The mayor who raised taxes and fees on city businesses and ignored the pleas the family-owned bars and restaurants bludgeoned by Somerville’s go-it-alone smoking ban participated in an economic summit at Tufts University Tuesday.

We wonder what the mayor would have thought of such a summit back when he was a registered Republican. But, now he is a Democrat, again, he doing what Democrats do when they want to know what businesspeople think: they call a meeting in the middle of the workday.

Maybe the press release was right and the economic summit was an important first step. Of course, in a city that is always making important first steps, all carefully captured in on digital photo cards, the second and third steps seem to be more elusive.

Two more questions come to mind.

One: Will there really be the sustained follow-up necessary to for businesses to plan and invest with confidence that the rules won’t change?

Two: What is the big mystery about economic growth anyway?

It seems to us if businesses are taxed and regulated lightly without being hung out to dry, they will grow and expand. Look around and one can see there are plenty of cities and towns in the state doing well for those reasons.

To be fair, the mayor took office in the wake of Hurricane Dorothy whose damage to the city was not just economic, but emotional.

President of the Board of Aldermen Bruce M. Desmond said whenever he sees Lt. Gov. Kerry M. Healy in Somerville, it means that something good is happening in the city.

By Desmond’s standard, Healy’s participation in the economic summit is a harbinger of good things to come.