Wilsonville Awards $400,000 in Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grants to Benefit 125 Local Operators
May 5, 2020 — At the May 4, 2020, meeting of the Wilsonville City Council, the Council finalized allocations from the $400,000 Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grants Program, amending the program to award an additional $1,500 each to 38 qualifying businesses in the tourism/hospitality sector with awards funded by City Transient Lodging Tax (TLT) revenues.
City staff hosted a brief lottery to complete the process of awarding funds to applicants eligible for grant funding by the City’s Urban Renewal Agency (URA) program income. Among the 162 eligible applicants, the City funded 87 grants from the $200,000 URA pool.
Overall, the City awarded 125 grants to Wilsonville enterprises to help mitigate the harmful economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. City staff seek to distribute grant relief checks before the end of the week.
The temporary Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grants Program was developed with input from the Wilsonville Area Chamber of Commerce. The program prioritized long-standing businesses, those certified as Minority/Women Business Enterprise (M/WBE), Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE and ACDBE) or Service Disabled Veteran (SDV), those directly impacted by the Governor’s stay-at-home order and those that have not received COVID-19 grant funding from other sources.
“Completing a program of this scale on a tight two-week timeline was an incredible achievement by our City to address a portion of the dire, immediate need small businesses are facing,” said Mayor Tim Knapp. “We’ll continue to work as partners with local businesses to aid recovery efforts.”
A complete summary of the Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grants program, including eligibility criteria and a list of grant recipients, is available at ci.Wilsonville.or.us/BusinessAssistance.
On second reading, the Council approved the modernization of residential code. The action, which provides more clear and consistent language for homeowners, planners and developers, is most applicable to about 63 acres of land within Planned Development Residential (PDR) zones. The update is to ensure efficient, high-quality design at future projects on unbuilt or underbuilt property within Wilsonville.
The Council also approved a professional services agreement with Carollo Engineers to provide engineering consulting services for the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) Master Plan Project. The City is revising the flow and load projections based on current population growth to inform a new WWTP capital improvements plan that includes construction schedule and cost estimates.
The next scheduled meeting of the City Council is Monday, June 1, at 7 pm; a pre-meeting work session begins at 5 pm. The previously scheduled May 18 meeting is being canceled.
Community members can watch all City Council meetings on cable (Comcast/Xfinity Ch. 30, Frontier Ch. 32) or on the City’s YouTube channel: ci.wilsonville.or.us/WilsonvilleTV.
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