Cook County aims to restart small business grant program it halted after a white business owner sued
Ten months after announcing but then stalling a grant program to help small businesses that struggled during the pandemic, Cook County is preparing to relaunch it.sued, claiming it was discriminatory and treated applicants “differently based on their owners’ race, and specifically prioritizes ‘persons of color.’"The suit left applicants hoping for a piece of the $71 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding in limbo.
The application portal will open in mid-July and stay open for four weeks. Grants are scheduled to be distributed by January. Those other offices have been “assured that the funding will be there in the budget, easily,” to apply it internally, but “it’s really up to them,” said Commissioner Bridget Degnen, the lead sponsor. “I think it’s incumbent on all of us as commissioners” to encourage other county offices to take up the change, she said. Degnen is working to apply the same policy to the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, with the support of board President Toni Preckwinkle.
Aside from the health benefits of extended leave for parents, “updating the county policy is crucial to attracting and maintaining” the county’s current workforce that might otherwise opt to work at the city or a private company offering that benefit, Degnen said. The largest — $7.25 million — is slated to be paid to Arthur Brown, who was already granted a city settlement for the same amount. Brown served nearly 30 years in prison for a double murder in 1988, but his conviction was later overturned.
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