Chairman Nathan Fletcher Discusses New Direction For County Supervisors

Speaker 1: 00:00 The San Diego County board of supervisors is moving in a new direction. Newly elected chairman, Nathan Fletcher says the board will vote on policies, focusing on financial transparency, along with racial and economic justice. On Tuesday, the board will vote on a proposal by Fletcher and board, vice chair, woman, Nora Vargas, to declare racism a public health crisis. Here's what Fletcher said that declaration would do. Speaker 2: 00:26 Well. The first thing that would do would be an affirmative statement of the obvious, uh, when you have a child in Barrio Logan, that is eight times more likely to have asthma than a child in the Hoya. Uh, it is clear that that intentional government policies have created tremendous inequities, uh, most prevalently along lines of race. And we need to be honest about that. We need to acknowledge that, but beyond that, it moves us into a County of saying we are going to assess issues of equity and health equity in everything we do. We're going to measure data around. Are we bridging a divide? Are we over investing in communities that have been historically left behind and we're going to hold ourselves accountable to those issues and to those measures. And then we're going to take the work of our office of race and equity and racial justice that I created last year, our human relations commission, and fully integrate that into everything we do evaluating every board policy from an issue of racial justice and equity to say, are we doing our part to address the historic wrongs that have fallen into our laps? Speaker 1: 01:24 Why do you feel this declaration is so important to San Diego County? What are the hard facts and uncomfortable truths San Diego County needs to grapple with? Speaker 2: 01:32 Well, the unfortunate reality, we've never reconciled in a, in a substantive and meaningful way, the original sin of slavery, the founding of our country. And from that day until today, so many government policies have, attentionally created racial inequities in our society. Everything from the presence of access to healthcare, to land use, and zoning, to what communities we build, polluted, uh, factories, you know, a child and Barrio Logan is eight times more likely to have asthma than a child in LA Jolla. Uh, it is not, uh, disconnected from the fact that that child and Barrio Logan is primarily Brown or black. And that's how the little boy is primarily white. And so we just need to acknowledge the obvious that we see out there and it's evident in front of us. And then we need to adopt an intentional strategy to try and address those issues. We need to change how we measure our success in areas of healthcare and all these types of things to take into account the racial implications, the historic inequities, the underlying conditions that people inherited in order to truly get us to that promise of America, that everyone will have equality of access to the American dream. Uh, and when you have these tremendous disparities, that is simply not a dream, we are fulfilling and we have to do a much better job. Speaker 1: 02:43 The board will be voting on a letter that's meant to show a unified voice in terms of its COVID response. What do you think, uh, is going to happen with that? Why do you think that's important? Speaker 2: 02:53 Well, I don't know if it will be unified with all five supervisors, but I think it will be a majority of the board of supervisors to say, we believe in public health. We believe in taking action to keep people safe. We cannot avoid the difficult choices in front of us. No one wants to put in place things that arm, any small business, but we have to slow the spread of COVID. And over the last year, our board, uh, from the supervisor level, the response has been erratic and inconsistent, uh, and has not been a consistent approach as it relates to public health. And so we will go on record as a board to say, we believe in science, we believe in data. We know that we have to take action to protect our communities and keep us safe. And the second part of that is, as we have funding available to help with COVID response, that should be allocated to communities proportional to the impact of COVID. The Latino community is 30% of San Diego County. They are 60% of our positive cases. We need to make sure everything we do in recovery is being driven towards address that disproportionate impact. Speaker 1: 03:51 Well, the letter outlined the restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19. Speaker 2: 03:56 The letter will say that we support the restrictions, uh, outlined to slow the spread of COVID-19. And again, we haven't had consistent messaging. I've been on the losing side of multiple foreign one boats, uh, at critical junctures in our county's response. And I think it's important to speak with one voice, uh, as a majority of the board of supervisors that we support the public health measures and we support the difficult steps that are being taken to try and protect our community. Speaker 1: 04:21 Aside from just simply speaking with one voice, how do you think the County should handle restrictions to combat the spread of coronavirus? Speaker 2: 04:28 I, I have, I have long thought that we need more adherence. We need more enforcement. Uh, we need more fidelity to the public health orders. You know, we're, we're confronting a global pandemic and the period of tremendous disinformation where we have elected officials going out, sharing conspiracy theories and things that are not factually true. And those efforts have contributed significantly to the situation we face now, where we went from two to 300 cases a day to three to 4,000 cases a day, the tremendous strain and difficult decisions on our healthcare system. And the reality is it is a new year, a new day, a new board. We need a renewed focus community-wide to slow the spread of COVID while we get into vaccine distribution and work our way out of this. Speaker 1: 05:08 Do you see any opportunity for common ground in the county's approach to enforcement? Speaker 2: 05:13 Well, I think that there is a, a general acknowledgement that, that the measures are not going to be effective if there is no enforcement and nobody wants to be punitive at all. Um, but, but the reality is as a community, the overwhelming majority of people were following, uh, the public health orders and taking this seriously. And they're the ones who pay the price for individuals who don't. Uh, and so we know the measures were put in place. There is science, there is data, there are facts that support them. And so working to see how we can get greater enforcement is key. I think mayor Todd, Gloria take a tremendously positive step forward, reorienting the city and the police department, uh, around a more aggressive posture surrounding enforcement. I appreciate what they're doing. City events, Nita's Carlsbad, others are considering things. Uh, alcohol beverage control is stepping up their efforts. And then here at the County, we will redouble and refocus our efforts as well. Not out of a desire to be punitive, but out of a desire to save lives, protect our healthcare system and get us through this crisis. Speaker 1: 06:09 Supervisor Desmond has said that he believes your committee appointments have not been equitable with him getting the least appointments at seven while the supervisor with the next two least appointments at 13. How do you explain the difference in the number of appointments? Speaker 2: 06:23 Well, I don't think Jim doesn't understand the difference between equity and equality. He can say the appointments are not equal. He can't say that they're not equity for 40 years. Folks who have the persuasion of Jim Jasmine has held 100% of the seats take, for example, Nora of August, the first Latina in the history of San Diego County. A lot of those communities have not had a voice on these commissions and boards for a long time, and she's going to have to work harder, but be given more opportunity to address the inequities that have been built up over the past. Speaker 1: 06:52 I've been speaking with San Diego County board of supervisors, chair, Nathan Fletcher, chairman Fletcher. Thank you very much for joining us. Speaker 2: 06:59 Thank you so much. Me [inaudible].