I am curious where the mayor gets the authority to close businesses in the city.
I have looked through the state code and cannot find that authority. It appears to reside in the governor and the Health Department.
I note that several cities have decided they do not have such authority after legal consultation. Cities such as Dickson and Sevierville have stated as much.
Just curious why nobody has asked the question.
Gary Curtis
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Gary, you pose a good question here, maybe the answer is best answered in three months.
Just curious, can you list every person you’ve been near in the last 14 days, and know every person they’ve been near does not carry COVID-19? I make blown glass for a living. Maybe I should start making crystal balls, they help bring answers too.
Essentially human behavior and human actions are boiled down to two factors, one is love, the other is fear. The doctors say stay at home, the mayors take heed and repeat that. Traffic by our house shows about 90 percent of my neighbors are listening. The other 10 percent I hope are in necessary occupations and take the same precautions I do.
Until testing is at a logical level for a situation such as this, I’m taking the mayor at his word and staying put. I have no gold plated health insurance, so I can’t afford to get sick.
My take with all this back and forth about economics and health is there is a middle ground. That being all the places that have gotten past the initial swell of cases have done so by rigorous testing and trace contact. South Korea has not slowed business with that approach. New Rochelle, N.Y. did a lockdown upon getting 108 cases. Total cases there stand at 252 because people stopped mingling and spreading.
Eldridge Cleaver summed it up best. He said of societal issues, “You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem.”
Prentice Hicks
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Touche’, Prentice Hicks.
And let’s pray the governor does soon.
Mickey Spence
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Personally, I do believe the mayor has the authority to close businesses in times of emergency. And probably did the right thing here.
I’m just surprised Mayor Berke believes he has the authority to do it given the fact he doesn’t seem to think he has the authority to fix potholes.
Paul Anthony