Downtown business owners: Would you rather Jeff Gahan "brand" you with his cult of personality, or "brand" yourselves with your own collective identity?

Business First rarely matters, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, even if the teasing headlines written to titillate fawning suburbanites send readers in search of a handy barf bag.

This section of downtown is forming its own business association, by Joel Stinnett

A new downtown business association is looking for help in steering its future.

The S. 4th St. District Association will host "Cocktails & Conversation" at 6:30 tonight, June 19, at 8UP Elevated Drinkery and Kitchen, 350 W. Chestnut St.

The event will be a chance for business owners to exchange ideas, according to Jeanne Hilt, director of marketing and communications for Louisville Downtown Partnership. She said the association will also be looking for volunteers for its board of directors and taking suggestions for its bylaws.

"This is a chance for us to really promote the district," Hilt said. "It's a collection of people who want to make this district the best it can be."

Imagine the cheek; business owners proposing ideas to government rather than the other way around.

Hilt said business owners have already been discussing ideas to propose to Louisville Metro Council and ways to promote the district.

"We have a lot of music in this district with Mercury, The Palace, radio stations and Fourth Street Live," Hilt said. "That is just one of the many great things in the district we can highlight."

It's your time and money, but have you ever noticed how they always want to take credit for it?

If ever the old axiom is true, it's right here, right now: If you want it done right, you'll have to do it yourself.

Do you really want your efforts to lift the city summarized by a logo with an anchor?

ON THE AVENUES: There has never been a better time for an Independent Business Alliance in New Albany.

Independent locally-owned small businesses are mistaken to think that this hurdle can be cleared by disengagement, or by waiting for this or any other city government to dictate the terms.

Rather, independent locally-owned small business owners must evade the intended diversion of time spent micromanaging periodic events and instead put their mouths where their money is by heeding the advice of the American Independent Business Alliance and embracing a simple but eloquent truth: "There truly is strength in numbers."