04/17/2020

[0:00:09] so just to double check since we're having to have this meeting you know remotely like this just to make sure do all we have on the line uh some board members if you would if you would just say just say check after i say your name alderman brooks autumn brooks alderman kelly and kelly holly gallagher baltimore wheeler is with us honoring florence some are uh called in just by calling in without putting the pen so i'm not sure who's in and who's not so far none of them have contacted me

[0:02:12] with issues that aren't are they showing in the go to league are they showing that they are connected i don't see alderman gallagher ottoman flores are you there are you with us okay okay good we have everybody again okay we will um chris would you mind uh leading us in prayer and then uh we'll all stand and after that we'll um have to pledge the legislative [Music] let's pray gracious heavenly father lord god we come to you today father we thank you for this opportunity to come here and conduct the business of our city and father under such special times as this lord we just have special blessings upon this meeting or we ask blessings upon all of our citizens we ask for wisdom and discernment for our city leaders our national leaders our state leaders lord just pray that all that's done here will be done in the best interests of this great nation and a wonderful community here lord we just ask that you bless this time and that you love us in jesus name i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty okay i want to thank everyone to help put this meeting together so quickly uh thanks to nick manley our city attorney for helping us after the governor's press conference helping us

[0:04:15] you know take that information and uh you know relate that to what we already have as far as a civil emergency ordinance and prepare a plan in the future thank you andrea city clerk that's with us uh christy faulkner did a great job coordinating everything getting this room ready most of you know that this city hall has just been renovated this is the first meeting back in this room so we're very proud to be here i to wish it were under different circumstances so the purpose of the meeting today just let me let everyone know today governor reeves did have a press conference and indicate that he was asking all of mississippi to extend the shelter in place for one more week through april 27 the only things basically that he changed were that he was allowing the opening of lakes beaches in any kind of fishing in the lakes that will be open that was not in the previous order uh the other thing that he did that is very significant is he did allow all businesses now not just restaurants but all businesses to have uh drive-through curbside and delivery commerce options so that will go into effect uh uh nick that is on monday when the other expires this those changes will be made monday april 20th at 8 a.m is that correct okay that is correct okay and so the purpose of our meeting is not to um change anything until april 28th other than what the governor has done our purpose today just to simplify this for everybody is to bring hope you know i know that all of our people have uh you know made sacrifices they've done what we asked them to do they stayed home they they've uh again sacrificed things that they would normally love to be out doing everybody has come together you know in this to keep our communities safe but it's time now you know for some hope you know

[0:06:17] that's the thing is you know we've all sucked it up and done what we got to do but we've got to have some hope for the future like not just through april 27th we've got to know what the weeks after that bring in the city of southaven and so that's the purpose of this meeting today obviously um and i want to thank our people all the people in south haven you know it's just the toughness and resilience that all of you have shown everybody is just again like i said just sucked it up and dealt with it and it's made a difference so i'm very thankful and proud of our city for that what i'm about to tell you is something that um anything that i say here today is going to be contingent upon and being in compliance with the state law and state orders from the governor so all this will be contingent upon when the governor reconvenes and has another statement as it relates to april 27. first thing i would tell you locally is we're not in the clear yet you know we've gotten some great numbers uh as all of you have done i've done the same thing you know when the president spoke on march the 11th my first public statement was after him on march the 12th at that time none of us really knew what to expect you know we we've seen the nightmares that happened in you know in new york and some other parts of our country so we were fearful you know we didn't know how is this going to affect south haven mississippi and so we were very scared had to be very cautious and again we're not in the clear yet but we've got to make adjustments based on the information that we do have now and that information is that we've been watching every day to see how this virus has affected us locally and the numbers since march the 12th until today are encouraging they're very encouraging so that's my point today is the people of our city

[0:08:19] need to hear from us they need to know what the plan is what to expect in the upcoming weeks so again you know when you start looking at the um the actual numbers our number one goal as it was anywhere in the country anywhere in the world is to slow the spread we know that we can't stop the spread of this virus but we know that our number one goal is to slow it so we don't take the risk of an overrun of our health care facilities and i'm proud to tell you today that so far that has not happened in southampton to southern county so for that reason i'm going to propose some changes to put it further in perspective to look at the real numbers that i'm looking at we have approximately 185 000 people into southern county as of today we have 213 confirmed cases and unfortunately correctly talents one fatality is too many but when we're making big decisions and considering all risk we have to look at the big numbers and if you look at that statistically 213 positive cases out of 185 000 people that equates to 0.12 of one percent and so for that reason i think it's time now that we reevaluate not only you know the risk to our public health but we also have to consider other risks that our efforts have created the things that we've asked people to do are things that are designed to be very short-term you know if you leave drastic measures in place like we've had you're going to start to have other serious health risks for our citizens so that's one reason and the other thing is we can't deny economic risks you know when you take a city like south haven we're one of the largest cities in mississippi we have a great economy and when you start you know doing drastic things like we've done that's got to end eventually you can't continue with that because even in the short term it has drastic financial impacts to us

[0:10:21] so now i'll move further into this again just trying to get hope and to let everybody know that we're working towards a sense of normalcy again so my recommendations today if the board if y'all don't mind if you'll let me work through this first then at that point i want to discuss just open up the floor for discussion and let's hopefully leave here today with a plan that we can put into effect on april 28th but basically for the reasons um that i've mentioned today it's my recommendation that on april 28th at 1201 a.m all businesses organizations and facilities except the ones listed below that i'm about to discuss shall be allowed to reopen in the city of south haiti with this reopening it will be a phased approach as president trump announced last night you'll have phase one phase two in phase three phase one this reopening will place a 33 building capacity occupancy limit and social distancing requirement of a minimum of six feet between all persons at all times and at all locations both in both indoors and outdoors this limit shall be increased to 50 percent capacity on may 15 2020 at 1201 am with a longer range hope of allowing phase three of a hundred percent capacity on june the first of this year this obviously again is subject to further update all listed and as essential will remain unchanged however the city still recommends adherence to the cdc guidelines as it relates to social distancing between persons as well as recommending facial coverings of the mouth and nose when traveling in heavily frequented

[0:12:23] locations furthermore we continue to plead with all of our citizens that may face a higher risk due to underlying health issues to continue to use all safe safeguarding measures to protect themselves now what does that mean with phase one phase one would be from april 28th to may 15th so i just told you that we would allow everyone to open with the exception of these we would still mandate that these organizations or facilities remain closed bars taverns and nightclubs theaters recreational and amusement facilities including playgrounds basketball courts volleyball courts baseball and softball fields football and soccer fields what will change from what my proposed change is is that we would allow golf courses tennis courts walking and running trails and all other activities that may be performed without teams to be permitted still with a social distancing requirement of six feet at all times the last thing would remain closed is city government facility interiors excluding those facilitating public meetings mandated by state law fire stations and police stations again i want to commend my team at city hall it's amazing what we've been forced to do but we've been very successful with uh using drive-through drop boxes and other remote services to do city business so we found that we can do that effectively so for safety i think that we can continue to do that until may the 15th now phase two what remains closed from may 15 until june the first bars taverns and nightclubs playgrounds stadium park stadium and park seating at city parks park concessions and our forever young senior activities

[0:14:26] to protect our older citizens that could be at a higher risk phase three is real simple phase three on june the first assuming that we do not see a a negative turn with our statistics phase three would be starting june 1st until after and we would allow 100 capacity at that time so with all that being said before we get into more discussion let me just summarize what has changed by this first of all we all know that there's been a lot of discussion on a national scale about um the constitutionality of all these changes especially related to churches and so i want to make sure that everyone understands this anything that the city of south haven did related to churches was never intended to restrict worship in any way it was just geared towards the number one common denominator that every public health expert told us that the more you limit physical gatherings the more you minimize risk to your people the other thing that's different about this than other than other threats that we face is that what every person does can have an impact on every other person so if you have a gathering it's not just you and the people at that gathering that you're impacting it's everyone else in our public and so that's the reason in previous discussions that our board made the decision to restrict gatherings at churches funerals weddings and other all other religious gatherings they've always been listed as essential i know there's some misinformation out there about that let me clarify that we've never closed any church they've always been listed as essential i will tell you this that our churches in south haven mississippi have been incredible many of them have reached out to me they cooperated with us they want to know what the city expects of them they share our concern of protecting not only the health of their congregations but the health of our community so i

[0:16:29] praise and commend our churches for stepping up big during this very dangerous time and now i'm going to try to smile a little bit when i get into this discussion and a a great political advisor would tell me never to go here but i'll say again i'm not a politician and i'm trying to be straightforward as i can with all people it is important to note that for those the many calls that i've gotten suggesting that the city of south haven has in some way violated the constitution of the united states it's important that you know that i'm not going to fight with anybody about this i've explained why we've done what we've done no one has ever in any way tried to restrict worship but instead just a physical gathering but it's important to note that the united states supreme court and past rulings have expressed that governments do have the constitutional right to limit assemblies on just a temporary basis under the pressures of great dangers that pose a danger to the general health and welfare of the public and specifically the one that that is the most prevalent uh imagine this 1905 115 years ago in jacobson versus the commonwealth of massachusetts the united states supreme court ruled that governments do have the right and very extreme situations that jeopardizes public health to restrict assemblies so enough of that please don't make me talk about that anymore thank you the other significant things that this plan does uh it would allow gems to open with the capacity limitations on april the 28th and again it will start it's what i call a 3350-100 plan 33 capacity on april um on april 28th raised to 50 capacity on uh may the 15th and then 100 after june the 1st so gyms would be allowed uh to open with the capacity restrictions on april 28th furthermore

[0:18:32] golf tests and other recreational activities that may be performed without teams are permitted with a social distancing requirement of six feet on april 28th and then lastly it's no secret that sports in south haven mississippi have become a big part of our economy it affects many of our restaurants our hotels just general tourism in general has had a great economic impact on our city so for that reason snowden grove park greenbrook park and the arena will be open for baseball softball and volleyball tournaments with with the same social distancing restrictions as of may the 15th now the last thing just to hedge off questions and kind of let everybody know up front what remains essential for the governor's orders is not changing so that everything that was deemed essential there is no change with any of this the last thing i would say before opening up you know the floor for discussion is again i've said this a hundred times there is no perfect science to all this no one has a crystal ball you know we could argue about things all day long about what we should have done or what's right or what we should have done more of or should have done less so but i'll just remind you it's not a perfect science i praise our board in previous meetings and previous actions you know for making quick decisions and trying to do things that you know support public health so anything that we've done have we been perfect no we've been making decisions on information in situations that we've never had to evaluate before and so i just want everyone to know before the debates begin it's easy to criticize that we've done too much or that even that this future plan is too much or that's not enough uh we'll continue to evaluate this daily you know if we do move forward to this plan if the board approves this and the government allows us the leniency to do

[0:20:34] this if we move forward and the numbers start changing we will make adjustments to that i mean obviously public health and safety is our number one priority but at this time with the positive numbers we cannot deny the other damage that we're doing with other health risks and with economic risks so with that being said or to open up the floor for discussion yeah that's a great question thank you for bringing up alderman flores asked how will we define capacity that's something that you know so many so many things with a shelter in place there's no way to define it and to enforce it this is something that again we're going to use good common sense but the way we would enforce it every building in the city does have a occupancy a maximum occupancy code so we can verify what that is so it's pretty easy just to take 33 of that so if you want if our police or anybody else is enforcing this and walks in you know and sees something you know that has uh if the capacity is you know 25 and they have 27 are we going to go and count heads no we're not but if we walk in and the place is packed to the gills yes we are going to enforce that so it would be based on the number of what the verifiable maximum building building occupancy code is uh restaurants would be open on april 28th uh they would still have to uh the dining rooms they would have to comply with the uh with the limitations yes and so again just you know i'm not a restaurant owner but just my thoughts on that is it would be easy for them to know what their capacity is and so they

[0:22:38] can adjust their seating to separate their patrons and to limit it to a 33 occupancy um just add the fact that restaurant dining rooms would be open on april 28th [Music] yeah that's a good point and just uh just to explain why we left that in there the reason we left that in there is president trump did specifically uh name that he had concerns about uh bars and taverns and nightclubs and what you say is exactly correct per city ordinance we don't have there is no such thing as a barn tavern or nightclub in south dakota mississippi so nick do you see any harm in just taking that out i mean like in ours could we just take that out right okay yeah we can do that ottoman brooks thank you no because restaurants are closed as of

[0:24:44] april 28 this proposal would open restaurants so basically the premises of this whole thing is that on april 28th everything is back open unless you're restricted yes [Music] um how would we monitor if we started getting negative results how would we monitor those statistics the answer to that i apologize for the pain i thought i had told y'all this already but about three weeks ago i did reach out to local hospitals to get a daily report they have been incredible to work with they've been giving me the numbers that i need every day so i get a daily report not only from our fire police chief from the you know from the county uh emergency management agency uh which is you know coming from the state we get that data every day and in addition to that i get a report uh from the hospitals explaining what the severity of it is there and that's another thing i didn't mention i can tell you those numbers have gone down so for the last three weeks that i've been getting that data that has trended in an extremely positive direction a long way to answer your question we'll continue to watch that and if we see that going the other direction then we'll be right back here talking again yeah i am getting i'm getting the

[0:27:06] detailed information yes sir gallagher your uh your peer author wheeler just made a comment about why you would ask that question being that you shaved your head y'all are very high maintenance with your personal energy yes yeah great question from alderman brooks uh have i been in touch with scottie baker who is the director of our baseball tournament snowden grove the answer that is yes scottie and i have been in many conversations back since march the 12th and we've looked at you know the calendar we've looked at all this obviously there was a lot of information i couldn't give him as soon as he needed it but yes we've been in contact and we have a big tournament scheduled for uh may the 15th that uh you know if we're able to you know enact this plan that tournament will will happen on may the 15th along with that just let me add to what i stated earlier we're not going full blown with this

[0:29:08] we're still going to be smart we want to get the kids out playing we want to get the economy spiked again we want people coming in get the tourism business going again however at the park what we would we would need to do is we would need to restrict the gatherings on bleachers so my thought is that we would block the bleachers off and we would allow people to bring in lawn chairs to sit and watch the games now scotty and i have not had a detailed discussion about this but i wanted to have it with you first but then my suggestion would be that that we not allow concessions that would further minimize risk that we would not allow the concessions but then again we would allow people to possibly maybe bring in their cooler things like that on their own stuff that we don't do now and in return for that my recommendation would be that we may raise the cost of admission just to help us see offset some of the financial losses losses too not selling concessions not losses in general yeah great question audrey brooks asked the other question about our recreational sports uh wes brown our parks director and i have been also been in many conversations uh wes uh was very proactive in this in mid-march west went ahead and put together a plan to consolidate you know we were delayed so assuming we could start on may the 15th it's my understanding that we would be able to have a recreational season it would just be very concise and very adjusted discussion

[0:31:26] tomorrow um and again back to um just to clarify back to this on april 28 you know that wood we've always had churches listed as essential but this would uh there would be no restrictions on the we were allowed to rely on the churches you know to make good decisions on when it's safe to bring the congregations back together again like i said earlier all of them done a great job with you know with uh you know video options and uh you know other remote uh types of worship so we would leave that discretion to them and i believe they will do an incredible job with that one more comment about playgrounds just so everyone knows why we're keeping playgrounds on there and i know i'm going to get beat up about this to go ahead and start punching playgrounds let me just talk to you i i had young kids uh we all know what a playground i mean a playground is a place where the kids you know all touch the same thing they're all there's no way to keep them separated you know with the equipment coming down a slide going you know being on a swing and everything that a playground brings brings a tight gathering of kids uh they're all touching things and it just i i think it goes without saying that a playground is extremely dangerous for what we're facing right now so that's the purpose of keeping the playgrounds closed uh we hope to have them back open as soon as it's safe but anyway that's that's the thought process audrey kelly any thoughts

[0:33:49] yes sir alderman hayes what are your dogs [Music] um [Music] okay i appreciate that and just um you know what this plan would do even with uh like you're saying any restaurant or any restaurant that has a bar in it uh they would still be required to keep um you know six feet distancing between all people and be limited to a 33 capacity so that is something that we that's that's fairly possible and practical to enforce so um so that i just want to make sure you understand that is in there there are restrictions on the bar area and the restaurant general on the distance apart from people and the capacity but do you have anything specific that you think we could add a knicks with us something there's something if you want to try to craft the wording differently we can certainly you know try to accommodate that [Music]

[0:36:00] well no we're just we're just putting a plan together right now because nothing again the governor's already you know pretty much told us you know what we got to do until april 27th so no there's no board action today i was just trying to take your ideas and go ahead and start preparing it for when we do implement it but we can keep working on [Music] yeah i get you um so we'll i'm writing that down now we'll uh we'll work on that and just see if there's some other way we may add some wording to it before we actually vote on this and implement the plan everybody yeah and ottoman flores makes a good point he says eventually you know people are going to have to step up and you know and police themselves they're gonna have to accept responsibility you know we can't you know we can't you know hold it down forever and that's the term i used earlier with somebody today i said you know what we can't just you know get get in a bunker and hide i

[0:38:03] mean eventually you got to come out you got to stick your toes in the water and check the water again but we got to come out i mean we got to eventually do that so i i agree with the autumn floors i think that's a great point you um yes well said i'll repaint again just uh reinforcing the fact that you know the business owners have responsibility for their business you know as a city government we want to get out of the way we want to let business open again you know we want the free enterprise system to thrive again in our city uh but it's important that the business owners take responsibility for this and you know if they're not responsible you know then it's going to force the city to you know you know you know get back together and reconsider you know what we could thank you all for faith alderman gallagher did you have any um any other thoughts regarding the 33-5100 yes sir

[0:40:15] and then honorable wheeler is anything else that you did uh here in the discussion today is there anything else that you see that maybe we didn't address or whether we should change when you're you're an expert you're in the restaurant business do you is there anything specifically as it relates to our memphis question about differentiating between a gathering of a bar as opposed to the dining room is there anything that you know that we could recommend asked i know if everyone can hear otter wheeler i've brought up the point that you may you know you may see some restaurants use plexiglass you know like if they had you know two tables that um that maybe were you know kind of threatening that six foot uh barrier maybe they could use plexiglas that sounds like a good idea and then uh alderman flores is is there anything else that you think that we should add or or or tweak this anyway you should tweak it uh um

[0:42:36] [Music] thank you audrey brooks any other final comments uh so i appreciate that well no one has anything else like i said there's no board action today we just want again the purpose of this meeting is for our cities for our people to know that hey first of all we appreciate the efforts that you've done all the sacrifices uh but we also recognize the fact that you know that there's got to be hope we gotta we gotta know what the upcoming weeks are gonna require of us and so i hope that this meeting today has given people hope and you know we're uh we're going to try to reopen as soon as uh it as it is safe to do so uh but again we just want to get hope today so um the plan moving forward as far as when we actually do this i want to commend the governor i think he's i think he's shown that he does understand that every city in the state is not the same and i think that he um i think that he will eventually after april 27 give the cities the leniency you know to do the things that they need to do not just from a public health standpoint but also from an economic standpoint you know and i'll reiterate the fact that south haven is one of the most economically thriving cities in our state and so each day that goes by it it's we're highly leveraged i mean it hurts us uh more so than other cities uh when we're shut down like this so i do believe that he will recognize that and i would encourage him to do so on

[0:44:40] april 27 to give us the leniency to do what we need to do so what we'll do is actually on tuesday night at our regular regularly scheduled meeting we'll go ahead and repeal the civil emergency ordinance that we created on march the 22nd and then we'll just be going with the governor's order until april 27 and then if he gives us the leniency we'll go ahead and make an official last nick to put this in uh you know resolution formatter to make it uh where we can vote upon that and we'll go ahead and put this plan into effect so to be effective on april 28th any other questions media any questions yeah all the meetings from now will be at city hall but the building is open it's not open you know for daily transactions but state law doesn't mandate that we have uh public board meetings open so yes we're ready to get everything set up looks awesome uh we're ready ready for business at the boardroom hoping for the best but thinking the worst might happen if the governor might say on a week from now that i'm sorry we need to go another week or so on this how how will your plan be affected by um a pushback of another week of the governor's order um the governor obviously we have to be in compliance with state law so all of this will be contingent upon the governor giving us leniency so what you said like on april 27th if he decides that the shelter in place needs to stay in force longer then we we will comply with that and then we will just adjust our 33 50 100 plan according to that so we would bump it back uh depending on what the data is showing at that time uh maybe we adjust the percentages somewhat but anyway that's something we really won't know until we know what the governor decided to do but we will obviously we'll stay in compliance with

[0:46:42] his orders any other questions for the media okay have no other questions board any other comments or questions okay hearing none uh i would like to have a motion to adjourn the meeting today okay we'll have a motion monitor kelly second model from wheeler all in favor say hi can you say no i'll just have it unless he carries this meeting is down

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=6NTJFC3HdSU