BUFFALO (WBEN) - While the Western New York region is not yet allowed to begin the first phase of reopening the economy, several regions across the state, such as Finger Lakes and Southern Tier, started on Friday.
Broome County (a part of the Southern Tier region) Executive Jason Garnar spoke with WBEN's Joe Beamer to discuss his thoughts on the process.
"What that means here is that we're going to be able to see a lot more construction happen, the non-essential construction that was prevented from happening, we're going to see that," said Garnar. "We do have a bit of manufacturing here - that's going to start to open up..."
NEW: NY State has just released phase 1 reopening guidance online including a business plan template and the portal for business to affirm they have a plan.Can't wait to get Broome County back to work.https://t.co/eRwwfMNKPK
— Jason Garnar (@jasongarnar) May 14, 2020Like almost every municipality and county across the country, Garnar says Broome County has been hit hard economically.
"The first thing we did is say that we're not filling any positions, so we have a hiring freeze; we just furloughed about 50 employees," he said. "We're looking at what we're going to do with our parks this year - are we going to be able to keep them open or not?"
Ultimately, Garnar has mixed emotions about beginning to reopen.
"We're really happy to see people be able to go back to work again that haven't been able to work for two months, but we're also a little nervous as to what those numbers will bring in terms of Covid."
