City of North Tonawanda begins plans for reopening

City of North Tonawanda Mayor Arthur Pappas released the following statement on Saturday:

In accordance with state and county recommendations, each city or town should begin to develop a plan for reopening their municipality. Since every locality has unique entities, we need to include foresight to plan accordingly. In keeping with this directive, I have established a committee of individuals representing various interests of the city. This committee will be referred to as C.E.T., City Emergent Team.

Our opening plans developed will be controlled with the most essential business having the lowest risk open first. All plans will be required to have the governor’s approval. This will be determined by how the plans fit in regionally with surrounding cities and counties.

Before this is possible, we need to meet seven criteria and to date Niagara County only meets three. One criteria is to have 14 days of decline in number of cases. Since Niagara County continues to increase daily with 664 cases and 76 now in N.T., we are not meeting this goal. When we do qualify for phase one, we will need to monitor and adjust plans as we go forth. This will ultimately cause a change in the lifestyle we knew before, but hopefully will be for the better.

Please continue to wear a mask in public and social distance especially when visiting places like the City Market.

The DPW conducted the bulk pick-up for this month and all seemed to go well. They will also begin some road paving with the Zipper next week. We are looking to the weather to cooperate and bring warmth and sunshine to all residents.

I commend everyone for the effort they are putting forth on behalf of themselves and others despite the difficulties that remain. We must stay resilient and hopeful in order to move ahead.