{"id":27005,"date":"2020-04-30T10:12:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T14:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=27005"},"modified":"2020-04-30T10:12:30","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T14:12:30","slug":"commissioners-forming-covid-19-business-task-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=27005","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners forming COVID-19 Business Task Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>WEST CHESTER \u2014 Even as Pennsylvania remains under a stay at home order by Governor Wolf, the Chester County Commissioners have been meeting \u2013 virtually \u2013 with business and economic leaders and health officials, to formulate plans to get Chester County back to work when the impact of COVID-19 lessens.<\/p>\n

Chester County\u2019s approach to the restoration and continued growth of its economy is the creation of a COVID-19 Business Task Force comprised of industry leaders from throughout the county, partnered with businesses that represent geographical and size diversity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs days and weeks of the stay at home order have gone by, we have remained mindful of, and concerned about the evolving and increasing needs of the Chester County community.” Marian Moskowitz, Chester County Commissioners\u2019 Chair said. “In addition to our physical health, COVID-19 has attacked our mental, our emotional and our economic health. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo while we have been following the Governor\u2019s stay at home order, and while we do recognize that drastic measures needed to be taken to slow the spread of coronavirus, we have also been focused on the best way to get this County quickly, but safely, up and running again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mission of Chester County\u2019s COVID-19 Business Task Force is three-fold, officials said.<\/p>\n

First, the Task Force will provide input into business re-opening mitigation strategies developed by the Commonwealth, ensuring that those strategies are realistic, relevant, and will be adhered to by Chester County businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile our input into the Commonwealth\u2019s \u2018back to work\u2019 strategies will be limited, it is important that we contribute to the conversation, so that our employers\u2019 and employees\u2019 interests are represented,\u201d said Commissioner Josh Maxwell.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we recognize the Governor\u2019s need to focus on regional reopening, we know that Chester County has not seen the case count or mortality rates anywhere close to what other counties in the region have experienced.\u00a0\u00a0 We are working very hard to expand testing capacity and understand the epidemiological spread of this virus, and we believe that these two actions, combined with the lower case counts, position us to be ready to re-open sooner than other parts of Southeast PA,\u201d added Maxwell.<\/p>\n

The second part of the COVID-19 Business Task Force mission is to assist in distributing information and updates regarding re-opening and the sector-specific mitigation strategies that will come with re-opening.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Task Force will participate in, and guide the development of Chester County\u2019s economic recovery plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrior to this pandemic, Chester County had a diverse and robust economy with the lowest unemployment rate in Pennsylvania,” County Commissioner Michelle Kichline said. “It is time to revisit our economic development strategy and rework it, given the new environment we are in.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that we find ourselves in the early phases of a COVID-19 response, this is the time to begin the development of an economic recovery plan.\u00a0 We see the new plan as a stepped approach to reshaping and restoring Chester County\u2019s robust economy in a post-COVID-19 world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chester County\u2019s COVID-19 Business Task Force will consist of two groups \u2013 a core team and an advisory committee.<\/p>\n

The core team will comprise organizations that serve the entire county as well as representatives from each of the county\u2019s chambers of commerce. Core team representatives include Chester County\u2019s Agricultural Development Council, Association of Township Officials, Chamber of Business & Industry, Conference & Visitors\u2019 Bureau, Department of Community Development, Economic Development Council, Planning Commission, Municipal Managers Consortium and the Chester County Intermediate Unit.<\/p>\n

The advisory committee will consist of organizations that represent and interact with the many industries in Chester County, and will be of varying sizes from across the whole of the county.<\/p>\n

Industries that will be represented include agricultural, bio\/pharma, breweries and distilleries, childcare, conservation\/environment\/open space, construction, finance, gig economy workers, hospitals, human services, legal, lodging, long-term care, manufacturing, municipalities, non-profits, real estate, retail, restaurants and food service, schools and universities, technology, tourism and transportation.<\/p>\n

Membership of the Chester County\u2019s COVID-19 Business Task Force core team is being established and will begin meeting in early May.\u00a0 Members of each industry identified as part of the advisory committee will be established in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WEST CHESTER \u2014 Even as Pennsylvania remains under a stay at home order by Governor Wolf, the Chester County Commissioners have been meeting \u2013 virtually \u2013 with business and economic leaders and health officials, to formulate plans to get Chester County back to work when the impact of COVID-19 lessens. Chester County\u2019s approach to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9744,20,262,9585,3912],"class_list":["post-27005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-business-task-force","tag-chester-county","tag-county-commissioners","tag-covid-19","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27006,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27005\/revisions\/27006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}