Story and photos by Mark Peterson
(Beaver, PA) Beaver County District Attorney David Lozier was the final person to speak from the podium in court room 1 in the Beaver County Courthouse at a press conference on Friday May 8, 2020. Lozier backed up what other county leaders had proclaimed earlier to media personnel in attendance at the closed forum. Lozier clarified and summed up the press conference by closing his segment with “I will not prosecute a business or a business owner who has a complaint against them under these orders. ”
Beaver County Commission Chairman Dan Camp, along with fellow commissioners Tony Amadio and Jack Manning joined State Representatives Jim Marshall and Joshua Kail and State Senator Elder Vogel , set the stage prior to Lozier’s final confirmation. The collection of county and state officials all offered commentary at Friday’s press conference. The event was scheduled as a forum to voice the group’s displeasure with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s recent decision to not ease COVID 19 closure restrictions on Beaver County, leaving it the only county in the south west region under full lock down. In a rather bold maneuver, the group stood in solidarity and announced Friday that Beaver County businesses will be encouraged to re open regardless of statewide closure mandates still in place, under the same conditions as the “yellow phase” of business reopening scheduled to begin on May 15th in neighboring areas. Assurance was given that businesses will not face potential legal problems from local law enforcement if they do open their doors.
Beaver County District Attorney, David Lozier, speaking at Friday’s press conference.
The strong reaction from Beaver County officials came on the heels of being surprised. Much of the rhetoric at Friday’s presser centered around a feeling of Beaver County seemingly being duped by, and then spurned by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. Local officials proclaimed that the dialogue between The Governor and the county had been positive and that the Governor’s office was even praised the efforts and progress made in fighting and containing the COVID 19 virus. According to County Commissioner, Tony Amadio, “We were told for the past six weeks that we were doing a good job. We were doing a great job, and that the southwest corner was going to be able to move forward into the yellow. And the we found out last night, that they put a wall around Beaver County. It was just, as I said, totally disheartening.”
Officially, Beaver didn’t pass muster for having the COVID 19 closure restrictions lifted because the number of on going corona virus cases reported on a per capita basis weighted with total population wasn’t low enough. Though very few residents outside of long term care facilities have contracted the virus, a high concentration of COVID 19 cases and deaths have occurred in with a couple local facilities. A couple of isolated outbreaks in those facilities made it impossible for Beaver County to meet the Governor’s threshold for re opening.