VID Member Sharon Woolums addresses the issue of saving small businesses…
in an insightful Talking Point piece in The Villager (December 18) titled Mom-and-Pop shops: Are they too small to save?
To Ms. Woolums saving small businesses centers on the failure of the New York City Council to act on the proposed Small Business Jobs Survival Act (S.B.J.S.A.), which was originally introduced by Councilmember Ruth Messinger in 1986, has been bottled up in a Council committee for the past four years, and denied a vote by the full City Council for 28 years.
For this piece she interviewed Councilmembers Corey Johnson, Margaret Chin and Rosie Mendez on the issue. As a counterbalance, she elicited comments from Mr. Sung Soo Kim a 30-year veteran in the fight to save small business and founder of the Korean American Small Business Service Center. Mr. Kim also created the first Small Business Bill of Rights in New York City.
The sixth in a series that Ms. Wollums has authored on saving small businesses, it concludes with a call to action to move the legislation forward in 2015: Voters must act by all means possible: e-mail, tweet, phone, Facebook, petition and write letters to the editor. It takes 26 City Council votes to follow the will of the people and pass legislation that will save our small businesses. As for the Village — and the rest of New York — if this crisis does not end now, we won’t recognize this unique place we call home.
Here are the links to the others in the series:
There’s only one way to save our small businesses
V.I.D. (again) approves small business bill; Will Council?
It’s time for final push to pass small business bill
Who has the guts to fight for our small businesses?
Will a Democrat for mayor stand up for small stores?
At the Dec 13, 2013 meeting VID passed a resolution in support of small business preservation