Chester City steps up website with a coronavirus link

With God as my witness, I was on the phone last night with a guy venting about the City of Chester’s website. For the life of me, I can’t understand why parking meter rates is still on the home page and there’s nothing on the city’s coronavirus guidance and leadership for this community. I even heard they’re still issuing parking tickets. I hope that’s not true.
Before I was going to finally write a blog post about their horrible website, they have added a banner on the top the page ‘Click Here for all coronavirus updates.’
I clicked, and there’s not much there coming directly from city officials, but they wisely are tapping into Delaware County content which is great and should be shared. Also, there is an extensive list of resources from the Center for Disease Control and the PA Health Department.
As I vented last night on the phone, we came up with what we’d expect to see on the City of Chester website home page that is specific to Chester residents:

• Where to find food
• Where to get tested if you’re sick
• Simple explanation of the city’s State of Emergency
• School district updates
• Police policy during the crisis period
• Shut-off policies from utilities
• A link to Chester Matters Blog who is dedicating all coverage to ‘Covid-19 While Black’
• A direct message from the mayor letting us know he’s still in town and cares about us since we haven’t heard a thing from him up to this point.

If you’ve never connected to the City of Chester website, this is the time to do so. If you don’t have internet access or a smart phone, I don’t know what their alternative methods to communicate coronavirus updates to you.
How Chester manages the coronavirus will be so different and so much more difficult than other communities around here. We have a large portion of our population under the poverty line. We have a large number of senior citizens living on top of each other in 7-senior living facilities. We have a larger than average population of people existing with chronic illnesses, many of them respiratory in nature. And we’re mostly Black which usually means we’re not going to be on the top of the list of help and resources when the Hunger Games get real.
We need to be over-communicated to at this point. We’re going to get hit hard. I need to see a lot more out of city government.

The squeaky wheel get’s the test kits.

Is Livia Smith, Director of Chester’s Health Services, banging on the doors of Delaware County council begging them to make sure they include Chester in coronavirus testing? Radnor is testing people in the street with coronavirus test kits and Chester hasn’t taken a single temperature.
City government, this is your time to shine. The ball is in your court. Show us what you got. As you all are so prone to say, ‘We can do better.’ The time for talk is over. Do better now. This is a life or death situation for many of us around here.
Step up NOW!