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Opinion

Improving Entrepreneurial Opportunities for Hispanics Will Be a Boost for the City


pichardo presser

Assemblymember Pichardo, one of the co-authors


New York City is, and always will be, one of the world’s economic powerhouses. Yet that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. In fact, although unemployment across the city has fallen faster than the rest of the country since the recent recession, areas like the Bronx still lag.

While the Bronx has seen some progress, there is still much work to be done for shared prosperity and economic opportunity for all. With the right tools and policies focused on entrepreneurial growth, the most impoverished borough can have the opportunity to complete the city’s economic boom and ensure that the entire city, not just the lower half of Manhattan and a few other areas, experiences long-lasting economic growth.

New York City’s resilience was again proven by an impressive return to economic prosperity after the recent worldwide recession. Although it’s near 5 percent overall unemployment rate may make much of the rest of the country envious, the Bronx continues to have a rate above 7.5 percent, more than 50 percent higher, while the 1.5 million Hispanics in the borough also make up a majority of its unemployed.

Hispanics in New York City total nearly 2.5 million people; alone they would be the fourth-largest and one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Even while Hispanics still constitute a disproportionate amount of the unemployed, also losing more of their wealth than any other demographic during the recession, Hispanic-owned businesses have proliferated across New York. In fact, new business growth in this demographic has increased at a rate of more than eight times the overall rate, simultaneously improving total payroll by 40 percent and revenue by almost 50 percent.

Local representatives and appointed officials shouldn’t take these statistics lightly. While we’ve always known that something has to be done to improve economic outcomes in more disadvantaged areas such as much of the Bronx, what hasn’t always been clear is what will drive results. It should now be clear: the best opportunities for long-term growth reside in improving entrepreneurial opportunities.

There is plenty of room for improvement. While the Governor Cuomo’s Unemployment StrikeForce is a great program to increase employment, New York City was recently ranked 145 of 150 U.S. cities for Hispanic entrepreneurs. More should be invested in creating entrepreneurial opportunities, while also ensuring that regulations don’t impede them.  

When asked, one of the greatest impediments to creating and growing a business is the lack of access to capital. Hispanics in particular receive funding at rates far lower than the rest of the population. In one recent study, it was found that across the country less than one percent of venture capital funding went to Hispanics. Grants and other creative funding opportunities should be pursued through both the private and public sectors, especially here in the New York City.

While some ventures require significant capital to start, it should be noted that thousands of small business owners across the city continue to bootstrap their way to success. While few are lucky enough to get angel funding and share space with other like-minded entrepreneurs, many more start businesses selling products such as those offered by Herbalife, which focuses on expanding its line of nutrition products and is especially popular in the Hispanic community.

With little up front capital, these “micro-entrepreneurs” are creating additional income for their families that is otherwise hard to obtain. When considering easing the burden of the city’s bureaucracy, officials should realize that many of these smaller startups might not find it worthwhile to take the time – and pay the fees – to navigate the existing regulatory process. Although tempting to focus on the direct revenues gained from complying with existing regulations, if we have to choose between a profitable, tax-generating, employee-paying business in operation versus an entrepreneur sitting on the sidelines, the former should always win.

Incubators and accelerators are another alternative to promote economic development and are fast becoming the best way to improve the economy of a particular region, especially one that is currently plagued by poor economics. Thus far, few of these exist in areas outside of Manhattan.

It’s not unreasonable to ask a municipality to get involved in the creation and development of a local accelerator; after all, the entire region benefits. Just ask 1776, which has incubated hundreds of local startups in Washington D.C. with a relatively small grant from the city and has begun expanding across the country, recently opening a branch in Brooklyn. New York should have similar success stories in every borough.

Whether a future business mogul looking to get that tech startup on its feet or a local family just hoping to help make ends meet with income selling nutritional products within their neighborhood, one thing is certain: New York’s future resides in these entrepreneurs. Local appointed and elected officials should remember that New York City’s best chance to grow is through the expansion of new, and improvement of existing, entrepreneurial opportunities outside of lower Manhattan. Only then can we guarantee the successful future that New York has always promised.

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Assemblymember Victor M. Pichardo represents the 86th District in the New York State Assembly.

Justin Vélez-Hagan is the executive director of the National Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce and an economic policy researcher at the University of Maryland.

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Why We’re Marching to Close Rikers


Martin Close Rikers

Glenn Martin & others rally to #CLOSErikers (via JustLeadershipUSA)


For years, New Yorkers have been barraged by stories of violence and corruption on Rikers Island. On Saturday, September 24, hundreds of New Yorkers -- including people who have spent time on Rikers Island and their families; criminal justice reform activists; faith leaders; and elected officials -- will march together and demand that Mayor de Blasio #CLOSErikers.

Led by JustLeadershipUSA, in partnership with the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice, the growing campaign has been endorsed by nearly 100 organizations representing a broad swath of New Yorkers. Saturday’s march and rally mark a turning point in the effort to shut down what City Comptroller Scott Stringer has called “an urban shame.” This is a movement with momentum that cannot be ignored.

By now, the reasons to shutter this jail once and for all are painfully obvious. The “systematic culture of violence” identified by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in his scathing 2014 report continues unabated, contrary to the Mayor’s blandishments that conditions are improving.

On Aug. 28, the Daily News reported that its review of internal documents showed that Rikers Island higher-ups were routinely “purging” unfavorable violence statistics to create an “illusion of reform.” Every week the media reports new atrocities: rapes, beatings, knifings, suicides. This cannot go on. Rikers Island is a human grist mill and an ugly stain on our city’s reputation for being progressive and compassionate. Rikers cannot be fixed; violence and corruption are embedded in its DNA.

With all of these problems, who can oppose closing Rikers? Mayor de Blasio has contended that closing the facility is “unrealistic” and too costly. On Saturday speakers will point out that our current system is too costly: We are spending $208,500 a year to detain one person on Rikers Island. That is money that can be better spent on programs to help individuals and communities. Furthermore, 80 percent of the people detained on Rikers are pre-trial, and should be waiting at home until they have their day in court.

Equally essential to closing Rikers is our demand to build communities. For decades, Rikers Island has meant tremendous suffering to our city’s most vulnerable communities. Most detainees come from the city’s poorest neighborhoods and 89 percent are black or Latino. More than 40 percent of the detainees have a diagnosed mental illness. Many others suffer from drug addiction. Confinement at Rikers only exacerbates these conditions. Spending months and even years in detention before trial because of the inability to raise bail money leads to the further impoverishment of families, including children. Claiming that ending a human rights disaster in our midst is “unrealistic” dishonors this great city.

The only thing preventing us from figuring out how to do the right thing is a lack of political will. And the right thing includes investing in those neighborhoods that have been most seriously damaged.

There have been efforts to close Rikers in the past – once during the Koch administration in the late 1970s and again under Mayor Bloomberg. Both efforts suffered from a lack of community involvement and support. Today, the #CLOSErikers campaign is building momentum with community support from across our city.

For many of the people who are part of this campaign, who will be on the streets Saturday, this issue is deeply personal. We’ve both been directly affected by experiencing the terrors of Rikers -- Glenn spent time on Rikers twice during the 1990s; Anna’s son Jairo recently spent more than five years there waiting for trial. Most striking is that the horrors of Rikers Glenn experienced in the 1990s remain largely unchanged today.

We are marching because we have had enough of the human carnage and want to spare future generations of New Yorkers from it. It is time to close Rikers and build communities.

The march will begin in Astoria at Steinway Street and 30th Avenue at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 24.  New Yorkers will march to a rally at the foot of the Rikers Island bridge at 19th Avenue and Hazen Street, where we’ll call on Mayor de Blasio to take action and close Rikers. Speakers include Emily Althaus, actress in Orange Is The New Black, elected officials from the City Council and the state Legislature, and numerous community leaders who have been impacted by Rikers. Join us.

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Glenn E. Martin is the Founder of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), an organization dedicated to cutting the US correctional population in half by 2030, and a national criminal justice reform advocate who spent six years in New York prisons. On Twitter @glennEmartin.

Anna Pastoressa’s son Jairo spent nearly six years at Rikers awaiting trial, suffering physical and emotional torment. She endured the indignities of visitation and the outrageous delays in the criminal justice system and is now a prison reform advocate.

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Keeping a Republican State Senate Majority is Essential for New York


Flanagan and co

Senate Leader Flanagan & other GOP Senators (photo via NYS Senate)


Whether it’s at the state or federal level, recent history has demonstrated that when one party controls government, checks and balances go out the window. Recent history has some important lessons as we approach this year’s crucial elections.

In 2008 Democrats took control of Congress and along with the election of President Barack Obama, controlled the executive and legislative branches in Washington. In Albany, for the first time since 1964, Democrats gained a majority in the state Senate and along with Democrats in the Assembly and Governor’s office, controlled all of state government.

In Washington, Democrats enacted Obamacare and tax increases to pay for a health care program most people didn’t want. They ignored larger economic issues and failed to deliver on things Americans really wanted like jobs and tax relief. They rejected compromise and bipartisanship and governed largely on their own.

In New York, it was even worse. Democrats had a lock on state government and controlled the Legislature and every state-wide elected office. In the state Senate they set out on a path that rejected bipartisanship in favor of an agenda that left many without a voice, particularly upstate and in the suburbs.

Emboldened by their new majority status and dominated by New York City members, Senate Democrats had to prove they could govern and deliver results. And deliver they did. But in doing so they nearly bankrupted the state and made it more difficult for middle class families to make ends meet.

Without a single Republican vote, they enacted record spending hikes and some of the largest tax hikes in state history. New spending totaled $14 billion, matched by $14 billion in new taxes enacted. A new MTA tax on businesses was instituted and STAR rebate checks for homeowners were taken away. Limited state resources were shifted to New York City at the expense of upstate and the suburbs.

Democrats presided over a dysfunctional Senate where chaos ruled, culminating in an uprising led by renegade Democrats that produced an unprecedented disruption in state government and a constitutional crisis that forced the state’s highest court to step in and restore order.

New Yorkers clearly had enough. They took matters in hand and returned Republicans to the Senate majority in 2010.

Working with a new governor and more recently, new leadership in the Assembly, Senate Republicans got things back on track. They turned a $10 billion deficit into a surplus. They delivered six on-time budgets, enacted a property tax cap and new rebates for homeowners. They produced record increases in aid to education and delivered the largest tax cuts in state history.

They also undid much of the damage. New payroll taxes on businesses were repealed, property tax rebate checks were returned, and damaging cuts in education aid that forced schools to needlessly suffer were restored.

But some of the damage could not be undone. The disruption and divisions within the Senate Democrat Conference were beyond repair. Many senators grew frustrated with the dysfunction and misguided policies as their moderate views no longer fit in. They didn’t feel welcome.

So they did something about it. A number broke away and formed a separate Independent Democratic Conference, the IDC. Another decided to sit with Republicans and join their conference. All were determined to restore bipartisanship in the Senate. Together they forged a working partnership with Majority Republicans that continues to this day.

But some divides remain. None more so than the upstate-downstate divide, which continues to challenge lawmakers. Democrats, with their majorities overwhelmingly from New York City, see urban policies that favor New York and other large cities as their primary focus. Republicans fight to ensure that upstate and suburban areas get their fair share.

It is a constant battle. And without a seat at the table, upstaters and suburbanites get left out and suffer the consequences. We’ve seen it happen.

That’s why maintaining a Republican Majority in the Senate is critically important. Their members are from upstate and downstate; from suburban, rural, and urban communities. They give voice to small businesses and middle class New Yorkers and serve as their protectors in a government dominated by New York City interests.

Having spent nearly 30 years in the Senate, I witnessed it all. I watched Republicans serve as a responsible check on Assembly Democrats and governors from both parties. I saw them stop tax increases and government overreach because they were the lone voice of reason. And I was there when battles were lost and compromise was necessary to keep government functioning.

In my last two years, with New York City Democrats in charge, I also saw Republicans entirely shut out of the governing process. I witnessed the dysfunction and chaos that ensued and policies that nearly bankrupted and ruined our state. It was enough to convince voters that they had to change course.

In November voters will be faced with a similar choice. They can maintain the checks and balance so vital in our democracy or they can give Democrats sole control of state government and enable a New York City Mayor like Bill de Blasio to expand his reach on Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and even upstate.

Now that we’ve come this far, New Yorkers don’t want a return to the past. They want a healthy two-party system and assurances that all regions are treated fairly and equally. That’s why Senate Republicans should, and I believe will, be returned to the Senate Majority. Republicans offer the best hope to those who want checks and balances in government and the accountability that comes with it.

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John McArdle is President of Capitol Communications, a government consulting and communications firm. He worked in the State Senate from 1981 to 2010 and was Communications Director for three Majority Leaders.

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