Motion carries 4-1, cost cited as reasoning
In a stunning turnaround, Graham County voted Friday to re-open its borders to all travelers.
The decision came at the conclusion of an emergency meeting called by Graham County Commissioner Connie Orr and just two days removed from the Graham County Emergency Management Coordination Committee deciding to place hard barriers on both the Cherohala Skyway and at Fontana Dam.
The measure would have saved the county roughly $34,000 per week in expenses, as the manpower needed to cover all five entry points would have been reduced to just locations at Almond, Tapoco Lodge and Topton.
Graham County Land Co., which the county contracted to aid the cause, had been supplying much of the manpower and materials needed to ensure the closures stayed intact. Invoices from the company were received last week.
The only opposition to the measure was commission Chairman Dale Wiggins, who has fought tirelessly to place protocols that could help slow down or even prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus into Graham County.
“From the beginning of this effort, I felt that we had one thing we could do – and do well – and that was to restrict access of people coming into the county,” Wiggins said. “We don’t have medical facilities to treat people that may become sick. From Murphy Hospital to Haywood Hospital, there are only 17 intensive care beds at the five hospitals that serve a region with over 160,000 people.
“Graham County has to compete with all those people for those beds in the event of a an outbreak on a large scale. Mission Hospital has around 80 ICU beds, but Buncombe County alone has a population of 260,000 people. Add in the northern counties that utilize Mission Hospital, and it’s a gloomy picture in a major outbreak.”
Wiggins voted in opposition to the change, while Orr and fellow Commissioners Lynn Cody, Keith Eller and Jacob Nelms were in agreement.
Orr did not respond to The Graham Star’s request for comment by press time Wednesday, but Wiggins believes there is more to the sudden move than meets the eye. He added that more than $11 million of unrestricted funds sits in the county’s bank account, which could have helped cover expenses to keep the borders manned and closed.
“I believe opening our borders to all traffic makes our citizens more vulnerable to the spread of (the) coronavirus,” he added. “We have a lot of elderly citizens and a lot of people with diabetes, hypertension, asthma and other medical issues among the general population. Not a good place for a virus to be widespread.
“I expect with nice weather that we will begin seeing more and more people on our roads and taxing our food system. We don’t have a plan B. Keeping the barricades/closures in place was our best option to reduce risk.”
County Manager Becky Garland pointed out that all the boxes were checked as far as FEMA requirements were concerned. A recent $51,000 purchase that took place to buy better-equipped radios for the sheriff’s office will also be reimbursed.
“The board of commissioners gave me the directive to get checkpoints and barriers up and we did so – within a four-day period – along with a website and a permitting process,” Garland said. “We followed all procurement requirements and processes allowable by the federal government under a FEMA-designated disaster, and are actively working with FEMA on reimbursement of our COVID-19 costs.
“I am proud of the hard work our staff exerted during this process.”
“We have followed FEMA guidelines from the beginning,” Wiggins said. “In our meeting Friday, Commissioner Eller raised that question and our county attorney reiterated for the umpteenth time that we had done what we needed to do. I/we had asked him to review our process, and he assured us numerous times that we had done what we needed to do.
“We have been in communication with everyone from state to federal levels to ensure we would be eligible. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed or just flat-out lying to cover themselves.”
The checkpoints – which were installed March 27 – were completely eliminated over the weekend, though Graham County’s nightly curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., the closure of all accommodations and Gov. Roy Cooper’s Stay-at-Home Order are still in effect.