New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, followed by Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor, leave after Cuomo spoke during a news conference, Wednesday, May 27, 2020, at the National Press Club in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

CHENANGO COUNTY - In a surprise move on Thursday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told New Yorkers not to move ahead with the phase two reopening until experts could review the data, despite the area meeting the requirements. The late Thursday announcement came as a shock to many local officials and business owners who were already making plans to reopen.

Chenango County is part of the Southern Tier Region, which is made up of the following eight Counties: Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga and Tompkins.

According to health officials the region was successful in meeting the goal for the phase two opening and many were busy notifying and preparing local businesses, expecting an opening to take place. But that is not that case.

Chenango County Health officials said no information about the change in plans had been shared with local officials. County officials were attempting to contact the state officials Friday morning and get clarity about the changes.

Thursday afternoon, Cuomo seem to announce his decision on a interview with WAMC Northeast Public radio, "We have metrics, we have numbers, we have the smartest data based reopening plan in the country, I believe. We have international experts who go through it and we'll follow the data. The reopening in the first five regions ends tomorrow. When the reopening phase one ends we'll give the experts all the data, it's posted on the web but we'll let them analyze it and if they say we should move forward, we'll move forward."

For many local and state officials, this was the first that they heard about there being any type of delay in moving to phase two.

New York Assemblyman Cliff Crouch released a statement saying, “It’s frustrating to see the governor move the goal post for starting phase two of reopening at the last minute. Businesses across the Southern Tier have been planning to open their doors for weeks and now the governor claims that experts need to review data for them to move forward? Why wasn’t this told to county executives earlier? Why did they have to hear this from word of mouth? Our region has met every mark required of us to move to phase two and now the goal post has been shifted. The governor needs to provide clear guidance to Southern Tier businesses and leaders immediately.”

Just an hour before Cuomo's radio interview, Commerce Chenango held a webinar to discuss the phase two reopening guidelines for local business owners.

During the webinar President and CEO of Commerce Chenango Kerri Green said, "What we heard from the state and the governor is as long as we follow and meet all seven metrics we will continue the reopening and the phasing process."

However, in the same breath she mentioned, "We are looking at phase two, but we're still saying tentatively. The governor did not say officially that tomorrow is phase two but if you take a look at the timeline when we started phase one, fourteen days would be tomorrow. Everything that we're hearing and everything from the control room says that our metrics are fine and we should, and I say should, be moving to phase two tomorrow."

Local business owners shared during the webinar how their business has changed or will change to follow the guidelines of New York Forward, the four phase plan to reopen New York State.

JR Bogert, owner of B&W Wine and Liquors discussed how in order to keep in compliance with phase one guidelines, he made the decision to upgrade his website so that people could browse inventory and make orders online.

"I reached out to my current point of sale provider. Within ten minutes I was able to set it up and all of a sudden we had online ordering available where someone could go and select the items that they were wanting and leave a phone number for us to call back," said Bogert.

Bogert said that since the start of online ordering, sales have increased. Business owners that were supposed to reopen in phase two were looking forward to their initial influx of sales and services after being shut down for 10 weeks.

During phase two, salons were supposed to be able to reopen with limited services. Owner of Teasers Hair Salon Melissa Beers discussed the extensive research and preparation she has done in order to prepare for the phase two reopening.

The salon has limited the number of seats in the salon, temporarily discontinued services such as lip waxing and blow drying, and stopped providing thing that could cause cross contamination such as magazines in the waiting room and providing coffee.

Beers stated that she has been prepping for the reopening by looking at what policies and procedures other states and salons have been using.

"It's hard because the state hasn't released any guidelines. The Board of Cosmetology hasn't released any guidelines so these are just guidelines based on what other people are posting, what other people are saying, and what other states have done," said Beers.

Green encourages businesses to continue to check the New York forward website, forward.ny.gov, for updates on the reopening of the state.