BRYAN, TX — Governor Abbott fired back after hearing the City of Austin Mayor Adler was implementing Travis County restaurants and bars to close in person services at 10pm during the New Year's weekend.
”You know being on the same page and collaborating locally is the most important,” said Mayor of Bryan, Andrew Nelson.
Mayor Nelson mentioned when Dr. Birx came to visit a few months back she commended the City of Bryan for how well they were doing to mitigate the spread of the virus and the mayor attributed that to collaboration.
”Pleased with the local collaboration and we’re not always going to be on the same page but we work to try to do that and when we break huddle we can be as consistent as possible,” Mayor Nelson said.
Governor Abbott believes his executive order stops other cities from randomly shutting down businesses. While Mayor Nelson believes it may be arbitrary this far into the pandemic to say bars are the cause of rising cases.
”If it’s the spread from families and gatherings which I feel people are constitutionally allowed to be with their families, whether it’s the holidays or not it’s hard to say that’s the fault of the bars so why do we shut down bars ten months into this when people who are vulnerable know they shouldn’t be going into bars,” Nelson added.
He understands these rules need to be in place but with size of the state of Texas, maybe one size does not fit all.
”I think we need to have some rules in place but it’s hard with over 250 counties in Texas to have a one size fits all it would be nice if there was a little discretion,” said Nelson.
He says it's especially when finding it challenging to calculate the threshold of 15% for hospitalization capacity due to the equation being utilized.
”The challenge of calculating the 15% is if you have empty rooms in your hospital and pull some staff out the calculation because you’re not staffing those beds they're not being counted in the total capacity,” Nelson expressed.
Community leaders continue to collaborate and get through this difficult time with all hands-on deck.
”We’re all working together to try to manage a terrible situation that none of us asked for, so that’s what I focus on, so I’m not really focused on being upset at the governor or upset at my neighbor, it’s more let's try to work through these things and resolve them in a spirit of trust and unity,” Nelson said.
Mayor Nelson is dedicated to the people of Bryan and wants them to know that their spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health of each individual is most important.