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Summit County Manager: Don't Expect Usual Events This Summer Amid COVID

Summit County

Businesses around Park City and Summit County are in a re-opening phase.

But in the meantime, many residents are wondering what happens to mass gatherings or events in the next five or six months.

Summit County Manager Tom Fisher says, bottom line, they won’t happen.    Or if they do, you will see something very different.  

Fisher told KPCW that the county’s objective over the past two months has been to lessen the spread of the virus.   To do that, they’ve taken some major steps.        

“We turned off our economy early, in March.  We sent visitors and workforce home.  We’ve had Stay At Home orders up until recently.  And we’ve really restricted our businesses.  And we realize this has all come with a price.  That’s not something that we want to discount at all.  But we were early into this.  The virus spread because of our visitor-based economy.  That’s how we got our original spread.  So inviting back large amounts of visitors is just—it’s not the objective of our current orders.   And it’s certainly not the objective of the governor’s order.”

He said the limit on gatherings is 20 people.       

“It’s not several groups of 20, socially spaced.  It’s 20.   So weddings, parties, fundraisers, tournaments, all of those kinds of things are limited by that.  And we want to be very clear about what we’re saying.”

If the state moves to the lesser-risk level of Yellow, the limit there is 50 people.

Fisher said this will probably be the situation until the fall.     

“We expect that that’s gonna last through September.   (Leslie) You don’t need to make recommendations to Park City about the Fourth of July Parade and Kimball Arts Festival.  Those are gone.  (Fisher) Unless something is very different in the way that they’re done, and they appeal the order with those differences in mind, thinking about a whole event, not just the actual event itself, but how people use bathrooms, how people move around each other, how do they arrive at events and not mix, how do they leave events and not mix, how do we stay with those numbers in order to keep our visitorship controlled this year and really reduce that spread—those events are not gonna happen the same way.”

Summit County Manager Tom Fisher.

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
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