As we’ve reported, Summit County Council Members have said they’re very concerned that Utah’s leaders are moving too fast toward re-opening during the Covid pandemic.
Council Member Glenn Wright says he isn’t trying to trash Governor Gary Herbert or others on Capitol Hill. But he wants them to take a closer look at the situation.
The County Council voted 3 to 2 to drop a prohibition on all mass gatherings from their nearly-three-month-old Emergency Order.
Wright joined his colleague Roger Armstrong in dissenting from the decision. He said he thought the move was ill-advised.
“I wanted to send a message to the Commission that’s advising the governor, that we don’t think we’re ready for mass gatherings here in Summit County. We’ve seen draft of the Phased Guidelines 4.6. And one of my concerns is in that draft, they’ve really gutted the provisions on controlling crowd sizes and the ability to do contact tracing amongst the crowds. I think we’ll have to follow the state eventually, and we are now.”
He said he’d like to get some better guidance from the state on how to move forward in the Recovery phases—and how to move backward if they have to.
Earlier in the week, he noted, the governer’s COVID commission voted unanimously to move to what they call a “smart Green” phase. But Wright isn’t confident the numbers bear that out.
“But since then, the state statistics are not getting any better. In fact, they’re getting significantly worse. I’ve been keeping track on the spreadsheet of the state numbers. And over the last 14 days, the incident rate has jumped 20 percent. It’s at the point now where we were in early May. And in early May, we were still in Orange.”
Council Members also said they don’t want to use up their “political capital.” Wright talked about their relationship with the state leaders.
“So far, we’ve had a very good relationship with the State. We really led the State down this road in many ways. And they were initially willing to give us waivers to slow down a little bit on the Openng. I’m not here to trash the governor, or the people making these decisions. I’d just like them to listen to us a little bit closer, and take a closer look at what’s really happening.”
Under the county’s revised Emergency Order, they could hold mass gatherings up to 1000 people.
“And if you have an organizer that is organizing that event, it leaves them with very little reporting they need to do. And as I said, the draft of the Phased Guideline 4.6 really guts some of the reporting criteria—takes out a requirement to provide information that will facilitate contact tracing. (Leslie) So under this, KPCW realistically could host its Back Alley Bash then, huh? (Wright) Theoretically if could, if you’re that irresponsible.”
However, in Public Input on Wednesday, the Council heard from Laura Hadley, from the Utah/Idaho Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, who hoped her group could work out a plan to hold their ‘Run With Me’ road event in August.
Wright said he thought they could formulate a feasible plan where participants in an event are dispersed, not clustered in one spot.
“We would’ve, I’m sure, allow an event like that. There are some very easy controls that can be placed over that type of event that would allow it to occur. I’m personally involved with the Alzheimer’s Association, and we’re planning a walk in August. And the organizers of that walk have some pretty good plans on how to disperse the crowds, and actually keep individual locations of participants down to 50.”
Summit County Council Member Glenn Wright.
