(LFC Comments:  We received this email from a Lake County business owner.

All Lake County business owners need to read this and call Governor DeWine’s office to get them to declare Ohio a economic disaster area.  it is hard to believe that DeWine has not already done this.)
*********************1776

Dear LFC,

To summarize our situation:

We are a business that provides equipment and services across the U.S. and part of Canada.  The services are either sold, licensed or leased and operate in venues of a public gathering of 50 to 400 people.

As to be expected with the onset of this Covid-19 issue our customers have been closed down and as such our revenue has gone from 7 figures down to 0 over the course of the end of last week.

President Trump announced that the SBA was authorized to extend emergency loans to businesses affected by the Covid-19 situation.  These loans would come directly from the SBA and would cut out the middle man usually involving a local bank.

When we went to apply for an emergency loan we found out that the SBA could not accept our application since Ohio had not been declared a disaster area.  The responsibility of declaring a disaster is that of the Governor of the state or U.S. territory.  At the present time 16 states and the District of Columbia have already been declared a disaster.  Governor Dewine, while on TV every day, cannot find time to get this done?

I contacted the offices of Senators Portman and Brown and left messages and/or e-mails apprising them of the problem.  I did so with State Representative Jamie Callender and also with Congressman Dave Joyce’s office.  At the present time only Mr. Joyce’s office has called or e-mailed me back.  When speaking with his office the feedback they had was the State of Ohio usually declares a disaster on a county by county basis.  Right now the governor’s office is reportedly gathering feedback from businesses to determine if it would be warranted to declare Ohio a total economic disaster area rather than go county by county. (emphasis by LFC)

This is lunacy to think that by closing down all these activities you even need to question whether this is an economic disaster or not.  The State of Ohio has now been closed down for a week and they still don’t know that it is a disaster?

Please get the word out so that these imbeciles can really know what everyday people are going through.

Regards,

John
*********************1776

Updated:  We just received this new email.

I just received a call back from Rep. Joyce’s office.  Ohio is in the process of requesting that Ohio be declared a disaster area today to free up emergency funding from the SBA.  No word on the time it takes to get this completed.

President Trump extended the offer on Thursday, March 12.  Ohio was put into a state of emergency by Gov. Dewine on the same day.  This request for declaration of a disaster area should have been made by Friday March 13 or Monday March 16 at the latest.  I would like to think that state and federal governments would have been open on the weekend during this time.  Perhaps that is unreasonable to ask.

Now they are looking to apply today…6 days after the fact.

Categories: Lake, Uncategorized

Tags: FT