Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Department of Economic Development to research, prepare, and propose an equitable and effective “COVID-19 Small Business Recovery Loan Plan” for key sectors that have been hit hardest by closures associated with the COVID-19 emergency including but not limited to: (i) restaurants, (ii) retail, (iii) services, (iv) non-profit, (v) property-based businesses, and (vi) other very small businesses that provide employment to Long Beach residents; and, propose funding levels that consider the number of Long Beach business licenses within each category, and the projected needs of those within those categories to rebound.
Thank you. We still have four more Kogan items, so we'll try to get through these expeditiously. Item six the small business loan program. Madam Court. Madam Clerk. Item six Communication from Councilwoman Mango Councilwoman Zendejas. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Recommendation to request City Manager to work with economic development to research, prepare and propose an equitable and effective COVID 19 Small Business Recovery Loan Plan. Mango. Yes, thank you. I would just say that in addition to the loan program, CARES Act funding is available for grants. And so I think that we can look at additional ways to operationalize that funding should it become available. I think that I want to thank all the different businesses that came together in the many forums that we conducted. People and business owners who live, work, own in the fifth District or throughout the city or participated. We definitely had different groups by type, whether it was restaurants, gyms, personal comfort items like hair care and nail care and the others. And each and every industry has its own set of needs. I think that it's imperative that we listen to what they need and then work through what is possible to make their needs fulfilled in any way that's possible through CARES Act funding or loan programs or the such. Thank you, Councilwoman, Councilman and House. You, Mayor. First of all, I'd like to thank Councilwoman Mongeau for bringing this item forward. I personally know that so many downtown businesses that were struggling before COVID and with COVID happening and the closures, it's just been really, really hard for the businesses. So I, I really welcome this item and that this, this help that we're going to be able to provide for our small business owners, I think is very much needed. And through this, I also have learned that a lot, even though a lot of businesses in in the in certain categories, each and every business is individual and have unique needs. So as we go forward, I'd really like us to have that flexibility at looking at each business and its unique needs as we move forward and reopen again. So thank you again. Councilmember one vote for this item. Councilmember Richardson. I just wanted to second the motion. I'm fully in support of the iron ore evidence, but I fully support the item. Thank you. Dr. Pierce. Thanks and thank you, Mungo, for bringing this forward. I think a lot of us have been thinking about how to support our small businesses and second districts definitely lost money. And I just wanted to take a moment to thank economic development for all the work that they've been doing, especially on the front end of this disaster. And then hear one more time from city manager just on the process for reopening. I know that we had a briefing. Yesterday or the day before where we talk about the numbers of covert incidents. And I think this is a good moment just to remind people that while we want the economy to open back up, it it comes at the risk of increased numbers. So if you could just explain to us one more time about the new or the next step and what that's going to take for these businesses to open up. Yes, mayor and members of the city council. So we recently received the ability as a variance county to open up additional items and additional sectors that the Governor announced that last Friday with the ability for counties and health jurisdictions to make those decisions coming up as early as Friday. So we are in the process of that. It was 12 different sectors. That's a lot. Normally in the past, it's been one or two or three sectors. And so we are currently going through all the data to see where we line up with the governor's benchmarks for the ability to, for example, have enough testing, have enough hospital capacity, and then preparing some of those guidances about what can safely open when. And we expect that work to be done at the end of this week. And you're correct. You know, we obviously like to have our economy back up and going again. But it's also a balance with the amount of of cases that we still continue to see that are climbing and our hospitalization rate is up and it's actually higher than the county right now on a per $100,000 or 100,000 population basis. So it is a balance and we're going to have some some recommendations very soon about what we think should open and when and work with the county of L.A. on that. All right. Thank you, Tom. And I just I wanted to go on record in saying that I love our small businesses and I would love for them all to be open. But I am very worried about our numbers going up and so making sure that we have, you know, support for them. The previous item also mentioned, I think you started to support this. Europe, although. District one. District one, district two. I. District three. I. District four. I. District five. District six. I. District seven. I. District eight. District nine. All right. Motion carried.