Brand Dilution

In the local city stampede one of the most powerful brands is that of the Carl Vinson Institute. While there are alternatives a CVI study is all but required to get the citihood boulder rolling down the hill. One political use of the study is as a measure of support--there must be enough sincere interest from the City Crusaders to pony up around $30,000. Once the study is successfully completed it becomes a stick to beat back any naysayers with a few simple words : "the CVI study says that the City of St. Somewhere will be financially viable." 

And generally that works. 

However the recent crusades ran into a spot of bother with overlapping land grabs. Since the CVI study is basically a back of the envelope balance between a proposed city's revenue and service costs with the former largely supported by business taxes and fees and the latter associated with residential areas the actual map of a proposed city is critical. It was the competing city maps showing Northlake (and its associated revenue) on the books of more than one proposal that not only made it clear that residents cannot afford their own city but that there are not enough businesses to pilfer to pay for all the cities on the docket. While the issue of multiple claimants on the Northlake revenue was never resolved one thing did happen rather late in the game--maps were redrawn! To be very, very clear redrawing a proposed city map after the CVI study is complete makes that study worthless. 

To propose that a CVI study based on a map that is no longer valid is still somehow valid is not only logical nonsense it calls into question the validity of these feasibility studies. For CVI to allow these studies to be bandied about after map changes dilutes their brand and undermines their credibility. CVI should make it clear that map changes invalidate previous studies based on different maps. 

These changes also undermine the process. 

Changes make it clear that City Crusaders are either ignorant or lying when they claim significant, majority support for their plans--were that the case changes to the map would not occur. Furthermore these changes make a joke of the process put in place to protect citizens and the legislature should make a simple change to restore integrity: whenever a map change is made any previous study must be re-done or updated before the march to citihood continues.