MOHAVE COUNTY – The Board of Supervisors voted Thursday to reject outside use of its meeting auditorium in Kingman in a manner that Mohave County has been avoiding during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A 4-0 vote denied requests for use of the expansive auditorium for upcoming meetings of the Kingman City Council and Northern Arizona Consolidated Fire District Governing Board.
Kingman has been limiting audience size while encouraging spatial separation at its council meetings to prevent spread of the coronavirus. Mayor Jen Miles recently floated the idea of temporary city use of the county facility where more space is available to distance attendees so more people can attend in person.
The requests essentially put the Board in the position of considering allowing others to use the facility for in-person public participation while the county won’t do so until at least July. Supervisor Buster Johnson asked Department of Public Health Director Denise Burley to weigh in on the matter.
Burley said allowing use of its facility undermines the social distancing and group sizing messages it is repeating to the public while coronavirus-related infections and deaths keep climbing in Mohave County.
“I would recommend not approving that. In large part we’re trying to send messages about physical distancing and not engaging in mass gatherings and putting big groups of people together, Burley said. She said allowing outside facility use would tend to contradict best practice messages conveyed by the county.
The no vote for outside facility usage came toward the end of the Board’s twice-weekly COVID-19 management meetings. Epidemiologist Mare Schumacher outlined extensive county efforts in the positive case contact tracing arena.
Schumacher told Board members that local health officials generally contact about three people for every infected person. She said repeat contacts with the more than 500 infected persons in the county multiplies total contact trace instances to more than 14,000.
- Dave Hawkins
