By ALICIA FABBREDAILY SOUTHTOWN |SEP 11, 2020 AT 5:27 PM
Will County Republican candidates Friday came together to call on the state to put an end to the COVID-19 mitigations banning indoor dining and bar service and to voice concerns over the county’s efforts to have residents turn in noncompliant businesses.
“The people of Illinois, the people of the county of Will, deserve true and accurate representation and they deserve transparency,” said Nick Ficarello, who is running for Will County executive. “They don’t deserve a state of deception.”
The Republican candidates and officials questioned the need for the mitigations and the metrics used to determine if the measures were needed. Members of the Joliet Area Chamber of Commerce and 11 neighboring chambers also have questioned the metrics, arguing that multiple positive results could stem from one individual case.
Ficarello, a former Will County sheriff’s deputy and police chief, said the United States did not implement such restrictions during the 1968 flu pandemic, which claimed about 100,000 lives here and an estimated 1 million lives globally.
“We didn’t shut down,” Ficarello recalled.
Will County Board member Gretchen Fritz, a Republican from Plainfield, suggested the county was being unfairly targeted by “Pritzker and his puppet master Mike Madigan.” She argued that the state’s methods to measure positivity rates was flawed.
“It’s not a good way to make decisions or put restrictions on a region,” said Fritz, who is running for recorder of deeds.
Under state guidelines, the region must record three consecutive days of positivity rates of 6.5% of lower for mitigations to be removed. As of Monday, the positivity rate for Region 7 was 7.5%, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
In a letter to the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce, the state’s public health director, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, said using test results — rather than individual cases — provides a better picture of the virus’ spread and activity.[Most read] In text messages, Eric Trump expressed gratitude for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s call during Chicago unrest: ‘Mrs. Mayor – know that I have been thinking about you’ »
State Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, the Democrat candidate for Will County executive, said she was relying on medical experts to guide decisions about how to respond to the virus.
“This is not a political fight,” she said. “We are talking about the health and safety of our citizens. Decisions are being made with medical professionals and not candidates who are giving their opinions.”
Fritz and others at Friday’s news conference also criticized the Will County Health Department’s call for residents to use the agency’s hotline to report any restaurants or bars violating the COVID-19 restrictions.
County Board member Stephen Balich, Republican from Homer Glen, raised the issue Thursday during a committee meeting in which he blasted the health department for a social media post asking residents to call the hotline. The post was deleted before Thursday’s meeting.
The Will County Republican Central Committee, in a news release Friday, charged the health department was relying on Communist methods to get residents to turn in violators.
“This is America, not some third world banana republic,” it read. “You have the constitutional right to face your accusers in open court. To fine or punish a person or business goes directly against this principle.”
Will County Health Department spokesman Steve Brandt, however, said the post and a letter from the health department were meant simply to inform residents to direct their calls to the hotline if needed. They said complaints are investigated and the health department works to gain compliance from businesses rather than ticket or fine.
In August, the health department has received more than 100 calls to the hotline for various reasons. Any suspected violations were investigated and many have been resolved, Brandt said.
Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter.
