The White Bear Area Chamber of Commerce supports the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce's efforts to reopen businesses and return employees back to work in a safe and sustainable way by following the "COVID-19 Prevention Best Practices".
Our goal has been to work together to find a balance between safeguarding health, and protecting Minnesota’s economy. Businesses are eager to get back to work. Operations can, and should return to a sustainable level without jeopardizing employees’ or customer safety.
The pathway to reopening our businesses is through building confidence back into the economy by making our employees and customers feel safe in our places of business. Now is the time to start panning your safety protocols for WHEN you reopen. We encourage you to follow these best practices that represent input from the state’s business community on how to protect our health, while allowing our business community to return to work.
Ramsey County has deferred some businesses Property TaxesThree groups of property owners in Ramsey County will get an extra two months to pay property taxes due to hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic. These properties will not need to pay property taxes until July 15:
- Non-escrow homestead properties
- Non-escrow small businesses with property taxes less than or equal to $50,000
- Non-escrow residential non-homestead properties of one to three units with property taxes less than or equal to $20,000
“We’re really trying to provide this relief to those who are most impacted,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt.
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) announced recently that the agency has begun making Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) payments to people who are self-employed, independent contractors and other eligible recipients who are not eligible for regular unemployment benefits. To find out if you are eligible, please click
HERE.New Executive Order allows some business, employees to return to work
On Thursday, April 23, Governor Walz issued a new executive order to start returning some Minnesota employees to work. This order impacts workers in non-customer facing industrial and office-based businesses who cannot work from home. According to DEED, the order "will allow around 20,000 businesses and roughly 80,000 – 100,000 workers to go back to work beginning TODAY, Monday, April 27." Guidance on what businesses are allowed to return to work can be found HERE.
Temporary Sign Ordinance Changes!
To our fabulous Restaurant and Coffee Shop owners and leaders: The White Bear Area Chamber of Commerce asked the City of White Bear Lake to make an emergency change to sign ordinance enforcement for restaurants and coffee shops. The City Council responded with a YES! The amendments will help you with your curbside and take-out traffic and also allow you to increase your advertising presence in front of your buildings. Please see below for the full ordinance.
