CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Several businesses are gearing up to welcome customers back Friday after Gov. Greg Abbott’s statewide stay-at-home orders expire, but what about city business?
While some businesses are allowed to open, business at City Hall won't change overnight.
“We're going to make sure we do this right,” said city manager Peter Zanoni. “We've done a lot of things right, and that's reduced the spread of COVID-19 in our community.”
City Hall was never closed to the public, but it has been run with only 10 percent of its staff working from the building for the last six weeks, with most employees working remotely.
“We're not going to be rushing everybody back,” Zanoni said.
Before the city gets back to normal, Zanoni wants written business plans from each of his department heads. Zanoni and his COVID-19 advisors will review them and come up with the best solution.
“With 32 different operations, everybody's situation is slightly different, so we want to see what they're recommending,” he said.
There are several questions Zanoni wants answered before bringing everyone back to City Hall.
“Do we have enough room to have a 6-foot distance between employees,” Zanoni said. "Say, if they're sitting in an office? How are our conference rooms arranged? Do we need to remove chairs?”
Zanoni said he's going to be watching the next couple weeks with a cautious eye, hoping there isn't a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Right now, city officials don’t have a target date for getting all of its employees back at City Hall.
