Daviess County Fiscal Court addressed concerns they’d received regarding the cancellation of this year’s Halloween festivities during a Thursday meeting, and so far no decisions have been made on how to proceed.
While Judge-Executive Al Mattingly said he didn’t want to change the way the annual holiday’s events were held, he said they are currently awaiting guidance from the Green River District Health Department before making any announcements.
Commissioner Charlie Castlen said he recently received a concern from a resident about the possibility of changing or cancelling this year’s Halloween.
“I know we never do anything with Halloween. A lot of times people bring up the issue of Halloween, particularly if it falls on a Sunday night or something, and they want it changed. We don’t do anything with that — that’s our history,” Castlen said. “I got a text from somebody saying, ‘Please don’t cancel trick-or-treating this year.’”
To that, Mattingly said he was currently looking to the health department for guidance, adding that he’d already heard of other communities who’d announced their intention to hold Halloween as normal.
“I think we’ll have Halloween. I just don’t know if it will be the traditional type,” he said. “But I agree with them. It’s one of my favorite holidays. I don’t like to change it.”
But, Mattingly added that with roughly 1,200 positive cases of COVID-19 and 13 coronavirus-related deaths across the county, it was possible that something could change.
“I know that children can get it. The effect on a child would not be like it would be on someone [of older age],” he said. “You have a lot of little tikes running around in face masks that may be taking it door to door.”
Mattingly said he believed there was plenty of time left to make a decision about this year’s Halloween based on guidance from the health department.
