By Sung Soo Kim, founder of the Small Business Congress
It took 9 years for the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (Jobs Act) to get a hearing in the City Council. Why the delay when the Jobs Act was unanimously selected at its last hearing in June 2009 as the best solution to stop the closing of small businesses by the entire Small Business Committee and had 32 sponsors? How is it possible in a progressive council to deny justice on a bill for 9 years, the only real solution, that would save the “backbone of our economy and creators of the majority of resident’s jobs? Would progressive lawmakers who pledged to promote progressive legislation if elected remain silent and complicit for 9 years to the rigging by REBNY to stop any rights to small business owners to survive?
Even with the NYC courts issuing 52,314 warrants to evict commercial businesses since 2009, and long established businesses forced to close in record numbers and empty storefronts appearing on every main street where once thriving businesses were, our progressive lawmakers did “nothing” for 9 years to save a single business or job. This fact by itself is a good reason to be skeptical of any bills suddenly created after doing nothing for so long and with a real solution bottled up in committee.
After the last hearing on the Jobs Act, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn colluded with REBNY to cook up a bogus legal roadblock to stop any vote or fair treatment of the Jobs Act. She started the rigging that allowed REBNY to hijack our democracy and the Jobs Act and was responsible for the origin of the small business crisis today. This answers the question of why self-proclaimed progressive lawmakers allowed this economic injustice and catastrophe to happen and allowed the destruction of our small businesses. Face the truth, when it comes to economic policy, democracy does not exist at City Hall, only oligarchy serving the wealthy few.
