When the mayor of Kaysville recently granted a permit for a massive outdoor concert, openly defying state guidelines for reopening the economy and potentially endangering public health, I wrote Gov. Gary Herbert asking him how this could conceivably be permissible.
I promptly received a polite response from Kelli Lucero, his director of constituent services. She wrote, among other things, “Enforcement of state health orders is carried out by local health departments.”
Why state health orders aren’t required to be carried by local health departments defies any kind of logic I can determine, but so be it.
Or so I thought.
“Bluff Mayor Ann Leppanen said in a May 6 letter to the health department that she was concerned with protecting workers in town, many of whom live in the Navajo Nation, and the town’s residents, ‘the majority of whom fall within the definition of “senior.”’ She also noted there are limited emergency medical services available in the town.” — Salt Lake Tribune, May, 22.
Exercising an abundance of caution and in the interest of protecting public health, Bluff requested to remain in the red category. That request, along with similar ones from other municipalities, was denied by the governor’s office.
Same governor. What suddenly happened to the autonomy of local health departments, the policy so clearly and succinctly stated by Ms. Lucero? Could the issue not really be about public health, but about something else? Money? Politics? Racism? I really don’t know, but would love to find out.
It seems contradictory, if not hypocritical, so I wrote back to Ms. Lucero five days ago requesting an explanation. I’m still awaiting an answer.
Gerald Elias, Salt Lake City