MONROE COUNTY, Ga. — On Friday, Monroe County leaders asked state and federal officials to start easing restrictions on businesses by April 30th.
April 30th is the day Governor Brian Kemp's shelter-in-place order is set to expire.
Monroe County commissioners made the request in a resolution passed Friday afternoon, asking federal and state leaders, like Kemp, to start reopening the state for business.
Four of the five elected officials supported the resolution.
It was a symbolic move. The county commissioners have no power over when or how the shelter-in-place order is altered.
However, it was also representative of what some have said was mounting pressure on the governor to begin relaxing these restrictions, and Monday afternoon, Kemp did just that.
"All we can do is urge him to do it to, you know, hurry up and open it back up," said Commissioner John Ambrose before Kemp made his announcement.
According to Ambrose, the restrictions are hurting his county's small businesses and need to be phased out.
"We've got a lot of small businesses in Monroe County that are hurting right now," he said.
Another County Commissioner, George Emami, said "the idea was to ask (the government) to begin responsibly opening by the end of the month."
Ambrose wanted places like hair salons and indoor seating at restaurants to be allowed to reopen while still respecting some social distancing guidelines.
He thinks concerns about COVID-19 are overblown.
"If this is such a terrible calamity, why aren't [sic] everybody falling out like crazy with it?" he asked. "I think this is just a political move to hurt Donald Trump."
When asked who he thought was behind it, Ambrose said "obviously the Democratic party. They tried to impeach him, they tried to do everything they can do since he's been president to hurt him and put him down and extending this out like they're doing now is just making it that much worse."
Governor Brian Kemp, who signed Georgia's shelter-in-place order, is a Republican.
Commissioner Larry Evans strongly disagrees with Ambrose, arguing to ease restrictions now would be premature.
"Absolutely," he said. "This is way, way too soon."
Of the five county commissioners, Evans was the only one to vote against the resolution.
"I understand the side of economics, that it is hurting small business owners, but at the same time, you cannot place a value on lives," said Evans.
According to the state department of Public Health's noon update, Monroe County has had 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1 virus-related death.
Statewide, there have been nearly 20,000 confirmed cases and more than 730 virus-related deaths.
The virus--and the restrictions put into place to combat it-- could cost Jimmy Redus an estimated two months of income and have forced him to lay off employees until federal stimulus money arrives.
He lives in Monroe County but owns MGA Cheer Extreme, a cheerleading gym in Macon. The facility currently sits empty.
Redus is open to phasing out restrictions and getting back to the gym, but he wants to be cautious.
"I think everyone would love to see businesses start to open back up and get to somewhat of a normal life, but I don't think you do it at the risk of other people's safety," he said.
Redus said that he had a phased plan to reopen the gym safely, including drastically smaller cheer class sizes, a minimum of 6 feet of distance between each person in the gym, and an hour of surface cleaning after every hour-long class.
He said he would defer to state leaders to make the call on when it is safe to begin reopening.
Soon after Redus made that comment, Governor Kemp announced that gyms and fitness center (among many other types of businesses) will be allowed to reopen with some restrictions starting April 24th.
It's was not immediately clear if Redus' cheer facility would fall under either of those categories. If it does, though, Redus could be allowed to reopen as early as this week.
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