Kerri Dahl is determined to spread her appreciation for music to others in North Las Vegas. It’s her life’s work, and something she’s so passionate about, she provides affordable lessons to community members at her in-home business, Dahl Studio.
But the music stopped in mid-March after Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered all nonessential businesses closed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. That meant no more in-person lessons. No more private lessons. And especially no more group classes at assisted-living facilities.
It also meant a drastic cut in income.
Dahl tried applying for federal aid but quickly became tangled in a snarl of bureaucratic red tape. She initially wasn’t sure if she qualified for aid because the federal Paycheck Protection Program loans were designed for small businesses with employees.
That’s where the City of North Las Vegas stepped in, lending a hand through its small business outreach initiative.
When the city temporarily closed its offices to the public, officials began exploring how staffers could help businesses affected by the shutdown.
The city library was converted into a business outreach call center, proactively making 7,000 calls to business owners to notify them of the governor’s order and then provide information about federal aid programs.
“Our businesses are the backbone of our economy,” Ward 2 Councilwoman Pamela Goynes-Brown said. “It’s like the circle of life: We need our businesses to survive just as much as they need us.”
Goynes-Brown said that although the pandemic will have unprecedented economic effects on North Las Vegas, a significant economic downturn isn’t “our first rodeo.” The city is drawing on lessons from the ways it managed its resources during the Great Recession in the late 2000s, understanding the importance of cities providing businesses with all the help they can.
The city’s public information office has been busy, too, sending businesses weekly email blasts about new business-related programs and opportunities from the state and federal government, spokesman Patrick Walker said.
To help businesses weather the crisis, the city is easing certain burdens, like allowing grace periods for paying license renewal fees. It’s also helping small businesses with guidance on applying for federal loans.
“Larger businesses have a lot of resources; they can get the information they need,” Library Director Forrest Lewis said. “But here in North Las Vegas, there are a lot of mom-and-pop businesses that might find it more difficult to find information, and make sure it’s credible and vetted.”
Lewis said the city wanted to make sure business owners knew not only where to go to get aid, but that there was a limited timeline for securing those funds.
“They needed to act right away to make sure they submitted their applications and got all their information together to make sure they could get that money before it ran out,” he said.
The library has also been providing residents with information on how to obtain unemployment benefits and other general information for the public, Lewis said.
That kind of research is “in our wheelhouse,” said Lewis, noting that the library has also done work over the years on workforce training and development.
“On top of that, we had a lot of our front-line staff—with the public not allowed in the library—finding things that they can do to try and be useful,” Lewis said.
Dahl said the library provided her information about how to apply for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, a process that was easier than she expected.
“We live in a wonderful city that comes together when we need it to,” Dahl said. “We’re all being creative as we navigate these new waters.”
The city’s marathon through the crisis isn’t over, Goynes-Brown said, adding that the library will likely be used again as a call center to answer people’s questions once businesses are permitted to return to some level of normalcy.
“When the governor does lift those restrictions to do a phased approach, we’ll make sure we work on a plan to get people the information they need,” she said.