County defying Wolf, moving to yellow phase on May 15
POTTSVILLE – Our county is moving to the yellow phase next week along with many western PA counties, with or without Governor Tom Wolf’s approval, the county’s commissioners, along with State Senator David G. Argall (R-29) and State Representatives Jerry Knowles (R-124) and Mike Tobash (R-125) told the Governor’s office today.
The letter, sent today to Will Danowski, Secretary of Legislative Affairs via email, was signed by all three commissioners — George Halcovage, Gary Hess, and Barron Hetherington — plus the above representatives.
“Schuylkill County has met the requirement of your original Stay-at-Home Order, which was to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 outbreak and allow hospitals the time to gear up for COVID-19 patients being admitted to the ICU and in need of ventilators,” the officials wrote. “The residents of our county have heeded your instructions to practice social distancing and other mitigation efforts, and as a result, our local healthcare facilities do not lack the capacity to effectively treat these patients going forward.”
The letter says that supplies of personal protective equipment and COVID-19 tests have increased since mid march.
“We, as elected officials, have a vested interest in keeping our community safe and free from disease, and not over-burdening our health care facilities in the county,” the letter continued.
Schuylkill County’s legislative delegation — Argall, Knowles, Tobash, plus U.S. Representative Dan Meuser (R-9) and State Representative Neal Goodman (D-123) — wrote to Wolf on May 7 asking that Schuylkill County be moved to yellow, citing available resources provided by Geisinger, Lehigh Valley Health Network, and St. Luke’s.
Governor Wolf announced the first slate of counties moving to yellow phase on May 1, which included Northumberland County in our area and most of northwestern and north central Pennsylvania. Those counties moved to yellow effective May 8, lifting the stay-at-home order but continuing to prohibit gatherings of 25 people or more, among other items.
On May 8, the governor announced the next slate of counties moving to the yellow phase effective May 18. The newest slate included all other counties west of Fulton, Blair, and Bedford, minus Beaver, that weren’t in the previous set, minus Beaver County. The new slate includes Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh.
As of May 9, Allegheny County has twice as many positive COVID-19 cases as Schuylkill, and 10 times as many deaths.
Schuylkill County joins neighboring Dauphin and Lebanon Counties in defying the order and moving to yellow on their own accord.
Read the letter to Governor Wolf:
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Has any one of these local officials realized that by defying orders from the governor the result can be the loss off state funding to said counties for the remainder of this crisis and many other resources for the area and businesses. And that businesses that open can still be closed by State Police and owners of said businesses can be fined and in cases of bars can have their liquor licenses revoked by the state putting them out of business for good. Its all good for local officials to want the county open but they do not have the authority to do as they please. I am all for getting the county up and running but for county officials to disobey laws sets a dangerous president that is saying to anyone hey dont like our local laws saying don’t or you can’t do something just ignore them after all that is what we did with orders from our governor