As someone who was raised by a single mother who worked in factories all around the City in order to provide for me, my brother and my sister, I understand the critical importance of developing good paying jobs in our city. 

Today, our city suffers from double-digit unemployment.  Small business owners are over-regulated and under-supported.  Over a million square feet of Downtown office space is vacant.  Hundreds of foreclosed and boarded homes line our streets. 

As Mayor, economic development – putting families to work and stimulating local business growth and prosperity – will be my top priority.

My strategy for developing Providence’s local economy will be to focus on retaining existing businesses, recruiting new investment and reforming our city’s zoning, permitting and licensing processes.

• Create a small loan revolving fund coupled with a provider network of attorneys, accountants and business advisors to help existing businesses navigate the system.
• Create a real estate tax suspension system for business property improvements.
• Create meaningful opportunities for shared services between our small businesses including workshops and roundtables on financial literacy, developing business plans, marketing and more.
• Protect Providence’s Working Waterfront from development that could endanger the industrial productivity of the Port of Providence.
• Partner with our nonprofit institutions - colleges, universities and hospitals - to support expansion that strengthens both the City and the institutions.
• Build upon existing job training and development partnerships such as YouthBuild and Building Futures to help connect working residents with goodpaying, middle class jobs.
• Develop a job-ready workforce by supporting the Career and Technical High School and by working with our local higher education institutions to maximize the availability of their programs to Providence residents.

RECRUIT

• Continue to transform the Jewelry District into the center of Rhode Island’s life sciences and technology sector; leverage federal and state dollars to invest in transportation infrastructure, fiber optic communication lines, labs and business incubators, and other infrastructure improvements in water, sewer, gas and electric services.
  
• Position Providence as a leader in the green economy by pursuing alternative sources of energy, greening city buildings and enforcing green building codes.
  
• Support transit-oriented development in our Downcity District.
  
• Partner with community organizations to maximize available opportunities for workforce development and job training.
  
• Utilize the new, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities created by the relocation of I-195 to help fuel Providence’s economy recovery.
  
• Work with state authorities to better market Downcity’s status as a Rhode Island Enterprise Zone.
  
• Invest in the arts and the creative economy so that Providence becomes not only the Creative Capital of Rhode Island, but the Creative Capital of America.
  
• Be Providence’s chief spokesperson, marketing our city nationally as New England’s center for creativity and entrepreneurship.
  

• Streamline the regulatory process; place Planning and Development, Inspections and Standards, Zoning and Licensing Department under one roof. Manage them efficiently and effectively so that the process required to do business is clear, fast and predictable.
  
• Ensure that city residents and workers benefit from any tax incentives given to private developers.
  
• Update First Source so that it better serves its intended purpose of putting Providence residents to work.