Central Coast counties want to break away from Southern California stay-at-home region
Three Central Coast counties could separate from California’s Southern California stay-at-home region, a move they say would allow the area to “move forward safely” rather than continue to face harsh coronavirus restrictions.
San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties could jointly petition the state to form a Central Coast region under California’s regional stay-at-home order that would tie restrictions to their collective ICU capacity, rather than larger Southern California area as a whole.
According to a news release from Ventura County officials on Monday, the three counties will submit a unified request for a “smaller regional approach” if their ICU capacity exceeds the state’s 15% trigger in the next three weeks.
On Monday, Noozhawk reported that the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is set to consider sending a letter to the state urging the formation of the new region during its meeting Tuesday.
“We believe it’s reasonable to have the Central Coast as one region instead of including our County with over half the state’s population in the current Southern California Region,” Ventura County executive officer Mike Powers said in the release. “This is a critical time to work together to bring the numbers down, save lives and save businesses. Allowing our local tri-counties to meet the state’s metrics collectively provides a better opportunity for our Central Coast region to move forward safely.”
SLO County votes to endorse tri-county region
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to send a letter to the state endorsing the tri-county Central Coast region.
San Luis Obispo County Administrative Officer Wade Horton told The Tribune that the change “would not have a significant impact on Southern California’s ICU availability rates but is a way forward that would ensure the best outcomes for success for our communities.”
“Together, our three counties can mitigate COVID-19 in our Central Coast Region and maintain our ICU capacity at levels acceptable by the state,” he said.
Lynn Compton, chairwoman of the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, said on Tuesday she’s “skeptical that we will be allowed out of (the statewide order),” but it’s important for the board to try and help local families suffering due to job losses caused by the shutdown.
“I’m getting to the point where we keep asking permission for this stuff and we keep getting turned down,” Compton said. “We sent a letter, if I recall, back in March that the board unanimously agreed with asking the governor to look at hospitalizations. We set up the alternate care site. We’ve prepared.”
“And I’m not saying other counties didn’t prepare,” Compton continued. “But we have been penalized since we started, and it’s to the point where businesses can’t hang on much longer. They’ve sacrificed and sacrificed and they cannot hang on much longer, especially now that we’re saying another three weeks get through this. I’m beyond frustrated, too.”
Southern California, including San Luis Obispo County, went back under a stay-at-home order on Sunday after available ICU bed capacity for the region as a whole fell to 14.2% — below the 15% trigger set by the state last week.
At the time, local San Luis Obispo County officials said they were disappointed to be lumped into the Southern California region, which has seen far worse coronavirus impacts, and noted they intended to push for the state to reconsider the region’s boundaries.
“We are disappointed to be categorized in the Southern California region and continue to ask state officials to reconsider our regional assignment to better represent the local ICU capacity,” county Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein said in a news release Saturday.
Public Health officers join push for Central Coast region
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Borenstein said that she and the health officers and directors of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties sent their own letter to the state health officer asking to be considered part of the separate Central Coast region.
“There’s many ways in which this Central Coast region has been in place for a long time,” Borenstein said. “We are asking for consideration that that region be the one that would apply to our county with respect to our ICU bed availability.”
“Allowing this change will not have any significant impact to the rest of the (Southern California) region,” Borenstein added. “We are relatively small compared to the rest of the region, and we would be able to continue to monitor what’s going on in our county and work collaboratively and cooperatively with the state, but in a way that makes more sense for our county.
“As we not only have a high proportion of our beds available, we also, as you know, have an alternate care site that is available. We think that we’re in much better shape than other parts of the state, and especially the Southern California region.”
As of Tuesday, nearly 49% of the county’s ICU beds were available for use, according to state data.
In San Luis Obispo County, there are 53 intensive care unit beds and 369 hospital beds, 14 of which are occupied by coronavirus patients, according to ReadySLO.org.
Although San Luis Obispo County’s ICU availability isn’t considered low, Borenstein recently noted that local coronavirus cases are continuing to climb.
The county added 92 COVID-19 cases Tuesday, bring the total number of people who have locally tested positive for coronavirus since March to 6,965.
As of Tuesday, there were 912 active coronavirus cases in San Luis Obispo County.
This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 5:11 PM.
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