April 25, 2020
By Sarah McCormick
The Re-Open Florida Task Force, established by Governor Ron DeSantis, is requesting the feedback of all Florida residents – citing it as a critical partition in delivering a final report to the Governor before the economy is able to be safely re-opened again.
After Friday’s meeting with DeSantis and the Task Force, the deadline to submit any questions, ideas, or concerns that residents would like to see addressed has been set to Sunday. This means members of the Task Force will be working throughout the weekend to ensure the Governor receives a lengthy and itemized list of concerns from residents before the week begins.
Ideas on how to safely re-open counties and various portions within are encouraged and desired, giving the public a soapbox to stand on and a platform to allow their concerns and ideas to be heard.
Many individuals have expressed their concern over the lack of funding with PPP and SBA loans, and that will no doubt be a major topic of concern and discussion as businesses are unable to keep paying workers, forcing layoffs and unemployment numbers to skyrocket.
Other topics of major concern as a consensus are ample enough testing sites, local agriculture, assisted living facilities and their residents, PPE for healthcare workers, unemployment benefits and the numerous issues surrounding the website and application process in itself, and mortgage/rent and bill postponement.
The Governor’s Safer-At-Home order is set to expire at the beginning of May, which leaves little time to fully construct the gameplan for the upcoming weeks. Officials are working tirelessly to ensure the safety of the public and strategic reopening of the economy. Small business owners across the state have been voicing their concern regarding getting back to work and are understandably impatient to get money flowing into their businesses again.
Residents can click here to visit the website where a simple form can be found to fill out with personal information, as well as a section to leave comments and concerns for the Task Force and Governor to read and address. You may also choose to upload files that may be pertinent to your requests.