Yesterday during a meeting of the county emergency group, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor expressed frustration at the collective’s unwillingness to go ahead and implement a Hillsborough County shelter-in-place order in the wake of the growing coronavirus pandemic.
“The longer you wait, the longer it’s going to take to recover,” Castor said in a Monday press conference following the meeting. “If we don’t act now, people are going to die. We’ve seen it already happen in other countries.”
“There are individuals walking around with the virus right now that don’t even know that they have it,” Castor said during an appearance on Univision's Facebook page.
That’s why the Tampa Bay Times says Castor is going ahead with a stay-at-home order for the City of Tampa.
City Attorney Gina Grimes said she didn’t know the date the order would go into effect; it would be good for seven days and could be renewed. A working five-page draft of the order obtained through a public records request details how people should not go to work unless they fall into one of these three categories:
- Essential services, including public sector, public health and health care workers
- On-duty military service members
- Social services and charitable groups, including animal shelters
People would still be able to go to the grocery, pharmacy and take care of family. They would also be able to go outside for exercise and to walk their pets.
- Additional exceptions to Tampa’s stay-at-home order, according to the draft, include:
- Chemical commercial facilities
- Communications
- Critical manufacturing
- Defense industrial base
- Emergency services,
- Energy
- Financial services
- Food and agriculture
- Government facilities
- Information technology
- Nuclear reactors
- Materials and waste transportation systems
- Government facilities
- Water and wastewater systems
- Permitted construction projects within the city.
City of Tampa officials told the Times that the draft was not final and could change. The Times added that Castor is “basing her power on state law and the city charter governing emergencies.”
Grimes also told the Times, “We’re going to move forward on our own,” and that absent a county plan for such an order, state law gives the mayor authority to implement the order.
Tampa residents can sign up to receive coronavirus text message alerts form the City of Tampa’s by texting TAMPAREADY or, for Spanish translations, TAMPALISTA to 888-777.
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This article appears in Mar 19-26, 2020.