Dear Chamber Members,

Hard to believe it is February already. While we still aren’t sure when we will be able to resume in person gatherings, we continue to plan for events later in the year in hopes that we will be able to hold them.

I’m sure I’m sounding like a broken record to you, but if your business has been impacted financially by the pandemic, you need to be having open dialog with your banker and your accountant to be able to access needed relief. There have been many grant programs along with the PPP, EIDL, Employee Retention Tax Credits, and now the second draw for PPP. If you didn’t receive a first draw PPP, you still can apply until March 31, 2021 or until funds run out. You can get the Employee Retention Tax Credits for both 1^st and 2^nd quarters of 2021, and you can go back and correct previously filed reports for 2020. You just can’t use the same expenses more than once with these programs. While many of you had reserves that are helping carry you through this, we don’t want you to exhaust them completely and not apply for some relief. Our recovery process will take some time and we want to ensure that your business is here when we get through this. I’m happy to have a conversation with any of our members about these different programs, just give me a call or email at 509-750-4232 or director@moseslake.com.

Grant County Health District in partnership with our medical providers have been working diligently to get the vaccines distributed throughout our county. We applaud the dedicated staff for their efforts.

On the legislative front, we are watching a large number of bills. The most import to us as this time is SB 5114. We encourage you to follow this and other bills at https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5114&Initiative=false&Year=2021