Some California cities push back against governor's coronavirus stay-home orders

Gov. Gavin Newsom has said it’s too soon to lift the state’s stay-at-home order, doubling down on that commitment Thursday and calling for the “hard close” of all Orange County beaches.

But local governments from Southern California to the Oregon border were preparing to stage acts of resistance Friday, fed up with six weeks of restrictions that have curbed their movements in an effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

The Orange County beach closure was intended to avert a repeat of last weekend, when thousands flocked to sandy stretches that had been opened, even as shorelines in neighboring Los Angeles County remained closed.

“Specific issues on some of those beaches have raised alarm bells,” Newsom said Thursday. “People that are congregating there, that weren’t practicing physical distancing, that may go back to their community outside of Orange County and may not even know that they contracted the disease and now they put other people at risk, put our hospital system at risk.”

The governor said the beaches would be reopened soon if the situation in Orange County improves.

But that didn’t satisfy county leaders and officials in some coastal communities, who argue they should decide on shore restrictions based on local conditions.

The Huntington Beach City Council voted Thursday night during an emergency session to seek an injunction against Newsom’s order.

“We are both concerned and disappointed with the actions taken today by Gov. Newsom and the state of California,” Mayor Lyn Semeta said in a statement.

The city, she said, had worked to discourage overcrowding at the beaches and to keep them safe so residents “can experience physical and mental health benefits from accessing the Pacific Ocean.”

“Our experience here locally,” she said, “has been that most people are being responsible and complying with social distancing, and given that Orange County has among the lowest per-capita COVID-19 death rates in California, the state’s action today seems to prioritize politics over data.”

Orange County had reported 2,393 cases of COVID-19 and 45 related deaths, as of Thursday. The number of people in hospitals who are infected with the virus continues to tick upward, reaching 190, with 63 of them in intensive care units.

Other cities were also weighing their legal options when it came to Newsom’s beach-closure order.

San Clemente Mayor Pro Tem Laura Ferguson said Thursday that she reached out to the city manager and city attorney Wednesday night after she heard about the proposed order, suggesting they review what legal authority the governor had to close city beaches.

“I’m hoping the governor can cite some valid reason under case law to be doing this to cities because, in my opinion, it appears to be government overreach. Local beaches are under the control of the cities, not the state,” she said.

The Newport Beach City Council planned to hold a special meeting over the weekend to discuss the possibility of challenging the directive.

Meanwhile, smaller communities across the state that have seen little impact from the virus have been lobbying Newsom to allow them to ease stay-at-home restrictions.

The governor so far has refused, saying conditions are too risky. But one Northern California county appears to be moving ahead anyway.

Modoc County planned to allow all businesses, schools and churches to reopen starting Friday, as long as people stay six feet apart, according to a statement signed by the county health officer, sheriff-coroner, chair of the Board of Supervisors and other county officials.

“The health and safety of Modoc County residents is and continues to be our number one priority. This reopening plan was made in the best interest of residents’ physical, mental and economic health,” the statement said.

The county is one of the least-populated in the state, with fewer than 9,000 residents, and one of only four in California that have not reported a single case of coronavirus infection.

It’s unclear whether the reopening will result in a legal showdown between Modoc County and Newsom, whose statewide stay-at-home order supersedes local laws.

Newsom said Thursday that he was aware of Modoc’s announced intentions but did not know details of the county’s plan. However, he said California’s stay-at-home order “overlays all the orders in the state.”

“You can go further and be more prescriptive and restrictive, but when you loosen up and you loosen beyond … then it’s in conflict, and therein becomes the challenge,” he said.

“Let me just make this as crystal clear as possible: Nothing would please me more than pleasing those local elected officials and to help them help all of us move through this pandemic, but we’re not out of the woods,” he said.

He pointed to examples of other countries that saw a resurgence of the coronavirus after relaxing some of their restrictions.

“Look what happened in Japan. Look what happened in Singapore. Look what happened in China,” he said. “When you pull back too quickly, you literally put people’s lives at risk. People are literally dying because of decisions that were done without a real frame of focus on public health first, and so that’s what ultimately guides our decisions.”

When it comes to matters of public health, the state has wide powers to enact regulations and restrictions, according to Julie Nice, a constitutional law professor at the University of San Francisco.

Counties and other local governments “may enforce health and safety and sanitation rules,” she said, “so long as they do not conflict with the state’s general law.”

That doesn’t seem to be the case with what Modoc County has proposed, she said Friday.

“From everything I can tell from the governor’s orders and what the county has said it plans to do, it appears to directly conflict with state law,” she said. “And I think, as a matter of governmental power, the county’s likely to lose against the state.”

If such a conflict exists, the county could conceivably argue that the state’s rules are unreasonable, but Nice said that would likely be an uphill battle.

“Just thinking logically, a contagious infection does not respect county boundaries,” she said. “And so I would be very surprised if any court would find the state’s statewide rules to be unreasonable, because that’s a very low bar.”

Should Newsom decide to intervene, Nice said the governor could negotiate directly with county officials to hammer out a resolution or, barring that, the state could turn to the courts to block the reopening plan.

“The general police power of a state, and particularly when it’s applied in the public health context, puts the courts in a position of really being extremely reluctant to second-guess the judgment calls of the scientific experts,” she said.

Not all local governments are seeking to overturn stay-at-home regulations. Fresno Mayor Lee Brand announced Friday that the city’s local order is now in effect through the end of the month — but it has been modified so some businesses can reopen.

“Even though we’ve extended our stay-in-place order to May 31, we will still monitor our situation daily and, as indicators move in the right direction, we will make further and perhaps more dramatic modifications to our order to get our economy back on track and to get people back to work,” he said in a video message.

Brand said he appreciates “the sacrifices that our residents and business owners have made during these challenging and uncertain times.”

“We are still navigating uncharted waters,” he said. “I believe we have a safe and sensible process to rebuild our economy, get back to work and start restoring our normal lives.”

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