Monroe County Executive Adam Bello sat down with Spectrum News to address some of the biggest issues facing our communities — from the county's response to the coronavirus and how schools could reopen, to the recent Black Lives Matter protests and how he views his first six months in office.

When addressing the pandemic, Bello thanked Monroe County residents for taking the coronavirus seriously from the start.

He applauded the community for coming together to help non-profits provide food to those struggling to get by, the daily communication between local governments and health care systems.

Bello believes all of that cooperation has helped keep the number of coronavirus cases down.

"We didn't overwhelm the hospital systems in a way that made the community sicker and I think that is a testament to the participation that we had from our residents and I think that's the part that went well," Bello said.

The county executive says the pandemic has taken its toll on the economy.

Bello explained the county has taken extra steps to help small businesses from handing out the PPE they needed to reopen and providing interest free loans.

He also stressed the importance of reopening carefully.

"The last thing we want to do is have another spike like what's happening down south and then have to pull back and to close up again. We want to continue to go through these phases of reopening but we need to do it in a smart way and in a safe way so that these small businesses can recover and recover our economy," said Bello.

Bello also believes in the approach that county school districts are taking to reopen amid the pandemic safely.

"I have confidence that the schools are trying to do this the right way, but we still have to be able to see what those plans look like in a couple of weeks so we are going to help with the guidance that we can to get those plans together with a particular eye on what can the county provide," Bello explained.

On the subject of recent protests that have blocked the interstate, Bello says it's important for demonstrators to be heard, but safety is a concern.

"Here in Monroe County, across the state and across the country in response to the inequities that exist because of structural racism in our society and I think that those voices need to be heard and every right to exercise their first amendment rights and their first amendment speech rights to get that voice and that message across. When it comes to shutting down, expressways and roadways, the problem is I think that this has to be done safely when you have these rallies for the safety of the public and the safety of people who are participating in the rallies and doing it in busy roads like this to me is not safe. It just has to be done in a safe way and I don't think that doing it in a express like this is safe for either the protesters or public."

The county executive also shared his thoughts on his first six months in office.

"Managing a global pandemic was not a part of the campaign strategy or the transition documents but what was a part of why I wanted to be county executive and what I was hoping to accomplish was to bring people together to solve problems. A lot of the time, we operate in silos. We have the business community here, non profit community here, the schools are over here, the government is over here, not a lot a collaboration. One of the things that the pandemic has done is forced us to work together. By bringing people together is buidling capacity as a community, we are building capacity to deal with issues and challenges that are facing our community so our challenge is going to be continue to do that," said Bello.