Snohomish County towns with few COVID cases want to reopen sooner

Leaders from small towns across Snohomish County have come out with a letter imploring Governor Jay Inslee to move the economy into phase two of his plan. It might not happen until June, and this is coming as businesses all across the county are struggling to afloat.

The city of Sultan hasn’t been hit especially hard with the coronavirus, and they’re itching to get back up and running responsibly and safely. But now they just need the go ahead. Sultan Mayor Russell Wiita joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss why reopening is the logical step for small, largely unaffected towns.

“According to the most recent information from the health district, we’ve had eight confirmed cases and no deaths, and a number of those cases have been fully recovered, so we’ve not seen a big change on the ground as far as the virus concerns. But the economic impacts are certainly felt,” he said.

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Smaller communities nearby also haven’t been hit hard with the virus. Why does the mayor think that now Sultan is able to open in a responsible way?

“We’ve seen businesses since the very beginning that were declared essential and businesses that have been allowed to open since then take measures to protect their employees, from smaller essential businesses all the way to Boeing,” he said.

“I feel like we have the case examples of how to operate safely and do that so that we can get people back to work, get businesses running again without putting people in danger.”

With fewer businesses in small towns, the shutdown can sometimes have an even more acute impact.

“We had quite a few impacted … We’ve got restaurants and bars and others that were really affected by that,” he said. “When you’ve got only a few employers in town and they’re not declared essential, it creates a lot of problems.”

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Is there concern that residents of Sultan who have essential jobs in nearby towns, or are visiting family members there, might get exposed to coronovirus and bring it back into the community?

“That’s going to be a concern as we move forward, regardless of how we open. But people are getting restless, people are losing patience with the way this has been done,” he said.

“Everyone got on board. They sacrificed. They did what they needed to … the logic that was initially used people were on board with. It doesn’t seem to apply anymore, yet the standards haven’t changed.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.

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