This is a station editorial, I'm Randal J. Miller, station president. On April 23rd, Illinois Governor J-B Pritzker extended his Coronavirus Stay at Home Order until May 30th.
Little changed from his previous Stay at Home Order, with the exception of having to wear a mask when leaving your home, being able to go to State Parks, and calling greenhouses and garden centers as essential.
The glaring thing that's MISSING in the April 23rd announcement, was any recognition that 91% of the cases and deaths have been in Chicago and the collar counties. 91%.
Why do we downstaters again feel like the "tail is wagging the dog"? All the experts the Governor marched out to speak in his April 23rd extension, were from CHICAGO. NONE were from downstate.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health's own web site, there are many downstate counties outside of metro areas, that have few cases and deaths, and the further south you go, the less the numbers are.
One Illinois State Representative from deep southern Illinois, has resorted to filing a lawsuit against the Governor claiming he exceeded his authority in his Emergency Order closing non-essential businesses around the state.
I have e-mail'ed the Governor, our state senators and state representatives, telling all of them that
there was NO consideration for the LOW number of downtstate coronavirus cases, in the Governor's Order.
Outside of downstate metro areas, there are FEW and in many cases NONE.
In the meantime, small businesses across the state are literally closing by the day, affecting the quality of life in the communities our radio stations serve.
When will the Governor look at this from a region by region or county by county basis?
By the time he does open things up downstate, he'll have lost thousands of local businesses that our listeners depend on, not to mention the additional loss of state retail sales tax revenue.
When will this madness end?
That's our opinion...we welcome yours. Our e-mail address is editorial-at-randyradio-dot-com.