Last week, the Cape Ann Chamber hosted the first in a series of video conference meeting for local businesses to share, learn and collaborate.
After focusing on public health measures to stem the spread of COVID-19, local officials are now turning their attention to the other critical issue from the virus: business disruption.
For weeks now, businesses have scrambled to familiarize themselves with state and federal programs designed to blunt the impact—PPP, Disaster Injury Relief Fund, Massachusetts Unemployment for employees and, this week, unemployment relief for independent contractors. The actual payouts have started, albeit slowly. In the meantime, the local picture is what’s in front of the community, and local players have started to explore what mortar they can provide that fill the gaps between the bricks of these state and federal programs. Last week, the town of Manchester began reaching out to businesses to see how it can help with tangible relief. This followed its announcement the week before that the Affordable Housing Trust would start using Community Preservation Act funds (which are earmarked for four major areas, including affordable housing) to provide rental relief to qualified residents financially disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
For business relief, the idea is to listen first and then match municipal tools (such as an abatement on water fees or rent relief or regulatory easing) to what is needed. For its part, the Board of Selectmen began discussions six weeks ago about how to help businesses, but at the time it needed to explore what was legally possible, and meaningful. Now, said Town Administrator Greg Federspiel, outreach will help determine the best method of support.
“There’s a lot that needs to happen for these businesses and the Board of Selectmen is interested in using the tools available to a local municipality—and there is a variety of them—to do what we can to help businesses here in town that are going through a difficult time,” he said.
Reach out is being coordinated by Sonja Nathan, the assistant at Town Hall. She and Federspiel are contacting Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce members as well as members of the loosely formed downtown merchants association. Federspiel said anyone interested in more information should contact Nathan or him.
This approach of taking the temperature of business right now is being mirrored in Essex. For its part, the town was already deep into a grant-funded economic development and planning project, inititated in 2019. The challenge facing the town had been one of demographics and money, with an aging resident segment, an overall population boom and a need to widen the business tax base beyond the current seasonal hospitality and destination/attraction-related retailers that dominate the local business profile. Early last week, the team from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council tasked with developing the economic growth strategy for Essex presented a preview of its recommendations. First up? Dive into research, now, and conduct a survey among local businesses to understand what the town of Essex can do to support them, whether they have insurance or a disaster recovery plan, if they have noticed changes in their supply chain, and what their sales outlook is right now.
The pandemic is hitting businesses with uncertainty, said Ken Riehl, CEO of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce, and his organization is also in action mode. Not only is the chamber’s mission to help local businesses, but the Cape Ann Chamber is the fifth largest in the state of Massachusetts, with more than 1,000 members. He said when local businesses, especially those with few networks of support, need help, they turn to their local government representatives, they turn to their local banks, and they turn to the Chamber. Early on into “sheltering at home,” the Chamber initiated a rolling resource email blast to members,
followed by a running list of businesses that are open right now, which is regularly updated.
Last week, Riehl’s team organized a video conference for businesses to simply come together and share. In normal times, the chamber is well known for its highly attended monthly networking events at various local businesses around Cape Ann. Now, said Riehl, members want to connect so they can share, collaborate and corroborate what they’re going through and how they’re getting through.
“It felt really important for businesses to reconnect and—with a video call—actually see each other again and to share,” said Riehl. “They want to share what issues have they had to face. Who has applied for what, and who has common questions. All that is really an important part of what businesses need right now.”
The call was attended by about 50 businesses and town officials (including Federspiel, Sal Di Stefano, Gloucester’s economic development director and Rockport Town Administrator Mitchell Vieira). Maria Nigro Di Stefano, northeast regional director for the Massachusetts Office of Business Development was also on the call. Despite the officials on hand, the session had the loose feeling of business owners simply orienting to life right now, reengaging with familiar friends and meeting new people (the call is open to all businesses, not just chamber members).
Most of those on the call reported they’d applied for the Disaster Injury Relief Fund and PPP (the SBA’s Covid-19 relief fund formed from the US CARES Act and designed to help employers retain employees and carry some business costs like rent and utilities). At the time, few on the call had actually received any money, despite promised from the SBA to extend $10,000 grants in 36 hours. (The SBA has since walked that back to be up to be $1,000 per employee up to $10,000 and it dropped the 36-hour promise entirely after an onslaught of applications.)
“At first, when I applied I was like, ‘Great, ten thousand dollars would be really helpful for our business’ but then it wasn’t even that,” said one business owner, who works in hospitality, on the call. “Then nothing. We’ll see what happens.”
“Real estate and refinancing is still happening right now,” said one attorney. “Basically, though, I’m trying to lean into it and doing all the things I’ve been meaning to do, like address my website and doing online learning. I’m using this time well.”
It’s been six weeks since Gov. Charlie Baker declared a Massachusetts state of emergency, implemented a “stay at home” advisory that ushered in social distancing for residents and ordered all non-essential businesses to temporarily halt or curb operations to ensure the state’s hospital system wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the expected surge of patients with COVID-19. Restaurants have moved to take-out service, with curbside pick-up. Retailers have followed suit in their own ways, encouraging customers to order online or via phone and offering curbside pick-up or—more often—home delivery of items. Banks have limited operations to ATMs, overnight bank drops and retail service at key locations on Cape Ann. Essential businesses like grocery and convenience stores, construction-related businesses, landscapers, hardware stores have continued operation, all adopting safety measures to comply with recommendations and regulations.
“This crisis is not going to last forever,” said Tony Sapienza, president of the Cape Ann Chamber. “We have a history of resiliency on Cape Ann.”
The group plans another call this Thursday at 10 a.m. and will continue them as long as they’re helpful, said Riehl. Federspiel says the BOS will be able to tackle specifics on help for local businesses in the next several weeks. And Essex will soon understand what needs it can help with from the research it is conducting.
