City for Sale

[Gary Ruskin <gary@essential.org>]

Following is an excellent Focus on the Corporation column from Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman:

City for Sale
To: corp-focus@essential.org 
Subject: City for Sale 
From: Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org> 
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:38:41 -0500 (EST) 

It used to be easy to mock the excesses of commercialism through parody
that revealed the cost of commercial appropriation of public and
community space.

No more, thanks to Sacramento, California's state capital.

Last year, the Sacramento City Council approved a plan to launch a
"Capital Spirit" corporate sponsorship program that will blanket the
city.  The program is just now getting under way, with sponsorship deals
for non-alcoholic beverage and telecommunications companies under
negotiation.

A feasibility study prepared by The Wilkinson Group, a consulting firm
hired by the city, recommends a wide-ranging corporate sponsorship
program involving all city departments. When the program is fully
operational, the consulting firm projects an earning stream for the city
of $2 million to $5 million a year.

The city's plan calls for: an official car rental partner for the city
(potential partners named include Avis, Budget, Enterprise and Thrifty),
a preferred ice cream (potential partners: Baskin Robbins, Dreyers,
Nestle), preferred food suppliers for the police and fire departments
and the convention center, an official film (potential partners: Fuji,
Kodak, Polaroid), an official delivery service (potential partners:
Airborne Express, DHL, U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS), a preferred
coffee and an official departmental coffee supplier (potential partners:
Java Centrale, Maxwell House, Folger's, Millstone, Pete's, Starbucks),
official wear for park and recreation staff (potential partners include
REI), official software and official computer of Sacramento, official
computer of specific departments (potential partners include: Oracle,
Sun, Apple, 3COM), exclusive security for Sacramento, and more.

Our favorite: official undergarment supplier for city police, fire and
security!

>From the city's point of view, these are opportunities too good to pass
up. Using "existing facilities," at no cost to the city, explains
Sacramento Senior Management Analyst Michelle Nelson, Sacramento will
generate funds to improve parks and recreational facilities, and to
undertake other capital improvements.

The potential income stream will be, at most, little more than 1 percent
of Sacramento's $451 million annual budget, but Nelson says the money
will be used for investments that would otherwise not be funded.
California law makes it difficult or impossible for cities to act to
raise their own taxes.

There is no illusion in the Sacramento program that the corporate
contributions are charity -- this is not a low-key adopt-a-highway-style
program. Instead, explains the consultant report, "When establishing a
sponsorship program, a property must clearly indicate how sponsorship of
their program will positively impact the sponsor's revenue streams." 

Key elements in delivering value to sponsors include: giving sponsors
the imprimatur of official city approval, providing sponsors with
exclusive marketing rights in designated areas (zoos, parks, historic
tourist areas, etc), enabling the companies to seem "part of the
community" (by identifying a refurbished teen center, for example, as
"paid for by The Gap") and providing "signage" on public properties in
highly trafficked areas.

Yet all of these ways of "providing specific business development
opportunities and marketing-based benefits to prospective sponsors," as
The Wilkinson Group calls them, are, individually and collectively,
deeply troubling.

Selling the city's de facto stamp of approval will inevitably place the
city in the position of endorsing corporate polluters,
labor-rights-violators, criminals and wrongdoers, as well as unhealthy
or harmful products, such as sugar-filled soda. In some cases, the de
facto stamp of approval would be an actual city endorsement. For health
plans, the consultant plan suggests offering sponsors a "City of
Sacramento testimonial to health care provision." 

The exclusive marketing rights offers outrageously facilitate consumer
rip-offs and denial of choice. If they are thirsty, why should people
strolling through the zoo be limited to Coke products in their product
selection? Why should they be made to pay premium prices? In a very real
way, the sale of exclusive marketing rights camouflages a hidden tax on
consumers in the cloak of corporate generosity.

The sale of "signage" -- indeed, the entire program -- marks a further
encroachment of commercial values into public space and the public
realm.  There is a proper line delineating the public from the
corporate, and government from business. The spheres represent different
values, operate according to different motivations and serve different
purposes. But when the commercial and public spheres overlap, it is the
corporate sphere that blots out the public, never the reverse.

To this, the city council's response is, according to Michelle Nelson:
"Trust us." The sponsorships will be tasteful, balanced and not harm
"what we hold valuable."

Well, maybe they still do have a sense of humor in Sacramento.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor.

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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-- 
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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
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Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax (202) 833-2406
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