Clovis approves public health order resolution

CLOVIS — The Clovis city commission met quickly Tuesday afternoon, approving a resolution urging Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to reconsider public health orders that have shuttered local small businesses and non-profits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The resolution, approved by a 6-2 vote, asks the governor to consider an “immediate modification of public health orders to restore functioning parts of our local economy that do not endanger public health, proliferate innovation into our workforce and businesses and support the municipalities that provide critical services.”

Recommendations include:

• Reopening all businesses at 20% capacity as determined by local fire code

• Requiring all businesses to meter clientele numbers, manage six-foot social distancing standards, require employees and customers to wear face coverings, post public health information and guidelines and implement appropriate health protocols

• Recommend the general public use face covers or masks when in public spaces and businesses.

Additionally, the commission agreed to work with the governor and her staff to create plans to safely reopen local businesses to their full extent as soon as possible.

Mayor Mike Morris and commissioners sent a letter to the governor Friday covering many of the same issues, and Morris scheduled a special meeting that day to put the resolution forth.

Since scheduling the special meeting on Friday, Morris said he’d visited with numerous business owners and officials in the city. His Friday included visits with store managers at Walmart and Lowe’s hardware store. In both cases, Morris said:

• The stores were following a combination of company protocols and state public health orders

• The managers felt terrible for what small businesses were going through

• The stores were clean and employees were doing a great job

• The stores were packed with customers

Morris had conversations over the next few days with staff from the governor’s office and Plains Regional Medical Center Administrator Drew Dostal and after all of the discussions, “I feel good about bringing this resolution to you, when we think about what it is and what it’s not.”

Morris said the resolution was not a discount of COVID-19’s serious nature and not an attack on the work Lujan Grisham has done. What it was, Morris said, was a request to work through the situation and an acknowledgment that not all areas of New Mexico are the same.

The resolution repeats many of the elements present in a letter the commission sent to Lujan Grisham’s office, commending her for leadership in the face of a global public health emergency but noting public health orders increase unemployment and poverty and lessen financial support for local charities.

The resolution noted that many non-essential businesses provide local services and sell the same products as essential businesses and that the current public health order “dictates winners and losers by discriminating against small businesses and specialized retailers.”

Commissioners largely supported the resolution. District 3 Commissioners Fidel Madrid and Helen Casaus voted in dissent because while they believe in reopening businesses and public buildings they felt the resolution was redundant. Madrid noted he didn’t see the point of scheduling a special meeting for commissioners to send a resolution that said what they’d already said in a letter.

District 1 Commissioner Juan Garza felt the resolution was a more formal way to remind the governor’s office about local struggles.

Gary Elliott, a District 2 commissioner, feared many businesses may not be able to reopen and doubted the resolution would change anything with the governor’s office, but supported it wholeheartedly and hoped and prayed the governor would consider it.

District 4 Commissioner Rube Render said Curry County has had 10 cases for quite a while, but none of the patients have been hospitalized and eight are beyond the two-week timeline and logically should have recovered.

“This is not a political statement, none of us are political,” Render said. “We need to get everything open as soon as we possibly can.”

The governor’s office has noted that it understands the difficulties the public health orders have created, but amending the orders could increase infection and death counts.

The next commission meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. May 7 at the North Annex of the Clovis-Carver Public Library.