Girtz response

September 15, 2020 Hi Brennan I was sent your recent letter by members of the press and staff members in the Governor’s office, and I am glad for the opportunity to respond to the issues you raise. Based on our previous interactions, I was surprised and disappointed to see this letter to the Governor without prior discussion of the specifics with me. Each time you and I have spoken over the last several weeks about student safety, bar and party dynamics, and joint messaging, I have extended the opportunity for further conversation so that our work together will provide benefit to the Athens and UGA community, so I will pursue that through this letter. You note the need for adherence to the statewide order in all environments, so I wish to detail the efforts the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government has made toward safety amidst the pandemic, as well as the “holes in the bucket” of our current state order.

ACC was the first local government in Georgia to respond to the initial wave of the pandemic with a formal order in March, appropriate for a center of learning and research, and recognizing the significant challenges ahead of us. We focused on creating an environment that would blunt the impact of this plague that has now claimed the lives of more than 6000 of our fellow Georgians.

When the statewide shelter-in-place order was enacted several weeks later, we worked to simultaneously preserve health protections and create financial supports for heavily impacted businesses and their employees. When the statewide order weakened just a few weeks later, we targeted efforts on those actions widely recognized as creating safe environments: masking, limiting capacity in dangerous settings, and moving activities like dining outdoors.

Our staff members have been valiant in providing community support throughout the spring and summer, distributing food and toiletries, quickly expanding our array of supports to schoolchildren through necessary digital access (as the rapid viral spread has meant shuttered K-12 schools), and more frequent policing of bars and downtown streets. I will be forever proud of the creativity, hard work, and dedication of the men and women of Athens-Clarke County’s staff throughout this crisis.

Never more have a set of professionals exemplified the call to respond to “other duties as assigned.”

Through most of this year, we have maintained a COVID-19 case and death rate lower than other population centers in the state through exemplary communitywide response. People have shifted their individual behavior, employers have modified their practices from manufacturing lines to world renowned kitchens, and area institutions have worked on operational planning and messaging together. However, as the University of Georgia resumed on campus activity, it became evident that there are elements of the statewide order that create a less than ideal directive to control spread.

The language used in the bar regulation section of the current governor’s order is rife with “carveouts” that create the legal loopholes that neuter the entire section. For example, the prelude to the bar section closes with the phrase “as practicable”, which in plain language means “measures must be feasible, operable, and not too difficult in actual practice.” That same section mentions that tables Kelly Girtz Mayor Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia 301 College Avenue • Athens, Georgia 30601 • (706) 369-9457 Email: kelly.girtz@accgov.com

should be separated “if applicable”, meaning “if it’s a standing room only joint, nevermind.” Bars are unique environments, and norms around everything from ordering to social interaction are not the same as in seated restaurants or at the dinner table at home. While the carve-outs in the executive order recognize that, they also allow for a more dangerous environment than if the table service requirements, etc. were unequivocal.

So, where do we go from here? We embrace responsibility, we gather in common cause, and we all seek to do as much as we can. For time is short, and as best we know we only get one ride on this merry-go-round of life, and we must take every opportunity to improve the conditions of our state and city.

The Athens-Clarke County Unified Government can use the tools of local government by continuing to expand outdoor seating areas for drinking and dining, as they have been demonstrated to be twenty times safer than indoor environments where droplet and aerosol spread are likely, as in bars. We can also increase our patrols to ensure underage drinkers are not in bars at all, and that those of legal drinking age are spaced and masked as required by law. UGA can continue to ramp-up testing and contact tracing to allow for quick individual and institutional action. The University of Illinois is now testing each undergraduate twice weekly as a model that can be replicated here. UGA can also share in enforcement responsibilities with their police department, and hold individual students accountable through suspension or dismissal for safety violations if they host parties or do not follow quarantine orders. The Governor can update the Executive Order to reflect White House Coronavirus Task Force recommendations about gathering sizes, particularly in those counties that feature high rates of recent COVID-19 cases. That body’s recommendation is a gathering size of no greater than 10 persons, which creates an underlying framework that is easy to enforce. If a police officer approaches a party under the current 50 person allowance, counting heads to determine if there are 38 or 58 persons present is a difficult task, but whether there are more than ten present is easy to do.

Orange County, North Carolina, home to The University of North Carolina and many other cities use this lower threshold, which should be applied here. The overall understanding must be that no single measure will dig us out of this crisis; a collective effort is required.

Again, please continue to reach out so that we can work together to create a safer community and state.

Sincerely,

Kelly Girtz Mayor Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia 301 College Avenue • Athens, Georgia 30601 • (706) 369-9457 Email: kelly.girtz@accgov.com