The following transcript has been edited to allow for easier reading. The full video is available on the Ledger’s Facebook page.
JJ: Hello and welcome Facebook fans. My name is JJ Francais and I’m the associate publisher of Southwest Ledger, right here in Lawton, Oklahoma. I’m joined today via video conference with Mayor Stan Booker. Stan, I wanted you and all our Face- book fans to be the first to hear that we’re moving to Lawton.
MB: Okay!
JJ: Our new offices are at 606 S.W. D Avenue, right here in Lawton, Oklahoma.
MB: Alright!
JJ: We’re coming up just about a month from our one year anniversary and our hope is to have our offices open by then.
MB: Alright, well I hope you get that done too.
JJ: And, as you can imagine, COVID has kind of messed with everybody’s office plans.
MB: It’s messed with everything.
JJ: That’s the best way of putting it. It’s changed about everything we do, right?
MB: It has. It’s changed us, temporarily. We have to be focusing on how we get back to the normal we know, and we’re going to get there. It’s just going to take a little time.
JJ: You know, I don’t think I’ve heard anybody say, ‘the normal we know.” But I think the post-COVID normal is different than the pre-normal COVID. I talked to one employer the other day and they converted 96% of their 4,000 employees to remote work. I wonder do all 4,000 of them go back to the office? Further if they decide to hire new people or expand their office, do they go out and build another building, or do they think “hey, remote worked for this department.” So, I don’t think we ever get back to a pre-COVID normal. What about you?
MB: Well, I think it has changed. And when we think about our day-to-day lives, you bring up a good point that’s got to be a very big concern for companies and the way the world’s going to change. If we learn today that we can work from home and just be as efficient as we were before, it certainly will change the pattern we do business. I personally think some sanitary standards are going to stay. I think it’s going to be a long time before people take down sneeze guards.
JJ: That’s interesting. You go to Ace Hardware, Lowe’s just about anywhere and they put those sneeze guards up and you’ve got to ask yourself, “Now that they’re up, is there any reason to take them down?”
MB: I agree with ya. And I think this is going to be on our mind. I heard a doctor on TV say that we’ve affected the flu for the next, he said four seasons. I don’t know if he’s just guessing or what, but my point is: we’ve all become aware of social distancing and how to keep from getting even the flu.
JJ: I’m a shop local guy and always have been. But the other day my kid really want- ed some Raisin’ Canes and they had this sneeze guard up across probably 80% of the drive-thru window. And it just made me really think, “okay, when do we take that sneeze guard down and is there really a reason to?” You know I’ve been a reporter for a while and I’ve covered a couple of stories where people have actually thrown food back through the drive-thru window, “you know, that’s a perfect fix for that now.”
MB: Yea. You know, now see that’s not required by the city of Lawton. We are the strictest in the state in many regards and sneeze guards are not one of the requirements. Now, drive-thru windows aren’t required to have them, but we encourage them to wear a mask.
I get emails every day asking me to make masks mandatory. And drive-thru/ curbside is one of those places where people want them mandatory.
JJ: We got a question the other day, a Facebook message, “why is Mayor Booker shutting down drive-thru windows?” My response was, “he’s not. Come to find out, it was one restaurant who said, hey, we just don’t want to handle cash right now. They’re just trying to limit their interactions.
MB: I heard this story. You had to order online and pay online, but you could still pick it up through the drive-thru. But they were eliminating cash. I remember that story. A lot of companies are making their own decisions to close. Let me give you for instance: Kohl’s said they will not reopen at this time.
The governor has added clothing to the essential business list. But Dillard’s has said, ‘for safety sake, we’re not opening.’ This is one reason we see the curve flattening is because so many people are social distancing, working from home and these types of things.
JJ: I don’t know if everybody understands that businesses are going to make their own calls and be more restrictive or less restrictive- whatever works for them, because they don’t want their employees sick; they don’t want their customers sick. You know, I imagine the average business is weighing 10 different options here.
MB: You’re right. They’re weighing options as well. And I even talked to one restauranteur – the governor had said that at some point, maybe restaurants open up at 50%. He’s like, “well, I can’t afford to open at 50%. If I close, I know how much I’m losing. If I open up 50%, it’s going to be hard to break even.
But what we learned is any time we have a conversation – this is hard for me to get, because a lot of times I think out loud, and people think I’m saying this is going to happen. When I’m not, I’m just talking out loud and having a conversation. I think the governor runs into that too, when he says, “Maybe restaurants will open up at 50%.” He’s just got an idea. He’s putting’ together a task force of restaurateurs and the restaurant industry to come up with a plan.
JJ: You know, I talked to David Foxx at Ted’s Café, and I’m sure you’ve eaten there plenty of times. Ted’s has a plan of their own. If the government says “Open,” he still has some safeguards that he’s going to put in place. And we’re running an article in [this Ledger] about it, detailing some of the things he’s suggested. But, he said, no condiments where everybody touches the same bottle of ketchup. He said that way it’s you and your server touching it, not 20 different customers touching the same product.
MB: So, that’s one reason that the industries that you’re building these new rules for- whether they’re temporary or permanent- it’s one reason that they need to be involved.
When we went to the car dealerships and said, “Look, we’re getting’ complaints, and so you guys help us make some guidelines.” They came up with more than we would’ve come up with. Why? Because they know their industry.
JJ: – They know their industry. You know, I had done some research and formulated some thoughts before I called some of the restaurants. And I thought, “Man, I’ve got quite a few ideas.” I called David and he had so many more ideas that I had never thought of, you know, communal silverware he said, “you got get rid of them,” and I’m like, “wow! okay, that’s” you know. It was eye-opening, but the thing is, he’s lived
his business, next year is Ted’s 30th anniversary, and he’s been there from the beginning.
So, one of the biggest complaints we keep hearing is that city, state and federal guidelines have continued to change. You know, a government entity makes the decision, and then, walks it back or, you know, puts an amendment out there and the company has got to sit there and reinterpret it and the company gets confused. I’m curious how confident you are and I know you can’t speak to the state and federal, but locally, how confident you are that we can stay consistent going forward.
MB: So, I think consistency improves as we go forward.
But I was looking at the national plan for rolling out in stages. That kind of consistency going forward and stepping back if we have a resurgence. But here’s what I’m confident of: there will be course corrections along the way. There will be mistakes made. This is a little bit like life. We go through life when we learn some- thing’s not working or we try something new, or we make a decision and there are some unintended consequences. It’s what happens in everyday life and it’s the way we learn. I said the other day at the council meeting and I’m pretty sure everybody has prayed for wisdom. But then we find out that wisdom has a process. And that process is, you make a decision, you see what you didn’t take care of or what the unintended consequences or whatever, and you walk it back. Let me give you a for instance: The council voted to –out of concern – for Texans flooding our lakes and then our citizens wouldn’t have any room, because Texas had closed their state parks. So, they decided no fishing or hunting or boating on the lakes. Okay?
Well, you get to realizing that’s the wrong answer because you’re trying to get people to do things to help their mental health. And so, you have to make the change and say, “Okay, the intent was this, and then we opened it back up to Comanche County residents.” So those course corrections are going to happen. In that I’m confident. Course corrections will happen. Will there be misunderstandings? Yes! But so far, we haven’t arrested anybody for misunderstanding.
JJ: What do you think are some of your greatest hurdles or some of the greatest hurdles facing the City of Lawton as this reopen process begins?
MB: Well, you’ve got people that are on both ends of this spectrum. And some in the middle. You got some people who just want to open everything up and let it happen. Well we see what happens when you do that, it’s not pretty. We got other people on the other end who want to stay locked down. Now, they’re saying this thing will last 12-18 months before they get a vaccine.
What they’ve said we need to do is flatten the curve. And when we flatten the curve, we stretch it out. The curve is not so much about less people getting it, it’s about them getting it spread out over a period of time, so we have enough ventilators and hospital beds for them. Okay?
By the way, just so you know, we have seven people in the hospital today who are COVID positive. So, it’s not insurmountable. Between our two hospitals locally, Comanche County and Southwestern, we can handle about 55 ventilator patients. So, we’re in pretty good shape here and one of the points is... the challenge is people are thinking. We’re not going to get to zero. We’re not going to stop people from getting COVID. It’s not going to happen. Our goal shouldn’t be zero. It should be to stay where the healthcare system can take care of it. And to me, the biggest challenge is getting people to understand. Here’s another challenge.
I’ve talked to very few people who look at the data and try to see what the data is saying. Almost everybody I’ve talked to is looking for data that supports what they believe. If they believe you should open up, they listen to certain data and certain experts. By the way, you know the experts are the ones you want to believe. Then if they want to keep that lockdown, they listen to different experts and look at different data.
Our job as leaders, not just on the city level, on the state and national level, is to look at data and interpret it without personal mindset involved and just see “What is it I’m seeing here?” What does it mean?” How do we adjust to move forward – to navigate through this uncharted territory?
JJ: So, let me ask you a follow-up question on the hospital. We’ve got some counties around us that don’t have hospitals. Do you know if we would be their primary hospital?
MB: You have to believe that we would. Now, here’s something I do know: Southwestern sent one to Oklahoma City that had COVID.
There’s a possibility that some of them wouldn’t. But, largely, we’re going to be the medical center for southwest Oklahoma.
JJ: Right. I mean there’s other hospitals in southwest Oklahoma, but they don’t have the capacity and strength that the other hospitals do.
MB: Can I talk about our medical care here in Comanche County?
JJ: Yes, sir. Certainly.
MB: Because I’m so proud. It was just 30 days ago that we had 24 ventilators. Today we’re up to about 55. Something in that range. They’ve taken what they call ‘transport ventilators’ and they made them and got them approved if we get in a bind. So, the other things is, we were one of the first places in the state to test. I really think we were the first with drive-thru testing. And so, when you look at that chart, I post- ed the other day, it shows a surge, but that surge was because we were testing more.
Today we’re testing over 40 a day and we’re still one of the biggest testing sites in the state. And I think there are over 50 sites in the state now
Oh, by the way, not only that, this Dr. Scott Michener, I really appreciate what he’s doing with the Oklahoma Blood Institute and Dr. Boats- man., Boatsman’s a local doctor and one of the founders of the Oklahoma Blood Institute. They are getting plasma from people that have had COVID, that have been cured for two weeks I think that’s the way it works. And then we’re going to start doing plasma therapy right here in Lawton, under a Mayo Clinic trial. So that’s pretty neat.
JJ: I know that you’re elected by the citizens of Lawton. Your job is to protect the citizens of Lawton. But you have to have a regional approach to everything because you’ve got a painting behind you with the Wichita Mountains. Any day you go to Mount Scott, you don’t see people just from Lawton. Mount Scott’s draws people frankly, all over the country.
But, right now you go up there and you see people from Texas and Oklahoma City it’s kind of the melting pot of Oklahoma right there. I know Lawton will be looked for for medical care for southwest Oklahoma. What your thoughts are on that front.
MB: Well, you’re right. And it’s important that southwest Oklahoma sticks together and work together on not just this, but everything. And we have good relationships with everybody. We stay in contact with them. Everyone’s got my cellphone number in southwest Oklahoma the leaders of southwest Oklahoma. They can find out how to get a hold of me and we can work together on these things. Especially the mayors have good contacts and work together. I’m not going to say every city we have contact, because some of them don’t show up to the meetings. But the ones who show up and want to have a relationship, we have a relationship with them. And I think southwest Oklahoma works good together.
You know, so many people in southwest Oklahoma work at Fort Sill or Goodyear or the industries right here in Comanche County.
JJ: You know, one of the reasons the Ledger was started was so we could be a conduit and be a link for the people in Duncan, Altus, and Lawton. And try to bridge those communities to have stronger ties between them. You’ve got people like Matt Feil at, you know, FASTSIGNS, has a business in Lawton and lives in Duncan. And there is a lot of crossover, but we asked, “can we function stronger as a region?”
Our publishers thought so and so we, you know, started a paper to strengthen the bond between those three communities. And it seems like now more than ever, we need a united front for southwest Oklahoma.
MB: So, I do think we have a united front. It doesn’t mean we agree on everything, but we’re working forward through this together. And I think everybody in southwest Oklahoma is having good results. And we’re flattening that curve because we’ve gotten ahead of the curve. And the citizens have responded with social distancing, and really that is what’s flattening the curve.
JJ: You know, what’s interesting is everybody looked to President Trump and the federal government, and wanted, you know, some national solution. A lot of people wanted Stitt to have a broader solution. The mayors, like yourself and Jack Smiley, have stepped up and said, we’ll lead.
The solution for Altus and the solution for Lawton looked different, according to each of you. And so, I don’t think it’s a one-size-fits-all solution.
MB: I think that’s probably right. We’re doing things a little bit different, but at the same time, we’re on the same page. Both have good results and that’s the name of the game. Protect our citizens, flatten that curve.
JJ: Can you tell us what you’re doing? I guess for your personal responsibility, how you’re protecting yourself and your family?
MB: So, most of my time is spent at the house. I go to city hall to sign papers. And when I’m there, I wear a mask. I want to protect other people. That’s what the mask does. It protects the other person. Right? So, I don’t just go to city hall and sit. I don’t go around. I do walk around with my mask and wave to the workers through the windows, just to let them know I’m still thinking’ about them. So, mainly, what I’m doing is staying at the house, doing lots of Zoom meetings.
JJ: You mentioned city hall, let me ask you a little bit about this: Have you seen any advisories or recommendations for when city hall could reopen for foot traffic?
MB: Well, as of yet, we haven’t really talked about that. And you know, just in the last few days, the governor has gotten pretty aggressive about talking about opening back up in stages. And he’s talking about getting industry groups together and coming up with plans for each industry group.
He told pastors today, he wants to have some kind of church services on May 3. I don’t know what that looks like because he told me on the phone Monday, that he wanted to keep the seniors at home a little while longer because 80% of our deaths are 65 or over.
Obviously, if we can keep the 65-year-olds at home a little while longer, we can protect more life. And then the federal government came out with a staged plan. I think that something that’s interesting about the staged plan is something that we all knew had to be in there because we see the as we socially distance, we spread that curve out over a longer period of time. I’m hearing peaks as late as July now.
We’re in this for the long haul.
But one of the things they said was we’re going to have to be ready to back up if it gets out of control. What does that mean to us locally? We have to keep doing business the way we’re doing. Open up slowly. I’m talking about city hall. We’re limiting traffic. We need to keep paying outside if we can instead of coming in. There’s no sense in coming in if you don’t have to. It’s something we have to work through as we go forward. At this point, we don’t know what the next step is or when it is, I should say.
JJ: Do you believe the city council, or the government needs to play a role in protecting the most vulnerable among us?
MB: Listen, I’m a small government guy, okay? And I don’t like the role I’m in. But I’m in it. So, I’m going to do it. My job is to protect life. But I also have other obligations and there are other things to protect besides just the COVID measurements. We have mental health issues. And when you take a person’s paycheck away from them, you add to the mental health stresses. So, there are other things we have to consider besides COVID deaths and the COVID sicknesses.
We do things to protect life every day. By the way, none of it is at zero risk. If we were looking at zero risk, we’d never let you go get in your car. There’s not zero risk when you get in your car. But it’s a risk level that we’ve accepted. And the COVID deal is not zero risk. It’s how do we manage the risk, so we don’t overload the healthcare system. Oklahomans and Lawtonians have responded well and we’re flattening this curve.
JJ: So, it’s no secret that you were and, in fact, still are a successful business owner. What do you say to the businesses that have either had to close or lay off a substantial portion of their employees?
MB: The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life is sign an order that closed businesses and took people’s livelihoods away from them. The choice in front of me was life or livelihoods. And across the country, mayors and governors and the president chose livelihoods to try to save as much life as possible so we didn’t get in a bind like Italy or New York. Those things are hard. And thank goodness the government has stepped in in a big way to help what they can. But it’s changed every business. There may be a few businesses that are doing better, but they’re a small minority. Every other business is having to invent new ways to move forward. It’s got to be our goal to find safe ways to open back up. Safe and smart. Be strict. You know, I’m thinking sneeze guards are here to stay, for instance and sanitation measures. And I think it’s going to be the way we do business. So, here’s what I say: I hate that we’re where we are. Let’s find creative ways to move forward and be safe. I think the governor is going to come up with some good plans and we need to take those and implement those so we can get back open in stages as we move forward.
JJ: In closing, what do you think the average Lawtonian can do to help in the restart/ reopening of our economy?
MB: Wow! That’s a great question. Let me tell you what’s going to be important for the next 12-18 months the one thing that has to happen. If we lose this one thing, it’s the one thing that if we lose, we will lose this battle. And we’ll have to tighten back down.
And that one thing is personal responsibility, The government cannot force these things to happen. The people have to respond in a positive way. So far, the people have responded in a positive way.
And we’ve got to stay diligent. We can’t go back to business as usual. We’ve got to stay diligent. Stay calm. Stay positive. And stay home. And that’s not going to change.
JJ: So, you know, one thing I’d like to say, is, and I know I’ve said this a dozen times. Similar to the country song, I was a shop local boy before they had their hashtag. And so, when we reopen our restaurants, we reopen our economy, I hope people will, you know, shop local. I always tell people, newspapers are a lot like main street, our offices are on main street. And Lawton may not have a main street, but we have a mayor who cares about the small businesses and mom-and-pop shops. But newspapers and main streets, they both rely on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs who take a love for their city and turn it into an investment in their community. You know, It’s one thing to wear the ‘I Love Lawton’ pin, but that means you’ve got shop local.
MB: You know, that’s exactly right. And I’m the kind of guy who’ll go drive to two or three places before I decide to buy online. Because I want to buy local. And we’ve got do that. We’ve got try that. And I got tell ya, I’d rather trade with a local person than a chain. I’d rather trade locally than online. We’re all going to buy something online that we can’t find. And, probably, right now we’re buying things we wouldn’t normally. But when we get out of this, we have to support each other. Listen, we can get through this together. It’s the only way. And I remain confident in our future if we stay together.
JJ: Is there anything you’d like to add?
MB: I want to repeat that “personal responsibility.” The wearing the mask is about protecting the other person. I want to drive home this point, that when I spoke to the governor on Monday, he brought it up twice. He’s passionate about our most vulnerable and our senior citizens staying home and limiting their exposure, even more than the rest. So, remember, you have to have personal responsibility. So, I’m going to say it in closing. Stay calm. Stay positive. And stay home.