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COVID-19 For Grown-Ups: Who Did And Didn't Decide What's On This List Of What Is/Isn't Re-Opening in Long Beach?


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(May 8, 2020, 2:30 p.m.) -- LBREPORT.com provides a list of places and things the City of Long Beach now allows or will allow or still doesn't allow under COVID-19 conditions. For retail reopenings, here. For recreational activities, click here.

But decided this? There's been no City Council voted action approving the specifics of LB's "stay at home/business closure" orders or the specifics of the now-allowed partial reopenings. Non-elected city management, through the actions of city management's City Health Officer, Dr. Anissa Davis, MD, issued the "safer at home" / business closure orders. She did so under authority granted by voted actions of the City Council to address the COVID-19 emergency as well as certain authority she has on public health matters under certain state laws. .

Mayor Robert Garcia has no legal authority to modify city management's "safer at home" order and business closure orders. He has no policy setting vote. He visibly announces Cotu actions at City media briefings (and often uses the pronoun "we" that creates an impression that he made announced decisions) but legally the Mayor simply doesn't have legal authority to do so. That said, one may speculate on the extent to which in the real world this Mayor and these incumbents Councilmembers may press city management to allow or not allow reopenings..

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The City Manager answers to a City Council majority (who hires the manager and can fire him at will subject to a Mayoral veto that six Councilmembers can override.) Under the current COVID-19 emergency, the Council doesn't have its usual policy setting authority; over city management desires and the LB City Attorney's office has indicated that the Council can't simply override an action of city management's City Health Officer. The City's Health Officer answers to city management's Director of Health and Human Services who answers to the City Manager. The City of LB's COVID-19 orders can be more restrictive, but not less restrictive, than COVID-19 Executive Orders issued by Governor Gavin Newsom.

As for influencing Governor Newsom, history will show if protests in Orange County and Sacramento and statewide on Facebook pages including Reopen California did or didn't influence the actions of Governor Newsom, whose says CA's reopening will be based on data and science.

Locally, LB Parks/Recreation Commissioner Ben Goldberg, writing on Facebook in his personal capacity and former Councilman Gary DeLong are among local voices objecting to a number of current LB restrictions and have pressed to lift them. For his part, Mayor Garcia has said the City's decisions will be based on data and science.

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Mayor Garcia and city management have both indicated that the City of Long Beach tries to coordinate (keep consistent with) policies and practices of L.A. County's Health Dept...but Long Beach has its own Health Dept. (run by city management) and LB's policies may in some cases differ from L.A. County, and other CA counties.

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What about that high fallutin- sounding committee that includes former Mayor Foster and is offering recommendatons on how LB should reopen? It can recommend all it wants but it has no power to implement its recommendations (which it has already acknowledged will be limited to how LB should reopen, not the timeline for reopening which Governor Newsom will decide.) In that respect, if Mayor Garcia and LB's incumbent Councilmembers applaud the recommendations, and if city management doesn't oppose them, they may end up shaping aspects of LB's reopenings.

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Support really independent news in Long Beach. No one in LBREPORT.com's ownership, reporting or editorial decision-making has ties to development interests, advocacy groups or other special interests; or is seeking or receiving benefits of City development-related decisions; or holds a City Hall appointive position; or has contributed sums to political campaigns for Long Beach incumbents or challengers. LBREPORT.com isn't part of an out of town corporate cluster and no one its ownership, editorial or publishing decisionmaking has been part of the governing board of any City government body or other entity on whose policies we report. LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. You can help keep really independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.


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