The Morena Business Association and the Morena Business Improvement District

The Morena Business Association is a non-profit organization with a simple plan – to implement programs and services that improve the Morena area, that help Morena area businesses, and that improve the quality of life of the people who live and work in the Morena area.

The City of San Diego stands firmly behind community efforts by neighborhood business associations like ours. The City encourages active community participation by neighborhood organizations, and the City provides significant financial support to community associations that work to improve their own San Diego communities.

There are a number of ways that the City of San Diego provides financial support to a business association and community. First, there are special programs, such as the Storefront Improvement Program that provide reimbursement for specific types of improvements. You can read about the Storefront Improvement Program elsewhere on the MBA Web site. Second, there are Micro District grants to a community to pay for improvements, such as planting trees, and for the ongoing cost of watering the trees.

The most valuable and effective finance tool available to the small business community is the Business Improvement District (BID) program. The BID program is a collaboration between the City of San Diego and the small business community designed to promote the efforts and multiply the resources of actively-engaged community assocations. These combined efforts increase neighborhood vitality and identity, attract new businesses to the area, and grow existing business and businesses in the area. The BID program is being used to:

• assist small business owners;
• sponsor various neighborhood activities, such as farmer’s markets, restaurant walks, block parties, and holiday festivals;
• drive redevelopment and revitalization activities in older neighborhood commercial districts;
• manage street banner programs;
• provide newsletters, web sites and business directories;
• generate special marketing campaigns;
• provide neighborhood marketing materials (flyers, banners, coupon books, etc.);
• manage public parking programs;
• organize security programs;
• supervise public right-of-way maintenance;
• manage public improvement and beautifications projects;
• recruit new business starts;
• and much more.

BIDs have revitalized historic shopping districts across the city of San Diego, and they annually organize some of the city's most popular events, including the Adams Avenue Street Fair, Old Town's Latin American Festival, and the Gaslamp Quarter's Mardi Grass Festival and Parade and Saint Patrick’s Day Shamrock Festival.

Business Improvement Districts were authorized in 1965 with the approval of California Assembly Bill 103 - the "Parking and Business Improvement Area Law." The first California BID was the San Diego Downtown Improvement Area formed in 1970. Today there are 19 BID districts in San Diego with more than 11,000 San Diego small businesses participating. San Diego has the largest BID program in California and one of the most active BID programs in the nation.

In 1989, representatives from each of the San Diego’s BIDs formed the Business Improvement District Council (BID Council) to disseminate information, resources, and expertise to its member districts and to improve the overall physical, social, and economic environments of San Diego’s small business communities. San Diego's BID Council is the only municipal-wide coalition of individual business or property-based special district programs in the nation.

The BID Council provides additional or value-added activities designed to enhance the effectiveness of each BID when city or system-wide initiatives or responses are judged to be the most appropriate course of action. The BID Council provides services to city officials, to member non-profits, and to business owners. These services include:

• legal advice,
• free notary service,
• a grant writing service,
• drafting of contracts,
• preparation for Board meetings,
• resolution of problems BIDs and small businesses are having with the City,
• preparing articles of incorporation and bylaws for members,
• distributing free tickets to SCORE workshops,
• tree planting,
• special event equipment delivery and cleanup,
• sharing costs of police and fire service at BID events,
• and more.

In each Business Improvement District, business owners have voted to assess a small annual fee to each business in the BID area. These fees are pooled, and form the basis of an annual budget that is used to hire a full-time or part-time Executive Director. It is also used as seed money for matching grants that are available to proactive community organizations. With matching grants and funds raised through successful marketing programs, the collected fees are leveraged into a significant annual operating budget, allowing the business owners, through their BID Association, to collectively pay for projects and activities that promote and improve the business community.

As individual businesses, we have relatively little clout. As a community without a community leader, we have relatively little clout. The Councilperson for the Morena area is Donna Frye. Donna and her husband Skip even have their business in the Morena area. But it is clear that Donna's District and City responsibilities keep her very busy. Only a small part of her time can be spent dealing with Morena area-specific matters. She certainly cannot function as the de-facto mayor of our Morena community. Similarly, Jerry Sanders, San Diego Mayor, must spend his time looking at the big picture, not dealing with day-to-day matters in the Morena area. When you or I call Donna Frye's office or Jerry Sanders' office with a Morena area request or problem, they will do all they can do to help us, but it is clear that a person whose job it is to deal with Morena area issues is in a better position to provide more attention to local requests and needs. An Executive Director for the Morena Business Improvement District would spend as much as 100% of his or her time working on Morena-area matters.

As an individual business, it is difficult to promote a Morena area community activity on a grand scale given time and money limitations. But collectively as an Association, with an Executive Director carrying the ball, we will be able to plan and sponsor many community projects and activities. Using our annual fees as seed money allows us to apply and qualify for matching grants from the San Diego Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), from the San Diego County Transient Occupancy Tax, and from Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). Grants from these funds are being used by BIDs all over San Diego County to promote local activities in the various neighborhoods and business communities. With these funds, we will have significant clout in tackling problems and sponsoring events.

San Diego law requires that the fees collected from businesses in a Business Improvement District be managed by a non-profit business association corporation that is assigned to manage the BID. This approved organization must use the collected fees, along with matching funds from the City and additional funds raised from a variety of other sources and activities, to finance public improvements and beautification projects in partnership with the City, enhancing the growth and vitality of the community. Since the BID fee is a benefit assessment and not a tax, BIDs can consistently run programs and activities without having to seek or rely on scarce public funding.

BID fees can also be supplemented by contributions and funding from annual San Diego events, such as 10K runs and marathons that go through our neighborhood, and from Super Bowls and Holiday Bowls played locally, and by Power Boat Races, and other special events that visit San Diego year after year. These organizations pump lots of money into the San Diego economy, and BIDs process the funds and manage the resulting activities.

Thus, the small annual fee that is paid by each business is leveraged in several ways into a significant financial sum that is routinely used for advertising, promoting, improving the community. and attracting visitors and customers to the area.

Businesses in BID areas may also participate in low-cost health, dental, vision, and life insurance tailored specifically for San Diego small business owners and their employees. This program is called City Care Benefits. Features include:

• Large group rates and benefits for employers with a City of San Diego business license
  
• Guaranteed issue for employers with 2 or more eligible employees
  
• No health questions
  
• Low employer contribution requirements
  
• Domestic partner coverage
  
• Available through your health insurance agent
  
  

Morena Business Improvement District

The Morena area was defined as a Business Improvement District on January 11, 1999 with the passage of Ordinance Number O-18611. The area included in the Morena Business Improvement District includes the Morena business community within the following address ranges:

The Ordinance specifically states that the purpose of forming the Morena BID as a parking and business improvement area under the Law is to provide revenue to defray the cost of services and programs which will benefit businesses in the area, including any of the following:

• The acquisition, construction, or maintenance of parking facilities for the benefit of the area.
• Decoration of any public place in the area.
• Promotion of public events which are to take place on or in public places in the area.
• Furnishing of music in any public place in the area.
• The general promotion of business activities in the area.

Since 1999, there has not been a properly-chartered non-profit corporation in the Morena area to manage the BID. The Morena Business Association is the first organization in the Morena area in the past seven years that meets the City of San Diego's BID management criteria.

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