By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City council members have given their blessing to an application submitted by city administrators for a federal grant that would allow the city to provide low-interest loans to small businesses.
City council members voted 6-0 on July 14 to approve a resolution to authorize and direct Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez “to ratify the submission of a Fiscal Year 2026 Rural Business Development Grant (RBDG) Program application of $500,000 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).”
After City Secretary Mari Acosta read the heading of the agenda item, Mayor Pro-tem Randy Quinones, who presided over the meeting in the absence of Mayor Al Arreola, asked for a motion. Councilman J.P. Sanchez made the motion to approve the resolution, and Councilman Leno Hernandez Jr. gave the second.
Quinones asked if there were any questions, and Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez asked, “Why are we ratifying? When was the application submitted?”
Michael Garcia, assistant to the city manager and city grants writer, responded, saying, “The application was recently submitted.”
Garcia said the city was previously awarded $167,000 under the same grant program and told the council he, Economic Development Director Orestes Hubbard and Main Street Manager Jorge Garza have been working on the program.
Garcia added Hubbard and Garza have been promoting the program at various events, and, based on the needs and interest from the business community, city staff decided to apply for the full $500,000 available under the RBDG program.
Hubbard also spoke to the council about the grant application.
Hubbard explained city administrators had to submit the application for more funding by June 30 and decided to do so and request ratification from the council after the fact.
Hubbard said, “As a matter of fact, we have a couple of applicants already. We had to, basically, create a credit policy, and we came up with a loan committee, several members of the city as well as a couple of lenders in town. . . Keep in mind that this is an alternative funding source for businesses. We are not trying to compete with banks. We’re trying to complement what a bank can and cannot do, so this is a very good fit for our business community.
“Also keep in mind that as we still continue to lend those monies, as we get paid and get those monies back, we can lend them further, so that is the intent of this ratification of this loan application that we submitted already,” Hubbard said.
Gutierrez said, “There’s some really good points on there, number one being that it’s a no-cost match funding, and the other thing that I really liked about it is the loans will range from $5,000 to $100,000 and will require businesses ‘to retain or create at least one full-time job.’ So that’s going to help our job market as well. Thank you both very much.”
Garcia added there was a typographical error in the council information on the program, namely that the program is a 5 percent interest loan, not a 3 percent interest loan.
Garcia also explained how the loan program works.
He told the council, “The way it works, we have a loan review committee, so once the (loan) applications are submitted, the loan review committee reviews the applications. We have a checklist, and if they meet all the requirements, then these applications will be submitted to city council for approval, (and) if city council deems that all these applications are complete, then those applications are sent to USDA.
“They (USDA) are the ones who make the final decision. It’s not city staff. It’s not the city council. It is USDA who will make that final decision, and even if the loan review committee and the city council makes sure (the application) has met all the requirements, if (the USDA) sees something, they can request additional information to make sure the process is run smoothly and make sure (the application) has all the requirements needed for this specific program,” Garcia said.
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