New York's business climate will not improve unless the state's business and government sectors stop "talking past each other" and begin to address the many state policies that undermine growth, Alair Townsend, former deputy mayor of New York City in the Koch administration and long-time publisher of Crain's New York Business said while accepting the 2007 Corning Award for Excellence.
Townsend, who played a key role in charting New York City's fiscal and economic recovery in the early 1980s while serving in top management positions under former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, accepted the award Wednesday, September 19, at The Business Council's Annual Meeting at the Sagamore in Bolton Landing, Warren County.
The Corning Award for Excellence is sponsored by Corning Incorporated. The Council gives the award each year to a New Yorker who has shown outstanding accomplishment and a deep and sustained commitment to the people of New York. The first Corning Award was presented in 1979.
In presenting the award to Townsend, Linda Sanford, senior vice president of IBM and co-chairman of The Business Council, praised Townsend for a long career of diverse achievements: helping rescue New York City from its fiscal crisis in the 1970s, turning Crain's into a vibrant, must-read weekly in New York City's power circles, and devoting unusual energy and commitment to a variety of civic, cultural, and volunteer efforts.
Townsend's acceptance remarks focused on the obstacles facing growth in New York today.
"I have found that businesspeople and elected officials often see the world so differently that we talk past each other rather than with each other," she said. "The result, frequently, is government policies that make it more difficult and more costly for business to create jobs. And that hurts everybody."
The full text of Townsend's remarks is at www.bcnys.org/whatsnew/2007/0924atremarks.htm.