PCDA Issues Update

THIS WEEK IN THE PONCA CITY ECONOMY…

You don’t need us to tell you that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a direct frontal assault on global, national and state economies. We have certainly felt it in Ponca City as well. Take heart. Not everything is closed.

It’s true that certain industries, including aviation, oil and gas, tourism and hospitality to name a few are feeling it worse than others. While you can drive through and get your Chicken McNuggets, the loss of lobby traffic throughout the region has meant that a company that makes Chicken McNuggets may not have to make as many right now.

Likewise a company that makes smokers for restaurants that are not open will not have customers right now and will therefore not be making smokers. You get the idea. Not everyone is feeling the same level of pain and some of our companies are in industries that are doing well and are posed to do well going forward.

Fewer high density apartments means more single family homes which means more garage doors and potentially in-wall vacuum systems. Changing air handling systems means changes to units, components etc. and we make those. We have an excellent food safety company within sight of Enrique’s and that’s going to be more important than ever.

Groceries? They’re distributed right here in the industrial park. Nevertheless, future orders will shape the next few months. In a misery loves company way, every community in the world, let alone the U.S. or Oklahoma, is dealing with this. We’d like to say that we’re better off than most but we just can’t do that….yet.

FOR BUSINESS-THE RIGHT PERSON ABOUT THE RIGHT THING AT THE RIGHT TIME…

you might think that absolutely no one is looking for new sites for businesses right now. Well, PCDA has been working with two that have just come up because they know that the sun will come out tomorrow and all that. This underscores what the textbook says is the primary responsibility of economic development during times such as these: To be ready to stimulate the restart when the pandemic/recession is over.

But let’s be real, first you have to do what you can to stabilize the existing business base. If you were to take the resources PCDA has been given by the taxpayers to grow and attract business and spread it over the Ponca City business community, it would amount to very little for each business and leave nothing for a restart. Not so, however, with the federal government.

The feds have made an unprecedented amount of money available for businesses to both survive and keep people employed during this crisis. PCDA’s role is to make sure businesses are able to get their share by talking to the right person, about the right thing at the right time. If you need information about where a business can get that money, go to www.goponca.com and click on the COVID-19 button.