Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender says he’s disappointed with lack of communication from the state Department of Health.
That comes after the state conducted mass testing at the Avantara St. Cloud nursing home facility in Rapid City, without his knowledge.
Since last week, Pennington County has over 100 new COVID-19 cases, half of which came from that facility. That’s more than 1 in 8 total cases the county has had since the pandemic reached South Dakota.
Allender says the mass testing event was occurring while he held a press conference last week. He says he would have relayed that information to the Rapid City community.
“In a situation like this I think communication is obviously important for the transferring of factual information from to the other,” Allender says. “That’s obvious—should be obcvious. The thing in public service I think is more important—or just as important—is the ability to inform your constituency so that they keep confidence that you’re not hiding something. So they keep confidence that if there’s something they need to know you’re going to be the one to tell them.”
Allender says he will discontinue weekly press conferences because he says he’s only providing delayed or inaccurate information. He says the city no longer has access to timely and relevant information from the state.
State Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rhysdon says she’ very disappointed to see Mayor Allender attacking her and the department of health team. She says the general public needs information about potential exposure to the virus as soon as it’s available. She says the department is committed to getting it to the public.
