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Governor Wolf: Are You Listening? |
| Rep. Bud Cook sent the following open letter to Governor Tom Wolf: |
Dear Governor Wolf,
As the state representative of the 49th Legislative District, in Fayette and Washington counties (The Mon Valley), I am reaching out to you again to urge you to let the citizens of Pennsylvania SAFELY get back to work so that our economy can begin working again.
The current approach you have taken to restrict more businesses in the Commonwealth has further hurt our economy along with the damage COVID-19 has caused. There are many responsible small businesses that can safely return to work to help us bring our Commonwealth back. From the sole proprietor to the small family-owned businesses, if given the chance, they can get their jobs done again SAFELY, without jeopardizing the safety of the community. We have to trust Pennsylvania business owners to keep their employees, customers and communities safe. We have to trust “We the People!”
Your choice to continue to ignore the other two equal branches of government is both troubling and alarming to the citizens of this Commonwealth, the people who elected us, our bosses. Your “plan,” or lack thereof, has caused more than 1.3 million Pennsylvania citizens to lose their jobs within the last month. This has forced the people’s branch of government, the House and Senate, to move legislation such as Senate Bill 613 and House Bill 1189 that attempts to protect our volunteer emergency responders.
Senate Bill 613, as amended, would direct you to allow safe and essential businesses to open by using federal standards that closely correlate with what other states have implemented.
House Bill 1189 would require health care facilities to provide the Department of Health (DOH) electronically with certain demographic data within three days of diagnosis. DOH will then be required to publish publicly accessible reports with extensive case statistics broken down by ZIP code. The bill also extends benefits for an employee subject to Act 193 of 1935, commonly referred to as the Enforcement Officer Disability Benefits Law or the Heart & Lung Act, who contracts or is diagnosed with, or is in quarantine due to exposure to, the novel coronavirus identified in the Proclamation of Disaster Emergency.
To say, "by doing nothing, we are doing something” is not the message that our Commonwealth wants to hear, nor should it be our motto going forward to deal with our current challenge and our next challenge starting our economy. Our residents need strong leadership that shows our government is working together to provide the people of Pennsylvania a realistic, responsible and reliant direction during this crisis. The message you are creating is certainly not a plan that people are going to get behind, nor does it fix our economy!
Governor, I urge you to listen and have faith in the people of Pennsylvania, instead of being led by other governors from other states that have much different constituency than our Commonwealth.
I hope you take the time to reflect on the important points I have made and think of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I believe now is the time to make prompt decisions to protect and better the Commonwealth.
Sincerely,
49th Legislative District
Bud Cook
State Representative
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| Office Locations |
| Belle Vernon, 10 Main St. Belle Vernon, Pa 15012 (724) 929-2660 / California, 130 Woodland Court, Brownsville, Pa 15417 (724) 938-5355 |
| B-15 Main Capitol, PO Box 202049, Harrisburg PA 17120-2049 | (717) 783-8655 / 3-8655 |
| Email Address: BCook@pahousegop.com |
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