Mayor’s Message – April 3, 2020

Dear Community,

I define community by all people who reside in our Village, work in our Village and shop in our Village.

The COVID 19 virus is the most contagious disease I’ve experienced in my lifetime. I’ve never been involved with a disease that so rapidly impacted every country, state and county with such devastating effects on people young and old.

Geauga County to date has been fortunate, but as we’ve seen is still experiencing rapid growth or spread. We now have several reported cases in our community. I am in current and urgent discussions with UH and Cardinal Schools regarding setting up a satellite hospital at our local middle school. This has the potential to be catastrophic here as we’ve seen in other areas of the country that did not take this threat seriously before it was too late. It is kind of like a fire which can go from manageable to unmanageable if efforts to contain are not successful.

I and all of our Village elected officials live here and serve here because we have a deep regard for the people that live, work, shop and play in our community. We are proud of the people that support to make our Village a great place to live.

The Federal and State governments have set guidelines for safe behavior. To date some of the guidelines have been direct orders that aren’t optional. Those legal requirements, as painful as they are, have been admirably adhered to by our business community. The requirements listed below have been communicated as requests, asking for our cooperation as individuals. These are initiatives we can accomplish as individuals to assist in defeating this terrible virus. The guidelines are:

Be sure to social distance, defined by staying 6 feet apart as individuals

Limit gatherings to groups of 10 or less (and when groups meet ensure you maintain the social distance requirement of 6 feet between individuals)

We are to stay home unless absolutely necessary for our survival.

We are to be diligent in washing our hands frequently with soap and water and if not available using high alcohol content hand sanitizer. Avoid touching your face.

Sanitize hard surfaces that have high activity.

If you don’t come in contact with a surface or someone infected you will not get the virus. Professionals tell me that many people have the virus but don’t display the symptoms. I spoke to the county health inspector earlier this week and he gave great advice, “treat every person you see and every knob or surface you touch as this person or object is carrying the virus” We all need to believe this and behave accordingly.

We all find these requirements as an infringement on the life we were used to living. The requirements are not comfortable but required for us to be respectful of our community and for our county, state and country to heal.

We as individuals can make the difference.

When I remark on the following observations they apply to our entire community, (I defined community if the first sentence of this memo)

I see violations every day in our community and surrounding area. I as the Mayor of this community with the support of all elected officials am pleading with you to set aside our personal desires, get past the attitude we don’t want to be inconvenienced, and this is a violation of our rights. Think of this period as a time when I am going to show all that I come in contact with that I respect them and don’t in anyway want to negatively impact their lives. We are a Christian nation and I firmly believe this is the behavior all Christians should adopt and embrace.

God bless our Community and our Nation

Respectfully,
Ben Garlich
Mayor Village of Middlefield
With full support of Village Council