The Kenai City Council approved a ‘shop local’ program during their Wednesday night meeting after hours of debate in the council chambers. It will utilize city funds to encourage shoppers around the area to shop in Kenai with exchange vouchers for qualifying purchases of discretionary items.
The “Shop Here All Year in Kenai” program involves around $335,000 in direct incentives to shoppers to shop locally from February 1 to April 1. Originally, the program was set to include around $100,000 and only last for one month. After hours of heated debate, the program was expanded.
The goal is to provide economic relief and stimulus to Kenai small businesses, as well as assistance to residents purchasing goods and services by incentivizing local discretionary purchases. In simple terms, if you make qualified purchases in Kenai during the program’s run, you can save receipts and redeem them with the Kenai Chamber of Commerce for vouchers to shop locally in participating Kenai businesses.
Council Member Teea Winger sponsored an effort to transform the program into “A Million Reasons to Shop in Kenai,” a program offering $1,000,000 in direct stimulus. It would have also allowed non-discretionary purchases. This effort dominated the discussion during the late Wednesday meeting, but her effort failed on a 5 – 2 vote.
City Manager Paul Ostrander offered details on the final version of the program that passed through the council: “In the end, what council decided to do was to increase the amount from $100,000 to $335,000. Still, with $15,000 in administrative fees. They also extended it from one month to two months. As it stands right now, we’ve got a program: $335,000 that goes directly towards vouchers and $15,000 for administration. It runs from February 1 until April 1, or the end of March – so two months. The vouchers would have to be spent by the end of April.”
Ostrander also told KSRM that this is likely not the last we see of programs of this nature in Kenai. More details will be offered before the program’s start on February 1.
