Employee ownership in LA County

well first of all let's start with kind of the small business kind of ecosystem in LA county you know 25,000 small businesses 20 years old or older uh with over 750,000 employees and billions of dollars um ined into our local economy and so for local government to support in some instances this kind of fragile industry I think is really important so I'm proud that uh a motion that I brought forward um um now being operationalized by our Department of Economic Opportunity uh in partnership with project Equity is really making employee ownership um a reality here in LA county uh we've used American Rescue plan act dollars to put our money where our mouth and our commitment is to really make sure that we're able to provide technical assistance legal assistance and actually fund incubation and help uh um workers with some seed money to actually buy the business you know we don't want that to be a deterrent in and of itself from my perspective this really is a meaningful way to create a paradigm shift in this concept of how you build generational wealth we're talking about a new population population perhaps multigenerational workers you know like myself and my own family um who are able to transition into ownership and it's also a way to meaningfully support small business owners to have a variety of options of how they transition out ownership and to to understand that there are variety of tools in that toolkit one of which and the county um partly with project Equity wants to make that available to them is to transition ownership to their very own Workforce that's my vision of success where small businesses are honored the workforce is honored and the community benefits from having um that Community Asset continue on this is the way we could operationalize equity and expanding access um to the kind of support small businesses need to survive and thrive and so for these businesses to know that they can um behold maintain their own multi-generational wealth but by helping to expand their own Legacy by their own Workforce being able to step up to the plate and continue the tradition of that small business in that on that in that Community I am clear about the role small business play in keeping La counting's economy healthy and I just think it's a great opportunity when I look at small businesses in my own Community I had one example of an amazing cultural icon in the heart of my district a 30y year small business um that ended up just closing just shut their doors um took their product and went away and I think it's because they didn't have or didn't understand the B options available to them e well consider the number of our constituents and whose livelihoods are based on their employment at a small business it behooves us as a level of government um to figure out how we can engage well you know I would encourage all of my elected colleagues in local government to to look at the data in your own County e and so to honor small businesses who have soils who have struggled to stay afloat to honor that their own work Equity um by giving them an auction um to to sell and not short change their investment um to sell their business but to a work for so they feel good about it you know I remember um you know to draw a parallel um selling my first house uh it was my first house we metant so much to me and I was looking for someone like me to buy an unmarried female as the banking as your loan dots will say um that I was going to give her a break just like I was given one to be able to buy her first home e e and when government can kind of cosign or sanction a new novel concept that's helpful um it's you know the notion of employee ownership maying really new um to the small business community and so if it's something that they can look and say well there's a County department our Department of Economic Opportunity this part me with something called protic equity and they are providing me technical assistance and legal assistance so I can kind of fact check the figure out is this real is it not for your County government to actually leverage resources to create a pool of money to make it available to help with the transition perhaps with a a a portion of the funds needed for the purchase to incubate the concept um those are um a return on investment that government can afford to put up if you will and when you think about the benefit to your local economy to job creation and expansion when you consider who small business hires it's not been a hard sale to small business to talk about would you mind training and hiring someone was forly system involved because they have people in the very own community so it behooves us to really make sure that this sector is supported um in a proed way particularly coming out of the public health economic pandemic that we all just barely survive well you know when I think about the district I represent in South La um and the number of small businesses that haven't always had the same level of access the same level of access to Capital the same level of access to Bab loans um to help them grow and expand their business I think this is a unique tool particularly for that small business person where we are valuing your work ethic your commitment your small business and saying to you we want to support you once you decide that it's time to transition out and bring a new product to the table a new product if you will to the market to support your Workforce that's probably compris of people who live in the community that you your small business is based in it and so for me that's in some instances what we call unfinished commities communities that haven't had the same level of private or public investment to build their infrastructure and so this is a a product for you um um and to convince small businesses who have someone led by people of color or women have been sometimes willfully left out of the traditional products that support business um I think will be new news and good news from my perspective employee ownership is operationalizing equity