A group of Orange County mayors plans to show up when county supervisors meet Tuesday, May 26, in the hope of persuading the board to let cities dole out $75 million of federal money to help small businesses.
It’s the second time in recent weeks that leaders of nearly all of the county’s 34 cities have united to ask supervisors for a share of millions in federal coronavirus aid – and unless they carry their point Tuesday, it could be the second time they get denied.
“Rome is burning right now. We have water – we have to put the water on the fire,” said Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, who plans to petition the board in person.
In April, an overwhelming majority of Orange County mayors – 31 out of 34 – signed a letter urging the county to find a fair way to give each of them a share of $554 million the county got from the federal CARES Act. County officials declined, and as of last week indicated most of the money has been spent or will be needed in the coming months for expenses such as coronavirus testing, protective equipment, shelter and food aid for vulnerable people and extra emergency response services.
Supervisors agree that $75 million that remains unspent should be used to help small businesses that are struggling to stay afloat after two months of minimal operations or being closed entirely.
The group of mayors wrote a letter about that, too, asking the county to pass the money along to them so they can get it out the door to help small businesses right away. But in a split vote May 19, supervisors opted to administer a yet-to-be-defined aid program at the county level, which city leaders say would cause unnecessary bureaucratic delays.
“Every day that goes by it’s exponentially worse” for Mission Viejo businesses that remain closed, Mayor Brian Goodell said.
“We don’t want to wait for some program to get developed or some administrator to get hired.”
Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley said she’d like to get businesses money for signs that explain safety protocols to customers, masks and other protective items for workers and grants to help business owners pay rent. Pulido and Foley both said city staff could handle distributing the funds and documenting how they’re used – no outside administrator needed.
“We don’t need to have some complicated process,” Foley said. “The message that we want to send to the Board of Supervisors is release the funds – we needed them yesterday.”
But Supervisor Lisa Bartlett said Sunday that with every city free to set their own criteria, it would be hard to ensure the money is distributed fairly – and the county has to audit and account to the feds for every penny it received.
Rather than putting a cash band aid on businesses’ problems, Bartlett said, she wants the funding to help them through the coming recession, perhaps via loans or lines of credit.
The mayors’ hearts are in the right place, Bartlett said, but added, “It’s just a matter of what is the best way to go about doing this to achieve the greatest result and benefit to our small businesses.”
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May 25, 2020 at 06:26AM
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OC mayors to county: Give us the money to help our small businesses - OCRegister
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