 Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Facebook for Tuesday afternoon. It's great to be with you. Today I'm going to be joined by Council Member Carrie Moon. Welcome, Carrie. And by Councilwoman Anne Zaito, who's with us on Zoom. Welcome, Anne. Good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you all for taking the time and coming to talk about your committee that you're working on. Small Business and Economic Advisory Committee. You know, I mentioned yesterday that this week we're going to have the four council committees. And each one of them has two council members chairing them. So each day of the week you'll be hearing, you heard from two yesterday, two today. And then the rest of the week you'll hear from the other four. All your council members are out working hard on your behalf. And all four committees are critically important. So before we begin with a Small Business and Economic Advisory Committee report from Carrie and from Anne, I want to give you a little bit of information as we do every day on COVID-19 cases and where we see it. Today, Tarrant County has 60 new cases and Fort Worth has 24 new positive cases. And unfortunately we had, I think our largest day, four deaths. All of those were over 60 and all of them had underlying medical conditions and all of them had been hospitalized. Breaks my heart to report those deaths. This just doesn't get any easier for any of us. But you know, for your loved ones, for friends, we're so sorry for the loss for all of you. It's even more important than ever that you stay home, that you practice social distancing and that you go by the rules here. We will flatten the curve on this virus and we will overcome it. There are good many things that are visible behind the scenes and nowadays Zoom's meetings is Anne is just, I wish I owned Stock and Zoom. Yeah, right. It'd be great. But council members really are working hard and this particular committee is critical as we talk about how this impacts business and what it might be. Carrie, you've been a small businessman and entrepreneur for a long time as I was before I got in the political arena. So why don't you tell your viewers a little bit about the overview of this committee and the work you've got going on. Sure. Thank you, mayor. So our economic and business advisory committee consists of about 25 local business owners, executives, chamber presidents, and people that just care about the forward and the impact of the coronavirus in our post business economy. For me, I have segmented the business advisory into three phases and the current phase is right now helping our businesses get through this unprecedented time. The city web page is a good consolidating resource for our businesses to reference that identifies the programs coming from the federal's level, the state level, and private dollars. You can find that for texas.gov and forth and Texas are both spelled out. And then there's a top of the page. There's a COVID-19 button to click on and then under business resources, you can click on that and get to a good consolidated list of resources available to our small businesses. At some point, what I will encourage you to do, we all know that businesses have applied for those loans. There are a few banks that have funded those loans. The majority of the banks we've spoken to are saying that their funding should come next week from the SBA. I will encourage everyone to apply for all loans available to you, everyone being the business owners. A good resource for you in those applications is your banker, your CPA, a chamber of commerce. You're welcome to email me at curie.mood and forth texas.gov. But I will encourage you to apply for those programs because they are available to help you during this time. At some point, may our next phase will be to open for business. We currently have substantial community spread. And so we had to find a fine balance between economic activity and individual behavior to survive in this current economy. Our last phase will be how does our economy in Fort Worth look like post COVID-19. And Fort Worth was a great place to do business prior to COVID-19 and Fort Worth will be an even better place to do business after COVID. Now, we were in a great position as we went into this. And we will come out of this in a good position to take a lot, but we will get there. So thank you, Carrie. And Carrie talked a little bit about phase one of this committee and what's been going on and laid out the other plans. You want to tell us a little bit about the efforts that you're working on and what you're seeing on this side of the committee? Yeah, I've been very much focused on that phase one component that Carrie mentioned. The economic impacts of this are going to be very substantial to our small businesses and our employees. So right now we're very much focused on the immediate public health concerns that our community is facing. But in doing that, we're not waiting until we get past that to address the problems and concerns that our businesses are going to be facing. So it's important to note that our small businesses and our economic recovery advisory committee is made up of representatives from those very businesses that are going to be needing the assistance and support that we're working on providing. So they can give us input during this process about what they are needing for the assistance that they're going to be looking for so that we can directly address those needs and align our support to provide for those needs. But several organizations have been assisting our businesses during regular times. And those have been vital to the work of this committee. And those organizations are organizations like near South Side Inc., Downtown Fort Worth Inc., the East Fort Worth Inc., and all of the chambers, as Carrie mentioned. In addition, Visit Fort Worth has been helping in a substantial way. And all of those organizations have been reaching out to the businesses in their sphere of influence going above and beyond the support that they provide regularly during regular times to address the needs and concerns that those businesses are going during this incredibly difficult time. Each of these organizations have put together a list of businesses that remain open and helped them transition in ways to allow them to continue operating in some instances through these difficult times and are also promoting ways in which we can support and access those services. But communication is really, really key. The city continues to push out information via all of our channels, emails, social media, the internet. But we need to ensure that we're getting information out in all of the ways so that people can understand it. Since a lot of the documentation that's being required of these businesses is very complex and can be difficult to get through. So a coordinated communication effort would be ideal, but there's a lot of sharing going on amongst all of the groups that are helping in this. The committee is working hard at putting together a simplified graphic to outline for companies and businesses where they can find the resources amongst all of the entities that are working very hard. And staff is working with Visit Port Worth to complete and promote that document. So those are some of the specific efforts, but really those organizations that I mentioned have absolutely gone above and beyond anything that was ever in their job description to work on these efforts right now and answer questions and help us answer questions from those businesses. I think that's a great issue that you raised. Communication really is the key. Citizens are afraid and unsure about things. And the more we can communicate, the more the organizations that are stepping up to serve can communicate the better everybody will be. Thank you for your hard work on that. Absolutely. So Carrie, you want to tell us a little bit about for businesses navigating these waters and what you see ahead and what this might look like. Certainly you want this to be simpler and not much bureaucracy and that's often hard to do when you're dealing with governments. Correct. So our role in government will be to make sure that we don't get in your way through low regulation, low taxes, and that we do the things we can through infrastructure and economic development to encourage our businesses. What I can offer our businesses to navigate through this time will use the time that you have to review your processes to maybe complete some self-audits to renegotiate vendor contracts in reviewing your financial reports. Start with that financial report there. It's always on the back page of your financial reporting package and that's your balance sheet. On that you have your assets. Look at your performing assets. Look at your non-performing assets. How do you, such a still inventory for penny cash balances or FF&E that's not being utilized. How do you convert that to a different performing capacity? In your liabilities, we are a declining rate environment. So all businesses that have debt have an opportunity now to restructure that debt to more favorable interest rates and really recapture some of the profits or save some money and intersaving expenses. Lastly, we all have done expense forecast and revenue forecast prior to COVID-19. There's a good approach to budget cuts which is LIFO. LIFO is a great inventory counting method but it's also a great way to look at revenue cuts and adjusting revenue forecast and cutting expenses and that is last in the budget first out. So obviously there's a lot of hard conversations happening in every household, happening in every business and at the city level as well. And so our job is to do what each of our business owners are doing and look for ways to make it to navigate these economic turmoil so we all come out ahead and take advantage of the silver lining that we need. And it's just good business sense. You've got a small pause in your business now. So take time to look at your processes for sure. And we are at the city. We're doing that also. If you're a small mom and pop operation and you need help, go to Fort Worth Business Assistance, what we call the back at the James L. Wynn Center and you can get help there. Many people in very small businesses just don't have that accounting. So Ann, I know you've been working to the funding for this and how do businesses navigate through under this and what financial resources might be available there? You want to talk to our viewers a little bit about what you've done and what your committee is working on that side? Yeah, we have quite a few items that are listed on the website. I'm going to rattle through a few of them here, but I want people to go to the city's website to get the whole picture because there's no need to try to write everything down that we're saying in this little update. But applications for the Paycheck Protection Program, the PPP, went live on April 3rd the Economic Disaster Loan Program website is up and running and the SBA has begun to dispense some funds. The SBA SCORE and Tarrant County SBDC, which again, these are a lot of acronyms, but all of the details of this can be found on the city's website. They continue to conduct webinars and provide technical assistance to business owners looking to apply for help on these programs and many of our committee members have indicated that they still have a lot of questions about the small business, you know, with applying for these things. And so some of the guidelines have changed as they've been rolled out. And so there's still a lot of people asking questions, but we're working with the different entities to answer those questions and do some hand-holding with those businesses to help them through the process so that they're not facing this alone. Also, Facebook has announced a hundred million dollar grant program for businesses in communities where they have a presence and they have a presence here in Fort Worth, so city staff is working with our local Facebook representatives to provide more details on that program when it becomes available. And Tarrant County Workforce Solutions Job Now website is up and running and it's connecting potential employees with companies that are hiring because there are some companies out there that are hiring. The Miles Foundation is also working on a similar platform to connect the hire furloughed workers. And the Alliance Opportunity Center is working on job openings in the Alliance area at Fort Worth. A new program that's utilizing Shift Smart programs has a very catchy title on their website, which one must be careful when saying, but it is Get Shift Done. That website is also available on the city's website. They've begun offering job opportunities for those that are affected in the restaurant and hospitality industries, which have been especially a part in this. Spark Yard is also a website that has resource page that can support and encourage entrepreneurial efforts. One of the things that came out of our committee discussions was that economic downturns can often be a good time for start-up activities. And so the city has also begun to look at putting plans in place to increase those initiatives. And a subcommittee will be established to work on those efforts as well. That's all good stuff and a lot of it. And tell them again where they can find this information. On the city's website that Carrie mentioned, that's City of Fort Worth, so www.FortWorthTexas.gov. And then there's the COVID link. And under that COVID link are the community resources that you spoke about yesterday, the business section that you're also speaking about today, and many other items. And frequently asked questions and lots of resources on the city's website. So all of those links are provided under the business section on the website, on the city's website. A lot of information out there on the COVID-19 link, including the dashboard to see the numbers of things. Thanks, Ann. Carrie, any closing comments? Sure. I would just say obviously we're looking at a balance between cooperation among individuals in the product sector so we can get the economic activity we need and Fort Worth will soon be open for business. And we certainly want to open, but we want to do it safely, absolutely. And Ann, any closing thoughts from you? I just want to reiterate again the efforts that have been undertaken by some of our partner organizations. We are eternally grateful to organizations like Downtown Inc., East Fort Worth Inc., our Chambers of Commerce, all of our Chambers of Commerce, and those who have just taken it upon themselves to provide resources, put together resources, get those resources out. Daily we're encouraging folks to support our local businesses and remember to go back to the local businesses that are having to suspend operations during this present crisis. But those organizations have been doing the heavy lifting every day to support the businesses that they support in regular times. I've just been incredibly impressed with their dedication and passion for our city. I'm always amazed at the generosity and the dedication of Fort Worth businesses and Fort Worth citizens and how well they're willing to step up to the plate here. Thank you both for being with us today. You all need to know Fort Worth has great council members and all of them are working incredibly hard on your behalf. Contact them at their council level. Go to the COVID-19 page. You can get a lot of information. Remember this is a community-wide effort and a community-wide issue that we will settle. We want you to be safe, but we also know that we have to think about jobs and the economy. It's critical that you continue to follow the stay at home issues. Continue to do what you've been doing so well and improving daily. And as we always say, y'all stay healthy, y'all stay safe, and y'all stay calm.