August 28, 2020 — Between fires and covid-19, respiratory distress is a major consideration for Mendocino County. Case numbers are up to 659, with an additional death bringing the total to 17. The latest casualty is an 82-year-old Hispanic man who was in the Ukiah Valley. A county employee also succumbed recently to the virus. Five people are hospitalized, with none in the ICU. Dr. Andrew Coren, who will be sworn in as the new public health officer next week, gave his first briefing today, starting with a half-hour in Spanish.
Fires all over the region have made for unhealthy air quality in inland valleys. On Wednesday, a fire in Calpella and another in Vichy Springs resulted in hours-long evacuation orders and warnings, though the areas were repopulated by the evening. The county Health and Human Services Agency worked with Ukiah Unified School District to prepare evacuation centers at Eagle Peak Middle School and Ukiah High within about two and a half hours of the first Nixle alert going out.
Earlier today, demonstrators gathered at the wood pellet plant in Calpella to protest against what they contend is its contribution to poor air quality in the region. We’ll hear more about that from our environmental reporter Lana Cohen on Monday evening, when we’ll be back to our regular programming schedule.
The City of Willits, which has been cutting its budget since the early aughts and will be voting on a ¾ cent sales tax in November, has hired a new Police Chief, Alexis Blaylock. According to a press release from the City, Blaylock retired from the San Diego Police Department after nearly 25 years. She has also served as a public safety lieutenant at the University of Southern California, where Blaylock, a Black woman, initiated diversity training and a mentoring and coaching program for officers.
The Measure B Citizens’ Oversight Committee voted 8-2, with Commissioner Jed Diamond absent and Commissioners Jenine Miller and Donna Moschetti opposing, to purchase an $8,000 gun locker using Measure B funds out of the operational fund for the behavioral health regional training center at the former church in Redwood Valley. Commissioner Tom Allman, who represents the sheriff’s department on the committee, argued that law enforcement officers from around the region, not just the sheriff’s department, will need a place to store pistols, which they cannot legally leave in their cars. They are expected to be armed while on duty, though he said it reduces liability for the county if they are not carrying weapons during trainings through programs like Stepping Up, which are designed to de-escalate encounters between law enforcement officers and people having mental health crises. Moschetti, who represents the National Alliance of Mental Illness, said she expects the organizations that use the facility to pay for their own equipment. Miller, who runs the county Behavioral Health Department, said she wanted a better understanding of the finances.
At Friday’s covid briefing, Coren spoke about why it’s especially important to wear masks during the simultaneous disasters of the pandemic and wildfires: coughing is not just a symptom of covid. Because it ejects viral particles faster and farther, coughing is a really efficient way to spread the disease, whether you’re coughing from covid or smoke inhalation.
And even if a cloth mask only blocks the larger particulates in smoke-filled air, that can protect your lungs enough to give you a better chance of surviving the virus.
Coren also told the public that he expects Mendocino County to be in the top tier of the four-tier color-coded system that will be replacing the monitoring list and the attestation process next week. Coren said that he has been on three calls in the last two days with the state Department of Public Health and they did not have clear answers about which tier the county will be in, other than that it is in the purple zone, or the highest tier.
CEO Carmel Angelo added that the county has allocated more money to West Business Development Center to help small businesses survive the pandemic.