Posted: October 20th, 2020
October 20, 2020 – Episode 21 of Business Unusual Weekly Recovery Webinar with business leaders Joe Campolo and Peter Klein. In this episode, they welcomed Michael Chiang, Entrepreneur in Residence at the Stony Brook Small Business Development Center, and Phil Rugile, Director of LaunchPad Huntington. The discussion focused on the technology landscape for small businesses as the pandemic stretches on.
Event Date: October 27th, 2020
It’s been more than seven months since the coronavirus pandemic changed our lives forever. Joe Campolo and Peter Klein launched “Business Unusual” back in May, interviewing business leaders, elected officials, and industry experts each week to help the business community navigate our new reality. As the pandemic stretched on, topics expanded from economic relief to issues of mental health, science, and social justice, attracting a loyal following hungry for both information and connection.
As “Business Unusual” draws its 2020 season to a close before Election Day, what lessons have we learned and how can we translate this knowledge into meaningful change for Long Island and the business community? Don’t miss our final episode of 2020 as Joe and Peter reflect on these important conversations and discuss the path forward.
DATE: Tuesday, October 27
TIME: 11:30 a.m.
Posted: October 13th, 2020
October 13, 2020 – Episode 20 of Business Unusual Weekly Recovery Webinar with business leaders Joe Campolo and Peter Klein. In this episode, they welcomed Diane Hatton, the Electron-Ion Collider Project Manager at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The discussion focused on BNL’s discovery science and transformative technology happening right in our backyard.
Posted: October 13th, 2020
In 2020, the court system has faced unprecedented challenges from the pandemic and associated budget cuts. Business disputes, however, continue on – and with would-be litigants facing uncertain waits in the court system for their most pressing issues, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) has taken on new importance.
We sat down (virtually) with Jim Wrynn, Chief Commercial Officer and a Hearing Officer at NAM (National Arbitration and Mediation), to discuss ADR, how NAM has filled a critical void left by the pandemic, and how his unique background informs his approach to cases. Read the Q&A to learn more.
Q: How do you explain ADR to non-lawyers?
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is any method for settling disputes without litigation. It is an alternative to the court system and is increasingly being utilized in disputes that would otherwise result in litigation, including commercial/business transactions, labor and employment matters, insurance disputes, matrimonial actions, and personal injury claims. Arbitration and Mediation are two of the most common forms.
A major benefit of ADR is that the process is flexible – parties have the freedom to choose their own Arbitrator/Mediator with the requisite subject matter experience and can choose the procedural and discovery rules that may apply to their dispute. The procedure is much quicker than litigation, is significantly less expensive, is confidential, allows all parties to be heard, and is more likely to preserve existing relationships (business and/or social).
Q: When might ADR be a good choice for a particular dispute?
When:
Q: The pandemic has severely limited court operations, and the recent announcement of a judicial hiring freeze suggests that these limitations will not be fully resolved for some time. How has NAM filled the void?
For almost 30 years, we have seen a significant increase in the use of ADR as opposed to formal court proceedings. Recent months have seen this shift rapidly accelerate due to the unprecedented impact of the pandemic. Accelerating even faster is the use of remote (or virtual) videoconferencing that enable the parties and counsel to proceed with Mediation/Arbitration in a way that protects them from the virus.
NAM has been way ahead of the curve in its ability to integrate technology and case conferencing. We have been conducting hearings and conferences via videoconferencing for over 25 years. Since mid-March alone, NAM has successfully conducted thousands of hearings remotely without any technological or security issues.
Q: How does virtual mediation compare to in-person mediation? Do you think in-person will resume post-COVID or is virtual mediation a satisfactory substitute?
Frankly, the conversion from mostly in-person to virtual hearings has been seamless for us, and the parties and counsel are finding it quicker and more cost-effective. For example,
In addition, the Mediator/Arbitrator can speak to all parties and counsel together or separate them into break-out rooms. We are also finding that there is much more eye contact with the parties and counsel virtually, where faces are very visible on the screen, than there would be if all were present in the same room sitting around a large conference room table.
Participants are now familiar and comfortable with Virtual ADR and the benefits it provides, but time will tell as to the degree participants will continue to utilize this format post-Covid.
Q: What sets NAM apart from other ADR services?
First and foremost is the quality of our roster of neutrals. NAM offers a nationwide panel of more than 2,600 top-tier former judges and experienced legal practitioners that are each uniquely qualified to resolve these disputes. NAM has two of the top three neutrals in the U.S. based on the National Law Journal and consistently ranks in the top three of the Corporate Counsel Best of Surveys. Eight of the top 10 mediators and seven of Top 10 arbitrators were NAM neutrals based on the New York Law Best of Survey and others are working their way up the list.
We continue to expand the roster to include even more distinguished neutrals. We recently added the Honorable David B. Saxe of the NYS Appellate Division, First Department, to our panel. Justice Saxe is one of the most honored and respected members of New York’s legal community, and I have no doubt that he will soon be joining many of our other neutrals on these lists in the future.
Another reason is NAM’s superior case administration – we have an experienced team of case managers with the skill set and experience to handle all aspects and nuances involved in the administration of the individual dispute or with a specific ADR program.
Other reasons include: our focus on technology – being at the forefront of videoconferencing over the past 25 years is paramount. We also offer unparalleled flexibility – we have tremendous expertise in the customization and implementation of numerous innovative ADR programs and initiatives. In addition, NAM has constantly demonstrated industry leadership. It has been a true pioneer in the field of ADR and, as a result, has been repeatedly recognized as a leader in the field by the legal community.
Q: Talk about your own background as Superintendent of the NYS Insurance Department and how that experience has shaped your work at NAM.
In addition to my role as Superintendent of the NYS Insurance Department, my background includes more than 35 years of experience as an attorney, regulator, executive, strategic advisor, board member, and expert witness in the insurance field. These experiences have made me somewhat uniquely qualified to serve as both Chief Commercial Officer (where I help develop NAM’s overall strategic policy), and as a Hearing Officer (primarily in the Insurance/Reinsurance field).
For the first 25 years of my career, I was a trial attorney and, coincidently, handled many mediations and arbitrations with NAM, so I am familiar with them as both a client and an executive. Since that time, I have been involved with thousands of claims from a number of different viewpoints in my various roles with the NYS Insurance Fund, the NYS Department of Insurance, and the NYS Department of Financial Services, and as a regulatory attorney, expert witness, and strategic advisor.
As a result, I do not approach the dispute from only one vantage point, as many neutrals do, but I understand the perspective of all parties, their counsel, the impacted business owners, the insurance carrier, and even the regulator, since I have worn hats in each of these capacities.
Learn more about NAM here.
CMM attorneys have helped countless clients reach successful resolutions through both litigation and ADR. Contact us today to discuss the best path forward for your employment, business divorce, personal injury, or other disputes.
Posted: October 9th, 2020
By Timothy Bolger
Mixed-use developments that blend housing and commercial real estate long built separately on Long Island are transforming not only the region’s communities and downtowns, but also its biggest industrial park, experts say.
While transit-oriented housing — apartments within walking distance of Long Island Rail Road stations and other transportation hubs — has made inroads in recent years, plans are now in the works to construct such buildings in the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge.
“It is the most exciting project I’ve been involved in in my career,” Joe Campolo, a board member of the Hauppauge Industrial Association of Long Island (HIA-LI), told attendees of the group’s annual trade show, which was held virtually Wednesday and Thursday.
The HIA-LI changed the name of the Hauppauge Industrial Park to the LI Innovation Park last year as part of its plan to reimagine the business district — the second largest industrial park in the nation after Silicon Valley — and foster the next generation of technology companies. The apartment component of that plan was hatched for the same reason local municipalities are embracing mixed-use developments: to offer affordable housing to stem the Brain Drain — the Island’s young professionals moving away due to the high cost of living.
Sixty-seven percent of millennials — people born between 1981 and 1996 — are thinking about moving off LI, according to a nextLIstudy, yet millennials will make up 75 percent of the workforce in the next five years, a Deloitte survey found, noted Terri Alessi-Miceli, president and CEO of HIA-LI.
“It’s critical to build places for them to live, to work, to play,” she said.
The HIA-LI housing plan advanced earlier this year when the Town of Smithtown reclassified zoning in the industrial park, allowing developers to apply for special exemptions to construct apartment buildings with ground-level retail space. Campolo, who’s also managing partner of Campolo, Middleton & McCormick, LLP, a Ronkonkoma-based law firm, said the change could lead to as many as 1,000 apartments in the industrial park. Plans also include a greenway connection, quality-of-life amenities, business incubators, an advanced manufacturing hub, and a workforce training center that will address filling job openings in biopharma and finance, among other issues.
Campolo shared details of the project during a HIA-LI trade show webinar titled Long Island Transformational Projects: Economic Growth for Business and our Economy, which offered an update on some of the region’s largest mixed-use developments.
DEMAND OUTPACING SUPPLY
The gap between the number of housing units needed and available on the Island is forecast to nearly double over the next decade from more than 51,000 five years ago, according to Robert Coughlan, co-founder of TRITEC Real Estate Company, an East Setauket-based developer.
Yet TRITEC, one of the region’s leading mixed-use housing builders, has added just 2,531 new multi-family home units to the region in Patchogue, Ronkonkoma, Lindenhurst, and Port Jefferson that were the culmination of 17 years of work, he added. Despite the progress, community opposition persists from anti-development Long Islanders known for Not In My Backyard sentiment, commonly known as NIMBYs.
“NIMBYism … is usually led by, in our humble opinion, misinformed and misguided people and groups,” Coughlan said. “Often these people are the same people that are getting up at public hearings and saying, ‘our prices are too high on Long Island, our taxes are too high’ … They often don’t realize that multi-use housing in their neighborhoods will raise the value of their own homes and provide alternatives for their family members.”
He pointed to historical shifts in local housing needs. Forty years ago, more than half of households on LI were nuclear families — couples and their children — and households of single people living alone made up about 10 percent of the population. Now, nuclear families make up about a third of households and singles comprise a quarter. The population shift drives the need for more multi-family housing.
“If we don’t increase supply to meet demand, we will chase populations away,” he said.
Of course, erecting apartment buildings doesn’t happen overnight. It can take millions of dollars and three to five years of planning before even getting approval to start construction, he noted. New Village at Patchogue took eight years to get done before it opened in 2014.
Russell Albanese, chairman of The Albanese Organization, the Garden City-based developer behind the Wyandanch Rising project that is midway through building the Wyandanch Village development, added that government backing is key to getting anything this big completed.
“You cannot build affordable housing without an [industrial benefit agency] benefit for a project and you can’t do it without New York State and their housing programs,” Albanese said. “It’s very challenging but also there’s great reward in being involved in community building like this.”
ACCELERATED TRANSFORMATION
The change in LI’s housing landscape comes not only amid a demographic shift, but also a confluence of economic, social, and governmental changes rippling across Nassau and Suffolk counties since the coronavirus pandemic arrived.
The changes include an increased residential real estate demand as New York City residents move to the Island to flee the virus, an accelerated shuttering of retail storefronts as shoppers were forced to buy online to avoid COVID-19, and the rise of local government agencies modernizing their building permit application processes with online meetings as public gatherings are limited, noted Mitch Pally, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute.
Pally added that the changes come as the New York Islanders are midway through the construction of their new home, UBS Arena, being built at Belmont Park in Elmont, which will both bring the team home to LI after a stint in Brooklyn and allow fans to take the LIRR to see games — something that was not possible when the team played at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale.
“In two years, you’ll be able to … walk out of either Bob Coughlan’s TRITEC apartment in Ronkonkoma or Russ Albanese’s Wyandanch apartment and go to the Islander game by train,” Pally said. “What a transformation of Long Island that will be for people in Suffolk County to be able to get to and from the new Islander facility at Belmont by train. It will transform the relationship with the Islanders with many people who either cannot get there or don’t want to drive there.”
Posted: October 8th, 2020
As HIA-LI Board Chairman, Joe Campolo presented the progress on and future of the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge during the Executive Breakfast program at HIA-LI’s Virtual Trade Show on October 7, 2020.
One of the most critical economic development projects on Long Island today, the LI-IPH effort is the result of Campolo’s idea just over four years ago to analyze the economic impact of the Park. Once the staggering numbers behind the Park were revealed, “everyone had to pay attention,” he says. From there, the Suffolk IDA and Regional Plan Association joined with Campolo and HIA-LI to conduct further studies and make recommendations to expand, rebrand, and further develop the Park, now recognized as the anchor of Long Island’s tradable economy. Today, Campolo’s vision has become a roadmap to get things done on Long Island.
Posted: October 6th, 2020
October 6, 2020 – Episode 19 of Business Unusual Weekly Recovery Webinar with business leaders Joe Campolo and Peter Klein. In this episode, they welcomed Dr. James Lentini, President of Molloy College. The discussion focused on his experiences taking the helm at Molloy during the pandemic and on both the difficulties and opportunities facing educational institutions in 2020 and beyond.
Posted: October 5th, 2020
By Adina Genn
This year’s HIA-LI will be virtual amid the COVID-19 crisis. The trade show takes place Oct. 7 through Oct. 8, from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m.
Already, 2,500 leaders in the business community have preregistered for the trade show, now in its 32nd year.
The event features programs promoting business expansion as well as breakout sessions. There will also be special offers, prizes and promotions.
“Long Island businesses, particularly those in tradable sectors based in the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge, are the anchor of the regional economy,” Joe Campolo, board chair of HIA-LI and managing partner of Campolo, Middleton & McCormick, said in a statement.
“We’re thrilled to take the trade show global with the new virtual format. A trade show of this magnitude helps ensure that Nassau and Suffolk businesses are registering a strong impact on the global economic stage as well,” he added.
Campolo is a panelist the trade show program “Long Island Transformational Projects: Economic Growth for Business and Our Economy,” which is slated for Oct. 7 between 9 and 10:30na.m. It moderated by Mitch Pally, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute. Panelists also include Bob Coughlan, rincipal with Tritec Real Estate; Russell Albanese, chairman of The Albanese Organization. The panel will explore such large-scale Long Island economic development initiatives as the Belmont Raceway redevelopment/Nassau Hub, the Ronkonkoma Hub, and Wyandanch Rising.
Another webinar, “Habits to Foster Peak Performance,” features coach Dana Cavalea, former director of performance for the New York Yankees, whose leadership training helped lead the team to the 2009 World Championship. Taking place Oct. 8 between 9and 10:30 a.m., it will be moderated by radio and television personality Steve Harper.
There will be eight breakout sessions, covering marketing, technology, networking, leadership, and other business-related themes.
Every Long Island business sector will be represented at the event, including energy and environmental services, technology, manufacturing, financial services, hospitality, health care, media and advertising, education, government, not-for-profit, and workforce development.
Posted: October 5th, 2020
By: Christine Malafi, Esq. email
Tags: corporate
Business owners: to avoid civil penalties, be sure to review your pricing model on goods and services to confirm you’re adhering to recently passed legislation. As of September 30, 2020, New York State has banned the “pink tax,” a reform passed as part of the 2021 New York State Budget.1
The “pink tax” describes a practice by retailers, manufacturers, and service providers to charge different prices for “substantially similar” consumer goods or services that are marketed to different genders. The law is in response to instances in which women are charged more, and pay more, for the same goods or services offered to men.2
“Substantially similar goods” are defined by the State as goods that exhibit little difference in the materials used in production, intended use, functional design and features, and brand. “Substantially similar services” is defined as two services that exhibit little difference in the amount of time delivering, difficulty, and cost in providing the service. The State uses the following as examples of prohibited pricing:
To combat discriminatory practices, the law empowers consumers to request and receive a written price list for standard services to ensure any such difference is not discriminatory.
To avoid potential liability, businesses should make sure that any price difference is based upon:
The New York State Division of Consumer Protection will handle all complaints, and violations may result in an order to stop such sales, along with restitution to consumers, up to a $250 fine for the first violation, and up to $500 fine for any subsequent violations. Consumer restitution, while in and of itself is not a high cost, could lead to potential class action lawsuits.
Businesses should protect against violations of the “Pink Tax” prohibition to avoid the appearance of discriminatory practices and potential liabilities which may result. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact us at (631)-738-9100 or fill out our form here.
[1] Senate Bill S2679
[2] A Study of Gender Pricing in New York City
