Taking care of each other: a thread. I am a public library Director. That means I am a member of municipal government. I am on our towns #COVIDー19 task force (through no small exercise of my will, everyone always forgets the library) bit this isn’t a thread about me 1/
...this is a thread about what is happening behind the scenes in all of your communities to help keep you all safe. The task force (TF) is made up of exactly who you think it is, plus a lot of people you don’t: the mayor, vice mayor, superintendent of schools, police chief /2
...the superintendent of schools, library director, supervisor of public buildings, the health commissioner, school health director, school building director, library building director, director of ambulance services, and the emergency management director. 3/
...All of these folks have AT LEAST 3 or 4 people on call back at their departments, waiting for instructions. The Rec director is trying to manage the pool, the rink, the parks and all the attendant risks that come with those crowded public spaces. The procurement agent is 4/
...desperately trying to get hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes, bleach, paper towels, toilet paper, hand soap, and masks for the emergency triage center, because guess what? It’s not just you, they can’t get any of those things either. 5/
...on Monday we started at 7 am and went until 9 pm. Tuesday, 7a-10:30p, yesterday 7a-9:30p. We have been at it since 7 this morning. We are deciding whether to close schools or keep them open, whether to cancel sports, music lessons, after care, ether to close the library /6
...or just cancel programming, whether to close the pool, how to communicate those decisions, to whom each decision should be relayed and when. How will kids in free and reduced lunch eat. Who will help our patrons who are experiencing homelessness during the cold days if we /7
...aren’t here. People with no internet or television? How will they be informed? ALL of these decisions are really hard and, here comes the taking care of each other part, NO MATTER WHAT WE DECIDE a ton of people are gonna be SUPER PISSED. Schools open? We don’t care enough. /8
...schools closed? WHY ARE YOU CONTRIBUTING TO THE PANIC?!?! So listen: you pay our salaries so we will come to your town every day and make your community a great place to live. Please let us do our jobs. I’m begging you. We have literally hundreds of years of professional /9
...experience between us. We are not receiving any support or direction from the federal government. There is no attendant aid that would normally come if a federal state of emergency were declared. We are doing this alone. We are trying to make smart, informed, data driven 10/
...decisions to keep you and the people you love safe. We don’t want baked goods or thank you tweets. We want, and desperately need, you to stop aerial emailing you demanding that we change decisions. We want you to stop rage tweeting and shitposting about how we are wrong 11/
...lazy, unorganized, insensitive and on and on and on. We are doing the best we can for you, while we also try to take care of our staffs who are still on the front lines serving you and who are very freaked out, and our own families in our own towns with their own decision 12/
...making team. Things are going to be inconvenient. People are dying. Please just do the best you can to suck it up so we can keep you safe. That’s it. That’s the thread. /fin
