January 4, 200 3:35 a.m.

A release from Douglas County Commissioners say they are making local businesses a top priority.

The release said $1.47 million in grant funds from the Douglas County COVID-19 Business Grant Program has been distributed to 103 small local businesses.  Those funds were part of the Federal CARES Act Coronavirus Business Relief Fund that the State of Oregon passed through to individual counties for disbursement in mid-November.

The release said because the funding fell short of covering the relief applications that were received from local businesses, Commissioners decided to allocate an additional $350,000 to provide COVID relief grant dollars to 22 more businesses. The release said in addition, Commissioners chose to pay the cost of the fees charged by the CCD Business Development Administration separately rather than withdraw funds from the grant. That means that 100 percent of the funding that came to the county, went directly to local businesses. The portal for the grant application process was open from December 4th-11th. The last of the checks were mailed on Wednesday, December 30th.

CCD Assistant Director Bryan Sykes said if and when any new business funding, loan or grant opportunities become available, the organization will be sure to get the information out to the local business community as quickly as possible. Sykes said businesses can sign up for their Douglas County e-Newsletter at: https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001-r5KyShAbTHxOLTrGmHvHQlPL3h_71CBYnqsgaVV4kavlV21Q_B1UZ, to be added to the business e-mail list.