Don't Let Kalispell Become Seattle

Dear  Members of the Flathead City-County Board of Health

I am a fourth generation lawyer now residing in Kalispell. I am a former Law Clerk to the Washington State Supreme Court and  have been in private practice since 1990. My legal work is currently focused on appellate law. 

I previously lived in Seattle, but with the COVID shutdown, businesses left the downtown core where I worked, rendering the city lonely, desolate and unsafe. I moved here because I knew people and wanted to get away from the madness and violence. 

On Saturday, I learned that the Board would be having an emergency meeting due to a claimed “dramatic rise” in COVID cases, to justify lockdown and isolation of the population. The Board’s own data, however, tells a different story: 

* The Board’s own document, titled “Flathead County Weekly Positive Rate(%) vs Time,” shows that new cases are now the lowest that they’ve been in five weeks.

* The Board’s own document, titled “Flathead County COVID-19 Capacity Indicators, Updated 10.29.2020,” shows that the number of new cases has been going steadily down for the past four weeks (560, 473, 438 and most recently, 310).

The numbers, regardless, have always been low compared to the population of Flathead County (106,134). 

You have a beautiful city. I urge you to not become another Seattle.  Say "No" to lockdown.