Rodefer: Localism is Determinism
I want to be able to continue supporting our Governor and his policies.
Having said that, here’s what I’d like to see from our Governor:
Side-by-side briefing charts during your daily press conferences.
On the left cases and deaths associated with COVID-19.
On the right cases of permanent business closures, personal depression, runaway children and suicides associated with COVID-19.
Here’s what I’d like to see from our Governor:
Live up to his oft-stated mantra of “Localism is Determinism”
A 12-page document listing criteria and conditions for accelerating through Stage 2 is not “high level guidance” it is micromanagement.
Telling local jurisdictions what essential and non-essential businesses are is not “high level guidance” it is micromanagement.
Here’s what I’d like to see from our Governor:
Remember every day that you spoke these words, “Counties have a right” several times and let us exercise our “Right”!
Do what you promise and make good on what you say.
Here’s what I’d like to see from our Governor:
Trust us to have the best interests of our residents at heart and let us manage our own jurisdictions.
Provide us the information we need to make good decisions.
Give us the tools we need to manage and fight this disease without destroying our people’s livelihoods.
Provide the same respect for local jurisdictional differences that you rightly demand from the Federal Government for States’ differences.
And finally, here’s what I’d like to see from our Governor:
Recognize that rural California bears very little resemblance to urban California; that what may be necessary in urban California is not always necessary in rural California and is, in fact, often counter-productive.
That rural outdoor recreation is, of itself, physically distancing.
That much of rural lifestyle is, of itself, physically distancing.
That if you are not going to enforce your nonessential travel ban on urban and suburban residents travelling to rural California, that people are going to come here anyway – and by the way, they are.
That penalizing rural business owners by keeping them shutdown in hopes of deterring the unlawful travel of urban and suburban residents is ludicrous, unconscionable, and totally ineffective.
That refusing to allow rural business owners to open up their facilities in the face of the onslaught of urban visitors doesn’t send those visitors home, it merely concentrates them into less area and denies them services they need so they just do their business in our forests and meadows and park their cars and deposit their trash on the sides of our roads endangering lives and desecrating our environment.
Let me restate my opening statement, I want to be able to support our Governor.
Governor Newsom, I ask you, empower us and support us, the locally elected officials, so that we can support you and help you be successful in mitigating the spread and lethality of this disease while also minimizing the social and financial damages in rural California counties.
