Crossroads: Recycling
Kevin Gershowitz, president of
Gershow Recycling
Economic outlook: Long Island is losing companies to red tape and the lengthy, uncertain process of establishing a business.
Jobs outlook: Not everyone can be a doctor or lawyer. Long Island needs a good mix of jobs, ranging from industrial to professional.
What I consider a primary focus of why Long Island has trouble is getting through the red tape. . . . Whether it's a development project or a business wanting to expand or a storefront wants to knock a wall down to another storefront, you need a permit. And that process is incredibly slow. It's almost backwards. Today you may have the wherewithal, or the money or the capital to expand your business, but 18 months from now, you may not. Business has to strike while the iron is hot.
The economy goes in a circle. And it contracts and it expands. And businesses go out of business and come into business. So when businesses go out, where are the new ones coming in? Part of Long Island's problem is we don't bring new ones in because of the fence, so to speak, to get into Long Island, the red tape, the controls, the timeline. So if you're in business and you've been able to find funding to open up your factory and you can get an approval in the Carolinas in six months and you can't do that anywhere else and you already have the funding lined up, you're going to the Carolinas. You're not coming to Long Island.
