jobs and economic development plan
TRANSCRIPT
Paid for by Smiley for Mayor. Sally Lapides, Treasurer.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Brett Smiley has the leadership and vision to grow the Providence economy and create well-‐paid jobs with good career paths. Brett opened his own small business in Providence seven years ago, and in the midst of an economic recession, he has grown his company, hired new employees, opened additional offices and turned a profit every year. When Brett was first appointed to Chair the Providence Water Supply Board, there was a significant issue with spiraling workers’ compensation costs. Providence Water had a culture in which accidents were too common and many sought to abuse the system, and Brett set out to change it. He restructured management and provided them with the guidance and support they needed, and together they created a culture in which employees were incentivized, managed and rewarded for excellence. As a result, Providence Water has now gone 650 days without a lost time accident in its most dangerous department and has reached unprecedented levels of productivity that saved the rate payers money while still providing the best water in the state. Brett’s “Jobs and Economic Development Plan” is centered on the idea of changing the culture in City Hall and creating a city government that better serves Providence businesses, and he will do so with emphasis on seven areas: By focusing on Providence’s strengths – world-‐class hospitals and universities, homegrown, neighborhood businesses, arts, culture and design, a working waterfront and more – Brett will run a City Hall that supports the right businesses in the right ways. Brett knows what it takes to grow a business, and he knows what it takes to grow a city. He’ll get it done, and he’ll do it with integrity and transparency above all else.
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INTRODUCTION As Mayor, Brett Smiley will be the Chief Economic Development Officer of Providence. After years of tax increases and budget cuts, our only way forward is through economic growth. By attracting and sustaining businesses, developing and supporting an educated and skilled workforce, bolstering key industries and economic strengths, and operating a city government that assists rather than hinders growth, we can improve our local economy and re-‐establish Providence as a hub of innovation, industry, and intellectual capital. Most of all, we can create jobs with career paths and incomes with which people can raise a family. Some people joke that Rhode Island all too often is the last state to experience an economic boom but the first state to experience a recession. But this has not always been so, especially for Providence. Throughout much of the 19th and into the early 20th Centuries, Providence was a leading manufacturing center in the United States, famous for its base metals and machinery, jewelry and silverware, and textile industries. In 1867, the water tube boiler was invented and patented by Providence’s own George Babcock and Stephen Wilcox. By the 1880’s, Babcock and Wilcox boilers were powering Edison power stations in New York City, Edison laboratories in New Jersey, and President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet.” Thomas Edison himself wrote that a Babcock and Wilcox boiler was, “the best boiler that God has permitted man yet to make.” Like Babcock and Wilcox, much of our manufacturing base moved away or dwindled during the 20th Century. But this same kind of Providence-‐based ingenuity and entrepreneurial excellence once again can take hold in our city in the 21st Century. What Providence needs is a clear vision, leadership, and a plan to get there. A lot of great work is already being done. Numerous initiatives and organizations are constantly discussing ways to improve Providence’s economy.
• Under Mayor Taveras, the City of Providence has been working to re-‐establish the Innovation Investment Program for start-‐up businesses, rewrite the city’s zoning code, put more city permitting services online, and create a grant program to pay for small business storefront improvements.
• The Providence Plan brings together state, city, private sector, and academic partners to improve the economic and social well-‐being of Providence through thoughtful data collection and innovative service programs that fill unmet community needs.
• The Founders League supports and gathers Providence’s start-‐up community, offering entrepreneurs space, support, and educational programming.
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• The Rhode Island Foundation’s “Make It Happen RI” and “It’s All in Our Backyard” initiatives highlight the strengths of the Rhode Island economy, including Providence, and chart an action agenda to identify local market opportunities.
• Greater RI is a collaboration between the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Foundation of Rhode Island, and Commerce RI, the state economic development arm, to highlight the state’s economic advantages and improve the state’s business climate.
• The College and University Research Collaborative develops research that is informed by the concerns and priorities of policy leaders and produces findings that can be directly applied to specific policy challenges. Currently, state academics are researching efforts to bring back advanced manufacturing and examining the impact of the arts and culture on local economies in order to determine appropriate public investments in them.
• The Rhode Island Quality Institute harnesses leaders in Rhode Island’s hospitals, health insurers, consumer groups, businesses, and others to improve the state’s health care system, especially in the areas of health care information technology.
As Mayor, Brett Smiley will collaborate closely with these and other like-‐
minded organizations and build upon their initiatives with a Providence-‐specific focus. To bring about an economic renaissance in Providence, the Smiley Administration’s “Jobs and Economic Development Plan” will focus on the following key areas:
1) Making city government work for business.
2) Bolstering our “meds and eds” to create a base of steady jobs, trained employees, and lifelong residents.
3) Turning STEM into STEAM: Infusing our growing Knowledge Economy with the city’s arts and design.
4) Anchoring Providence’s working waterfront to the city’s economic growth.
5) ACT Providence: Promoting Providence’s arts, cultural, and tourism industries.
6) Advocating on behalf of the Greater Providence region.
7) Supporting Providence’s neighborhood businesses.
Of course, an important key to Providence’s economic resurgence is needed improvement of the Providence Public Schools. The reputation of Providence’s schools and the achievement of its students will help attract or deter businesses from locating and growing in Providence. Brett’s plan for improving Providence’s schools will be unveiled later this year.
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MAKING CITY GOVERNMENT WORK FOR BUSINESSES
As Providence’s Chief Economic Development Officer, Mayor Smiley will ensure that City Hall is working for Providence’s businesses. He will focus on:
• Changing the way City Hall does business. The biggest complaint about Providence city government is that it
lacks a customer service focus. Too many basic systems and record keeping have yet to be automated, and all too often, finding and getting the right city employee to locate a record, pull a permit, or conduct an inspection is like pulling teeth. It shouldn’t be this hard!
As Mayor, Brett will listen closely to what City Hall customers have to say. He will prioritize the systems that need to be automated in order for a city in the 21st Century to run effectively. In this day and age, everything should be online – any city public record, permits, inspection applications, title searches, licensing applications, and the like. In addition, residents and businesses ought to be able to schedule online certain city services, such as inspections.
Brett will require that city leaders and employees implement customer-‐friendly ways of doing business, building in training for improving customer service within each city agency and into labor contracts and management systems. Mayor Smiley will challenge each agency to develop clear roadmaps to help businesses and residents navigate quickly to the information, form, online tool, or human being they need in order to complete their transaction with the city.
• Closely coordinating public and private entities responsible for
helping Providence be a better place to do business, including the Providence Economic Development Partnership, the Department of Economic Development, the Planning Department, the seven planning and development commissions, the Department of Inspection and Standards, the various local and city chambers, RIPTA, and others. Rather than overseeing a fragmented collection of independent agencies that control the economic development process, Brett will work to develop a more seamless system that serves the needs of our businesses.
Providence can do better. For example, the state law that established the I-‐195 Redevelopment Commission gave it control of local land-‐use permitting, allowing it to offer a one-‐stop shopping permit process. As Mayor, Brett will challenge city planners, the Zoning Board, city licensing agencies, and others to develop similarly streamlined approaches to business and economic development. By eliminating municipal red tape and developing a business-‐centered approach to economic development, the city can speed up approval processes and make Providence a far friendlier place to do business.
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• Creating and proactively using a real-time inventory of Providence’s business assets so that Providence can do a better job of recruiting and expanding businesses. This inventory should include an understanding of parcels of developable land, undeveloped opportunities (such as Brownfields), available retail and office space, assessments of retail and other markets, assessments of Providence’s workforce, and information about growing clusters.
More importantly, the Smiley Administration will put that information to better use. Wherever there is a vacant building or lot, city officials will find and reach out to their owners to ascertain how they intend to use the property and develop plans to ensure they follow through. In the case of certain vacant lots, the city should work with owners to pursue strategies to put the property to better use, such as build small pocket parks or offer up space for farmer's markets or urban garden projects. In the case of absentee or grossly underperforming land owners, the full weight of the city's regulatory authority will be brought to bear and will enforce vacancy taxes, nuisance abatement actions, tax liens, and the like until the owners make better use of the property or find new owners for it.
• Investing in infrastructure that will improve the city’s attractiveness
to businesses, including public transportation, roads and bridges, energy, parking, and telecommunications. Providence is benefitting from some recently completed infrastructure projects, such as the I-‐Way relocation of the I-‐195 and I-‐95 intersection. But there are always opportunities to bolster other infrastructure, including, but not limited to:
o Working with National Grid and other providers to enhance the energy efficiency of city buildings and deploy renewable energy systems throughout the city.
o Developing more parking in downtown Providence. o Exploring opportunities to create more green spaces, including
pocket parks and areas along the waterfront. o Working with RIPTA to enhance public transportation into and
around Providence. o Ensuring broadband accessibility in every part of the city. o Keeping surface streets clean and investing in preventive
maintenance to keep small potholes and cracks from becoming larger problems.
As mayor, Brett will explore innovative and effective ways to fund city infrastructure projects, such as working with private sector investors to consider the establishment of a public infrastructure bank.
• Coordinating public works projects and street closures. An important part of providing better and smarter customer
service is coordinating public works projects so that they do the least amount of harm to our businesses and do not waste precious taxpayer
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dollars. For example, rampant street closures did a great deal of harm to Hope Street merchants last summer. And far too often, utilities will tear up recently paved city streets in order to do their work. To limit problems like these, the City of Chicago uses an Office of Project Management to coordinate all city public works projects and street closures. While a new office may not be necessary in a city of our size, under Mayor Smiley, Providence city agencies will do a better job of coordinating public works projects, utility work by entities like National Grid, Providence Water, Verizon, and Cox, and street closures.
• Aligning limited city incentives with key economic development goals.
Like any other city, Providence wants to support business expansions and start-‐ups and attract businesses that will create high wage jobs, provide good benefits to employees, and relocate their corporate headquarters to Providence. Most public policy research suggests that the majority of business incentives offered under the guise of supporting job creation often cost more than they produce. We need look no further than the 38 Studios debacle to realize that these incentives, when poorly vetted and offered for political purposes, can lead to terrible taxpayer results. To the extent that Providence does use business incentives to encourage job creation, Mayor Smiley will ensure that they are used appropriately and transparently, consistent with the city’s desire to attract companies that create high wage jobs with good benefits. Brett will also ensure that existing incentives support neighborhood businesses, not just those operating downtown.
• Increasing city purchases from local businesses through strategic sourcing.
As Mayor, Brett Smiley will direct city agencies to purchase more goods and services from appropriately qualified local businesses and vendors. By using strategic sourcing strategies that help link local businesses that can fill city agency needs, the city can help small local businesses to prosper. Similarly, Mayor Smiley will challenge city agencies to integrate local hiring and processing into the city’s supply chains. Finally, in PILOT negotiations with Providence’s non-‐profit and academic institutions, Mayor Smiley will encourage our hospitals, colleges, and universities to commit to using Providence-‐sourced labor and goods.
• Taking politics out of Providence Economic Development Partnership loans.
The PEDP is supposed to be the economic development policy-‐making body of the City of Providence. One of its core functions is to make loans to local businesses to stimulate their growth and the health of the local economy. Unfortunately, its loan-‐making function has swung from
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two extremes. Too often, it has made loan decisions based on highly political reasons, not on appropriate business grounds. At other times, it has been so cautious to avoid being criticized for playing politics that too few loans get awarded, and this critical source of capital for Providence businesses sits on the sidelines. As it is currently structured, the PEDP is not fulfilling its mission.
As Mayor, Brett will work with the business and financial community to establish a fair, impartial way to turn the Partnership’s loan-‐making decisions over to knowledgeable, independent practitioners who are in the business of evaluating and loaning funds to worthy growing business ventures. By taking the politics out of PEDP’s loan-‐making function, Brett will return the PEDP to its original intent of supporting local growing businesses and ensuring that the loans are re-‐paid in a timely manner. This, in turn, will allow those loan funds to be used to support other businesses.
This new revolving loan function may be staffed within the existing Partnership program, or it could be outsourced to a vendor with the right experience, skills, capacity, and understanding to manage these revolving loans within parameters established by the Mayor and the experienced business leaders who sit on the Partnership’s Board of Directors. The key difference is that Mayor Smiley will not be directing how or with whom it chooses to make its loans. By taking the politics out of these loan award decisions, Mayor Smiley will re-‐focus the Providence Economic Development Partnership on its true mission – helping to set the economic development direction of the City of Providence and making fiscally-‐responsible loans that provide businesses and key industries with job creating and growth potential with the capital they need to thrive.
With better underwriting, there will be lower default rates. Using capital more efficiently frees up funds to allow PEDP to expand its offerings. The loan system should not only focus on large and midsize loans but also on micro-‐loans accompanied by training and technical assistance.
Brett’s full plan to reform the Providence Economic Development Partnership is available at SmileyForMayor.com/PEDP.
• Ensuring equal access for minority-owned and women-owned
businesses and enforcing First Source. Living in a majority-‐minority city that’s 50% women, it’s shameful
that we have a difficult time meeting the already-‐low requirements for minority and women-‐owned businesses. Providence’s diversity is its strength, and the people who do work for the city should be representative of the city itself. Mayor Smiley will put all government contracts and all qualified vendors online and support a strong MBE & WBE Coordinator to ensure equal access so that business leaders don’t need to “know a guy” to find out about an opportunity for work.
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Likewise, Mayor Smiley will fight back against unemployment and enforce the First Source Ordinance by streamlining the list online, making it readily available to city businesses, and ensuring that unused, appropriated funds remain allocated to First Source rather than being swept into the General Fund.
• Creating an Office of Strategic Partnerships to cultivate public and
private resources and partnerships that benefit Providence. As previously announced, Mayor Smiley will establish this office in
order to seek out opportunities for collaboration and to provide information and training to non-‐profits and city agencies on grant writing. The Office will cultivate these strategic partnerships systematically, rather than relying on an ad hoc approach as typically is done. The Office of Strategic Partnerships will include an Advisory Board with representation from community-‐based non-‐profits, foundations, and the business community to provide feedback and guidance on its work.
BOLSTERING PROVIDENCE’S “MEDS AND EDS”
Providence is blessed with world-‐renowned institutions of higher education,
including Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design, Johnson and Wales University, Providence College, the University of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island College. These institutions breathe life into our city each and every day, employing thousands, creating opportunities, and educating talented students, many of whom we hope will decide to stay in Providence, work in Providence, make homes in Providence, and raise families in Providence. As Mayor, Brett Smiley will seek to strengthen city partnerships with these colleges and universities. These partnerships cannot be one-‐sided, simply asking these institutions what more they can do for Providence. Our city also must do what it can to support and strengthen these institutions.
In particular, Mayor Smiley will work tirelessly to encourage the development of technological, communications, biotechnology, and other discoveries at Providence higher education institutions that can lead to entrepreneurial start-‐ups that will take root and flourish in Providence.
• 20/20 Challenge: One of the best ways Providence can grow its economy is to invest in the many smart, well-‐educated, and well-‐trained graduates of our institutions of higher education. As Mayor, Brett will work with our leading colleges and universities, along with the best of our business and foundation communities, to create and support the 20/20 Challenge. The goal of Brett’s 20/20 Challenge will be to encourage 20 percent of Brown, RISD, Johnson & Wales, and PC graduates to start businesses within 20 miles of
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Providence within 20 years of graduation. In addition to working directly with each institution, Brett will work with the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC), the Rhode Island Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (RI EPSCoR), the Providence entrepreneurial community, angel networks, and others to develop strategies that best support this goal.
As Mayor, Brett Smiley also wants to cultivate and support our growing
health care and medical cluster. Providence is proud to be the home of health care giants like Lifespan, five world-‐class hospitals, and numerous research centers. But increasingly, Providence also is home to small firms that are doing exciting, cutting-‐edge work in biotechnology, life sciences, and personal health. For example, EpiVax Inc., a biotech firm in the Knowledge District, is emerging as an innovator in computational immunology. It feeds data into computers that apply mathematical approaches with the goal of developing vaccines that can treat diseases. The Smiley Administration will:
• Support the development of a Health Sciences Facility in the
Knowledge District that will bring together university health education programs and serve as the home of a major public-‐private partnership to develop a brain science cluster. We already have some leading institutes in this area, including Brown University’s Institute for Brain Science, Lifespan’s Prince Neurosciences Institute, and the University of Rhode Island’s Ryan Institute for Neuroscience. As Mayor, Brett will collaborate actively with any efforts to support brain-‐related research, technologies, and clinical care within the city.
• Help entrepreneurs in the health care sector connect to capital and corporate partners.
One important strategy in the development of a viable health care-‐related cluster is to provide forums through which university researchers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and employees can meet and begin to work together. For example, MedMates is a Providence-‐based healthcare technology group that fosters collaboration between health-‐tech companies, area hospitals, universities, funders, and other partners. As Mayor, Brett Smiley will support and encourage these types of forums and organizations to emerge and flourish in Providence.
• Working with major employers to coordinate and design workforce development initiatives that prepare employees to meet the needs of the growing health care and life sciences industries.
As part of a broader workforce development strategy, Mayor Smiley will meet with major health care and life sciences companies, determine what they most need for future employee growth, and work with area universities and job training programs to developing education and training pathways to fill those gaps. Some employers already have
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had to develop training programs to fill certain needs. For example, Lifespan’s five month long Workforce S.T.A.T. internship program is designed to help transitioning unemployed or underemployed Rhode Islanders become certified nursing assistants. Other major bioscience companies need highly-‐skilled employees who can operate precision equipment in labs. As Mayor, Brett Smiley will listen to employer needs and develop public-‐private partnerships to address those concerns.
TURNING STEM INTO STEAM
Lots of great things already are happening within Providence’s Knowledge Economy. Providence features a vibrant start-‐up and entrepreneurial community. According to the Founders League, Providence-‐based start-‐ups secured an estimated $140 million in financing in 2013 alone. Providence is home to all sorts of small but growing companies in critically important science, technology, and mathematics-‐related fields. And through work done by the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, and others, we are seeing more entrepreneurial activity involving arts and design than ever before.
To help support this growing entrepreneurial activity in these 21st Century economic strengths, the Smiley Administration will be:
• Helping accelerators invest in design start-ups.
Unlike a traditional business incubator, which brings in an external management team to manage and develop an internally-‐developed business idea, an accelerator offers entrepreneurs small amounts of capital and mentorship over short durations of time in exchange for a small amount of equity in the business. Betaspring is a Providence-‐based, mentorship-‐driven startup accelerator program for technology and design entrepreneurs that has seen enormous success since its founding. There have also been plans announced for a second accelerator in Providence called the Providence Design Forward accelerator, which would be launched as a collaboration between City Hall, RISD, the Founders League, Rally Rhode Island, and DesignxRI. Additionally, there is great work being done in Massachusetts with MassChallenge, an accelerator that has helped connect early-‐stage entrepreneurs with the resources and know-‐how needed to launch their businesses through start-‐up competitions, mentoring, and ongoing training and networking. Nearly 500 MassChallenge alumni have raised a half billion dollars in outside funding, generated almost $200 million in revenue, and created 4,000 jobs. This is a best practice that Providence can learn from, and whether the Providence Design Forward accelerator comes to fruition or not, Brett Smiley will work with Betaspring and others to champion this
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kind of networked approach to investing in and supporting Providence’s design entrepreneurs.
• Attracting talented college graduates who want to work for young
start-ups in Providence. As Mayor, Brett will seek to partner more closely with
organizations that help bring top entrepreneurial talent to Providence. For example, Venture for America, a national non-‐profit fellowship program started by a Brown University graduate, sends top college graduates to work with start-‐ups for a two-‐year period. Code for America brings cutting-‐edge developers, designers, and researchers to cities for a one-‐year fellowship during which these professionals help solve municipal problems using technology. San Francisco recently partnered with Code for America to create an accelerator for Web developers who will create apps that can enable that city government to run more effectively. The Smiley Administration will do its utmost to ensure that Providence is as attractive a place for these young graduates to live and work. Borrowing an idea from the City of Pittsburgh, the Smiley Administration will explore the possibility of developing affordable housing that caters to these program participants.
• Supporting efforts to establish a Center for Design and Manufacturing.
Once a national manufacturing leader, Providence once again has an opportunity to showcase the intersection between manufacturing and design. Last year, Rhode Island received a federal grant to develop a Center for Design and Manufacturing that would help link Rhode Island’s wealth of design assets, led by RISD, with emerging manufacturing industries. Mayor Smiley will commit his Administration to supporting the development of this Center.
• Encouraging the growth of the Maker Movement in Providence. For centuries, Providence has been a city of makers – from
silverware to jewelry to textiles to steam engines and boilers. 3D printing, design software, and other developments have the potential to reshape manufacturing in ways we can scarcely begin to imagine. As Mayor, Brett Smiley will seek out ways to support and bring together entrepreneurs and innovators to design, manufacture, and sell parts and products of infinite variety, scope, and scale.
ENHANCING OUR WORKING WATERFRONT
Going back to our earliest colonial roots, Providence’s port has been a critical feature of the city’s economy. From robust maritime trade in the years leading up to
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the American Revolution to the dredging of a channel south of Fox Point to allow the port to accommodate newer, larger trading ships in the 1850’s, Providence’s port has a long history of supporting trade and commerce with other parts of the eastern seaboard as well as countries abroad. Today, Providence’s working waterfront is a key economic engine for the city, the state, and New England. One of only two deep-‐water ports in New England, Providence’s port generates $60 million in direct business each year and an estimated $16 million in state and local government revenue. As Mayor, Brett Smiley will champion strategies that support our working waterfront, including:
• Emphasizing Providence’s short sea shipping advantages. In recent years, the federal Department of Transportation has
pushed to develop a more robust short-‐sea shipping network. Shipping goods by barge or ship is eight-‐times more fuel-‐efficient than tractor trailers and twice as fuel-‐efficient as rail. However, according to the federal DOT, America’s 25,000 miles of coastal and inland waterways move only two percent of the nation’s domestic freight, far less than in Europe, where a network of ports handle nearly 40 percent of intercontinental freight transport.
As Mayor, Brett Smiley will be a strong advocate to position Providence’s port as a major New England short-‐sea shipping hub. He will pursue federal support for facilities, equipment, infrastructure, and contracts that enable the port to be used for short-‐sea shipping purposes. And he will work with the port to sell its strengths and advantages to regional businesses that may find it more cost-‐effective and timely to ship their products and raw materials through Providence’s port.
• Maintaining our competitive advantage in bulk shipping.
Providence’s port has made significant investments in high capacity cranes and other technologies that enable the loading and unloading of bulk shipments. As Mayor, Brett will defend this competitive economic advantage and advocate for continued growth in our working waterfront.
• Developing strategies to support better land use. The Smiley Administration will protect the zoning of Providence’s
port for heavy industrial use. Within the next few decades, the waterline of Narragansett Bay may well approach Allens Avenue. Investing in the development of condominiums and other mixed-‐use projects, as some have suggested, makes little sense, especially given the location of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier. As Mayor, Brett will support port land use zoning that recognizes these realities and keeps the port functioning as an industrial area.
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ACT PROVIDENCE: PROMOTING ARTS, CULTURE AND TOURISM
Providence’s quality of life is enhanced by its vibrant arts community, history, and amazing opportunities for fine dining, entertainment, and culture. As Mayor, Brett Smiley will champion ACT Providence, a new initiative to support, highlight, and market Providence’s diverse opportunities in the Arts, Culture, and Tourism.
In particular, tourism plays an important role in our city’s economy. State
support of tourism promotion and marketing has dwindled to a tiny fraction of what it used to be, hampering an industry that adds nearly $3.5 billion into the state economy each year. As Mayor, Brett will help Providence build a vibrant food cluster and attract more visitors by:
• Marketing Providence’s foodie culture. Providence was voted the top city for food in the United States in a
Travel and Leisure Magazine poll in 2012. Providence also has more degreed chefs per capita than any city in the United States. Home to amazing restaurants, suppliers, and one of the country’s leading culinary schools, Providence ought to be a prime destination for food connoisseurs. As Mayor, Brett will ensure that the city does more to market Providence as a foodie hub through travel and tourism marketing and solicitation of television and media coverage.
• Cultivating a Food Cluster. Just as clusters of high tech, life sciences, and manufacturing
industries have energized regions from Silicon Valley to Route 128, so too could a Food Cluster bring entrepreneurship, jobs, and new business development to Providence. With Johnson and Wales serving as an anchor, Providence’s emerging Food Cluster will be encouraged and supported by the Smiley Administration. Mayor Smiley will ensure that this cluster includes not just master chefs and restaurateurs, but also wholesale providers, distribution firms, artisanal producers, culinary equipment manufacturers, farms throughout the state, fishermen, aquaculture, exporters, and others. In addition, as Mayor, Brett will find ways to incorporate local sourcing of healthy, fresh food into city purchases, such as by the School Department.
• Supporting entrepreneurial efforts to grow Providence’s arts and cultural organizations and opportunities.
Providence has a remarkable array of organizations and projects that provide forums for arts and culture. For example:
o Rally Rhode Island is a Providence-‐based project to showcase local entrepreneurs who are doing amazing work in the arts, design, and food and beverage industries.
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o AS220 provides local artists with residential and work studios and spaces for educational programs, exhibitions, and performances.
o The Steel Yard fosters industrial arts and incubates small businesses in the former Providence Steel and Iron complex.
o Digital City is a community of digital artists and small businesses that are seeking to create a digital media industry.
o The Food Innovation Nexus (The FIX) is non-‐profit organization sponsored by Johnson and Wales that is seeking to develop innovative products at the intersection of healthy food and medicine.
As Mayor, Brett will seek out ways the city can encourage these
and other organizations and programs that support the growth of homegrown talent and entrepreneurship.
• Developing regional tourism with Newport, Boston, and other cities. Under Mayor Smiley, the city will seek to partner, not compete,
with places like Boston, Newport, and Cape Cod to develop tourism initiatives that encourage visitors to our city and other places in our region.
• Encouraging historical preservation as an economic driver. Providence’s architectural history needs to be protected and
preserved. Our buildings are not only historic resources but also potential sources of economic development and tourism. As Mayor, Brett will work with the Providence Preservation Society to advocate for sensible preservation and to ensure that the voices and vision of Providence’s past are included in discussions and planning for Providence’s future development.
ADVOCATING ON BEHALF OF THE GREATER PROVIDENCE REGION
It does not make sense for Providence to compete with other Rhode Island cities and towns for business. As Mayor, Brett Smiley intends to work with other mayors and the Governor to attract business to the Greater Providence region. If a Providence resident gets to work at a new business in Cranston, Providence still comes out ahead, just as Providence benefits when a new business brings jobs to the city, even when some of those jobs are filled by residents of other cities and towns.
• Leveraging regional strengths to save taxpayer dollars and improve services.
Part of the role of a Chief Economic Development Officer is to be a prudent steward of limited funds. As Mayor, Brett will pursue strategies with other regional governments to share services and costs, including
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consideration of Joint Economic Development Districts with other local governments. In addition, Brett will work with other area mayors to eliminate business-‐stifling discrepancies in municipal regulations. For example, it makes little sense for certain kinds of food trucks to be able to serve customers legally in Providence that are unable to do so in Cranston.
• Working closely with state government for Providence’s fair share of state funding.
Providence is the heart of Rhode Island and the center of the state’s economy. A healthy Providence economy benefits the rest of the state. As the head of the state’s chief economic engine, Mayor Smiley will push for Providence’s fair share of federal and state funding.
• Advocating for Providence where it matters. Rather than spend money on Washington D.C.-‐based lobbyists
when Rhode Island’s interests are well represented by our two Members of Congress and two United States Senators and their staffs, Mayor Smiley will deploy Providence’s business advocates in places where they can make a difference. For example, Providence’s business interests would be better served by a lobbyist working in Boston, where policy decisions that affect our region are being made in the State House, by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, and by major area employers like Fidelity, Raytheon, Bank of America, and Citizens Bank.
SUPPORTING PROVIDENCE’S NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESSES
Providence is an ethnically rich and diverse community. As Mayor, Brett Smiley will recognize and celebrate that diversity – not just culturally but economically as well. During the Smiley Administration, the city’s economic development strategy will consider the different ways in which the various cultures that enhance life in our city can be supported, particularly when developing neighborhood and citywide businesses. The Smiley Administration will work tirelessly to brand and promote each neighborhood’s rich culture.
One of the best ways the City of Providence can help all neighborhood businesses is to make city government work more effectively and efficiently for small businesses. As noted earlier, an important priority of the Smiley Administration will be to eliminate bureaucratic red tape and make it easier for a small business to deal with the city’s tax, licensing, and regulatory requirements and get to the business of business. In addition, as already noted earlier, the City of Providence will pursue a strategic sourcing initiative that will direct city agencies to purchase more goods
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and services from local businesses. City supply chains should incorporate locally owned and operated businesses to the maximum extent possible, allowing city funds to flow through the local economy and multiply. And Providence will actively recruit more local businesses and service providers to become certified to do business with city agencies. As Brett Smiley takes the politics out of the Providence Economic Development Partnership’s loan program, more funds will be made available to enable more Providence businesses to grow. No longer will these opportunities be available only to politically well-‐connected business owners, but rather to all local businesses with a viable plan for growth and success. Finally, as Mayor, Brett Smiley will work with the Providence Police Department to ensure that our neighborhoods are safe and free from disorder. If customers do not feel comfortable walking our streets, browsing in storefronts, and sitting down in restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and bakeries, business suffers. Every Providence neighborhood and street will be open for business during the Smiley Administration.
CONCLUSION Providence is on the brink of a new economic renaissance. Many of the pieces are in place and poised for growth – strengths like our “meds and eds” that lay the foundation for future growth and innovation; a vibrant, energized start-‐up community; an engaged foundation and non-‐profit community; committed, hard-‐working small business owners; and a trained, educated workforce that is ready to make a difference.
Brett Smiley knows how to get things done, and will get them done in the right ways to create jobs, support businesses, and grow Providence’s economy.
