By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
A Yachats church on Tuesday handed out $20,227 worth of aid to 15 small, local businesses as part of a growing community effort to help Yachats re-open when coronavirus restrictions are lifted.
The aid is only the first round of funds to Yachats businesses needing money to stay afloat during a statewide business shutdown and restrictions on travel.
The funds came from Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, which announced formation of a business relief fund on Friday and in four days raised more than $60,000.
The church, along with 11 businesses and three individuals, is now asking the city of Yachats to tap into unspent motel and vacation rental taxes to add to the effort.
“We’re more nimble and we can respond sooner,” Pastor Bob Barrett said Monday. “We have some good will and people trust us.”
The church started the latest effort by diverting $10,000 from its operating budget. It received a $20,000 donation from Nan and Greg Scott of Yachats, who then pledged an additional $10,000 in matching money. That quickly drew other donations over the weekend to reach $50,000. Contributions continued to pour in Monday and by Tuesday the total had reached $60,250.
The new business relief program is separate from the church’s displaced worker relief fund set up in mid-March. In four weeks that effort got $64,000 in donations and has handed out $59,500 to 233 individuals.
Both efforts are spearheaded by Barrett, the activist pastor at Yachats Presbyterian.
“This is our job,” he told YachatsNews. “Our mission is to serve the community.”
In mid-March he got the church to dip into its endowment fund for $5,000 in seed money for a program giving cash to local hospitality workers thrown out of their jobs.
That program initially gave out $100 to the unemployed. As donations grew, cash disbursements rose to $200 and then $300. That changes this week when the church will give $100 each Wednesday to anyone not receiving unemployment benefits.
Barrett and others developed another proposal, delivered last week, that asked the City Council to refund more than $90,000 in quarterly food and beverage taxes paid by 16 Yachats restaurants and stores in January. That idea got a chilly reception from the city.
After the city’s rebuff, Barrett broached the idea of a business relief plan to his church board on Thursday. Its urgency, he said Monday, was spurred when business owners began joining the line for displaced worker payments.
“We started hearing stories that they wouldn’t survive if they couldn’t use or qualify for state or federal programs,” said Barrett, referring to programs that were either difficult to access or which quickly ran out of funds.
Barrett said the group reached out to business owners – talking in person and sending out emails – to see what they needed. Mostly it was help for upcoming rent payments, utility bills and other costs that don’t stop when stores are closed.
The church set up simple rules to qualify: the business must be licensed with the city, located within the city limits, have closed or suffered financial hardship because of government orders, and not have received a federal loan. The rest of the church’s application was simple: tell us how much you need and what you’d use it for.
A church committee screened the initial applicants Monday afternoon and approved the first round of grants. Applications will be screened at least weekly, Barrett said.
Yachats couple donates money
Nan Scott is the daughter of missionaries, a retired Oregon State University instructor, and church treasurer and volunteer. Greg Scott worked in OSU’s business school and in the finance department for the city of Corvallis. He was on the Yachats City Council for 11 years, resigning in July 2018 after disagreeing with city direction and decisions about its computer system, which he designed and helped maintain. He plans to run again for office in November.
The Scotts have donated heavily to other Yachats causes, including the city, View the Future and the Gerdemann Gardens. They travel extensively, so when three trips this year were shelved because of the coronavirus pandemic, Greg Scott said the choice to donate money to the church’s business fund was easy.
“We’ve been married for 50 years, so there wasn’t much of a discussion,” he joked.
Scott said they just wanted to use their resources to help make sure that Yachats’ small businesses and quirky shops were able to reopen once the state lifts restrictions.
“Yachats is a very different community,” he said. “When people come here they remark about the businesses here and how they make the town unique. We need to cherish that.”
YCPC business proposal
Monday evening the group emailed their latest request to City Manager Shannon Beaucaire and council members, asking the city to consider using lodging taxes to help fund its business relief effort.
In Facebook posts and in emails over the past week, Beaucaire and Mayor John Moore said they hoped to develop a program that could help all Yachats businesses. They also didn’t like the idea of refunding food and beverage taxes to businesses that simply collected them from customers.
They said they are working on a proposal but have not outlined one publicly or discussed it beyond a handful of people and declined to talk to YachatsNews. On Thursday the council voted unanimously Thursday to fund a $100,000 business loan program to be administered by a non-profit in Springfield.
In its business relief proposal, the church group said its effort needs “a partner with deeper financial resources.” They asked the council to donate some of the unspent taxes it collects from motels and vacation rentals. Last fiscal year that totaled more than $1 million.
“Past councils have successfully approved very creative uses of vacation rental taxes and we believe saving existing businesses falls well within the spirit of a visitor amenity,” their proposal said.
Barrett and Scott said Monday they believe the restaurant plan is still viable — and they hope it is a part of any council discussion — because those businesses generally have much more overhead and employee responsibilities than smaller shops. The separate business relief plan, they said, is purposefully broader and open to anyone, including motels.
“There is no downside for the city supporting the restaurant proposal and the small business relief effort,” the group said in its latest plan.
In an email Tuesday to YachatsNews, Moore said the church program shows that “Individuals can act very quickly and without the constraints of governmental regulations and laws.”
“They are dealing with money that was donated for the specific purpose of helping our local businesses during their time of need,” Moore said. “The city is in an entirely different situation – we have a fiduciary responsibility to our citizens to prudently and appropriately manage public funds. Decisions like this need to be made by the City Council in a public meeting, and all of our meetings need to be noticed in advance and made accessible to the public.”
He said the council’s Thursday meeting would determine how it “might want to proceed with some form of low interest loans or other assistance.”
Click here to read the YCPC small business relief plan
Click here to read the YCPC restaurant relief plan