One trick pony picks yet another "winner"

From Neighborhood Retail Alliance:

It's really unsurprising that Mike Bloomberg would select a Wall Streeter-even a failed one-to be his new finance commissioner. When it comes to finding talent, the mayor is really a one trick pony. As City Room reports: "He is a casualty of Wall Street’s implosion: a managing director at the brokerage house Morgan Stanley forced out six months ago after the company merged with its ailing rival Citigroup. Now, David M. Frankel will be in charge of the New York City agency responsible for collecting taxes from those companies."

The hard truth is that the Bloombergistas have no one on their team with any feel for, or real knowledge of, the reality of small neighborhood businesses. The folks at EDC live in a development laden cocoon-where huge real estate projects get the juices flowing and nurturing smaller existing firms lacks any career boosting glamour. Making a bad situation that much worse, is the role of Rob Walsh, the city's small business commissioner.

Over the span of seven years, Walsh has earned the enmity of scores of small business groups-with many calling for his resignation. Walsh, though, simply represents the mayor, and it is Mike Bloomberg who is tone deaf when it comes to the policies that are necessary to grow the city's neighborhood retail sector. That is why, we are facing the city's biggest economic crisis in decades-with vacant store fronts littering the shopping strips of every borough.