Protect Yourself from Covid-19 – Take Action
What
Help protect yourself from COVID-19 by supporting our Pierce County Director of Public Health, AZ Snyder and by encouraging your county supervisor to adopt a communicable disease ordinance.
When
JULY 14th at 6:00 p.m. River Falls High School Auditorium, Pierce County Board Meeting to consider proposed public health ordinance.
Here is the Pierce County Meeting Agenda and language of the Proposed Ordinance for your reference:
How
1) By July 13th write an email to or call your county supervisor click here for their email addresses and phone numbers.
Scroll down for sample language that a Pierce County resident crafted and/or
2) Attend the July 14th Pierce County Board meeting; speak in support of our Director of Public Health and her proposal of the ordinance and/or
3) Send this info to anyone you know who may wish to take action
Why
So that we are better protected from diseases like COVID-19 and because according to AZ Snyder she has felt threatened by peoples’ response to her efforts as the Director of Public Health to keep people safe (issuing guidelines and proposing the language of this ordinance) from COVID-19. The County Board is expecting hundreds of people to show up at the meeting on the 14th; that is why they have relocated it to the River Falls High School Auditorium.
Background
The following information was taken from articles printed in the Pierce County Journal found at Piercecountyjournal.news or http://www.thepaperboy.news/ on July 2nd:
In mid-June AZ Snyder, Pierce County Director of Public Health proposed a local communicable disease health ordinance to the Pierce County Board of Health to which she reports. The effect of this ordinance is to add “state statute language on communicable diseases from State Statute 252.03 in its entirety to our local ordinance, ” Snyder stated. She went on to say that, “What it does is it allows a stronger foundation for us as locals to make a local control order for communicable disease control and it will allow us to designate local penalties for violation of 252.03 …. a forfeiture of $500/week…. ” In that meeting, Jon Aubart, county board member, commented that, “It is a housekeeping matter and bringing it under county jurisdiction…. We are not inventing new language,” as the Pierce County Board of Health moved to forward the ordinance on to the Finance and Personnel Committee.
On June 30th at the County Board Meeting hundreds of people showed up to speak against the ordinance but the meeting had to be rescheduled for July 14th at 6:00 due to technical video feed difficulties causing the supervisors to be unable to hear the comments of the attendees. Before the meeting ended Jeff Holst, Pierce County Board Chair, summarized that they need to pass the ordinance so as to keep local control of communicable disease problems where he felt the county could do a better job of monitoring and using a “common sense approach” to addressing any outbreak problems rather than having to close everything down like the State did. He further stated that ” that the Public Health Director answers to elected officials.”
I would note that, despite the seeming support of this ordinance by the Pierce County Board, they need to be reminded by us of the importance of their support of this ordinance. Also, our Director of Public Health needs to feel supported by us who value the job she is doing to keep us safe.
Additional info: AZ Snyder, the Pierce County Director of Public Health answered several questions which also appeared in the Pierce County Journal on July 2nd. In those answers she explained that the proposed ordinance does not increase the local health officer’s (her) authority and that the proposed local civil penalty of $500 was in lieu of the criminal penalties that the state statute provides.
Sample Language to go to Your County Supervisor
Dear
I want to thank you and the other County Board members for your work on the County Board and the difficult questions that you must wrestle with in these times of COVID-19. Life as we had known it has been disrupted, perhaps forever, and understandably, many people are unsettled and unhappy.
Living in a democracy, everyone has a say, and lately it seems to me that the loudest voices are clamoring about their ‘rights’ to do whatever they want, while many fewer softer voices are talking about the responsibility we have to each other in these times of uncertainty.
I believe that we have a duty to each other to keep the most vulnerable among us as safe as possible, to ensure that our first responders and medical staff are not overwhelmed, and to listen to what the scientists tell us are the best practices to navigate these troubled waters.
I hope you will support the difficult work of our Public Health Officer and the proposed enforcement ordinance No. 20-01. No-one wants to hear bad news, but should the situation get out of control I believe there should be an enforcement remedy. To me, this is in the same category as reckless or drunk driving, which put other citizens at risk.
Hopefully the situation will not arise where this ordinance is required to be used, but should the virus expand its impact as it has in many other places, having it on the books is the prudent move for the Board.
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