Roughly 60 people turned out for a town hall meeting with Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO 7th District), in the Arvada City Council Chambers on July 2.

FormerState Rep. Cheri Jahn introduced Perlmutter and speakers Greg Lopez , Colorado District Director of the U.S. Small Business Administration and Matt Cheroutes, Communications Director for the Colorado Office of Economic Development.

A mix of business people, realtors, bank officers and legislators (former, current and hopefuls) attended, as well as Arvada City Council members Mark Williams and Mark McGoff.

Perlmutter, who serves on the House Committee on Financial Services, recounted the day-by-day bank failures that led to government intervention last fall. He said the necessity to act quickly was critical.

Arvada Chamber of Commerce president Dot Wright told Perlmutter "We have 600 business owners who are stressed out. They are saying, 'I don't know if I can hold on. I ask them, 'What does your revenue look like right now compared to last year?' Some of them have more revenue coming in, but the confidence level is low. Our businesses are surviving but they are scared."

Perlmutter said people in the metro area were doing better than most of the rest of the nation.

He said although unemployment last time this year was 4 percent and now it's at 7.5 percent, the good news is that it's stalled out.

"We aren't adding too many people to the unemployment rolls," he said.

He said Colorado was a center point for the new energy economy and was taking advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, which would generate thousands of jobs.

"Our state is well poised and in a better position to take advantage of the recovery monies, particularly in infrastructure of highways and transportation. I think Colorado will come out smelling like a rose," said Perlmutter.

SBA director Greg Lopez said, "You can see where our country has been and what it means to be a small business owner. We have access to capital."

He emphasized that all fees for borrowers of an SBA loan had been eliminated. SBA loans are guaranteed up to 90 percent, whereas previously they were guaranteed up to 75 percent.

Lopez said he realized how line of credits were the life's blood of many small businesses and many of those had been eliminated or reduced.

"We are trying to build confidence in the financial institutions that will insure small businesses can be successful," Lopez said.

Audience members asked how to meet payments on mortgages, and how the oversight provisions in the American Clean Energy and Security Act would affect oil prices. One man asked if the Congress was "walking away from nuclear energy," to which Perlmutter said, "Congress will be neutral, but the White House controls that discussion."

Darrell McAllister the CEO of Bank of Choice in Arvada, said his concern was that most of the independent banks are being asked to raise capital levels.

"There are only two ways to do that, go out and ask people to invest in our bank (and most will say 'hmmm,maybe not') or shrink our banks. Those funds have not come to area small banks in Colorado. We would request that TARP funds be available," McAllister said.

Perlmutter said when the TARP bill was created under emergency circumstances that he added a section in specific language about money being available to small businesses.

"I said TARP money should be available to Main Street, that's part of the record. The first order of business was to shore up the big banks. You are right there is a mixed message."

"On the one hand we are saying, lend money to the small businesses to help them get through this crunch and the other message is that all loans be prudent. Then you have the regulators saying, 'No failures on our watch. We are trying to extend through TARP some money to Main Street," Perlmutter said.

He added that small businesses would be the engine that drives the economy to get America out of the economic ditch and admitted restoring confidence was crucial.

"It's going to take a while to work ourselves out of this hole, said Perlmutter.