CITY OF BRENHAM CONTRIBUTES $60,000 TOWARD SMALL BUSINESS RELIEF EFFORTS
The City of Brenham is providing a helping hand to small businesses in Washington County that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brenham City Councilmembers at their meeting Thursday authorized a total contribution of $60,000 for small business relief. $50,000 will go toward the Washington County COVID-19 Response Fund, while the other $10,000 will be used by the city to work directly with small businesses as they reopen.
City Manager James Fisher explained that the city is using $20,000 from its utility fund and $40,000 from its general fund reserves—considered one day of reserves—for this economic relief for businesses. Chief Financial Officer Carolyn Miller said the city now has approximately 19 days of reserves remaining above the 95 required by the city’s charter.
Brenham Economic Development Director Susan Cates said the $10,000 will fund the purchase of items like freestanding hand sanitizer units, to be placed outside select businesses. It will also help with the purchase of disposable menus for restaurants.
Cates said the fund has received about 45 applications for funding, and on Monday granted $24,000 across 16 businesses in the county. Businesses with no more than 20 full-time equivalent employees can receive grants from $500 to $3,000. She said some hard decisions were made on which businesses to grant money to, and hopefully this extra funding can fully fill some of the requests made by businesses.
Fisher said the city is continuing to work with businesses on their utility bills, so this new assistance can be used for other expenses.
In addition, Cates said funding will be used by the city’s economic recovery team to create a website compiling a list of menus from various Brenham restaurants. Cates said she hopes the website, which will likely be named either BrenhamMenus.com or BrenhamEats.com, will launch by the end of next week, and invited restaurants looking to be featured on the website to contact her at scates@cityofbrenham.org.
I want to see a list of businesses and amounts given/loaned, whatever,. I want more transparency in anything the city is doing. As far as city employees forfeiting a weeks pay, well, if that is true, would they rather be furloughed or laid off? That’s the reality of numerous families right here in Brenham. They have too much in assets to qualify for any help and too afraid to ‘rock the boat ‘ because they still have jobs to go back to. Covid effects will be felt on numerous sectors for a long time-buckle up because it’s going to be rocky!
The City of Brenham is not the only entity/business/individual donating money to the COVID-19 Response Fund for small businesses in Washington County. I doubt a list of businesses receiving the grants will be released. I can tell you that almost every small business has been badly hurt by this pandemic.
If that is true that city employees are forfeiting food from their tables to support others sitting at home I am appalled. If this is true, when was this approved by city council? What that is going to do is take child support from children. That ain’t right.
My name is Catherine Wetmore I am the owner of Catherines Victorian Tea Room on South St Charles Street. What do I need to fill out 2 receive some funds for my utility bills? Or is there any grant money that I could receive? Most of our customers are senior citizens and I doubt they’re going to be coming quickly to our restaurant because they are afraid. Plus many come from senior centers by bus.
I heard that city employees will be forfeiting a week of pay this year for the community COVID issues. Is this city employee pay forfeiture what is funding the grants? Is this city employee pay forfeiture just a rumor? I didn’t see anything in the news about it, I may have overlooked the news story. Thanks for any information.