Why I Voted No on May 4, 2020

Two years ago I was sworn in to the Waxahachie City Council and this is a copy of the oath I took. I have it hanging on my refrigerator as a daily reminder of what I'm here to do.  I'm here to protect and defend the Constitution and serve the people of Waxahachie.  Tonight, I had a decision to make and it was something I thought about a lot, but in my gut I knew what I had to do.  I had to vote no on item 16 on tonight's agenda. (Link here: https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/document-uploads-001/uploads/video/agenda_file/59029/5-4-20_City_Council_Agenda_Packet.pdf )

I voted down the resolution to align our disaster decree with Governor Abbott's.  As always, it is harder than you'd think to go against the grain and vote differently than my counterparts, but I had to vote for what was right.  Abbott's current order, GA-18 (link here: https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/EO-GA-18_expanded_reopening_of_services_COVID-19.pdf ) only allows SOME businesses to open and those new businesses in the order can only open at 25% occupancy.  What does that do to our small businesses?  Many can't afford to open at 25% occupancy.  We need ALL businesses opened and we need them opening at 100% occupancy. 

The three points I'd like to make about this are:
1) It isn't the government's place to discriminate between businesses - deeming some essential and some not.  Every single business is paying a wage for someone.  Someone who may depend upon that pay to put food on the table for their kids.  Someone who may need that money to pay their mortgage payment or rent.
2) Allowing all businesses to open at full occupancy would not be mandatory.  It just makes it so that businesses CAN do so, if they are ready, willing and able. 
3) Since when should it be the government ALLOWING businesses to open?  What happened to freedom?  What happened to our natural rights? I thought about coming up with trying to compromise at a lesser occupancy than 100%, but freedom isn't something to be compromised.

Business owners have a right to run their businesses.  They also have the right to mandate face masks or lessen their occupancy as they deem necessary. People have the right to stay home and not go out.

For someone like myself who has never even had a speeding ticket, to take a stand and say no to what the Governor has ordered was hard... But this is bigger than that.  This is about freedom.  This is about men and women who lay their lives on the line to defend our freedom, only to have the government take it away and slowly being thrown scraps of it here and there, as in GA-18.  I voted no to GA-18 and this is why I voted no.