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Government's role is not to directly assist local businesses struggling to survive. However, the city of Wheeling finds itself in a real dilemma right now -- do they assist private businesses currently being impacted due to the unpredictability of the Downtown Streetscape Project, where roads close at random and communication between the public and the state officials leading this work is non-existent, or do they let the free market work as intended and force those businesses to figure out a path forward?
There's no easy answer. But here's the reality: if something isn't done, then a number of downtown businesses likely won't see the end of the Streetscape work before they are forced to close. And the last thing Wheeling needs is to unveil a new downtown in the next 18 months that has been fully vacated by the business community.
To tackle this, city Mayor Glenn Elliott has asked City Manager Robert Herron to propose targeted incentives to council to assist those businesses currently being impacted -- incentives on top of what's already been done by council through waiving of business license fees downtown. Herron's proposal is set to unveiled today.
It's not yet clear what those new incentives possibly could be -- either direct payments to cover year-over-year losses, or Business and Occupation tax relief, Elliott said -- but council is taking the right step in being proactive on this matter.
However, we would urge caution on providing direct payments to businesses. Direct taxpayer contributions to the city should not be used to keep private businesses operational. Instead, perhaps council, at Herron's behest, should consider waiving the fire service fee, water bills, the B&O tax -- items that city leaders will then have to figure out how to make work to balance the budget. That would be a more equitable approach to tackle this challenging problem.