Kittitas County Chamber of Commerce issued the following announcement on Apr. 21.
Kittitas County is legally bound to follow the Governor’s orders to Stay Home, Stay Healthy until May 4, 2020. Counties must follow state direction. The county level may choose to be stricter, but cannot choose to enforce anything less than what the state requires. With that, local elected officials whether at the county or city levels do not have statutory authority to change anything within Kittitas County, under the Governor’s direction.
Within the next two weeks of the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order, the goal is to prepare for reopening elements within our county in the safest way possible. The Kittitas County Incident Management Team (IMT) is working hard to ensure testing capacity and case investigation capacity is adequate. The IMT is asking that every business in the county start working towards safety plans to ensure safety for customers and employees as our county continues to work towards reopening our local economy.
“Other counties have chosen to not follow the Governor’s orders,” states Health Officer Dr. Mark Larson. “In addition to violating state law, those choices put those counties, and the people living within them, at a significant risk. The liability the county takes on will directly affect its constituents; specifically, who will be at fault when someone contracts COVID-19 in a situation that directly ignores the Governor’s orders?”
The Economic Recovery Group, which is part of the IMT at this time, is working with multiple partners to ensure businesses have access to the most assistance. They will have a weekly phone call where you can access information from the Health Officer, Emergency Operation Center, along with local business leaders and funding availability. To call in, contact 978-990-5249 with access code 8047790 as the access code today at noon. No registration necessary.
For more information regarding COVID-19, please visit www.co.kititas.wa.us or Facebook and you may also call the Emergency Operation Center at 509-933-8315 or 509-933-8305.
Kittitas County Legally Bound to Follow Governor’s Orders.pdf
Kittitas County, from the Cascades to the Columbia, and online at http://www.co.kittitas.wa.us
Original source can be found here.
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