Avilés describes Sunset Park permitting problems and licensing fees
Avilés says EDC activations in Sunset Park were last minute and small businesses felt on their own. She also describes exorbitant licensing fees and a nonprofit that was denied a park permit for an event the city wanted it to do.
Great.
I'd be keen to see it.
Certainly, I know there were activations.
of EDC even in Sunset Park, but it was very last minute.
The communication was very last minute.
Everyone, we kind of just said, do whatever you want to do.
Good luck.
And the small businesses, you know, I think they definitely saw revenue increases and just were kind of on their own.
However, one feedback I did hear from a number of them was also that licensing fees were exorbitant.
And so they were just like, I don't know why we would participate.
And in one instance, a nonprofit got a grant to do something.
For FIFA with the city and then they were denied the permit in the park to do the thing the city wanted them to do.
We tried to troubleshoot and ultimately gave up and just moved them into a school.
So the permitting thing obviously is a pain point and a real challenge given all the events that were happening at the same time, but I think it's particularly crazy when the city is actually working with
to do an activation and then denies the organization a permit for the thing they want them to do.
So I'd love to see the revenue impacts.
And also,
Sorry, I'm just reading my notes and I can't quite read all of them.
Yeah, I think in the future, obviously, the administration was also new coming into this, and there was a lot of shifting.
We'd love to figure out how to really better coordinate.
Our communities felt like they were trying to catch up and never quite got the real attention that they needed, and potentially the economic output as a result of that.
So hopefully we will do better and learn from those lessons and get put on the front end.
Thank you.