 here this afternoon- we're- there's a lot of stuff still going on everything is changing almost by the minute- I do want to recognize some other folks who are here but maybe not up here- we have Brian Johnson the- the mayor of Kennedale I believe is here. There he is we have Oscar Trevino the mayor of Northwarsson Hills. Ron Jensen the mayor of Grand Prairie have I missed any other mayors at this time. Okay- from our state we have Chris Turner US rep our state representative just gave you a little demotion there we have Nicole Collier- we have Beverly Powell state senator Beverly Powell I know that I have a couple of my compadres Roy I- and Devin is over here- so again what we are announcing today is- about the third iteration of where we were last Friday when we declared our emergency- decorations at that point in time we were looking at around two fifty- then we changed it down to around- the one twenty five but let everybody kind of stay open. And what we're doing today is basically saying for the restaurants it's either got to be curbside or drive you know drive by drive through- we're closing down all the dining areas inside- we are also closing completely bars lounges taverns commercial amusement establishments in case you're not real sure what that means that covers the bingo halls that covers the theaters we're closing down gyms we're also closing down private clubs and health clubs- what we are saying with regards to other kind of event centers or gathering places is that we want to limit that to fifty percent of occupancy with no more than one hundred and twenty five. And again that would be for event centers hotel meeting space retail stores convenience stores plazas places of worship and then again with the malls what we're gonna have to look at there at is limiting it to the common areas again fifty percent with no more than a hundred and twenty five- whichever is less in those particular deals- and then with regards to the individual stores themselves at the malls again it would be fifty percent of occupancy- with a maximum of a hundred and twenty five- we recognize that this is- much tighter. And again what I would just say to you is that. When we go about making these decisions we do it after we have tried to communicate and to talk. With all of the cities are at least given them the opportunity. To have given us feedback understand that within Tarrant County we have forty one cities. We have nine separate but none of those cities have their own separate emergency operation plan and then we have the county- plans so- we're not just an island to ourselves. And so when we make these decisions are when we're looking at changing these requirements we really want to sit down and want to talk with our partners make sure they understand. The details what the ramifications are of our changes and they have an opportunity to convey that out. To- to their first responders. Also if there are ordinances need to be made for enforcement of those changes we want to give them an opportunity to give them a time- to be able to do that so what normally will happen is we'll have that meeting. Just as we did yesterday. And then today we will issue those new amended procedures and amended policies- with that I'm going to turn it over to a Betsy and let her make any comments that she'd like to make. Thank you judge. Good afternoon everybody. Strange times we're living in and difficult times I see my council member Kerry Moon is also here Kerry we're glad to see you here. We're doing what Glenn said we issued our changes this morning posted to our website on a video that specifies these they are mandatory they're not strongly recommended they are mandatory the only other thing that you may be doing that. I'm not sure you mentioned is we are limiting gatherings to fifty or fewer. That means all gatherings don't be in common areas we strongly suggest private gatherings not be any more than that. We're also recommending that grocery stores large retail establishments really adhere even if they're not mandated residential buildings medical facilities daycares will be exempt from that but think about what you're doing this has to be a regional approach people travel back and forth between all areas and we want everybody to be safe. Nothing that we've done as mayors or the judge and the commissioners has been done lightly we're well aware this is a huge problem for businesses for employees medical teams from CDC to our own medical teams doctor Williams from UNT Health Science Center is here so many more have been advising us it's an incredibly fluid situation who would have thought last Thursday we would be at this position. The act that we took a couple of days ago with a little bit less limitations was to allow businesses to scale back the public health people were advising us that twenty four to forty eight hours was not going to damage anyone but it would allow the businesses a chance to advise their employees to scale back their inventory and their ordering to give them a chance to work with people potentially to draw their unemployment a packet of what they might need to do we've got business men here with us today John Benel is here Tim Love is here and others from the restaurant association that we've been working very closely with I also want to think take a second and think tell you and think we have an incredible team at the Joint Emergency Operations Center that has been working almost around the clock for three weeks now to stay on top of this as much as can be they've scaled things to fit the public the best that we possibly can and do not create any more hardships than are humanly possible and yet we know these are incredible hardships for all of you. Our team has relied as I said earlier on medical advice and all of you should be very proud of county employees city employees and every other mayor in here I know is proud of their employees with that said I'm gonna turn it over to Mayor Williams and then I believe afterwards we're going to take questions right judge. Mayor Williams thank you mayor price. First of all I want you to know that we have been working with Tarrant County and our sister cities and I'm very appreciative of leadership that the county judge Whitley has shown and mayor price and the cooperation that's happening but however also I need to thank many of our medical professionals there throughout the country in the world that have weighed in and provided great resources also need to say thank you to Mayor Jensen who's reached out and communicated and and we're all together once again here judge in Tarrant County and that's the Tarrant County way for us to work together and it's so important because before I go any further though I I need to extend my thoughts and prayers to the James family as we have lost a citizen here to this Corona virus. You know we're in a fight right now and there's no doubt about it and we need to come together here and moving forward even more than we are and then that is the Tarrant County way for us to work together and and to collaborate and to to bring the best out in our citizens and that's what is we've done time and time again and we've exhibited that resiliency and it's so important for us to to do that now so at five o'clock today our council convenes again even after meeting a long time yesterday we'll come back again and we will have more restrictions that will be there and I have no doubt we may be meeting tomorrow and I'm very appreciative of Governor Abbott allowing us to be able to call emergency meetings because this situation is very fluid things are changing each and every day. Now I also want to share with you there's something that's happening in Arlington and I bet it's happening in these other cities but it's so important. Our churches have come together and they are going out and delivering food running errands to help those of our our seniors who are needing help that are in the at risk category here. They also have tonight come together and ask for a night of prayer there and in addition to that our mosque or synagogues are following suit there and I'm very very appreciative of the faith based community. Yes and in this disease our our seniors are most at risk but let's think about taking care of our neighbors that's something we can do with the phone and and with our with our emails and so forth and be checking on people see if they need help that's something very productive that is in our control that we can do and and the opportunity for us to listen to our fellow neighbors concerns and pray with them and let them know they're not alone is huge and one of the things I think that we're almost proud of here in Tarrant County is the kindness and generosity that people have and and we're going to need it as we move through this and and we journey through. We know the restrictions and measures that we're taking are going to be very painful there but however we hope that the reward will be a shorter time in which this virus is there and that's that's the hope but then the thing that is so hard is that we have to continue to maintain at the top the well-being and health of our citizens and then secondary there of course but also important is taking care of our first responders and essential services and then the third is to try to continue to maintain life as we know it here to be able to have a job and for our our citizens to be able to get to to continue to provide for their families but I want to assure you that our Tarrant County Public Health our city's offices of emergency management are already they have been working now for weeks and yes they're working together and the governor today pledged great resources that he actually opened the door to to the federal government there for more supplies to come in and let us continue to try to work to make smart decisions but also understand that we're going to be working fast too so that we can be sure and try to stay up with the the developments that occur and try to make sure that we continue to keep the health of our citizens at the top now there's a lot of misinformation out there and please don't go to facebook for your answers please go to reputable sources and i just want to say our our Tarrant County our city's websites are well versed they're they're giving the information there for us it's arlingtontx.gov slash coronavirus this site offers new articles prevention tips information about what Arlington and Tarrant County are doing and it stays up to date and many times is updated every hour there and of course also we get the latest news from the CDC and i know that our people are hungry for information and this is the right place to go and and and be sure and go to reputable sources the other thing i want to say is that our fire departments have managed infectious diseases over the years as part of their responsibility here to our to our communities in our county and they have dealt with other major outbreaks they're prepared and they're up to the task and while there's still a lot we don't know about coronavirus our first responders have been through these situations before and they are working hard and then i mentioned that we're in a fight well this is a fight against something that we can't see and it's a different kind of fight because we're actually fighting against the habits that we have developed we can't be shaking hands we've got to be sure that we avoid sneezing and coughing there to expose we've got to be better than that we've got to wash our hands and continually work to keep ourselves healthy and then in addition that don't be touching your eyes and mouth with unwashed hands and and please remember that this is part of that prevention to take care of yourself and to remind other people to do that so that we can cut down on the spread and then probably most importantly all if you are experiencing symptoms and you think you may have COVID if you have the coronavirus please call Tarrant County's coronavirus hotline at 817-248-6299 that's 817-248-6299 and you'll be given the latest information so that you can be taken care of now i also have to say thank you to so many of our businesses that have cooperated even ahead of time of these restrictions i've been so impressed how and i'll just name our restaurants in particular there who have who have been willing to cooperate and move our theaters our events there and that's so important and that is tough because we're closing their facilities well having said that most of all of our city services and our county services are all open they have remained unaffected our emergency response garbage and recycling water utilities and many more and then speaking of our first responders let's also keep them and the employees in the medical community and our thoughts and prayers as well as they work to help us get through this and minimize the spread of the virus they are putting themselves at risk let us remember them as they work so hard for us now in closing we will work together we will come through this and be stronger than we were before but let's continue to the collaborative spirit that tarrant county has set and let's work together to beat this thank y'all very much thank you jeff and we're gonna just immediately get to questions but i do want to say an echo a little bit of what jeff said i think we have a tremendous spirit of generosity within tarrant county we have group meeting every morning where we bring on folks from the various segments of our county the hospitals the schools the senior centers the meals on wheels and we've got one group that's called volunteers and i'm you know i'm just betting that that particular organization is going to get overrun in the next couple of days because folks are going to be there and they're going to want to help in any way they can jeff also mentioned the restaurants that we had closed down their dining areas i see john bonnell here and i know that y'all are making an effort to do some things you can tell that i told him that he was going to be asked to speak because he is dressed appropriately so john if you wouldn't mind just very brief come on up here and just tell a little bit about the efforts that's going on well thanks for having me um on behalf of the independent restaurants in the in the fort worth area we all agree that this as hard as it's been for all of us to close our businesses this was the right decision and we have we applaud the decision that you've made even though it's the most difficult thing we've ever seen i've been in communication with about 120 of the local restaurants roughly 50 percent have closed already the remaining are trying to move to some sort of a model of curbside or delivery options we don't have a lot of ideas we don't have a lot of things we can do besides that and we understand for the health of our city we're gonna we're gonna try to get through this i please encourage everyone go to the fort worth website visit fort worth they've got a list of restaurants that are remaining open and that's still fluid it's changing all the time visit fort worth website will kind of help let you know which local places are still in business and what kind of services we are going to be providing we're going to be doing some curbside family type dining we've abandoned the idea of fine dining for this time those that have closed and those that have converted are hoping that we can limp along through this and on the other side of this come back to a vibrant restaurant scene one day so please keep supporting your locals thank you john i know tim love is also here let me john ask you to do one thing let's make it visit tarant county or let's be sure that we reach out to the other cities and give their restaurants a chance also one of the things that is we've talked with the various groups that we're trying to encourage them to do is on the websites have one number that folks can call into and that it will or or one website that we can put a statement on and then give them the ability to call a number that will then you know maybe it asked them where they are maybe you just list the restaurants the visit fort worth it's referencing isn't just for this that visit fort worth is our convention and visitors bureau website they've provided a link on the cvb which is now visit fort worth website and they are linked over to many of your to north virgin hills kennedale grand prairie arlington their link what's closing here over for a list of them own their websites also so encourage your your the mayor's other folks encourage your restaurants to also be a part of this judge i've got a story for you and john really appreciates your comments because you know benel's is one of those that's near and dear to all of our hearts well they're all of these restaurants and we think about the jobs and so forth there that uh that are at stake here and in the future last night uh there after we got done with our council meeting uh we went over and visited jay gilligan's tray overton city manager and i did we were amazed at the innovation of randy ford there he already had made a drive-through lane and then he had a booth set up so he could take the money covered porch so he could go out deliver his food and come through he said he had already had 60 cars come through and he just put it on social media what two hours earlier and that's what needs to happen to this this is a safe way for us to to get food and to patronize our rate restaurants and they're doing a great service because in addition to that they're they're getting the food supply out there and that's a that's an awesome thing so i i know our restaurateurs are going to get really creative and i hope bonnell's will do takeout service too that'd be awesome great start inside okay we're going to open it up now for uh for questions what i indicated was what our current kind but it's it's similar in fort worth it's similar in arlington again our goal is to be consistent among all the cities within tarant county it's mandatory enforcement capability what we're saying is we want to make it mandatory and we're going to get to the point where if we have to enforce it through basically fines and things all night lines we will thus far when we've asked folks to do it they've done it if we find that there's folks that are not willing to do that then we will at that point in time enforce it and put the teeth behind it that we need to put behind it we can do a lot of what ifing what we have said okay i'm sorry it was why didn't we in you know why didn't we make these restrictions earlier with uh and within line with the cdc and as i said we can do a lot of what ifing what we're trying to do and we look at we had our first community spread case on monday morning so at that point in time we called everyone together and begin to have a discussion about bringing it and wrapping it down much more significantly at that point in time again as i said we have nine different plans city plans and then we have a county plan so we're going to try to work collectively together and not try to you know keep all kinds of variety all over the place and make sure everybody understands what's happening the community the county judges are kind of texting back and forth now that's the six big county judges that are doing that right now but what we're just saying is where are y'all what are y'all thinking about doing you know at one point and i don't even remember the days to be very honest with you right now everything's kind of bled together dallas you know someone said dallas had closed everything in fact i think it was a conversation i had with the mayor then grand prairie and the judge said well we're about to but we haven't officially put something out and he very shortly after that they did we closed down the schools about a week or so before dallas did so we're we're trying to talk through that process but again what we're trying to do is again make sure that all of our partners are a part of the decision and have an opportunity to give us input on the deal yeah as far as next steps go that has not been determined but then a week ago i couldn't have told you that we are where we are now we meet every day several times a day and evaluate that we're taking the advice of medical professionals and our public health director venny is here and the city's public health authority and we're acting on that along with input from like dr williams and other medical so it's hard to tell you what next step might be i'm comfortable with where we've been as far as enforcing our code has been out brandon is you might want to come up as shaking his head they've been out delivering to all the bars and restaurants a copy of the notice until we started that two days ago when we changed the first signs and in that notice it stated what we were doing then but it also advised them that they would likely see additional enforcement now they will be back doing that brandon you want to comment but we're actively enforcing that piece of it brandon benett who's our code compliance and public health director public health yeah we have not had to do any enforcement action at this point and really that's because of the voluntary compliance that we've received you know one of the things that we did is we were able to telegraph so i think one of the earlier questions was um you know we're different than dalis we're maybe not doing the same things that dalis is doing and one of things we have to remember when it comes to public health and and actually tracing um the the community viral spread is that dalis was the one that had the first cases or the dalis area up in colin county so there are things that they implemented first and there are things that we implemented thereafter and so when you're talking about how you allocate scarce resources you want to put the resources where they're going to provide the greatest public benefit and so what you see is a stair-stepping approach of the use of these these resources so from an enforcement standpoint we were able to reach out early and say can we get your help and in fact a lot of the restaurants had already shut down had already reduced it to less than 50% long before we ever knocked on the door and as we went about today fire department and code client staff to give everybody additional information that this order was coming most of them had closed the doors or in the process of closing the doors because of the information that they had received so it's going very well in that respect and you'd be amazed at the number of restaurants who did call and say go ahead and close it for them to have a chance to cut their inventory to advise their employees so we're just following in that suit let me make one other comment yeah we had a press conference with the governor earlier today he has got a call i know um a listening call at five o'clock today with i know the county officials i don't know if he's also set one up yet with tml and through the that what he's trying to do is gain information and suggestions and and listen to what the various county judges around the state are saying um and what i would say to that is this is very rapidly as it's growing becoming something that it's not just in a few pockets uh last friday the governor said today that it was basically in seven counties today it's in i believe 22 counties so it's tripled in a matter of about four days so i think he's now beginning to to say we've got a call we got to communicate we want to hear from you before we issue uh what we may need to do or what we feel like we need to do and i think at that point in time then again what we're saying is it's spreading enough now that uh we're going to have to watch and maybe take more of a statewide uh approach to the thing what we're what we're basically saying is i'm sorry um the question was as far as our ability to enforce the laws or the recommendations that we're making again yes that that is changing our ordinance of uh making ability we've talked about that with the governor and we feel like that we're going to be able to put the teeth behind that that we're going to need to put behind it in order to make it widespread the cities already have that authority and most of tarant county is within the cities but there's still parts of it that is not and so what we're going to encourage the cities to do to look at their ordinances again they will have to you know they may have to adjust or change those but we feel certain that we have the ability uh or will have the ability to be able to enforce with teeth what uh we're recommending strongly recommending and again i want to say that our folks have been very good about listening to our recommendations and following those and we really haven't had to go out and basically insist or try to push people to do what we had asked them to do any other okay thank you let me let me take one quick suggestion there are a lot of experts in this room our fire chief is here who's in public health the director of public health is here the sheriff is here dr williams is here so many more brandon also tim love has a great potential plan for helping feed people should we be in need of that that the restaurants will be working with john all of them would be glad to take your questions coming from some of these expert citizens would appreciate that too tell your viewers to reach out this is facebook prime time anything to reach those who are isolated get in touch with their family members get in touch with their grandchildren spend a little quality of time together or at least on facebook and take care of each other i know you will in tarrant county's best way in foot worth in orlington and all the other cities too thank you certainly the mayor's facebook page is a trusted side thank you to mayor johnson mayor tervino and mayor jensen here for being here and then also i've got to say a special thank you the the elected officials at all levels uh their county state and federal have all reached out been a part of this and and today in fact we've all been together here and and there truly is solidarity here and this is a a time for us to be unified and very appreciative of that thank you very much we're going to get through it we're planned for it we're ready to go so again just help us join the team and let's get through this thank y'all