Chamber CEO disheartened by COVID ruling

By Terry Murry on Thursday, April 29th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

PENDLETON – Umatilla County returns to the high risk category for COVID-19 tomorrow (Friday) as Gov. Kate Brown changes her mind and does not give counties the two-week warning period as cases of the novel coronavirus spread.

“That isn’t sitting well with most folks,” Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Cheri Rosenberg said. “Letters are being shot out right and left.”

She said that Oregon Business and Industry has had long conversations with the governor’s office trying to determine where things stand, especially since Brown had said she intended to open the economy up by June 15.

“We’re not getting a lot of positive feedback coming back,” she said. “It’s sort of, ‘This is what we’re doing. Deal with it.’ It’s really disheartening.”

Rosenberg called for the state to release new metrics to give people an idea of what they need to accomplish. An example of that would be the percentage of the population that should be vaccinated.