City Council Emergency Meeting

22/4/2020

What happened:
City council passed a motion this morning to:

Extend the City's declaration of Local State of Disaster through May 3, 2020;
Form a task force on reopening the island at Mayor McNulty's direction;
CLOSED EXECUTIVE SESSION: Receive legal advice in response to the COVID-19 virus.
Authorize the City Manager to take remedial actions necessary to reduce any budget deficits caused by the COVID 2019 virus.

Why it matters:

1. Although the county extended its deadline through May 4, according to the mayor, "This declaration is not an extension of any orders, it's the actual extension of the Declaration of Disaster… This is our tracking mechanism that allows us to keep track of the expenses that are directly related to COVID-19 (City of SPI) and the direct losses... to send them to FEMA and the State to be reimbursed for this cause. It's not extending any orders, because SPI currently has no orders in place. We're under the shelter-in-place orders that Cameron County has issued and extended to May 4th."

2. In response to the County Judge Eddie Treviño's Emergency Management Order, which mentioned President Trump's plan on reopening America, McNulty passed a motion to form a Task Force to reopen the island at his direction.

"We've set up an email address. It's openspi@myspi.org and any business that has a plan, that's been non-essential, and they have ideas or a plan of how they would operate if opened in a safe manner to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, please send those plans in so we can assemble (them), and we can send (them) off (to) the County Health Department (and) the County Judge for approval."

Though the Island has taken quite a hit, Councilman Kerry Schwartz stated, "As of yesterday at 8:00, the County Health Department has reported no cases on SPI, so I think we are extremely blessed." After a 10-minute conversation with Cameron County's Health Department, it was concluded that there are no cases, because residents of SPI are not getting tested and currently, there is nowhere on the Island to be tested.

Before the motion of authorization of the City Manager to take remedial actions necessary to reduce any budget deficits caused by the COVID 2019 virus, Councilwoman Eva Jean Dalton added a statement regarding negative press that has resulted from current motions passed such as the checkpoint at the bridge. "We've had so much negative, coming out of our community to the rest of the world 'Stay away. Don’t come here,' that hopefully, (we) can all be on the same page with a positive message of how we do want to responsibly have people here."

3. Most legal advice can NOT be protected by a closed session. These issues are fairly limited to personnel issues, current lawsuits and proposed settlements. It was hard to see where a closed session is allowed for discussions of public health. The attorney general has clearly warned that closed sessions may NOT be used for discussions of general policy matters.

4. The previous council meeting approved over $2m of budget cuts. It was unclear if this was in addition to, or in lieu of, those cuts.

Now What:
For more information check out the latest news on SPI’s website. To get involved, check out the next City Council meeting on May 6, 2020 at 5:30 p.m. comments from the public are taken at the beginning of the meeting.