From Washington D.C. down to the smallest cities and counties, governmental leaders are talking about how to reopen and recover the economy, and when it could happen.
A team is being assembled in Summit County.
Summit County Manager Tom Fisher told KPCW that the county is working with the Chamber/Bureau, Park City, and other local communities to put together a framework for recovery.
He said the effort will mirror Governor Gary Herbert’s Lead Together program.
The group includes County Council Member Roger Armstrong, Park City Council Member Max Doilney, Dr. John Hanrahan, and local activists such as Becky Kearns, Myles Rademan and Katie Wright.
He said the team will unveil further details in the next few days.
“We’re putting together the framework right now of how to approach different industry groups in our community and have them help us put together plans that will meet the next set of public-health goals, or what we anticipate those to be, moving into the next phase. The whole idea of that is to start to get our community thinking about this next phase before we even get there, so we can—as I describe it, kind of get to the 75 percent solution of what that will be. And then once we implement that, we can make adjustments to it based on what’s happening at that time.”
Fisher said the framework is comprised of three phases. The first is urgent action. The second is stabilization.
The third is recovery, and that is the hardest to define.
“From a public-health standpoint, we really don’t know when we’re gonna get there. I’ve heard the public-health system talk about recovery being kind of when we can guarantee that our communities won’t get any more surges of contraction of the virus again, or that our health-care system is safe from surges. That seems, right now, like it’s pretty far away off. But that’s probably fairly realistic given what information we’re getting right now.”
The county’s current lockdown orders run until May 1st, and Fisher said they could be extended. The schedule for recovery is driven by the word from health officials at the state and the county.
“From the standpoint of getting these plans in place, for each industry and how they can operate in the next phase, probably more important to concentrate on that at this point than what the trigger is. The public-health system will give us the trigger. And I think that will be somewhere in the May-to-June timeframe. But we want to be ready as soon as that trigger gets hit.”
He said they want to open up as much as they can. The question is what specific industries can do, while not allowing more spread of the virus.
Fisher said the Park City/Summit County area, which attracts visitors from around the world, will have to figure out what kinds of special events or gatherings they can host.
“We have to be thinking through that, and understand what would trigger some of those steps, so that we can give some certainty to the community. We really want to try and prevent having a lot of plans and excitement around getting back to “quote, unquote” normal business if that’s not gonna be exactly possible.”
Summit County Manager Tom Fisher.
