This story has been updated.
City Council members got an earful from at least a dozen small business owners last week, who say the city’s efforts to support them in the wake of the pandemic and during ongoing construction have fallen short.
Jane Gonzalez, owner of MedWheels Inc., a national medical equipment supplier, kicked off an impassioned round of public comments at a Sept. 7 Small Business Town Hall after city staff shared details on the proposed FY 2024 budget, which the council is expected to approve Thursday.
Hosted by the Maestro Entrepreneur Center on the near West Side, more than two dozen small business owners attended, along with five City Council members and a phalanx of city staff.
After the budget presentation, small business owners, one after the other, shared their ongoing anguish over a variety of issues: rebuilding after the pandemic, onerous grant requirements, insufficient grant amounts and the city’s procurement policies in the wake of its latest disparity study.
San Antonio lost 40% of its small businesses during the pandemic, said Gonzalez, higher than the national average of 34%. That figure comes from Opportunity Insights, a team of researchers and policy analysts based at Harvard University.
Because San Antonio was hit harder, and given the ongoing disruption of major construction projects across the city, its small businesses still need city support, Gonzalez said — and perhaps more critically, the city needs to hear from those businesses about exactly what they need before designing relief efforts.
“City of San Antonio staff are putting out these grants, for street closures, for second stage programming, but they put eligibility requirements in place without running it through the Small Business Advisory Council,” Gonzalez told the San Antonio Report after the meeting.
The city created the Small Business Advisory Council in early 2021 to help officials develop a plan for spending $31 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money earmarked for small businesses. Of that, $17 million was set aside for direct grants to businesses, which could receive up to $35,000. That money has been fully distributed, according to a city spokeswoman.
“That came out to about $24 a day,” said Augustine “Augie” Cortez Jr., owner of Augie’s Alamo City BBQ during the meeting. He described an “eight-foot wall” that’s been in front of his eponymous restaurant on Broadway since 2020. “I didn’t qualify for the additional grants that came around,” he said.
“I’d rather not ask you for money. I’d rather have accessibility for my guests,” he said to applause. He described people closing up shop after surviving the pandemic, and developers “coming around and buying up properties at pennies on the dollar.”
Janie McClinchie, founder of Que Retro Arts Unidos, spoke on behalf of more than 100 local artists, crafters and makers, she said, many of whom applied for grant funding.
“We submitted more and more paperwork, and we all got denied, and we don’t know why,” she said. “Don’t force us to go get your job.”
Jeremy Roberts, who served as the first chair of the Small Business Advisory Council — he stepped down to run for the District 1 City Council seat — attended the meeting to advocate on behalf of small businesses, he said, asking the city for more transparency around grant funding. He also echoed other business owners’ requests for a permanent small business emergency fund, noting that major construction around San Antonio will continue.
That effort is underway. Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) and Marc Whyte (D10) filed a council consideration request in early July that would make permanent such a fund. Sukh Kaur (D1), Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) and Marina Alderete Gavito (D7) also signed on.
McKee-Rodriguez said via text message Monday that there is an effort to use some ARPA money to fund a program for the upcoming fiscal year, but he prefers the request make its way through the committees and the full council, “so we can do a community engagement process and redefine the procedures and learn from the results of the existing program (and identify permanent funding).”
After business owners shared their concerns, the five council members in attendance addressed the crowd. For newcomers Whyte and Kaur, this is their first budget process. Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4), Phyllis Viagran (D3) and Manny Pelaez (D8), on the other hand, have all participated in decisions around how much ARPA funding should go to small businesses.
The message from each was similar: “we hear you,” and “we want to do more to help you.” Whyte mentioned the council request to create a permanent emergency fund for small businesses. Pelaez, who has hinted at a run for mayor, was the most blunt. “Augie,” he said, “we screwed you. We did terrible, and we all — you all — are owed an apology.”
Pelaez also referenced the almost $15 million in the proposed FY 2024 budget which will go, indirectly in some cases, to small businesses. More than half of that, $8.3 million, is ARPA money to be spent on “ecosystem and geographic placemaking,” to make commercial areas more inviting.
Business development organizations, including Maestro, San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside (SAGE), Prosper West and Southside First are on track to receive almost $2 million, most of that from ARPA, to provide services to local businesses. A half million dollars is earmarked for minority procurement support, another concern of several of the businesses who spoke at the meeting.
Julissa Carielo, one of the founding members of Maestro Entrepreneur Center, as well as co-founder and partner with the DreamOn Group, called the meeting a good start, but said many more difficult conversations must still be had.
“I heard a lot of, ‘yeah, we can do better,’ but I don’t hear a plan,” she said.
This story has been updated to correct that San Antonio City Councilman Manny Pelaez has not announced that he is running for mayor.
