Task Force backs supervisors on reopening, but not everyone agrees
Business and government leaders in Imperial Valley signed a letter Friday addressed to Gov. Gavin Newsom in support of the county Board of Supervisors’ own letter on Wednesday requesting that he allow the state to advance into Expanded Stage 2 of its recovery plan and to allow counties to determine when it is safe to open businesses.
Friday’s letter of support, which was authored by the Imperial Valley Business Recovery Task Force, echoes a key argument presented in the supervisors’ letter.
“As you know, Imperial County is a unique border community, and our geographic location makes it extremely difficult to meet current reopening guidelines,” the Task Force said.
“Not only does Imperial County border Mexicali, Mexico, a Baja California city of more than 1 million residents, but we also border the state of Arizona -- a state that has opened up all businesses. We are virtually in a no-win situation for our small county to meet the Roadmap to Resilience metric guidelines or qualify for variances as set forth by the state of California.”
The letter calls upon the governor to allow counties to make determinations regarding reopening. “(O)ur county’s unique geographic position is a good example of why a one-size-fits-all state guideline for emerging out of the pandemic can be unjust,” it said.
The task force also told the governor that its “message has been that every individual and business must be accountable to follow COVID-19 health guidelines.”
The letter was signed by the cities of Calipatria, Brawley, El Centro, Imperial, Holtville, and Calexico as well as chambers of commerce from Westmorland, Brawley, El Centro and Imperial. Other signers were Imperial County Farm Bureau, Imperial Valley Economic Development Corp., the Imperial County Workforce Development Board, and the Small Business Development Center.
The pandemic is having disastrous effects on the economy at virtually every level, and many business owners have said they won’t last much longer unless the restrictions keeping them closed are lifted.
The key metric holding Imperial County back from reaching the expanded phase of Stage 2 in the recovery plan is its failure to achieve an average of less than 8 percent positive tests over a seven-day period. As of Saturday, the county’s percentage stood at 22.6 percent.
Not everyone in the community is satisfied with the idea of reopening the economy while the county is still experiencing a surge in cases. A petition has been circulating on Facebook requesting that the governor hold the county to the same public health standards as the rest of the state.
The origin of the petition, which was directed at Newsom, Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia and state Sen. Ben Hueso, wasn’t clear, but it had collected 770 signatures as of Saturday evening.
The petition objected to a quote attributed to Supervisor Ryan Kelley, in which he said, “We are still seeing the rise (in COVID-19 cases). We are going to be living with this for quite a while. We have to learn to live with it.”
“While COVID will be around for the next few months, we refuse to ‘learn to live with’ the highest rate of infection in the state,” the petition said. “Reopening must happen only when it is safe to do so, or else we are accepting unnecessary deaths in our community.
“We call on the Board of Supervisors to make their top priority advocating for community resources to get our infection rate down, and expanded economic relief and relief awareness for workers and businesses. We call on Governor Gavin Newsom, State Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, and State Senator Ben Hueso, to uphold the state’s public health guidelines and deny the Supervisors’ request to exempt the county from public health metrics. Instead, we call for a focus on providing the Imperial County with resources, relief, and education to control the outbreak.”
As of Saturday, there had been 2,568 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Imperial County. Of those, 975 were considered still active, and 33 patients had died.