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Helping Businesses Prosper and our Community Thrive!
Your investment in the Oceanside Chamber is making a difference in our community! The Chamber's mission is to "stimulate economic prosperity and foster a vibrant community." Here's a quick overview if what your investment in the Chamber allowed us to accomplish in the recent weeks..
Political Action/Business Advocacy
 Small Business Grant Program
The Chamber has partnered with the City of Oceanside and MainStreet Oceanside to administer a $750,000 Small Business Grant program. As of this writing, the Chamber has reviewed nearly 200 grant applications and will be issuing relief checks in early February.
According to Chamber CEO, Scott Ashton, more than one third of the applicants reported that revenue had declined more than 50% from 2019 to 2020. “While these grants are truly helpful and greatly appreciated by our small businesses, our focus remains on advocating for government policies that will treat small businesses fairly. They need the opportunity to remain open and operate their businesses in order to survive in the long run.”
Grant applications were received from a wide variety of industries including restaurants, salons, personal services, health and fitness studios, and businesses related to events and entertainment.
Coalition Work on Behalf of Business
The Oceanside Chamber renewed its commitment to participate in the CalChamber legislative calls multiple times monthly to ensure that our Chamber is actively engaged in the most important issues impacting our businesses.
Continuing the Fight to Save Small Business
The Oceanside Chamber of Commerce recently signed on to a US Chamber letter urging Congress to include timely, temporary and targeted liability protections for businesses, schools and healthcare providers in the next COVID-19 relief package. These essential protections from unfair and harmful lawsuits were left out of the relief package that passed in December. Below is a copy of the letter that was sent to the Members of the United States Congress.
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS:
The undersigned organizations urge you to include targeted and temporary liability protections as you consider President Biden’s COVID relief package. As the Administration strives to reopen schools, protect our nation’s health and strengthen our economy, these critical protections will help safeguard educational institutions, healthcare providers, businesses and non-profit organizations from unfair lawsuits.
The COVID-19 virus continues to rage throughout this country, presenting once-in-a-generation public health and economic challenges. Despite these difficulties, the development and distribution of vaccines give new hope for a future free of the crushing social and economic effects of the virus. Unfortunately, for many who remain on the front lines and continue to serve our communities during this pandemic, the threat of unfair litigation continues to loom. In 2020, over $23 million was spent by plaintiffs’ firms on COVID-19-related lawsuit advertisements, a clear indication that a litigation wave is lurking. As employers, educational institutions, and others answer President Biden’s very appropriate call for face coverings and other protective steps, they should not have to worry that their actions will invite costly and unnecessary litigation.
The time for federal action implementing liability protections from such litigation is now. We thus urge you to include balanced liability relief provisions similar to last Congress’ SAFE TO WORK ACT (S. 4317) in any further COVID-19 relief legislation. We believe that legislation in this space should ensure that unfair lawsuits will not hamper those who work to comply with applicable government guidelines. We also believe these protections should be limited in duration and scope in addition to preserving reasonable recourse for those harmed by truly bad actors.
Ensuring a bright post-pandemic future for our country’s healthcare, business, and non-profit communities is a bipartisan objective. In the last round of COVID-19 relief negotiations, we were encouraged to see lawmakers from both sides of the aisle recognize the need for targeted and temporary liability relief. Lawmakers must come together now and ensure that the entities who continue to serve and protect their communities during this pandemic are themselves protected from unfair and harmful lawsuits.
In the wake of prior crises, Congress came together to pass needed liability protections with strong bipartisan support because lawmakers understood the acute threat of lawsuits at moments of maximum economic vulnerability. That threat is present again now. As such, Congress must take strong action now and provide a national baseline of liability protection during this national pandemic to prevent a wave of lawsuits from inhibiting our return to a robust economy and healthy citizenry.
Public Policy
Chamber CEO, Scott Ashton has been working with a broad coalition of community leaders to ensure that a business-friendly candidate was appointed to the District 1 vacancy that was created when Esther Sanchez won the mayoral race.
The Chamber’s Advance Oceanside Political Action Committee will meet in late January to begin plans for 2021 “off-election” year activities including fundraising to prepare for the 2022 elections.
Interested in helping business-friendly candidates get elected? Visit http://advanceoceansidepac.com for more information on how you can help.
Serving as a Champion for our Community
The Chamber continued its Advancing Oceanside Podcast in order to bring attention to the businesses and non-profit organizations serving our community. Recent interviews have included MainStreet Oceanside, Solutions for Change, Innovate 78 and Vets’ Community Connections.
With the help of students from the Senior Experience project at California State University San Marcos, the Chamber began to implement technical and content improvemens to attract a wider podcast audience.
The podcasts can be viewed at www.youtube.com/oceansidechamber.
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