Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel celebrated his first 100 days in office on Tuesday, and got mixed reviews from various sources. According to the small business community, his tenure gets a pretty good grade.
The Mayor’s “Promote innovation and entrepreneurship” initiative - stemming from a grant from NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg - promotes faster permit processing, which aims to reduce the paperwork and administrative work for small businesses. Hey, anything that makes the process run more smoothly is an improvement.
Also in Mayor Emanuel’s first 100 days: the creation of the Office of New Americans. According to the mayor's office, one in every five Chicagoans is an immigrant. According to city data, immigrants are 50% more likely to start small businesses.
“Over the last 100 days, Mr. Emanuel has put important building blocks in place for business growth. Like all Chicagoland entrepreneurs, I hope once the budget situation is stable Mr. Emanuel can direct more resources to business policies that encourage growth and help more Chicagoans start and build businesses,” says Michael Alter, of SurePayroll. While this is one opinion, as president and CEO of the Glenview-based small business payroll company, Alter has a sense of the pulse of the small biz community.
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What do you think of Mayor Emanuel's contribution to Chicago's small business community?
Read more here in Crain’s.
