An open letter to Phoenixville Borough Council

Members of Borough Council
Borough Hall
Phoenixville, PA 19460

Dear Council Members:

Recent unfortunate events, as reported in our local newspaper, call for a reexamination of how the Borough and the downtown business community must relate in order to improve our town.

I would like to suggest a different approach, which I believe would disentangle what seems to have become a nonworking relationship between the Borough and the CDC.

State law permits the Borough to define a downtown business improvement district and create a business improvement authority to operate certain facilities and provide certain services in that area.

Some of the parameters of such an authority and their advantages are:

1. The authority has a specific focus on issues that affect the district. Council, by contrast, must deal on an on-going basis with issues throughout the borough.

2. The authority is a separate municipal corporation. It would thus in all likelihood qualify on its own for grants that would otherwise require the borough's participation, even if only as a “pass-through” entity.

3. The powers of the authority are granted and limited by statute and its articles of incorporation (which are created by the borough).

4. The authority would be governed by a board of directors appointed by the council. There must be at least five and they serve for five-year staggered terms. (The staggering of the terms is accomplished by setting different terms in the original board appointments.) I think the best approach would be to populate the authority board with active members of the relevant business community. Thus the business community would have a direct role in the governance of the authority. At the same time, the authority is a public entity and its activities would be subject to scrutiny by the general public.

5. The borough would either deed or lease (for a nominal rental) to the authority the existing parking lots, street lighting, and other public facilities (such as the small lot at the northeast corner of Bridge and Gay Streets). The authority would have the responsibility of operating these facilities. The type of improvements that the authority could make include: sidewalks, retaining walls, street paving, street lighting, parking lots and garages, trees and shrubbery, pedestrian walks, rest areas, and the acquisition and remodeling or demolition of blighted buildings or structures. An authority can also do water lines and sewers, but a water or sewer operation apart from our borough departments seems to have little purpose.

6. In addition to operating its facilities, the authority has the ability to provide “administrative services.” These are things that improve the ability of the commercial establishments of the district to serve consumers. They can include: free or reduced rate parking, transportation repayments, public relations programs, group advertising, and district maintenance and security services. I think this would allow the authority to hire the “main street manager.”

7. The authority’s financing would come from a borough appropriation, grants that the authority was able to obtain, and fees levied by the authority for its services.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours very truly,



Richard A. Breuer