Name: Coronado's mayor publicly criticizes county health orders
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Coronado's mayor publicly criticizes county health orders

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Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement Coronado’s mayor has become a vocal critic of San Diego County’s public health orders, calling them “arbitrary” and an “abuse of power that infringes on basic civil liberties.”Over the weekend, Mayor Richard Bailey and, during an interview at the same television station, said the county’s heath orders “really erode the public’s trust and we need the public’s trust more than ever.”In addition to the public criticism, Bailey, through his campaign committee, created a petition titled The prompt asks respondents to “Please submit the petition below to identify which, if any, recreational activities should be allowed.”Bailey’s main critiques of the health orders is that they seem arbitrary because officials have not given the public a thorough explanation of why some activities are banned while other are not.“One of the points I’m really trying to drive home is why is boating in the bay more of a public health risk than walking or running on the sidewalk,” he said. “I’d encourage you to ask that to the County health officials because I haven’t been able to get an answer.”AdvertisementThe op-ed and petition came during a weekend that saw two mass demonstrations against the public health orders. In each protest, hundreds of people ignored social distancing guidelines and many failed to wear face masks in public.Protestors in downtown San Diego carried signs that read, “Reopen California,” while demanding that businesses, parks and schools reopen. In Encinitas, some partisan demonstrators carried Trump 2020 flags and focused on beaches and trails.Monday afternoon San Diego County officials asked for patience as they began laying out a framework of what key measures health experts would like to see before starting to lift some of the restrictions.Specifically, county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said the county needs to see a sustained downward trend of at least 14 days in the number of hospitalizations and COVID-19 infections.Before starting to open things back up, the county also needs to increase its testing capacity and develop the ability to better track sick people and those the sick come into contact with.Fletcher said there also needs to be a clear strategy for reinstating restrictions in the event that COVID-19 cases surge after some elements of the health order are lifted.Supervisor Greg Cox, whose district includes Coronado, respectfully disagreed with Bailey’s criticisms.“Mayor Bailey is a good friend of mine, he’s a good mayor for the city of Coronado but I guess I disagree with him to a point,” he said.Cox asked the public for patience now that officials are starting to see a downtrend in infections. He also stressed the importance of a regional approach to the crisis, saying that the worst thing that could happen is if one city opened its beaches while everyone else kept them closed.Coronado and Oceanside were the last two cities in the county to close public beaches.In Coronado’s case, the city first removed play equipment, volleyball nets, and fire pits to discourage the public from congregating in the beach.But, when all of the other beaches were closed, city leaders feared people from San Diego would turn their attention to Coronado’s beaches.“As the weather started turning nicer and all of the other beaches were closing there was concern that since we were the only beach south of Oceanside that we’d be attracting more crowds than we could handle and that wasn’t fair to the community,” Bailey said.Like Cox, Bailey supported the idea of one regional approach.With that goal in mind, Supervisor Fletcher said the county is relying on coastal mayors to come together and come up with a plan. Once the mayors agree on how they want to reopen the beaches, the county will move forward.Currently, not all mayors are in agreement over the specifics of their plan, Fletcher added.Bailey, who has participated in those discussions, said the mayors have been focused on consideration for adequate enforcement and talked about potential restrictions like opening beaches only for certain hours or days of the week.“At this point, everything is on the table to give the public back access to these public spaces,” he said.The mayor of Coronado said he started the “Re-opening San Diego County” petition to give people a voice on the matter.Although the website that links to the petition was paid for by the Richard Bailey for Mayor 2020 campaign committee, Bailey said neither the website nor petition are campaign related.“No emails obtained from this petition will be used for campaigning,” he added. 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Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement Coronado’s mayor has become a vocal critic of San Diego County’s public health orders, calling them “arbitrary” and an “abuse of power that infringes on basic civil liberties.”Over the weekend, Mayor Richard Bailey and, during an interview at the same television station, said the county’s heath orders “really erode the public’s trust and we need the public’s trust more than ever.”In addition to the public criticism, Bailey, through his campaign committee, created a petition titled The prompt asks respondents to...

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Gustavo Solis

The San Diego Union-Tribune, the region's leading news source since 1868. Follow our journalists, too: http://j.mp/UTstaff

Coronado's mayor publicly criticizes county health orders

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