Red Tape Teardown
Strict permit timelines
"Prosperity isn't built in a government office; it is built by local entrepreneurs. City Council must stop acting like a bureaucratic hurdle and start acting like a partner. It is time to tear down the red tape."
The Bureaucratic Maze
Right now, opening a small business or expanding an existing one in Lynchburg requires navigating a complicated maze. Entrepreneurs are forced to bounce between different city departments, dealing with conflicting answers, endless paperwork, and devastatingly slow permitting times.
For a massive corporation with a team of lawyers, this bureaucracy is just an annoyance. But for a local, working-class resident trying to open a bakery, a plumbing service, or a retail shop, these delays are fatal. Time is money, and every month spent waiting on a city permit is a month of paying rent without generating revenue. By making it exhaustively difficult to start a business, City Hall is inadvertently suffocating homegrown economic growth and protecting the status quo.
Permit Bottleneck
Lynchburg entrepreneurs waste precious capital bounced between fire, zoning, and health departments, receiving conflicting instructions and waiting months for basic answers.
Dave's Small Business Fast Track
The "Small Business Navigator"
Dave will push to establish a single point of contact within City Hall for new businesses. Instead of an entrepreneur bouncing between zoning, fire, and health departments, they will have a dedicated city liaison whose sole job is to guide them through the process and get their doors open.
Why Small Business Is Still King
The Cost of Local Bureaucracy
Cost, delays, and complexity are the three biggest barriers to small businesses being started. According to the Institute for Justice, the prize for local government is to make it cheaper, faster, and simpler for entrepreneurs to start a business. We are not San Francisco ($23k), but we would love to be like Raleigh and have $1.3k to start a restaurant.