12 County Commission Chairs pen letter to Gov. Kemp urging him to shut down all State Parks

Twelve County Commission Chairmen throughout North Georgia have band together signing a letter to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, asking him to close all state parks.

The 12 counties represented in the letter include: Stephens, Habersham, Towns, Rabun, White, Franklin, Gilmer, Dade, Lumpkin, Fannin, Union, and Banks counties.

In the letter, the County Commissioners requests Kemp issues an Executive Order closing down all of the state parks located in North Georgia for the duration of the Statewide Shelter in Place order.

The letter explains that quote, “While we are blessed to live in such a beautiful and abundant area of Georgia that hosts so many wonderful state parks, our constituents are highly concerned about the increased traffic to our area during the Statewide Shelter in Place order. A significant portion of this increased traffic is coming from COVID-19 hot spots such as Atlanta or from areas outside our state,” end quote.

As public awareness of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased there has been a recent surge in visitors to our area.

Additionally, the letter points out that quote “our communities simply do not have enough hospital beds or medical personnel to care for the inflated population. Similarly, there is not enough food, dry goods, fuel and other supplies to adequately provide for the numbers we are experiencing,” end quote.

At this time, Kemp has not yet responded the letter.

WNEG News will continue to follow this story and bring you additional details as they become available.