TESTIMONY
Testimony by Randy Peers, President and CEO of Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, on Small Business Support
1:50:53
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136 sec
Randy Peers, representing the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, provides testimony on the chamber's role in supporting small businesses in Brooklyn. He highlights the chamber's extensive reach and diverse services. Additional details include:
- The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce serves as the leading voice for 62,000 small businesses in the borough.
- The chamber has specialists in every neighborhood across all five boroughs, speaking 14 different languages.
- They have received funding to support MWE certification efforts.
Randy Peers
1:50:53
Well, thank you, Chair Fuiz and the Small Business Committee members.
1:50:56
Appreciate you having me here today.
1:50:58
I'm Randy Pierce, President and CEO of Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
1:51:01
I do wanna say, Mister Chairman, your your comprehensive questionnaire, the commissioner gave me all this other stuff to talk about.
1:51:07
So I'm gonna get through my testimony quickly, which you have written anyway.
1:51:11
Me.
1:51:11
Chamber is Brooklyn Chamber Commerce is the leading voice for the small business community in Brooklyn, 62,000 businesses in total in Brooklyn.
1:51:20
One of the programs that came up a couple of times, including from Council member Krishnan, was a small business resource network.
1:51:27
Of which both administration as well as city council have a part to play in that.
1:51:31
It's one of the COVID error programs that can continue if we receive restored funding, Meredith is gonna speak about it more directly, but the bottom line is there's it's called the fiber or chamber alliance in the council side, 500,000, which, of course, were asking for a restoration.
1:51:49
And then the 1,500,000 one shot included in the SBS budget for fiscal 24, which will help you to expand the SBR and maintain the SBRN in underserved commercial quarters throughout the borough.
1:52:02
Once again, Maryland is gonna talk a little bit about that a little bit further.
1:52:06
But you you raised a good point about the state So when we talk about the retail efforts, retail mitigation efforts, tax credits are at the top of the list in terms of the government's proposals.
1:52:17
Right?
1:52:18
So if we offer tax credits for retail theft mitigation, like we installed security cameras, but no small business knows about it, you've now got you've got a tax credit that nobody can use.
1:52:29
Right?
1:52:29
But the small business resource network because it's a it's a case management and outreach model where we deploy resource specialists in every neighborhood, in every community through all five chambers, so it's not just the Brooklyn chamber.
1:52:43
Is a mechanism.
1:52:43
We speak 14 different languages.
1:52:45
It's a mechanism, for example.
1:52:46
This is a one example of how we can get more resources as in the hands of businesses because we have the teams on the ground.
1:52:53
So that was a a very good observation there.
1:52:57
Oh, that's it.
1:52:58
Chamber on the go, restore, and we have a speaker ass 150,000, specifically to support MWE.
1:53:08
Certification efforts.
