With the 2025 NYC Mayor’s race gaining momentum, a historic coalition of greater than 35 multicultural chambers of commerce convened earlier this month on the Brooklyn Faculty Graduate Heart for Employee Training at 25 Broadway, to host a spirited mayoral discussion board on small enterprise, public security, housing, and financial inclusion.
However whereas 5 candidates answered the decision to talk instantly with New Yorkers concerning the metropolis’s future, the absence of a number of high-profile figures didn’t go unnoticed—and sparked pointed criticism from organizers, group and small enterprise leaders.
The discussion board was the primary of its form, bringing collectively a unprecedented array of enterprise leaders and chamber presidents from throughout the town’s cultural spectrum. Leaders from Hispanic, Black, Korean, Indian, Turkish, African, Jewish, Brazilian, and Dominican communities stuffed the room in a uncommon present of unity.
Spearheaded by Frank Garcia, chairman of the Nationwide Affiliation of State Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, and Bishop Ebony Kirkland, founding father of the World-Broad Chambers of Commerce, the occasion was designed to offer small enterprise house owners an opportunity to instantly query these vying to steer the town.
Photograph by Robert Pearl
PIX11’s Monica Morales, Emmy-winning journalist and host of Monica Makes It Occur, served as moderator and reminded the gang of the stakes.
“This is about real talk,” Morales mentioned. “Money matters—especially for our Black and Brown communities.”
In attendance had been 5 mayoral candidates: Curtis Sliwa, Guardian Angels founder and 2021 Republican nominee; Reverend Michael Blake, former Bronx Assemblyman and Obama White Home alum; Whitney Tilson, entrepreneur and investor; impartial candidate Jim Walden, legal professional and former federal prosecutor; and Jonas Shaende, economist and former CUNY professor.
Sliwa energized the room with firsthand accounts of his longtime assist for retailers and small companies courting again to the Seventies within the Bronx. He described how he as soon as led clean-up and crime-prevention initiatives as a McDonald’s evening supervisor and Chamber of Commerce member.
“Running a bodega is the most dangerous job in America,” Sliwa advised the gang. “And I’m the guy who will slash the red tape and eliminate the regulations strangling our small businesses—instead of taxing and fining them out of the city.”
Photograph by Robert Pearl
Blake targeted on entry to capital, immediate contract funds, and decreasing purple tape that forestalls small companies from thriving.
“I’m running because I want you to make more money,” he mentioned, pledging assist for minority- and women-owned companies and provide chain variety.
Walden drew on his authorized expertise and private story of launching a small agency from scratch. He proposed making a micro inventory change for small companies to entry capital with out going into debt.
Whitney Tilson, a lifelong entrepreneur and hedge fund supervisor, mentioned he was the one candidate within the race with enterprise expertise at each degree.
“New York is the wealthiest city in the world,” he mentioned, “but our government acts like it’s broke,” promising to run the town with fiscal self-discipline, oppose tax hikes, and produce effectivity to housing growth.
Photograph by Robert Pearl
Shaende, an economist and former professor, promised a data-driven method to decreasing small enterprise taxes and streamlining procurement and licensing techniques that are outdate and “need to bring the process into the 21st century.”
Regardless of the occasion’s broad attain and open invites, a number of distinguished candidates didn’t attend. Among the many no-shows had been Mayor Eric Adams, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, State Senator Jessica Ramos, Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
“Where’s Cuomo? Where’s Adams?” Garcia requested through the discussion board. “You want to party with us at Copacabana, but you won’t show up for small business owners? We’re not going to forget this.”
Garcia mentioned and can again candidates who interact with grassroots communities—and oppose those that ignore us.
Photograph by Robert Pearl
