Across the country I’m seeing reporting by county but did you really mean to say that Ohio counties are issuing directives? That term suggests something enforceable.
Over the years, I have been a frequent and vocal critic of Washington’s mayor Muriel Bowser, but I think she has done a very good job during this crisis. Anthony Fauci agrees with me:
Thanks for that. I clicked on the link and saw some other stories, one of which I found particularly interesting in that it seems that Virginia is opening/closing regionally. The story refers to Northern Virginia staying closed until Memorial Day.
My state, Michigan, isn’t and I think that it should be. Construction and Manufacturing restrictions were eased this week across the state with little if any concern for the hardest hit Detroit area.
The paper had an interesting article about how West Nile and Ebola both made a strong impression on him. Dallas dodged both those bullets by the skin of our teeth.
In terms of state/mayor drama, yesterday our state attorney general sent a letter to the county judges of the largest counties in Texas demanding that they do not enforce any of the “recommendations” in the governor’s order. Basically, he is demanding all cities interpret the governor’s order in the least restrictive way possible. This is the same dude who threatened criminal penalties to any county that accepted COVID as a reason to absentee-vote. This is the same dude who is currently under indictment for security fraud but has managed to delay the trial for 5 years. Honestly, there should be a made-for-TV movie just about how awful Ken Paxton is.
Anyway, the county judges are struggling to respond. It’s really looking like the state-level government is doing all it can to impose de facto “business as usual” while giving “gradual reopening” lip service. I am actually more nervous about leaving my house/coming into contact with others today than I was 2 weeks ago.
Yeah, there are some oddities where the County Judge (the highest elected official in a County, not an actual legal system judge) has the actual power in cases like this.
For example, the County Judge has the primary responsibility for public health - in terms of this pandemic- his decisions trump those of the mayors and city councils within the county. And Dallas is even more interesting, in that it’s the largest Council-Manager style city in the country, so much of what is decided is actually done by the City Manager and/or City Council, with the Mayor just being sort of a tie-breaker vote on the City Council. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any real de-jure powers, even in times of crisis, which is why Mayor Johnson has been conspicuously quiet for the past few months here in Dallas.
I mean it in the sense that the state government is issuing directives and the counties are carrying them out, as most cities and townships don’t have health departments. But counties do. Our city didn’t pass any laws that say you can’t have your bar or restaurant open to patrons but the county did, and the county is the one that controls your restaurant and bar licensing. I don’t know if the Sheriff’s department would come shut down a restaurant in our city, or of they’d direct the city police to do so.
The only things we’ve done as a city council re: covid-19 are budget-related. The mayor has done some things such as layoffs and closing of city buildings (our mayor happens to also be our safety director. This isn’t unusual, sometimes it’s the mayor, sometimes the chief of police, sometimes it’s a position unto itself). Our police department has done a little bit of “dispersing” - like when kids were getting together in groups to work out at the high school sports fields. The fields were open so they weren’t trespassing, the cops just didn’t want groups of kids hanging out, infecting each other.
As far as I’m aware, businesses are running or not running as per directives from the state and county.