Clarksburg City Council is considering a one time $4,200 grant to downtown businesses impacted by prolonged construction tied to water, sewer, and gas line work downtown. I support this plan. In fact, I wish the amount could be higher.
Downtown businesses were hurt through no fault of their own, and they deserve relief. Many have already faced months of uncertainty, reduced access, and lost customers, and that uncertainty has not fully ended. Helping them now is the right thing to do.
What troubles me is not the grant itself, but why it is necessary.
This is not economic development in the traditional sense. It is damage control. The city is being asked to use economic development funds to repair harm caused by project failures tied to water, sewer, and gas infrastructure work. Those funds are meant to grow the local economy, not to backfill losses created by poor planning and oversight elsewhere.
I will note that months ago, in public comments and media discussions, I suggested that if this disruption continued, the city might eventually have to consider direct financial relief for affected businesses. I do not know whether that idea influenced this proposal, but I would like to think that public pressure and open discussion played some role in bringing it forward.
Businesses did not suffer because of market forces or a natural downturn. They suffered because streets were torn up for extended periods, timelines slipped, communication was unclear, and the disruption has lasted far longer than anyone was led to believe. Customers have stayed away because they do not know where they can drive, where they can park, or whether their vehicles may be damaged navigating unfinished roads.
What is harder to measure is the psychological damage. I use the word PTSD intentionally, not in a medical sense, but to describe how many customers now experience downtown. In economics and urban planning this is often called habit breakage or learned avoidance. When people spend months dealing with torn up streets, confusing detours, and constant uncertainty, they do not simply reset once the cones are gone. Downtown becomes mentally coded as stressful and unpredictable. Even after the work is finished, that hesitation lingers. Some customers will slowly return. Others will not, because they already found alternatives and rebuilt their routines elsewhere.
There is another uncomfortable reality layered on top of this. Younger drivers already tend to avoid traditional downtowns. They do not like one way streets. They do not like parallel parking. They do not like parking far away and walking, especially when easier options exist nearby. That was true before this project ever began.
Now add the trauma of the last year on top of that.
I was downtown recently and every crossover street between West Pike and Main, right in the heart of downtown, was closed. All the parking on Main Street was closed. It was striking, and not in a good way. The streets were quiet because there was no practical way to get there.
For businesses like the Bluebird and the Looking Glass, that was not an inconvenience. It was another lost day of business.
People often underestimate what one day of sales means to a small business. It is payroll. It is rent. It is inventory. It is the difference between keeping the lights on and falling further behind. Small businesses do not absorb losses easily, and they do not get those days back later.
I also want to raise a concern about how narrowly this program is drawn. I recently saw a Facebook post from Dustin Stanley, the owner of Quick Split Car Detailing, located just across from Kopal Towers. His business sits roughly two hundred yards outside the proposed boundary of this grant program, yet he has suffered the same access issues, the same customer avoidance, and the same disruption as businesses inside the selected zone.
The current proposal says it will end at Subway at the West End of town. What about the pawn shop on the corner I bet they have had their business blocked for at least 20-30 days during this project. Who decided to leave them out? I am sure similar other stories exist at the other boundaries of the proposal. Lines on a map do not always reflect real world impact. I hope someone on council sees posts like his and considers amending the proposal so that businesses clearly harmed by this project are not excluded simply because they fall just outside an arbitrary border.
This leads to a hard question that deserves an honest answer. Will our downtown ever be the same? It was already weak. After this project, it is hard to deny that we have choked a good bit more life out of it.
We are now being told that relief is needed, yet there is still no confidence that the underlying infrastructure work is truly nearing completion. I do not believe this project will be finished in the spring as suggested. Based on past delays and shifting timelines, that expectation feels optimistic at best.
That matters, because if the disruption continues, this grant may not be the end of the damage. Businesses may face another season of uncertainty, and the city may once again be asked to step in after the fact.
A $4,200 grant will not make anyone whole. It will not undo months of lost foot traffic or retrain customers who broke old habits. But it may help businesses stay afloat, and that matters. That is why I support it.
Still, the larger issue remains. When major infrastructure projects are mismanaged, the cost does not disappear. It gets shifted. Downtown businesses paid first. Now the city and its taxpayers are being asked to cover the rest.
Every dollar spent repairing preventable damage is a dollar that cannot be used for true development, revitalization, or long term growth. Clarksburg does not have an endless supply of these funds. Using them this way should be the exception, not the norm.
I am glad the city is stepping up to help. I just wish it did not have to, and I worry that without real accountability, better coordination, and realistic timelines, this will not be the last time economic development funds are used to clean up avoidable harm.
I hope this program is approved by council and we start treating our businesses better.
-GK