40th DISTRICT CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES SMALL BUSINESS Q&A

have you already i'm sure i'll meet the other ones um the church avenue bid church avenue bid and flatbush avenue bid represent about 420 businesses and about a little over 200 different properties on flatbush from parkside to cortelli and on church from coney island avenue to flatbush avenue so we have been very busy over the last year and a half there's only three staff people and our businesses have been struggling as everyone knows we have a lot of questions for the candidates we'd love to see what kind of ideas you have for small businesses and that's it just um welcome and thank you so much thank you thank you lauren i'm not sure if lisa is here from kn market i'm not sure she has been if she's here yet if not next we're gonna go to the gentleman factory jeff lendore will have a workspace for black men 300 you know projected to have 500 small business black men um next year jeff from gentlemen factory please round of applause for joanne everybody round up applause for joanne um name is uh jeff lindor gentleman's factory it's a community uh for black and brown men to build and change the world and it could not have started without joanne playing an intricate role and my phone is ringing because that's uh you know right uh it could not have happened had it not been for joanne to invest her time her belief in us right so we um we have a space here we were the anchor tenant before they expanded right so i have to expand with them um so um it's really a community for black and brown entrepreneurs to move the world so covet occurred we then went digital we have members all across planet earth and what i want to say particularly about black and brown men is society projects us a certain way but we're more than what society says right you know we have doctors and veterans like dr lacy blackman right here saving lives in um the hospitals here you know and so many others who are just doing really phenomenal things so i'm really excited about today's conversation about how we build up small businesses about the money that uh is allocated to small businesses well that's not allocated to black home businesses another conversation and i'm super excited for all of the candidates i know many of you all and um uh thank you so much for having me joanne and uh let's build everyone huh next we have impact brooklyn parkside empire flight boot nursing association dale [Applause] thank you all and welcome so my name is dale charles i'm the director of economic development at impact brooklyn impact brooklyn has been in existence for 56 years 57 maybe we have been working hard with the small businesses during covert a lot of the businesses here we had a private fund that we were able to give to most of them even brooklyn congress we still are looking for support we have been doing pvp applications in our sleep trying to make sure that we can sustain these businesses while coverts still exist and do understand the businesses still need help we are losing them day by day so our goal here is to ask the question what are you doing for the small businesses now and what you're going to do for them once you're elected so i mean my gold i've been working with impact with small businesses for over 20 years and i'm seeing the suffering on flatbush avenue between parkside and empires where my zone is and other areas but tonight is for that area um but yeah thank you and thanks for having me thank you we have a few of our partners that i would like to mention the online haitian american caucus is here and also i would like to introduce stanley right now they're doing the whole online introduction so give us a second and then not go ahead and introduce you guys ready okay great um next i would love to introduce our amazing two moderator for tonight um marion and obocho and you guys thank you so much you guys have the floor thank you joanne first of all joanna's amazing i'm just gonna break character i don't care like joanne is the biggest supporter that we have at well closed period not just at brooklyn commons period i can tell you flat out we could not do the work that we do without your seriously without your support you're amazing um guys welcome thank you all for coming welcome to brooklyn commons small business q a with brooklyn's 40th district city council candidates welcome we're so excited to have you guys my name is marion i am co-founder and ceo of well clothed we're a small non-profit um supporting people with clothing care packages for individuals in need we also run large scale free clothing pop-ups for individuals to come and shop for anything they need for free um and i'm also a real estate agent and real estate coach so i teach new agents how to be agents and i actually started my real estate career here at brooklyn commons as well at a small brokerage that was in one of the offices here so i have a lot of love for brooklyn commons i'm really excited as a two-time small business owner to hear from you guys tonight and i'm next to a beauchamp peters he's super exciting as well i love this kid is amazing thank you so much joanne for this opportunity tonight my name is obocho peters and i'm a 12 year old ceo i own a children's thrift store and i sell affordable clothes and shoes for ages newborns to 12 years old to help families save money all right all right so we're going to get into it we're going to start with a few rules can you guys hear me the mic is good all right we're going to start with some housekeeping rules rule number one all candidates must be physically here you guys are all here there's no stand-ins tonight so that's fantastic thank you for being here rule number two each candidate will be given one minute to time to introduce themselves in the beginning and one minute to answer the questions we ask all right numero rule number three we ask that you all just don't curse okay no profanities it's a family show rule number four please be courteous and respectful to all of one of another all right number five please stay on topic we are trying to get out at a reasonable time okay we want to hear your answers um but definitely don't you know go overboard or go off topic if you do need to have the question asked again just let me know we'll repeat it rule number six please do not interrupt or try to talk all over other candidates or the moderators while they're speaking does that sound good y'all know the rules okay fantastic so let's get started let's get to know you guys okay so we're gonna start with you miss cortez can you introduce yourself please yeah so now i have a minute yes hello everybody hi how are you hi i'm cecilia cortez i'm running for city council in district 40. i am an immigrant i came to the united states my family with my family as a teenager we moved to the united states in search of better opportunities searching the american dream i went to school i became a teacher i told the deaf and hard of hearing for the 35 years in new york city in brooklyn and i also was a chapter leader for the united federation of teachers services have been very important in my life i have served in my community as soon as i move into this bus park i work with a community with many with different organizations doing different projects as a city council member i will continue to work doing things for the community i will um make sure that the the sanitation budget is restored um we have open space schools are well funded i think that uh brooklyn is a great place to live and we need um oh thank you thank you miss cortez thank you um we're gonna go to the right here so miss heinz hello hello my name is harriet hines i'm a single mother of three children 43 year resident of district 40 i'm also a candidate for district 40. i'm a person with a physical disability within district 40 i do hold various roles i i'm on the committee of education council for district 22 i'm also the president of parade rounds friends of parks i'm also on democratic county committee co-vice president of ps139 and here today i am the project manager of i am a boat show so i you know being here feels just like home and um i'm happy that he is one of the moderators and everyone gets a chance to see the hidden gem that i um discovered you know his mother had it first of course but i just thought like three years ago we've been working with him ever since and we've made great strides and i'm very very happy to be here fantastic thank you for coming oh thank you for bringing people i didn't know we could bring people that's cool all right miss um is it handyhiller yes all right hi good evening everyone my name is kenya handy hilliard and i'm running to be your city council member i'm a wife i'm a mom of two beautiful young children i'm a daughter of flatbush raised in district 40 and i'm running because i want to make sure we create greater equity in our community and that includes hello can you one two one two did we lose the money check my okay there we go um i want to make sure that we create greater equity ownership in the community and that starts with our small businesses and that means it's being a resource to you making sure that you have all the information that we are supporting people or organizations like impact so that you have access to grants funding and so that you can grow and thrive and so that is the role that i've played throughout my career i have 14 years of experience i have the legislative budgetary and activism and investigative experience to make sure that you get the resources as small businesses and that we partner with our arts and culture community to make this an arts and culture destination thank you i don't know if did you hear destiny thank you very much all right uh mr raymond uh how is everyone tonight okay so my name is edwin raymond i'm a son of flatbush my parents are immigrants from haiti a little bit of a rough childhood my mother died when i was three years old my father spoke no english had no education but he raised me to be someone that's principled i started being mistreated by cops as a teenager and that persuaded me to join the police department at 22 years old i joined the police department to learn how it operates why it operates the way it does and most importantly what we can do about it when i became a police whistleblower five years ago ever since then people have been asking me to run for the seat uh two years ago i sat down with some mentors i learned all the positions and many hats that the city council member uh wears and i'm ready to represent you from city hall thank you all right um guys just really quickly i want to point out that we do have a time keeper here so when you see the little cards go up that means wrap it up okay [Laughter] if we can hear from miss joseph in the back good evening everyone my name is rita joseph i'm an educator a community advocate a small business owner so some of your struggles also my struggles uh proud union member um i've been active in this community since i was 19 years old i put my first rally together when i was 19 with over 150 000 people just to fight center and justice and i've taken that with me and hopefully take that with me to city hall and also with my business experience here tonight thank you thank you all right um mr pierre good evening everyone my name is uh joseo pierre but you can call me josh uh came to this country at five years old because my dad worked three jobs in a factory and my mom as a home health aide so they raised me and my three brothers here in flatbush and because of their sacrifices i was able to become a senior financial analyst my i was able to try my hands at being a small business owner and my brothers are entrepreneurs as well i also became um the as a senior financial analyst i got to see many businesses come to the office of the comptroller saying hey we want to get your guys invested take some of your millions and billions of dollars into our businesses and try to grow but i also saw that a lot of them were turned away because of the gaps in understanding access resources etc so one of the reasons i'm running is to close that gap to ensure that you have access to the billions of dollars in contracts that the city has to offer i've also sat on the boards of multiple business improvement districts and i believe they are key to improving the business environment here every morning you see people go not going into the train stations anymore because they're out of work and so the businesses are not opening so we need a strong economic recovery and that's why i'm running to be your next council member thank you thank you hello mr morris hi hi i'm blake morris a pleasure to be here uh thank you i want to thank everyone for coming tonight um i've been a resident in flatbush for over 20 years my family's been in brooklyn since the 1870s i've been a practicing attorney for over 35 years in contract disputes representing people who need the help of the law i have a license to practice law i've sued the state government and city government many times i am a community activist i've been a member of the ditmas park association neighborhood a board of directors for over 20 years i also serve on the neighborhood advisory board as well it's a board that establishes and sets guidelines for funding for not-for-profits within the 40th city council district i am married i have a daughter who is attending the university of vermont i'm really excited about this race we have a lot of services and goals that need to be um achieved in this district and i think i'd be the candidate to do that thank you thank you you brought the the win with you it's a very powerful moment right now i guess um all right what is where did my paper go my cheat sheet excuse me miss morgan hi hi how are you thank you so much for the invitation to be here my name is vivian morgan and i want to say thank god for allowing us to be here today tonight together tonight and um i'm a union member local 79 i'm a mother a community advocate and i would like to be your next city council member all right we're gonna pause you because i don't want your moment to get lost we're gonna figure that out really quickly i feel like that's gonna wipe everybody out if we aren't careful um okay do you want to repeat yourself miss morgan i'm sure yeah go ahead and just a little louder into the microphone so that we can counteract that win yes good evening everyone thank you so much for the invitation to be here my name is vivian morgan i'm a proud union member i'm a community advocate a mother and i'm ready and to serve you as the next city council member thank you thank you thank you and i want to say thank god for us to be here tonight all right all righty last but not least mr jordan hello hi yes uh my name is victor jordan uh currently i'm the first vice chair from about 17. i began my career here in in flatbush uh i taught mathematics at erasmus hall high school uh in terms of my professional background i have a background economics i've worked as an economist and i have background in law so i think i'm well pleased to advocate for small business for disadvantaged individuals thank you all right thank you i guess you used to teach at erasmus you probably sent a lot of my friends home in uh high school okay let's get started thank you for all your introductions miriam will now present the first question back to me all right are you guys ready are you excited so this is a question for every single person and i think we'll just go in the same order that you introduce yourselves okay you do have one minute to answer the question please keep track of the score not scorecard but the time cards um okay as a candidate for the 40th district city council seat what will be your top three priorities for small businesses if elected and we're going to start with you miss cortes speak into the mic go for it well one of the things that i wanted to do is i wanted to strengthen the uh merchant association because that's a the place where they the business association they know what they need and we must be most important uh another thing that i would like to do is i would like to clean the different corners that we have because in order to attract people in the uh to come to the different businesses it has to be beautiful and clean and we don't have now we have a flat bush parkside cortellio full of garbage and that is a very important thing so i think that that is another thing is that we have to make sure that the merchants have uh um the rents are not high enough so that they don't have to be uh they're not they're not being displaced so by supporting that we will make sure that the uh merchants stay here safe and secure and helping to develop pla bush cortez and all the corridors that we have in this report fantastic thank you very much all right we can just go right on down the line um miss hines yes um speak into the yeah yes my top priorities for a small business is definitely government um contracts government funding um like my experience you know especially dealing with the vote show is that as a for-profit uh business it did not expose him to get any kind of funding um like especially discretionary funding from uh certain um politicians though he is working to serve the community it's like because he's for profit he can't get any funding so i definitely would like to work on um you know government contracts that would give uh funding to small businesses that serve the community also being a person with a physical disability i would also like to work with accessibility for small businesses making sure that you know people especially you know who use wheelchairs can get in and out of small businesses uh the businesses have uh like maybe uh captions or services that can help them communicate to you know purchase or deal with small businesses also in the post uh george floyd uh time right now i would like to work on public safety for small businesses uh we know that you know during this time that a lot of businesses have been ramsacked vandalized robbed and i would like to work on seeing some kind of uh involvement between the community clergy and nypd to help also small businesses to be able to thrive and to flourish during a post george floyd time thank you thank you all right uh miss handy hilliard yes so one is i want to create a district 40 small business council so that we can meet as soon as i start and then talk about what the issues are coordination and access to resources two there's about a billion dollars coming from the state uh in fy 22 budget by the time i get there it'll be we'll be discussing fy23 so i'm going to make sure that our small businesses have received access to fy 22 budget and if they haven't then make sure that those are those resources are increased during fy23 and then work with the district 40 council to ensure that you are receiving that those resources and then it is really about um working on the sanitation making sure that we are creating the key partnerships with the arts community so that we can start organizing around programs walkable livable streets and then really creating that the space for us to have you know pro like events for us to kind of really bring that uh commerce and economy to our community thank you guys at home you can't tell but it is raining a lot so please have some patience if our candidates need a minute they're yelling into the microphone trying to make it work we're very excited that they're gonna keep going but it's raining just so you know all right mr raymond go ahead so just less than two months from here i took a walk with the public advocate um um right south from here on flatbush and what we discovered there were many businesses who had applied for sba loans who didn't receive them and unfortunately just from it's not the biggest sample size but there was racial disparities shown in that so priority is to make sure those who qualify for the loans actually get them uh second there's a state resolution of 1485 that basically provides relief for undocumented business workers there's no reason why we can't have a city version of that and um a third priority for businesses when i walk up from parkside and head north towards here i notice that many of the storefronts they're closed they don't exist so the city should provide a tax incentive um to so landlords have short-term leases that allow pop-ups and different uses of the spaces because activity begets activity it's not fair for a business to be one restaurant on the block and maybe a t-mobile store and everything else is closed once we at least once we're positively using the space we can keep the economy going in the region thank you thank you all right let's swing back to the back there uh miss joseph um thank you um three of my priorities one i know rent relief has been uh big on the list of course as an educator data drives my instructions so i would definitely want to sit with business leaders to tell me what their needs are first before i can go and fight on your behalf and third we have to provide public safety we also have to provide access and equity that's always been one of the things that our community has never had we've never been able to access the resources and when we do we never qualify too many red tapes or we don't know a lot of my parents who are business owners um i had to refer them to lauren to apply because they didn't know the deadline they didn't know when to apply what paperwork they needed so information and access is very important as an educator that's what i bring always educating and make sure they have and they know what to do fantastic thank you mr pierre so of the three things i would like to accomplish for the business sector one access to capital where especially for black owned businesses we're always short on capital which means we're short on opportunities to make mistakes and keep going and reach success so access to capital is key second given that we are in flatbush and we know we produce a lot of culture and produce a lot of great food there's a gap between becoming a restaurateur and being a caterer because of all the investments that have to be made so i think it's well it's good and well that we should have a restaurant incubator here in flatbush to help them grow from being caterers to full-fledged restaurants and finally a lot of the issues we have around sanitation closing our streets so we can have street fairs and bringing people in can be resolved through a business improvement district there are gaps in our business improvement districts for example there's no business improvement district from parkside to empire along flatbush this would be an opportunity for our merchants association to work with sbs and have a stable um system to actually be able to have their voices heard invest in the local community and promote this area thank you thank you mr morris so so the major problem with our small business districts our our shopping streets is basically amazon and big and big box stores our merchants are competing against these giants so we need to be competitive against them and one of the ways that we can be there there's multiple ways that we can be competitive against them and that's through having aesthetic design criteria for our shopping streets which will include more shade trees awnings plantings and also more trash receptacles with the trash being picked up a lot more often also we want to have a physical aesthetic which actually means public bathrooms that we can actually the city could invest in by citing them in private property and private institutions including houses of worship and so we can actually be able to get resources to private property owners and our cultural institutions and also our religious institutions and and also be providing a public amenity that will support our local businesses we also want to have our destinations be community friendly so we want to make sure that every shopping street within every five or ten blocks has some sort of playground a potluck thank you very much i appreciate it who's back there hello uh miss morgan hi thank you um so i'm thinking that if you could just speak a little closer to the small businesses right we have to work on the merchants association because right now from what i see the merchants associations are not really active and engaging to the small businesses some not all right you have some businesses that really work with the merchants association they participate in the discussions that they do have but not all of them we have to figure out ways on how to bring all businesses together and in that we could share information with each other and come up with solutions that would fit each and every one of us because we have maybe 10 restaurants on the block why can't we just bring each of those owners together and share information so we can build on what somebody else knows and i think that would be a great start as one we need to work with the police to think about community safety and engage our young people in this small business as interns there's a lot of young people out here that has nothing to do and we have to start investing in our youth thank you and lastly mr jordan uh well for business to be successful uh a small business uh they need capital and they need markets and um i would fight to make sure they get the capital as as you know very often capital is not given fairly and and um certainly minority and women businesses are usually on on the short end of that that receipt so we have to fight for equity in terms of capital and markets we need the city has many contracts because the city itself is a big market for goods and services we have to increase uh the allocation the set-aside programs for small businesses because only by having markets to sell their goods given that the city is a major market can small business grow so we have to fight for capital and markets and also i think as a city council person i would be available i would meet with small businesses once a month for at least an hour so they can tell me how things are going and i can see what i can fight for to make sure i meet the needs thank you thank you for your answers candidates here's your second question city council members budgets include discretionary funding they can put into the community what of what are a few items or programs that you would like to fund that would help small businesses yes miss cortez yes as a city council i will involve the whole neighborhood to be part of the uh discretionary budget we have the corridors from and cortelia road we can beautify them we have a nuclear plaza we can beautify we have parkside road parkside plaza we can do that and the people are very well in and in um to participate and join that we also have many organizations in the neighborhood that work with women with children and with different groups we can also make them participate in the discretionary budget because that money will be very handy for them they will be able to use to improve the service that the community have and we need that very much that when we have a community that is clean that's beautiful people come and business thrive and the community thrives thank you thank you thank you all right miss hines same question uh with the discretionary budget i would definitely again open it up to not only those businesses that are 501c3 but those businesses that are for-profit that also serve the community like almost in the 501c3 uh capacity like businesses like about you that uh clothe the community for next to nothing to help uh children save for their college funds businesses like abojos that um that uh do financial uh provide financial literacy information to the community so that they are aware of how to direct their finances and this is especially important for minority uh people minority black and brown communities who don't know how to direct their funds this information is great also businesses like his that feed the community uh that take their own budget and feed the community don't get uh don't get monies from other organizations because they have a 501c3 of you know that commit themselves and show that they are committed to the community uh thank you thank you um miss handy hilliard yes uh so i think it's really important that as we look towards this new era in participatory budgeting um really bringing a strong participatory budgeting uh system to the community so that businesses who have specialized programs that they want invested in can come to the community for support it's also about making sure that we are creating connections um again i'm a big arts and culture uh person so it is about the beautification as was mentioned before there are specific programs that are doing big murals like a newport new kirk plaza um there are discussions about competition mural competitions throughout the district um there are folks who just need paint and you know uh tools to to do so so it's going to be those kinds of minuscule conversations i also and am really a big proponent of creating those the spaces where we can utilize the talents that are in the community so that we can then if you're an accountant and you may need a little small job we create the programming that you can come in and help a small business with the minor you know basics of their businesses because that is the thing that is preventing a lot of our access to resources thank you all right go ahead mr raymond so as my colleagues already stated um it's crucial to keep the stakeholders involved in the conversation and anyone who's a leader that's how you make decisions um but an idea something that came to mind is i paid attention to how successful open streets were last year it was mostly so folks can play and kids can have a safe space no vehicles we can expand on that you know imagine a structure like this that allows businesses to continue to operate throughout the winter where heated ventilated fit filtered air um to safe air you know that's also doubles that as climate control allows businesses to continue to flourish and this is something that can be funded um you know partially or totally with discretionary funds that allows business businesses to operate throughout the winter because i watched as you know as some businesses were able to to open up in on the sidewalks it was great but once november came a lot of them didn't make it to march thank you thank you uh miss joseph definitely thank you beautify the neighborhood make sure keep it attractive accessible make sure transportation is accessible but i wanted to talk um as putting discretionary funds into public schools there's a program right next door to my school where they have a hospitality program and the students there were able to create the meal we had a thanksgiving dinner at king's theater and they were able to create the meal and serve the the public so that's creating a strong workforce so if we put money into young people um early on we can create the young entrepreneurs and they would take this into the hand that's empowering so if you empower them they will they will do good so that's one of the ways i would definitely spend some of the discretionary funding thank you thank you mr pierre first i'd like to start off by saying that um we should have an open participatory budgeting process in this district it's something that we've been lacking and so by bringing it in we would democratize how we spend our own tax dollars second if you look at the business corridor we have now along flatbush avenue um we did have a sanitation issue before covid post coveted it's gotten worse so with some of that discretionary um funding i'd like to put it out there for us to get additional trash cans and have you vote on it and say hey this is a great idea we want it or no we feel like it's just clean enough maybe we don't want that when we do open streets uh landscaping christmas lights thanksgiving juneteenth hopefully soon uh a lot of that can't go directly to uh for-profit organizations but what we can do is give it to the non-profits like the merchants associations and they can give out contracts and we can encourage them to give those contracts to local for-profit organizations like yours your businesses so that you can share in the largest of what's coming into this community thank you thank you mr morris all right so so i would have a um a list of categories to fund um the top of the list would be the falapos development corporation that do that does amazing work for tenants and also for for businesses and i would also fund all the merchant associations we'd also need a robust program of community workforce development and we want to encourage the workers within our businesses within the 40th district to be more proficient in in the english language thank you thank you thank you uh miss morgan thank you um so we have the participatory budget right and can you speak a little closer to the myth you keep on saying that you're far girl you got to move out okay it's raining so um this the budget the discretionary budget we know that most of the time we the the politicians have their people that they're funding the programs right so i personally think that we need to engage the community as to get their information on what would they like to see now we have to stop start asking the community to get involved in the polit politics of their community right if when i am elected i am not going into 250 city um city hall and tell people what i think i would like to get the input from the community so we can work together to build a better business district school system police service etc and i want to say that all my colleagues here have such great ideas by the time you come to me she gotta say just say ditto get over everybody and uh mr jordan same question yes well as as she says my colleagues have some great ideas which i will steal uh but but i think the key thing for me is always to to beautify uh the area so the place is good and people want to spend money and also to be accessible because time is always changing and the needs of small business are always changing so i think the key thing for me is to always listen to them always have a continuous exchange with my small business community so i know what their needs are today tomorrow and as these changes and that's that's my view thank you all right we have another question all right commercial corridors need to feel and be safe places to visit in order to be successful what would you change in the district in terms of safety and policing and what would you keep the same so we're gonna go backwards this time we'll start with you mr jordan uh in terms of what i would do to improve the quality and security uh well certainly i would put more cameras up i think cameras uh is a deterrent i think when when the public know that they've been watched i think they tend to behave properly also it would help in terms of uh apprehending uh violators so so i think in terms of uh improving the safety for the community i would i would focus on that kind of approach thank you thank you all right now it's your turn you get to go first you can you can give the answer that someone else can steal later yeah right miss morgan so um working with the police precinct council i think that's great we have um we have to build the explorer program for the youth we have to ask the community residents to police their own community you know we we know what's going on in our block right so if we get involved i think we could create a safe space a lot of the police officers need to find need to speak to the the residents the community better you know not you you call a police officer and they're so aggressive we need to we need to um stop that right i have no no idea why i'm speaking i'm trying to build relations with the police officers and i'm just i just made a phone call and called this guy and he was so arrogant and i'm saying to myself my god can you imagine i'm on the phone and this is happening so can you imagine if we were in front of each other what would happen you know so they have to learn how to speak and relate with the community better thank you thank you definitely uh mr morris go for it so so what i would like to see is a lot more transparency with policing and with the police and with the police themselves uh there's a substantial difficulty in reporting crime and it's also substantial difficulty in the follow-up of what's happening when people are arrested either as the person who's the arrestee or the person who's the victim or even that of a witness so i would like to see a digital dashboard a digital dashboard uh of course citywide but we can do a pilot program here in the 40th where there are three police precincts you would have direct access on the web for uh making a police complaint and following and actually monitoring his progress so there's a whole so we could actually accomplish quite a bit also what i like to see is a lot more engagement of social services i want to see as a pilot program in the 40th what that would look like to really organize and focus social services and the particular areas of the community that that needed the most and the same using the digital dashboard as well of having a lot of transparency and the third point quickly don't cheat go ahead again it's hard to see the time keeper from here and the third three seconds and the third point is we need the merchants to step up and don't hide and get involved in high schools i come from from experiences of having merchants involved with high school community organizations at the key club which is a branch of the kiwanis so we need a lot of young people to be actually directly connected to our merchants thank you thank you mr pierre so let me start off by saying on a macro level the safest communities are not the ones that have the most police they're the ones that have the most resources so again we've always been cut short on resources and we have to change that and that's one of the reasons i'm running for city council but to your point um community safety is critically important and we're a majority community of color predominantly caribbean american black and we've had very negative interactions with the policing however there has been one aspect where i have seen and i have to attest to the fact that even as a black lives matter endorsed candidate that there are aspects that i see that have been successful and that's been with our nco programs where you have local be cops who engage the community get to know the community and work specific geographic areas so that the residents are comfortable with them the merchants are comfortable with them and that relationship is built up so that everybody's keeping us safe the additionally i would add that yes you have to couple it with social services we saw what happened on utica avenue with that gentleman that had the mental health situation a couple of years ago the last thing you want to do is call a police officer and it's like an aggressive attack but if you couple that officer with a social social service provider's task mental health person then you have a much better outcome for that person policing and the community as a whole thank you thank you all right miss joseph same question um definitely agree on the nco but also um providing opportunities for young people with the merchants allowing them to do internship mentorship if they become owners if you empower them they're going to take ownership they're going to take care of it um public safety i don't again i um i'm a mom of four black boys i don't see the police interaction i've always felt that as an educator i have to take de-escalation classes to de-escalate elementary students and i always felt that the nypd needed de-escalation classes sometimes they come into a situation that does not require the amount of aggression that i see that they bring so um definitely public safety interning for the young people mentoring providing an opportunity for them to be part of their neighborhood too and if they're part of it they'll want to take care of it so that's a way to empower them thank you thank you mr raymond yeah so so with this question um the lack of guardians is the issue and this is one of those situations where polices should not be the first resort and this is coming from a police lieutenant all right we have crisis management violence interrupters they can be the guardians we need if we have to step it up they they they know how to you know then we can call law enforcement to take to to take leadership but this is something that should be led by people other than the police it's the lack of guardians that's the issue um and i just want to speak to this because it's so dangerous the nco and this is our love for my colleagues the nco program is just not what you think it is it is smoke and mirrors i wish you could be the fly on the wall when cops are speaking amongst themselves about how the community has been duped into thinking that this thing is real it is not it is not this is this is unfortunately this is just how the police department operates you know it's it's not what you think it is thank you spicy all right i'm sorry so i i agree with my colleagues i think the um there's a way to bring as we look towards beautification and investment in the corridors to bring our youth in it is about our violence interrupter programs it's about um partnering with schools making sure that there's a there is a pipeline through our merchants so that our young folks understand and have ownership of the neighborhood they have equity in the co in the business corridors and our local economy um i think there's also a need for us to really again bring in kind of the artistic um styling and our artistry into the neighborhood using our young people who are the taggers who are the the you know who would whose normal uh investment in you know our landscape would actually be honored and and cherished on a wall or something like that and so it's again you look at areas where you got tags and it's a really beautiful mural nobody tags it up so we really need to think about how we're utilizing the gifts and talents of our young people so that they feel ownership and accepted into our community thank you thank you thank you all right um miss hines uh many of you have been watching the mainstream media lately you've seen that i've been a staunch advocate to end gun violence and for public safety my cousin shalima barquette was the woman who got shot at a prayer vigil she got shot two times in the head in brownsville last week monday and um right now uh it has really like my campaign my main campaign is accessibility inclusivity but with the gun violence now this part has entered into my campaign um i right now have joined an alliance with the clergy council brooklyn da's office um and trying to find ways to end um gun violence and to get justice from my cousin's death um in terms of small businesses um as an industrial organizational psychologist that's what i have my degree in i also do believe it is very important to speak to the community and you can get some qualitative and quantitative data to figure out where we need to go in terms of community relations with uh with the police we definitely need as i said earlier we definitely need um safe safety for small businesses thank you thank you and ms cortez yes as as we look at the community and these 240 you really will have a beautiful district 40. it's

it's beautiful and as the city council that i will be i want to i will clean up the corridors it is very important that if we wanted to attract people to come and shop and spend time in our communities we have to get rid of the garbage get rid of the rats you they then the mayor said that you should the the restaurant should open this the the doors and put a lot of people um put tables outside and it's very hard to have a dinner when there is garbage in the corner there is homeless sitting next to you and rats running under your feet so the first thing we have to do is to clean up all of that to make sure that we have we are able to bring progress to our district without that the district will continue to deteriorate more thank you thank you all right guys thank you so much for those answers fantastic so we're going to move into this uh discussion about ranked choice voting so earlier this year new york city switched to the new electoral system called ranked choice voting which allows voters the opportunity to vote for their top choice candidate and rank five other candidates ranked choice voting will be used in special elections and the upcoming primary taking place tuesday june 22nd for the offices of mayor public advocate comptroller borough president and city council seats instead of counts instead of casting a single vote for single candidate votes in ranked choice system select the number of candidates in order of preference in the race for new york city mayors voters will be allowed to choose and rank up to five all right so i guess on at home you're gonna please uh join us as we watch a short presentation about ranked choice voting from vote nyc i'm supposed to say roll the video so i don't know if it's wrong all right uh joanne there's a new way for new yorkers to have their say in city elections a way that gives voters more choices and can lead to more diverse winners it's called ranked choice voting 74 of new york voters chose to use it in primary and special elections for city offices mayor public advocate comptroller borough president and city council you won't see ranked choice voting in general elections or elections for state or national offices but in ranked choice voting elections you can now rank up to five of your favorite candidates for each office here's how ranked choice voting works on your ballot you'll see candidates listed in rows and numbered rankings and columns pick your first choice and completely fill in the oval next to their name under the first column like always you can just vote for your one favorite candidate and submit your ballot but you might like several people if you have a second choice fill in the oval next to their name under the second column do the same thing for your third fourth and fifth choices if you have them a few don'ts don't rank the same candidate more than once it won't help them and it takes away your chance to rank the others who are running don't give the same rank to multiple candidates it could disqualify your ballot don't worry this is a new process and you can always ask a poll worker for help or for a new ballot if you make a mistake so how do ballots get counted with ranked choice voting if one candidate gets more than 50 percent of everyone's first choice votes they win the election right away that's it if no candidate gets more than 50 percent ballots will be counted in rounds round by round the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated so if your top rated candidate is eliminated your vote goes to your next highest choice this keeps going until only two candidates remain [Music] the person with the most votes wins ranked choice voting is already popular in many cities around the country because voters find that it helps more voices be heard now it's our turn get answers to your questions and learn more at info slash nycfb.infor [Music] the microphone's still on y'all [Laughter] all right thank you guys welcome back um okay so now i get to ask some questions and albosho gets to ask some questions we're very excited about so my first question and i've actually decided i'm going to go ahead and just open it up to whomever is comfortable um answering uh i obviously am a minority my businesses are minority owned and run businesses and as i think it was you mr pierre you mentioned that a lot of the minority businesses got cut out of ppp loans and things like that um what are your specific plans for helping minority run businesses if you are elected whomever would like to answer not okay mr pierre so to start with whenever these programs are being created they don't have us in mind they don't think about the scale of our businesses sometimes the definition of a small business is revenue of 25 million dollars a year who has a small business here that's making 25 i'm you know so one we have to redefine what small business means according to our terms if we like you're electing me as your voice to go back there and when would they divvy up the capital and they determine okay this is how we're going to spend our money that my vo your voice is coming through me and it's saying that well maybe we should have contracts as little as 25 000 so that it's more accessible and so when you start with that 25 000 contract as an mwbe it's a stepping stone for you to eventually become that small business that makes 25 million dollars a year so that's one of the things that i've seen over and over again that i think really can be resolved if we have the will and we have your backing to come to city hall and push for it with me thank you i would miss cortez go ahead one of the things that we have to do in the in communities is to educate them as i walk on australia avenue giving out my flyers i have talked to business owners and i have asked him about different programs that the community have and especially in the pandemic and they said they have no knowledge they didn't have any access they don't know where to go so one of the things that we have to do is we have to educate the community we have to show them what is accessible what programs are there and how we can even show them how to do it in order to be eligible because many of them do not know how to do it and i'm surprised so many wonderful businesses have done very well without any aid thank you mrs heavy hitler so i think one of the things that we as a people um when it comes to organizing we need to make sure that our voice is one and that we are really pushing the agenda a lot when you're looking at the the levels that are set and all that that is because there's a suspicious a specific group of people who have organized and are pushing the entirety of a legislative body to move and so we need not not just your elected official your elected official is central to that point but the business black businesses in black and brown businesses have to organize around it then there's also a matter of the fundamental technical and technological uh issues we have to get the basics down packed and that'll give us the foundation to then go out and and really champion what the specif the specific needs are and then once we do that we sorry it's like not one minute we have we also have to um we we have to think around you know what are what's an mwbe and how we're defining it because when that certification it's thick paper we're just too busy trying to stay in the black to even fill out all of that paperwork and so we have to bring it down shrink it and so it's more direct and can actually address who we are as black businesses thank you thank you miss times um piggybacking off of what kenya said i think that you know forget the statistics all of this stuff let's cut to the chase what we need to do is if we up here and we're up candidates and we get into office we need to be people of our work because you got people that get into office they say one thing when they're up here you know campaigning and then when they get into office everything they said go out the window one thing that i would like to say is thank you mr josh pierre for recognizing uh a boat show you know i saw the post that you put up for him and you recognize what it is that he needs if you get into office please you know be a man of your word which i know that you will be ms rita joseph too you know i see that you also you know compliment a boat show you know you also even offered services thank you for helping us thank you for recognizing him to be the gym that he is if you get into office please be a woman of your word everybody up here please be a woman and men of your word also we need to ha we need to elect elected officials again like i said who are people of their word like i would like to thank theochino candidate for public advocate he's here in the in the room tonight or whatever and i know that if he's elected rep my block he's a man of his word i have reverend gregory steele livingston back there justice 1654. he's a reverend of his word he's a clergy i surround myself around people who hold who hold tight to their word so again that's what i would like to say thank you thank you thank you shout outs are real we love it thank you all for being here did anyone else want to answer the question yes ms joseph i'm gonna even claim about you he was a student at my school do something when you get in here you're a student at ps6 and we're very proud of him for career day we we put him on the wall so the children can aspire to see that one of them is out there doing that and we're still very proud of you about you did anyone else want to answer the question okay you know you got like 10 seconds left all right okay as a as a small business owner as myself when i applied for the wnbe and i thought i was savvy and all that other stuff the paperwork is so thick the red tape is ridiculous so that's one of the things we need to work with our colleagues in government cut some of that red tape and some of the requirements are they know that's not for us as many of my colleagues have said when they designed this they weren't thinking of us and they weren't thinking of us at all so um mwbe they need to cut the paperwork and the red tape a lot thank you thank you yes go ahead uh miss morgan yes thank you thank you um rita rita said it perfectly right the red the paperwork is ridiculous and a lot of folks that do get the funding what they do they have their lawyers doing the paperwork for them they're not doing it so when we have these small businesses that's just starting out they have no idea how much time and effort it takes just to fill out the paperwork so we must cut the red tape and make it more easy and accessible to the small businesses thank you thank you mr morris so i've been working with businesses for over 35 years as their attorney and as their advocate and uh what's really critical is they have access to capital and they can keep their costs low and what i would like to see is the city again we can do a pilot project right here in flatbush as flat push goes so it goes to city but we can actually start a public banking process and really support the small merchants and one of the first steps that we can do to support a public bank is have a non-depository bank feature to our public bank and that so basically that means that we could offer the merchants of a a clearing house for credit cards so they do not have to use commercial clearing houses for their credit card um charges and because right now merchants are being charged somewhere between two to four percent for those charges and we can and we could reduce that down on a municipal non-depository bank with no cost to the taxpayers down to maybe a half a penny so this is a huge huge success and in that process exactly what the other candidates were saying as we sign up our merchants to our our muni non-depository bank for those credit card transactions we can also start instructing them in more efficient ways to conduct business thank you mr morris bars anyone else i'm sorry [Laughter] um the premise of your question yeah the premises your question spoke to the the racial disparities because you've mentioned yourself as a minority so i think it's uh this is where data is important um so a commission to to investigate um businesses that didn't receive loans or don't don't know about grants and see why because with the data we can see if there's external validity and see why they are these disparities exist sometimes it's because of the lack of resources like having a lawyer do your paperwork while like rita said just the the the red tape etc but with the data we can make a more empirical um you know empirical finding as to why this this continues to exist anyone else any last remarks all right thank you so much as a young as a young entrepreneur i have a question i would like to ask the candidates and that is as a 12 year old entrepreneur in the 6th grade do you have plans to implement financial literacy in the schools to help us learn at a young age yes yes yes yes for so many reasons yes yes josh beer so i'm really thank you so much for saying that and i don't know if you came up with that yourself or something but that's an excellent question this society this country we live in is all about finance and yet all the way from kindergarten through high school none of us learned any real finance which means that they've essentially not prepared us to survive in the system that is all around us so i there were two things that ever since i was in high school that i felt was already missing it was civic education and the other one was financial education and so yeah i'm totally with you and we're of the same mind on that miss cortez as an educator that i work not only with especially with deaf and hard of hearing students who also have uh you need to educate everyone to have um knowledge of money how that money works i think that we uh we should start a program where the students have access to open a checking account a savings account in a local bank that will help them to uh give them a concept of how to save money and how to use money because us when they get older as a teenager and start their business or they just get into they have no idea of what's happening so we must educate at that level from the beginning so that they are prepared and especially in district 40 that we have uh a lot of young people who right now are having a lot of difficulties we want to save them from the guns and the gangs and we want to prepare them for a positive future thank you so much ms joseph as an educator i would love to include financial literacy as part of the curriculum and then as part of the curriculum we partner up with a local bank where the students will then go and make deposits create accounts and learn how to save um i remember one year we were doing a project for mother's day and there's a book called money um money in a jar was about a family who lost everything in a fire and every day they saved something in a jar so we had all the students come in and save something in the jar and by the end that's how they were able to purchase a mother's day's gift so it could be the same concept curriculum as an educator i would definitely push for financial literacy curriculum across new york city ms hines as a 12 year old entrepreneur i must commend you that you have taken a leadership stance on you know educating the community on financial literacy not only just the adults in the community but the children in the community when i grew up right here in district 40 at the time that i would you know was growing up i lived in a frozen zone uh district so i was bused out to sheepshead bay to get my formal education you know my primary education one thing that they did teach us out there was banking every tuesday we had we had a bank book at roosevelt savings bank we had to put our money you know into into into the bank the teachers would take the money they would deposit it in this is something this is a practice that is taught in other areas of brooklyn but is not taught in the black and uh minority areas of brooklyn so i definitely like commend you in in your taking the leadership role for financial literacy thank you miss morgan thank you um not only financial literacy that we need to bring into the schools but we need to bring other programs in like um we used to have shop we have cooking parenting we need especially parenting because now the children are having children and they're not even ready for that on the news a few weeks ago a young girl left her baby in a grocery store so we have to bring these programs into the school and start educating our young people at an early age thank you you're welcome miss handy hillard sure um i totally agree with my colleagues around we need to really advocate for the change in curriculum in our schools it's a prerogative of the state so definitely advocating our state elected officials to make sure we change the school curriculum to include not only financial literacy but entrepreneurship i think one of the really exciting things that i've been mulling over is how do we create a community shark tank right we have community members who would want to invest in businesses and really take young people who have great ideas and infuse that cash right it's about the capital and how to start and grow that business and so partnering with brooklyn commons to see how we can create the rental space and the the incubator for you to grow and so those are the ideas with the extracurricular and discretionary funding potentially with um uh of descri what is it uh participatory budgeting that we can then get that those types of programs in so that we plug it into the schools but it extends out towards the community thank you mr raymond yeah so i'm glad that this is one of the topics that's uh unanimous and pretty much easy for everyone to say yes to um it only makes sense it makes you wonder why this why doesn't this already exist um i'll go a step further and you know go as far as mentoring young folks you know so imagine a nonprofit that brings professionals there that actually mentor young folks who who have entrepreneurship in mind or introduces them if you know if they don't already think in that in that wavelength so i thi

2021-06-02 16:40

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