Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
Last week, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted against a proposal by Supervisor Jim Desmond that would allow the county to usurp Gov. Newsom’s reopening guidelines in favor of our own.
“I am disappointed in my colleagues’ vote to continue to enforce business closures, rather than safe reopenings. There is a new crisis—and it’s now economic,” said Desmond. “The April lockdown continues indefinitely with 200,000 San Diegans unemployed and $5 billion in lost wages for the region’s workforce.”
Today, I stood alongside business owners who are at their wits end. They have poured their life savings into their businesses while trying to provide for their families and employees, only for the government to wipe it out. Open our businesses, protect our most vulnerable! pic.twitter.com/xeNSu3fyxz
— Supervisor Jim Desmond (@jim_desmond) September 22, 2020
This decision to keep San Diego beholden to the governor’s arbitrary restrictions is only going to cause more turmoil for small businesses. Even though the county has met many of Newsom’s stated requirements for reopening, he has nonetheless changed the standards, forcing San Diego to remain closed.
The argument against the motion by Supervisor Nathan Fletcher showed the hubris and arrogance with regard to believing that by destroying a regional economy the virus will be stopped. Fletcher stated that the motion was “reckless and irresponsible.” He also added that “Jim Desmond has discounted the lives lost, spread mis-information and impeded our ability to safely re-open. I hope my colleagues will join me in rejecting this nonsense.”
Make no mistake, the people of San Diego are far more concerned with keeping their lights on and being able to eat as opposed to a virus that has killed roughly 760 people in a county of over 3.3 million.
Continued lockdowns will only devastate the county further. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, 60 percent of small businesses in Chula Vista will be forced to shut down permanently. Extrapolate this to the entire county and the result is an economic crisis never before seen in San Diego’s history.
