Steve Massengale On Possibility of Reopening Lubbock Businesses

Wednesday on KFYO Mornings with Dave King and Matt Martin, Lubbock City Councilman Steve Massengale joined Matt and Dave to talk about the possibility of reopening businesses in Lubbock, and the difficulties that would come with it.

Massengale started the discussion by saying that Mayor Dan Pope is going to start an economic recovery task force, one that Pope called a "blue ribbon group". Massengale was asked if this means that the city is looking at how to get out of this, to which he responded that he does not know at what point in time Lubbock can start to move out of this, but that we want it to be as fast as is safely possible.

The Councilman also expressed that he believes that a reopening of businesses would be a gradual process, saying,

"I think we have to communicate with the public to help build consumer confidence. I don't know that if we opened all up tomorrow that there's a rush to the gates to get to be in these businesses. I think people are going to be concerned about are businesses doing what they can to keep the public safe when they're in those businesses. So there's a lot of work to be done as we move into what we will call the new normal."

Massengale went on to say that we are still all under the Governor's order, and that he hopes that the Governor's press conference today will show some guidance to what reopening might look like. He expects that if businesses reopen, we will see suggestions or requirements in social distancing and face covering.

The Councilman was also asked what cuts could be made to remove or reduce certain city staff if someone is not an essential employee. Massengale said that he expects tough decisions to come in the future, but that it's too early to say for now. Massengale was also asked what he thinks Lubbock will look like a year from now, to which he said that hopefully things will be mostly back to normal, however, he thinks that we may never get back to how things were.

Watch the full interview with Steve Massengale in the video above.

KFYO Mornings with Dave King & Matt Martin airs weekday mornings live, from 6:00 AM to 8:30 AM on News/Talk 95.1 FM and 790 AM KFYO, online at KFYO.com, & on the free KFYO app.