BY SHARON WOOLUMS | Independent-minded candidates for political office joined the Small Business Congress — an advocacy group founded by the leading authority on small business in New York City, Sung Soo Kim — at a recent City Hall steps press conference to call attention to the worsening crisis facing our small businesses. And they highlighted what can be done to save them — namely, passing the Small Business Jobs Survival Act.
Steven Barrison, a spokesperson for the S.B.C. and a leading advocate for the S.B.J.S.A., was among the speakers.
“The crisis forcing our long-established businesses to close is growing worse,” he said. “The political leadership inside City Hall — Mayor de Blasio, Speaker Mark-Viverito and Public Advocate James — will never allow an honest hearing to pass legislation to save small businesses and jobs of millions of New Yorkers.
“Therefore, these independent-minded candidates — not controlled by either big real estate campaign funding or handpicked and endorsed by corrupt political machines, are joining S.B.C. to call for an emergency freeze of evictions of all commercial businesses.
“New Yorkers deserve honest debate and hearings to find a real solution for this crisis,” Barrison stressed. “Small businesses need immediate legislation giving rights to business owners to renew and negotiate fair leases. In the 30-years debate and fight to pass legislation for commercial tenants to protect them from rent gouging, only once has a hearing been denied — under Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito.”
Barrison gave what he called startling proof of this growing crisis, noting that court ordered evictions of small commercial businesses average 491 per month, along with 9,600 to 11,200 jobs lost each month. Barrison criticized de Blasio for taking credit for creating 100,000 jobs under his watch but never taking responsibility for the more than 400,000 jobs lost caused by businesses closing.
David Eisenbach, a candidate for public advocate, brought out the fact that the mayor, Council speaker and public advocate, when they were members of the City Council, were strong and proud sponsors of the Small Business Jobs Survival Act. As councilmembers, each of the publicly recognized the crisis and called for a vote on the bill.
Once elected to higher office, however, all three leaders betrayed their progressive values by siding with big real estate in rigging the system to block any legislation that would give rights to business owners. Eisenbach slammed all three leaders for remaining silent and not setting the record straight when lawmakers made the claim that the S.B.J.S.A. had legal problems and therefore could not be passed into law. The candidate accused them of “pay-to-play” corruption, of using their offices to promote and give credibility to legislative distractions, questionable studies, worthless initiatives and proposals created by the real estate lobby just to keep the status quo.
Mayoral candidate Sal Albanese strongly endorsed the advocates’ call for a freeze on evictions.
“Mayor de Blasio would never support legislation which regulated his primary campaign donors — big real estate,” Albanese charged.
Albanese is not taking big real estate donations and pledged, if elected, to continue that policy. He also vowed, if elected, to overhaul the Department of Small Business Services and replace bureaucrats with true small business owners and advocates, like Sung Soo Kim.
Several City Council candidates also spoke in support of the emergency eviction freeze and how desperate mom-and-pop businesses need this respite to survive the crisis caused by sky-high rent increases. John Doyle, a Bronx City Council candidate, explained how evictions for businesses there increased in 2015 by 30 percent, topping all boroughs.
Mel Wymore, a transgender candidate running against Councilmember Helen Rosenthal on the Upper West Side, said he was once a small business owner, but that rent gouging forcing him to close. He said the S.B.J.S.A. is critical because the City Hall leadership simply is not doing enough to save small businesses.
The most passionate speaker was Christopher Marte, a candidate in Lower Manhattan’s First Council District, whose father owned a bodega on Rivington St. on the Lower East Side but was forced out due to high rent.
“These landlords do not care about the jobs of the businesses or the families or what the businesses mean to the community,” Marte declared. “They only care about making a windfall profit on the backs of years of hard work and scarifies made like my father.”
At the end of the press conference, Barrison, on behalf of Sung Soo Kim and the S.B.C., formally endorsed these independent minded candidates for election as the only hope to save our city’s small businesses. Besides Marte, another local candidate was endorsed, Erin Hussein, who is running in the East Village’s Second Council District, where the incumbent, Rosie Mendez, will be term-limited out of office at the end of this year.
Despite the advocates’ and candidates’ call for an emergency freeze on commercial evictions, City Hall made no signal that it intended to take up the idea — much less let the S.B.J.S.A. come up for a vote in the City Council.
