Dec. 10, 2020

Honorable Governor Mark Gordon

State of Wyoming

200 W 24th Street

Cheyenne, WY 82001

Attention: Renny MacKay, Policy Director

Email: renny.mackay@wyo.gov

Dear Mr. MacKay:

We, the Niobrara County Commissioners, are writing this email to express our concern with the latest statewide health orders, and how they affect Niobrara County. We have greatly struggled with how to express our concerns as we know these decisions by the State have not been made lightly. 

To help illustrate our frustration, here are the most current numbers as of 12/09/2020 from Dr. Melanie Pearce, Niobrara County Public Health Nurse Manager:

2 laboratory confirmed positives

7 antigen test positives

4 pending tests

Since the beginning of the pandemic:

54 Total lab confirmed positives

68 rapid test cases

13 probable households (not tested-based on symptoms)

1 COVID-19 death

In our opinion, these numbers clearly do not warrant the restrictions that have been handed down on Niobrara County. To put this in perspective, the current positive (laboratory and antigen positive) cases represent 0.36 of one percent of the total population.

Several locally owned businesses have expressed frustration and fear about the latest orders, centering on the mask mandate. They see this as overreach, and an infringement on property rights. To be in compliance, they are placed in the position of policing the mandate, and think this will be impossible to do. The people of Niobrara County are highly independent, and the business owners expect attempts to enforce this mandate will be met with strong resistance. The terms of this mandate force them into a decision of either risking driving business away, or openly defying the terms of the order.

Please do not interpret the local attitude as a culture of disregard for others. There are businesses in Lusk that implemented their own mask requirements quite some time ago. The public has been very respectful of these businesses, knowing that the owners are making those decisions based on their own personal risk tolerances. Once again, our people are fiercely independent, and view decisions made by owners differently than rules or regulations passed down by any government, be it federal, state, or local.

To further compound the situation, many of our local businesses are still recovering from the Lusk flood of 2015. One owner, whose business sustained major damage, says the shutdown this spring was more financially devastating than the flood. These businesses are simply not in a position to risk the loss of any potential business, especially during the busy Christmas shopping season. There is a concern that any person made to feel uncomfortable when entering a business will then tum to online shopping. Becoming more accustomed to making purchases in that manner will very likely remain a practice long after the pandemic is over, and increases the probability of those sales being forever lost to the merchant.

The guidance we have received from the Governor’s office speaks of the possibilities of a county-wide variance, based on the White House metrics, but that is also problematic for Niobrara County. Due to our low population, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to meet and sustain the level of testing required to even be considered.

If we were to meet the threshold for a variance, the time involved to accomplish this will be terribly cumbersome. The variance Niobrara County received in October was formulated and sent in the week of September 21 51, and was not granted until October 16th . These sort of timelines will likely put us well into the spring before we could hope to see any relief. 

Since Niobrara County is in a much different situation than most of the more populated counties, it is our hope that these concerns can be addressed quickly. We are very interested in seeking a solution, as are our many local business owners, and we would welcome further discussions concerning this matter.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Patrick Wade, Chairman

John P. Midkiff, Vice-Chairman

Elaine Griffith, Commissioner