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CARES Act relief available for commercial fishermen starting today

Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District

  

    There are a number of changes coming to the A-K CARES Act program intended to ease the application process. Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District Executive Director Tim Dillon briefed the borough assembly on Tuesday night.

        “There's a variety of new rules. I think this is all for the good, this is not the permanent fix, but it's that next step that we needed to happen. As most of you all know, a lot of these things got stopped a month ago when the lawsuit was filed,” he said. “And, bottom line, what happened was the judge threw out the injunction, but is going to allow the court case to go forward.”

    Dillion said the changes to the program will be welcome news to several business groups.

    “First of all Alaska's commercial fishermen are going to be eligible as of Thursday. The 501c6s, which includes our chambers, our trade organizations, those kinds of organizations will all be eligible and also small businesses that received $5,000 or less in PPP and EIDL will be eligible as of Thursday,” he said.

    The biggest change, Dillon said, is that the application process has been split off from the Credit Union One website.

    “One of the things we've been hounding on with the governor's office and with the commissioner's office is it's taking way too long for these things to be processed. So what they've done is they now have a portal that you will go to,” Dillon said. “It’s A-K CARES online dot org.”

Dillon said despite the delays, CARES Act funds are streaming into communities across the peninsula, and there’s more to come.

    “Statewide they're a little bit over $18 million has been given out of the $290 million, which is still way below where we thought we'd be here. I can tell you here on the peninsula, we have eight different communities, 30 some-businesses that have gotten money, to the tune of right around $2 million. So if you take that money, plus what the borough has done and the six incorporated communities, that's making a difference. It's it's not going to solve all the problems, but at least it's making a difference.”

    And if trends continue, Dillon says the Kenai Peninsula will be leading the state in distributing relief funds.

    “The way it looks right now, by the middle of August, the Kenai Peninsula Borough and communities will probably have pumped out more money from municipal relief into our communities than the entire state of Alaska,” Dillon said. “My guess is it'll be somewhere between $20- and $30- million give or take.”

    Dillon says his office at K-PEDD stands ready to help any business or nonprofit get through the CARES Act application process. They can be reached at 283-3335.

 

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