Over the past couple of weeks, I had the pleasure of representing the business community in a task force created by County Council. Before joining that group, I had talked to a number of businesses in our community and received some very helpful insight and perspective that I shared with this group. Some of the information that I shared included concerns about: 

• Finances - not only now when revenues are down, but later during recovery; loans are helpful but will the sales be there to support paying it back?
• Perception - Camden & Kershaw County are considered the epicenter of the virus in South Carolina; how can we change this negative perception?
• Recovery - how do we plan ahead when we don't know how long this will last, what recovery will look like and how long it will take to recover?

After four meetings and lots of research, today the task force reported their recommendations to County Council. Specifically, the task force recommended that county emergency reserves should be used to provide grants to local businesses and support to local non-profits. Now County Council will need to decide if they agree with the recommendations or if they'd prefer to do something different. Based on questions and comments from today's Council meeting, it is unclear how this will proceed.

I encourage you to watch today's Council meeting. County Council plans to hold a special meeting to vote on this proposal in the near future. If you have strong feelings about this program, you can reach out to the Councilman for your area.