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San Jose restaurant owner Jennifer Echeverri was promised a $5,000 grant to help her survive the winter amid tightening COVID-19 restrictions. One month passed. The money never came. As of Dec. 22, none of the 30 San Jose restaurants that were notified of a grant had received one. They also were not told when the...
How a San Jose firm is opening doors for minority-owned businesses
When the San Francisco 49ers were building Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Walter Wilson noticed something. “They didn’t have a single Black contractor, not even sweeping the floors, which was a minority-owned business,” said Wilson, a partner with the San Jose-based firm Minority Business Consortium (MBC) . MBC worked with the city and suggested the...
How the Silicon Valley Organization’s new leader plans to rebuild
It’s been more than a week since Bob Linscheid was named the Silicon Valley Organization’s interim CEO and he’s not wasting any time repairing the business organization’s stained reputation. “I’ve been pretty much 100% SVO. In fact, my hours are insane. My wife wonders if I’m ever gonna come out of this room,” Linscheid told...
Food delivery fees capped at 15% throughout Santa Clara County
Santa Clara County and San Jose officials voted separately but unanimously Dec. 15 to cap food delivery fees to help businesses retain income during the pandemic. Delivery service fees charged by third-party delivery companies such as Uber Eats, DoorDash, GrubHub, Postmates and others will be capped at 15% of the value of an order. San...
Silicon Valley’s share of tech jobs slips for second year in row, survey finds
For decades, Silicon Valley has been the center of tech jobs and innovation. But several companies have been uprooting their Bay Area digs over the past few weeks — Tesla and Hewlett-Packard to name a few — and relocating to cheaper pastures such as Austin, Texas and Seattle. Turns out workers themselves might be on...
San Jose business leaders see a thriving downtown — just not right now
With many businesses shuttered and trash mounting, it is hard to imagine how downtown San Jose will evolve into the metropolis city leaders are hoping for. But experts at a recent San José Spotlight panel were confident that with a little patience, a lot of housing and eager investment from local developers, a vibrant downtown core...
South Bay’s Black-owned businesses turn to networking to survive pandemic
Small businesses have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, but Black businesses have been hit even harder. According to a report by the New York Fed in April, nearly half of all small Black-owned businesses had closed or were likely to close due to the pandemic. Walter Wilson, co-founder and CEO of the Silicon Valley...
Silicon Valley will recover faster from COVID-19, report says; local economists unsure
A Bloomberg report found that according to economic infrastructure and demographic metrics, Silicon Valley ranks first among the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas most likely to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic the quickest. “Known for their information technology, electronics manufacturing, venture-capital funding and research universities, the economies in the Bay Area boast industries that have...
Google project won’t improve San Jose’s jobs-housing imbalance much, officials say
Google’s massive downtown San Jose campus won’t make as big a dent in the city’s jobs-to-housing imbalance as city officials had hoped. That was one of the revelations from a Planning Commission meeting studying the proposed project on Dec. 9. “Even with the addition of these 20,000 jobs at full build-out, it makes a very small change...
Santa Clara County to offer small-business loans through state fund
Rather than create its own pot of money to help local businesses suffering through the pandemic, Santa Clara County will invest in a statewide fund that offers loans to small businesses. The Board of Supervisors on Dec. 8 voted unanimously to invest $6 million into the California Rebuilding Fund with the intent of offering loans...