My friend Richard Lompa is having a great time waging a "war" on the proposed Neighborhood Improvement and Community Enhancement district, known as "N.I.C.E." He has posted his bright-red "Pride" signs in many store windows alongside his opponent's signs. He says he has talked to about 30 of the 40 landlords, and he says he might be winning.

At first I disagreed with his position. N.I.C.E. seemed like a nice idea. His opponents' signs describe a thriving, vibrant downtown Point, the kind I still hope for.

The hard part is new taxes. Downtown landlords would be assessed according a yet-undisclosed formula based on each one's lot size, building area, street frontage, and land use.

The first annual budget of $99,019 would be used to pretty up and promote the quaint Point square. Each year thereafter, the budget could rise as much as five percent. The money and the program would be controlled by a new non-profit corporation controlled by the landlords--with each one's vote weighted by the same formula that figures the district's tax. For example, the vote of a landlord with a small undeveloped parcel would count much less than one with a large, well-developed one.

The promoters' signs mention district identity, landscaping, lighting, repair of the Indian fountain, concerts, farmers' markets, and "a host" of unspecified other things. The N.I.C.E. corporation would also run a community bulletin board, remove trash and blight, and reopen the library and community center. Imagine, the letter says, sidewalk cafes, well-lighted streets, local crafts and antique shops...can you smell the coffee? After all, Berkeley's Fourth Street has such a district. So do Oakland's Lakeshore, Temescal, and Rockridge areas.

At first, the wide resistance sounded to me like the same anti-collective reflex I've seen before among many small business owners and small landlords. The stubborn individualism that somehow makes businesses survive can also make them allergic to collective action.

But Richard Lompa, who never hesitates to call bullshit what it is, actually had a few good points: Do you see blight? How many more community bulletin boards can we stand? Isn't the city supposed to fix the damn Indian fountain?

On some of his other points, Richard and I moved apart. He asks why we need this when we have so many creative and energetic people with a history of successes like the garage sales, the all-volunteer Masquers, and the Stroll.

Yes, volunteers do fine running those spectaculars. But in my experience staff does better in the day-after-day grind of making sure trash gets picked up, fountains get fixed, and advertising gets placed. Just set your gaze, for example, upon the neighborhood association. The poor thing is barely able to muster a full board.

Where would such steady effort come from if not staff? If the Point's most committed stakeholders won't collectively pay and direct such staff, who will? The city? Not likely.

Ideally, the district could throw a spotlight on a clean and vibrant Point the way this city couldn't ever do. It would pull in many more new customers than the Yellow Page ads and other marketing that business owners might sacrifice to pay the new tax. At best, this district might even woo a magnet restaurant or store that pulls people off the freeway or even over the bridge from Marin. To landlords who begrudge a few thousand dollars a year for such benefits, I would usually say get used to it, you'll probably learn to love it.

Then I read the "Final Management District Plan," prepared by something called New City America, Inc. It spells things out in detail here and in generalities there. Among other things, it more or less explains the method of assessment, the administration, and the budget.

The first-year budget allocates $33,000 for "sidewalk operations/beautification," $37,000 for district identity and streetscape improvements, $20,000 for administration and operations, and $9,019 for "contingency/reserve/formation repayment" (Is New City's fee within "formation repayment"?).

Who would run things? A board of directors "comprised of all property owners" would.

Then, "steps will be taken to…enter into a contract for administration with the city of Richmond." With just $20,000 allotted for administration and operations, that seems to mean that part--perhaps a small part--of one city staff person's time would be allocated to N.I.C.E.

Annual assessments range from $3,996 for Tom Butt's Interactive Resources building down to $226 for a tiny strip just up Washington Avenue from Mark Howe's Bank of Richmond building. Richard's Old Firehouse, at 145 Park Place, would be assessed $1,486.

Some landlords would dominate voting. Property controlled at least in part by Tom Butt comprises 14.05 percent of the total assessment--a fine base for any coalition he may want to form. The city of Richmond property comprises 8.37 percent.

Let's see now. N.I.C.E. would hang banners and other "identity" markers around Downtown, fix infrastructure, take out the trash and do a lot of other things people ordinarily expect a city to do. N.I.C.E. would run free concerts and other events like the ones we have already. To do it all, it would extract money that would have otherwise gone toward individual promotion. N.I.C.E. would be controlled by a board elected by landlords with votes weighted toward the biggest of them. And the day to day grind of running it all would be left to board members, much like our current business association members, and to some portion of a city employee's time.

Richard's right--except that this is more than "just another layer of bureaucratic bullshit." It smells like a con. It looks to me like the "premium" package slick salesmen try to sell that's really just a cheap bag of tricks.