SBA to have office in Cape staffed by start of September

The U.S. Small Business Administration took possession of its new Cape Girardeau office last week, but it will still be several weeks before a business development specialist can be hired to man it.

SBA officials were in Cape Girardeau Thursday to announce the news as well as promote a new law they say will provide new protections against overly burdensome regulations.

The SBA's Cape Girardeau office is in Southeast Missouri State University's new business innovation center on the first floor of the former First Baptist Church on Broadway.

"We've been serving the area from our St. Louis office," said Sam Jones, SBA's regional administrator. "But it's not time well spent driving back and forth to Cape Girardeau. We wanted to have someone here full time."

The SBA was also in the area to promote a law recently signed by Gov. Matt Blunt. According to the SBA, House Bill 576 strengthens Missouri's current regulatory flexibility laws by providing small businesses with judicial review of agency compliance with rule-making procedures.

Wendell Bailey, the SBA's regional advocate, said it also requires agencies to periodically review existing regulations that affect small businesses to ensure they are still necessary.

"Missouri's regulatory flexibility laws needed strengthening," Bailey said. "... It will be to the benefit of Missouri's small businesses and their employees."

Jones said the agency is looking within and without to find someone for the Cape Girardeau office. He said he hopes that person will be hired by the innovation center's Sept. 1 grand opening celebration.

But whomever they hire, Jones said, they want that person to be fully involved in the community, from joining bowling leagues to playing on softball teams.

"We want someone who is part of the community, someone who knows the community," Jones said.

The SBA was created to aid, assist, counsel and protect the interests of small businesses and help them recover from natural disasters. It primarily does this by guaranteeing loans through local banks to nurture entrepreneurship.

Although those loans for Southeast Missouri would still be processed at the regional field office in St. Louis, a Cape Girardeau office would provide an outlet to liquidate and market those loans and facilitate the auctioning of local property.

From Oct. 1, 2004, to June 30, the SBA reported urban loans in Missouri of $638,797. Rural loans totaled $88,000.

The new law is based on model legislation developed by the SBA's Office of Advocacy. Similar to the federal Regulatory Flexibility Act, the model encourages entrepreneurial success by requiring state agencies to consider the impact of their regulations on small business before those regulations become final, Bailey said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137