Jackson urges Small Business Committee to pass bill by Daniel P. Bader Council Member Robert Jackson, lead sponsor of the Small Business Survival bill, has written a letter to Council Member David Yassky, chair of the Council’s Small Business Committee, urging him to bring the bill to a vote. The bill would require landlords to negotiate in good faith with existing commercial tenants or face binding arbitration if an agreement can’t be reached. Jackson has 33 sponsors on the bill, but does not have the support of Council Speaker Christine Quinn or Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Both cite legal concerns with the bill, which supporters reject. “I disagree with your position that you are not willing to move forward on voting out Intro 847 on Tues., Nov. 24 or any other time this year unless the leadership of the Council is in agreement to do so,” Jackson wrote to Yassky. He invoked his right as the bill’s sponsor to bring the matter to a vote in the committee immediately, so the Council could vote before Dec. 21, its last meeting of year. “I’m requesting you take immediate action,” Jackson said. If the committee does vote to bring the bill to the full Council, Quinn has 45 days to include it on the agenda to be voted on before it is automatically brought to a vote. The bill had a hearing on the Small Business Committee in June, when four of the five committee members – all but Yassky – supportered the bill. At that hearing representatives from the administration would not discuss the bill except to say that they did not support it. Yassky, who ran for comptroller in the Sept. 15 Democratic Primary and lost in a run-off with John Liu, did sign onto the bill. Yassky, who will be out of public office after Dec. 31, however, will not bring the bill up for a vote without the blessing of Speaker Quinn. If the bill is not voted on in 2009, the bill dies and Jackson and supporters will have to start all over again, with a host of new Council members to convince and new committee chairs appointed by Quinn. Jackson has said he is willing to pick up again in the New Year, but some of the bill’s most vocal supporters have said they wouldn’t because it would mean facing the same system that kept the bill from a vote in 2009. If the Council OKs it, the mayor could veto the bill. Once the new Council takes its seat in January, it is unclear whether Jackson will have enough support for a veto override. The bill was originally written in the 1980s and introduced by former Council Member Ruth Messinger in 1989 where it was voted down in the Small Business Committee by one vote. It was picked up again by former Council Members Stanley Michels and Guillermo Linares, but didn’t gain traction in the Council again until Jackson took it up this past spring.
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