Message from the President & CEO

Some good news from the Governor’s Office: his administration is working to provide small business grants and tax cuts!  We at the Chamber are pleased with this announcement and we hope that many small businesses in Lodi will not delay but jump on this opportunity soon.  $500 Million in grants sounds big enough to last a while but, I think with the low threshold to qualify it will not take too long before it is gone. The money is to provide temporary relief to small businesses impacted by COVID-19.  Also included is an automatic three-month extension for taxpayers filing less than $1 million in sales tax. The same applies for businesses up to $5 million in taxable sales.  Both come with penalty-free payment agreements.
 
Small businesses are the backbone of any economy and our golden state is no different. Small business is 48.5 percent of the state’s total workforce with 7.2 million workers.  Some 4.1 million small businesses are in California, representing 99.8 percent of all businesses in the state. There are more ways to save or keep small business dollars at home.  There is additional help coming soon for non-profits.  This begins December 1^st so get connected by clicking here. 
 
In other news, your city council will be changing beginning this Wednesday.  We assume Mikey Hothi from District 5 and Shak Kahn from District 4 will be available on Zoom to be sworn into their community’s service.  The council just got a lot younger with these two top vote getters.  We hope this new addition will bring positive ingredients to the council.  Our advice to these freshman council members is do a lot of reading of meeting packets, listen at least twice as much as you speak, and ask a lot of questions when you do not understand something. That is a recipe for becoming a very good representative. Congratulations to both Mikey and Shak.