that prompted the BID’s creation still exist, namely competitive pressures on the retail and restaurant industries and the basic needs of making the downtown attractive for all businesses. With the BID gone, she said its supporters, along with the Chamber and city, are committed to forging ahead collectively.
“These are things we can’t do as individuals,” Beck said.
One advantage the BID offered was a sustainable funding source to help pay for many of the needs identified as priorities by downtown business owners, compared to the unreliability that comes with businesses pitching in for programs on a voluntary basis.
Narkewicz said he believes the BID was created “with the best and positive intentions … which I believe has helped and supported downtown Northampton.”
“This was a relatively new law and we were among the first group of communities where a BID was put forward,” he said.
Lawyer James B. Winston, whose family owns 142-144 Main St. and opted out of the BID when it was created, said he had not yet read the court decision, but noted how divisive the issue has become.
“It’s unfortunate that this issue has really divided the community in a way I haven’t seen other issues affect people,” he said. “There’s people passionate that the BID is the way to go. It’s unfortunate that it’s created such ill will.”
Winston said his family, which owns the Bank of America building, opted out of the district with others because they did not believe it was the best way to address Northampton’s downtown needs.
He is among a group of property owners who received their initial bills for BID fees from the city, but had yet to pay them by Nov. 1.
“We didn’t know when the court was going to rule,” Winston said. “I was waiting for advice. The check was written, the money is set aside.”
Jeff Dwyer, who manages properties at 47 and 24-34 Pleasant St. said he was among those who lobbied the City Council in 2009 against approving the BID because it had not been properly formed.
“They basically walked the Clare Higgins plank and did it anyway,” Dwyer said, referring to the mayor at the time. “They wanted it so badly that they just ignored the rules.”
Dwyer said the court’s decision vindicates plaintiffs Scheinman and Suher and added that it was a “tragedy” that the city spent five years battling over the case.
“The BID proponents should be ashamed that they put the citizens through this just because they wanted it,” said Dwyer, who believes the city’s public works department should be maintaining the downtown, along with business and property owners.
Dwyer is also among those who withheld BID fee payments earlier this month as the court case was pending.
“I didn’t pay,” he said. “I was never going to pay.”
BID members paid a fee based on their property’s assessed value multiplied by 0.0025. That rate, established in the spring, was half what members had paid previously. A building assessed at $500,000 would pay $1,250.
This is the second Business Improvement District to dissolve in the area in recent months. In June, the Westfield City Council voted to terminate the BID in that city after a majority of property owners within the district petitioned for its end. The Westfield BID was created in 2006, and it was third in the state to be established.
Amherst is the only other Hampshire County community with a BID.
Chad Cain can be reached at [email protected]. Dan Crowley can be reached at [email protected].
