Westchester County Business Journal 041116

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5 | WISDOM OF WOZ APRIL 11, 2016 | VOL. 52, No. 15

16 | NEW KNEE FIX

YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS

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New art, new life for a White Plains industrial zone BY JOHN GOLDEN

New York last August with her family and husband, Leonardo Kestelman, managing director at Dinosaur Merchant Bank. Though she is still ON A MORNING IN unpacking, some of EARLY SPRING, Simone her dramatic sculpturKestelman carefully al pieces will be shown unpacked long woodby Ai Bo Gallery of en crates in her new Greenwich at the art studio and gallery Context Art show that space near downtown runs May 3-8 at Pier 94 White Plains. The in Manhattan. crates were shipped “The U.S.A. – to stay, from her native Brazil, The converted CG Swackhamer barn, in foreground, and the to live there, to some where Kestelman, Norden building on Westmoreland Avenue. day maybe become a president of SK Studio citizen, is my dream,” she said. Art and Gallery Inc., made sculptures and Kestelman recently rented out her other artwork in ceramic and glass and studio in Brazil’s capital and has moved employed 18 workers in her 18,000-squareher well-equipped operation to 121 foot studio in Sao Paulo. Westmoreland Ave., in an area of light “Things are happening here more than industry rezoned last year by White Plains in Brazil,” said the artist, who moved to jgolden@westfairinc.com

Brazilian artist Simone Kestelman unpacks at her new studio in White Plains. Photo by John Golden.

» REZONE, page 6

$15 minimum wage creates economic test BY BILL HELTZEL bheltzel@westfairinc.com

THE NEW STATE BUDGET HAS put Westchester County at the center of an experiment that will test the hopes and fears that a $15 minimum wage poses. New York will have six different minimum wage schedules by the end of the year, compared with one statewide rate in 2015. Westchester is the only county that will encompass or share a border with all six tiers.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “fight for fair pay” initiative and a generous family leave policy that he signed into law on April 4 put New York in the vanguard of liberal economic justice policies nationally. Members of the Business Council of Westchester, however, are concerned about the economic effects of increasing the minimum wage, according to Executive Vice President John Ravitz, “because no state has made that kind of jump before.” The minimum wage in Westchester will

increase 67 percent, from $9 to $15, in six years. Depending on where you work in the region, the lowest wages at the end of the year will vary from $9.70 to $12. Let’s say you start a job search in Westchester. Employers will have to pay you at least $10 an hour at the end of the year. The same scale applies to Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island. Now, cross the county line into the Bronx. You will be paid $11.

But it gets complicated. If you land a job flipping burgers, your fast food position will pay $10.75 in Westchester and $12 in the Bronx. If you find work in the city with a company that employs fewer than 11 people, you will make $10.50. In Rockland or Orange counties or anywhere else in the state, most jobs will pay at least $9.70. Fast food workers will get $10.75, the same as in Westchester. The wages increase every year, by 70 » MINIMUM WAGE, page 6

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EQUAL HOUSING

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