Fortuna Mayor Long’s COVID-19 Message to Community

This is a press release from the City of Fortuna:

During these unprecedented times, it is as important as ever for the City as a whole to pull together to support its citizens and businesses during this COVID-19 emergency. I have seen this City pull together during difficult times before and demonstrate its strength and caring as a community, when responding to floods, fires and other natural disasters. This pandemic was unexpected and created various hardships for many, but I am confident the city will be resilient and recover as it has always done in the past.

I am pleased the City has been able to continue to provide essential services such as water, sewer and police protection that are necessary for everyday life, but it has been challenging to find ways for the City to improve the damage to the economy from the closure of our businesses. We understand the extreme toll that it is taking on those businesses and the families that own and operate them. This economic loss is not limited to business owners and their families, ultimately the tax revenue from those businesses are what support the City of Fortuna and pay for many of the services the city provides.

There have been several efforts at the federal, state and local level to support our businesses ranging from the Federal Cares Act and Heroes Act, that are providing trillions of dollars across the country, down to the City’s own Business Resiliency Emergency Loan Program that provides business loans up to $25,000 with low interest rates and no payments for the first six months of the program.

Even with the funding available, the City understands that our businesses can only recover by beginning to operate again. Unfortunately, this is one area that the City has limited control over, as the State and the County Health Officer, ultimately decide which businesses can open and how they must operate in order to do so.

As Phase 2 of the reopening continues to allow more types of businesses to reopen, the County is doing its best to provide guidance to businesses, and has developed a certification process with templates that businesses can use to develop their own plans for reopening. Fortuna (and the other cities) have all volunteered staff to assist the County to review reopening plans in an effort to avoid delays for businesses reopening. It is our hope that we will continue to see a decline in infections and that more types of businesses can continue to reopen.

We are still a long way from being back to normal. At this point it is likely that many of our beloved City events will be either scaled back or cancelled altogether. We are working with the organizations that put on our City events to see if there is some way to keep them going, but we cannot say at this time if they will move forward, and what they would look like if they do.

The City is currently working on efforts to re-open our facilities and programs to the public. We are reopening City offices to normal business, and our recreation staff are working on plans to open our recreation programs. We recognize that many of our citizens will be counting on these programs for child care, as they are allowed to return to work.

Please be assured that the City is committed to doing whatever we can to support our citizens and our businesses. We understand that the reopening rules and guidance can be cumbersome and the City of Fortuna, FBID and the Chamber of Commerce are all available to assist our businesses through this challenging time. Please reach out to the City Manager, Fortuna Business Improvement District (FBID) and the Chamber of Commerce if you need information or have ideas of how we can help serve you better.

I have seen the City of Fortuna pull through many difficult times and know that we will pull through this emergency together.