Items stolen from dune company facility
A ladder and an undisclosed quantity of gasoline were reported stolen from the Dune Company of Imperial Valley facility on East Young Road, county Sheriff’s Office activity logs stated.
No time frame was provided for when the theft occurred. A reporting party notified Imperial County Sheriff’s Office of the incident at 9 a.m. Tuesday. A deputy filed a crime report shortly after.
—Vincent Osuna, vosuna@ivpressonline.com
“Imperial Unified is looking at the requirements for the waiver that just came out,” Imperial School Superintendent Bryan Thomason said on Tuesday. “We will be in contact with Imperial County Health officials to discuss options. Of course student and staff safety is the priority.”
Local teachers think reopening the schools now is too soon. “I don’t believe our county is anywhere close to being deemed safe enough to consider the use of waivers for students to return back to school,” said Cross Elementary teacher Heather Caldwell.
Other teachers and an El Centro principal called it “interesting news.” Teachers in El Centro have been told school will resume online, but have yet to receive that in writing.
Other organizations in the county are also watching to see what happens.
At Tuesday’s Imperial Irrigation District meeting General Manager Henry Martinez told the directors there would be a significant impact to the district with distance learning since it would require some employees to stay home with their younger children. Gov. Gavin Newsom more than a month ago ordered all kindergarten to 12th grade-schools in counties, like Imperial, that are on the watch list to remain closed.
According to the California Department of Public Health’s website, counties under this order would have had to be off the watch list for two weeks before allowing districts to reopen.
Imperial County’s COVID numbers have shown significant improvement recently. Newsom announced on Monday during a virtual press conference that Imperial County’s positivity rate decreased from 30.3 percent to
11.2 percent after successful targeted local and state interventions.
The governor even went so far as to dub the county’s intervention strategy the “Imperial Model,” which he said will be used in other parts of California to identify local needs and “flood the zone with resources.” He said that similar to the approach implemented in Imperial County, an advanced focus and allocation of resources will be placed on areas with essential workplaces and workers, heightened culturally competent messaging about COVID-19 will be deployed through a public awareness and education campaign, and, as necessary, closures will take place. Overall, California’s positivity rate decreased by 7 percent; hospitalizations went down by 10 percent, and intensive care admissions also dropped by 5 percent during the past two weeks, Newsom said. Last month, the state’s positive case rate was 37 percent; the hospitalization rate at 56 percent, and ICU admissions were at 49 percent over a two-week period.
“We are extremely proud of our progress and have deep gratitude to everyone in Imperial County as well as the Governor’s Office who supported our efforts to stop the spread,” said Luis A. Plancarte, chairman of the board and District 2 supervisor. “Everyone must continue to do their part to protect themselves and their neighbors from COVID-19 by wearing a mask in public, staying 6 feet away from others, washing your hands often and staying home if sick.” “It does feel as though things have improved,” county Health Officer Munday added. “However, we should remain cautiously optimistic at this point. If the data continues to show improvements over the next few weeks, then at that point we will be able to make a confident decision about moving forward.”