The City of Reno and the Reno Redevelopment Agency are striving to help local businesses experiencing challenges during the economic downturn. One way they are doing this is by helping small business owners secure financing. 

Last Wednesday, the City Council approved a contract with Nevada Microenterprise Initiative (NMI), a private non-profit agency, to administer the Greater Reno Opportunities for Business (GROBusiness) Program. It is funded entirely by the City’s Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The GROBusiness Program is offered to qualifying new or expanding businesses in the City of Reno. Additional services through NMI include counseling and guidance to assist with maintaining a viable business, technical assistance, ongoing training, networking, and oversight. For more information about the GROBusiness Program contact the Nevada Microenterprise Initiative at 775-324-1812.

 To learn more about programs and services available visit www.reno.gov, click on Newsroom, then Current Issues, and Recovery & Reinvestment or www.reno.gov/Index.aspx?page=2037.

The City’s new Finance Director Mary Ann Parrot brought her budget team to the podium to be recognized for this honor. The budget team includes Jill Olsen, Gayela Emory, Kim Kilgore and Robert Miller. The Government Finance Officers Association awarded the City of Reno Finance Department with the Distinguished Budget Award for fiscal year 2009-2010.
This award recognizes the high caliber of the City of Reno’s budget documents. These documents provide a clear understanding of the City’s finances allowing citizens and others to be fully informed.

Several online services at www.reno.gov will be unavailable as the City of Reno conducts network maintenance and upgrades.

The interruption to online services will begin at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 26. Every effort will be made to lessen the downtime and to restore these services as quickly as possible.

 The following online services will be affected and may last through Monday, March 29:
• Sewer bill payments
• Parking ticket payments
• Service requests through Reno Direct
• Class registration for Parks and Recreation
• Sewer estimates
• Registration for golf tee times
• Reno Connect email notifications
• Webcams

The online filing of police reports will be affected yet is only expected to be unavailable for a three hour period. Additionally, emails sent to all reno.gov email address will experience a delay in delivery to the recipient.

 We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.