Joe Biden has a $1.9 trillion plan to beat back the coronavirus pandemic and get the American economy back on its feet. However, here in LA, Disney’s Executive Chairman and his spouse are putting some of their own money on the table to help local small businesses right now.
“Thanks to an incredibly generous donation of $5 million from Willow Bay and Bob Iger, I’m proud to announce that 1,000 of our city’s hardest-hit businesses will come off that waiting list and be helped,” Mayor Eric Garcetti announced tonight. The funds from Iger and Bay will be distributed through the emergency Covid-19 crisis fund of the March 2020 founded Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles.
“Your new commitment will help these businesses weather this storm, and we are beyond grateful for your bold leadership,” Garcetti added of Iger and Bay’s contribution.
This is the second time since the pandemic started hitting the City of Angels hard that the Mayor has name checked the Disney exec. Back in those long ago days of late March last year, Garcetti publicly thanked Iger and Bay along with Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw and others, for writing checks for $500,000 each for the Mayor’s Fund.
That was when the death toll from Covid-19 was at 37 and the confirmed cases were at 2136 in LA County, which was under a Safer-At-Home order.
Now, with hospitals pushed beyond their limits and the region being battered by surge upon surge, there have been a total of 975, 299 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 13,234 deaths to date in the County. “As of today, 1 in 3 people in Los Angeles County have been infected with the virus,” Garcetti said Thursday.
“Congress needs to get this relief bill passed immediately,” the Mayor declared of the ambitious plan detailed by President-elect Biden earlier today.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are set to be sworn into office on January 20. Democrats will take control of the Senate on January 22, once Georgia’s two newly elected Senators are officially certified and seated in the upper chamber.
With cinemas and theme parks shuttered because of Covid, Disney has laid off over 30,000 employees and furloughed ever more.