While we have been putting up billboards and closing down telephone booth casinos across the city, we are ignoring plans we could implement right away to help us get through this.
Even after the virus spread is over and a vaccine is in place, the repercussions of this will be enormous and long lasting. Even the things we don’t think about are now starting to rear their heads in the national news like suicides and domestic violence. Tonight on PBS Newshour (BTW, the only news source I have been following for fair and accurate reporting during this crisis) they had on a national expert about domestic violence pleading with people to watch out for you neighbors. It is only one issue we are dealing with.
Here is a very short but important list of what our local government needs to do to assure we can weather the storm, and BTW, screw the lawyers, the city has the legal authority to do this thru executive and legislative powers under the home rule charter. A lot of these things are not at a crisis level yet, but we need to have a plan in place;
• Marshall the Events Center, the Convention Center and Arena for a temporary hospital for NON-emergency and NON-corona virus patients. This will free up our hospitals for critical emergencies and protect those patients from being infected in the regular hospital setting.
• Demand our local food banks and grocers work together to have a safe food distribution system where people who have food insecurity can pull up in the safety of their vehicle to get food by simply opening their trunk and have people give them essentials without person to person contact.
• Free city utilities for the next 3 months if not longer.
• Rental assistance from the general fund in combination with private donations. (the city has around a $60 million dollar surplus, specifically designed to help us in a time of an emergency).
• A sales tax holiday on at least food for the next few months – city and statewide.
• Flood preparedness. Let’s face it, this will come in the middle of this meltdown, and if we are not better prepared this time around it will compound our problems.
• Seek volunteers to assist in anyway possible who are young and healthy to help with this crisis.
• Require public employees (who have job security) to pitch in where they can, manning phones from home, helping with temporary hospitals, checking on the elderly with food and medicine delivery, etc. Do you know there are several public employees who we are paying right now that are not doing anything. This is what we pay taxes for, they need to help us in a crisis. I’m not shaming them, they are only following directives of their managers and elected officials, and their managers need to put them to work – NOW!
• Lead and don’t look back. This is the most important. Don’t worry about the critics (like myself). Put on your big boy pants and make quick, smart, decisive decisions. This is why we elect you, to help us in times of a crisis. It isn’t about ribbon cuttings and new parks, it’s about assisting those who fund this society through our taxes. If it is too much for you, please, step aside and let those willing and capable to do the job. We won’t hold it against you. You can only fail if you choose to do nothing.
Trust me, I am trying to stay positive through this, because I know the sh*t storm hasn’t even begun, and it is going to get much worse before it gets better. But if we have a strong plan of attack, we can come out of this with less scars. I do agree with our president on one point, we can recover, and we can come back from this nightmare, but where I disagree is that it won’t come from wishful thinking and crossing our fingers behind our back. It will happen with a solid plan. If we do all this and we didn’t need to implement some of these plans – GREAT!
Get to work for those of us that are out of work. I’m praying for you, and I don’t need a live streamed pastor to tell me that is also a part of the equation. Blood, sweat and tears solve problems, wringing your hands solves nothing. Let’s make some solid plans and let’s do it NOW!
I’ll leave you with one my favorite songs (I can actually play the harmonica parts). Helping each other will be the key to our survival.
