BMDA chair Smallwood, however, says while greater representation by ByWard stakeholders isn’t unreasonable, he says the BMDA is being asked to do something more complicated than a traditional BIA. It must consider not just businesses, but all stakeholders in the area: residents, tourists, hotels, shelters, galleries, the NCC, the homeless. He says that if every group were given seats on the board, it could devolve into endless conflicts of interest that would prevent any sort of governance at all. The board’s independence, he says, is not the flaw in the model — it’s the point.
