Politicians Webinar is a Fail for Business Owners
Sometimes what’s advertised isn’t what people receive.
Last night our local politicians held a webinar. It was announced as a townhall. Maybe the politicians don’t understand the difference?
A webinar is when people present information over video on the web. It’s a one-sided conversation.
A townhall is an interactive meeting where ideas are exchanged between different groups.
The webinar had a few glimmer of light, but mostly it was just old information and offices stroking some of the politicians egos. There were about 90 people watching the video.
Let’s start with the good points from the media: Assemblywoman Mathylde Frontus has been traveling throughout the neighborhood bringing meals, masks and hand sanitizer. She doesn’t just send her team to do it and post pictures like Mark Treyger, she’s actually there doing the deliveries. Frontus has been doing this for many weeks! She was bringing masks to residents long before other politicians decided to give them out.
Tonight, Mathylde was in business mode and spoke about her current Assembly bill – A10349 . This bill requires employers to warn employees of potential hazardous environmental and health conditions in the workplace and provide PPE to employees. Frontus is the main sponsor of the bill and has a lot of co-sponsors. Anyone can co-sponsor a bill – the sponsor is the real worker!
Frontus offered her help and if you are a business owner in her district, you should give her a call. She’s the real deal. Next week she is doing a phone conference for senior citizens – they aren’t on the computer, so she is getting the message to them in a way they are familiar with – more info here.
Max Rose was an optimistic speaker. Rose spoke about the government working on being prepared for the second wave of the coronavirus. Rose also brought a testing site to Brooklyn. Unfortunately the Congressman didn’t provide any new info for business owners. Yet, he listened intently to the speakers. Often, we have seen Rose listen and come back with solutions to issues at late date. Rose thinks differently and maybe he will come back with something for these SB owners.
Gounardes was the Democratic Party echo. Gounardes spoke S8211, a bill between him and Assemblyman Carroll. This bill would Force insurance companies to pay business interruption claims for COVID-19. I’m not sure the government can change an insurance provision. Carroll and Gounardes submitted the bill last month, but the Assembly and Senate haven’t been meeting.
Senator Gounardes didn’t seem interested to be part of this conversation.
Most of the meeting, Gounardes just sat there. Helping small business owners doesn’t seem to be a high priority for Andrew. There is a recording for this session, so can see this.
The NYC representative gave the business owners the NYC website. SERIOUSLY? Did the politicians think that seven weeks in people didn’t have it? She gave it out again at the end of the webinar. Business owners must have been so annoyed.
Randy Peers, head of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce provided some statistics. That was mildly useful. I’ll add the screenshots here later today.
More small business owners in Brooklyn were able to get in on the funding during Round 2 as compared to Round 1.
Randy also talked about 46% businesses missing May rent because they don’t have incoming income. Only 21% received a landlord concession in May.
That’s not good.
Their final speaker pointed out that some people are earning more money on unemployment. Then he spent a lot of the time giving compliments to Brannan. LOL. I’m not sure what that is about, but this is the second time I have seen this speaker on a webinar and it’s the second time he has done this.
Councilman Justin Brannan acted as a moderator and told everyone when to speak. He didn’t provide information tonight, even though NYC Council passed some bills today for businesses. (There were five bills – one limited sites like Grubhub from not taking more than 15%).
Brannan said that some of the best ideas for policy come from residents. I think he means he takes ideas from his group. I know this isn’t true because I asked Brannan to put in a bill about the discrepancy in property taxes in our area and Brannan didn’t. From my dealing with him, I got the feeling that Justin would rather people didn’t bother him!
I had hoped that the politicians were going to announce an alliance, share grant information and give inside tips to get funding to our small mom and pop shops which are hurting during this time. I had hoped Brannan could have offered some NYC Council information about moderately opening a few more types of business which could safely open with one person in the shop at a time. (But that didn’t happen.)
The meeting was ended quickly by Brannan – no input from any of the business owners. Remember the way Dan Donovan used to end meetings because he hated doing them? This was the same way.
Sorry business owners.
Hugs,
marlene
Topics: Bay Ridge | 1 Comment »
May 14th, 2020 at 8:06 am
Gounardes & Brannan = worthless. That sums it up! Thank you for bringing their inept actions to light.