Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said Thursday on Facebook Live that the shelter in place rule will be in effect for next week in Chattanooga, and then information will be evaluated.
He said that because Northgate Mall and Hamilton Place Mall fall within the jurisdiction of Chattanooga, those will remain closed for the time being.
Mayor Berke clarified the extent of his authority. He said his decision applied only to Chattanooga.
The mayor explained his rationale behind keeping Chattanooga closed as the rest of Hamilton County’s municipalities begin to open.
“You’ve heard a lot of messages from different people over the last few days,” said Mayor Berke. “It’s jarring and confusing when all kinds of different leaders are saying different things. For that I am sincerely sorry. I truly wish that you could hear that same message from everybody.”
He said his decision did not come from any desire other than to make the “best” choice for Chattanooga. He then explained the process behind deciding to keep Chattanooga closed.
“The way I have been trying to make the right discipline when looking at this, so that it’s not part of some ideology or about a party, that it’s just about the facts, is that we’ve joined a big four economic task force (with members of Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis).”
This task force includes community members, public health experts, business owners, doctors, who will all try to figure out a plan. Mayor Berke said he expects a report from this collection of people to come out Friday. He said that by sometime Friday morning, citizens will be able to see the report as well.
Mayor Berke continued by saying that even if things are re-opened, people should still social distance when possible, wash their hands, and wear a mask. This echoed sentiments expressed by County Mayor Jim Coppinger.
The city mayor said there has been an expansion of testing over the last few weeks, but did not say how expansive testing needs to be or how any people need to be tested to know if the city can be reopened.
Toward the very end, Mayor Berke addressed the conversation going on in the comments of his Facebook live stream, with some of them vehemently disagreeing with his actions as mayor.
“No person has all of the answers to this,” said Mayor Berke. “I certainly know that, and I’m trying to do the best I can to keep people safe.”