North Pima News

A Pima County task force will be set up to discuss a plan to reopen companies across the county. 

The task force will keep employees and the public safe during the COVID-19 crisis, according to Tucson.com.

The Team has been coined the "Back to Business" Task Force. The task force will include one designated member of the county’s Small Business Commission from each district in the county. Members will also include representatives from local businesses. These members will come from restaurants, hotels, chambers of commerce, gyms and daycares.

Chuck Huckelberry, who is the Pima County Administrator, said the whole purpose of the task force is to discuss safe ways to re-open the county for businesses.

“The purpose of the Task Force will be to establish a framework of hygiene and physical distancing standards that need to be developed to begin to reopen, in a limited, phased manner, the commercial and business activities that may have been suspended or substantially interrupted during this time,” Huckelberry wrote in a memo on April 22.

Huckelberry said that public health officials are skeptical about opening everything up too soon.

“If you listen to our public health officials, they are very cautious about opening up too soon,” Huckelberry told Tucson.com. “When all those boxes turn green, you can pretty much go. But until then, we should be very cautious about moving forward in any particular area.”

Francisco Garcia, Pima County’s chief medical officer, said officials have weighed every scenario and many discussions have been positive. Garcia said that safety must be observed before the county can "relax standards."

“We’ve put some thought into how we move from where we’re at now to where we need to be, and although there are certain indicators that are very positive, we note other indicators that are still very concerning,” Garcia told Tucson.com. “All of these things need to be in place before we can think about relaxing standards.”