How Bill de Blasio is helping to kill off small businesses in New York City
Mark Crispin Miller
SBC - The Small Business Congress
E-mail saven...@gmail.com Websites: Savenycjobs.org
Media Advisory Contact: Steven Barrison
For Immediate release Barr...@aol.com saven...@gmail.com
May 22, 2020 212-750-5560
Mayor de Blasio's Appointment of Gregg Bishop to Address the Small Business Crisis isAppalling and Inexcusable!
Lowest Point yet for Democracy and Ethics
at City Hall
Dateline May 22, 2020, NYC:
Mayor de Blasio announced the appointment of Gregg Bishop as senior advisor for Small Businesses in the coronavirus recovery. The Mayor praised Bishop for doing a great job and being the voice for small business owners. He said, “ Bishop will bring a whole new approach to bring resources and support to small businesses.”
As Small Business Commissioner, Bishop’s record shows him to be the worst possible choice to make policy to save, stabilize or rebuild our small businesses. His appointment is an insult to every small business owner, especially immigrant owners, and a disgrace to good government. He has been the voice, not for small businesses, but only for the very same identities who created and benefited from the decade long small business crisis in NYC. In reality, in no other major city in America would Bishop be a Small Business Commissioner, because he lacks the experience or expertise required, and lacks the respect for small business owners.
In NYC, where only politics matters, Bishop was appointed in June 2015 as Commissioner of Small Business Services, SBS. The SBS website is filled with charts and uplifting positive statements on the array of services and programs for small businesses. The one graph never shown is the NYC Court Warrants to evict commercial businesses. Under Bishop’s watch 21,816* warrants to evict businesses were issued and an estimated 67,000 to 72,000 businesses closed in New York City! In any city in the nation, Bishop would have been fired in three months with his failed record of doing absolutely nothing to save a single business. See Court evictions> https://www.savenycjobs.com/nyc-court-evictions-
Every New Yorker walking down their main street can see for themselves the horrific record of Gregg Bishop. Empty stores fronts, many for years, on every block where once thriving businesses were, have sadly become the accepted norm under Bishop. What is indefensible in his appointment is that in reality from day one of becoming Commissioner he has played a major role in the collusion of the real estate lobby with the Speaker’s Office to rig the system to deny economic justice to small business owners, the majority of whom are immigrant family owned. As well as, using the SBS and its partners: BIDS, Chambers, REBNY cronies, and funded community groups to cover up the crisis with a charade of worthless initiatives, useless bills, fake studies, valueless forums and disinformation campaigns, all actions to stop passage of any law giving rights to small business owners.
Never once in his entire term did Bishop acknowledge that a crisis existed for the majority of small businesses. Never once has he said high rents were the major problem facing businesses. Nor that the major target for illegal extortion of cash to remain in business were mainly immigrant owners. The SBS under his leadership has totally ignored all of the major problems facing small businesses like short term leases of month to month or one/two years, businesses forced to pay their landlord’s growing property taxes, or having no rights when their leases expire. Why in the face of long established businesses closing citywide would Bishop never once look for a real solution to stop the closings?
The answer for Bishops’ anti small business record, as well as our entire government’s conspiracy of silence to the growing small business crisis, and Mayor de Blasio’s despicable appointment, was exposed at a June 2009 hearing on the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, Survival Act. Michael N. Meola Senior VP NYC Economic Development Corporation testified:
"My name is Michael Meola and I'm a senior vice president at the NYCEDC. Intervention of this type in the commercial real estate market would be a dramatic departure from current and past practice in New York City. Such an intervention in the vast commercial real estate market could have the unintended consequence of reducing the supply of new capital investments in commercial and retail space. What we do not want to see is a reduction in the ability of developers and small investors to build new commercial property."
This statement is why, through their campaign donations, the real estate lobby controls economic policy at City Hall. Government protecting the profiteers and not the victims. Lawmakers serving their donors and the political machine and not the will of the people. Lawmakers working to create a perfect environment for international real estate speculation and then serving to maximize their profits, protect them from regulation, and cover up the dire consequences to our society of their greed. In order to make NYC the epicenter of world real estate speculation, the SBS, Speaker and Mayor’s Offices had to throw the small businesses under the bus by denying them an honest hearing seeking real solutions to their real problems. By doing so, they are the creators of our small business crisis and then they denied treatment to cure it.
Gregg Bishop has a record on how he handled a small business crisis, and it is disgraceful. Mayor de Blasio should be embarrassed and ashamed for appointing Bishop to manage another small business crisis after his complete failure to even try to find a solution to the existing crisis, and his failure to save a single business or job. Most importantly is the reality that because of Bishop's failure as a voice for small businesses, New York City small businesses are the most vulnerable to closing than any city's small businesses in America! Coming back to normal for NYC small businesses is coming back to more than a decade old crisis of the highest rents, taxes, costs to do business, shortest leases, illegal extortion and having NO RIGHTS.
After nine years of being denied a public hearing on the Survival Act, one was held on Oct 22, 2018. Unlike the previous 11 honest hearings on the bill, where the focus was only upon the Survival Act as the best solution to stopping the closings, this hearing was a total sham orchestrated by the real estate lobby. Then Commissioner Bishop was the central player for the lobby. Even though our city’s small business owners faced a crisis to survive, Bishop came to the hearing with one goal, to stop the Survival Act and to block any real solution from being promoted. His long testimony was filled only with REBNY talking points of misinformation on the Survival Act. Bishop highlighted only the new REBNY bogus narrative, such as arbitration would burden owners and the bill would have unintended consequences, though never detailed. What was made clear was that Bishop offered no real solution to stop the closings of small businesses and all his programs were meant to only keep the status quo. What was also clear was the power of REBNY over the SBS and many business organizations. For the first time in 30 years of hearings, the BIDS, Chambers, and Government funded Community Groups, who are all influenced by SBS, came to testify against the Survival Act and promote only REBNY's false narrative. But like the SBS, none offered any real solution to the small business crisis.
After the hearing Bishop continued to do nothing to address our city’s small business crisis. With the collusion of REBNY and the Speakers' Office continuing the rigging, Bishop signed off on a “basket of bills” passed in July 2019 touted to help small businesses, which were really a basket of nothing.
Careful examination shows none of the bills would save a single business, none gave a single right to owners and all were useless in addressing the crisis. One example of Bishops’ influence was Councilwoman Rivera's bill 1049, which calls for SBS to count empty stores and issue a report on their assessment of the state of businesses, every three years! SBS oversees 76 BIDS citywide and it would take one hour to count empty stores and two hours to do a report on the state of the businesses. Shameful! Every Council-member is a member of their local BID board and yet they need an assessment report on the state of the businesses? Its called RIGGING!
When Bishop testified at the sham hearing in 2018 the SBS budget was $216.5 million dollars. Under his watch SBS was politicizing the agency by funding community groups under the charade of promoting economic development in the community. Businesses were closing in record numbers and Bishop is approving more landlord BIDS and funding non business groups as somehow saving small businesses and creating jobs. All the SBS efforts were focused upon spending the taxpayers dollars on worthless projects while ignoring a citywide small business crisis right in front of them. SBS had expanded BIDS with landlords, by law, being the majority board members to promote economic development and they only enriched themselves while every BID small business owner was in jeopardy of closing when their leases expired. The BID organization testified at the hearing opposing the Survival Act and opposing giving rights to small business owners. Bishop promoted funding community groups through Avenue NYC Commercial Revitalization Grants. Grants of up to $100,000 per year over three years; maximum possible award $300,000, as well as dedicated funding for a full-time program manager and assistance for grantees to complete a Commercial District Needs Assessment (CDNA). Pure giveaways as hard working small business owners lose their life savings.
A close examination of SBS financials, as well as, just one of many fake studies exposes the total waste and abuse of taxpayer money by this agency and the minimal effort to seriously address any real problems of small businesses. Examples of this gross under-performance is shown in SBS Performance indicators for FY 2018 budget:
Businesses opened with assistance from SBS 2017 was 867. During the same year an estimated 15-16,000 businesses closed citywide.
Projected number of hires by businesses opened with assistance from SBS 10,096. Same year est. 120-130,000 jobs lost.
Mayor de Blasio touted the way Bishop would utilize resources, which is code for funneling money to corrupt Brooklyn political machine and friends of de Blasio. Just one example of the fake studies under Bishops' watch is the highly touted
NYC Small Business Services “State of Small Businesses Survey”
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/sbs/downloads/pdf/about/reports/small_business_survey_report.pdf
The most disgraceful sham survey ever done, a total LIE. Done over the phone with less than half answering questions. Approximately half of the respondents are White/Caucasian. While the largest majority of small business owners in NYC are Hispanics with only 15% answered questions. The overwhelming majority surveyed (94%) have a college or related/advanced degree. While the majority of small businesses are immigrant owned and not likely to have college degrees.
Shockingly 38% have no employees!! - not typical and should never be in survey!
33% in business less than 2 years – should have never been in survey
14% own their buildings – not typical by any standard
Who was taking this survey, it certainly was not the typical small business owners?
Even this fake survey was so obviously cooked that the SBS had to issue a disclaimer of their own survey! Imagine that, a disclaimer! DO NOT BELIEVE US!
**Unfortunately, the survey sample is not representative of the city’s business population; the findings presented are based on a limited data set, which is not weighted to be representative of the population of NYC small businesses. •
What was SBS recommendation for the needs of our small businesses? New York City’s small businesses need more employees but struggle with hiring. Which is code for MORE government funded training programs that do nothing to save small businesses but will make our political friends happy. Disgraceful!
Gregg Bishop, who never even tried to find a solution to our city’s existing small business crisis and who only served the interests of the very people who caused our small business crisis is who Mayor de Blasio appointed to address the coronavirus crisis on behalf of our small businesses. Disingenuous, a betrayal of progressive principles and void of any ethics. This appointment is “rock bottom” for democracy at City Hall.