SLO County prepares for local control to ease shelter-at-home orders
San Luis Obispo County officials will send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom sharing their plans to gradually relax the shelter-at-home order, which would pave the way for some local businesses to reopen.
County Public Health Officer Penny Borenstein is developing a plan to slowly roll back the order that’s been in place for more than a month to slow the spread of the coronavirus. That plan wouldn’t go into effect until the governor lifts his order, giving counties more local control. The letter expresses support for Newsom’s plans for transition and encourages collaboration.
“Our next steps are really focused on ‘How do we get our community back to some semblance of normal? How do we get our workers back in the workforce?’” Borenstein said at a virtual Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday morning.
“We’ve been working aggressively on a very short timeline to develop a framework for doing just that.”
The health officer first issued a shelter-at-home order March 18 to slow community spread of COVID-19 to prevent local healthcare facilities from being overwhelmed. Since then, Borenstein has said the community effectively flattened the curve. As of April 28, the county confirmed 173 cases of COVID-19 and one death.
The county also erected an alternate care site at Cal Poly that could expand in capacity to provide care to more than 900 COVID-19 patients, if necessary.
Meanwhile, more around 19,000 workers in the county have applied for unemployment benefits as hundreds of businesses were forced to shutter, some of which might never reopen. And, more residents are seeking assistance for food and help covering the cost of rent and bills.
Plan will be released this week
Retail establishments, manufacturers, offices that can’t operate remotely and public spaces will be the in the first wave of workplaces to be allowed to reopen statewide in California, but the state isn’t yet ready to make that move, Newsom said Tuesday. First, he said, the state has to increase testing and hospital capacity.
Details of which county businesses might be allowed to open first under local guidelines are not yet available. The proposed draft framework will be released publicly on Friday, and the county will accept public input.
That doesn’t mean it will be determined by public vote. Rather, the guidelines will come in the form of a revised public order issued by Borenstein.
“We will not be going back to business as usual,” Borenstein said. Instead, residents will continue to see marks on store floors to encourage social distancing and lines outside to limit the number of people allowed in at once.
Borenstein did provide insight into how the county will decide whether to progress will rolling back shelter orders. Any sustained increase in the daily number of confirmed cases or concerning trends in transmission of the virus, for example, may result in the county again tightening social distancing requirements.
It could look like two steps forward, one step back, Borenstein said.
This doesn’t mean the county will be welcoming back tourists yet. Emergency Services Director Wade Horton made that clear Tuesday, saying: “It is not the time to come to San Luis Obispo County to recreate at this point.”
The framework for reopening is under review by a committee that includes supervisors Lynn Compton and Bruce Gibson, and mayors of Grover Beach and Atascadero, Jeff Lee and Heather Moreno.
In addition, around 250 people representing 20 different sectors reviewed parts of the framework to provide insight on potential impacts or unintended consequences, Horton said.
County officials are looking to the governor to make changes before adjusting local guidelines. Supervisors on Tuesday approved a cover letter to be sent to Newsom with the county’s proposed framework.
It says the board endorses the state’s “Roadmap to Modify the Stay-At-Home Order,” released April 14, and appreciates the view that, “localism is determinative.”
SLO County has allowed some businesses to reopen
For now, without the state having relaxed its order, the county has already allowed some businesses to reopen within existing law.
“We are a very rural county. We are not like L.A. or San Francisco, or some of the more populated counties,” said Supervisor Lynn Compton, chairwoman of the board. “(We are) asking the governor to look at us differently and don’t throw us in with all other counties, and look at every county and see if they are prepared.”
Still, she said, “We’re not saying open right this second. We’re being responsible.”
Public response to the plan is mixed and the issue is divisive, if comments made Tuesday are representative of wider opinion. The Board of Supervisors heard more than a dozen public comments via recorded voicemails or live call-ins at Tuesday’s meeting.
While one woman said, “I think y’all are crazy” for considering reopening, another said, “there is no reason for keeping us locked down,” and described the shelter-at-home order as government overreach.
The board meets again May 5.
Correction: This story was updated April 29 to correct the intent and language of the letter sent by SLO County to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 2:04 PM.
