Laramie County is heading into a deadly COVID crisis. And our local leaders still won’t require masks

BY D. REED ECKHARDT

Enough with the handwringing.

Enough with the begging.

Enough with the wishful thinking that if Laramie County residents are told — over and over — that they need to wear masks to protect each other, they finally will listen and do the right thing.

It ain’t gonna happen.

Listen to Cheyenne Mayor Marian Orr, via Twitter, on Tuesday night:

“Tough news in Cheyenne with employees from 5 restaurants linked to COVID. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t

This map shows the nation’s COVID hotspots, including Laramie County.

been perfect at masking up, assuming distance works. Masks work. Let’s do better. I’ll do better. Let’s get through this. Let’s not go back.”

Or Cheyenne-Laramie County Health Department Executive Director Kathy Emmons:

“We’re really concerned about the potential spread from the events this (past) weekend because it doesn’t appear a lot of people are wearing masks. If people weren’t practicing social distancing … that’s going to lead to increased numbers in the county.”

Really? Where have these alleged leaders been? 

I just spent a week at home in the Capital City to see my wife and canine family, traveling from New Mexico in a rental car protective bubble. And all one has to do is spend a few hours around Cheyenne to see that no one — that’s NO ONE, Ms. Orr and Ms. Emmons — is following the begging of state and local officials.

I made one trip out for an evening to see a friend at a local brewery and regretted every moment of it. It was packed with people without masks, and no one was six feet apart. I set myself apart from the crowd in the open air but never was comfortable and never felt safe. 

When one unmasked customer squeezed too close and I objected, he simply told me to put on my mask. I explained that I gladly would do so. But I added that would do nothing to protect me, only him. When I pointed out that really, for me to feel safe, he needed to put on a mask, he harrumphed and acted like I was an idiot.

Similarly, I stopped in at another brewery that I had been waiting to see open since before I had to leave for New Mexico to take care of my mother last December. It was packed, and no one was wearing a mask. I never did go inside to celebrate its opening with the owners. 

I have no doubt this is the no-need-for-a mask attitude of the vast majority of Cheyenne residents who are out packing restaurants, breweries, groceries, retail stores and events like last weekend’s downtown sidewalk affair. And if officials like Orr and Emmons haven’t seen this for themselves, it is only because they have their heads buried deep in the High Plains dirt.

To be frank, if I hadn’t have had to leave my family behind, I would have celebrated exiting Wyoming last week. I returned to New Mexico and the safety of state that recently delayed its reopening for two weeks (https://bit.ly/2VeTbxW) because of a rise in numbers. This governor relies on data and her executive power to keep residents safe. And, yes, residents have bought into the idea that respect for your neighbors requires the “inconvenience” of mask wearing, thanks to strong state and local leadership.

But it’s not even close to that in Wyoming. The Cowboy mentality is rampant there, and it is going to cost dozens of lives. The numbers of cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in the southeast corner of the state, and that does not bode well. Look at the map on this post and see that Laramie County — in bright red — is one of the nation’s hot spots. The potential for an outbreak there is very real.

Part of the reason for people not taking things seriously is that city, county and state leaders have not taken mask-wearing and social distancing seriously either, and they have made no move to exercise their legal authority to make the point. Emmons admits as much in Wednesday’s local newspaper when she says her department hasn’t even considered taking action against businesses ignoring protocols. 

If she isn’t taking a potential outbreak seriously, why should residents? And it’s not as if Emmons doesn’t know what has been going on. Rather, she has been hoping — praying? — that residents are going finally act in theirs, and other’s, best interests. Fat chance.

Orr, too, admits in her tweet that she has not been wearing a mask as much as she should be. Again, without leadership — and firm talking — no one is going to follow.

For people like my wife, who lives in Cheyenne and has been taking protocols seriously, these are scary times. It is not safe in the Capitol City for those who must not be exposed to COVID-19, and their leaders are doing nothing to make things any safer. Instead, they have stepped aside and let the Wild West rule. And now they are surprised the numbers are rising?

Orr and the City Council must demand that the county health department take action if Emmons won’t do her job. A mandatory mask rule — with enforcement teeth — is the only way to prevent the local outbreak from growing. If a cities like Miami can require masking in public spaces to re-flatten COVID spikes, there is no reason that Cheyenne and Laramie County should not be exercising the same logic.

Additionally, it is time for local media to stop pandering to the readers and listeners and speak the truth: If you don’t wear a mask, you are endangering your lives and the lives of others. Step up and show the caring for your neighbors that Wyoming residents say they treasure.

Yes, I know these actions are not politically correct among the “I want to exercise my rights” crowd. But sometimes other’s rights to be safe and secure override the desires of some to do what they want, when they want. This is a local crisis, and it must be dealt with locally.

If Orr and Emmons continue to stand on the sidelines and wring their hands and beg, they will have no one to blame but themselves when hospitals fill up and many get sick and some and some die.

No one.

D. Reed Eckhardt is the former executive editor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Envisioning a post-CFD world. How about turning Frontier Park into a local agricultural paradise?

BY MADGE MIDGLEY

       Okay, I think it might be time to start listening to good ole Auntie Madge.
       Why, you ask?
       How about this article I wrote that was published here Aug. 1, 2019 regarding how unsustainable of an idea it is to build a city or town's uniqueness on tourism? (https://bit.ly/2Uh1zws)
       People may have thought I was taking a dump on tourism. I wasn’t. I just don’t believe it is a strong foundation to build anything on. Go google “failed/abandoned amusement parks” and you will catch the drift.
       Tourism is a false facade. Cheyenne would be far more interesting if we knew the actual truth of it and the

Frontier Days 2020 has been canceled. Now what?

people beyond the weird good ole boy clubs and collusion. (You know we have tunnels running under this city? Oh no? Hmmm … interesting stuff ... )
       You say, “Well then, Madge, if we don’t survive via Cheyenne Frontier Days, what do we do?”
       I would refer you to the article I wrote August 23, 2019 (https://bit.ly/3dTLbtq). It gave a productive year-round solution, one that would not only help our changing economy and stimulate the youth in various and functional ways but would have the potential to feed the people of our city.   Poor and disadvantaged or not. Anyone. Maybe even everyone.
       Tourism, one week a year, doesn’t feed the whole city for a year. It sets up some businesses for a year and a few individuals for more than we can comprehend because CFD is essentially run by volunteers.
       This one week in Cheyenne puts added stress on our EMS responders — police, fire, EMTs.
It breeds an environment for human trafficking and sex work.
       I could add local anecdotes of people who generally feel safe leaving the door unlocked in the Avenues only to have a drunk, out-of-state CFD attendee walk right in the door thinking it was their Air B&B.
       Nah, man.
       Here is my next idea:
       We turn CFD grounds into a place with a vertical garden that legitimately hires people to work.       A massive geothermic, indoor greenhouse that has everything we might want to buy in the produce section and more.
       We get some livestock of our own. Residents can buy shares in produce, meat, milk, etc. like a co-op.
       We start canning and pickling.
       We work with the city compost facility and get the vermiculture worm game going.  We contributed aged horse manure.
       We work toward that closed cycle system.
       We invest in what we want to have. We give what we have to offer to build the economy we want to live in, not the one we are trying to imitate.
       Brings me back to the other article I wrote about a “Fix It” place (https://bit.ly/2BBgF9w). Making the most of what we have and collaborating with the resources of our minds and aptitude.  I need the citizens of Cheyenne  to know that this is something we can do.
       We need a lot of skilled people and people willing to learn new skills to make this work.   Wyoming is wild and rugged.  We need some real rare skills here along with very ordinary ones.
       In this plan we need to hire the best butchers and packers willing to work for local ranchers to have their meat processed. We need big freezers to store goods. We need people who know how to fix those freezers. We need people willing to clean those freezers and do a legit inventory.
       We need HVAC,  electric, solar, machinists, growers, vermiculture people, ranchers, gardeners, bird and insect specialists, kind hands, sales people, restaurant workers, stock people, people with specialization in lighting and humidity.
       We need:
       People who want to learn to grow food.
       People who want to learn a new skill.
       People who realize oil isn’t feeding them.
       People who love to cook.
       People who water plants as meditation.
       People who want to pull weeds to work out their anger issues.
       People who want to take their kids into a place that shows something different and useful.
       People who love to serve.
       People who love good food and want to see their economy thrive on its own in the way it was meant to.
       People who are heartbroken knowing people go hungry.
       People who know about how technology can make this possible.
       People with money to make it happen.
       People with any resource to make it happen.
       People who just are curious about what it could look like.
       People who want to meet new people in a sober and productive environment.
       People who like the smell of clean dirt and chlorophyll.
       People who want ethically sourced local goods.
       People who want to just come read a book in a warm greenhouse in the winter.
       People who asked, “But what does Cheyenne have to offer?”
       People who said, “Cheyenne is a dump.”
       People who left but  find themselves homesick for something that never existed.
       If I didn’t list you, I am sorry, but I bet you fit in perfectly. We all love good food.
The plan is to do all the stuff the tenacious early Wyomingites did, but better and utilizing technology. It is good to learn the old ways and the new ones.
       Every day there is a market of local goods at reasonable prices, locally provided.
       We provide for our people.
       We provide so much bounty that there is always enough to pass down to those in need.
       We look out for our neighbor.
       We offer a helping hand.
       We take a sad song and make it better with our will and knowing.
       We are more than CFD. We are Cheyenne, Wyoming.

       Madge Midgely is a local writer. 

It’s a sure bet that most Wyoming residents never have had to give their teenage sons “the talk”

       “‘The talk’ for a black father is how not to get killed by the police. Right around eight, nine years old every black father has to sit his children down and say, 'If (police) ever pull you over, put your hands on the dash, don’t reach for your cellphone, ask for permission to call.'” — Dr. R.A. Vernon,  senior pastor, The Word Church, Shaker Heights, Ohio (“Black families having the talk again,” News5, Cleveland, Ohio, https://bit.ly/2ApXqiy)

BY D. REED ECKHARDT

       I would venture to guess that many Wyoming residents don’t really understand what is happening on the streets of cities like Minneapolis, Denver and Washington, D.C. All the anger and frustration being displayed by the protestors, particularly expressed by black and Latino males, is as foreign as listening to someone speak Chinese.
       And I am certain that most Cowboy State parents never have had to sit their male sons down and destroy their

Recent protestors in Casper.

innocence by explaining that one wrong move during a police stop can bring an end to their lives. Even the thought that someone in America in 2020 has to warn their kids that the police would single them out for the color of their skin makes no sense to most of us.
       Those realities — of “the talk,” of black persons’ anger over having to live their lives in a state of constant anxiety, of raising their sons to understand the dangers that are very real — came home to me the last time the nation went through these kinds of protests. Perhaps it was in the wake of the killing in Fergusons, Mo., in  2014. I don’t recall for sure. But it was brought home to me in a couple of ways.
       The first was an ESPN radio conversation that I heard with Cris Carter, the Hall of Fame wide receiver from the Minnesota Vikings. He was asked during the interview if he, being a black man, feared for his life when he was stopped for police. He was response was ready: Of course, he is. He understands that his life is in jeopardy every time he is stopped, that one wrong move can end his life.
       I was stunned. Here was a known celebrity, both as a football player and a sports announcer, who surely has plenty of money in the bank and is recognizable, who worried about potentially losing his life with a police officer at his car window.
       “Wow,” I thought. “If someone like Cris Carter is that afraid, what must it be like for the average African American man?”
       The impact of that has stuck with me ever since.
       Then I was able to ask a black friend of mine, a resident of Laramie, if she faced similar fears for her children — even in Wyoming. Her answer, almost matter of factly, was: Yes. She went on to explain that she had to have “the talk” with her son as he approached driving age and that the fear of something bad happening to him is always on her mind.
       Clearly, there is something going on here.
       And it’s not good.
       The statistics make it all the more clear. In 2019, the National Academy of Sciences reported that one in 1,000 black men will be killed by police in their lifetimes. For white men, the number if 39 out of 100,000. That means it is 2.5 times more likely for a black man to be killed by police than it is a white man. (“What new research says about race and police shootings,” City Lab, Aug. 6, 2019, https://bit.ly/3cpdcb7)
       What’s the point of all this?
       As I watch the focus by FOX news and other media outlets on the so-called riots and rumors of riots and on the few looters and arsonists who have attached themselves to the non-violent protests popping up across the nation, including in Cheyenne and Casper, I pray that my fellow Wyomingites will step back and focus on what the demonstrators are saying.
      Too many of us a quick to speak and slow to listen, especially in these times where everyone has an opinion about everything.
      But those who are afraid to lose their white privilege are doing everything they can to distract us from the truths that underlie these demonstrations. Truths about police bias against people of color. Truths about a society where the majority of deaths from COVID-19 are to people of color, who are forced to work in “essential” positions while many of us can afford to stay home or are given the option to work at home. Truths about the racism and racial inequities that are perpetuated even here in the Cowboy State.
      Yes, I know many readers will recoil at the use of the term “white privilege.” But what do you call it when black parents across America are forced to give their children “the talk” and then fear that their children may never come home after heading out in the family car or just for a run?
I don’t know of a single white family that ever has had to give “the talk” for fear that the police would overreact due to the color of their skin.
       We can, we must, do better. Why not appoint a city commission to look into police department policies? Why not collect data to see how incidents between local police and minorities (yes, Hispanics and Native Americans face similar concerns) are handled? Why not do a study to see if there are pay disparities or other concerns impacting the city’s poor?
       Of course, the state could, and should, do the same.
       There is no reason not to do this, unless you are afraid of what you might find out.
       But until we do, blacks across America — including in Wyoming — will be forced to continue to give their children “the talk.”
       Surely you agree that ought not to be.

       D. Reed Eckhardt is former executive editor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.