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The following is an AI Generated transcript of Commissioner Miller's remarks:

State of Emergency Meeting: Avian Influenza Impact on Mercer County Economy

Yesterday, the Mercer County Commissioners declared a state of emergency due to the ongoing outbreaks of the high-path avian influenza. As everyone pretty much knows, I mean, our largest economy here in Mercer County is our agricultural, and this is a disaster for poultry producers here in Mercer County. We work closely with Darke County. It's having a large impact on that county as well. So we passed this resolution yesterday, and it's going to get passed along to the Ohio Department of Agriculture and hopes that our producers can get any assistance that they need or more assistance.

As we know, this is going to have a long-reach impact on our county. The poultry industry impacts so many of our other businesses. I mean, we've got our feed producers. We've got the people that haul the feed. We've got the grain that's part of the feed. You know, it's impacting our hardware stores, our electrical contractors. I mean, it just has a far reach because our poultry industry is so large here in Mercer County. So this declaration was passed by the commissioners to try to help these guys weather this. Because this is, like I said, going to have a large impact on all of us.