Greetings friend: the Golden Age is over.
It is time to choose a new battle. Time to peer into the future and imagine the Oxford we intend our kids to inherit. This will not be a discussion of morality, clean living, retirement communities, or quiet neighborhoods…
I understand there is a real war being waged on my television, and while my attention is diverted, everything I love is being usurped at home. For those who don’t know, it now costs $1 million to buy 2,500 square feet of commercial dirt on the Square. And NO, the purchase does not come with a reach-around, or even a kiss.
In fact, the purchase doesn’t come at all – not for the merchant who spent his years building a thriving business and improving lease-held property for the benefit of his landlord. Not for the
independent stiff whose business now makes more $ per square foot of retail than McDonald’s, but ironically can’t get a local bank to invest in him. Why?
When a bank won’t loan 80% on commercial property because the market has valued it out of reach for the retail it generates, then the market is broken. And when our leaders do not see this as a problem, preferring to spend the last 12 months quibbling over cigarettes, booze, flyers, and other red herring tools of manipulation, then obviously the malignant ruling classes are invested on the ground floor, and seek a profit margin out of reach for the average taxpayer.
Perhaps our Mayor cares more about his legacy of progressive retroaction than the survival of his community’s middle class. We, the working constituents, do not expect miracles, but would greatly appreciate some attention given to matters more pressing than our methods of nightly vice and to what degree we indulge.
To whom is the property being sold?
It is being sold to individuals and investment groups who do not need banks (especially local) to acquire prime property, who have NO ties to our beloved community, and who seek only to profit from the great expansion of one nation under corporate domination.
We – those of us who have family here, spend our money here, sell our goods and labor here – cannot afford to invest here.
So why, friend, do we choose to continue this war over cigarettes and kegs, business signs and liquor licenses, when it is quite obvious the real battle is on an entirely different front?
It’s been suggested by some that Oxford locals no longer seem to care about the mutual masturbation going on at City Hall, as evidenced by the poor attendance at the Board of Aldermen meetings. The truth is, we simply can’t afford the price of admission.
When it is obvious the actors on stage are no longer playing for our benefit, why would we bother buying a ticket to the show? The present administration listens only to those whose property values are soaring, and ignores the vast merchant class whose tax revenue pays for the parks and convention centers – which, ironically, are exempt from certain requirements within the new alcohol ordinance, thus avoiding the same liability to alcohol related incidents placed on the working restaurateur. Is the ordinance really about public safety, or is it a tool for future land speculators?When the only choices left for a working class merchant are to buy the property he’s leasing at a price no bank will finance, to accept a new lease above the price of any said monthly mortgage, or simply to accept his losses and move away — what real choices are there?
So how do we win?
Perhaps the sharecropper should burn the fields. When the middle class has been pushed out, the mercantile dissolved and replaced, so goes the heart and soul of Oxford – not to mention the only class that gets any work done. How valuable will property on the Square be when there is no business left to support it? When shared fields are barren, no one eats.
We are a town that has always held pride for our local businesses, but recently, that pride has been replaced with uncertainty and fear. Carpet-
bagging has become our new social barometer, and it is with shame that I view our leaders who ignore it and our landlords who seek to muscle out long-standing tenants for a short-term capital gain.
The Golden Age is over. Enjoy the price of Platinum.
Thanks for reading.
