we continue our coverage on the fallout of the i80 sinkhole repairs and the hit that construction and detours have taken on local businesses representatives from the us small business administration were on hand in wharton today staying throughout the week to help owners apply for emergency aid loans and other help so they can stay afloat until the road work is complete ted goldberg reports nothing like a crisis to bring people together and transcend partisanship sinkholes don't care how you vote the ones leading to closures on i80 have continued to hurt small businesses in the area dealing with more cars but less foot traffic as the federal small business administration has started helping out in wharton i think it went very well the the guys that are doing the sba loans are very very knowledgeable they did everything for me because i'm not a computer guy so they went and did everything on the computer we made a couple of mistakes together but they covered it very kind very nice and it was an enjoyable experience jim hill owns the naughty pine pub and was one of the first to apply for either a 4% disaster loan to cover his losses or a federal grant they got to see what your loss is to see what they'll what they'll lend you so i don't even know how how they do the math on that either but that's why you do the paperwork now in case you need it later it's going to be available for you hill's done the math and has a pretty good idea of how much revenue he's lost same pay to state we were down over $2,000 from last year's numbers and my overall numbers are down like a th000 a week but if you do that over a month that's $4,000 over a year you're talking hundred something thousands that you're down no one wants to stop people are frustrated um they're sitting in traffic they're trying to get home they're trying to get to to their maybe their kids' games after school um and they just can't get home burough councilwoman nicole wikenheiser hopes wharton's entrepreneurs stop by the business recovery center operating monday through saturday at the wharton municipal building i'm hoping that the businesses the small businesses out there come into town um and sit down and talk to them regarding what options are available now for them it's really important this this was something we worked on together it was a team effort so the goal is to keep these keep these businesses soliv solvent and going so then when everything does reopen people come back that's what we you know that's one of the big concerns that now if people developed other habits and they won't return congressman tom kaine jr represents this district in congress and said as part of a statement the sba's rapid approval of economic injury disaster loans for small businesses economically impacted by the i80 closure will provide meaningful relief securing these federal resources took swift coordinated action across federal state and local governments these lowinterest loans and likely grant money from the state's economic development authority could be much more helpful than the highinterest loans previously offered to these businesses if you're a business and you're down 50 60% you can't afford to pay a a loan over five years when you're trying to catch up the whole time you already have your mortgage payment and everything else to catch up on so you have a hard enough time catching up on that so federal grants is what we'd really want but the loan at 4% is more manageable if you're not borrowing a lot of money the eda will meet tomorrow to possibly approve an additional $5 million grant program for suffering businesses last friday governor murphy said the nja's planned grant program paired with the sba's economic injury disaster loans will inject muchneeded capital into small businesses we are committed to doing this as swiftly as possible to ease the burden on local businesses it's been such a joint venture between business owners and the politicians in our town and assemblyman done here to help us with this stuff too it's just been amazing we're all in this together and i think it's really important that we just really help support one another right now the sinkholes are in the district belonging to assemblywoman oura dunn who has introduced a package of bills aiming to give business owners even more grant money and tax relief you just have to go for it right you know there's about 10,000 bills pending before the legislature right now so we know realistically in a 2-year session you're not going to get all those bills covered uh but it's about being the best advocate that you can be for your district the state's department of transportation says parts of i80 are scheduled to reopen in may while all lanes could reopen on june 25th while some are skeptical of this timeline business owners could at least now get some relief over the next couple of months to alleviate their loss in wharton i'm ted goldberg nj spotlight news [Music]