Napa County: I'm Not Sure Who They Answer To But It Sure Isn't Citizens

As a county resident and local business owner, I have been unhappy with the handling of this emergency. Because I own a food company, we’ve been allowed to be open throughout the panic, but the behavior of some local customers and response from the Board of Supervisors has given me enough pause that we’ve closed locally except for pickups. There was an art gallery that opened before it was allowed and there were dozens of reports that Walmart was being a bad neighbor with little control over the situation. I don’t shop there often but I have heard it got better but now it’s back to being sloppy.

I had a hell of a time getting a hold of anyone at the county, even my own supervisor. I finally got Supervisor Wagenknecht who is the supervisor for the district Rancho Gordo is in and after a frustrating conversation, he said, “Steve, what I am hearing you say is that we have to be better about enforcement.”
Yes, that is quite fair to say. As I saw it, there was nothing being done about enforcement.

I have been trying to interview someone from the county who would talk on the record about the handling of the pandemic. I started with phone calls, none of which were returned. June 19 I started with emails. I was told I may or may not get an answer as they were very busy. I agreed to write out questions instead of the requested interview. Nothing. I checked back several times but as of this writing, I’ve heard nothing from Dr. Lucio, is the Deputy Director of HHSA - Public Health Officer or her office. I did have some back and forth with Elizabeth (Mary) Scott, who is the Communications and Public Information Officer for the County of Napa.

Since I can’t get the county to answer the questions I was going to pose, I’ll post them here. You can decide if I’m out of line or we deserve to know the answers. Please ask your county supervisor. These questions were from June 19th, at the request of Elizabeth Scott. I would have several more questions to add now.

1. In general, from the county's perspective, how is the containment of the coronavirus going? 

 2. The mandates seem to be coming from the state, with ordinances from the county. Who's job is enforcement? I ask this because of the art gallery downtown that ignored the mandate (with the encouragement of the vice-Mayor). Is it the county or city that enforces the mandates? 

 3. How has enforcement gone? Aside from the gallery, Walmart was a particularly bad player until things got serious. Who should have enforced that? If enforcement wasn't happening, should there at least have been a warning sign from the Health Department that the business wasn't compliant? 

 4. It seems that mask-wearing is the solution to most of the problems, even more than sheltering in place. Why didn't the county mandate mask-wearing? Whose job was it to mandate it and again, whose job would it be to enforce the mandate? Whose job is it now in Napa, now that the state has mandated it? 

 5. The WHO came out and said that asymptomatic transmissions might be rare, and then walked the claim back the next day. Is it possible that they were correct originally about the rarity of casual transmissions from asymptomatic people? 

6. Why isn't there more of a push for testing in Napa? I've done it twice (once through Kaiser and once through the county/state program) but most people I know have never been tested. Should they? Why aren't county officials and supervisors make more of a fuss or is it really not so important? 

7. (This is a huge one for me) There is a clear push to reopen restaurants and get "back to normal" even though we're not in a much different stage than we were when we were to shelter in place. Is eating at a restaurant really safer than having a few known friends over for dinner? It seems to me that having friends over is much less risky, especially if you limit your circle and greet them at the door with hand sanitizer and take their temperature. 

I can't believe the people in restaurants and wine tasting rooms are all in groups of people they are sheltering with. 

 8. Is there anything else you'd want Napa residents to know? We are getting very mixed messages and there seems to be a lack of leadership. Clearly there is no one voice leading things. It feels as if we're fending for ourselves. What do you want us to know?