Mayor Adam's call to stay home. Wrong call for the City.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Kathy Wild. She’s in charge of the New York City Partnership, represents the two hundred most important companies in New York City, and we want to get an update of what the heck is going on and what worries her and what should be done. Kathy Wild, thank you for coming on this Sunday morning on the

0:22 weekend and give us an update of what’s going on in New York. I’m also afraid of what’s going on with our budget in Aubany because last week Kathy I had Tom Dinapolion and his tax revenues were down forty percent in sales tax for the month of April. I’m trying to find out how it may is. But tell

0:47 us what you know.

0:49 Speaker 2 Well, the tax revenue situation is a big question because our government, state and city knows how to spend, but it’s questionable how we’re going to deal with the drop in revenues that’s inevitable. It’s not just sales tax, it’s real estate tax, and it’s income taxes. The impact of the loss of the state and local tax deduction has

1:17 really hurt New York in terms of keeping the highest tax payers here. So those are all big issues. In general, the city economy is doing well. The private sector economy is growing at a rate of between two and four percent a year, depending on who you talk to, So we don’t have an economic problem. Our business community is strong.

1:41 We’re still the world leaders in so many industries in finance and in design, and in real estate and in technology. So we actually, for the first time had more tech startups in New York City than in San Francisco this year.

1:58 So in lots of ways, we’re doing very well. But unfortunately, if we send the wrong message to business, that could change on a that could change very quickly.

2:13 Speaker 1 There’s you know, I’m really really concerned, but it looks like we’re swapping out our old time business people for a new, uh segment of business, maybe the technology business. Does it look like that to you.

2:33 Speaker 2 Well, that was a deliberate effort, starting back with Mayor Bloomberg, to try and diversify our economy so we weren’t so totally dependent on Wall Street and the financial industry. And that is working, and that’s a positive thing, and it’s attracting lots of young new talent to the city. It’s creating a much more entrepreneurial spirit. You know. I’ll give

2:55 you an example sc which is the company that sells online artisan goods in New York City. They have over one hundred thousand artisan workers makers who are making pottery and jewelry and all that are most of them part time, that are selling their goods through Etsy. So we’ve given new technology, has given new opportunities for people that have

3:22 an entrepreneurial spirit. That’s a good thing, and it also is a balance for where we’re having problems, which is obviously there’s a real threat to our office culture as people got spoiled working remotely and not having to not having to commute to the office five days a week.

3:40 We’re only at about sixty percent office occupancy right now in terms of how many people are in on the average workday, and that’s mostly Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It’s going in the right direction. Most employers tell me that after Labor Day this year, they’re going to be much more demanding in terms of getting people back in the office,

4:04 and they’re also offering a lot of activities and benefits to encourage people to come back to the office because they know that what you lose with this remote work is you lose teamwork and you lose professional development of young people. So we think things are going in the right direction. Not founst enough for some, but I’m confident

4:32 we are going to be remaining a vibrant office culture economy.

4:39 Speaker 1 I certainly pray. So. I love New York. You love New York. And the two critical things that I think in New York is we have to make people feel safe in our subways, in our streets. And all I’ve said to the governor is, and I love the governor, she’s a great lady. I said to her. People have

5:02 to feel confident they can whoop around safely. And that’s I think that’s the key thing.

5:08 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And it’s not just safe from crime, but it’s feeling. It’s this whole, you know, it’s the quality of life issues. Does it seem like the city is runn amock? Somebody the other day said, what bothers them most are that they are the motorized bikes and scooters that come tearing the wrong way down the street or even on the side.

5:29 Speaker 1 Oh, they don’t care. The biggest danger is getting out of a taxi or uber and trying to get to the sidewalk. They don’t care. They’ll kill you both.

5:38 Speaker 2 Ways exactly, And we haven’t taken action to force these vehicles to be licensed and to really enforce the proper behavior. So I think that there are issues of quality of life. It’s not so much being afraid of getting shot if you’re walking around Midtown in particular, killer, but it’s afraid of getting spit on or hit by a scooter or whatever.

6:05 And the mayor and governor are both focused on that issue. They’re both doing what they can. The NYPD is doing a terrific job. They’re grabbing those dirt bikes and smashing them up wherever they can. But these are all issues that make people feel personally insecure, personally unsafe, and what’s wrong with our city. These are all absolutely fixable, and

6:33 the mayor and governor are on the right tracks. We the public have to support them. We have to convince the legislators that they’ve got to take some actions on these issues and moret the position listen.

6:46 Speaker 1 November November this year of twenty twenty three, fifty one city council seats are up. We have to tell them they got to keep New Yorkers.

6:56 Speaker 2 Safe absolutely, city count sold, state legislators. Next year, we’ve got to get people out to vote. There’s an election coming up in June. We’ve got to show up and make it clear that we love our city, we care about our city, and we’re not going to let it be destroyed by people who don’t have the same commitment

7:22 to the city.

7:22 Speaker 1 Kathy Wilde, thank you for everything you do for our city, and continue to speak out for our city and we’ll catch up again real soon.

7:29 Speaker 2 Thank you. John