Can I Sign Louisiana Banking Word

Can i industry sign banking louisiana word later

all right well good morning everyone and welcome to the three e's economic development economic opportunity and entrepreneurship i'm christy slater program officer with the w.k kellogg foundation and i'll be your moderator joining me for today's discussion are our esteemed panelists quentin messer president and ceo of new orleans business alliance eric cormier vice president of strategic development and policy for southwest louisiana economic development alliance laverne tombs executive director of new orleans regional business i mean new orleans regional black chamber excuse me and representative gary carter louisiana house of representatives district 102 that's a lg for best friend successful economic development must have a strategy that is inclusive provides opportunity and engages entrepreneurs in a post-covet economy panelists our panelists will consider how this integrated approach must be the new way of doing economic development and discuss with it what it takes to achieve all three together how do all three e's economic development economic opportunity and entrepreneurship integrate to achieve a successful economic ecosystem i'm really excited about this discussion i could talk about equitable economic development all day but we only have an hour so we're going to just jump right in um quentin we'll start with you can you tell us a little bit about the new orleans business alliance its overall strategy for integrating economic development economic opportunity for a strong workforce and small business and support for small business entrepreneurs how also uh explain to us how you've integrated these three areas and what results has this approach yielded well thank you for the question good morning everyone want to give honor to the urban league of louisiana for inviting me i also want to give honor to christy slater christie is a board member i also see a board member of the business alliance stephen kennedy um let me begin by also acknowledging kellogg's important work when kellogg came out with business case for racial equity i think it really framed perfectly the reason why integrating economic development economic opportunity and support for small businesses makes sense and just three quick reasons first um we don't have when you don't do it you're foregoing not only income that could be recycled throughout uh the general the overall population but you're not getting all your um members or all the members of your community on the field imagine if drew brees was trying to complete a pass with only one offensive lineman we would never know how good drew brees was and and that's the fact if we don't figure out how to get bipod communities black indigenous and persons of color into the economy fully and integrated um the second thing is i think it has to do with the word equity i think a lot of times people just think about equity in the definition of fair and impartial but christie has been really pushing on equity as ownership and one of the things i hope that we'll get in we're talking about the fact that we need to promote and the business alliance has been working with a lot of folks on this call about how to promote greater entrepreneurial growth uh with regard to uh black indigenous and personal colored businesses and last at the end of the day the number one constraining factor for most businesses is talent so you have to have workforce in order to ensure that uh talented people are available and and prepared and able equipped as job candidates in order to to grow companies um the last thing the results look there's a lot of work that needs to be done um we aren't there yet we see it because we have stubbornly high levels of poverty we saw the economic vulnerability of our community in this age of pandemic and extreme weather but i am encouraged and want to talk about subsequently invest nola which will be having our second cohort where we had 13 entrepreneurs of color folks who have businesses between 800 000 and 5 million in revenue who are seeking to grow those businesses we've done work with procurement council that's connected by poc entrepreneurs to large opportunities contracting opportunities and we continue to sort of build out and i i see brother nunes on there so i want to give honor to his constant push about making sure that we bring venture capital and private equity those alternative uh capital forms alternative risk capital forms we are working behind the scenes um along with many others on this call to make sure that folks particularly black folks folks that look like us largely have access to capital that's not just debt capital but risk capital um thank you thank you if i could follow up um so have you convinced the business community to support this approach to economic development how you talked a little bit about the business case but how are you really getting the business community to to come on board with it so great question you know like just like black people the business community isn't monolithic you have the black business community you have the entrepreneurial community you have the business community of privately held family-owned businesses you have businesses that are headquartered in new orleans in this region and you have businesses that have regional outposts i would say post the tragic losses of george floyd and brianna taylor business communities have really realized oops we we dropped the ball um and they have been figuring out stumbling over themselves trying to redress maybe things they should have been focused on generations ago but you know as as my dad used to say it it's better to get to the party whether you're late or not so they're at the party they're engaged and i think they frequently want guidance on how best because they don't know i mean that's not something you know i think the traditional things is let's just give more people jobs but i think we've been pushing and let me not denigrate jobs are critically important but we also want the equity side the ownership side how do you invest in entrepreneurialism how do you support bipod communities so i'm encouraged it's a work in progress uh because we are tourism hospitality driven locally a lot of our business sector has been disproportionately hurt by covet but i'm encouraged by the conversations we're having in the level engagement thank you um so eric we'll turn to you tell us about the business environment in southwest louisiana and the work of the economic development alliance and additionally can you share with us our economic development economic economic opportunity and small business supports integrated okay first of all southwest louisiana we're home to the five parishes and also home to what has been prior to the pandemic and also prior to the hurricanes that we had in 2020 the fastest growing economy for cities our size small to mid-size in the country also this is a part of the state that has been a driver for industrial development rivaling what's been going on in baton rouge i mean we're to the tune of about a hundred billion dollars in the capital investment foreign direct investment and a strong strong hotel industry to the tomb of about 700 million a year prior to these uh these tragedies uh the southwest louisiana economic development alliance is an edo we're part of what that eight that uh around the state and we're also the chambers southwest so we have a hybrid governmental slash private industry advocate that's uh pretty much at the the center you know we're the nexus for all these movements now what's going on how do we connect these things these uh coved and two hurricanes happen at a time where even with over 100 billion in investment we still have 18 poverty and we're 40 of our population is a paycheck away from poverty so our challenge is that we have a laissez-faire style economic system here that's growing moving and we believed in trickle-down economics was supposed to make a difference but as a result we haven't really done a good job of connecting black businesses minority businesses to venture capital we haven't really done a good job in creating policy but that's not something that's bad for for most folks here and what i mean by that is sometimes when folks don't know the the the nuances of how government and industry and economic development operate then it creates some problems and so what we're having now is trying to re-establish a uh a core foundational movement to bring these businesses bring this population both for white for black middle income to get back in the game we got a housing problem over here and when it comes to the black community we still don't know how many people have left i mean we know that about 3 000 students are not here uh we know that several major apartment cores in this area they're not there anymore and folks in new orleans understand how that goes so now we have some some challenges that's going to force us as policymakers and here's the question how do you address some issues that are historical when it comes to the black community along with trying to rebuild and not really having the the expertise in creating those policies that bring the two together so that's something that we're dealing with i think uh additional expertise is going to be important there's been some studies that have been done and inequalities especially when it comes to housing we just had a study that was done that it proved that black americans here had have been dealing with higher costs of rental and we have an astronomical amount of people who rent so we have also in income inequality and so it's just a plethora of issues and i got to say this and i have to be careful when i say this because we have some talented people here but we do not have enough african-americans both in elected officials and economic development professionals who are nuanced in the real dirty insides of how to make this thing happen so what's first the cart or the egg good people with great hearts but there's some technical skills that we need so given you just unpacked a lot i love it um so given the current realities in in the space because of all of the all of like this um almost integration of disasters right does this moment allow for for an integrated approach as a part of the solutions in recovery i don't know i'ma tell you why i've been in economic development now about seven years before that i was in journalism and public relations did government affairs work and things of that nature and i'm now at a point in my career when i'm looking at this thing with different eyes and my question is this we are all trained as economic development professionals and elected officials to see the see things in a certain economic way government way and quit made a point and all black people are monolithic as a society but yet society the non-black society treats us monolithic if we were let's put it this way when it comes to diversity equity inclusion if we're fighting to get an opportunity to get promotions to move up the ch the latter in the society that's already against us well how we're going to get them to spend money in our communities that's a question now that i'm starting to look at and when it comes to the black population and let me say this new orleans is wonderful in terms of the things that the y'all are doing over there but you get to lafayette you get to lake charles you get to alexandria monroe even shreveport and you're dealing in areas with strong conservative base mindset in politics and then you're dealing with some traditional historical issues that we just can't shake so you know there's some questions that i don't personally i don't know any answers i know there's some great uh things that are done around the country in tulsa oklahoma and milwaukee and miami there are great products that are being done in african-american communities but when you're in these rural to small size areas and then we got to think about this poor whites are suffering just like poor blacks and we have to be careful in disfranchising them i mean when it comes to venture capital and you know the greatest thing that happens on this side of the state is dollar general store i give them all the props in the world but when at the same time you in a community that wants a grocery store it wants a pharmacy and uh the developers are saying hey you fight eight minutes away from the other one you know how do you weigh this so again i think expertise especially for our elected officials and even more so i believe that we got to do a better job of educating our community about the fundamentals of economic development it's just not a strip mall being built it's so many different things that are part of that so that's just my insights hey we're all in this together absolutely thank you thank you so much for uh for sharing with us eric um laverne i want to i want to turn to you now um to talk about the small business component of of this work and so could you tell us a little bit about the world regional black chamber and really what a uh black owned businesses concerns during the pandemic well good morning and thank you christy um first let me just say that say this on behalf of nrbc's in our bcc board of directors and his staff i really am very appreciative and grateful to be a part of this discussion uh this morning regarding the three e's and i also want to thank president and ceo judy morris and her entire staff for a successful policy conference as a board member of the urban league it's good to know that they're continuing to work on the advancement of equality and accountability and excellence in regards to the new orleans regional black chamber of commerce i started this position almost uh three months ago time goes by pretty quickly and uh of course i was very involved with the chamber before i became the ed and also my work in uh word center to landrieu when she was the chair of the senate small business entrepreneur committee so i am very familiar with a lot of the struggles that our black businesses are being faced with but in regards to nrbcc we see ourselves as being a resource and a voice for black businesses in the new orleans region all right we're dedicated to business development and economic empowerment particularly in the black communities our mission is to support and promote and educate its members of sustainability and expansion through a number of access to educational resources such as business and professional development training and other technical assistance and also being that voice for them as someone who worked for a member of congress as well as a former cao of a parish i understand the importance of our business community understanding of the legislation which i'm sure that representative um carter will talk about uh later on but um the you know the new orleans regional black chamber of commerce in my opinion is a very important entity in our community and being able to provide or should i say connect those dots and provide the necessary resources and when i hear my colleagues eric and quinton talk about the challenges and they un even should i say playing field for black businesses this is something that uh we've been talking about for a long time and i would not think about the work that senator landrieu did with the urban league on the national level to show the disparities in regards to white businesses versus black businesses and that was almost uh seven years ago and we're still having that that conversation so um you know we have a lot of work to do but um you know i'm believing based upon the conversations that we're having today that that we will move forward and provide the necessary tools that our black businesses need thank you as a follow-up um what kind of relationship do black businesses want to have with economic development organizations when christy i'm sorry i failed to answer one of your other questions in regards to the concerns during the pandemic we just recently conducted a survey to our members and there was three major concerns which probably will not be a surprise to any of us and one of course is access to capital of course we know that this is a long standing and a very deeply ingrained in biases consciously unconsciously but i believe that economic development organiza ions we continue to work towards leveling the entrepreneurial playing field and providing the necessary tools again for our black businesses the other one was economy and as you know coveted 19 definitely exposed much of the disparities even though we as a people know about the disparities but i believe now that is open because of all the uh challenges and issues that have been faced in our nation i really have exposed it in a way that now people feel somewhat comfortable in having conversations about race and talking about you know diversity and equity and inequality and the other thing was the lack of resources you know i am under the uh under the opinion that black businesses as we continue to say in regards to equal ability to reap the benefits of business ownership regarding to the lack of access to capital resources and a number of other tools that black businesses have not had an opportunity to access and data has shown that 15 of white americans hold business equity or other 5 percent of black businesses don't so our work is is is continuing but in regards to relationship with black businesses i want to have with economic development organizations my conversation and their response is that they want to be appreciated they want to be appreciated for the work that they're doing the contributions that they're making to this economy and i don't think that we give them enough credit they want to be understood in regards to the challenges that they're continuing to face and and they want to be recognized you know again for their contributions you know a number of our small black businesses are from family you know they didn't have you know money layer side or got funds from their family member but because of their struggle and then the other thing they want support you know they want to be patronized and i think it's extremely important in regards to when we spend dollars in the black community for every dollar that we spend in the black community 70 cents of that remains in the community so those are the type of things that i believe that we as economic development organizations have to keep in mind and we really have to continue to toot their horn and recognize for the work that they're doing in our communities thank you representative carter i'd like to turn to you you've heard um what our other panelists have shared about both concerns and opportunities um for economic development and support of workforce and entrepreneurship not just in the greater new orleans region but around the around the state um as a legislator what do you see as government's role in maximizing the work of the state's economic development organizations in support of workforce and entrepreneurs it's of critical uh importance to the state of louisiana and i want to give special attention to the legislative black hawk is that partner to put this event on um because as we were meeting last year in the midst of a pandemic as you as we take back to where we were we're starting the legislative session now uh in 2021 a year ago when we were starting the legislative session that's when kovitz really was just starting to happen and everything was shutting down and as the economy shut down as we went on a lockdown and the legislative session started there were interest groups and lobbyists for major oil and gas companies and major industries and i don't mean to single anyone out at all but there were major policies that they were ready to enact to give them tax relief to give them other special sort of relief to help them recover from cobit and so members of the black caucus and others we want to make certain that uh if we had a plan in place to help minority female and veteran-owned businesses also recover from kovid especially when we knew that the pandemic was concentrated in in certain communities and devastating upon us uh and so and this is a tough political environment in the state of louisiana and so what we were able to do is to build coalitions and what we found that the things that affect minority female and veteran-owned enterprises they also affect other small and rural businesses and so we formed a committee of minority female and veteran on enterprises we have a bipartisan committee and that committee has focused on the first year of the committee has focused on how do we make it easier to start a business in the state of louisiana how do you maintain that business in state of louisiana and how in fact do you do business with the state of louisiana how do we make that easier for you to do and one of the things that we did was the state of louisiana had 300 million dollars in this mainstream program that was for louisiana businesses and we wanted to know how were those businesses doing when it went about applying for those that those grants and other opportunities and many of the businesses were struggling with formalities many of the businesses were struggling with keeping up with the department of revenue keeping up with uh the secretary of state when you think about what you have to do to start a business in louisiana if let's say you just own a t-shirt shop and you go into the secretary of state's website to start your business should you be in llcm s corp or c court many of us on this call i'm looking at many of my smart colleagues and friends on this i'm a lawyer i know how to answer those questions but as a lawyer i also hired a lawyer to help start my my own law firm so how do we help those people be able to start their own businesses and then maintain them and most critically do business with the state of louisiana and that's vitally important because the state of louisiana is the largest contractor here in the state of louisiana let's give the louisiana's the opportunity to do business with the state of louisiana and so one of the things that we did was we were able to build these coalitions and actually get work done we tried to put aside politics and just move the ball forward and we wind up encouraging the governor to to execute an executive order uh to double the size of the hudson initiative we think that's going to be significant and reverberate throughout our economy we formed a we asked the governor to sign another executive order where we are signed another legislation where we asked if you go to start a business you have the secretary of state that has information on its website you have the department of revenue that has information on this website and then you have i see mandy mitchell led has information on this website how do we have a single simple repository for this information that if you want to go do business with the state of louisiana here it is it's nice it's simple it's easy information from revenue from treasury and others so we're how do we help our businesses grow and prosper and succeed even despite a pandemic to make sure that we have full employment and to gain generational wealth in our community so i know there was a lot there no that's great because i mean you actually you started to touch on my second question was really about specific legislation that you plan to introduce are there any other uh plans to that you you're looking to move forward this legislative session well like you all that one of the things that we're focused on now is access to capital so we have a hearing coming up in a couple of weeks and we're going to hear from the bankers association we want to hear from credit unions we want to know many of our businesses need that first access to capital we also need to help make certain we have greater access to opportunity you get the capital now you need an opportunity to get a contract with the state or to do business to to grow your business to expand and grow and we also need access to participation when you look at all of the the requirements that it took to qualify for the ppp program or for other small business programs or from the main street programs and other programs we need to simplify that process because there are many businesses that weren't able to participate due to complexities are due to all sorts of irregularities and and oftentimes minority female and veteran on enterprises they may be the first person in their family the first one to start a business and they may not have someone in their house that they can go to and say should i be an llc or should i be a c corp how do i go about getting you want to talk about access to capital one of the things that really help a lot of businesses is some sort of home equity loan well when we're when too many of us are renters and don't actually have a home then we don't have that sort of access to capital that or access to equity that others have so we need to from the legislative standpoint how do we look at it in a holistic way bring together the moving pieces of the puzzle so we can move this thing forward so that's the legislation we're looking at continuing to do access to capital access to participation and greater access to opportunity thank you i love it i hope it's successful we all need we all need to be successful quentin i'd like to turn back to you um has taken an integrated approach to economic development provided any advantages during the pandemic that's a great question um yes and i would say the reason is economic development only matters because people matter it's not about companies it's not about legal structures it's about human beings and the integrated approach i mean just for us in the business lines caused us to create the gig economy workers relief fund where we raised nearly a million dollars to provide 500 grants to over 1200 new orleanians who were people who were disproportionately impacted they were not going to get unemployment this is pre-cares act they were people who had been making their money every year because of festival season and that was all gone so who was going to look out for them so but i think we would not have had that sensibility had we not been thinking about uh job candidates uh as well as job creators as well as entrepreneurs and large businesses so on yes most definitely it has and the other thing is and i think you know the the distinguished panelists have talked about it it's all about talent at the end of the day we're going to be on the other side or have a or re-establish a new normal with regard how do we live in this pandemic era because there will be something else it won't just stop with covet 19 sadly but i really think that one of the things and i give honor to our public servants like representative carter as we really grapple with i think that one of the biggest existential issues facing louisiana which is climate change extreme weather having an integrative approach allows us to think about not only how do we make sure people are prepared for jobs in that sector but how are they also preparing for entrepreneur opportunity and i see you know brother nunes has been very busy in the chat and one of the things that we have to focus on on the venture and alternative asset classes a lot of major wall street pension funds and investment managers are basically saying we've got to address climate change we saw what happened in southwest louisiana um northwest louisiana obviously in texas and other parts of our country recently that is a function of not just crazy weather it is a consequence of climate change and we need to be prepared for that and make sure that not only are people getting jobs but they're getting entrepreneur opportunities and so i think that's why the integrative approach is so critically important so where does the the business alliance stand in all of this what what's what's the business alliance's role uh post covet in addressing economic issues in new orleans i mean i could go on all day but let me just sort of give you three um three things that we want to focus on one we want to make sure that we are not reactive we want to make sure that we are thinking around the corner what are going to be those opportunities and potential threats to the new orleans economy and i think climate change is a significant it's not just climate change and look let me be clear i'm a big fan of the fossil fuels in industry and we but but we're going to have to be real about the transition when gm says they're going to be net zero emissions by 2035. we need to make sure that we have young people who are not only trained to be diesel mechanics and dealing with internal combustion engines but they also have the computer savviness that they can deal with electric vehicles as well we need to also think critically about how do we make sure that we're taking advantage of of of what's going to be a behavioral change animal based agriculture is been targeted at target it may not be the right word but has been thought of as a contributor to the carbon footprint as a consequence you may have more people become vegetarian pescetarian vegan or be willing to eat plant-based substitutes so are restaurants particularly black owned restaurants prepared to understand when people come back as tourists or business that you can't necessarily be given you know the hog the gold the the cow they may be wanting something different and so that's not to say that you're not good you need to understand the evolution of the customer sentiment so we need to be a part of that education process we're going to continue to push forward with invest nola we're entering our second cohort we're going to continue to push with with with our procurement council and work to make sure that those businesses in the new orleans region who have contracts make sure they can do that i'm proud to say at the business alliance we don't have a lot of contracts but our marketing agency of choice of on record our legal firm our accounting firm our auditor as well as our consultant for grants all led by people of color so we're trying to walk the walk and talk to talk and the last thing i'll say is you know people and and representative carter knows it's better than anybody and as does laverne because they've both been in the political speed spear politics is the art of the possible and the art of the possible frequently is shaped by perception and not by facts and one of the things we're going to push on critically is to make sure that people understand just because you involve black people doesn't mean that you have to sacrifice quality because that's what you hear well if we push dni initiatives what about quality what what you don't say that on saturday night in tiger stadium you don't say that on sunday afternoon in the superdome and so we're gonna have to do that but we also have to understand where we are and understand the odd of the possible and so um i'll leave it there hopefully that was responsive thank you no i appreciate both you sharing how no the va is walking the talk and um you know being clear about calling a thing a thing right it is not about uh sacrifice and quality quality that narrative change piece is just as important as the actual programs and and supports to to strengthen both workforce and um small business development so thank you for raising both of those points um eric i'd like to turn to you to talk about um continuing along this this this uh line of questioning around covet response um what have you learned about economic development as a result of the pandemic and what do you see in a post-covet environment for economic development in southwest louisiana i've learned that economic development is an inexact science there is no fit for every trouble uh and so for us let's say this we've had some great companies over here and um sempra they raised some cash we put that money out to some folks in the community in in the form of grants short-term response wonderful thing so kovitt now is showing us that we have a great community that can raise the money we can put this in and right now uh with the sassa grant uh one of these grants that we have now is directly for minorities women disabled you know the the whole litany of people that are struggling but is this the solution so now kovit is forcing us along with a hurricane we're going back down to a real granular levels now what do you do to create an environment that's equitable maybe not completely fair but equitable allowing you to get to that table and to actually hav a chance allowing you to grow allowing a community to have more revenue better streets covering ditches getting access to education and these are long-standing human problems and and what i think covet has done is kind of reminded us in a in a very natural way that it doesn't take much for our systems to have a problem and what we're doing in southwest louisiana right now is one good thing i got to say about louisiana and southwestern all of us we all share this when the troubles are hard we do know how to put our boots on pull them up and work our butts off to try to get back to some level of normalcy so the question now is what do we do to go beyond normal to be in that world where success and competition is as fair and equitable as possible so again i'm gonna go back to one thing that i think that southwest louisiana has been very good at too is we are very good at transitioning for the blue collar style jobs to get people trained sowella uh technical community college is our version of delgado and we feel is even better uh mcnee state university is making some changes especially engineering department to make it education available get people pushed through fast and try to make them as uh eligible for the jobs that are there on economic development side we're having to figure out okay and it's like quinn says you have these fossil fuel products but the world is changing we've got climate issues the coastal erosion issue that's down there in plaquemines parish and in orleans well heck we've got cameron and vermillion parish we slip and slip slip slipping away too so it's forcing all of us to have to rethink how we address this and i'll put this challenge out especially when it comes to the environment african-americans in louisiana need to wake up us as the professionals need to talk along with our black caucus the issues of new orleans are just the same as it is from abbeville to lake charles when it comes to black people and how the environment impacts we don't talk enough we're not involved in that as a collective so i think the challenge for all of us is sometimes we got to kind of look over the bayou a little bit and look at our brothers and sisters in other parts of the state and maybe these coalitions can be made stronger to solve these issues long term and i'll my last piece is this if we're working in equity and diversity and inclusion the key word is uh uh being focused and trying to solve these problems and being intentional well with economic development a wolf to black community we've got to be intentional absolutely thank you so much eric um laverne i want to turn back to you how can economic development organizations create more opportunities for black businesses well first of all as i stated earlier christie uh one the nrbcc is about resources and void and a voice and i see the urban league and a number of other organizations are doing a walk in that same path but at first of all i think it's important that we collaborate and work together because we're all about doing the same thing with we all about the same mission and vision and that is sustaining and expanding black businesses and i can um say here in regards to nrbcc we have began a relationship with our governor we had a conversation with him with under secretary mitchell and we began to do workshops and webinars to provide assistance to our small businesses and it goes back to what representative carter stated in regards to doing business with the state of louisiana and so those are the things that we began to work with with the state of louisiana with led uh we also had a conversation with the state treasurer which we did at one webinar this week in regards to uh tax pp and economic injury we also are doing a procurement workshop also with our small businesses just to help them to connect the dots and doing business with major corporations in the new orleans region as well as helping our small business understand certification and when you talk about environment we're also planning on doing a webinar with the puncher train conservancy so that we can begin to have those type of conversations in the black community because you're correct uh when it comes to our community we do not quite understand about environment we don't talk about it but there's a lot of aspects as well as opportunities and business opportunities in the environment when it comes to coastal restoration and a number of major projects that's going on with the core so again when we talk about creating opportunities we can't always travel down the same road that we've always traveled i think we have to be very intentional as eric stated and that is really look deep and hard and ways that we can really help our small businesses one of the things that i learned with the governor's office as well as with under secretaries the fact that it's not always about these major contracts and millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars but there may be opportunities for ten thousand or thirty thousand dollar opportunity where small businesses can tap into but again how would they know that and they're going to know that because again it's organizations like the black chamber the urban league good works network uh uh new corp all of these organizations um we're digging deeper now i think and we're trying to change the whole uh frame of thinking and how can we make uh corporations and financial institutions again we're having conversations with financial institutions and one of the conversations that i'm having with them is that when you have a business owner come to you and they apply for a loan and they're denied don't just send them off you know they're if you really want them to come back as a customer then refer them to agencies that could possibly assist them so that they can come back to you and be financially ready so those are the things that i think when we talk about small businesses that we have to kind of change our frame of thinking uh hold people accountable but more importantly in my opinion is that we all have to work together you know like i tell someone we're not interested in providing six weeks nine week technical assistance type of programs but what we are uh interested in is introducing to our small businesses just on last night had a great conversation regarding our musicians and in regards to that's a business they're business owners but one of the interesting things that i learned is the fact that they don't really see themselves as business owners they just see themselves as musicians because that's what they do right but when it comes down to understanding financial institute finances or being able to open a bank account or savings account that's not always a part of their frame of thinking so that's another industry that we need to look into and tap into and provide the necessary resources that is needed for that particular industry so i close with this you know i am extremely excited of what is happening here in regards to providing the necessary tools for our black businesses when i think about the work that clinton is doing in his organization and providing funds for small businesses and providing that technical assistance when i think about eric what he's doing in lake charles and southwest louisiana working with my dear friend george swift when i think about our legislators like representative carter the work that he's doing and the fact that we want to be there to help you move your agenda forward and again as i stated before helping you coming on board and giving our members an understanding of what the legislative session is going to be and then to the state of the state of louisiana with uh under secretary mitchell for her work that she's doing with the governor and her department um i i feel hopeful i'm very hopeful and i just want to say thank you to the urban league thank you to all of you because at the end of the day it starts with us we're going to be about change and we're going to be about making a difference so thank you thank you laverne uh representative carter what is your vision for a successful and sustainable economic development ecosystem postcovid postcovid um you know we have a long way to go we had a briefing yesterday we had a budget hearing where you know about the status of our unemployment trust fund um and it's it's where we went from a significant surplus to a deficit where we have a line of credit from the federal government because we have over 300 000 people in the state of louisiana that are unemployed we have thousands of small businesses that have been shuttered think of all the the restaurants the bars the gyms all those businesses have been shuttered we have a very long way to go and we have a lot of work to do which is one of the reasons why we formed this committee in the legislature we wanted to make certain that we knew we had we want to send resources to minority female veteran small rural businesses to get them up and running that's how you grow the economy from the bottom up and one of the things that we noticed was that you know if you had a if you had a barber shop you know i i didn't go to the barbershop for quite some time during covet and if you had a barber shop and it was a louisiana business you could have qualified for the main street program and we learned that many of those barbershops small businesses restaurants and those sorts they had trouble participating in those programs because maybe all of their formalities weren't in order maybe they hadn't filed what they needed to file with the the secretary of state or the department of revenue or some others how do we cut that red tape how do we make it easier to do business how do we get away with less we have money we have people who need the money let's let's make that happen without delay make that seamless uh and and because you know historically if you're a minority female veteran-owned business you know where do you go to for that resource whether you go for help there's also a lack of knowledge there lack of information so we want those businesses to know hey there's an opportunity here uh there's there's an opportunity for for a grant from the main street program or from ppp or whatever program that we have with the louisiana department of economic development one of the things that i hear as i travel around the state quite honestly listening to small businesses is big businesses know big businesses usually have lawyers and lobbyists they know about tax credits they know about incentives they know where they need to go in order to qualify for an opportunity oftentimes we don't have that information we want to make sure we're giving to those businesses here's some information that can help your business here's a grant here's a whatever it may be to help and and and that needs to be better both on our end making sure that we have those resources available to our constituents but also we want to make sure our constituents have every opportunity to go get those resources that's gonna be critical importance to us uh and and how do we do that uh quite honestly we have to build coalitions you know we have to you know when we were doing this committee on minority female veteran on enterprises we started hearing about someone from the rules uh saying that you know listen we don't have rural banks anymore in our communities we don't have we have these big national banks and it's hard for us rural guys to go to these big national banks to get lines of credit and so instead of saying well rule doesn't quite fit into minority female veteran on enterprises we're like well yes those same sort of issues that you all have in a rural is rural communities are very similar to the issues that we have then we started hearing from some of the fishermen down in the lafitte area about some of the struggles that they were having and so it's like yes those are similar to the same sort of issues that we're having in our communities and so when we bought last year when we had the minority female veteran on enterprises when we had our packet of bills that we had that we went for passage during the regular session they passed unanimously they passed 95 100 to zero i think one of them had two three votes in opposition uh building in the great state of louisiana all of us hands on deck and why because it's of critical importance to all of us we have to grow these businesses we have to grow our businesses we have to grow our communities we have to create generational wealth that helps our cities that helps the state that helps the nation we're all in it together and we have to be laser-like focused on how do we stand up these 300 000 people who have lost their jobs and those businesses have shuttered and then that's just to get them back to where they were before covey and then if you look at where we were before covert we needed a whole lot of work and so how do we grow how do we prosper and how do we do it in a way that makes sense you know i i like to have results i like to have accomplishments i i don't like having the same sort of conversations about the same sort of problems what can we do to solve those problems and how do we go do it how do we build coalitions to pass that law to bring those resources home so that we can have generational wealth in our community so we can hire people in our communities and there can be less unemployment and more wealth and then pass that on and how do we put that in real estate in the way that the next generation can start from a level that we didn't start at uh and grow it and think long-term like that but start short term and what can we do today and and what can we do today and i'm gonna be very brief and you talk about what's coming next last year under the trump administration we had the cares act that sent 300 million dollars to louisiana small businesses well i'm really optimistic on what the biden administration is working on in this 1.9 trillion dollar package and we know that money is going to be coming for small businesses there this is the time make sure you're up to date with the secretary of state make sure you you've got your eyes crossed your t's that you can participate in these programs i want to get the word out to all small businesses that hey it appears as if help from the federal government is on the way make sure you have whatever you need from the department of revenue whatever you need from the secretary of state whatever you need from the treasurer's office let's start getting the word out now to our businesses saying that get your your your papers in order so you can apply and participate in this opportunity to help build back our businesses so i'm sorry for the long wandering no that is awesome that's how we that's how i see us moving the ball forward from the legislators perspective and from our perspective we see it from so many different angles and and how do we build the coalition to not just have the problems continue but build the coalitions to actually put results and wins up on the board and i know someone in the community chat asked the question uh when the next meeting is i think our next meeting is march 24 2021 uh is up on the legislative website is right before session um and then we're having meetings of course during session um and and all of that information i don't have to i'm on this screen so i don't have the calendar up in front of me of when all the meetings are but i know the next one is march 24 2021 and all the specifics is on the legislature's website legends.la.gov sorry about that thanks thank you representative carter um i think that's i mean i think you you really brought us home in the last uh five minutes we have i would like to um just offer some space for for folks to give final thoughts one thing that that that has been repeated in the chat a couple of times is that we need a a a black think tank in the state of louise louisiana and some are calling for you all to become that that uh that black think thing which i i love that idea as well so any closing thoughts um as we wrap up our conversation about the three e's economic development economic opportunity and entrepreneurship real quick anybody watching pass the word we need more african americans as economic development professionals in louisiana i m tired of going to meetings quentin knows it other folks know it and you go to a meeting and if you're not at that meeting and this is nothing against anybody doing business in government in louisiana but if we're not at a meeting how do i expect someone to solve my people's problems and when you look at the edo's around the state and a lot of the chambers we're not represented and so we have to be at that table so i encourage folks to encourage young folks in college and high school to think about economics economic prof uh being an economic professional and utilizing their skills right here in the state because we there's a lot of work to be done yeah i would say building on eric's comments um one i think we need to be in every room even if we're uncomfortable in that room so that's that's one um two and i think representative carter spoke beautifully about this this notion of economic invisibility that kind of connects the troubles and the travails of black folks and brown folks from rural white folks and we in louisiana have got to get people to understand this notion of economic invisibility trumps the race that you can see you can't eat you know just because you white if you ain't got no money you're just not going to eat and you need to be able to get that economic invisibility i think representative carter spoke about that beautifully i think the final thing is i don't want us to ever be discouraged i i think that you know the the battle is won in the spiritual realm before it's manifested in the physical realm so i want to thank um the urban league for affording me this opportunity and thank christy for being a great moderate and honor our panelists but let's always remember gratitude is the ammunition from getting more so i just want to encourage people during this season thank you well in closing again i just want to say thank you to the urban league and thank you christie for doing a great job as a moderator and i look forward to the opportunity to continue to work with my colleagues quentin and eric as well as representative carter we do have a lot of work to do and i agree with quentin we cannot uh be discouraged but be encouraged be hopeful and if we're in a position to open up doors of opportunity and give hope to black businesses um we're the ones that are closer to the ground than they are we're going to continue to be a voice and and if we can't get an answer we're going to do everything that we can to to get an answer for them but at the end of the day um you know we're the boots on the ground and we're going to do everything that we can to help our black businesses you know why because i believe our hearts are in the right place and i believe that we're really about serving and i think we have our servant heart and so when i think about the people that's on this panel and have had this conversation i hope that the people that are listening can see that we're sincere you know i know that sometimes elected officials and people in our position a lot of time looks as us and think that we always have an agenda but i believe at the end of the day our agenda is about serving and it's always been that for me and i know that it is for all of all of you that are here so again thank you so very much and again i look forward to the opportunity for that think tank i think that's something that we really need to think about down the road and create and thank you mr nunes for your input we really appreciate it and the blight chamber is having conversations regarding uh equity investment matter of fact we're going to have a webinar about it very soon so thank you for your input what i would add in in closing is that i'm very optimistic as well i i recognize that we have a lot of work to do but i'm very excited about where we are especially from a political standpoint um for us to have a democratic administration where one of the senior advisors to the president is our own congressman cedric richmond our senior uh i don't know his exact title now but to have that level of input for our region at that level for us to have a democratic governor of the state of louisiana you know the opportunities now we have to seize this opportunity and take advantage of it you know how do we have create right now greater access to capital greater access to opportunity greater access to participation let's say these are some specific doable tasks that we can obtain and let's go obtain them let's have an action item and get it and so i'm just i'm excited about where we are i'm excited about the energy and i'm also excited about the black caucus quite honestly if if it wasn't for the caucus we wouldn't have a committee on minority female veteran on enterprises we formed this committee as we were forming a task force on policing as we were forming an examination on the history of of racism in the louisiana educational system it's a holistic approach it's all needed you know you look at the the challenges that are facing us it it's it's it requires all of us you know in order to solve it and so i'm so proud of my colleagues i'm so proud of the black caucus i'm so glad that we have partners like the urban league and the new orleans black chamber and and all of all of the friends that i see on this group as i'm looking at it you know this is the opportunity right now to strike how do we move forward and so let's do it and i'm excited about 2021 in this year thank you to all of our panelists mr clinton messer president and ceo of new orleans business new orleans business alliance eric cormier vice president senior of senior strategic development and policy for southwest louisiana economic development alliance laverne toomes executive director of new orleans regional black chamber and representative gary carter louisiana house of representatives representing district 102 oh thank you all for thank you uh for this engaging discussion thank you to our audience for joining us this morning and most importantly thank you to the urban league of louisiana and the louisiana legislative black caucus for bringing us together for this very engaging conversation today our future is brighter because you all are working in it i am so looking forward to partnering with you and um continuing this discussion have a great day everyone thank you