Mohawk Valley enters Phase 2 of reopening

After confusion late Thursday night on whether the Mohawk Valley could reopen Friday, Gov.

Andrew Cuomo gave the green light during his press conference.

Conference to let everyone know that the governor was stopping the mohawk valley from starting phase two.

This afternoon.... the governor comes out and says....the mohawk valley is ready.

What changed in less than 12 hours?

Newschannel two's jason powles is standing by live here with the story.

Kristen good evening....we go from a high to a low back to ahr announced just after one this afternoon that the mohawk valley region is moving on the phase two.

That includes all office based jobs, from professional services, administrative support and information technology.

Real estate services, from property management to leasing to rental and sales.

And the retail..in store shopping, rental repair and cleaning...barber shops hair salons, and motor vehicle leasing rental and sales.... in his press conference he was asked why the wait, why not open first thing this morning.

They wanted it this morning instead of 1pm..we want to make sure that the data was reviewed by althe experts.

35:20 a co exec may be good atwt an expert viral transmition in a global pandemic.so i wanted to make sure we had the best minds look at all the data before we stepped forward.

Oneida county executive anthony picente much more calm today than last night at his press conference... today his tone was more geared toward moving forward... but he wanted to make sure everyone understood he was looking out for the best interest of this community with his outrage last night.

And he says there needs to be much better communication between the governor and regions as we move forward.

We have a great opportunity as we head into phase three.

They have a great opportuntiy to correct this so we have have really fruitful discussions about the next phase and about how that can be put into place without going through what we did yesterday or even the days before.

Earlier we caught up with dave bliss, chairman of the otsego county board of representatives...he says it was irresponsible for the governor to pull the rug out at the last minute...obviously that changed this afternoon...but he says he was ready to go without the governor's blessing.

As you know there were counties ready to go rogue...thats probably why hwald up...i think he mishandled the situation.

Bliss did say the people he has been talking to from the governor's office have tried to do the best they can in provide information.... we are scheduled to talk to herkimer county legislative chairman vincent bono....this evening... and we'll have that new tonight on newschannel two at ten and 11.

Taking a look at the numbers county by county...