Mayor-Elect Todd Gloria On City's COVID-19 Response

Speaker 1: 00:01 When Todd Gloria is sworn in as mayor of San Diego, next Thursday, he will inherit a city in the grips of a raging pandemic, and most likely in the midst of another business shutdown, governor Newsome announced yesterday that when hospital ICU capacity shrinks to 15%, a new stay at home order and business shutdown will go into effect. San Diego is part of a larger Southern California region, where I see you capacity is now at 20%. The lockdown restrictions will last at least three weeks. And joining me now is mayor elect Todd, Gloria, and welcome to the program. Thank you for the invitation, Maureen, how is your incoming administration preparing for this new lockdown and, and what public health officials say is going to be a tremendous increase in COVID cases. Speaker 2: 00:49 I want to first just, uh, assure your listeners and viewers that, uh, mayor Kevin Faulkner has been tremendously helpful during this transition a marked contrast at the federal level. Uh, he has made his staff and himself available, particularly on the issue of COVID-19 so that when my team and I take over next Thursday, there we're fully briefed about the city's current response and strategies, and we can figure out how to match those strategies with our vision for the city, as well as the changing circumstances in light of the governor's order, as well as our rising number of cases. Uh, ultimately what we have to do, um, is as San Diego to follow the public health order, help us get our numbers down and allow us to get back to where we were. Hopefully back in March, while we work simultaneously to distribute the vaccine in the community, Speaker 1: 01:38 Kind of new aid, might the city be able to give to small businesses affected by this new shutdown? Speaker 2: 01:44 Well, Maureen, I think the aid that we may be able to give, if any, would likely come from federal action, uh, I'm hopeful that all of your listeners will apply pressure to our members of Congress to make sure that they actually give the city the resources that we can in turn, distribute to the community. Uh, we have to be creative and finding the other ways the city can be assisted on a local level. Uh, but again, pray that we get that federal relief. Speaker 1: 02:07 You know, mayor elect Gloria. There are some complaints about San Diego being lumped into a Southern California region with LA and Riverside. The thought being that we might be able to keep COVID hospitalizations down longer than other counties. Do you think the state's regional approach is? Speaker 2: 02:26 I, you know, I do believe that we're all in this together. Um, and so I think that's the spirit of the governor's proposal at the same time. When you look at the differences between our numbers and some of the other counties that we're, uh, collected with, uh, it does, uh, invite questions and I look forward to posing some of those questions to the governor and the state's team, uh, in the days ahead Speaker 1: 02:45 Use today is word that you will keep the convention center open to house homeless. San Diego means beyond the December 31st deadline. Why did you make that decision? Speaker 2: 02:56 Um, I think that that, uh, particular initiative housing over a thousand homeless individuals at the convention center at a time when it has no functional purpose, because we can't have a conventions trade shows and the like makes a lot of sense. And when I think back to our fears of what COVID could do to our unsheltered population at a time when we're telling people to stay at home, yeah, this population has no home. You know, those worst fears of back in March and April, I've never come to pass. So this has been a success. And here we are, uh, at a time when the funding forward is running out at the end of this month. And yet we continue to be mired in a high number of cases, hospitalizations in ICU admissions and the new state home order from the state we can't in good conscience, close down that facility. The challenge in this figure case Maureen is money. And I believe that under the authority is given to the mayor. We can reasonably keep the convention center functioning through the month of January, uh, beyond that, we're going to need to ask the council's consent for additional operations. And that really involves finding more money. Maureen, I'd like to give you some more details. Once we have our arms around reasonable funding solutions, one of those solutions could be additional federal relief and again, a call to our federal partners to provide that relief. Speaker 1: 04:07 Some San Diego County officials have expressed disappointment at the lack of police enforcement of public health orders. How will COVID shutdown restrictions be enforced under your administration? Speaker 2: 04:19 Well, I share those concerns about enforcement recognizing that the vast, vast majority of San Diego wins and businesses are abiding by the public health order. And yet we have a few that choose not to. And while I don't necessarily know that the San Diego police department needs to be our lead agency for the enforcement of the public health order, I believe that there are ways that we can enforce this to make sure that we're doing everything we can to contain the spread of the virus and Maureen I'd invite you and your listeners to consider what it means to be in a community that doesn't follow the law. Uh, while I recognize some people have objections to the public health rules that we're dealing with right now, I've always believed if you don't like it, you should change it, but you simply can't ignore it. And that isn't true. That includes our public health orders. Speaker 1: 05:04 A quick question from some of the parents here at KPBS will caution tape be put back up on playgrounds. Speaker 2: 05:10 When I take over on Thursday, my hope is that we can find a way to address these concerns of parents, but that issue has been flagged for me by a number of constituents. And we'll be working with city staff to figure out hopefully a solution that can take care of our children, but doesn't allow for the spread of the virus. But I recognize the importance of playgrounds have played, uh, been, uh, for parents who are struggling with children that must get out of the house. Um, I'm hopeful that a partnership where parents are following the public health order, wearing masks, maintaining social distance, could allow for some way for that to continue to happen. Speaker 1: 05:42 And finally, you know, many San Diego right now are struggling with unemployment, anxiety, isolation, and even sickness right now. What's your message to them. As you prepare to become mayor, Speaker 2: 05:55 I'd ask them to have hope. I know that's difficult. These are dark days, but we know that thanks to some of the innovative minds here in our life sciences, uh, economy, uh, we have vaccines that are only weeks away from being distributed to San Diego ones. Uh, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel, um, but we need to recognize that the next number of weeks are going to be difficult. I ask for your partnership and making sure that we're doing all that we can individually to contain the spread of the virus, where we wait for the vaccine and that we were already planning for the reopening of our economy to do it safely and to do it as swiftly as possible. I believe we'll get past this sooner than people expect. We all have a role to play in continuing this virus. It starts with your individual responsibility. I asked people to mind that responsibility, recognizing that their adherence to the public health order does not only respect their health and the health of their loved ones, but the health of our community and the vitality of our regional. Speaker 3: 06:49 I've been speaking with San Diego mayor elect Todd, Gloria. And thank you very much. Thank you, Maureen.