­CITIES: Acted unconstitutionally

In the name of safety, our current city administration has ordered the closure of public places such as restaurants without any cause other than political correctness. I had hoped that North Idaho leadership (Hayden in particular) was exempt from political pressure from neighbor cities to get on the bandwagon with respect to the coronavirus.

At this writing, there were 10 known cases of the virus in the county of more than 150,000 people. Our city leadership has chosen to deprive people of their businesses and the right to peacefully assemble.

The First Amendment of our Constitution does not grant the power to local authorities to tell us when and where we assemble peacefully. We also have a due process clause protecting property rights. Countries where such an order is available to leaders are called police states.

We do not have an emergency in this city or county just because a few people have become sick. Our country has an annual death rate by motor vehicles of more than 40,000, but I have not heard or seen anyone shutting down the highways because someone might have a fatal accident. I expect that the death rate in accidents in this county exceeds the number of persons who have a virus that they can heal from at home.

The mayors of the country should withdraw their unconstitutional orders of closures of any business at this time. Some will say that we should deprive people of their ability to earn a living as a means of preventing a spread of a virus. Then we should shut down the highways to prevent accidents that surely may happen as the likelihood of death therefrom is much greater than the present virus causing deaths.

KONRAD LARSON

Hayden