Special Forum: NJ Gubernatorial Candidates Talk Business, Equity & The Future

In this special edition of Greetings From the Garden State, host Mike Ham broadcasts live from NJIT for a groundbreaking gubernatorial candidate forum presented by the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council. Seven of the nine candidates vying to be New Jersey’s next governor sit down to address some of the most pressing issues facing small businesses and diverse communities across the state.

This candid and, at times, fiery conversation covers a wide range of topics including:

• The future of Governor Murphy’s economic council
• Access to capital for small and minority-owned businesses
• The rollout and regulation of New Jersey’s cannabis industry
• Diversity in procurement, hiring, and state-funded programs
• Workforce development and trade education in underserved communities
• Language access, DEI, and inclusion in state policy
• Family leave and tax burdens on small business owners
• Equity for niche, seasonal, and youth-oriented businesses
• The “364-Day Disconnect” experienced by veteran-owned businesses

Throughout the forum, candidates challenge each other, offer unique perspectives on what government should (or shouldn’t) do, and make their case for why they’re best suited to lead New Jersey into the future.

🎤 Notable Voices:

• Mayor Ras Baraka (Newark)
• Senator Jon Bramnick
• Jack Ciattarelli
• Steven Fulop
• Bill Spadea
• Sean Spiller
• Steve Sweeney
• With commentary and moderation by Elisa Charters and other members of the Diverse Business Advisory Council

🌐 Resources & Links:
Learn more about the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council and their mission to empower minority-, women-, veteran-, and LGBTQ+-owned businesses across the Garden State: diversechambers.com

Transcript

Elisa Charters [0:00 - 0:00]: Foreign. 

Mike Ham [0:22 - 0:55]: All right, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a special Radio Garden State broadcast. Let me just make sure everything is good. If you can hear me out there, most likely, Chris, just let me know. We're here at NJIT today, New Jersey Institute of Technology. We're about to have our first guest on in a matter of seconds. I'm Mike Hamm. Good morning, Alicia Charters. Welcome to the Radio Garden State special broadcast from the future for small and diverse businesses in New Jersey. Thank God. That was right on the screen as I looked up. 

Elisa Charters [0:55 - 1:00]: Yeah, well, I'm excited to be here. Thanks so much, Mike, for spending some time with me here. 

Mike Ham [1:00 - 1:09]: Absolutely. So can we talk a little bit? Let's talk about NJD back first so people understand, like, what it is, and then we'll get into the purpose of this event that we're going to be broadcasting today. 

Elisa Charters [1:09 - 1:51]: Yeah, sure. Well, the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council is an umbrella organization. And remarkably, we have probably about 20 different organizations represented, including the New Jersey Chamber of Commerc, the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, NJ BIA, Latina Surge. Our organization, it's just a lot of women's business proponents. Just an incredible group of people that have been doing this all along for the last few decades within their own organizations. And now we've all come together, working. 

Mike Ham [1:51 - 1:54]: Together, a strength in numbers, so to speak. 

Elisa Charters [1:54 - 2:08]: Yeah, absolutely. Strength in numbers. But also, you know, we all have very similar mission, and that is to improve the business environment for small business owners, micro business owners, Main street business owners in the state of New Jersey. 

Mike Ham [2:08 - 2:13]: Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about the event that we have today. Oh, my logo does look really good up there. 

Elisa Charters [2:13 - 2:14]: It looks amazing. 

Mike Ham [2:14 - 2:15]: Right? 

Elisa Charters [2:16 - 2:18]: So I also love your, you know. 

Mike Ham [2:18 - 2:22]: Thank you. I just got these. There's a whole bunch over there, so make sure you grab one. 

Elisa Charters [2:22 - 2:23]: Terrific design. 

Mike Ham [2:23 - 2:35]: Yes, thank you. Shout out to. I can't say the name of the state of the business because they. It has a. Like an expletive in the name of the business. We make cool sh. You get it? But they designed it for us. So shout out to them. 

Elisa Charters [2:35 - 2:36]: Great job. 

Mike Ham [2:36 - 2:57]: Yeah, great job to Drew and the team. Okay, so this event today, we have seven of probably like the leading candidates that are in the race for the governorship coming up in the election this November. Can we talk a little bit about the importance of an event like this, what this event is going to hopefully show and. And bring out and kind of the discussions that we're supposed to have today? 

Elisa Charters [2:57 - 3:04]: Well, I would say the importance speaks for Itself in the sense that we are over subscribed for this event. 

Speaker C [3:04 - 3:05]: Yeah. 

Elisa Charters [3:05 - 3:49]: I think there's a 420 person capacity in this theater and we are beyond that. And it clearly exemplifies that doing business, having a better business platform, again from the perspective of a small business owner, a micro business owner, a Main street business owner, is of critical importance. Small businesses are the backbone of the economy in this state. And so, and the fact that we have seven candidates here today, I think only two are not here today, speaks volumes about the importance of what this means for their campaigns. Because this is. These issues are on the minds of small business owners. 

Speaker C [3:49 - 3:49]: Yeah. 

Elisa Charters [3:49 - 3:52]: How are they going to really drive their businesses in this economy? 

Speaker C [3:52 - 3:52]: Right. 

Elisa Charters [3:53 - 3:54]: The uncertainty of this economy especially. 

Speaker C [3:54 - 3:55]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [3:55 - 4:37]: And I think like, and you and I have talked about this, you know, in different conversations and everything, like there's so much, so many things coming to New Jersey over the next year and a half. There's like a big, you know, soccer event coming here pretty soon. There's all different things happening. Like downtowns are kind of changing. There's just a lot of influx, it seems, of capital and businesses in the state. But I do think that no matter where you go, like, I mean, at least this is my personal opinion because I'm biased. But like downtowns that have the mom pop shops, like the places that have been there for forever, the, you know, like uniquely small businesses that only Jersey seems to really have, you know, it's important to make sure that, you know, they have a bite at the apple as well. And it's not just, you know, pushing the. Going for where all the most money. 

Elisa Charters [4:37 - 4:40]: Is basically, I would say bite of the tomato since we're in New Jersey. 

Mike Ham [4:41 - 4:45]: Oh man, I should have thought of that. That was a good one. 

Elisa Charters [4:45 - 4:46]: We are the Garden Cent. 

Mike Ham [4:46 - 4:47]: That's right. 

Elisa Charters [4:48 - 6:20]: But I would say absolutely, we have the, you know, FIFA 20, 26 World cup coming. It's upon us. And that's another great thing about this organization, the New Jersey D back coming together because we put together a reference guide so that small business owners know what they can do today to prepare for that event. And to your point, there's all of these different economic factors happening, but there becomes a number of gaps in between. So how do we connect and how do we take best advantage for our businesses to succeed? And I think that's what we're bringing to the table here today in terms of what their visions are to see where they can drive business and the economy inclusive of all of our businesses. You know, I Think we'll hear today a little bit about the disparity study. It's pretty, it's pretty drastic. There's not enough participation in. I think there's an $18 billion budget in the state of New Jersey and the amount of participation in those dollars is de minimis. And it really is something that needs to be addressed. And you know, in my view, and you heard it right here, right now, diversity is not a bad word. Right. There may be DEI diversity. You know, these issues have been completely politicized by both parties. 

Speaker D [6:20 - 6:21]: Sure. 

Elisa Charters [6:21 - 7:04]: And I think there's now a coming to center on this. And it's painful, actually, the back and forth. You could get whiplash on this over the last couple years. But the reality is that when you really think about small business participation, I think the goals have been let's get small businesses to really take advantage of that $18 billion opportunity. We want to see small businesses new contracts. New contracts. Let's not even use the word diverse. Let's just say new small business contracts with the state of New Jersey. We want to see that increase by 30%. It shouldn't be the same old businesses over and over monopolizing those contracts. Yeah. 

Mike Ham [7:04 - 7:35]: And I think too we talked about it also, like keep business that could go to local Jersey businesses in the state. You know, that's been a thing that I've noticed doing what I do over the last few years and like realizing like when you really start to kind of dig and see like who's putting together some of these projects or whatever, they're not necessarily from here. And like, why, like, you know, like you mentioned $18 billion. Like there's enough of that tomato to go around. So like, why not give it to the people that are here paying into basically what that budget is? 

Elisa Charters [7:35 - 7:45]: I could be mistaken, but I think it's something close to 3. 30% of those dollars go to out of state businesses currently. And that's what the disparity study. You can look at that. 

Speaker C [7:45 - 7:46]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [7:46 - 7:47]: My opinion, 30% too much. 

Elisa Charters [7:47 - 8:01]: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And what about, what about state funding dollars? You know, there's, there's grant funding dollars that, that our taxpayers are, are paying into that are going to other states. So that's something else that really needs to be addressed. 

Mike Ham [8:01 - 8:22]: Yeah, for sure. And so we have this event today, I want to make sure, because I know we're going to have Jack Cittarelli on in a couple minutes. I think we scheduled him for 11 10, but let's. Obviously you had a major part in putting this event Together. Let's make sure we thank the people that are a part of this that need to make sure that they get, you know, some. A shout out. 

Elisa Charters [8:22 - 9:01]: Absolutely. I mean, we have our whole entire leadership team of the New Jersey D Back. Jeff Kanter, Gus Penaranda, Luis de la Hos, Indy Samara. I mean, the list goes on and on. There's like 20 of us that have come together and it takes a village. And just so thrilled that we all could work together so well. And many of us are doing this on a volunteer basis. We have our small businesses. I'm a small business owner of a tech company called Juego Juegos and I'm completely immersed in that as we all are. How many hats do we all wear as small business owners? 

Mike Ham [9:01 - 9:02]: A lot. 

Elisa Charters [9:02 - 9:17]: And that's the same for this whole, whole entire, you know, NJ D back team. You know, it's, it's, it's. It's really amazing that everyone's finding the time because it means so much to all of us and we know how much impact this can have across the state. 

Mike Ham [9:17 - 9:17]: Absolutely. 

Elisa Charters [9:17 - 9:33]: I also should, should mention Michelle Sikurka and also who, who's the. The executive director of New Jersey bia and Tom Bracken, who is the President CEO of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, who just did the walk to Washington. 

Speaker C [9:33 - 9:34]: Yes. 

Elisa Charters [9:34 - 9:43]: Which is another great event that brings us all together to talk about the gaps that we need to close so that New Jersey businesses can thrive. 

Mike Ham [9:43 - 10:04]: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is great. I'll let you do it because I know you have a lot of things to do over the next 45 minutes or so, and I know Jack will be here any minute, so thank you for. Well, thank you for having me here. I'm excited to be here and just be a part of this event and be able to kind of. I know it's at capacity, which is amazing, but at least this kind of gives people a chance to listen while they're. 

Elisa Charters [10:04 - 10:07]: And I have to just give one more plug to NJIT's Capstone program. 

Mike Ham [10:07 - 10:09]: Yes. Shout out to NJIT Capstone program, where. 

Elisa Charters [10:09 - 10:23]: We met and what a great program it is, which basically brings students together to work on projects that help our businesses move forward. So shout out to Dr. El Jabiri, who runs that program. 

Mike Ham [10:23 - 10:33]: Yes. And thank you for putting our tables next to each other. That was like, I'm a big believer in the universe and I'm sure that that was done, you know, for some divine intervention type of thing. 

Speaker C [10:33 - 10:34]: So I appreciate. 

Mike Ham [10:34 - 10:45]: And yeah, this is, this is great. We're going to take a quick break. We'll wait for Jack to come up here and we'll be back here on the radio Garden State Roadshow here at the New Jersey Institute of Technology for the New Jersey small business. 

Elisa Charters [10:46 - 10:48]: The New Jersey. New Jersey D back. 

Mike Ham [10:48 - 10:49]: I should write this down. 

Elisa Charters [10:49 - 10:54]: Diverse Business Advisory Council. Yes, It's a council of all of the chambers that come together. 

Mike Ham [10:55 - 11:04]: New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council for this great gubernatorial discussion on the future of small and diverse businesses here in the state of New Jersey. I'm Mike Ham. We'll be right back. 

Speaker C [11:05 - 11:05]: All right. 

Mike Ham [11:05 - 11:12]: We're back here at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. I'm Mike Ham. We're here with the one of the candidates here, Jack Cittarelli. Jack, welcome to the show. 

Speaker E [11:12 - 11:14]: Good to be here, Mike. Thanks for the opportunity. 

Mike Ham [11:14 - 11:26]: Absolutely. So this is a really exciting event and obviously a very important event. Can we talk about why it was important for you to be here today to be a big part of this discussion? 

Speaker E [11:26 - 11:36]: I want to make clear that one of my primary goals as governor is make New Jersey a better place to do businesses, do business for businesses of all sizes, but particularly our small businesses and our minority owned businesses who are really struggling. 

Mike Ham [11:36 - 11:36]: Right. 

Speaker E [11:36 - 11:51]: They're either struggling because of the taxes in New Jersey, the regulations in New Jersey and for minority owned businesses, the procurement policies at state government. There's a lot of talk in the aftermath of disparity study that these guys are not getting their fair share. We got to fix that. 

Mike Ham [11:51 - 12:18]: Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about, I mean, the disparity study obviously was like eye opening because I do think, and you know, Elise and I have conversations, we just talked about a little bit and the amount of business that's going to, whether it's like out of state or whether it's businesses that, you know, are not getting like that bite, she said bite at the tomato, which I thought was a nice kind of connection to Jersey, but like, like why that's an issue. I mean, I think that people just kind of have even thought about that. But obviously now it's at the forefront and it's a discussion that people need. 

Speaker E [12:18 - 12:34]: To have the disparity study confirmed, what we've long known. But we also know that minority businesses struggle. They struggle with getting started. They struggle with getting access to financing and the like. And so the set asides at state government are critically important to helping those minority owned businesses get off the ground. 

Speaker C [12:34 - 12:35]: Yeah. 

Speaker E [12:35 - 12:52]: And not just survive, but thrive. And what I hear continually from these minority owned businesses, particularly ones that do business in for example, New York and New Jersey is. New York has a much better procurement process. Why don't we adopt it? Yeah, the governor could do that with an executive order. In the aftermath of disparity study, why not? 

Speaker C [12:52 - 12:53]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [12:53 - 13:22]: And we talk about too. I mean I know a little bit about your background and how you started two Main street businesses, right? I did and I think feel like that connection to what like an everyday person everyday New Jersey and kind of goes through on a day to day basis. Like this is a small business, like we're an independent Internet radio station. So like to me this also hits close to home. Can we talk about like starting a business in Jersey and having that impact on a community? I think is probably the most important thing. Right. 

Speaker E [13:22 - 14:22]: New Jersey's economy will be dynamic if we have businesses of all sizes. But the fact of the matter is if you aggregate all the employees that are employed by small businesses, it's way more than the total number of people that are employed by large businesses. Go to any Main street, go to any community. What is the backbone of that community? It's the small business owners. And so this is not only important from an economic standpoint, it's also important from a community development standpoint. And so we need to do everything we possibly can to make sure sure that small business thrives in this state. As an mba, CPA and two time business owner from a family who has all been in their own businesses. My grandparents who immigrated here had a contracting firm, was the largest independent contractor for the water company back in the 20s, 30s and 40s. My parents owned a restaurant bar. My sister's been in business for 33 years in title search. My brother just sold his business after 38 years. Auto towing and recycling. I'm a two time business owner in the publishing area employing up to 30 people at a time. We need to make this work. And I appreciate you pointing out that I've experienced it firsthand. 

Speaker C [14:22 - 14:22]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [14:22 - 15:02]: Cause I think, I mean that's really what this is all about is like you know we just talked about with Elisa events coming up, like obviously the World Cup's coming next year and there's all these big moments. Not even just big moments because obviously those are the ones that kind of are in your face the most but also just kind of like the day to day, I mean certain, like there's certain towns that I've lived in that the downtown's starting to change. You start to see kind of the small business kind of get pushed out. But then there's like a new headquarters that takes the place of those, those spots which obviously is needed because you can't, you know, say no to stuff like that. But at the same time, like you need to make, it's a, it's striking the balance of making sure that you are supporting those businesses. And that's what I think is really important. 

Speaker E [15:02 - 16:04]: Absolutely. Listen, the American dream is defined a number of different ways. Some define it as the, the best possible education they can get, the best possible job they can get. But owning your own business is still really the, the cornerstone of the American dream. And it's that kind of entrepreneurial spirit that really gives vibrancy to our local economies. So again, as governor, I'll make sure that it's as easy as possible to get that thing started, that they have access to capital and if you're a minority owned business, that you've got your access to state and local governmental contracts, there's a number of things that we can do to make that easier. When I say easier, I'm talking about process. I'm not suggesting that we should make it easier for you to run your business. You've got to do that through hard work. Yes, but the process by which, or what we call the procurement process of securing a state contract should not be as complicated as it currently is. And right now we're not even achieving the set asides. For example, there's a set aside for veteran owned businesses and we're not achieving it. And I think one reason is because it's too damn hard to qualify. And then once you qualify to get access to the state contracts, and I. 

Mike Ham [16:04 - 16:36]: Think that, you know, like, it's almost like what you're saying too. It's, I feel like the reason why organizations like the NJD back and all the different chambers are kind of a part of it. They exist to not only make it easier, but also just provide the education and the awareness that cause, you know, like, you know, I know like a small business owner, you're just like, you have your head down and you're working like every single day, like working your butt off all the time to make, make things work. Oh yeah. So you, you may not even be aware of the stuff that's, you know, the opportunities that you have to help propel you to maybe even a different strata that you didn't know was possible for yourself. 

Speaker E [16:36 - 17:14]: Mike, you are spot on. It's the reason why you are courted by the chamber to be a member of the chamber. And if you make the decision, it's the reason why you pay to the chamber. It's the Chamber's job to advocate on behalf of those small businesses that are working at delivering their product each and every day or their service. And in the aftermath of the disparity study, I think the chambers have done a magnificent job with a very, very loud voice of saying we now have proof of what's wrong and here's what needs to be done. And the frustrating part is that the current administration has done nothing to address it. There's things that Phil Murphy could do through executive order. They don't even need to be codified with legislative approval or a bill. And I just don't understand why I haven't done it yesterday. 

Mike Ham [17:14 - 17:26]: Yeah. Well, Jack, thank you so much for taking some time and chatting with me and good luck today in the discussion. I'm sure you'll do great and hope to talk to you again soon. And good luck with the election and everything. I appreciate it. 

Speaker E [17:26 - 17:27]: Thanks, Mike. Looking forward to next time. 

Mike Ham [17:27 - 17:45]: Awesome. Thank you so much. Well, that was Jack Cittarelli. This is the RADIO Garden State Roadshow. We're here at njit. We'll be right back. All right. So we are back here at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, getting close to the start of the event, but we have another one of the candidates who's here to discuss. Mayor Steve Follett from Jersey City. Mayor Steve, welcome to the show. 

Speaker D [17:45 - 17:46]: Thank you very much for having me. It's nice to be here. 

Mike Ham [17:46 - 17:48]: Absolutely. So just like, real quick. 

Speaker C [17:48 - 17:49]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [17:49 - 17:54]: We're going to talk about your stuff first, but it's, you know, I'm going to take like a couple minutes for myself. 

Speaker D [17:54 - 17:55]: Go for it. 

Mike Ham [17:55 - 18:08]: We love, we do an event at White Eagle hall every May in Jersey City. And we love it there. It's just like a great spot. We bring out Jersey bands, breweries, distilleries, food, all sorts of stuff. And just like, what a great spot. 

Speaker D [18:08 - 18:17]: And just it was a, it was a rundown basketball gym used by St. Anthony's when they won the national championship a couple times. 

Speaker C [18:17 - 18:18]: Iconic, right? 

Speaker D [18:18 - 18:33]: So Bobby Hurley was the coach, probably one of the best basketball programs in the country. A lot of NBA players went through there. And then over time it was purchased and then a huge renovation. And they've had some great shows there. 

Speaker C [18:33 - 18:34]: Great. Yeah. 

Mike Ham [18:34 - 18:35]: Really great. 

Speaker C [18:35 - 18:35]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [18:35 - 18:40]: Including Jersey Fest. So May 17th. Get your tickets radioguard estate.com jerseyfest. Now back to you. 

Speaker C [18:40 - 18:40]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [18:41 - 18:52]: So can we talk a little bit about, obviously, this is a really important discussion that we're having here today with seven of the nine candidates that are in the race for governor. Can we talk about why it was important for you personally to be here for an event like this? 

Speaker D [18:52 - 19:19]: Yeah, look, I think anytime that you're talking about the veteran community and diverse business hiring and expanding opportunities for communities that are vulnerable or don't have the same access points as others is a good conversation to have. And the fact that you get nine candidates, Democrats and Republicans at these sort of things, speaks to the fact that there's bipartisan belief that we should be doing better on this front. So here we are. 

Mike Ham [19:19 - 19:43]: Can we talk a little bit about, you know, how we were talking about with some of the other candidates and some of the people from NJD back and everything about, you know, how like Jersey City, I think, is also like a unique, you know, case study, because there is a lot of local businesses, small businesses, diverse businesses, but then obviously, like, a lot of corporations coming in and setting up headquarters and kind of striking that balance of making sure that you don't, you know, push out all the businesses that kind of, like, make it a unique place. 

Speaker D [19:43 - 20:02]: I think that the reality is that you need to be focused more on kind of small businesses. So the state and the governor should be more prioritizing kind of small businesses and entrepreneurs. So entrepreneurs on tax incentives and small businesses on, you know, grants. 

Mike Ham [20:02 - 20:02]: Right. 

Speaker D [20:02 - 20:16]: And I think too often under the Murphy administration, it focuses on large corporations moving across the river. And those aren't the best job creators, really. So I think that you need to kind of reprioritize a little bit how we think about job growth in New Jersey. And I'd hope to be able to do that. 

Mike Ham [20:16 - 20:48]: Yeah. And so as we're kind of like, looking down the road and everything, I mean, there's obviously like a lot of the. Now, I'm going to forget what the study was that just came out about, you know, how, like, percentages of grant money and all that kind of stuff going to businesses that, like, are either out of state or not, diverse businesses and things like that? I mean, obviously, like, things like that are topics that people haven't really even given a thought to. But now that it's kind of like at the public, in the public eye, yes, it obviously becomes a thing. But that issue has never gone away. 

Speaker D [20:48 - 21:12]: I mean, look, I think that Trump in the federal administration has really put a focus on whether it's a good thing that you diversify business and you give people opportunities. And sometimes what's lost on the people that criticize opportunities around diversity is that you have marginalized communities that don't have the Same opportunities, let's say I do or you do. 

Speaker C [21:12 - 21:12]: Right. 

Speaker D [21:12 - 21:36]: And we should be cognizant of that, you know, and not to say that they're not going to earn the opportunities that they have. I think they need to be competitive and all of those. But if you can help them to level the playing field a little bit, I think that's a good thing. Because diversity and opportunities bring, you know, I think many times better environments to foster more job creation and more business friendly environments, so. Well, good things. 

Speaker C [21:36 - 21:36]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [21:36 - 21:46]: And I think also just kind of like the presence of an NJD back and the different chambers and all that kind of stuff. Because obviously having opportunities is one thing, but being aware of those opportunities is a totally other. 

Speaker C [21:46 - 21:46]: Yes. 

Mike Ham [21:46 - 21:54]: You know, because obviously, like making it easier is important to access those opportunities and knowing that they exist is a whole other. 

Speaker D [21:54 - 21:57]: You should be on the panel. I feel like, I mean, you should be the one up there. 

Mike Ham [21:57 - 22:05]: But this is a small business. I'm a small business owner and these are touch points for me too. You know what I mean? So, like, I need to, I need to know what's available to me. 

Speaker C [22:05 - 22:05]: Yeah. 

Mike Ham [22:06 - 22:08]: Sometimes you don't know, you know, you don't know. 

Speaker D [22:08 - 22:12]: The reality is there are a lot of opportunities for small businesses to help them grow. 

Speaker C [22:12 - 22:13]: Right, right. 

Speaker D [22:13 - 22:31]: And most people don't know. They don't even know where to start to look. And you know, look, these organizations do a good job of connecting people to it, but there's still a lot of work to be done. And I think that this is a small step in that direction because at least it creates a spotlight on, you know, what each of us plan to do to foster more education around it. 

Mike Ham [22:31 - 22:35]: Absolutely. Well, Mayor Steve Phillip, thank you so much for giving us a couple of minutes. 

Speaker C [22:35 - 22:35]: I appreciate that. 

Mike Ham [22:35 - 22:38]: Let me get prepared for, for the discussion. 

Speaker C [22:38 - 22:38]: Thank you. 

Mike Ham [22:38 - 22:47]: And we'll be right back here on the radio Garden State Roadshow here at NJIT with the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council discussion on the future of small businesses. We'll be right back. 

Speaker C [22:47 - 22:48]: Thank you. 

Mike Ham [22:48 - 22:49]: Thank you. 

Elisa Charters [22:50 - 25:40]: For those of you in the back you want to make your way down, please take your seats. We're going to get started with this really, really great discussion with the gubernatorial candidates about the future of small and diverse businesses in New Jersey. My name is Jeff Cantor. I am the CEO of the Veterans Chamber of Commerce here in the state, great state of New Jersey. And before we start, I would just ask you to rise and say, pledge allegiance to our flag, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please take your seats. Thanks. So again, thank you all for showing up today and being a part of today's event. This is going to be a great opportunity to hear from the candidates and to ask some questions about small and diverse businesses here in New Jersey. So we represent the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council. And what that was, we realized that we were all sort of fighting our own fight. And we all formed together, all the diverse chambers in the state of New Jersey and advocacy groups to come together to speak with one voice, to help get more contracts for small businesses, small and diverse businesses. So that's who we represent on here. So I want to thank personally all the gubernatorial candidates for attending today. It means a lot. We invited all the gubernatorial candidates. Unfortunately, Mikey Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer could not be here today. But all the confirmed gubernatorial candidates did sign up and say, yes, they're in. They want to talk here. So we're grateful for your participation today. Thank you so much. At this point, all this happened because of the generosity and the fortitude of the president of NJIT, Dr. Thaek Lim. So please give me a round of applause for Dr. Lim. Good afternoon. Well, on behalf of the board of trustees of NJIT and also NJIT community, welcome. Welcome to our campus. Two of our trustees are present, Elissa Charters and Kim Verhalec over here. Wave your hand. Both alumna of NJIT as well. So let me first thank trustee Alyssa Charters for working with NJD back to bring this very, very important event here today. And of course, a special welcome to all the candidates who have agreed to participate in this forum. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. 

Speaker C [25:40 - 25:41]: Let me say a little bit about. 

Elisa Charters [25:41 - 26:38]: NJIT for those of you who don't know about njit. NJIT has a really, really unique role in higher education. You know, we are an engine of social mobility. We're also an economic driver. Do you know that our economic impact on New Jersey exceeds $2 billion annually? We're also the greatest producer of technological talent and knowledge in New Jersey. In fact, one out of three. Okay, one out of three engineers and scientists working in New Jersey today receive a degree from njit. And you know that New Jersey has the highest concentration of scientists and engineers in the country. Thank you. Thank you so much. So do you also know that we are one of three R1 highest research activity universities in New Jersey, NJIT, Princeton. 

Speaker C [26:38 - 26:40]: Rutgers, in that order. 

Elisa Charters [26:40 - 27:15]: Okay. But here's maybe what you don't know. We are the only polytechnic, public polytechnic institution in New Jersey that is also Asian American and Hispanic serving institution. So we're very diverse. Now you'll hear in a moment from Dr. Michael Johnson, president of NJII, a wholly owned subsidiary of NJIT that we call a corporation of NJIT. NJII is a storefront for corporations to engage with NJIT. So you'll hear from Dr. Michael Johnson in a moment. 

Speaker C [27:15 - 27:17]: So what I've just shared is just. 

Elisa Charters [27:17 - 28:03]: A few examples of the many, many ways NJIT spurs economic growth throughout New Jersey. And this forum is critical because this is a unique opportunity for NGIT and for all of you to hear from the gubernatorial candidate on this very important topic. Thank you again for being part of this important discussion. I hope you get to enjoy the beautiful weather outside and experience this spectacular campus. Thank you. Next is going to be Dr. Michael Johnson from the Innovation Institute. Please help me welcome Dr. Johnson. 

Speaker C [28:09 - 28:10]: It's an honor to be here today. 

Elisa Charters [28:10 - 28:12]: As we come together to celebrate and. 

Speaker C [28:12 - 28:16]: Support New Jersey's business community. At the New Jersey Innovation Institute, we. 

Elisa Charters [28:16 - 28:21]: Are committed to driving innovation and fostering economic growth by equipping businesses, big and. 

Speaker C [28:21 - 28:24]: Also small, with tools, expertise and resources. 

Elisa Charters [28:24 - 28:26]: That they need to thrive. 

Speaker C [28:26 - 28:28]: Through our programs that span artificial intelligence. 

Elisa Charters [28:28 - 28:34]: Defense, learning and development, entrepreneurship, and also healthcare, we've helped transform hundreds of small. 

Speaker C [28:34 - 28:39]: Businesses across the state, creating new opportunities and also strengthening various industries. 

Elisa Charters [28:40 - 28:42]: Most recently, we announced a partnership with. 

Speaker C [28:42 - 28:44]: The New Jersey Economic Development Authority, through. 

Elisa Charters [28:44 - 28:46]: Which we're launching the state's seventh strategic. 

Speaker C [28:46 - 28:54]: Innovation center here on campus at NJIT. And this is through an $11.6 million investment. The goal of that investment is to. 

Elisa Charters [28:54 - 28:58]: Start 10 innovative startup companies here on campus over the next four to five. 

Speaker C [28:58 - 29:04]: Years in various high technology areas. This will fuel the innovation economy in the state and beyond and also upskill. 

Elisa Charters [29:04 - 29:08]: Our workforce across the university and beyond. 

Speaker C [29:08 - 29:11]: But success, it's not just about funding or infrastructure. 

Elisa Charters [29:11 - 29:18]: It's about people. It's about entrepreneurs, the problem solvers, the risk takers, the folks who actually start the businesses that fuel our state and. 

Speaker C [29:18 - 29:24]: Enabling them to move their companies forward. Today's event, it's a testament to that spirit and NJI is proud to be. 

Elisa Charters [29:24 - 29:27]: Part of it with NJIT here on campus. 

Speaker F [29:27 - 29:28]: Thank you so much for coming out today. 

Speaker C [29:28 - 29:32]: I look forward to working together to build a more innovative New Jersey. 

Elisa Charters [29:32 - 37:21]: Thank you. Okay, so first off, we're here today to hear from the gubernatorial candidates. So you don't want to hear me talk so I'm going to ruffle through some of these slides really quickly, but again, want to thank each and every one of the gubernatorial candidates for being here today, as well as Brianna for moderating today's event. We're here partially because the state put out a disparity study last year in 2024. And the results of that disparity study were fairly negative for a lot of small businesses. And I just wanted to just point out a couple things. So this is New York State. New York State roughly spends about $3,003,003,000,000,000,000 with minority and women owned businesses. And that's consistent. They spend roughly 32% with minority and women businesses. And the interesting thing here is this down here is New Jersey, but not only is that New Jersey, that's five years of data in New Jersey. So if you took New Jersey's data, it wouldn't even show up on this chart. So clearly there's a disparity of awarding contracts to small and diverse businesses. And this is why we're here today. I want to also talk about veteran businesses. So there's a law in the books here in New Jersey that 3% of all state contracts are to be set aside for disabled veteran owned businesses. In 2021, they spent roughly $21 million with disabled veteran businesses. And in 2022 they spent roughly $54 million in the state of New Jersey. Compare that with the blue line above, that's New York State. And so, and by the way, I've been told that 2023, the data, the spends have gone down for disabled veteran businesses. But the point here is that this is a solvable problem if getting the right person to put in the right policies in place can solve these problems and get us to where we need to be. New York has about a 6% spend for disabled veteran owned businesses. We didn't even crack 1% and we're falling behind. They also spent over $1.36 billion to disabled veteran owned businesses since the law was passed. And they just hit 372 million last year. So they're over 6% spend in new York. So I bring this picture up as a, as a small business owner. This is me and my service and some of the things that we've been working on. And if I can ask the NJD back to please come up as well. So when the United States government asked me to go to Africa, to Cameroon, Africa, to vaccinate people for meningitis and set up refugee camps for the fleeing Tutsis who were being massacred, I gladly stepped up. I gladly said yes, it was not a problem at all. While I was doing that, my non veteran counterparts and the big businesses were back here in New Jersey, establishing themselves, getting contracts, building their business. In the second picture up top there, I deployed to Kosovo and helped stop the ethnic cleansing between the Serbs and the Albanians. And I was happy to do so because my country called upon me to do that. While I was there, my non veteran counterparts were here building their businesses. The large businesses were getting contracts, getting access to capital. That top right picture is me fighting with the Kurds in northern Iraq. Happy to do so, happy to go there. Unfortunately, while I was there, my non veteran counterparts were building their businesses and the big businesses were getting more and more contracts. I'm going to fast forward through this, but Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the Balkans, war torn Balkans. I've been deployed multiple times and I'm absolutely proud of my service to do so. But while I was deployed as a small business owner too, I didn't have the opportunity to work on my small businesses. So the purpose of this message though, it's not just a veteran issue. This is not a veteran issue. This is all of us issue. So all the people you see in front of you in front of the stage represent the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council and they're fighting for you. How about a round of applause for all of them? And so it's really important to note that we have different advocacy groups, we have different chambers of commerce that are up there and fighting and creating a voice. We're all speaking with one voice because we're all in this together. And why is that? Well, the reason is if you take a look at the silos that we were in before, we were all fighting our fight and we were fighting a fight saying pretty much the same things but getting nowhere with it. MBE 3.6% women owned businesses. Less than 5% disabled veteran owned businesses 0.53% LGBTQ owned businesses. We don't know because the state doesn't track it. Asian owned businesses 2.94% Hispanic owned businesses 0.51% and black owned businesses.002% of all contracts. This has to stop. This can't continue. So that's the reason why we formed this group. We're happy to stand together to fight for all small businesses. So it's my pleasure at this point to invite up our moderator, Brianna Vanozzi. And Brianna is an Emmy award winning journalist. She serves as the anchor for New Jersey Spotlight News, the newsroom of New Jersey pbs. She's worked in several capacities since joining the news division in 2012 as interim anchor and senior correspondent. After years of general assignment reporting as a multimedia journalist, Brianna began her television journalism career by cutting her teeth on New Jersey state House politics. Difficult job, by the way, for New Jersey Network News and later as a news radio correspondent at FM News 101.9, covering crime and politics in New York City. Her work has taken her to national presidential nominating conventions, Capitol Hill up and down the east coast and every corner of the Garden State. She's interviewed every New Jersey governor dating back to John Corzine, and moderated numerous political debates and forums. Her work has also earned awards from the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists and the Philadelphia Press Association. She's a Burlington county native. She's honored to be serving and covering her home state and raising her family here. Please help me welcome Brianna Venozen. And it's my pleasure now to invite our gubernatorial candidates. What we're going to do is call them up in alphabetical order, so it's just easier that way. So please help me welcome Newark Mayor Ross Baraka right in the first. Yes. Thank you, sir. Senator John Bramnick. Thank you, Senator. Assemblyman Jack Cittarelli. 

Speaker F [37:22 - 37:25]: How you doing? I'm good, brother. 

Speaker C [37:26 - 37:27]: That's what I'm doing. 

Speaker F [37:27 - 37:28]: Home cooking. 

Elisa Charters [37:29 - 38:20]: Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fullop. Thank you. Radio host Bill Spadia. NJEA President Sean Spiller. Thank you, Sean. And last but not least, Senate President Steve Sweeney. Brianna, the show is yours. 

Speaker C [38:20 - 38:20]: Thank you. 

Speaker G [38:20 - 39:06]: And thank you for that wonderful introduction. Thank you for feedback to njit. I come from a long line of engineers and scientists, so I'm very happy to be here. And you can imagine how they felt when I said I was going to go into journalism, not technology, science or engineering. We have a lot to get through today. We are going to have a portion for audience questions. So start thinking as we're discussing and we'll get started. I'd like to give each of you the opportunity for those who have not been introduced to you yet, to give a little bit about your platform. I am only going to give you about a minute or so for that. So I'm looking at each of you to time yourselves and then we'll get into some questions. So, Mayor Barocco, why don't you get us started? 

Speaker F [39:06 - 40:30]: Thank you. I'm used to that. But I mean, folks who don't know me, I am the mayor of the city that you're in, of Newark, New Jersey, the largest city in the state. I've been an educator for 23 years. Before I became the mayor of this city, it was a councilman and a deputy mayor as well. Fighting difficult and intractable issues in this state. Obviously, I think if the state has the cold, Newark has the flu. So we have been fighting these kind of issues. And things that we've done in Newark are easily replicable across the state of New Jersey. I believe that around housing, around health care, around violence, all of it around attracting businesses to the city, supporting small and mid sized businesses, helping them grow, helping them hire new residents, helping them bring their business into the downtown area. So we've been fighting these issues all along. And while we just saw the disparity study, in the past four years, Newark has spent $200 million in black, brown and women businesses alone. Specifically, we've done that because that's the direction we need to go in. We believe our economy needs to be inclusive and not exclusive. And the only way we fix New Jersey, make it affordable, is we make it more inclusive. We build our economy based on the diversity that we have, based on the people that are here. We invest in small businesses and stop trying to bring all these super businesses to our state. We can, but we should be investing in what we have here, which is small and mid sized businesses that are diverse across the state. So thank you. I appreciate that. 

Speaker G [40:30 - 40:31]: Senator Bromnick. 

Speaker H [40:32 - 41:52]: Thank you. I'm John Bramnick. I serve in the Senate. I served in the assembly for 17 years. And as a city councilman in Plainfield. What we're most proud of is I grew up in Plainfield. My dad had a small business called Lazar's. It was open for 50 years, had about 10 employees. My mom worked the back of the store, my father worked the front of the store. If you recall, there's candy and cigarettes and then office supplies in the back. They had novelties and, and being in that store and working Since I was 10 years old, you get a real sense of what small business wants. And I started my law firm with a phone in a living room. I now have 75 employees. The most important thing is really to listen. And what I would do as governor is meet with this organization and find out practically what you have to do. It's interesting to watch those numbers, but they don't really tell you a solution. The solution is the people who live it every day. What problems do that small business have? Why are we seeing those kind of numbers? You need to meet with those small business leaders every month. You need to understand where the problem is to find the solution. And I can pledge that based on my small business experience, I'll get the job done. 

Speaker G [41:53 - 41:54]: Back to Brianna. 

Speaker E [41:56 - 43:49]: Thanks, Brianna, for moderating and many thanks to this great institution for hosting. We all know New Jersey is ranked year over year over year as one of the worst places in the country to do business. In the old days, businesses would look at things like taxes and regulation. Today they not only look at taxes and regulation, they look at the labor pool and energy. And New Jersey is failing in all four areas. So my goal as the next governor of New Jersey is to make New Jersey one of the best places in the country to do business. And we do that with a pro business governor, a pro business administration policies. I believe we can accomplish those goals without screwing the consumer or doing irreparable harm to the environment. You'll often hear that small business is the backbone of New Jersey's economy, and indeed it is. But what does that mean exactly? If you add up the total number of employees that are employed by small businesses, including minority owned businesses, of course, it far exceeds the number of employees that are employed by the large businesses. And many times these small businesses are not only the backbone of our economy, they're also kind of the glue that holds our local communities together. And the Ciarelli's been here for 100 years. My grandfather was the largest independent contractor for the water company back in the 20s, 30s and 40s, achieved his American dream. My parents owned a restaurant bar. They were business owners. Check their American dream. My sister, my brother and I have all owned our own businesses. So we know what it's like on the front lines of doing business in this state, particularly as a small business and on Main Street. The data that Jeff shared with us, we didn't need the disparity study. If you look back at those dates comparing us to New York, they precede the disparity study. All you have to do is look at the difference between New Jersey and New York and you know that New York is doing something right from a procurement standpoint and from getting contracts, public contracts, to small businesses, including those owned by minorities. We just have to do what New York is doing. I'm a big believer in just looking at what other states do. If they're doing it better than us, why not just mimic them? So I hope our discussion today will get into some of the specifics on. 

Speaker C [43:49 - 43:50]: How to do that. 

Speaker G [43:50 - 43:51]: It sure will, Mayor Philip. 

Speaker D [43:55 - 45:25]: Thank you, Brianna. Thank you, Jeff. My family hasn't been here for 100 years. We've been here for a little bit less. I come from A family of immigrants, Holocaust survivors. So I know firsthand the challenges of an immigrant family trying to survive in New Jersey. My father had a deli in Newark my entire life. My mother had an immigration services business helping people get citizenship here. So I know firsthand the experience of entrepreneurs and small business owners. I've been the mayor of Jersey City for 12 years. Years. But prior to that I had the opportunity to work in finance. And prior to that I served in the United States Marine Corps on the enlisted side, deployed out to Iraq. So I certainly have a perspective as well what it's like to be a veteran and the opportunities of veterans, regards to rhetoric and actual action. As the mayor of Jersey City, we have been the state leader on nearly every single metric. We've been one of the best renaissance stories in, in the entire country and that hasn't happened by accident. And we're also recognized every single year as the single most diverse city in the entire country. So it brings a lot of experience with regards to dealing with diverse communities and how do we elevate them up and have them as part of that renaissance story. So I'm really excited for this opportunity. I'm excited for the work that the council has done to bring us this far. And I look forward to partnering hopefully as your governor to further and accomplish more entrepreneurial and business opportunities for minority communities here in New Jersey. Thank you. 

Speaker C [45:28 - 45:29]: Many of you know me. 

Speaker I [45:29 - 47:32]: I hosted the largest radio show, biggest audience, more than a million people on New Jersey, 101.5 for the past 10 years and a pretty diverse audience when it comes to politics. A third Democrat, a third independent, a third Republican, and unlike most shows, 55% female in the audience. I'm a proud New Jersey and I love this state. My wife Jodi and I lived here for several decades. We've married 30 years, two great kids and a great son in law. And I'm running for governor because I want to create the economic opportunity so our kids can come back here. I think we have a generational problem in New Jersey. You know, when I was growing up, we would have Sunday dinners with my great grandmother. We don't see that as often today because grandparents are unable to afford this state and the kids are moving out. So we've got had this separation and I'll tell you the truth, you know, I'm a small business owner myself. I started a small film company several years ago. We, we've sold successfully several films to Lifetime Network. Very exciting business opportunity and creating jobs. And you know, I also served in the United States Marine Corps also enlisted. And I agree with Mayor Folt that it does give you a unique perspective. But as a business leader working in the corporate world, managing millions of dollars and thousands of people for many, many years, the challenge in New Jersey, in my opinion, it's not about diversity. It is about opportunity. It is also about education. You know, we've got 2/3 of our kids that can't do math or read at grade level. Even worse, in many of our cities, the economic opportunity starts with a strong foundation in education. And final point, I think we need to start moving a lot of these kids away from being told that they have to go to college. We need to create job opportunities starting in seventh and eighth grade and get some more kids excited about turning a wrench, fixing an engine, driving a truck. There are incredible jobs. But it's about economic opportunity. It is about lowering our costs and creating affordability. It's about public safety and government efficiency. 

Elisa Charters [47:37 - 48:12]: Well, thank you for having me. And I'm Sean Spiller. I'm a high school science teacher and certainly proudly running for this position right now with all of my experience that I've had and life experiences that brought me to this point. I've also been a mayor and council person in the township of Montclair for 12 years. I also right now represent the New Jersey Education institute association. Over 200,000 folks throughout the state, educators, 70% female, you know, fighting for them and what we need. And certainly also I understand as a company that employs 350 employees, you know what that dynamic looks like as well. But I'm running for governor to make New Jersey more affordable. 

Speaker C [48:12 - 48:12]: Right. 

Elisa Charters [48:12 - 49:18]: Folks that I talk to in my lived experiences about how do we get housing that folks can get into, whether it's that first time home or affording that rent, it's really about how are we making sure we've got health care costs that don't keep going up by double digit increases year after year after year. It's how do we provide quality early education and childcare. I've got the 7 year old and 4 year old and that's just that 19,000 on average is a huge cost that so many families can't afford. How are we making sure we're doing all of this? But in the context also of the Trump administration. Right. Who as we're talking about how we're diversifying, as we're talking about how we're investing in women and minority owned businesses, they're doing just the opposite. They're doing exactly the opposite. Right now. We have to acknowledge that and understand what lies ahead. So for me, and specifically as it relates to our small medium sized businesses, I've got that experience in Montclair and happy the support we provided, especially through Covid. But I also know that right now we've got to eliminate a lot of that red tape that exists and we have to break systems. Systems often work exactly as they're designed. And when we look at the procurement process here, when we look at the re qualification process, when we look at how subcontracts are given out, it works exactly as it always does, which is to give those to non women and minority owned. And we've got to make changes there if we want to see the improvements that we're all talking about today. 

Speaker G [49:22 - 49:23]: Steve Sweeney. 

Speaker J [49:23 - 49:25]: I'm always last, he's always first. 

Speaker C [49:25 - 49:26]: It's not fair. 

Speaker J [49:27 - 51:22]: But my name's Steve Sweeney. I am the guy that didn't go to college. I'm a union iron worker that went through an apprenticeship program. And the birth of my daughter changed my life. I had a daughter born premature with a disability. She has down syndrome. So you can sit back and complain, you can step up and fight. And I've been fighting my whole life to make sure people with disabilities are treated with respect and dignity and provided opportunities for employment. Look, New Jersey's procurement process is screwed up. I'm proud we did the diversity study because it needed to be done to put it in the face of everyone. It's not working. So you know what you do? You blow the system up and you recreate it. I agree with, I think Jack might have said let's look around the country, see who's doing better than us. But I don't think anybody's doing worse than us. So the point is we need to fix procurement. I passed a bill with called Reverse auction for pharmaceuticals about PBMs. The state was going to extend the contract rather than do the bill that I wanted. They said the company was going to give us $60 million to extend the contract. And at the time I said to some people, they said we should take that. I said, are you kidding me? They're going to give you 60? You have any idea how much money is here? 500 million a year for five years. 2.5 billion just because we decided to take a look. So we need to fix procurement. And I'm someone that's fixed the pension system, the school funding and a whole lot of other issues. It's a lot of work and it doesn't happen overnight. But I think I'm the one that can actually fix this. 

Speaker G [51:23 - 52:36]: All right, so here's how this is going to go. Because there's a couple of you up here, we thought it best to give you all an opportunity to answer each question. But I do have some pointed ones for certain areas. So let me start off easily. I assume that everyone read the disparity study. If you didn't, we're going to quiz you on it. So we will find out very short shortly. A lot of you have talked about different experiences that you've had either in your public job, in your personal job, if elected governor, what specifically? And I'm looking for two or three items that you would do to ensure that more small and diverse business owners are getting a fair share of their contract, not competing for another 5, 10, 15 years. What we saw in the study, and to give you a starting off point, I'm thinking, you know, we are hosting the 2026 World cup where there are a number of procurement opportunities there. And so I'm not going to go alphabetical order, but for this, Mayor Brock, I'll start with you on what you would do. Two or three items. I'm coming back to you. 

Speaker F [52:39 - 53:21]: So I think, I think we need a procurement diversity officer, number one, to begin to put all this documentation and data together and begin to oversee departments, get key performance indicators from all of the departments in the state to make sure that they're in fact procuring resources from diverse communities, from small businesses that are diverse. We have to do that immediately. I think we raised the threshold. So the federal government has simplified equity acquisition process or a simplified acquisition threshold of about $250,000 for some contracts and $7 million for commercial stuff in New Jersey. We follow that a little. We have under the threshold amount we need to raise that. 

Speaker G [53:21 - 53:22]: What would you raise it to? 

Speaker F [53:22 - 53:51]: I mean, I don't want to come up with an arbitrary number. I think we need to look at what that number should be. But it should be a lot larger than what it is now because what it does is allows people to have a specialized process to bypass all the regulations, to bypass these permitting processes, to bypass all those costs and be able to get contracts immediately for higher amounts. Like so if it's just at $44,000 where it is in a lot of municipalities around the state, it's okay, but it is not competitive. 

Speaker C [53:51 - 53:51]: Right. 

Speaker F [53:51 - 55:11]: It does not allow businesses to make money in a real way. The state contracts should be advanced. I mean, the federal government during COVID move from 250 to 750,000, from 7 million to 13 million. So that number is movable. And so we need to be able to do that. We also should fund better all of these chambers. Right. So they can help organizations with back of the office paperwork, with their balance sheets, with all of those, and teaching them how to connect with state government, how to fill out those contracts. Those things are like 500,000 pages. Right. And businesses see that and they get turned off for. Right. The last thing I would say is that we have to give people capital up front. Murphy had a great idea about the public bank. I think we need to do that, continue to push that, but we need to give businesses capital. In Newark, during the last service line, we gave businesses capital up front so they could take care of their balance sheet, so they could rent and lease equipment, so they could work on the site and pay workers, because you can't get paid until after, after the job is done. And small businesses don't have the wherewithal, the capital to do that. We need to front them the capital to be able to do those jobs that we're contracting for and put in the contracts for larger businesses, that they must take a portion of that money and give it to small businesses, black, brown, veterans businesses, women businesses, straight up. 

Speaker G [55:11 - 55:12]: And down percentage that you would want. 

Speaker F [55:12 - 55:40]: To see in the contract. Not affirmative action, because it doesn't work, because they have this thing that says best effort. I mean, I don't know what the heck best effort is. People's best. My best effort ain't your best effort. Right. So at the end of the day, if we put it in a contract, then they're forced to follow that contract. That's simple. And if they don't do it, we don't. We don't pay them, we don't take them. And they'll do it because they did it in Newark, because they want the money. The return on investment is there. So we have to be very deliberate about how we handle this stuff. 

Speaker G [55:40 - 55:42]: Bill, Speedy, I'll come to you next. 

Speaker C [55:42 - 55:43]: 2. 

Speaker G [55:43 - 55:51]: Two items that you would do immediately. And do you agree that the cash flow, the access to that capital is a key issue here? 

Speaker I [55:51 - 56:34]: Well, first of all, government spending is not going to solve this problem. If you look back and yes, I did go through the disparity study, and what jumped out at me is that the numbers go back to 2015. So we're using data that is in many cases 5 to 10 years old. So that's number one. But let's take that data and say over the past 10 years, we know that the problem has gotten worse, not better. We see the slides. So the first thing I would do is I'm going to end diversity, equity and inclusion. Oh, that's smart for contracts and hiring. That's number one. And the reason it doesn't work the way that we get businesses opportunities is we need to create a better funnel for job opportunities. 

Speaker G [56:34 - 56:35]: Let him finish. 

Speaker I [56:35 - 56:43]: No, that's okay. I know this may not be the most popular thing in this crowd, but that's okay because hear me out. You're gonna love it at the end because opportunity. 

Speaker G [56:43 - 56:44]: Let him finish, please. 

Speaker C [56:44 - 56:45]: Thank you. 

Speaker I [56:45 - 57:11]: We have to create a workforce and we have to lower our costs and make it more affordable. The biggest problem is not exactly access to capital. It's the fact that businesses can't survive in the Garden State because our taxes are too high, our regulatory burden is too high. That's the problem. Government overspends in the wrong areas. So the second thing we're going to do is implement NJ Doge and get our government under control. 

Speaker F [57:11 - 57:12]: That's even smarter. 

Speaker I [57:12 - 57:13]: There you go. 

Speaker G [57:13 - 57:30]: Thank you, Mr. Spade. Mayor Philip, I'll come to you. Certainly we do hear time and time again and we rank in terms of taxes for businesses to do business here here, the sheer expense there, that's undeniable. 

Speaker D [57:30 - 57:41]: Let me just go back and say that there's a couple tangible things. I'm probably somewhere in between where Bill is and Raz is on the solution here. I think government does play an important role. 

Speaker F [57:41 - 57:42]: Don't put me in that sentence. 

Speaker D [57:42 - 1:00:06]: I think that as a starting point, education is very important. There are a lot of great programs that New Jersey does and municipalities do and the public, public isn't aware of it. So I think that New Jersey can take the lead in educating around programs. The second part is active registration of minority and veteran owned businesses. There's a lot of people that we deal with in Jersey City that are minority businesses and veteran businesses, but they're not registered. So they don't count towards the ledger at the end of the day. And I think having those conversations more deliberately will get you a better outcome. The third thing that we've changed in Jersey City, which has actually benefited, is we force all of our leadership to actually go out and make sure that they procure three bids on absolutely everything with at least one from a minority vendor with some flexibility around the minority vendor component. And what that does is, yes, the directors don't like it because over time they would say it slows down government. They're familiar with who they buy tires from or toilet paper or anything for that matter. And they have a relationship there. And when you're forcing them to get other vendors and other opportunities, it changes the conversation. But it has increased the minority spend. And then finally, look, I get it. When Phil Murphy talked about the public bank, I do not see an avenue where New Jersey will ever do that for the reason that we don't run the dmv. Well, we don't do anything particularly well when you think about the structure of government. The way that we have done that, the way that we have accomplished some of these issues in minority communities around banking is that for example, in Jersey City we keep on a day to day balance about $100 million at banks. And we saw bank of America as an example, choose not to serve and bank the south side of the city because they said it wasn't a place that they wanted to be. And we realized quickly that our hundred million dollars in deposits is of no consequence to bank of America. It doesn't mean anything because they're so large. So what we did was we pivoted our deposits to smaller community based banks that actually valued our business in exchange for them to open up and serve minority communities within Jersey City. And I think you get a better outcome from doing it that way. And it's immediate. Building a public bank is a very complicated thing. It's the reason that every state hasn't done it. Using your balances from a state like, like we did in Jersey City, you can increase the banking and service to minority businesses immediately. And I think it's a better place to go on that. 

Speaker F [1:00:06 - 1:00:08]: The bank is already set up though, by the way. 

Speaker D [1:00:08 - 1:00:11]: It's not set up. There's no public bank in New Jersey? Yes, there's no public bank in New York. 

Speaker G [1:00:11 - 1:00:24]: Jack Cittarelli, I mean you've spent time in the legislature. This is something that's come up. Where would you differ in what you've done previously or what you've stood on previously to make a real dent in this? 

Speaker E [1:00:24 - 1:01:38]: So. Well, Steve hit upon something that's often overlooked in New Jersey. Every single community bank has a requirement to give X amount of their loans to local minority owned business in the community. And that's not happening right now. So my department of Banking insurance will make sure that happens. I'll listen to the banking committee as to why they're not doing it, but I'll provide an environment in which they can and will because it's all about acquisition of the capital. The other thing I think gets lost in all this and it's one thing I talk about often. This state desperately needs a hands on CEO governor. And that means yes, we're going to talk about policies specific to property taxes, public safety, public education, the affordability crisis, over development in our suburbs. But our state government is a $50 billion enterprise with 65,000 employees and 9.5 million customers. And right now it doesn't work real well. That's not a company you would buy stock in. That's not a company you go to work for. So the first job of the Governor. Governor is we always hear the old saying, you got to make sure the trains are running on time. Our trains don't run on time, but we could use the term to apply to all the government operation in Trenton. So listen, I think of myself as a CEO Governor. The Ciarelli are that by DNA, I'm that by training an mba, cpa. I've been a two time business owner. Call me whatever you may, but I get a charge when something really operates. 

Speaker G [1:01:38 - 1:01:46]: Well, is there something specific that you could say day one, day 100, your administration would prioritize? 

Speaker E [1:01:46 - 1:02:54]: Well, specifically the business community, I would reestablish something that vanished. We're the only state in the country that doesn't have a Department of Commerce. What message does that send to the business community? That Department of Commerce is supposed to advocate for all of you the way your local chamber does and tell us what we need to do in state government. One thing I know we don't need to be told to do, we need to to fix the procurement process. We also need to fix the payment process for those that are getting state contracts. I hear from people all the time. I'm a small business, cash flow is critically important. Why is it taking so long for me to get paid? I mean these are all the different ways. And I'll give you one reason why that's the case. In treasury we have desktop systems that are on dos. Now the students here that are listening don't know what the hell we're talking about. But those who are laughing too. Charlie Baker, the governor of Massachusetts spent over $500 million over two terms to automate bring his entire state government up to speed technologically to make it a more user friendly experience for taxpayers and businesses alike. We desperately need that trend. That's what a hands on CEO governor would do. 

Speaker J [1:02:54 - 1:04:55]: Steve Sweeney, I just got to say one thing. DEI is not not the problem. Just so you know, with all due respect, and it's not a debate or form, my daughter is DEI and I'm quite Proud of what she does every day. So. But most importantly, Brianna, you know, we got a bunch of small business people here. You know, a lot of times we have barriers, like we put barriers up from businesses actually doing business with the state of New Jersey. We don't make it easy. And I'll give you an example. On construction projects, we had very few minority contractors really actually being successful with construction projects. I'm in construction. Problem is they didn't have the ability to get the bonding capacity that the state required in order to do the job. So we created a pool of funding to let small business people actually get the bond so they can do the job. Because procurement in New Jersey sucks. I'll use the term because it's antiquated. It's backwards. I agree with Jack. The systems are old. When we had a chance to reinvent this thing, you know, when we got all this federal money, they should have upgraded everything. They didn't. So you have to go in and look at procurement as nothing there works and meet with the groups. All these groups, these chamber groups, meet with small businesses. Why can't you bid? Why can't you get a contractor, at least compete and they'll tell you why. And once they tell you why, then we can fix it. But I know this system doesn't work. I told you, you. The reverse auction was a perfect example. Not small business. They're willing to just extend contracts. I've been there. I've watched it. They would rather extend a contract than add new contractors. 

Speaker G [1:04:56 - 1:05:14]: Let me ask you this, though. You created that pool so that these business owners could have the opportunity to have access to bonds. But would you agree, or do you believe that that was shared proportionately with small minority veteran LGBTQ women owned businesses? 

Speaker J [1:05:14 - 1:05:17]: No, it has to be larger. Listen, we have to do more to help. 

Speaker G [1:05:17 - 1:05:23]: And if the money's there, right, you create that pot. How do you ensure, though, that it's getting to those folks? 

Speaker J [1:05:23 - 1:07:19]: Well, Brianna, like again, a bond costs X. And if you're a small company that doesn't have the book of business, you can never get the bond and they don't have the funding for the bond. So you create the avenue where you have. You create the ability for a small business to get a bond. Realize we got to protect taxpayers too. That's what the bond does to make sure that we're getting what we're paying for. You know what I mean? But it's unfair to lock out small businesses from a process. And most of it honestly is process is you got to fill out these forms. You got to get this certification. You got to do this. I'm talking to people that do it every day and deal with it. So do away with some of the red tape, streamline some of these things, protect the investment of the tax dollars, but open the door for other businesses to come in. Listen, that disparity study, we did it. I was proud when we did it. I. I think it was Ron Rice who was pushing this, Senator Ron Rice. That should have opened everyone's eyes that the system isn't working for all. We're the most diverse state in this country. We should have the most diverse purchasing when we do things. So, look, we can do better. But I agree it's going to require a governor that wants to just be governor. No, president. Because every governor I dealt with always wanted to be president. And the problem with that is you can't get to the presidency fixing the problems in New Jersey. Take the job, do the job. Don't worry about it. We've asked the public, we're all here asking for your support. I only want to be governor. It's not because I'm 65, not because I'm older. 

Speaker G [1:07:20 - 1:07:31]: Sean Spiller, let me come to you. I mean, you served a term as mayor in Montclair, day one. What do you do? How do you prioritize? 

Elisa Charters [1:07:31 - 1:09:36]: Well, first, I also only want to be governor, and I was born in Jamaica, so I can't be president. So we're set on that one, Steve. But I think it is a lot of what we've heard in terms of some of the different pieces we've got to have the capital to invest and really proud to have served on the public bank task force that Governor Murphy set up. I think, you know, Mayor Philip, there's a way we move forward quickly with a public bank that's to find a smaller bank and to buy one. That was the quickest thing that I learned from serving on that task force. So I think there's an opportunity to invest more dollars. Folks need that. For sure. We've got to get through some of the red tape. And a lot of that does tie in with the technology, as was mentioned before. I think there's an opportunity with AI and other pieces to streamline some of that without investing all of the dollars that. That we need to kind of make those wholesale upgrades. But at the end of the day, when we're talking about businesses, we're talking about small businesses, what I don't want to get away from is the fact that this study is about women. And minority owned, veteran owned businesses. Not just how do we help things for the business community, not even just the small business community, because there are things in place right now, the subcontractor requirements that do require these bigger corporations to bring in small businesses. But guess who they're bringing in? All white male business businesses. That's who they're bringing in, right? So we've got to change the process. We've got to change how we go out and share the information. When you look at how people communicate, the opportunities right now, we've got to not go to the same places if we want to get different people who are applying. When we look at the barriers to become somebody that's pre qualified, somebody that is able to move forward with these contracts, we've got to change the process or we're going to again have barriers rather than opportunities for folks no matter how much money we put aside, right? So we've got to change the system, you know, writ large if we want to make the changes that we want to see here. So for me as governor, that's what I would do, right? I would look at those in conversation here specifically with our women and minority owned businesses and say, what are the barriers that you're facing? What are the reasons why you haven't heard about this information or these programs, whether that be through treasurer or eda? What is it that's stopping you from being able to become somebody that's a vendor ready, that's pre approved? What's stopping you from being able to compete and get the bonding? What are all the things that we're seeing as challenges? How do we break through those? And I think as governor then you surgically go after each one of those things bit by bit by bit and you change a system that is just giving us the results that we're seeing. 

Speaker G [1:09:36 - 1:09:38]: Senator Bromnick? 

Speaker H [1:09:38 - 1:10:04]: Well, I'm 72, four years, I'll be 76. It seems that that's pretty young to be president. So when I started my law firm and I was, he's out of control. Thank you. Appreciate the laugh. I'll be at the stress factory April 9th. 

Speaker G [1:10:06 - 1:10:07]: No soliciting here. 

Speaker H [1:10:08 - 1:12:11]: So very simply put, for the last 43 years in my law office or watch my dad, you don't have time in a small business business to breathe, let alone find out what contract might be available or fill out some form or go on some line and try to figure out how to get that. Now the big companies, the really big law firms, they got full time people chasing the money. So you Need a friend in Trenton who's going to help you find and chase the money. I get lost on the Internet trying to find out what might be available. So first and foremost, none of those statistics are changing unless you got a friend who's going to help you and do that for you or at least put it on a plate in front of you. I got so many problems every day in a small business, even if I do seven days a week, I can't find a government program. So number one, it ain't that complicated. You go to libido and say, okay, how can I hand this to you? So in a small business, you can compete with a big business. That's number one. Number two, you gotta have a heart. As governor, if you don't have a heart and you're not thinking and showing empathy for people who are struggling, then you shouldn't be governor. You need to have a heart. And I'll tell you another thing. Government is not too good at finding solutions down there in Trenton and send them back to you. The solutions have to come up from you to them and from a lot of different information. Not just one person who's connected to a politician in Trenton, but the people who are running those small business. You got to walk into the small business and go, did you know this is available? And if that person has time to take a break, right, and they probably don't, you really going to have to hand deliver. As simple as that. You got a question for me or can I do two of my favorite jokes? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 

Speaker G [1:12:11 - 1:12:12]: Go ahead. We'll save those. 

Speaker H [1:12:12 - 1:12:13]: Is this going to be on TV too? 

Speaker G [1:12:13 - 1:13:29]: If we have time, it will be. This is not the stress factory stage though. Let me just stay on that. Senator, I mean you've been in the legislature for quite some time. These things have come up. Your party at one point was in the power in Trench. So I mean, would you consider, and this will come to all of you taking steps to removing some of just the startup costs and fees. I mean, I was talking with a business owner just prior to coming out here who said the $250 application fee to apply to the EDA is not the issue, it's the thousands of dollars it costs me in the time it takes to put these massive applications together, to have people from my team or to make appointments with my attorney or CPA to get this together while I'm simultaneously making my business run and making sure I don't take the eye off that ball. So what would you consider in terms of removing, in terms of, you know, lower fees, more help, more programs to make these items in the public knowledge for folks and Senator, I'll just stay with you and then we're going to ping pong. 

Speaker H [1:13:29 - 1:14:26]: Well, let me first say since 2003, the Republicans have not been in power. There was a Republican governor, but legislature has been Democratic since 2003. Not that I'm not taking partial responsibility myself and Jack, we were there. But it's really simple. I'm happy. Lowering a fee that's easy, making sure you can find the application is really the key. So I just don't like that concept of these broad ideas. Well, yeah, if you get rid of these fees and that fees, I don't think it's enough. You have to go out there and aggressively help the small businesses. And you understand that a lot of small businesses are diverse. And part of that reason is that people like to be entrepreneurs. They want to run their own business, but they need to be able to compete with the big operations. And I can tell you I like small businesses, period. 

Speaker J [1:14:28 - 1:16:08]: Steve Sweeney well, again, it goes back to barriers. Honestly, it's, this isn't complicated. You know, when you talked about like I'm in construction, whenever you bid a project, it costs you thousands of dollars because you're engaging, as John whoever said it, you're engaging in attorneys. You were saying you're engaging in all these different professionals trying to get ready to get this job and then you hope you have a shot at getting it. We have to make it easier. And the way you make it easier is you start to streamline it. You put it in iron worker language is why I like to put it. You know, the application should be an ironwork language. It's very easy to understand without having all these hurdles to jump through in order to get the opportunity to get the job. We make it more complicated and more difficult than it is part of the time. A lot of the time it's like we want to make sure we're protecting the tax dollars, but we also can't create a system. There's too many small businesses. Don't even think about trying to do something with government because it's just too hard and too expensive. So you can eliminate the fees. You can do all those things. It's still unless you start streamlining the process to make it simpler, more easy to understand. I'm not saying small business people are very smart and they're hard workers. They're not afraid of it. But we shouldn't make it harder. So Peeling things back, you know, like they say, peeling back the onion to get to it, get to where you need to be. That's what you do. 

Speaker G [1:16:08 - 1:16:17]: Bill Spidy, I know you said more government spending in your mind is not the answer. So what would you look to then to ease some of this process? 

Speaker I [1:16:17 - 1:18:41]: Well, first of all, we have to. I reject the premise that the only challenge that businesses are having in small business is government work. I think what government can do and as our next governor has to do is get government out of the way. Entrepreneurs know their business better than government bureaucrats. So every once in a while, Democrats have a good idea. Josh Shapiro, Democrat governor in Pennsylvania, had a great idea. He implemented his own version of DOGE where he reduced the time for licensing, registration and reduced the fees. They've taken those government, government delays of months and sometimes years and crushed it down today. So that, number one is very important. But number two, a lot of bigger businesses compete because they have the infrastructure in place to deliver what the taxpayers need on day one. A lot of small businesses are struggling with that and have to be afforded the opportunity to expand. So number one, we have to reduce the fees, we have to reduce the licensing, the registration. All of these government hurdles that you have to go through. You know, right now, small businesses go through hell with dealing with the dep, the dca. Our government bureaucracy is out of control. What I'd like to see is your taxes come down. I'd like to see opportunity zones throughout this state where when you instead of focusing just on a diversity of business businesses, let's focus on the areas that are hurting the most. Let's get to Camden and Newark and Patterson and areas where people do need a leg up. Let's make that capital available. You know, we make money available for students to go get a four year degree that they're going to end up living on mom's couch because they don't have any skills that they come out with. Why not have an entrepreneur grant for those young kids in high school that have an aptitude, have an idea. We ought to be in encouraging entrepreneurship. So we need to get government out of the way. We need to lower taxes and regulation and we need to incentivize entrepreneurs. And that means relying on the private markets because that's where the growth is. So we need more people coming into New Jersey making more money because we grow our businesses and that will exponentially create an economy that is sustainable for all and bring that affordability down. You know, as Ronald Reagan said famously, the rising tide lifts all boats. We've got to do this for all. 

Speaker G [1:18:41 - 1:18:53]: The people in New Jersey very quickly. Something like a procurement preference. Is that something that you would get behind or could get behind? Let's say that landed on your desk where you need to give. 

Speaker I [1:18:53 - 1:19:11]: As, as I said, and I stand by this, I'm going to end diversity, equity and inclusion. We are not going to have preferences based on dei. It's going to be merit based, delivery based. But we're going to do everything in our power to get the government out of the way so that it's competitive. 

Speaker G [1:19:11 - 1:19:14]: Mayor Brock, I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. 

Speaker C [1:19:14 - 1:19:15]: Come on. 

Speaker F [1:19:16 - 1:19:17]: I sat here for a long time. 

Speaker G [1:19:17 - 1:19:21]: I know you were patient. You were patient abuse. 

Speaker F [1:19:21 - 1:19:28]: You know, I mean, I wish I would tell Elon Musk that government contracts don't work. He has a whole, a hell of a lot of government contracts making billions of dollars. 

Speaker G [1:19:28 - 1:19:29]: All right, let's keep it to New Jersey. 

Speaker C [1:19:29 - 1:19:30]: Let's keep it to New Jersey. 

Speaker F [1:19:30 - 1:19:51]: I mean, that's number one. So, I mean, the Doge guy has got government contracts. So, I mean, so number one in New Jersey, half, more than 40% of the population of this state identifies as non white or mixed, which means that if you get rid of diversity, equity, inclusion, you are cutting out almost half of the state, the state's labor force, the state's economy. 

Speaker C [1:19:51 - 1:19:52]: Yeah, it is. 

Speaker I [1:19:52 - 1:19:53]: That's not true at all. 

Speaker F [1:19:53 - 1:22:21]: Okay, well, you need to read. But the reality is this as well, I talked about earlier, having us raise our, under the threshold dollars, that we need a specialized process, that we need a specialized process for small businesses so they can access money, so they can access capital, so they can access contracts. They can do that through a specialized process. The federal government does it. We do it too. Our numbers are very low at $44,000. The state may have a different number. We need to raise that dollar amount and begin to allow businesses to access that. A specialized or simplified process cuts through all of the other procurement, all of the other regulations, all of the other issues that bigger businesses have to face. We have to change the process for small and mid sized businesses and give them a pathway through with all of this other stuff that's bogging them down and they need capital. So I know I sat with Citizens Action and some other folks and we fought for a public bank in New Jersey that was emaciated to something smaller and different, given a little bit of money. But we have to get behind that. It's not a public facing. It's not a public facing Bank. It's not a commercial bank, it's an investment bank. A bank where people put their money like cities and, and counties and state puts money and other investment firms can put money in. And their chief job is to invest in communities that are underrepresented, that are economically distressed, that give people loans to buy houses, to start businesses up to expand their businesses, to give them access to capital that they don't have. Everybody knows that they are local development or financial organizations that pay or help organizations and business businesses compete. But they don't have enough money, they don't have enough capital to go around. Even if you get all the banks to do their cra, they're not doing it. It's not happening. The government has to take that process over. They have to take it over and begin to invest in these communities deliberately and intentionally. That's the only way you're going to fix it. You need a procurement officer in the State House that oversees all of our spending to make sure it's diverse. You have to do that. Somebody has to be responsible forum that we sit down and talk to weekly and they make reports about how we are spending our dollars, who we are giving it to. And all these folks in this audience need to be a part of that through their chambers of commerce. They already have the organizations. We don't have to invent anything. Give them the money to help them find the organizations. They already come to these people anyway. 

Speaker G [1:22:21 - 1:22:31]: Jack Cittarelli, talk to me about what you would strengthen, expand, do away with in terms of some of the items that have been brought up here. 

Speaker E [1:22:31 - 1:23:06]: I mean you'll hear everybody up here at one time or another say that they're open to increasing the set aside of state contracts for minority owned businesses. I'm open to that. But quite frankly we're not meeting the set aside right now. The set aside for veterans, for example, veteran owned businesses not being met that says, and it's not because there's not veteran owned businesses in the state, it's because there's something terribly wrong with the process. If we had a modern day state of the art technology system, I think that all government departments and agencies that go out for an rfq, an RFP for contracts they're going to do can make it all available. So you can see it all in one page where you can go and find out all the things that you. 

Speaker F [1:23:06 - 1:23:07]: Can possibly bid on. 

Speaker E [1:23:07 - 1:24:10]: But again, this comes back to the procurement process to make it easier for these firms to get access to these state contracts. Listen, since there is a set Aside, that is saying that if you're a non minority owned business, you're not disadvantaged. If we waive the fee that you have to pay to apply at the EDA or anywhere else, I don't think minority owned businesses have to pay that fee. There's a set aside. So it's not like we're disadvantaging non minority owned businesses. And listen across the board. I think we just need to change the business climate in New Jersey. I support making the first hundred thousand dollars of business income tax free. I support making the first hundred thousand dollars of payroll exempt from employer payroll tax. Again, these are for small businesses. I support making the gain on the sale of a family owned business, small business tax free. If anyone in the audience started a business, a pizzeria, 25 years ago for 25 grand and you've worked your butt off for 25 years and today you can sell it for $500,000 at that closing, you have to cut a check for the state of New Jersey for 50 grand. I think that's criminal. 

Speaker C [1:24:10 - 1:24:11]: I think that's. 

Speaker E [1:24:12 - 1:24:33]: You want to see entrepreneurship take off in this state, you want to see our minority owned businesses do better? Let's do things that New York does. And then for every small business let's put in some really significant reforms that I believe are fiscally responsible but would change the perception of New Jersey overnight in terms of us being more business friendly, particularly for small business and especially for minority owned businesses. 

Speaker G [1:24:33 - 1:24:51]: Mayor PHILIP Obviously Jersey City in recent years has gone through pretty big economic revitalization. There's also been criticism that not everyone has shared in that piece of the pie. So as governor, what would you look to? Slash, expand, extend? 

Speaker C [1:24:51 - 1:24:52]: Yeah. 

Speaker D [1:24:53 - 1:27:38]: First let me say I agree with some of the points that Jack made around entrepreneurs and taxes and encouraging that environment. I also agree with some of the points that were said earlier around waiving $200 or $250 isn't going to change the outcome of somebody applying. Throughout this campaign I consistently talk about what I believe is the importance of municipal or mayoral experience for the next governor. We often talk about the fact that there are 500 plus municipalities here, more schools and school districts, lots of layers of government here and understanding how that works solves a lot of the problems. If you don't believe me, ask yourself. For the last 20 years, I mean Phil Murphy came from being an ambassador, didn't have experience on local government. Chris Christie came from the U.S. attorney, no experience. John Corzine, U.S. senate no experience on the local government. I'M telling you that a lot of people on the mayoral front don't want to do the disparity or Croson study because they don't like the outcome that it'll show. They know mayors know that it's not going to show data that is good. It's going to show that you're at 2% or 4%. So people are reluctant to do that. The outcome, in order for it to improve, you need to have a governor that understands the carrot and the stick and how to move mayors on municipal government to do what you want them to do. Ultimately, that's reward and ultimately punishment if you're not complying. That is the way that works in a way to move somebody in a way that you think is beneficial for the outcome of the state. If mayors are doing the Croson study and they are doing proper procurement for multiple vendors, if that is the mission of the governor that you elect, that is part of this process, then the dollar should flow from Trenton to those municipalities. For those that are complying today, that doesn't exist. There is no benefit if you do it, and there's no repercussions if you don't. And for that reason, you have a lot of people that don't do that. If a governor came in and told you this is a priority, we need to correct this, and my administration is going to drive at this, I promise you, and I know it as a mayor, and Sean and Raz would tell you the same thing as mayors, that the outcome on municipal government, they will act because Trenton controls a lot of their outcomes. You don't need to destroy or recreate the whole process, all that stuff. You need to have a governor that's driving at that and understands how municipal government works and what trigger points will make a mayor move in the way you want. It's the same thing with affordable housing. It's the same thing with desegregation of schools. It's the same thing on all of those issues. It's the carrot in the stick approach driving at an agenda. 

Speaker G [1:27:38 - 1:27:40]: Sean Spiller. 

Speaker C [1:27:40 - 1:27:41]: Yeah. 

Elisa Charters [1:27:43 - 1:29:57]: Look, I agree with the mayor in this sense. Right. I think it's important to, as governor, lay out what your priorities are, and certainly this being one of them, and share that. I'll disagree a little bit, though. I think that when you talk about a lot of those other pieces, housing, when you talk about, you know, the requirements that you're trying to meet at the municipal level, you know, yeah, you can put the carrot stick there. That can be something that's in effect. But we've all talked a lot about the fact that when we're trying to diversify here, make sure we've got women, minority owned, veteran owned businesses that can compete. We do have to make sure that we're eliminating a lot of the red tape and barriers, whether that be fees or a long process, some of that driven by the fact that these various entities are not staffed up the way they should. To get you a timely response. We have to look at the fact that there are the big companies that are using AI and so many other technologies to put in those grant applications or to fight for those dollars that small business, minority, women owned businesses do not have that opportunity to do so. As governor, I would invest in that to say we're going to be part. Government does have a role to play. We can look at some of these newer technologies, bring you in as part of that, so you can take advantage of it on a smaller scale and then be able to compete with some of the others. But I think we have to look at it at the foundational level. Right. I remember looking at it as an organization, right. N.J. we were looking at our hiring practices and we said, hey, why is it that our staffing is not as diverse and reflective of the population we want to see? And when we bore down and looked at all the different levels, we said, wow, it starts all the way back with the questions that we ask on an application. It goes to what we do in the interview process, it goes to the supports we have when we bring someone in. It's the same thing in government here, right? When we're talking about, hey, you can compete for these. If you even hear about these different grant opportunities, what are the questions we're asking, what are the things that we're waiting more heavily? And often what we'll see is they do not help support minority and women owned businesses. And the folks that know how to answer them, the folks that get the points for filling them out the way they do are majority larger corporations for sure, or certainly, you know, predominantly white male owned businesses. We've got to change that fundamental structure if we want you to have an opportunity to, yes, get rid of the red tape, get rid of the fees, get rid of the challenges that all our businesses face. But specifically for minority and women owned businesses, let's be very focused on the fact that there are additional barriers that we have to look at and correct rather than just saying we're opening more up, because if we just open more up, we're going to get the same numbers that we keep seeing the vast majority of all these dollars keep going to the same people. And it's not you. 

Speaker G [1:29:59 - 1:30:14]: Senator Bromnick, Governor Murphy, he recently formed an economic council. It's chaired by the njeda, his economic advisor. Part one question. Would you keep the economic council? 

Speaker H [1:30:14 - 1:30:26]: Sure, Governor, I'll keep it. Council. I don't know what they're talking about. If I go to a meeting and they say stuff that makes sense and it's real people who have real businesses, I'm in, but I don't. 

Speaker G [1:30:26 - 1:30:30]: What would be. What would you like their focus to be? 

Speaker H [1:30:30 - 1:32:02]: Well, somebody once said when they worried about America, it said, don't bet against America because you can go in your garage and start your business. Well, starting that business, getting harder and harder. When my dad started his business, there weren't 5 million regulations and laws that people wrote when they came up with an idea in the middle of the night. So first, make it easy for people to start their business. And if you do something wrong, get government from off your back, okay? Because people are scared about the ramifications of government coming in and punishing you. And I have to tell you, if you know every one of these regulations, you're definitely a lawyer. Because if you're starting these businesses, it's almost impossible. We had one bill on the Florida legislature that if you asked a prospective employee what they made in their prior job, that's $1,000 penalty. You know, you start your business, you're hiring people, and now you ask that question and so what do you make now that's a thousand dollar penalty. I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me. So first I really want to know from the people who are suffering, not getting any help from government, why not? And then make sure we're reaching out to them. You have to have people down there who are going to get a feeling for the real problem. Then you go out and solve the problem. Council. Yeah, we got a lot of council down there, a lot of meetings, all that kind of stuff. I want to hear from the person who's got the small business and how we can make your life easier. That's what I want to do. 

Speaker G [1:32:02 - 1:32:04]: Go ahead, Mayor. I see you chomping. 

Speaker F [1:32:04 - 1:32:08]: No, no. You know, I like to hear Grammy talk, actually. 

Speaker G [1:32:11 - 1:32:14]: I believe last time I was with you both, you said you were going to be on a slate together. 

Elisa Charters [1:32:15 - 1:32:16]: But let me just add a point. 

Speaker F [1:32:17 - 1:32:17]: The same on you, though. 

Elisa Charters [1:32:18 - 1:32:23]: When I talk about. Though we've got to change systems. You know, I think the senator brings up a good Point and understand it. 

Speaker C [1:32:23 - 1:32:23]: Right. 

Elisa Charters [1:32:23 - 1:32:48]: You hear that, that example, right. You hear the example of, oh, we're asking how much make. And you know that you get hit with a fine and it's challenge. But we have to also understand we're talking about disparity here. And the reason that law exists also is because if you're a woman or a minority and you're going in for that job, oftentimes you're making less than your white male counterpart. And if somebody's able to ask you how much you make, then they're able to pay you less as opposed to just paying what you should deserve. 

Speaker H [1:32:48 - 1:32:50]: Yeah, that's fine for a big business. 

Elisa Charters [1:32:50 - 1:32:58]: But it's not good for somebody just starting like this. This is. If we don't change the structures, we end up with what we keep ending up with. We've got to make those changes. 

Speaker F [1:32:58 - 1:33:00]: Brianna, didn't you ask me to answer the question? 

Speaker G [1:33:01 - 1:33:04]: Let me come to Jack Chittarelli and then I'll come over to you. 

Speaker F [1:33:04 - 1:33:06]: Ask me and then, you know, okay, I got it. 

Speaker J [1:33:06 - 1:33:07]: I'm always last. 

Speaker G [1:33:07 - 1:33:13]: Yeah, sorry I had you first. This other round, you just forget because there's so many. 

Speaker J [1:33:13 - 1:33:14]: I forgot. 

Speaker F [1:33:14 - 1:33:15]: I got you those things. 

Speaker E [1:33:15 - 1:33:42]: If Jack Cher was governor, we wouldn't need the economic council because we have a Department of Commerce whose responsibility it is to work in partnership with the executive branch to put together a plan for what's going to serve our economy and all of its businesses, medium, large, small and minority owned businesses. Well, so I like that there is an economic council in the absence of a Department of Commerce. But come January 2026, there will be a Department of Commerce and we will have a plan on how to grow our economy. 

Speaker G [1:33:43 - 1:33:55]: Let me ask you this. This. This current council doesn't have any representation from veterans, and it doesn't have any representation from LGBTQ members of the community. A problem in your mind and would you shift that? 

Speaker E [1:33:55 - 1:34:39]: Absolutely. I mean, it's no different than when Phil Murphy talked all about the social justice we were going to achieve with the legalization of cannabis and left African Americans off many of the boards. This is what this administration does. It doesn't dot the I's, it doesn't cross the t's, it doesn't think through what we're doing and why to achieve a purpose. And listen, I'm all about the disparity study, but you get to a certain point where you want to stop with the bitch session. Can we start talking about what we need to do to address the disparity study findings? Instead of talking still about the findings, this administration has done nothing. There are things it can do today by executive order, to fix some of the things identified in disparity study, which we had long known before the disparity study. 

Speaker F [1:34:39 - 1:37:43]: Well, first, you know, the disparity study has to be done legally. It has to be done because people don't believe discrimination exists. They don't believe they're lying eyes. They don't believe that discrimination exists. So we are forced to create these disparity studies. Right? Start in Virginia with Douglas Wilder, who was the first African. One of. One of the first African American governors that we've had. Douglas. Douglas Wilder was the first person to do a disparity study in the state of Virginia so that they can begin to provide equity and procurement in dollars. Prudential did a disparity study, something like a disparity study in Newark just around procurement, around the businesses in this community and the city of Newark that showed that we were only spending about 3% of our dollars in the businesses here, which is why we raised our procurement dollars. This is why I can say that we invested this much money, and I have to thank Prudential and our businesses for that. Being smart about creating this organization that Murphy created, it's a public, private organization. I wouldn't put the DEA in charge of it, though. I would put a business in charge of it. In Newark, we have the Newark alliance that's made up of small businesses, EDs and MEDs, the hospitals, the educational institutions, developers, people as big as Prudential as Blue Cross, Blue Shield, all sit on the Newark alliance board that do what? They help us reduce homelessness. They give us money and help us reduce violence and push for violence prevention in our community. They're helping us bring organizations together so we can begin investing in what we call the Arts and Education District. This organization is important because government and the private sector have ability to have conversation about how to develop the city, how to make the environment more economically friendly, not just for big business, but for small business as well, and solve some of the social issues that exist in our community. At the same time, it is an opportunity to do that. And I think that what Governor Murphy did is right and we should be continuing to do that. But I would take the EDA from the top of it and put a business in charge of it. And obviously, you have to have a diverse group of people in there. Lg, LGBTQ folks have to be in there. Educational institutions have to be in there. Veterans, everybody should be represented in that. Right? Because diversity Is important. Can I say that it's important because he get to say that DEI is not important. Diversity is important. Equity is important. Inclusion is important. I have to say that, you know, there's a brotherhood and sleep with car porters and men. There's a union that was created by black people who were serving on trains, feeding people and making sure they were okay. They were called porters and maids, started by a guy named A. Philip Randolph. Most of those people in those jobs were doctors and lawyers and all kinds of other things that they went to school for that they had education and merit but could not get the job in their field. And the jobs that were available to them were porters on trains. So we paid a price a lot long time ago to be in any of these rooms where the doors that are open. 

Speaker G [1:37:44 - 1:37:52]: Steve Sweeney, remember, we're talking about the council, whether you would keep it, how you would diversify and whether you see that as an issue. 

Speaker J [1:37:52 - 1:39:27]: Listen, I would keep it, obviously, but unfortunately they miss some communities that have to be included. I would have BIA in the chamber, leading, to be honest with you, I know Tom was pushing it after a long time because they're already there. You know what I mean? This is what they do and they should get together. And honestly, not that I don't want to go to the meetings, but sometimes you get in the way when you go, let them get together, come up with a blueprint, come back and let's see what we can and can't do. Look, my reputation has always been that I'm brutally honest and very direct. And I'm proud of that because I don't believe in lying to people. You know, people come up to you and ask you a question and you know what they want you to say. I won't do it. So one, it was a good idea to create the panel, really was. But we have groups in the state of New Jersey right now that should chair it. And they should be coming with us with reports and not just to give us a report, but actually something that we actually can accomplish. You know what I mean? Because these organizations do make up. We got the Veterans Chamber, they're all here. We should put the leadership of all the chambers in the meeting because when we do that, we're going to hear the issues from each. So, yeah, I think that it was a great start. We shouldn't have to do it, in all honesty, but we're at a point and a place in New Jersey where we have to do it. 

Speaker G [1:39:27 - 1:39:33]: Bill Spadia, the council Good idea, bad Idea. And how do you see the representation or lack thereof? 

Speaker I [1:39:33 - 1:39:55]: So I'll start with the blunt answer so they can get the groans out of the way. Council's gone. We don't need another study. We don't need another council. We don't need more talk. We need action. You know, it's interesting to me that to everyone up here, all of my opponents have all served in government, yet they're all up here telling you what they will do. My question to all of them is, well, what have you done? 

Speaker F [1:39:55 - 1:39:57]: $200 million in black lives. 

Speaker I [1:39:57 - 1:40:10]: Because if you look at Newark alone. Let's talk about Newark. Mayor. How about the water Crisis? How about 9 out of 10 children in this city cannot read or do math at grade level? We have an education crisis in Newark. 

Speaker G [1:40:10 - 1:40:13]: We're going to save that for the debates, which will. 

Speaker I [1:40:13 - 1:40:18]: Bunch of politicians up here telling you what they will do. I say you judge them on what they have done. What they have done is nothing. 

Speaker F [1:40:18 - 1:40:20]: Can I tell you that's not true? 

Speaker C [1:40:20 - 1:40:24]: We did a lot. Wait, wait, wait, wait. We did a lot. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 

Speaker G [1:40:24 - 1:40:27]: The question is about the council, whether you would keep it. 

Speaker I [1:40:27 - 1:41:48]: Yeah, well, everyone else had their time to talk, and I'm going to. I have been addressed directly, so I'm just going to explain. Number one, the council is gone because we don't need to have more meetings. We don't need to have more studies. If we are going to have any diversity in this state. What we need to do is look at the areas that are economically depressed. We have to look at Newark. We have to look at Camden, Trenton. What government ought to be doing is facilitating opportunity where people are hurting. And that starts with education. That starts with access to capital. That starts with deregulation. But we cannot judge people based on the color of their skin. We cannot judge people on anything other than the merit of your ability and the company you can put together. And the one thing that government can do is get out of the way. We need to create an opportunity where you have more applicants than you have jobs available. We don't have that now. We have a crisis of employment. We have shortages in nursing. We have shortages in law enforcement. We have crises in infrastructure. So when we end the sanctuary state and when we go, we end dei, we're going to get this back on track to say, what does government have to deliver for the people of New Jersey? And can we empower small businesses through lower taxes, deregulation and economic opportunity to get the job done? As governor, you will see that I will be very colorblind. It is about delivery for the people. 

Speaker G [1:41:48 - 1:41:52]: Of New Jersey Council. Is there something like a Department of Commerce that you envision? 

Speaker I [1:41:52 - 1:42:21]: We don't need more government. No Department of Commerce. That is an absurd statement that we need a Department of Commerce. Guys. Government doesn't create the opportunity you do. Government has to get out of the way so that you can do what you do best and start that business. But you can't do it in New Jersey because the taxes are too high, the regulations are too onerous. We have too high. Our insurance costs are too high, our cost of food is too high. Our crumbling infrastructure, energy costs. Look at your electric bill. That's government debt. 

Speaker G [1:42:22 - 1:42:31]: How do you then. Mr. Speedy. How do you then ensure that there's a pipeline of communication between your government and without that type of. 

Speaker I [1:42:31 - 1:43:07]: Came up at the New Jersey Chamber event. Came up at an NJBIA event. We have to have business leaders and local stakeholders in the government. We've got a tremendous opportunity to hire thousands of people to bring them into our government. And the way it's been running for 30 years, it's all political patronage. Why don't we ask the professional politicians how diverse their hires are when it comes to their political donors? Because that's who has these jobs. As governor, we're going to open up to everyone in New Jersey and bring the business stakeholders into government so we get a mindset change in this state. 

Speaker G [1:43:07 - 1:43:11]: Mayor Philip. We're not going to talk about political donors because that's a can of worms that none of you want to open right now. 

Speaker C [1:43:11 - 1:43:15]: Mayor Phillips, what was the question? 

Speaker G [1:43:17 - 1:43:34]: Thanks. Thanks for coming back to us. I know it takes a bit an economic council. Do you support that type of idea? And the current one that Governor Murphy has put in place is lacking representation when it comes to veterans and when it comes to members of the LGBTQ community. 

Speaker D [1:43:34 - 1:44:13]: Look, I know the right answer that people want to hear is, yes, of course I'm going to keep it. The honest answer is I haven't read the minutes. I don't think any of us up here have. I haven't seen what they've done. And it's hard for me to tell you that that specific structure is the right structure. I think having input from the business community is important. I think we agree upon that. I couldn't sit up here and tell you that that is the best structure and I will keep it because I don't think any of us have read the minutes. I think that's pretty clear up here. So I don't Know is the answer. I think we're here because we're going to facilitate a better business environment. I am all for that. I don't know whether that's the right structure. 

Speaker C [1:44:13 - 1:44:13]: The right. 

Speaker D [1:44:13 - 1:44:23]: It was clearly just put in place. It wasn't in place for a long time. How did we operate without it? Why was it in place? What are they doing? I think there's a lot of questions before I could just tell you, good or bad. 

Speaker G [1:44:23 - 1:44:27]: So do you see a place for government involvement there? 

Speaker D [1:44:27 - 1:44:29]: Government involvement in. 

Speaker G [1:44:29 - 1:44:38]: In terms of being a hub for this type of. For the resources, for procurement information for. 

Speaker D [1:44:38 - 1:44:38]: Yes. 

Speaker G [1:44:38 - 1:44:39]: Okay. 

Speaker C [1:44:39 - 1:44:39]: Yes. 

Speaker G [1:44:39 - 1:44:40]: All right. We're going to. 

Speaker H [1:44:40 - 1:45:05]: Senator, you have, you know, decades ago there was this governor who was very popular and his number one book was the Politics of Inclusion. And back then that wasn't a dirty word. And it was something that 30 or 40 years ago people respected and I continue to respect it. Just want to make that clear that that was one popular governor. Tom Kaine, Sr. 

Speaker G [1:45:06 - 1:45:30]: Thank you. We have to move on to audience questions because I know that there are a number of folks. If you do have questions, we have a microphone on this side, a microphone on this side. If you could just give us your name and your question and we don't have time for background and all of that, but we want to get to as many as you can and direct your question to the candidate or if it's to multiple candidates. 

Speaker C [1:45:31 - 1:45:34]: Sure. Thank you. My name is Beth Conway. Jack, you did mention it. 

Speaker G [1:45:34 - 1:45:36]: Brief, lean into the microphone. 

Speaker C [1:45:36 - 1:45:37]: Sure. 

Elisa Charters [1:45:37 - 1:45:38]: My name is Beth. 

Speaker C [1:45:38 - 1:45:41]: I'm going to direct my question to Jack. 

Elisa Charters [1:45:41 - 1:45:43]: Because you mentioned this earlier, I'm curious. 

Speaker C [1:45:43 - 1:45:49]: What your thoughts on are how you can support New Jersey, Jersey's billion dollar cannabis industry. 

Speaker E [1:45:50 - 1:47:13]: The voters approved it to be completely transparent. Back when it was on the ballot, I was in favor of decriminalization. I don't think anybody should get a prison record because they have a small amount in their possession and intent to distribute as a crime. But it's here now. It was approved by the voters. A great many people have invested significant monies with their own money because they can't get it from banks because the federal government still considers it being illegal substance. That's part of the challenge that Murphy has not addressed. I don't think a state bank is the answer, but there definitely needs to be a financing mechanism. It hasn't achieved any social justice. African American community in particular has had very little involvement in this supposedly growth industry. But a lot of people put a lot of money on the line and so my job as governor since the voters approved it, to my dismay. What I do think is interesting is that Africa, after it was approved by nearly 70% of the people who voted that year, two thirds of New Jersey towns passed a local ordinance that said no dispensary in my town. So that's one of the other challenges that we're going to have to do. But this industry is here. And as governor, like any industry, I've got to do everything I possibly can to make sure that it prospers because people put a whole lot of money on the line. But I will tell you that the rollout has been terrible because this administration doesn't dot the I's, doesn't cross the T's, and doesn't look into the details. And that's the difference between a politician and a hands on CEO. 

Speaker G [1:47:13 - 1:47:17]: Going thank you question here and to whom you're directing it to. 

Speaker C [1:47:17 - 1:47:19]: Great. Thank you everyone for joining. 

Speaker E [1:47:19 - 1:47:20]: My name is Che Patel from the. 

Speaker C [1:47:20 - 1:47:29]: New Jersey Subcontractor Association. I'm the current president. The construction industry is facing a skilled labor shortage. How will your administration support workforce training. 

Elisa Charters [1:47:30 - 1:47:36]: Apprenticeships, trade programs to get a strong pipeline of skilled workers, particularly from underrepresented communities? 

Speaker G [1:47:37 - 1:47:40]: Is that directed to someone specifically Everyone? 

Speaker C [1:47:40 - 1:47:40]: Yeah. 

Speaker J [1:47:40 - 1:49:26]: Well, I kind of have a little bit of advantage in this because it's what I do for a living. We have to increase apprenticeships, you know what I mean? And we have to get into urban areas where there are young people that want to have opportunities, but that don't get given the opportunities because of driver's license or a whole host of different issues. So we just, we have a huge shortage. I can tell you right now. We used to get 1,000 people come out and apply for an application to be an iron worker, a union iron worker. We're getting a couple hundred now, you know, so working with the schools, because one of the biggest issues I have is schools steer kids away from apprenticeship. They've done it forever. It's about test scores because they want to show that all their kids went to college, right? All these kids are going to college. So they rank real high. Well, what happens is how many of those kids that went to college graduated. And I can tell you the percentage is low. So changing education to incentivize and advance young people, that might do best in a plumber, electrician, whatever it may be. That's what we have to do with education. We have to have the education department of Education, however you want to do it, make it okay to want to be an Iron worker. You know what I mean? Let us come into the school. I remember we couldn't come into schools to pitch at one time. They wouldn't let us into schools because the guidance counselors did not want kids doing anything but going to college. It helped them, and it didn't help the kids. 

Speaker C [1:49:26 - 1:49:28]: Can I say something quickly? 

Speaker G [1:49:28 - 1:49:29]: Very quickly? 

Speaker C [1:49:29 - 1:49:30]: Yeah. 

Speaker F [1:49:30 - 1:49:58]: We have a program where we actually have apprenticeships in the school now. So you have folks that are going in high school doing carpentry today and finishing in the summertime, and some of them are working actually in the city on some of these buildings that are being developed because they go through that pipeline in the city of Newark. I think we need to partner with the community colleges to begin to identify areas where there's labor shortages and begin to invest in the workforce to go into communities that are underrepresented. 

Elisa Charters [1:49:58 - 1:49:59]: Right. 

Speaker F [1:49:59 - 1:50:17]: Because the idea is not that there's a shortage of labor, it's really a shortage of investment. And because we refuse to go in communities that are underrepresented or more diverse, we have to go into these communities and pull people out and begin to put them in pipelines into fields that we know there are shortages at. 

Speaker C [1:50:17 - 1:50:17]: Right. 

Speaker F [1:50:17 - 1:50:21]: And use the community colleges to help us get those numbers up. 

Speaker C [1:50:21 - 1:50:22]: Yeah. 

Speaker D [1:50:22 - 1:51:42]: I just want to say we have a similar program in Jersey City with Hudson County Community College and placement within carpentry and training starting in high school. What I just wanted to expand on is that over the next four or five years, pretty much the most important issue we talk about, affordability in housing, is really going to be around education. The amount of job displacement with artificial intelligence, that's next five years is going to destroy or really disrupt the economy locally, statewide, and nationally. If you think about it and take a step back, don't. Donald Trump's success both in 2016 and last year was predicated on Middle America's anger around NAFTA, around displacement of jobs 20 years ago that they felt went to Canada and Mexico, and that anger still existed 20 years later. The amount of disruption that will happen in artificial intelligence and people don't know is exponentially more than that. And if you're not thinking about it from a government standpoint, how you're going to train people that are young and encourage them to be part of a place that won't be disrupted. Like Bill said, working with your hands is an important part of this. And thinking about other types of jobs, you're totally missing the boat. So I think your question is spot on. And I think that we don't talk enough about the importance of rethinking education because of what technology is going to be doing to us. 

Speaker G [1:51:42 - 1:51:45]: Thank you. For the sake of time, I want to get to as many of these questions as we can. 

Speaker C [1:51:45 - 1:51:46]: So. 

Speaker G [1:51:46 - 1:51:47]: So we'll come over on this side. 

Elisa Charters [1:51:48 - 1:51:55]: Good afternoon. My name is Tara Williams Harrington and I own a small business that work with children. We learn, build and play with LEGO bricks. 

Speaker C [1:51:55 - 1:52:03]: My question is around taxing and taxing a small employer. My background is in employee benefits. 

Elisa Charters [1:52:03 - 1:52:07]: One of my biggest issues is with the family. 

Speaker F [1:52:08 - 1:52:11]: Family leave in the sense that we. 

Speaker C [1:52:12 - 1:52:17]: The small business is paying the same as the large corporations are and taxes for our small. 

Elisa Charters [1:52:17 - 1:52:28]: For our employees who need to take leave. One of the biggest issues with leave and the reason why we need it is because the short term disability plan in New Jersey has an eight day waiting period. 

Speaker C [1:52:28 - 1:52:30]: If you eliminate the eight day waiting. 

Elisa Charters [1:52:30 - 1:52:40]: Period, right, Then you won't need as much. The employees can have what they need to take off. And my question is, what do you think about that? Do you think that needs to be. 

Speaker C [1:52:40 - 1:52:44]: Changed or at least change the number. 

Elisa Charters [1:52:44 - 1:52:48]: Of employees that you have and reduce that for small businesses or at least. 

Speaker F [1:52:48 - 1:52:49]: Reduce the amount that we pay? 

Elisa Charters [1:52:49 - 1:52:51]: Because that's really ridiculous. 

Speaker C [1:52:51 - 1:52:52]: My other thing around taxes has to. 

Elisa Charters [1:52:52 - 1:52:55]: Do with the W30 report in the. 

Speaker C [1:52:55 - 1:52:56]: Sense that as a small business we. 

Speaker F [1:52:56 - 1:52:59]: Have five, six, seven, eight, nine employees. Right. 

Speaker C [1:52:59 - 1:53:06]: If we miss sending it in, defined as what, $10 but the penalty is $500. 

Elisa Charters [1:53:06 - 1:53:08]: What sense does that make for a small business? 

Speaker C [1:53:08 - 1:53:10]: Can you do something about that? 

Speaker G [1:53:10 - 1:53:15]: Is there a specific candidate you want to direct the question to? Okay, so if anyone wants to weigh in and we'll try to. 

Speaker J [1:53:15 - 1:54:37]: I'd like to talk about paid family leave because it was my bill. Yeah, I was proud of it. We made it 12 weeks. I thought we eliminated the waiting week or they were going to. If not, they were focusing on eliminating it and what like look, I left a couple years ago. Not that I was planning, but I left. But there is discussions now in the legislature about lowering the number like of number of employees. You know, it was at 30 at first because we wanted to make sure that we weren't hurting businesses and they were working, you know, so there's discussion right now and there's bills right now to reduce the number of employees. I mean that you have to have in order to get paid family leave. But I gotta tell you, it's one of the greatest things that I was ever involved with. And it came out of the birth of my daughter. She was in the neonatal unit for 75 days, deal with that and have to go to work every day you want to be home. It could be work. It's like anything else legislation. And for my fellow legislators, we think we do it really well and you walk away from it. Well, every now and then you got to go back and look at it to make sure it's working the way it was intended to work. 

Speaker I [1:54:37 - 1:55:19]: Eliminate the waiting. Eliminate the waiting. The reason that they have the waiting is because there's such a sense that there'll be fraud. And I think that's part of the challenge. I think we have to, to start trusting our employees and trusting our small businesses and say, let's get rid of that waiting period. But the general concept overall is we've got to lower your taxes. We need to get to a point where we can start to fund our government in a better way to continue to raise the cost of doing business. I mean, our corporate business taxes are north of 11% and we've got our neighbors that have it at 4%. So we have a company competition crisis in this state that comes right down on you. Because where we lose a big business, small business picks up the slack. 

Speaker H [1:55:19 - 1:56:15]: It's not fairly. The rest of us are politicians. And bottom line is that means we actually have to do something. Sometimes it's not perfect, but let's go to the small business. Thank you. The reason I like two party government, could you get compromised on bills like that? Sometimes in one party government, whether it be Republicans or Democrats, somebody has an idea and nobody wants to push back on that idea or compromise. When you have two parties, sometimes you end up in the middle on the issue, which I think is normally where most people are. And that's why on your issue, that's why we need compromise to make sure small business not caught up in the big business that had all the lawyers and extra employees they can put in during somebody on leave. So that's. I think you raised a really good issue. 

Speaker G [1:56:15 - 1:56:16]: Thank you. 

Speaker C [1:56:16 - 1:56:30]: Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Lorena Loyola. I represent the Voice radio network in New Jersey. The question that I had is would. 

Elisa Charters [1:56:30 - 1:56:34]: You implement more controls against illegal business. 

Speaker C [1:56:34 - 1:56:46]: And operations that are creating. Sorry. That are creating a huge impact to the small businesses? 

Speaker G [1:56:46 - 1:56:47]: More controls on illegal. 

Speaker C [1:56:48 - 1:56:59]: Yeah. Would you implement more controls against illegal business and operations that are creating a huge impact to the small businesses? 

Speaker G [1:56:59 - 1:57:02]: Thank you, Mayor. You want to take that one? 

Speaker C [1:57:02 - 1:57:03]: Sure. 

Speaker F [1:57:03 - 1:58:06]: I mean, as mayors, we have to do this like every week. You know, we have to send code enforcement and UCC and other agencies out to. Because what happens is you have people that are opening up business, and it's not fair. If you went through all the processes, did everything you were supposed to do and another person is doing, especially in, you know, the cannabis business, there are people who opened up and went through that whole long, drawn out process, paid all this money. Then you got people that are next to them set up who are doing things around that and think they could do the same thing. So those businesses need to be regulated, shut down, so that people can respect and honor the process. Right. But part of that is also because the process is too onerous. Right. It's too difficult, it's too much. You have to make it easier, more accessible. Take the regulation, the amount of money it costs to open up and start your business. We have to reduce those to make it easier for people to do it the right way. Right. There are people who have done it the right way, who have some patient capital, not a lot, who sat on that money to open their business. So we need to protect them by closing other businesses down and doing it wrong. Absolutely. 

Speaker G [1:58:06 - 1:58:07]: Thank you. 

Speaker C [1:58:07 - 1:58:08]: Thank you. 

Elisa Charters [1:58:09 - 1:58:13]: Kevin Villalva Dynamics Multilingual language access has. 

Speaker C [1:58:13 - 1:58:36]: Become a major topic of discussion recently. Many New Jersey residents with limited English proficiency struggle to get access for essential services like health care, education, legal aid. So what are your plans to improve language access across state agencies? And would you support legislation requiring all state departments to provide multilingual resources? 

Speaker G [1:58:36 - 1:58:38]: Is there a specific candidate you'd like to. 

Speaker C [1:58:38 - 1:58:39]: General question. 

Speaker J [1:58:41 - 1:58:50]: I absolutely think you have to make it more available by expanding the language barrier, you know, knocking down the language barrier. So, yeah, I would. Absolutely. 

Speaker C [1:58:50 - 1:58:51]: Yeah, I agree. 

Elisa Charters [1:58:51 - 1:58:59]: Look, I mean, I think it's more important even now when we see what's happening at the federal level, that we allow folks to have access to information, and we know that that's going to affect, you know, outcomes. 

Speaker C [1:58:59 - 1:59:00]: Right. 

Elisa Charters [1:59:00 - 1:59:06]: We want folks to be able to utilize services, to be able to get the care they need, whatever that might be. So that's important. 

Speaker F [1:59:06 - 1:59:09]: Can I read something just for Bill's answer? 

Speaker G [1:59:09 - 1:59:12]: It's gonna go down the line a liar before. 

Speaker F [1:59:12 - 1:59:31]: This is the AI generated thing. It says New Jersey, the population is 51.9% white with 12.4%. It goes through all of this stuff, the multiracial thing, but it also says that 48% of the population identifies itself as non white or mixed race. 

Speaker C [1:59:31 - 1:59:33]: And that's our latest census data did show. 

Speaker G [1:59:34 - 1:59:36]: Census data is population. 

Speaker F [1:59:36 - 2:00:19]: Right. So I just wanted to make it clear. And it goes to the question that he asked and these people are not even reading what's happening. How do the governor, state even know who's in it? But at the end of the day, it goes to what the point clearly is that we have to provide access to people all across government, and access to folks and language should not be a barrier. So we need to make sure that most of the things that we do are multilingual. We work hard in Newark and we still miss the boat. To translate everything right, to make sure it's in Portuguese, to make sure it's in Spanish, to make sure it's in Creole. We have to do that. We even do that for our state of the city, and we're still missing the boat. So that has to be done. So I 100,000% agree with this question. 

Speaker G [2:00:19 - 2:00:20]: Go ahead. 

Speaker I [2:00:20 - 2:00:24]: First of all, let me just say, Ross, I hope you are the nominee of the Democratic Party. 

Speaker F [2:00:24 - 2:00:26]: I hope you're a nominee as well. 

Speaker C [2:00:31 - 2:00:33]: Now you're in a safe space. 

Speaker H [2:00:33 - 2:00:35]: Now I'm safe. 

Speaker C [2:00:35 - 2:00:36]: Well, by God. 

Speaker I [2:00:38 - 2:00:45]: I hosted the show on Fox TV for seven years and 70% of my audience black and Hispanic. 

Speaker C [2:00:45 - 2:00:46]: 7 0. 

Speaker I [2:00:46 - 2:00:58]: So what's interesting to me is I would like to know what. But, you know, accessibility to government services is one thing, but I'd like to know what the burden is once we eliminate the sanctuary state. 

Speaker C [2:00:58 - 2:00:59]: On day one, I'm going to repeal. 

Speaker I [2:00:59 - 2:01:12]: The 2018 Sanctuary State executive order. I'm going to rescind the 2019 Immigrant Trust Directive. So we're going to take the state in another direction. We have more than 900,000 people who are here illegally. 

Speaker G [2:01:12 - 2:01:15]: Let me ask you the question about the language, the language he's asking. 

Speaker I [2:01:16 - 2:01:33]: But I'm saying the reason that it is a crisis today is in part because we have so many languages that need to be accommodated because we have nearly a million people here who are here illegally. So I would say, I would table that to see where we are after we rescind the sanctuary. 

Speaker H [2:01:35 - 2:01:43]: This is kind of why. This is kind of why you want Carmel. Because there were a couple of bills in the legislature recently that wanted every document. 

Speaker C [2:01:43 - 2:01:44]: I don't remember. 

Speaker H [2:01:44 - 2:02:21]: It was 20 or 25 languages, and it was whittled down to a limited number of languages. When you do this kind of work, you just have to make sure that you don't go overboard. And now you're going to have to accommodate every possible language in the state can get pretty expensive in terms of interpreters, in terms of paperwork. So I think a reasonable process with languages that are mostly used second languages, that makes sense. But once you go to the 13th or 15th most popular language, you've got expensive problem. 

Speaker G [2:02:21 - 2:02:26]: All right, let's move on because we only have a few minutes, about 15 minutes to go here. 

Speaker C [2:02:26 - 2:02:26]: Your question. 

Speaker J [2:02:27 - 2:02:39]: Good afternoon. Thank you all for joining. My name is Francisco Cortez. I'm the president of the Veterans Chamber of Commerce, proud U.S. army veteran, proud Latino, born in the island of Puerto Rico. 

Speaker C [2:02:39 - 2:02:43]: My question is, have you heard of the 364 day disconnect? 

Speaker J [2:02:44 - 2:02:49]: My abuelita always told me to be real and authentic. And so here I go. 

Speaker C [2:02:49 - 2:02:57]: I just made that up. So I was right. I was hoping none of you said, I heard of it. So I'm going to vote for one of you guys. 

Speaker J [2:02:58 - 2:03:05]: The 364 day disconnect is the following. You get into office and you email Jeff and I once a year on. 

Speaker C [2:03:05 - 2:03:08]: Veterans Day and you're like, hey, what can you do for me? 

Speaker J [2:03:08 - 2:03:16]: The other 364 days, you forget about us, right? My question is the following. 

Speaker C [2:03:16 - 2:03:26]: And I want to do a speed dating round, each one of you, because I'm going to work with one of you guys. We got funding in 2023. We haven't got funding since from the state of of New Jersey. 

Speaker J [2:03:27 - 2:03:28]: 5 seconds each. 

Speaker C [2:03:28 - 2:03:32]: How would you talk to us the other 364 days that you're in office? 

Speaker G [2:03:32 - 2:03:36]: Simply, very quickly, Steve Sweeney, why don't. 

Speaker J [2:03:36 - 2:03:43]: You start how we talk. We sit down, we get together, we go over the issues that you have. It's not hard talk. 

Speaker C [2:03:43 - 2:03:44]: I like that. Agreed. 

Elisa Charters [2:03:44 - 2:03:53]: That's my style, right? Always bring folks together, talk about the issues, see what we can get. Everybody who's a decision maker in the room at the same time, talk about what we need to get done and solve it together. 

Speaker C [2:03:53 - 2:03:54]: Okay. 

Speaker I [2:03:54 - 2:04:00]: We're going to have veterans in the administration and no veteran should be homeless or without a job if they want one. 

Speaker J [2:04:00 - 2:04:01]: Thank you, Steve. 

Speaker C [2:04:01 - 2:04:02]: Okay. 

Speaker D [2:04:02 - 2:04:25]: I would tell you my track record. We expanded the veteran office in Jersey City exponentially. I have a track record around homelessness, mental health advocacy, putting money into it. I would be the same. I am a veteran. I served in Iraq. I was deployed. I'm enlisted side. I know what it feels like. I know the struggles. It is close to my heart. It is something I've leaned into for my entire career. And I would be the same as the governor. 

Speaker C [2:04:25 - 2:04:26]: Thank you. 

Speaker E [2:04:26 - 2:04:45]: My army captain son, deployed, was deployed two days ago to the Middle East. And so identify with what all our military personnel do for our country. No administration has ignored or disrespected Veterans more than this administration. And I will allocate money to the local VFWs because they're the ones closest to the veterans in terms of getting them their benefits. 

Speaker J [2:04:45 - 2:04:47]: And the Veterans Chamber of Commerce and the chamber. 

Speaker C [2:04:48 - 2:04:49]: Thank you. 

Speaker H [2:04:50 - 2:05:09]: We need to renew with young people in the schools how important our veterans are and how important our military are and why they sit there and they can be free. And we need to do that in the schools and treat and make sure that every young person knows why we're America. 

Speaker F [2:05:10 - 2:05:50]: Mayor BARACK we need to fund the chambers. That has to happen. We can fund all these chambers because we need them, not simply because we think it's the socially correct thing to do. We need them to help us connect with businesses in our community. That's number one. Number two, we need to have the large organization, the council that people are saying they don't want to do or they want to do. We need that if you opportunity to have regular discussions with the business community and has to be diverse enough to reach down into veterans, lgbtq, small businesses, mid sized businesses, huge corporations heads and meds need a huge council so we can discuss these issues monthly. That's what should happen. 

Speaker G [2:05:50 - 2:05:51]: Next question. 

Speaker C [2:05:51 - 2:05:56]: Thank you. Hi, this one is for Raz. My name is Shanice Fish and I'm. 

Elisa Charters [2:05:56 - 2:05:58]: The owner of Taste of the Caribbean. 

Speaker C [2:05:58 - 2:06:12]: Coming from Bradford Street. Taste of the Caribbean, Chenise Fish coming to Fort Bradford Street. So my issue is with access to capital and procurement. 

Elisa Charters [2:06:12 - 2:06:23]: I am facing those issues right now. Access to capital. I was on Linden and Hauser before I was approved for a loan. It didn't come through. 

Speaker C [2:06:23 - 2:06:25]: When I went to Bradford street, the. 

Elisa Charters [2:06:25 - 2:06:26]: Bank withdrew the loan. 

Speaker C [2:06:27 - 2:06:31]: So I want to ask you what could you do for us on Bradford? 

Elisa Charters [2:06:31 - 2:06:35]: Because I'm speaking on behalf of four other women in the same building on. 

Speaker C [2:06:35 - 2:06:38]: Bradford having to navigate these issues right now. 

Speaker F [2:06:38 - 2:07:45]: So one, I think you should be communicating with investors to be able to help you get dollars that you need to expand and do whatever it is that you're trying to do there. But ultimately that's why it's important because these CDFIs are not able to fund organizations the way we need them to. The CRA and events that these folks keep talking about are not giving us the money the way we need them to. This is why Murphy's idea of this public bank is important to us, right? That it's an investment bank, not a bank. You go in and write checks and all this other. It's not a commercial bank. It's an investment bank that targets you, your businesses, people like you in those businesses for incubation dollars, for sustainability, all the things that you need that are crushing you in this economic environment. You need to have money to invest in those businesses or capital to pay up front. And that's what an investment bank would do. A public investment bank would do that. And that's why it needs to be created. Invest north is not an investment bank, but it has the ability to give loans to businesses like you, which is why I'm telling you you should go talk. 

Speaker G [2:07:45 - 2:07:47]: Steve Sweeney wanted an opportunity to respond to them. 

Speaker J [2:07:48 - 2:07:51]: Banks are supposed to invest in certain areas. 

Speaker F [2:07:51 - 2:07:52]: Yeah, they don't. 

Speaker J [2:07:52 - 2:08:18]: If they don't, then we shouldn't be allowed to deposit money in those banks. Right. Why put money in banks when they're not completing their mission? See, that's what I'm. I think you should have the banking insurance, checking these guys out, making sure they're doing their job. And you know something, send a notice. After all, governments don't do business with this bank until they live up to their responsibility. 

Speaker G [2:08:19 - 2:08:21]: Thank you. Next question. 

Speaker C [2:08:21 - 2:08:23]: Hi. Thank you for coming. My name is Nash. 

Elisa Charters [2:08:23 - 2:08:25]: I'm an architecture student here at njit. 

Speaker C [2:08:25 - 2:08:26]: And in the face of challenges coming. 

Elisa Charters [2:08:26 - 2:08:28]: From the federal government in the name. 

Speaker C [2:08:28 - 2:08:31]: Of tariffs and hopefully not mass deportations, things like that, what can be done. 

Elisa Charters [2:08:31 - 2:08:36]: On the state level to promote the construction industry and make sure that it's equitable and fair? 

Speaker G [2:08:37 - 2:08:45]: Question is, what can be done at the state level to promote the construction industry to make sure it's equitable and fair, given what's happening at the federal government. 

Speaker C [2:08:45 - 2:08:45]: Exactly. 

Speaker G [2:08:46 - 2:08:48]: Anyone want to take that one? 

Speaker E [2:08:48 - 2:09:41]: I think what's happened with too many of our state agencies under Phil Murphy is they become police, states and collection agencies instead of partners. For example, one thing that's not good for for construction, just with a family owned manufacturing business out in Herndon county recently, they're doing an expansion and they have 40 employees. And this DCA is requiring them to put in two electrical vehicle charging stations. Each one costs $35,000, which is adding to the cost of the construction. And that employer doesn't have a single employee. Those policies don't make sense to me. There's a family operation is trying to expand. It's good for the construction industry, but they've kind of got their foot on the brake because of some of these state regulations that in my mind are not realistic. So we got to take a look at everything. And that's what you get with a pro business governor and a pro business administration, making the state less taxed and Less regulatory intensive. 

Speaker G [2:09:42 - 2:09:43]: Let me come to Sean Spiller first. 

Elisa Charters [2:09:43 - 2:09:46]: You asked the question of how do we make sure we're diverse here? 

Mike Ham [2:09:46 - 2:09:46]: Right. 

Elisa Charters [2:09:46 - 2:09:56]: By making sure everyone has opportunity. That was the question. And specifically, specifically when we talk about apprentice programs that exist as mayor, have seen it where you bring someone in, they've got a program, but it's not as diverse as we want to see. 

Speaker C [2:09:56 - 2:09:56]: Right. 

Elisa Charters [2:09:56 - 2:10:09]: So we've got to work with the labor organizations to say, hey, you guys are standing up these programs. Let's make sure they're truly diverse. Let's make sure we're going into communities where folks want to have some of these opportunities. So we've got to focus on that because we know nationally right now they're working on climate very quickly. 

Speaker G [2:10:09 - 2:10:14]: And then we have time for just one more question. Senator Bramack, did you want to respond. 

Speaker H [2:10:14 - 2:10:24]: Or you were asking about diversity. You were asking. I was mixed up talking about tariffs. You're talking about the federal government, and then you're talking about a construction industry here. 

Speaker C [2:10:25 - 2:10:27]: Yeah, just making sure the industry on. 

Elisa Charters [2:10:27 - 2:10:30]: The state level is being equitable in the face of challenges coming from the federal government. 

Speaker H [2:10:31 - 2:10:34]: Well, to be honest with you, we're. 

Speaker C [2:10:34 - 2:10:36]: One of us can be governor. 

Speaker H [2:10:36 - 2:10:59]: You got to work with the federal government, but you also have to stand up for New Jersey and New Jersey's values. And if our values is making sure that our industries are diverse, that's what we're going to do. And you do it because you follow the law in New Jersey and not necessarily the law of the federal government to try to dismantle any type of inclusion. That's how I would do it. 

Speaker C [2:10:59 - 2:11:01]: I would stand up in New Jersey. 

Speaker G [2:11:01 - 2:11:10]: We have time for one more question, and then I encourage you all to speak with the candidates if they're able to stay. Go ahead. 

Elisa Charters [2:11:11 - 2:12:37]: Hi, my name is Sunny Lingala. I'm a small business owner, the owner of Sunny's skateboard lessons, and also the camper experience coordinator for Ocres day camp. So I'm more so speaking on behalf of pretty much the hundreds of kids that we have under our business who are looking for parks, different locations to practice skateboarding safely, but don't really have any access to, to really even learning how to use the facilities we have available by the parks. So we have massive parks with massive ramps that kids are going to fall off of and literally break their backs, but no way to actually teach them how to use these facilities. So I pretty much started the program where we teach kids how to utilize, you know, the skateboard, how to how to pretty much ride safely. But we don't have access to actually using parks. We're not allowed to even teach kids there. So even in half the year we don't have access to facilities because. Cause it's too cold. I've been trying to raise funds for maybe even an indoor facility, teach kids, but there hasn't really been much success. It's not really a. It's a pretty niche business, so it's not really taken seriously by a lot of grants as well too. So the main question I'm asking is pretty much like what can we do to help pretty much struggling business owners who don't have any support family wise or even financially or pretty much even by the government essentially as well too to pretty much help actual audiences that are needed. I don't know if you guys have kids, but the kids nowadays, if you talk to them, half of what they say is gibberish. So you know, my background's in psychology. So we're really all about teaching kids how to regain focus, how to go back outside, not relying their screens for, you know, dopamine hits every few seconds. 

Speaker G [2:12:37 - 2:12:48]: Your question is how can they make it more equitable for niche businesses that don't necessarily have the access to opportunities that quote unquote, small businesses have? 

Elisa Charters [2:12:48 - 2:12:58]: Yeah, yeah. Basically the requirements small businesses would even require to survive for even half the year if they're seasonal, especially that are providing a lot of value. What can they do to survive? 

Speaker G [2:12:59 - 2:13:01]: Does anybody want to tackle that one? 

Elisa Charters [2:13:01 - 2:13:27]: I'll just say this as mayor, really proud of the skate park that we're able to put into Montclair, but it's an example of how government can help. Right. I know there's folks saying, hey, government's got to step out of everything. But at the local level, by coming in and providing space and location and then some of the equipment and other pieces that are needed, you allow the small business to be able to come in there and utilize that, of course the kids as well, to in your example. Right. Offer the instruction needed or whatever else. That's a huge advantage. Helped by government. 

Speaker C [2:13:28 - 2:13:28]: Right. 

Elisa Charters [2:13:28 - 2:13:46]: To help you then support your business and the model you're trying to work through. So I think there's a role at every level of government to always do that. It begins with conversation as to need that happened at the local level, but it's at all levels of government to making sure we're providing supports that are there. So. So that a business like yours can take advantage of it and be successful. 

Speaker G [2:13:46 - 2:13:51]: That's going to wrap our forum today. I want to thank each and every one of. 

Speaker C [2:13:55 - 2:13:57]: You. Thank you. 

Speaker J [2:14:04 - 2:14:05]: All right. 

Mike Ham [2:14:05 - 2:15:09]: Well, that wraps up the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council's discussion with the seven of the nine gubernatorial candidates right now on the future of small businesses and diverse businesses in the state of New Jersey. Thanks everyone that tuned in here to radiogardenstate.com tune in, Alexa, device, Odyssey, wherever you listen. We appreciate it. Keep it tuned in all night. Got a great run of shows for the rest of the evening here on Radio Garden State where we keep New Jersey loud. Thank you. And I will be back on the air Monday. We got WFKU tonight. We got tomorrow morning show with great lineup of shows for Thursday night. We will be live, me and Papa Reese and Jim with the Jersey Devils broadcast tomorrow night from the Prudential Center 5:30 to 7. So make sure you tune in then listen to us live here on Radio Garden State. So thank you everybody. If you want to learn more about the New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory council, head to diversechambers.com and check it out. Thank you and we'll catch you later.