On First Day Of Open Beaches, San Diego Stays Classy

San Diegans kept their distance at the city beaches that reopened Monday morning. Mayor Kevin Faulconer had nothing but praise for his city. CITY PRESSER CLIP 1 I am happy to report you stayed classy San Diego, very well done so far. Um, when we've seen other beaches across the U S have reopened. Uh, you see, you saw unfortunately pandemonium in some of those. Uh, today the nation saw San Diego acting like America's finest city. It's because people took it seriously. Meanwhile, during his daily briefing on Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom had strong words for those who did crowd onto other beaches in Southern California over the weekend. STATE PRESSER CLIP 1 This virus doesn't take the weekends off. This virus doesn't go home. Uh, because it's a beautiful sunny day, uh, around our coasts. While noting that not all beaches experienced overcrowding, Newsom said the state must confront certain locations — like Newport Beach and Ventura — where social distancing guidelines were clearly not being followed. STATE PRESSER CLIP 2 I cannot impress upon people more. Uh, the only thing that will set us back is our behavior. The only thing that will set us back is people stopping to practice physical distancing, inappropriate social distancing. That's the only thing that's going to slow down our ability to reopen this economy, our rebuild, uh, ability to adapt and modify the stay at home order. Officials in Orange County held a meeting Monday night to determine if beaches there should be closed again due to public health concerns. Newsom said he will also consider more aggressive enforcement of the statewide stay-at-home order if beach crowds continue to gather. BEAT County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said county staff is working with cities on plans to gradually open parks and businesses, but such moves would be made incrementally and cautiously. He said any city wishing to reopen will have to have specific plans detailing how they would implement social distancing. Additionally, the county public health order going into effect Friday mandating facial coverings in public will have to be factored into any plan. Fletcher said face coverings are going to be a part of our way of life moving forward for the foreseeable future. COUNTY PRESSER CLIP We never imagined a world where we would purposefully physically distance from non-household members. We never imagined a world in which we would wear face coverings, but that is the world that we are in and it is the world that we are going to be in until such time as we have a vaccine or a widely available therapeutic drug. BEAT And for the latest local COVID count: the county reported 98 more COVID-19 cases and two deaths from the illness, raising the county's totals to 3,141 cases and 113 deaths. BEAT I’m Kinsee Morlan and you’re listening to KPBS’ daily podcast San Diego News Matters. It’s Tuesday, April 28. Stick with me for more of the local news we all need. MIDROLL 1 AD Yesterday was the first day cities in San Diego County were allowed to open beaches. The city of San Diego has all of its beaches open -- from La Jolla to Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach, but there are restrictions. KPBS Reporter Matt Hoffman went to Mission Beach to see what people think. _______________________________ OPENBEACH 1 We've got beautiful weather I mean oh my god you just ah Mark Pressley has been surfing for more than 25 years- This has been a rough ride we sneak in a few places up and down the coast but Monday was a big day for him, with all city of san diego beaches reopening after weeks of closures. We're happy the beaches are open again seems like everyone's practicing social distancing giving their space it's really nice The beaches are open - but there's no standing, sitting or stopping and a six feet social distance must be maintained. That's not stopping people including Frank Garcia who was walking Mission beach with his wife and two kids. Frank Garcia, Lives in Imperial Beach It looks like a lot of people are distancing themselves which is great we'd like to see that. We do want to stay away from as many people as we can If people don't follow the rules, the beaches could be closed again. Swimming, surfing and kayaking is okay, but activities like fishing are not allowed. Imperial County is getting help from the state after it was designated a testing desert during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's inewsource reporter Jennifer Bowman with more. IMPERIALTEST 1 BOWMAN: Imperial County's top health officer says access to testing during COVID-19 has been a huge problem. Only about sixteen-hundred of the county's one-hundred-and-eighty-one-thousand residents have been tested. But those numbers may improve soon. The state is paying for a new testing site in the county that can check as many as one-hundred-and-thirty people a day for the coronavirus. It's one of more than 80 that are opening in rural and underserved areas across California. The site is expected to rotate among three locations in Imperial County that officials haven't yet disclosed. The county says the site is expected to open May 4th and will operate for at least two months. inewsource is an independently funded nonprofit partner of KPBS. BEAT Kitchens for Good is teaming up with a local garden expert to help people feed themselves now and later. KPBS Producer Ben Lacy tells us how it might inspire a new generation of gardeners. ______________________________________________________ GARDENS 1 Monday morning in Chollas View, cars lined up by the dozens for a food distribution put on by the Jacobs' Center's Kitchens for Good. They also receive a Grab and Grow Garden - created by Nan Sterman. She's the host of the KPBS show "A Growing Passion." 08:44:08-08:44:16 - From MATT 0920_01 (08 seconds) GARDENS 1A "Paper bag gardens. There are two seedlings in a paper bag with directions on how to grow your own fruits and vegetables in English and Spanish." Sterman says all of the items are donated. The idea sprouted as more families were forced to stay at home amid COVID-19. 08:46:11-08:46:21 - From MATT 0920_01 (10 seconds) GARDENS 2A "An activity to do with their children, to introduce children to growing and feeding themselves, there's a satisfaction to that, that is, it's very hard to put into words." Sterman estimates 6-thousand Grab and Grow Gardens will be distributed through June. BEAT Washington has rolled out another 484-billion dollar relief bill to help American workers and businesses survive the economic fallout of Covid 19. That's on top of the 2-trillion dollar CARES Act that passed last month. Congressman Scott Peters, who represents San Diego's 52nd congressional district, joined KPBS Midday Edition’s Maureen Cavanaugh to talk about how those funds will help the San Diego region. SCOTT PETERS MIDDAY PACKAGE . Congressman Peters, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me, Maureen. Appreciate it. Can you talk about Watson, this latest relief package for people here in San Diego? Like how does the region stand to benefit? As you mentioned, there's, there were issues with the pay payroll protection plan. The biggest one was with, there wasn't enough money, and so a lot of these businesses under 500 employees were left out. So what we did last week. Well as we recharge that with some more money, we also provided a $60 billion dedicated, uh, entirely to small community banks. So that when just be the big banks that got the money. So we want companies with three, 400 employees who face, you know, the loss of business and are thinking about laying off their employers. We want them to have access to this money. But at the same time, we also want to make sure that some of it is reserved for folks who don't have great banking relationships or longstanding beggar banking relationships. Uh, and so we did that, and I think that will help the region. We also dedicated a certain amount of money to testing. Uh, we. Understand, I think as, as your, as your listeners do, that having good testing is really a key to, um, getting a hold of this disease and then getting back to normal someday and that the country is far behind. Now there's supply chain issues with respect to that, with getting reagents, with getting even swabs, which seems unbelievable. Um, but, uh, federal resources will be there to, to support that effort if we can. And also to support hospitals. Uh, what's not in there unfortunately is, um, a lot of money for, um, state and local governments that we wanted to, to help, um, help with. There is some money for state and local governments. I think I heard on a report today, you reported on the $287 million that the city of San Diego got, for instance, uh, to deal with issues related to COBIT. Uh, there's some ambiguity about what that covers. It does cover things like. Retrofitting the convention center as a, as a, um, hospital, but, you know, as far as helping the MTS and the, and the fire fire responders, uh, with the new costs, that's not clear yet. And we're trying to work on making sure that, uh, that's freed up a little bit to help. We'll help with them, those local burdens. Congressman Peters, what would you say, from what you've heard is the level of economic hardship people in San Diego are experiencing? Well, some people are taking it really hard. And if you think about our economy, one big part of our economy is tourism. And we're not as dependent on tourism as Las Vegas is, for instance. But if you were working in a hotel, you're basically out of a job. No one is traveling. Hardly anyone is traveling. No one's staying in hotels. Um, that industry has been devastated and it's been a really important part of our. Of our economy. We've got other economic sectors, the military for instance, uh, which is hanging in there and the, um, science and technology sector. Uh, a lot of those folks are, are engaged in solving these problems. But tourism in San Diego has been particularly difficult. And, and so we're trying to work with, um, with a lot of the relief efforts and in philanthropy and working with the labor movement to make sure that those folks are taken care of. One of the criticisms, as you mentioned of the first care is bills, not enough of the money went into the pockets of the small independent businesses that really needed it. Is there any mechanism in this new legislation to ensure the money gets to those small businesses? I just, the one thing we did was, um, put $60 billion aside for community banks, credit unions, uh, smaller organizations to deal with these folks so that, um, there's, there's some guideposts on that. Uh, you know, the part of the frustration is that, you know, Congress, we can appropriate money, which we did. Oh, quite a bit of it, but it has to be administered by the administration. That's basically the small business administration and the treasury department. If we had a lot of time to, to have hearings and, and, uh, think about new ways to dispense this money, we could, there's really no time for that. You know, the purpose of the, of, of acting as quickly as to get the money out quickly, to see if we can't get through this economic trough as quickly as possible and not let this recession turn into a depression. So we're stuck with these procedures. And we're really imploring the administration to put this money where it's intended. We all know what it's intended for, and we're counting on the administration to direct it there.. Now, as you mentioned, again, a major issue is that there was no relief for state and local governments in this bill that just was signed last Friday by the president, and it's become a major issue of contention in Washington Republican leader Mitch McConnell has hinted. That he could block the next stimulus package. She's gotten a lot of bad press over the suggestion that it might be okay if States file for bankruptcy, but he makes the point that with all these relief packages, the national deficit is expected to grow almost $4 trillion this fiscal year. Isn't that a problem for the nation too? Not in the short term. Uh, I, I think that, um, first of all, it's, it's reprehensible to suggest that States should file bankruptcy. You know, they're the folks that are funding the first responders and they're also a huge employers. Have you think about the biggest employers in San Diego County? A lot of them are, are, uh, government entities, uh, doing things that are very important. And this notion that we're going to save employees without thinking about the public sector is, is strategically. Ridiculous. And I think his, his statements are, are totally political. And, um, I think you're responsible as far as the national debt right now, I think most experts agree that the worst thing we could do is turn off the foster too soon. And as you know, I've got more, you probably know, I've been, uh, associated with fix the debt and trying to get our. Country on a more sustainable fiscal path where the rate of that growth of debt is, is slower than the rate of the growth of the economy. And we're not spending so much money on interest payments out of the federal budget each year. I'm going to be part of a bipartisan group that's, that's actually meaning this week to talk about, um, once we get through this, uh, to make sure that we talk about what the choices are we're going to make to, to make sure that. We aren't if this is fiscally sustainable path, but right now I think it's important to emphasize that, uh, the worst thing we could do is, is turn off this aid too quickly and send the country into a, um, a depression. Are you satisfied, Congressman, at the way California and San Diego County have been managing this crisis? Actually, I'm very impressed. I think first of all, the County has always been the. The place where these countywide crisis crisis haven't been handled. I had more experience directly with the fires in 2003 in 2007. I think the county's done a really good job of getting information out and making sure that people know what's going on and are up to date on the latest trends in the community. Um, and so I think we've done, I think that the, the locals deserve a lot of credit for that. I think Gavin Newsome is one of the governors who's been, um. Has been out of front of this, and frankly, I would like to see the president behave a little bit more like governor Newsome, governor Cuomo, in terms of things like implementing the defense production act, and really getting these supply chain issues are handled. I think he's been a little weaker than the governors have been, so I'm, I'm really pleased with the. With our governor and with our local elected officials who I think have been really trying to get it right and try to work in cooperation and in good communication with the, with the County here. I really want to ask you this question before we have to wrap it up. What kind of efforts are underway to ensure the integrity and full participation in our elections in November? There are many people concerned about a resurgence of the virus in the fall, and that working to undermine our electoral process. I spoke to a Tony Atkins, my friend and the leader of the Senate on this weekend, and I know that she is really making sure that, um. That the state is paying attention to the role of, of male vote. And you know, Oregon and Washington, I think only do voting by mail. So it's possible to do that. And I think that that's the way we should go. I know the Democrats have offered to the Republicans to provide support to States. Uh, who, who want to implement that. And we've heard this notion that there's a concern about fraud. I don't think there's any evidence of that. I think that's certainly where we should move. And I think, you know, I think voting is one of the most fundamental parts of a democracy. The whole thing is we, we choose our leaders. Um, and I think, um, it's a real guard against tyranny. And I, I'm surprised in a way that people aren't more aggressive about wanting to make sure that we have elections that we can rely on on the fall. I think I certainly am. I think. Well, many of us stand ready to help States, but it is a state by state effort. I think California is going to be on top of it. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but, um, I think in Congress it should be a priority to make sure that States have the support they need to make sure that the, the polls work. When are you scheduled to go back to Washington, Congressman? Uh, we are not Maureen. We, uh, just got back from last week, you know, for those of us on the West coast in particular. But for all of us, um, you know, we're, we're all being told to. That it's safest to stay at home. And if you, if your organization figure out a way to communicate and make decisions remotely, they should. I, I believe Congress should follow that advice. I think, uh, we could be participating in any of the tech technological abilities to have meetings and we should be, you know, that should all be on CSPAN. Everyone should be able to see it. But, um, we have an oversight responsibility that it's very difficult to do as a practical matter. . But physically, when we go back to Washington, it won't be this week. It might be as early as next week. Uh, it depends. I think, uh, how the care's to package comes along and I think we'll be called, but a lot of us are, are, are calling for the ability to participate, to participate remotely, because we all have jobs to do and we don't want to be shut out. That’s San Diego Congressman Scott Peters, speaking to Midday Edition’s Maureen Cavanaugh. BEAT Ok, so, my clubbing days are far, far behind me, but if yours are not, and you’re getting the uncontrollable urge to dance, check out hashtag sandiegodj on instagram. Lots of local DJs are going live and spinning sets in their living rooms and it’s pretty rad. Here’s San Diego DJ Staci. DJ CLIP 1 (wanna pick since you’re a music gal Emily? https://www.sandiegodjstaci.com/mixes/ DJ Staci, who runs the San Diego female DJs meetup.com group, spins live on Sundays at 10 a.m. at @sandiegodjstaci with an i... and otherwise has a full slate of virtual performances coming up. You can find her at sandiegodjstaci.com/. That’s all for today. Thanks for listening.