Mayor’s Message – May 2020
Hello Residents,
I want to again thank all of the front-line people who make each of our lives manageable. With my limited trips to the store, I am able to secure all my necessities. The entire supply chain that provides our daily necessities is to be applauded. If we think about the supply chain, we have farmers producing food, plants processing that food, truck drivers moving the product to market and store employees stocking our stores for our consumption. The same process applies to the factory worker who manufactures products that we require in our daily lives. I thank all the dedicated employees helping to ensure that we can acquire our life’s necessities. In addition to this, I am also thankful for our public employees who are able to fulfill their duties of keeping our water available and safe, our toilets flushing, and our Village maintained. I also want to thank our dedicated EMTs, police and fire that keep our Village safe and protected. Our doctors, hospitals and staff, who still handle any emergency, are doing a remarkable job. I am sure for the foreseeable future, our lives will change, but even with the changes, I am so thankful to be an American.
The community support for our first responders has been remarkable, thank you all. I heard our Governor today communicating his desire to start gradually opening the State starting on the first of May. This opportunity has been made possible by the citizens of this State following the simple instruction to not congregate, maintain social distance and be diligent with our hand hygiene and hard surfaces. I see New York and Pennsylvania are requiring masks for anyone going in public. I started wearing a mask earlier this week and it felt very odd. It finally dawned on me that instead of feeling odd, I should realize by wearing my mask, I am making the statement to you that I respect you and care about your wellbeing. The mask does far more to protect you from me than it does to protect me from you. I think we should all be making that statement to each other. To me, when I see someone with a mask, they are paying me and everyone with whom they come in contact the ultimate compliment.
With that being said, the opposite is true, if you don’t keep your distance from me, continue to congregate and then choose to interact with me, you are displaying total disrespect for me. If you think this isn’t disrespectful – and dangerous — to me, I have no choice but to consider you naive. Our entire country’s leadership has been dedicated to helping to resolve this crippling issue. You owe it to everyone you know, not to jeopardize their health and wellbeing with your nonconforming behavior. I see examples daily and realize those not following these guidelines have the ability to negatively impact entire communities. This Coronavirus is, by far, the most contagious virus of any of our lifetimes, as evidenced with how rapidly it has already spread around the entire globe. Please be smart and respect each other. It is the only way we will get this behind us.
Ben Garlich
Mayor
Village of Middlefield
