BOISE, Idaho — Mountain Home Mayor Rich Sykes is backtracking the statements that he made during a 76 minute long Facebook Live video.
In that Facebook Live, he threatened to shut the City of Mountain Home down if people didn't start following Gov. Brad Little's stay at home order more seriously and stop socializing in stores and buying what he considers non-essential goods, like lottery tickets or makeup products.
"If everyone continues to horse around and go to this store or that store, I'm going to shut everything down and that means restaurants, coffee shops, everything," he said in the first Facebook Live video. "Monday, I'm going to put his ordinance into place and that will be closing the city services all down if people continue to pow wow and hang out at stores and other places."
In a statement he read during another Facebook Live, Mayor Sykes apologized for his original video and that he was just speaking out of frustration with people not taking the stay at home order seriously.
"None of the measures I suggested are set forth in stone and many of them may never take place," he said. "I was speaking from a place of frustration and concern for the citizens of Mountain Home. My frustration with a number of people in town who are not taking this coronavirus threat seriously, and at times I was spitballing ideas on the fly."
Mayor Sykes added that "when you do a question and answer Facebook Live posting, that's what you're doing, you're trying to think of ideas on the fly and that's what I was doing."
He continued saying that he should have waited to share his ideas about shutting the city down until after he was able to speak with local officials and experts.
"In no way am I implying that I should take acts unilaterally to impose tighter restrictions on business or individual movements," Sykes said. "These decisions would all require input from experts and leaders at all levels."
Mayor Sykes and the Mountain Home City Council will meet on Monday at 10 a.m. to discuss where the city goes from here.
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