We are at a phenomenal time in our community. Thoughtful local investors are putting money into buildings that have been neglected by previous owners for decades. I’m getting calls daily from businesses looking to relocate into downtown as soon as I can find them available space. Lazy government staff bureaucrats have been replaced by creative movers and shakers. And our young City Council has proven just as innovative and refreshing as we’d hoped. The public continues to come in droves to both cleanups and our events; and goodwill for Brooksville is riding high.

As a nonprofit working with all these disparate groups it is an incredibly rewarding time. For example, we successfully connected a buyer with the owner of the Livery Stable and that change will be utterly transformational to downtown. Then we brought in a historic structure consultant to help him navigate renovations so he doesn’t lose his chance to claim his historic tax credits and got him connected to the State so he knows their expectations for his building. We’ll help with the City if needed and are researching possible grant opportunities. We’re doing the same with several other buildings (also coincidentally purchased by investors who live and work in our city) in our district at the moment, and as I said at the beginning of the paragraph, it’s incredibly rewarding.

But when the Livery Stable is completed, the success will belong to the owner, Steve Champion, not Natalie Kahler, and not Brooksville Main Street. Steve Champion is making the investment. Steve Champion is taking the risk. Steve Champion is doing the work. I believe I am being helpful. I believe I am making Brooksville attractive as an investment option. But I will never take credit for Steve’s inevitable success.

Taking credit for the development of the Livery Stable would be as absurd as taking credit for Mountaineer. Let me explain. Mountaineer Coffee is still in business for three reasons:

• Delicious coffee
• Great business model
• smashing social media marketing with pictures that make you hungry and feature adorable Pritz children and compelling storytelling

Claiming responsibility for Mountaineer’s success because they are in the Brooksville Main Street district would be as silly as me taking credit for Billy Porter’s Grammy because he and I were in the same Pittsburgh Opera production of Carmen forty years ago.

And thus the reason for my cautionary tale. Success attracts attention of investors. It also attracts business vampires. Vampires survive through preying on others. They come in various shapes and sizes. As consultants, as event planners, as developers…all sorts of people who want to come in and make money off a community without actually investing in or staying in the community. They’ll swoop in, talking about how great Brooksville and its people are, using all kinds of slogans (or adopt ours), tag all the right people, take our money, and then swoop right back out. They mistake a community that loves to be together with a community that just loves to gather for whatever.

The worst kind of vampires don’t even produce anything but just hover around successful people and claim credit for their achievement. The most stunning recent example occurred with a consultant who bragged publicly about a startup’s success to a government official. They made it seem like they were the Yoda to the start-up company’s Luke Skywalker instead of someone merely breathing the same oxygen in the same universe.

Why does the existence of these kind of vampires among us matter? Because vampires come to suck financial resources out of the community and inevitably drain momentum and public trust. And vampires can also inhibit entrepreneurship if people start believing the lies the vampires tell. I made sure to tell the startup owner to distance themselves from the vampire. But we all need to say no every time the vampires come looking for a Brooksville neck. You aren’t being rude by telling them they can’t claim the blood in your veins. They are being rude for trying to take it. We can be polite Southerners if we want and say, “No thank you” but we must be firm if we want this amazing season of growth to take root and continue. We are looking for partners who elevate each others’ success, not drain us by absconding it for their own.