CA’s coronavirus ‘blind spots’ + Protecting schools from lawsuits + Grove wants Columbus to stay

Top of the Tuesday morning to you, California. Be safe out there, ok?

‘COMMAND AND CONTROL’

Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, is not messing around when it comes to kicking the coronavirus to the curb.

Glazer, who has long advocated for tighter restrictions during the pandemic, called on Gov. Gavin Newsom during a Monday press conference to crack down on Californians amid skyrocketing COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

Glazer said the state still has “blind spots” in its pandemic response, including guidance for protecting medically vulnerable and elderly residents. Under the state’s reopening guidelines, these populations should still be quarantining, Glazer said, and it’s up to leadership from the top to make sure they know it.

It’s not easy to dictate these regulations, Glazer said, which is why “strong leadership” will be required to push businesses and counties back in line with the messaging and actions that keep people alive.

“Our circumstances require command and control,” said Glazer, who also took pains to praise much of what the governor has done in response to the pandemic. “I know the governor is working very hard to be a gracious partner with counties who are on the front lines of many of these activities that we are trying to regulate. But I believe that we need stronger and tougher requirements.”

To start, Glazer said, the administration needs to make sure signage lets at-risk populations know they should not be patronizing non-essential businesses – like shopping centers or restaurants and bars. He also said counties need to monitor how certain industries are upholding physical distancing rules and providing adequate PPE, especially at construction sites or within restaurants, retail stores and nursing homes.

“This is a life or death choice for so many in California,” Glazer said. “I don’t think you should sugarcoat the consequences of this virus on the elderly, and yet it seems to have been forgotten.”

SCHOOL RULES

Amid concerns that California’s K-12 schools could face an onslaught of lawsuits related to coronavirus guidelines, like the mask mandate, Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, introduced a bill Monday to establish limited liability protections against COVID-19 related lawsuits.

The measure is intended to address this question: How can the state impose safety standards to protect staff and students, while also safeguarding schools from costly litigation?

“We need to provide clarity and reduce uncertainty for school districts as they navigate the patchwork of state, federal and public health COVID-19 rules,” O’Donnell said via press release. “AB 1384 ensures that policies and procedures are established to safely reopen schools, consistent with federal, state and local legal COVID-19 requirements, and allows school districts to focus on instruction rather than lawsuits. We cannot divert scarce resources for instruction, meals and other student needs for legal bills or let schools become cash cows for lawyers.”

It’s still unclear whether all the coronavirus rules will apply as strictly to students as they do the general public. But it’s certain that without a vaccine or therapeutic currently available, there’s no way to keep classrooms 100 percent COVID-free.

The bill doesn’t touch on workers’ compensation, O’Donnell’s office said, or protect against “gross negligence or for reckless, intentional, or willful and wanton misconduct.”

AB 1384 will be up for Senate action once the Legislature returns mid-July from its recess.

WAIT A MINUTE

When Democratic leadership announced earlier this month that a statute of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella would be removed from the Capitol Rotunda in light of a national movement toward racial equity, many politicos celebrated the decision.

Not Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove.

Days before the statue honoring the explorer and his patron is scheduled to be removed from California’s statehouse, the Bakersfield Republican wrote on Monday a letter to Rules Committee Chair Assemblyman Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, asking him to reconsider the move.

“As misguided as Columbus may have been, history cannot be re-written, nor his accomplishments diminished,” Grove wrote in a letter.

Grove argued in her letter that teaching the history of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to America has “benefited children for generations,” and that the removal could be seen as racist toward Italian-Americans and discriminatory toward Catholics. She also said Columbus’ “unshakable desire to promote trade and spread the word of God around the world” offers lessons for people of faith facing struggles today.

“We say it is uninformed,” Grove wrote. “We must not allow fear of our past to push us to ignore the lessons learned through uneducated and ignorant action by simply removing our history from sight.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I did all those things. I’ve destroyed all their lives.”

- Joseph James DeAngelo, admitting Monday he was the Golden State Killer

Best of The Bee:

• California workers who maintain the state’s buildings, roads and equipment would take a 9.23 percent pay cut in exchange for two flexible days off per month in a proposed contract agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, by Wes Venteicher

• The state’s Employment Development Department told senators and Assembly members concerned about special constituent “hardship requests” they could ask for help with only one each week – but after an uproar from some lawmakers the agency has changed its mind, by David Lightman