Application deadline approaching for city’s COVID grants
IMPERIAL — For-profit businesses within the city have until Thursday to apply for a grant up to $5,000 from the city’s Economic Stability Coronavirus Relief Program.
Funds awarded will be based on the applicant’s successful completion of all documents proving financial hardship due to COVID-19.
A copy of the application is available at www.cityofimperial.org/COVIDBizHelp.
A list of eligible applications will be collected, and the City Council will award the applicants during its Sept. 2 meeting.
To qualify, a business must have a brick-and-mortar location within the city, possess a valid city of Imperial business license and be in good standing (i.e. no code violations) with the city.
It’s also required that a business must be an existing, for-profit business within the city as of March 1.
Ineligible businesses include non-profits; illegal businesses; businesses which generate passive income, such as landlords; cannabis-related businesses; adult entertainment businesses; religious organizations; lending and investment institutions; insurance companies, and chain stores and franchises.
Priority will be given to businesses, such as barbershops and hair salons, that fall into Stage 3 or Stage 4 of Imperial County’s reopening plan.
“They have not seen the light of day since March,” Imperial Assistant City Manager Alexis L. Brown said while giving a presentation of the program before the city council during the Aug. 5 meeting.
During the meeting, the council voted 5-0 to launch the program.
Also during the meeting, Mayor Darrell Pechtl said although religious organizations are precluded from the program, some religious facilities in the city might have some expenses related to personal protective equipment.
“If there are churches or religious organizations that would like to meet one on one and we can find out what those are, I think we have other ways of being able to fund that,” Brown responded. “But we wanted to keep this for for-profits.”
By way of the grants, the city intends to comply with public health measures to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and provide economic support to businesses negatively impacted by the pandemic.
The grants may be used for business interruption costs; payment of overdue rent, mortgage or utilities to avoid eviction; payroll support. and expenses such as purchasing PPE.
“So they can be prepared to reopen,” Brown said.
The Economic Stability Coronavirus Relief Program came about as the city was recently approved to receive $244,822 in federal coronavirus relief monies from the California Department of Finance.
The state’s recommendation for the relief monies is for the city to use them to recoup costs related to COVID.
After discussion and direction from the council, the city instead decided to allot $200,000 of the relief monies to small grants for businesses within the city.
“So basically this is us putting our money out there to help these businesses out,” Pechtl said.
The city put aside the remaining $44,822 to recoup its COVID administration time, which is not reimbursable by CDF or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“But we feel that we can achieve that (recouping admin time) with the smaller portion, and we want to allow a larger portion for our businesses,” Brown said.
“That’s exactly how it should be,” Pechtl added.