Mayors Discuss Small Business Outreach at Annual Forum

James Wright WI Staff Writer

While many of the elected and appointed municipal leaders from around the country who congregated at the Capitol Hilton Hotel in Northwest, D.C. at the 91st Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) Winter Meeting from Jan. 17-20 talked about a wide range of issues such as climate change and public safety, helping small businesses prosper became a recurring theme in most discussions.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our cities,” said Burnsville, Minnesota, Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz, at the conference’s workshop on Small Business & Entrepreneurship Help. “They drive our economy. They drive our talent. This workshop is designed to help you as mayors help the small businesses in your city.”

Kautz said many of the mayors across the country are grappling with how to aid their small businesses particularly since the coronavirus pandemic had an adverse economic effect on their local economy. She said mayors have had to deal with empty downtowns, the negative aspects of telework and a new reality for businesses that lost a stream of income they traditionally relied on pre-pandemic.

Out of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Help workshop came an idea pro-