— from San Juan County Council —
County Council and the Department of Health will conduct a meeting on Wednesday, June 24 at 9 a.m., to address moving San Juan County into Phase 3 of Governor Inslee’s Safe Start Program.
PRELIMINARY AGENDA:
Discussion items may be added and/or the order or content changed at the discretion of the Council Chair. If there is a change in location, the alternative meeting location will be visibly posted at the location indicated above. Public Hearings will not start earlier than the posted time. Times listed on the agenda for other items are approximate and are provided as a rough guide to aid in planning
SKYPE Phone in Number
for Public Access:
1 (360) 370-0599
441250#
(San Juan County)
COUNCIL & BOARD OF HEALTH SPECIAL MEETING VIA VIDEOCONFERENCE
09:00 AM — CALL TO ORDER & FLAG SALUTE
EXCUSED ABSENCES (if any)
APPROVAL OF AGENDA
PUBLIC ACCESS TIME
- 09:05 AM — Recess County Council Meeting and Convene SJC Board of Health Meeting
- Approval of Agenda & Minutes
- Excuse Absence Members
- Public Comment
- 09:15 AM — Health Officer Recommendation – Variance
- Request to move from Phase 2 to Phase 3 of Reopening Washington – Dr. Frank James, Health Officer
- 09:45 AM — COVID-19 Response
- Review Variance Eligibility and Requirements – Mark Tompkins, Director
- Board Consideration of Health Officer Recommendation – Board Members
- 10:30 AM — Environmental Health Late Fee Waiver Requests – Kyle Dodd, Environmental Health Manager
- 11:00 AM — Adjourn BOH
- Adjourn SJC Board of Health Meeting and Reconvene County Council Meeting
- 11:05 AM — DISCUSSION/ACTION: Consider Recommendations from Board of Health & Health Officer – Council
- 12:00 PM — ADJOURN (time approximate)
Fools Rush In! Phase 2 is barely operational & weve had 3 new cases in a week! Be accountable to reality please, not to what you wish were true. We’re not ready, it’s dangerous, & you have a sacred trust to your fellow citizens. We are watching you Dr James & councilmen, don’t go all arrogant nutso on us. When in doubt, Pause. Signed, a small business owner
What I can’t wrap my head around is the greenlight on letting tourists come to the county by opening up hotels and vacation rentals as well as camping. Okay, we are a tourist economy, but to my knowledge there isn’t any screening of where these guests are from and what their current health status is. Maybe I am missing some important facts. Again, I ask the question. Is there any consideration given to the current symptoms of people coming to the islands for vacation? (For instance; a check/screening at the Anacortes ferry landing before boarding the vessel) But of course this costs money. I am hoping that the tourists that are unscreened follow proper distancing and facial mask protocol.
We do not have the medical infrastructure to handle an additional increase in tourists, illness, injuries or need for Covid 19 testing. The island is still recovering from decreased access to health care.
The ferries are running a winter schedule which means decreased access to emergency care and an increased need to stay overnight in hotels, should islanders need to go to an emergency room.
Please continue Phase 2. Please do not advance to Phase 3. Please wear your masks. Wash your hands. Keep watching out for each other.
The pandemic is not over.
From what I’ve observed in my last three visits to Island Market, essentially ALL its customers are wearing masks, but sometimes it gets a bit too crowded to keep six feet apart. As it is perhaps the most visited crossroads on Orcas Island, this is encouraging, and we have not (yet) experienced any new cases since going to Phase 2 a month ago. So the 50 percent occupancy currently allowed for transient rentals, restaurants and other facilities seems to be working. Except it’s not on Lopez and San Juan, as Susan Malins notes. Thus I hope that prudence prevails at today’s meeting, which I cannot attend, and our County Health Officer and Council members delay going to Phase 3 at least another week — especially in view of the coronavirus cases surging in much of the rest of America
Maybe 50% of “normal” is all we can hope to attain in these truly troubled times.
I will be unable to vote for any County Council member who votes to enter Phase 3. From what I gather from local conversations, I am not alone. Sorry, the people’s health takes priority. Yakima, Arizona, California, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Utah, Nevada – need more surges be listed. Daily cases in US have risen from 20,000+ to near 40,000 since the Memorial Day holiday. Maybe the time has arrived for a woman of conscience on County Council!
Phase 3 is to soon.wearestill in a pandemic.screen in anacortes before cases come to the island.thank you skip clark
Visitors from states with coronavirus hotspots will have to quarantine for 14 days if they set foot in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut, the governors of those northeastern states said Wednesday.Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, WASHINGTON, Utah and Texas have high enough infection rates to warrant the quarantine, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. – NBC News
I would hope that during this time that folks will connect the dots not just between the bug and our rickety economic system which will require much more community and federal support before all is said and done but also the limits of human intelligence. We are not in charge now, the bug is in charge so write off the 2020 tourist season, hunker down get humble with it.
Like the woman said (thanks Susan) “Don’t get all nutso arrogant on us.”
Move to phase 3. Now
I agree with Scott, time to move to phase 3. Also, SOMEONE PHOTOSHOPPED the great seal of Washington State and put a face mask on George.
Seems to me we are putting the cart before the horse. Phase 3? We haven’t even done phase 2 properly. What’s most disheartening and depressing to me is to see us collectively not asking the hard questions, not trying to figure out, long-term, what kind of a more equitable and sustainable new “normal” and future we want to have for our islands and for the planet. What we had before Covid-19 was not Ok on so many levels. We can’t seriously be considering going back to that?