Mayor names committee to design grant program for businesses using covid-19 relief money, as they asked

By Aaron Gershon
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media

Mayor Grayson Vandegrift said Tuesday that he is setting up an ad hoc City Council committee to design a grant program for small businesses, using covid-19 relief funds, in place of a third round of vouchers that citizens can redeem at the businesses.

The committee will be Council Members Stacy Thurman and John Holloway and City Clerk-Treasurer Cindy Foster.

The move comes after Midway merchants expressed displeasure with last week’s 3-2 council vote to send residents two more rounds of $50 vouchers, at $40,000 per round, rather than making direct grants of up to $2,000 to businesses, as Vandegrift first suggested.

The mayor said restaurants, not retailers, were the main beneficiaries of the vouchers, and Tuesday he cited reports from local businesses of their redemptions to prove his point.

The Brown Barrel and Blind Harry's got the most vouchers. (Google photo)

The restaurants are getting far more than retail stores. The report shows that The Brown Barrel ($4,180), Goose and Gander ($2,910) Don Jockey ($2,410) were the only three businesses to get more than $1,000 in "Midway Bucks."

Eleven retail stores redeemed a total of $2,300, an average of $209; the highest was $430.

After the council voted for two more rounds of voucher instead of grants, 19 business people signed a letter warning that "without significant assistance or the lifting of pandemic restrictions . . . by the end of 2020, there will be more closed stores in downtown Midway than would be open."

In response, Vandegrift said he would ask the council to appropriate $40,000 for the grant program. Tuesday, he said the ad hoc committee would work on the exact details. "The committee will propose the details and the parameters as well as the potential paying scale of grants" hopefully for the council’s consideration July 6, he wrote.

"We've all agreed that time is of the essence for these businesses," he said. "We need to move as quickly as we can for them, regardless of what is decided."

The letter from the merchants noted that a grant program was clearly authorized by the relief bill but the voucher program was not. Vandegrift has said he thinks it will be approved.

In his latest statement, he said he is talking with the state Department for Local Government and the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sponsored the bill, “to get as much guidance as possible” and would report to the council on at the July 6 meeting.