Tri-Cities started reopening Friday morning. Here’s what it will look like

For the first time since late March, Tri-City area residents can get their hair cut, dine at a restaurant outside and shop indoors at more stores without leaving town.

Benton and Franklin County advanced to Phase 1.5 of business reopening Friday morning.

Local and state leaders spent three weeks working on a mutually acceptable “Roadmap to Recovery” for Benton and Franklin counties to proceed to a limited reopening while taking steps to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Benton and Franklin county commissioners each approved the plan to move to Phase 1.5 early Thursday evening. State officials approved it shortly after the application was sent to them electronically.

“I think our community is willing and ready, and this modified Phase 1.5, I think, gives us all hope now that we can start to move forward,” said Jerome Delvin, a Benton County commissioner who joined an electronic news conference with Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday.

“And I know the business community is going to step up and our citizens are going to step up too,” he said.

Under the modified Phase 1, these activities are allowed:

▪ New construction projects may be started and non-essential manufacturing may resume.

▪ Restaurants can serve outdoor diners with a limit of 50% of their outdoor capacity.

▪ Customers can shop in retail stores not classified as essential for up to 30 minutes. Stores can allow people inside at up to 15% of their capacity.

▪ Barber shops, hair and nail salons and tattoo parlors can reopen at 25% capacity.

▪ Dog groomers can reopen at 25% capacity.

However, even small gatherings of nonhousehold groups will continue to be banned, with the exception of counseling or other behavioral health groups of five or fewer people.

Reopening requirements

Under the Roadmap to Recovery, businesses will have to take a couple of steps before they reopen.

They will be required to sign a pledge developed by the Tri-Cities Open and Safe Coalition — which includes local health and business organizations — saying they will follow all COVID-19 guidance from the Benton Franklin Health District.

That includes encouraging social distancing by customers, requiring face coverings, increased disinfecting, and employee education on practices to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus.

They also must develop a COVID-19 safety plan for protection against the coronavirus, with a communication plan and list of managers and supervisors who will be monitor worker health and enforce the safety plan.

A template businesses can fill out in English or Spanish is posted on the Benton Franklin Health District website.

The safety plan must be posted at the front of the business were customers can read it and also must submitted to Benton and Franklin counties before businesses reopen.

The plans can be emailed or left in drop boxes at the Franklin County Courthouse or a drop box being installed at the health district office in Kennewick as soon as Friday.

Email Benton County plans to covidplan@co.benton.wa.us and Franklin County plans to covid-19businesssafetyplans@co.franklin.wa.us.

The counties just have to have the plans on file, but do not need to approve them before businesses can reopen.

Businesses also must post signs saying cloth face coverings are required for customers and employees.

COVID cases high

The two counties had previously applied to move to Phase 2, with the Washington state Department of Health putting that application on pause.

But the governor was persuaded to work with Benton and Franklin counties to move forward with reopening after meeting in the Tri-Cities on Tuesday with business owners and organizations, city and county government leaders, and public health and hospital leaders.

Benton and Franklin counties do not meet targets set by the state Department of Health as guidelines to consider for reopening.

Among key concerns is far too many new cases of COVID-19.

On Wednesday, the health district announced a new daily high, 215 COVID-19 cases, although counts were just a fraction of that on Tuesday and Thursday.

The target is no more than 74 new cases for the two counties combined over two weeks.

But the governor and John Wiesman, state health secretary, heard on Tuesday from Tri-City-area officials, that people were crossing county lines to shop, get their hair cut and eat restaurant meals in towns that had reopened.

By allowing a small amount of additional activity to occur in the Tri-Cities area, the Department of Health hopes to stop the spread of coronavirus from Benton and Franklin counties to other counties, it said.

The Tri-City Development Council also told the governor on Tuesday that by requiring businesses to restart under the terms of the Tri-Cities Open and Safe pledge, safer practices could be encouraged.

The result could be both lower numbers of new cases and also economic recovery for small businesses that have been closed for months, said Karl Dye, TRIDEC president.

Tri-Cities Open and Safe Coalition includes TRIDEC, the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce, Visit Tri-Cities, the Historic Downtown Kennewick Partnership and the local health district.

Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties all have had high case counts and are the only three in the state remaining in Phase 1 of reopening on Thursday. Yakima County also advanced to Phase 1.5 on Friday.

New mask requirement

The Phase 1.5 approval for the three local counties comes as all other applications in the state to advance to new phases have been paused for two weeks.

Inslee said he was concerned about increases of new cases across the state in recent weeks.

He also said he was signing an order requiring businesses to refuse service to most customers not wearing masks starting Tuesday. There are some exceptions, such as for children under 5 and people with certain health issues who should not wear masks.

The pause in additional reopening approvals will allow some time to see if the new mask order helps contain the spread of the coronavirus, Wiesman said.

The health officer for Benton and Franklin counties already has issued a similar order that takes effect Monday in the Tri-Cities area.

However, the state order will be enforced by the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries with fines and the threat of business closures.

“This is not an optional plan, but a legal requirement,” Inslee said.

He said the “Mask Up — Open Up” campaign should help the state fully open up its economy.

“We are very happy that we have a very effective, inexpensive and essentially universally available tool that we can put to work in the state of WA, and that is face coverings, masks,” said Inslee.

“It’s not a high-tech solution, it’s just a piece of cloth, and it’s available to all of us,” he said.

Under the plan to move to Phase 1.5, local officials will conduct weekly surveys of customers at local stores to make sure they are wearing masks inside businesses.

An initial survey done June 20-25 by the local health district found that 53% of shoppers leaving 15 grocery stores in the two counties had masks.

City and county employee volunteers, with the guidance of public health officials, have just completed another survey that found 90% of shoppers were wearing masks, Delvin said.

Disagreement over plan

The Roadmap to Recovery and the Benton and Franklin applications to move to Phase 1.5 needed approval from county commissioners, both at a Thursday health district board meeting and then at county commission meetings.

Franklin County Commissioner Clint Didier was the lone commissioner to vote against the measures, saying he could not agree with the conditions set in the Roadmap to Recovery.

“Masks do not do any good,” he said.

COVID is not the pandemic that is claimed, nor is there a crisis at this point, he said.

The Roadmap to Recovery grants a “tyrannical” governor more power, he said.

He does not think businesses should be restricted to reopening at reduced capacity, when businesses such as Walmart and Lowes do not have the same restrictions, he said.

Franklin County Commissioner Brad Peck said it was not a perfect roadmap, but needed to be approved to get businesses reopened as soon as possible.

Wearing a mask is a small task and inconvenience to be able to save others and businesses, said Benton County Commissioner Shon Small.

“Hopefully, people will comply so we can get much closer to Phase 2,” Small said at the Benton County meeting.

This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 4:18 PM.