Lori Walsh: We're checking in with communities across the state of South Dakota about how Coronavirus is impacting them and how they are rising to the occasion. We begin today in Huron, the largest city in Beadle County. My guests are the mayor of Huron, Paul Aylward. Mayor, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Paul Aylward: Well thank you. Thank you very much and thanks for having us this morning.
Lori Walsh: We also have Huron School District Superintendent, Terry Nebelsick. Welcome to you as well.
Terry Nebelsick: Good morning, Lori. Thank you. Good morning, Lori.
Lori Walsh: Officer Mark Johnson is also with us. Welcome.
Mark Johnson: Good morning.
Lori Walsh: Mayor, I'm going to start with you. We're showing 12 confirmed cases in Beadle County. Tell us a little bit about what you are seeing already with people getting sick in the County. What do you know that maybe isn't reflected in the numbers?
Paul Aylward: Well, I think that probably we have not reached our maximum of the numbers yet. We're not having a lot of testing done yet and I believe that the more testing that is done, probably the number of confirmed cases will rise.
Lori Walsh: Are you ... have tests available? How is testing going? Is it fairly smooth or have you had hiccups with getting people who wanted or needed tests, tested?
Paul Aylward: I think we're wrapping up with that. We have some private laboratories now that are doing testing for us and also the state testing. We are supposed to get our test collection kits through the Department of Health, from the State of South Dakota. So we're waiting for those. Then we will probably go live with our own collection site here in Huron, hopefully yet this week.
Lori Walsh: All right. Mayor, we understand that you issued a city-wide emergency ordinance working together with other city leaders. Tell us a little bit about what went behind that decision.
Paul Aylward: Well, we were contacted by the Governor and she told us that we had four more confirmed cases on Sunday. We decided to call an emergency meeting, a call meeting with Beadle County Commission and Huron City Commission. So Sunday afternoon, we spent about three or four hours discussing our problems and what's happening here in Huron. We discussed many different options of what action we could take. Finally, at the end of the day, we drafted a resolution and an ordinance that would basically close down our bars and restaurants and put some constraints on the number of people who can gather, kind of what the basic ... what is happening around our state and our nation. We put those together in an ordinance and a resolution and we voted separately. The County voted and the City voted separately, but we did pass basically the same resolution and the same ordinance for the entire county.
Lori Walsh: Mayor, we heard Governor Kristi Noem talking yesterday in issuing an executive order with what cities should do. What do you make of that executive order as far as who is in charge of making some of these decisions?
Paul Aylward: Well, the Governor has stated publicly that she believes it's the bears and the commissions that will need to take action. She has put out those guidelines as a guideline. We basically followed that guideline, even though we had done it before she put out the guideline, that was basically what we followed.
Lori Walsh: Do you feel like that's her responsibility, yours? Are you getting the support that you need from the state at this time to make those decisions?
Paul Aylward: Well, I was glad that she did put out an advisory anyway to back up the actions that we did. I would have liked to seen it. I told her that I thought it would have more force if it came from the Governor and included the entire state, but she has different views on that. So we went ahead and we thought that it was necessary to protect the citizens of Huron and do everything that we could do. We know it's going to be a hardship on some people and we know that this is not easy, but we thought that this was such a serious condition that's coming through to us of the Coronavirus that we had to take action.
Lori Walsh: Mark Johnson, I want to bring you into the conversation next and talk a little bit, if you will, if you're the right person to answer this question. In Huron, getting word out to people who might not have internet connection, who might not have the same television services, who might not speak English, there are many different languages spoken in Huron. Tell me a little bit about the education challenges and opportunities here to make sure people understand what's happening and take appropriate actions when they may live in very different circumstances.
Mark Johnson: We're working very hard with our community partners with that. The ordinance is being translated into Korean and Spanish. We're trying to get the word out over all aspects of the social media and the mainstream media with our local newspapers, our local radio stations and then we're trying to use social media quite extensively. I know there are some restraints as far as with the internet. That's why we're trying to cover all of our bases that we can so we can get the message out to most of ... as many people as we can.
Lori Walsh: Have you seen amongst first responders, anecdotally, what are they saying about the availability of protective equipment for some of those first responders, for example, as people might get sick and the availability of healthcare services in the city?
Mark Johnson: As we sit on the first responder side, right now, we are sitting in fairly well with our personal protective equipment. We are working to get more of those resources available if we end up with a surge event. Right now, everything is all right with the supplies that we have. But that is a concern that our city department heads are working on to make sure if we do end up with a surge event that we have those resources available.
Lori Walsh: I also want to talk with Superintendent Terry Nebelsick here and another challenge. You've got kids out of school, kids who, again, speak different languages, live in different home life environments. How are you sort of meeting some of those challenges right now?
Terry Nebelsick: Well, first of all, most of our kids are far enough along in their language development that they can communicate with their teachers. We only teach in English and then kids adapt to that as we intensify their English learning. So only the few that have come in the last little bit would be a challenge there. The parents, it's a different situation. Just like when our country was founded, grandparents know very limited English and parents are trying to learn while their children learn. So we are trying to use our liaisons who know that community in order to make sure that the information gets to our bilingual people who can process it and get that information out. It's much more simple when I was just calling on one day off because I'd make a phone call and it would go out in three different languages. But with the complexities of this, I post the information on Facebook. I get it to the entire staff. Obviously, I read it in English and then they try to make sure that liaisons are hearing that information so that they can get to their communities.
Lori Walsh: Do you feel, Superintendent, as if this is a superintendent responsibility, a school district responsibility to figure out how to continue learning into the future through online? Are teachers having to kind of reinvent their own wheels? Is there guidance from the state? How do you move forward into getting education to kids when really no one's ever had to do this before at this level?
Terry Nebelsick: I'll try to make a concise answer to that. But yes, it's my responsibility as a long-time member of the community and as the education leader. Yes, it's our leadership team's responsibility. But I've got to make sure that what we really talk about is where the rubber hits the road and that's these fantastic teachers. Teachers have been modernizing their delivery for years and years and this is really allowing the public to see the innovative nature of our teaching staffs. Every building has now developed a website where anyone who has internet access can go to the website for their building and pull up the educational resources which will support the packets that are going home.
Our 9, 12 grades, are all digital and those classes are continuing in many formats from Zoom to a lecture series, to videos that go out, video streamed, et cetera. So I think that we'll be way better two weeks from now than we are now and we're way better than we were a week ago when we started. It's also recognition that these fantastic teachers have not been waiting until this emergency to integrate technology. As we all know, our kids are ahead of the game on technology. So kids will learn.
Lori Walsh: In a few minutes, we're going to take listeners live to appear for the Governor's update. She's having a press conference, so we expect Secretary of Health for the state of South Dakota, Kim Malsam-Rysdon to also be with governor Kristi Noem. As we await that, I want to go back to the mayor, Mayor Aylward. We're talking, if you're just tuning in to leadership from the city of Huron, which is centered in Beadle County, or which is in Beadle County, I should say. Mayor, tell me a little bit about just ... It's an incredibly stressful time and in a town like Huron, you know your neighbors, you know where you do business, you know who owns that business. How are people pulling together? What kind of stories are you hearing?
Paul Aylward: Well fortunately, the response that I've had from people in our community has been very positive about the actions that we've taken so far. It is a hardship. I think everyone understands it's a hardship. I believe that the majority of our people now are taking very seriously this disease that is spreading through our state and know that the actions we're taking are in order not to hurt people, but to save people's lives. I would like to add one other thing. There evidently is a rumor going around being spread on our state that our immigrant population, which we have a large number of immigrants that live in Beadle County are the cause of the spread of this virus. And talking to the South Dakota Department of Health, this rumor is completely untrue. There are no known cases of infection of that virus in our immigrant community at all. So I'd just like to dispel that rumor and hope that that is the end of the rumor.
Lori Walsh: Well said. Mark Johnson, do you want to add to this idea of, and I'm just going to ... hopefully, I won't have to interrupt you, but we are waiting for the Governor's press conference, so we may do that abruptly here in a moment. But until then, Mark, some of those stories that you're hearing about people reaching out to one another in Huron that give you hope that whatever's down the road for the state of South Dakota and the city of Huron, individually and collectively, that this is a community that knows how to get through difficult times.
Mark Johnson: It is, and superintendent Nebelsick could vouch for that as well. When it comes to yesterday, they delivered meals. There's individuals that stepped forward to make sure that meals were delivered to the kids that were out of school. There's a lot of business leaders that are working together to make sure that they can provide the services that they can with essentially not having public walk into their doors. I know Greater Huron Development and the Chamber have been working hard with their business owners and the public in general. If somebody needs something, they're stepping up and helping each other out while maintaining their social distance and following the CDC guidelines. Unfortunately, if you think about it, a winter storm, everybody comes together, helps each other out. Now we're just in the same type of situation that could last we're not even for sure how long. Everybody's been in good spirits and helping everybody out right now.
Lori Walsh: What kind of businesses do you have in Huron? What's the downtown like? What kind of community is it? Mark, do you want to start with that?
Mark Johnson: It's a diverse community, but it's small enough where everybody kind of knows their name and everybody's been receptive-
Lori Walsh: I'm going to jump in here, Mark, because the Governor is ready to take the podium. Thank you so much, Mayor and Superintendent and Mark Johnson. We appreciate your time.
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