LAKE COUNTY — Congressman Mike Thompson penned a letter on Friday to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin in which he stresses concerns about the allocation of small business funding from the CARES act during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I have received countless inquiries from small businesses throughout my district who have encountered major difficulties applying for relief assistance that would help their businesses survive and save the jobs of so many employees,” Thompson writes in his letter. “Small businesses are not getting access to loans and many have not been able to apply before funding ran out.”
Thompson notes that in some cases, “large companies got there first, for example large restaurants chains like Potbelly Corp. and Ruth’s Hospitality Group received funding that accelerated the depletion of critical (Small Business Administration) loan relief and now many small family-owned businesses are unable to get the funding they need to survive and keep their workers employed.”
Ruth’s Hospitality Group, Inc., which operates the Ruth’s Chris Steak House restaurant chain, disclosed this week that it had received $20 million in forgivable loans, four days after applications became available for the SBA’s $350 billion Payroll Protection Program.
In a virtual town hall meeting held Thursday evening in which Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin and Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace were featured guests, Thompson responded to questions from residents of his district regarding funding from Congress during the pandemic.
“What is the status of providing funding for small businesses since the previous (Small Business Administration) funds have been exhausted?” one unidentified individual asked.
“The monies that have been appropriated…have been used,” Thompson replied, noting that Congress is working on a fourth bill that would provide additional funding.
“We need to put more money in, and that’s what we’re working on right now,” Thompson continued. The bill could make SBA funding available to individuals, he noted.
“I’m fearful…that this money goes to, for lack of a better term, the wrong people,” he added. “I want this money to go to small businesses, so the employees can be employed and the businesses can stay open.”
“The SBA is out of money, but I’m confident that next week we will augment that fund,” Thompson said later in the meeting.
Thompson explained that he also hopes to make the new funding available to certain groups that have been excluded from Payroll Protection Program benefits to date, including 501(c)6-classified organizations (which include chambers of commerce and business leagues), and small farms.
Thompson went on to call for money to be allocated to fund the healthcare system in order to better respond to the pandemic. In addition, he said, “We need to make sure we have the funds available so our state and local governments can continue to operate.”
With the SBA funding exhausted, new applications for the PPP are not being processed.
“Should people still be applying for these PPP and (Emergency Injury Disaster) loans, even though the funds have been depleted?” one member of the public viewing the town hall meeting asked.
“They should still be working with their lenders,” Thompson replied. “And as the program is replenished, then there will be opportunities to apply….Don’t give up on this, keep pushing it.”
Other questions posed by locals during the town hall touched on the outlook for the spread of coronavirus in Lake County.
County health officer Pace said the progress of the virus through the local community has been less severe than originally thought.
“The whole curve of the illness, and hospitalizations and death, has really been pretty minimal in Lake County,” Pace said. As of Friday afternoon, six cases of the virus had been confirmed locally. No deaths had been reported. Only one of the six patients had been hospitalized.
Part of that flattened curve has been due to shelter-in-place restrictions that have been in place for more than four weeks now, Pace said.
Sheriff Martin noted that he expects to see restrictions on public activity lifted at some point, but not all at once.
“What I fully expect to see is a gradual easing of the restrictions,” Martin said. Several minutes later, Martin indicated that a timeline for those rollbacks has not yet been set.
“This isn’t a matter of setting a timeline and just sticking to that timeline. We need to continue to re-evaluate,” Martin said. “We’re still seeing an increase (in the rate of new coronavirus cases).”
