Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Barbra Drizin Toren

LGDA commits to return of Cats Festival and BID

By Dale Bryant

Barbra Drizin Toren, executive director of the Los Gatos Downtown Association, has resigned to accept a position with the San Jose Convention and Visitors Bureau, but agreed, for a consulting fee of $500 per month, to supervise preparations for the Sept. 22 Cats Festival.

The board agreed that it was important to maintain the momentum of last year's successful event, but said the financially strapped organization shouldn't bother with the festival unless the downtown assocation also makes a commitment to long-term funding through a business improvement district.

Board member Laura Moore, in arguing for such an assessment district, said: "If we don't have a funding source, we won't have an organization. Then we can't do nice things for the community like have the Cats Festival or the carriage rides at Christmas."

Last year's Cats Festival, which catered to a hometown crowd, was highly successful in terms of response from the community, but the organization only broke even financially.

With $5,000 still committed to the downtown group from two of its sustaining members, the organization figures it can keep its office in the Neighborhood Center open through September as well as pay Toren's consulting fee.

Meanwhile, board members are researching what the organization must do to reactivate the business improvement district that was shelved in March 1994 because protests from a vocal minority had made the renewal process an annual hassle.

To reactivate the assessment district as is would be a relatively simple process, but most board members agree that those who protested in the past had some legitimate gripes.

The LGDA board would prefer to create a business improvement district that assessed fees based on number of employees rather than location of business. And they'd like to redraw the boundaries, which currently leave the Toll House out of the district.

Marily Hart, who actively opposed the previous business improvement district, is now an LGDA board member. "It was never the idea of the BID I opposed," Hart told fellow board members at the June 5 meeting. "It was that the assessments were not applied fairly. The little sushi restaurant on N. Santa Cruz Avenue was paying a higher assessment than California Cafe."

A membership drive earlier this year brought in only 45 members, and large donations from sustaining members have kept the organization alive.

In acknowledging that some people will complain about a business district assessment no matter how sound the argument for it may be, Toren said: "What's different this time is that the business community is very aware of how rundown the downtown is looking. I think they understand the need for beautification."