KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
The City of Santa Clarita is looking to petition Los Angeles County for the right to follow the less-restrictive state guidelines in light of a potential extension of the “Safer at Home” order, officials said Wednesday.
Santa Clarita Mayor Cameron Smyth announced the City’s intention to petition the county for a waiver to let Santa Clarita to choose to operate under less restrictive state guideline, which would allow for a potential regional reopening plan were the City to ally itself with other “North County” cities such as Lancaster and Palmdale.
Currently, Santa Clarita falls under the jurisdiction of the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
Local governments, such as Los Angeles County, are able to set more restrictive measures than the state of California, but not less restrictive.
This petition would call for the City of Santa Clarita to follow the state guidelines, and not the more restrictive County measures.
The plan comes in response to several factors, but one of the most glaring is the fact that the City of Santa Clarita currently accounts for only 1.6 percent of the total confirmed cases in Los Angeles County, according to Smyth.
“I see overwhelmingly members are following the guidelines of social distancing of wearing facial coverings when visiting essential businesses, people are following the rules,” said Smyth. “Over the last two months in Santa Clarita, the numbers have shown that our efforts in Santa Clarita have paid off, but the reality is it hasn’t been without a cost.”
One reason for opposing the extension of the “Safer at Home” order is the loss of revenue by businesses located in Santa Clarita. It was reported that Santa Clarita is in the top 20 cities with the highest unemployment growth in the country, and the third most impacted in the state.
See Related: Santa Clarita City Council Votes To Formally Oppose L.A. County’s ‘Safer At Home’ Extension
During Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Santa Clarita leaders unanimously voted to send a letter formally opposing Los Angeles County’s potential extension to the “Safer at Home” order, which Smyth stated he hoped to send before the official announcement of the extension on May 15.
The council approved a letter to be sent to officials with L.A. County Public Health and County Supervisors regarding the differences between the greater county and Santa Clarita, especially in light of the fact that Los Angeles County was likely to extend the “Safer at Home” order until at least July, up to two-and-a-half months after the currently planned end of the stay-at-home health order on May 15.
On Tuesday, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health spoke about a possible extension of the “Safer at Home” order until July.
“Dr. Ferrer indicated that there would be a health officer order in place over the next few months while we gradually relax the order,” reads a statement from Public Health. “During this time, we will still move forward with our efforts to ease restrictions aligned with appropriate public health safety protocols. Changes to the order will be continuously considered after reviewing the data every three to four weeks during this time.”
Smyth expects further information on Wednesday, but noted that extending the lockdown order for another two and a half months “will continue to ravage the economy of not only Santa Clarita or Los Angeles County, but California as a whole.”
To Smyth’s knowledge, the City of Santa Clarita is the first city in L.A. County to formally oppose the potential extension of the “Safer at Home” order for another 75 days. However, he noted that although a waiver could be allowed to instead follow state guidelines, Smyth cautioned that this did not mean that the community could automatically reopen to pre-COVID-19 circumstances.
“To not provide a roadmap, a guideline for community’s businesses to plan for how they can reopen and protect their employees, protect their customers, and in the City’s case continue to properly provide services to our community is just untenable,” said Smyth. “And quite frankly, based on the numbers here in Santa Clarita are difficult to justify.”
The letter is set to urge Los Angeles County to provide “tangible, attainable benchmarks” for residents, businesses and local governments to aim for in order to begin the reopening process. In addition to the letter, the City also plans to petition Los Angeles County for a waiver to allow the City of Santa Clarita to follow less-restrictive state guidelines, rather than the County.
“I believe very quickly Los Angeles County and others are going to be in a position where their order is in conflict with the state, and that’s going to put communities like Santa Clarita… in a difficult position, because you’re going to have the state outlining a set of orders and… Los Angeles has another set of orders and it’s going to force people to make a decision on whether or not they are going to be following state law, but then being in conflict with the county law and could be subjecting themselves to some type of enforcement.”
The waiver would allow the City of Santa Clarita to allow the city council to determine in a public hearing, at a public vote, whether the City would follow state or county guidelines.
“We are going to ask for a waiver, if you will, to give the City of Santa Clarita that flexibility given our data, our ability to handle any capacity issues that are local at our local hospital and our continued steady and low numbers of cases,” said Smyth.
Smyth mentioned that the City Council had reached out to other nearby cities to discuss developing a regional approach to reopening the three communities. The “North County” cities of Santa Clarita, Palmdale and Lancaster comprise a population of roughly 600,000 people, making that region one of the top 20 most populous areas in the state, larger than several independent counties in terms of population, according to Smyth.
Smyth shared that the Council felt that there was an opportunity in terms of working alongside the other cities in the region, as California Governor Gavin Newsom has allowed similar variances for counties with similar populations to the proposed region.
“So we feel that it makes perfect sense, that if the governor is allowing these variances for counties, why not allow a similar variance for local cities that have a population that can meet those same standards?”
The City of Santa Clarita has an established relationship with Lancaster and Palmdale in terms of several northern Los Angeles County specific projects, including transportation. Potential solutions to the current issue include establishing a new health department for the northern Los Angeles County cities, however these options are still under consideration.
City officials understand that the scope of Los Angeles County, with a population of well over 10 million people and the largest county in the nation encompassing 88 different cities, is not going to have a perfect one-size-fits-all-solution.
“We have regions from the beaches to the mountains to the deserts. So it’s hard to say that the entire County of Los Angeles should be treated the same way,” Smyth said. “So we’re going to look to partner and create a regional approach to how we can safely and productively look to reopen our communities.”
A Santa Clarita-specific plan, Smyth stated, would still involve baseline safety protocols that have been set by the state of California, noting that businesses under the purview of the state must follow state guidelines.
“We want our community open, but we need to do it within the parameters of the law so that we can continue the progress and open safely and as quickly as possible,” said Smyth.
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The public seems to be doing good with the mask policy with the exception of a few brainwashed by YouTube individuals, our city workers and sheriff’s department. We can not open everything up and undo the stay at home orders unless a strict mask policy for everyone in public places and at work are in place no exceptions, so that goes for our city workers and sheriff’s department as well. Santa Clarita is doing
good don’t let your guard down yet people, over 60
people died in the Last 24 hours in LA county.
Thankfully the City of Santa Clarita falls under the jurisdiction of LA County Department of Public Health. Since this virus is of no political or religious persuasion nor does it respect geographical boundaries we must remain vigilant as the case numbers continue rising.
Back in school we had the dreaded”stair monitors” If they saw you skip a step they would make you go back and take them over; an annoying inconvenience. Skipping steps in the miidst of this pandemic, while inconvenient can be and is deadly as well. We still do not have adequate testing. We do not have an antidote. We do not have a vaccine. We do not have responsible leadership from Washington. The president wants employment numbers up to boost his dwindling reelection chances regardless of the cost in human lives.
We must, at our own inconvenience, stay down longer or go back, many lost lives later, and start over. The federal government must help it’s people financially weather this storm as it would, regardless of cost, in one of our unnecessary wars. This IS necessary. Let’s listen to medical experts and let them through their knowledge advise our path forward.
Agreed the President loves to Pat himself on the back but with such hateful leftists media out there I can see why. We looked to the advice of our so called experts and they failed us from the start with their misleading statements about the importance of face coverings. They told us all to stay home but if you look at Walmart,target,homedepot and looking Lowe’s nobody is staying home anyway so you might as well lift those orders. yes Our infection rate and deaths are only going up but at least now the experts see their f up on face masks and require everyone to wear some sort of face covering out there better late than never I suppose.
Denny.
You must understand that medical experts are only concerned with containment absent the cost to society. This is not simply a binary choice absent consequence. When you say “Federal Government must”, replace it with “Taxpayer must”. If people (taxpayers) are not working, they are not generating revenue which the Feds take a portion of in taxes. It is not a free lunch to keep people home and the Feds print money. People at risk should stay isolated and their close circle should respect their isolation. The vast majority of cases are within a known age and health risk profile. Public policy has to weigh the cost of a zero-tolerance policy like that being advocated as it does not exist anywhere else in society. We make these choices all the time which is why we let people drink, smoke, take druges, drive and all other activities that result in deaths every year, some at a far higher rate than we are talking about here. As the economy crumbles, it creates a new set of conditions that drive a higher mortality rate that has to be weighed against the norm.
Your theory about deaths by drugs alcohol etc is a bit different than someone giving you a potentially deadly virus. Also don’t really care about the suicidal people and wife beaters that’s more of a mental issue ,those people should seek help. But agree on you with the nothing is free aspect we should open up everything with strict mask policies before we get stuck with more taxes in the end by the Democrats.
Congressman Mike Garcia
I have a project for you
I have lived in Santa Clarita since 1967. We are unique in several ways
1 we live in the very liberal state of California
2. We are a conservative mostly Republican city .
3. Our City Council voted unanimously to declare us as a NON SANCTUARY city
4. In the last General election I believe we were the victim of vote harvesting resulting in election of the liberal.
5. Our City Council is asking our LA County to have mercy on us and open us up
Please as as one of your first projects convince our county supervisors that we have more in common with the cities and area of northern LA County
Speak for yourself; SCV is just like any insular, primarily White community that views itself as special. We are NOT. Prior to this pandemic, people were constantly complaining about the rise in criminal activity, that is still a reality. We have an increasing rate of drug/alcohol abuse among our younger population; last year Saugus High School suffered a tragic but all too familiar school shooting, homelessness is on the rise, and affordable housing is non-existent. The only thing SCV is to a lot of us who have lived here for 40+ years is a distorted sense of “uniqueness.”
Smoke a bone and just stay home!
Loosening restrictions and thinking we are different is ridiculous.There are over 800 cases out here. 50 new a day lately. My daughters work in restaurants. The thought of people being abke to go into those terrifies me. You can’t wear a mask when you eat. A mask is designed to protect the public from the wearer. Anothers person’s mask is not desigbed to protect them from a person not wearing a mask. They have to work. I don’t want them to be exposed in that environment and bring it home to others in my family with health issues. Not too mention, they are showing a lot of serious conditions even in young people and long lasting possibly permanent effects. I find is selfish that people want to endanger my family just to go out and eat, etc. Not too mention, like someone else said, even if people are wearing masks, half aren’t covering their nose, many aren’t at all and are really putting others in jeopardy. We need to wait at least until there are treatments that are proven even if that’s not a vaccine just yet. We need to do this in a way that doesn’t cause a huge increase in infections. 50 new cases a day with a stay at home order in place is too many. Imagine when it’s lifted.
Doctors don’t wear the masks to protect the patients. It works both ways think about it it’s only common sense yes CDC failed us all with their misleading information about masks
Thank you Santa Clarita City Council! Personally I believe many of us had Covid-19 before anyone even knew it was a new virus. I also think staying home for another 3 months is unreasonable and untenable. Older folks like me are probably retired so can stay home if they feel the need to but bankrupting healthy people, delaying children’s education and social development, and demanding that those who have developed immunity remain isolated is insane. If you are afraid whatever your age then stay home but do not impose your fears on others. For the jerk who wished Bob Kellar dead people like you are the problem not part of the solution. I think the City Council is correct in opposing more months of MANDATORY isolation. Many of us are ready to return to living a normal life and cherish our freedom to exercise our RIGHT to free expression, to congregate peacefully, and to pursue happiness. Many folks kept working and are still working so why is it ok to have some folks able to earn a living while preventing others from doing the same. They take precautions so have other folks take precautions too, but let them work to support their families and keep their businesses from going under. My rights do not end where your paranoia begins, stay home if you want but stop demanding that I/we give up our way of life to pacify your fears. Bye the way, Dr. Ferrer making these decisions for LA County Health Department is not even a medical doctor!
It seems they are starting to see alot of side effects from this virus after you heal from it. Alot of middle aged people are getting blood clots and organ failure. also a few kids are getting some toxic shock syndrome and organ failure resembling the Kawasaki disease a few kids died already from it. There is alot we don’t know about this virus yet and what it does to our bodies once we beat the influenza part of it.
With about 0.0035% death rate (if it’s even that–the death coding has been overly broad) here in SCV, this lock down is unnecessary. We need to open up, not only for our economy, but for our health. We need the sun, fresh air, and exercise. Staying indoors prolongs the symptoms for the elderly and those with other health issues. We also need herd immunity.
Your allowed to go out exercise and get fresh air. Where have you been? Sweden it testing the herd immunity theory for us so far they have a higher death rate per capita than we do but say they are willing to sacrifice their elders for their experiment. Americans don’t sacrifice their own
One death is too many and we are now at (7) considering our population and the amount of cases we are not doing too badly. I can tell driving around it’s depressing seeing all the grand shopping centers vacant, it’s like an apocalypse out here and it’s NOT Necessary. As a 55 year old high risk individual, I have common sense and can make adult decisions of when to stay in and when to go out. I shop later in the evenings to avoid the crowds, wear my face covering, take my own Clorox wipes, have my hand disinfectant, washing my hands & NO Face touching. I MAKE the hard Decisions thankfully I live alone so I
can’t pass on anything. IF people can work at Walmart, CVS, Target, & Petsmart then why can’t we open up other places using precautions necessary? I certainly think it’s attainable as long as we’re ALL following safety guidelines. Let’s do this people need to feed their families and pay their bills!!