The Rialto City Council scheduled an emergency meeting to address the Corona Virus outbreak. The enacted an emergency declaration that gave the City Manager supreme powers over events, staffing and public safety. City Manager Rod Foster took this meeting to remind us that even though he works here he is not effected by the decisions made in the city of Rialto as he lives in a wealthy area of Orange County.
Some say that the action is premature given that the school district is on spring break and that there are no confirmed cases in Rialto or San Bernardino County. Others say that we must be early to keep the citizens safe. Councilman Ed Scott (who will comment some inappropriate comments on this post) spoke about being one of the people that is a high risk for having an extreme reaction to this virus given his advanced age and long list of medial conditions. Ed Scott spoke to racial profiling as his wife who is Asian decent were verbally attacked and berated at San Manuel Casino because this Corona Virus originated from China. It was sad to hear that still we are so ignorant because these type of things must stop.
Councilman Ed Scott and Councilman Joe Baca Jr. spoke about the threat to seniors and how we would handle our senior center operations. Councilman Joe Baca Jr. asked that city facilities be deep cleaned and that the senior center would take priority. Councilman Ed Scott said that the City of Fontana told him that they were restricting their senior center to only seniors. That is interesting because that building is a public building and is a community center as well. Many of the people who use that facility rely on the computers and other facilities to function in a tech world.
Clearly this outbreak has made us forget the poor and disadvantaged. Mayor Robertson also pointed out that 80% of the management staff are coming from a county that has had a large number of Corona Virus cases in Orange County. Maybe we should have thought about that when choosing people who live nowhere near Rialto. The reason this is an issue is when it comes to asking people to telecommute what happens if your Director of Emergency Services gets stuck over an hour an way?
The council called for Social Distancing in light of the virus outbreak and were unaware on how we could do this without hurting our new and “vibrant” economy. Rialto Flooring posted a video this morning the day after this meeting of a very empty downtown which they said was extremely rare. The mayor suggested that people utilize the delivery services or ordering out.
rialtonow 