During his daily briefing on Thursday, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle expressed both caution and optimism for how the people of his city have handled the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.
Sitting more than six feet away from representatives from Huntsville Hospital, emergency management and the chamber of commerce, Battle began his briefing by reassuring his constituents that municipal work continued as normal.
“To the people out there, City Hall is open, we will remain open,” he explained. “It’s important for your government to stay functioning.”
As a few examples, he cited the fact that public safety personnel are working around the clock, inspections and permitting are being done and roads are being built.
He also advised that “separate and sanitize should be everyone’s motto” right now.
“This community has done a great job of responding to that,” he stated. “The community has responded time and time again, and think this is one of the reasons while there has been so low of a rate of actual detection in this area. But we need to continue to be vigilant.”
Beyond health, one of city leadership’s chief concerns remains the impact of the crisis on small business and employees, according to Battle. He singled out the hospitality industry as one which could feel the negative effects.
“There are a number of ways we are looking at how we can help,” he said. “We’re working with community partners on this. I reached out to bank presidents in Huntsville this morning to engage them on some solutions, and I can tell you the banks are responding very well to it. Everything from interest-only payments to no payments for several months. Lots of different ideas on how to help businesses out there.”
Battle also noted the United Way has started a COVID-19 fund to help businesses and employees and the Small Business Administration is offering assistance.
As he did throughout the briefing, Battle wrapped up the day’s briefing with a reminder that individual behavior is most important to contain the virus.
“Make sure that you keep washing your hands, sanitizing, stay separated,” he concluded. “But also continue to be smart. We are a smart community. We call ourselves ‘Huntsville: The Smart Place,’ ‘Huntsville-Madison: The Sky is Not the Limit.’ And we have a lot of things that we have, as our citizens do the right things, we’re coming through this very well so far, and we will continue to monitor, continue to watch and change if necessary.”
Tim Howe is an owner of Yellowhammer Multimedia
