What Will Eric Adams Do for Beleaguered Businesses? Owners Air Hopes While Awaiting Answers
https://www.thecity.nyc/economy/2022...s-owners-hopes
In September, Eric Adams made a pledge to the city’s business people they had been waiting eight years to hear.
“New York will no longer be anti-business,” Adams, then the Democratic nominee for mayor, pledged at an annual gathering of finance, tech and policy experts in Manhattan. “This is going to be a place where we welcome business and not turn into the dysfunctional city that we have been for so many years.”
Since then, Adams has provided virtually no specifics on what he will do differently than Bill de Blasio to revive the city’s deeply wounded economy. So business leaders and experts on the economy have come up with their own measures by which they will decide whether the new mayor’s statements were just rhetoric — or will manifest in policies that represent a fundamental change in City Hall’s attitude toward them.
Restaurants want him to immediately reauthorize propane heaters for outdoor dining. Development experts want him to build on de Blasio’s success in his last two months rezoning Gowanus and SoHo, by launching similar efforts in other neighborhoods.
Many call for a greatly expanded and overhauled workforce strategy, including help for the hundreds of thousands of workers whose jobs are unlikely to return post-COVID and a proposed new $100 million retraining fund for those who’ve lost their jobs.
Everyone clamors for a mayor who will finally deliver on promises to make dealing with city government easier, especially for small businesses. Underlying almost all the items on the wish list is a broader plea for competence.
“The single most important thing the Adams administration can do is to restore the notion that New York can be governed again,” said James Whelan, president of the influential Real Estate Board of New York. “Show that one can reduce crime in a fair and just way and that you are committed to a good quality of life for folks throughout the five boroughs.”
Winning over the business community and restoring their confidence in New York’s prospects is crucial for Adams given the fragile state of the economy. The city remains 345,000 jobs below its pre-pandemic peak, or almost 10%. The nation is only a little more than 2% below the early-2020 record. The city’s unemployment rate of 9% is almost double the nation’s.
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