13 | OPENING DELAYED NOVEMBER 16, 2015 | VOL. 51, No. 46
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ECONOMISTS SPLIT ON EFFECTS OF WAGE BOOST BY COLLEEN WILSON cwilson@westfairinc.com
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PAGE 2 Zwilling J.A. Henckels LLC CEO Guido Weishaupt, at right, exchanges congratulations with company CFO John Henkel at Zwilling’s new headquarters in Pleasantville. Looking on are Zwilling employees; Pleasantville Mayor Peter Scherer, center, and, partly hidden, Pleasantville Chamber of Commerce president William F. Flooks Jr.
espite recently published reports citing the potential negative effects from increases to New York’s hourly minimum wage, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that he was implementing a $15 per hour baseline salary for the state’s roughly 10,000 public employees by 2021. Cuomo has bolstered his minimum salary initiatives by promising to lift low-wage New Yorkers out of poverty, while some economists suggest that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost with minimum wage increases. “We made a decision a long time ago that if you worked full time, you should have a decent lifestyle for you and your family,” Cuomo said Nov. 10 to a crowd of labor union members at Foley Square in New York City. “The nation is going to watch us and we are going to raise up this state and we are going to raise up this nation to a higher level than it has ever been.” U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, whose district includes the Hudson Valley, praised
Cuomo for his leadership on the minimum wage issue. “Raising our minimum wage is good for families and good for our state,” Maloney said in a statement. “It will boost our economy, close the pay gap for women, and more hardworking families from the Hudson Valley into the middle class.” But the notion that a $15 baseline salary will be helpful has not been echoed by everyone. A survey from the Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit research organization, and conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found that 76 percent of the U.S. economists questioned said a $15 per hour minimum wage would have a negative effect on the number of jobs available. One percent of those economists said there would be a positive effect and 16 percent said there would be no demonstrable effect. Seven percent were unsure. The survey was emailed to 555 economists around the country between Sept. 22 and Oct. 16, and elicited a response from 166 » WAGE, page 6
Modell’s scales down plans to win OK for Mount Kisco store BY EVAN FALLOR evan@westfairinc.com
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Modell’s Sporting Goods store is slated to open on a downtown Main Street corner in Mount Kisco after village planning officials tentatively approved scaleddown plans for the vacant property at their Nov. 10 meeting. Initially proposed as a 16,700-squarefoot operation in a 22,600-square-foot build-
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ing at 154-162 E. Main St. last occupied by Borders Books and Music, the planned Modell’s store was downsized to 12,800 square feet in response to concerns previously voiced by village planning board members, said Douglas Epstein, vice president of real estate and general counsel for Modell’s Sporting Goods. A window signage agreement was also reached between Modell’s and the planning board the would make the store’s interior visible. Concerns had previously been raised over the
amount of promotional signage at the store. Epstein said the board could formally approved the revised plans on Nov. 24, after which the developer hopses to obtan a building permit by the end of December and open the Modell’s store by next spring. “We listened to the concerns of the board and we modified our configuration to meet those concerns,” said Epstein, who declined to give the store’s construction cost. “We were » MODELL’S, page 6
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