Mayor On Coronavirus in Huntsville - Pt. 3

Dan Shaffer has an extended conversation with Huntsville's mayor, Tommy Battle.

Topics include on what local businesses can do in these trying times and what might happen with a coronavirus vaccine.

>> dan shaffer: welcome back.

And thank you for joining us.

Every night on waay 3 is news at 6:00 we take you deecher into the impact of coronavirus.

Specifically here in north alabama.

Tonight we're joined by huntsville mayor tommy battle.

Thanks for being with us, mayor.

What is being done right now to keep those who use public transportation as safe as possible during this?

>> mayor battle: you know, we started off with public transportation.

We limited the number that could be on the bus just to keep some distancing in the bus system.

We are passing out masks to those who are on the bus.

We have -- since the new order has come out we've a little bit but still keeping numbers down as to the number of people on the bus because that's a vulnerable population.

We want to make sure we protect them.

>> dan shaffer: are you confident that a vaccine is on the way any time soon?

>> mayor battle: oh, gosh, if you -- >> dan shaffer: i think we lost our connection with the mayor for a few minutes there.

We'll try and get that back in just a moment.

We have a few more questions for the mayor for -- here he's back.

Okay.

>> mayor battle: there we go.

>> dan shaffer: are you with us, mr. mayor?

>> mayor battle: i'm with you.

>> dan shaffer: finish your answer there.

Wondering about a vaccine and what your opinions were on that.

>> mayor battle: you know, i'm sure that there's a vaccine.

We've got a lot of smart people working on this.

It's amazing the information that we know now that we didn't know three weeks ago and the information that we knew three weeks ago that we didn't know three weeks before that.

Right now there's a lot of people working, people at hudsonalpha, people at uab, people throughout the united states and the world are working on vaccine.

I'm sure we're going to come up with something pretty soon.

>> dan shaffer: chachances are pretty good that some of the answers to this crisis are going to come from right here in alabama.

>> mayor battle: you know, that's an interesting thin.

We live here.

We always call ourselves huntsville the smart place but we could really call it alabama is a smart place.

Uab is right in the middle of the lot of research being done.

Hudsonalpha is working with uab and on their own also with some of their 34 different companies that are working the genetic code of this.

I think that we've got some people that can really offer a lot to the world on answers for this virus.

>> dan shaffer: how about that?

Well, fast forward to 2021.

What do you think huntsville looks like next year?

>> mayor battle: you know, 2021 is going to be very interesting because right now we're worried about putting people work.

2021 we're going to be back on looking for workforce development, trying to find people to move here who will fill the jobs that we have brought to the area.

So, you know, we're going to be in a little bit of a different world in 2021 than we are right here in the middle of this pandemic.

We're going to be somewhat back to normal.

I don't think the world is going to go totally back to normal.

I think distancing and some other things will stay in place for a little while.

But i think we're going to be able to see the ribright side.

>> dan shaffer: what kind of changes do you see to daily life in the rocket city once this all clears up?

>> mayor battle: you know, i think for a little while at least until we feel a lot more comfortable then we do right now.

You won't be shaking hands a lot.

You will be seeing people and you will be nodding to them, talking to them.

You will have to double look at some people because they will have masks on and it's hard to tell who that is behind that mask.

But i think we're going to see some differences in just the way that we live.

>> dan shaffer: huntsville of course one of the fastest growing cities in the state.

Do you think this pandemic could slow that growth?

>> mayor battle: i think that it will change that growth just a little bit.

But the things that we've got have been in the works for a year and really are coming to fruition in the next two to three years.

It may take a little bit while -- a little while longer for those industries to get tooled up and ready to go and actually be producing.

But they're ready, they have invested millions upon millions of dollars and i think each one of them are going to fulfill their obligations to us and also provide the jobs for the future.

>> dan shaffer: yeah, speaking of jobs, have you talked with local businesses, especially those that may be still waiting on federal aid about the struggles they're facing?

>> mayor battle: there's a lot of small businesses out there.

My heart goes out to them.

I was in small business when i first came to hts.

If i had been on that situation i'm not sure i would be here right now.

There's a lot of small businesses that we're working with to try to make sure that they have the money to be able to reopen when it's time to reopen.

And those are the ones that your heart goes out to because it's very tough to go through this -- andf nothing they've done, they're having financial problems. >> dan shaffer: yeah.

Is there anything the city can do to help struggling or closed businesses stay afloat or is this all being pushed at the federal government?

>> mayor battle: i think a lot of information.

We've done some things like if they're having trouble paying their taxes or having trouble paying some of their permitting fees and things that we will move that off a couple of months and give them some time for cash flow.

Doing some things that can help out those businesses is very important to you because once they close, backfilling them and getting them back reopened is very hard to do.

>> dan shaffer: we've got a minute left here.

Mayor, tell me quickly how this has i'm patted impactedyour budget.

Is it possible to look ahead yet?

>> mayor battle: i don't think we're going have a real number until we hit the end of june.

We're forecasting $15 million hit to the budget of the city of huntsville.

That may include some of the umbrella agencies that are out there, the van braun civic center t convention business bureau, the museums. but when you look at all those, you know, we're going to be able to come out of this.

We've been fortunate.

We have a lot of people still working telework and doing things.

So i think that we still have payroll.

We still have paychecks coming into our system.

>> dan shaffer: great.

Huntsville mayor tommy battle, thank you for spending this half hour with us.

Appreciate it.

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