This letter was emailed to Gov. Kate Brown. It is printed at the writer’s request.

I credit Aundria Johnson of Seaside for the seed that became this letter.

On May 2, a small restaurant in Gearhart  closed forever. If you’re interested the name of the establishment was Pacific Way Cafe. It had been in business for 32 years. Again, if you are at all interested you can read about it in the Seaside Signal.

Gearhart is in Clatsop County. Clatsop County has a population of nearly 40,000 Oregonians. There have been seven cases of the coronavirus with no deaths. Yet they were closed down with the rest of Oregon.

When you extended our lockdown to July, did you know this? Did you care?

This did not need to happen. It is your job to know these things and to care about them. There are hundreds of stories across rural Oregon just like this one.

President Trump gave you the benefit of the doubt; feeling, wrongly in the final analysis, that you were up to the job. You could have followed suit and gathered up your county leadership and devised a plan for each county that responded to conditions in their county.

Yes, that would have meant more work, a lot more work. It would have also taken imagination and leadership.

Glenn McGrady

Cornelius