05/19/2020

[0:00:00] anyway basically throughout this whole process you know when all of us came together on march 22nd we didn't know what to expect you know we heard the same thing we talked about before what happened in new york what happened in italy what happened in spain you know we were warned that this is going to be bad for us here so we didn't know what to do so we you know we bunkered down you know we passed a civil emergency ordinance on may 22nd then after that the governor came out with his initial order of 1463 and then obviously had has had numerous orders since then so this has been going on quite a while i think it's 66 days now since we had the emergency order from the president on march 11. so we did what we're asked to do we we flattened the curtain we did we flattened the cover our health care facilities never at any time were challenged and i want to read the numbers to you you know and again before i move on i don't want anybody to misunderstand what i'm saying i'm not saying that this virus is not dangerous for some people it is this damn this virus is very dangerous for some people but the numbers that i'm about to share with you and i'm going to make a point on where we are now in south haven in my thought process what i'm pleading with the governor to do and to listen to the statistics are this we know that the testing is you can't count on that like we don't know when we get test results we don't know if that was a spike that day or if that's a data dump we don't know if a bunch of people went got tested one day and so you got a bunch of positive cases so the number of positive cases is a variable that we don't we can't verify but there's one thing that we can verify and that's fatalities we know that we've had five fatalities in the soviet county in 66 days all right so to do the math on that out of 185 000 people in the summit county that's 0.003

[0:02:02] of 1 if you look at shelby county tennessee you know y'all remember in the early days people said oh look out for desoto county they got they're going to be more risky because they're in memphis population that is true shelby county tennessee fatalities per capita 0.009 of 1 the state of mississippi as a whole fatalities per capita .019 of 1 and those numbers again i told you the county's population shelby county tennessee 88 fatalities out of 937 000 people the state of mississippi today has 554 casualties out of 2 million 976 000 people so i'll tell you the numbers to point out we know what this is now we have our own data and as leaders whether it be at a local level state level or federal level we have to make big picture decisions we have to weigh all risk the risk of the virus now pales to the risk of other health issues and just to get specific someone brought this out i know y'all seen this on national news but how many people do you think that normally would go get a cancer screening or go do something that would be preventative care to prevent a future terminal illness that have not done that in 66 days if you do the math on how many people in mississippi or in the united states have failed to go get a cancer screening and the fatalities that are going to result for that i want you to ponder that tonight after we leave think about that just let's just talk about cancer alone think about how many people will die from cancer because they didn't have early detection because they were afraid to go to a healthcare facility because of the kodi scam or not just afraid maybe they couldn't get treatment because of the code limitations so your health risks have escalated during this time not to mention

[0:04:04] think of the economic damage we talked about local economic damage look about look at the state of mississippi in general look at all the economic damages occurred over the drastic measures that have been taken you know over this kobe 19 scare and so when you start looking at the big picture and weighing these other risks to me again i told you i'm going to be bold i can't understand how any leader cannot draw the same conclusion that we are it's past time for us to open our economy up and let people get back out and go get the preventive care at the healthcare facilities get back out and resame their life so i don't understand while the state of mississippi in some states are still restricting business and holding us down the numbers just do not support that anymore now i'm going to talk about something that you've never heard me talk about you know during my mayoral career there were many times when i got accused of you know things that we did that maybe we infringed on somebody's rights or maybe it wasn't constitutionally sound and uh with nick manning our city attorney i've always been cautious to go double check that make sure that we never did anything like that but i'm going to be bold with you tonight and i'm going to i'm going to read something to you just so i can quote it the way i thought it originally and it's titled our freedoms it's past time that all businesses have the freedom to prosper again and all people have the freedom to live their lives again as upheld by the united states supreme court multiple times government has a constitutional right to restrain personal liberties temporarily during emergencies under the pressure of great dangers to protect the safety of the general public however i must be straightforward and bold with all reading this or hearing me talk tonight that i have serious concerns with liberties being restrained for this length of time considering the real data that i just quoted to you i also have concerns about the discriminatory nature of government allowing some businesses and organizations to assemble and do

[0:06:06] business but not others respectfully to all tonight i say it's time for government to get out of the way and i feel strongly about that i believe we can be safe we can resume our lives in a bold way we're not going to live scared that doesn't mean that we throw caution to the wind and then we're not safe i think we can go back we can we can practice the social distancing the special hygiene things that we've learned throughout this crisis i think that our business people are not in business because they need somebody to coach them and parent them they're smart business people because they know how to make changes and make adjustments along the way and i think it's time for us to get out of their way and let them have a chance to be safe in open business and so i want i'll encourage governor reeves y'all know the sacred home order is in effect until monday may 25th i'm going to encourage him to lift those restrictions on may 25th and get out of the way and let mississippi get back to business and back to their lives now let me clarify one other issue that is very strange to me and again i'm not being critical i'm just going to be very bold and very straightforward in-person church gatherings um governor reeves has indicated today in a press conference and i reached out to his office last week to get clarification for in-person church gatherings he indicated that the in-person church gatherings have never been restricted i was a little stunned by that because i think that it's safe to say well i know our city attorney interpreted that way i interpret it that way many other attorneys interpret that way obviously many churches around the state interpret the fact that they had to follow cdc guidelines and could only have 10 people gathered and so for all this time you have churches that have been doing remote services which is smart they would have done that anyway but they all thought that they were restricted to 10 people or less and the reason i want to read to you why they thought that and by our city attorney you don't let me speak to you correct me now please but in order of 1463

[0:08:10] there was the governor's initial order where he defined essential businesses he listed all the essential businesses organizations and that's not changed since then there was only one on that list that have not a footnote but an add-on to that that says this like on all on all of them before you get to the the list it indicates that if you're essential that the ten-person rule doesn't apply to you we all know that with our grocery stores hardware stores but when you get to religious entities it's the only one that has language that clearly states that they must adhere to the guidelines in order to be considered essential so for many people they interpret that that religious entities gatherings were restricted and then the exact wording in the order says this religious entities including religious and faith-based entities and groups religious gatherings are essential provided that they adhere to the cc and the mississippi department of health recommendations and guidance to prevent the spread of recovery 19. then when you go to the mississippi state department of health's website even today this is what it says church services funerals and weddings colon because mississippi state department health has identified code 19 cases specifically linked to church gatherings it is vitally important that all mississippians not attend in-person church services at any church or other type of facility attending churches weddings and funerals is not recommended and is leading to coven 19 transmission to others limiting damage to 10 people are fewer as critical and social distancing must be practiced at all gatherings so most people in our state interpreted this by what it says that churches had to be limited to 10 or less in order to have physical in-person gatherings so they've been waiting many have asked me in our city

[0:10:11] when is this going to be lifted well when i reach out to the governor's office that's when they told me we've never restricted churches being limited so i don't know why the confusion i don't understand the purpose of that i tell you all that tonight to tell you good news that now there is no state law of restricting in-person church services so i want all our churches to know that i have had meetings uh video conferences with many church pastors they have great plans on how they're going to do this uh again back to the businesses they don't need to be told how to operate their church just like a business doesn't need to be told how to operate their business they know how to make adjustments and they all have great detailed plans to bring their congregations back in a smart way so the message tonight is in-person church services in southaven are open i know that many churches have set target dates to get ready to communicate with their congregations to start back on may 31st and then some on june 7. but that's a great thing that we're safe enough now we're going to have people back together and so that's it that's it tonight i just want to give everyone an update i wish that i had more specifics i could tell everyone about the businesses that have not been opened yet but unfortunately we've not been given that yet it's just been a daily update as you all know with the governor's press conferences so i'm telling you all that i know that i will be asking them when the on may 25th to please lift the sacred homework so all of our businesses can get back and get back open again

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