COLUMBIA, S.C. — Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin held a Resilient Columbia Economic Recovery Task Force meeting Friday morning.
This task force consists of political and business leaders in the community, who reported a number of updates to the Mayor.
Some of the highlights of the over hour-long meeting were preliminary business survey results presented by the city's economic development director Ryan Coleman. "I would say I've been pretty pleased with the results that have come in. It sounds like there is some optimism on behalf of the local businesses. Many feel that they will be hopefully returning to normal operations sooner rather than later." The survey was put out about two weeks ago and the final results will be posted next week.
A number of subcommittees reported their discussions.
The communications subcommittee announced that they intend to roll out a Resilient Columbia website next week. "We have been finding that on our city website, there's a lot of information but also we feel that it's critical that business owners and the public be able to go directly to perhaps an online hub for economic recovery information," said Leshia Utsey, PR Director for City of Columbia.
Chief Holbrook of the Columbia Police Department also discussed how they are continuing to enforce the curfew and social distancing in the city, as well as the need of cooperation with businesses to keep crowds outside of their establishments at bay. "We cannot maintain a presence 100% at a particular establishment all the time. We're answering calls for service ... To have that consistent presence is not practical. Therefore, we have got to have assistance from owners of business establishments."
The Mayor left the meeting with some encouraging words. "As we get kind of caught up in the national debate, sometimes everything seems to be defined in red and blue. We're going to stay focused on red, white and blue, and just keep working and moving this great American city forward."
Click here to view the entire meeting.