Name | Quanda S Francis |
Email Address | info@quandafrancis.com |
What is your plan for getting the city back to work, particularly in its hardest hit sectors? What kind of workforce development programs do you envision that would provide access to communities of color and people with disabilities? | Workforce Development is an integral aspect of a city’s economic vitality. The pandemic has decimated the job market resulting in layoffs and recession-like unemployment. Complicating matters is how particular racial and ethnic communities have been affected. According to a recent study, people of color accounted for nearly 70% of New York City job losses. Particularly, Industries and jobs have been adversely impacted displacing many working class people who did not have financial margins (i.e., long-term savings) that could sustain them for months. As Mayor, I would stimulate the job market by utilizing analytics models, committees and subcommittees consisting of various industry leaders, and New York City agencies as partners with private sector entities to enact a Workforce Development 10-Point Plan. The Workforce Development 10-Point Plan consists of the following items: 1. Appoint a Workforce Development Executive Officer along with Borough Superintendents to spearhead and oversee workforce development initiatives. 2. Identify persistent threats to the New York City economy and measure short-, mid-, and long-term impacts. 3. Devise action plans that accelerate the return to pre-pandemic job market levels and pinpoint population segments that were unemployed, underemployed, and “discouraged” pre-pandemic to provide training, job/career preparation, and placement. 4. Examine future job/career/entrepreneurial/. Foster education and training initiatives for formerly incarcerated individuals that will provide them with meaningful employment and/or entrepreneurial opportunities. 6. Reduce city taxes on small businesses and ease rent payments for small businesses. 7. Establish a wage supplement plan providing wage vouchers to small businesses to lessen payroll burden. 8. Create a New York City-wide Career Bank portal that centralizes career/job bank listings to reduce redundancy, increase usage, improves navigation, and accelerate job/career prospecting. 9. Develop more City employment opportunities (e.g., researchers, surveyors, maintenance workers, analysts, technology specialists, etc.). I believe the city should be a catalyst for job/career/entrepreneurial opportunities; and 10. Attract and retain large firms that will stimulate our employment sector |
What is your plan for creating healthy stable communities? How do you envision enlivening vacant commercial and city owned spaces? | Many neighborhoods are in depressed or regressed condition, but the school can be a leading force for a neighborhood’s revitalization. An empowered community empowers the school, and then an empowered school empowers the community resulting in a wonderful synergy. |
What do you foresee is the role of creative economies in supporting economic recovery in New York City particularly for communities most affected by environmental, housing, and health instability due to COVID including our aging, immigrant, and working class communities of color? | New York City is the entertainment capital of the world–and thus, a robust entertainment industry and tourism is vital to the city. I will focus on restoring our night lift industry which is estimated to generate 35.1 billion in output and serves a catalyst role in tourism. Entertainment provides a myriad of benefits for the individuals who are the recipients (especially escape/diversion, remembrance, reflection, relaxation, socializing, fun, stimulation, etc.). As Mayor, I will create various task forces dedicated to the various entertainment genres composed of entertainers, entertainment business professionals, and citizens. Lastly, I would create and ensure inter-industry synergies (meaning every industry should be connected to at least five industries deliberately, not just organically–e.g., music promoters should be connected to the restaurant/food & beverage service, hotel, film, fashion, law enforcement/security, transportation, information technology, advertising, and education industries in a manner where all the parties meet routinely and create efficiencies within the partnership. |
What is your plan for the city’s school system and what is your vision of the role that arts in education plays? | A school’s leadership apparatus must be fully stimulated and energized, possessing the right balance between optimism and realism. The teachers should be equally energized along with the instruction, and the curriculum must be dynamic. How does the leadership and educational apparatuses manifest, model, and sponsor the type of energy that will galvanize the student body, empower the parents, captivate the community and support the arts in education? Engineer solutions and redefine education. Education ultimately determines a nation’s viability, and therefore, no investment is too large. The Mayor is charged with not just bringing functionality to education, but more importantly, efficiency. The four major components of education are students, parents, teachers, and administrators. All four components should work synergistically (which means they should not only complement one another; they should enhance one another. Parents, Teachers, and Students should enhance Administrators; Teachers, Students, and Administrators should enhance Parents; Students, Administrators, and Parents should enhance Teachers; and Administrators, Parents, and Teachers should enhance Students. Parents have unique needs that are often ignored which means the student’s away-from-school environment is not factored in resulting in educational mishaps. (Essential info includes: (1) how many people are living in the household; (2) traumatic history; (3) food security; (4) housing security; (5) school commute; (6) caregiver profession; (7) information about the actual residence (e.g., how large and how many rooms) As mayor I will make decisions based on “safety first” contingencies. Safety First drives all education decisions. In terms of the Pandemic, there must be plans in place for in-person instruction, virtual, instruction, and a combination of both. Teacher preparation and training should emphasize strategic utilization of technology, a basic understanding of creating videos, gaming, and social media. A child’s inherent strengths and interests should be considered to better direct them in areas where they are more likely to excel. Administrators need to be evaluated on measures besides scores on standardized tests, graduation/promotion rates, and number of suspensions. The school building must be a member of the community that remains opens offering a host of services. Student learning should not be, so classroom centered (especially in New York City which has so many places to visit). Parents must be and feel welcomed. The school hours and days may need modification to better suit students and their families. |
What is your plan to address the health care needs of the city's many communities? | I would appoint a Chief Equity Officer that would be tasked with assessing, analyzing, and evaluating historical data derived from various New York City agencies for the purpose of implementing data driven public policies that can adequately address the economic inequality that is directly correlated with disparities in education, employment opportunities, access to safe and affordable housing and disparities in access to quality healthcare. |
What are your plans for supporting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers? | I believe we need to immediately take steps to ban private prisons, decriminalize marijuana and grant clemency for individuals that are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes that do not pose a threat to the safety of others. I also believe we need to reform the correctional system and work to implement programs that rehabilitate people while they are incarcerated to reduce the probability of recidivism. |
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