Villa confident of positive action by County Supervisors

By Doug Spoon, Editor

The city manager of Menifee said today he is confident the Riverside County Board of Supervisors will take action Tuesday to accelerate Gov. Gavin Newson’s latest plan for re-opening businesses.

The Board of Supervisors had already placed an item on Tuesday’s meeting agenda to consider an order to begin relaxing COVID-19 restrictions as soon as possible. A factor in that decision was a letter sent to Board Chair V. Manuel Perez by six mayors of Southwest Riverside County cities, including Menifee Mayor Bill Zimmerman, requesting such action.

Newsom’s announcement today, which promised guidelines by Friday allowing partially re-opening of retail outlets and one step closer to at least partial dine-in seating at restaurants, appears to have opened the door to the kind of action Menifee City Manager Armando Villa and Zimmerman want to see. Newsom said today that individual communities have the power to decide how far to go with the new state guidelines.

“They know people are starting to get very antsy,” Villa said about state and regional leaders in the midst of a lockdown that has lasted seven weeks. “The health officer’s order last week (to extend the lockdown) made people jump into panic mode.

“We met with other cities to develop a united approach. The approach so far of health officials has been very scientific, and that’s their job. But we want it to be more balanced between health guidelines and the state of the economy.”

Newsom’s guidelines today focused on the ability of retail businesses such as clothing stores, bookstores, florists and sporting goods stores to open for curbside pick-up of orders on Friday. Villa acknowledged that might have less impact on Menifee’s business community than other cities because the City has so many big businesses that already have been open for “essential” business.

“Out of our top 100 businesses, 30 percent generate 70 percent of the revenue,” Villa said. “Out of the top 30, 22 have already been open – places like Target and Lowe’s, with restaurants operating under limited (takeout) services.

“One thing we hope they maybe start looking at is some sit-down restaurant service, maybe for the next three weeks try serving a 25 percent capacity, something like that. Then continue to encourage social distancing and use of PPEs as we monitor how it works.

“I’m very confident about this. I think we were able to resonate with the Supervisors. Our coalition of cities is three representatives on the Board of Supervisors, and they have told us, ‘We need to hear from you guys on this.'

“It is not my hope to have a huge elimination of restrictions, but to take a direction that will take some of them off. Something more of a message of hope, which we all need.”