Open Letter to Torrance City Council: Reject Ferrer's Mandates, No More Masks, Open the City Fully

 Dear Torrance City Council:

I recently learned about a letter issued from a number of  locally elected officials throughout the South Bay:

We, the undersigned mayors and council members from the South Bay Cities demand the reversal of the latest county health order on behalf of our constituents. At a minimum, we appeal to be exempted based on our vaccination rates and much lower COVID case numbers.

We need a director and a health department that sets warranted policies based on our unique service area demands and needs. We need a credible director and a health department that we can trust.

In the most populated county with more than 10 million residents and the size of several countries in Europe, Dr. Ferrer calls 1902 new cases “alarming.” These are 1902 cases where more than 98% will recover, according to medical literature. While we recognize that every death is tragic, she reports that six died out of 10 million people. That data is being used out of context to establish a health order that punishes fully vaccinated and compliant citizens. For the same period, the lives lost under varying circumstances such as car accidents, overdose, cancer should put into perspective the percentage of Covid related deaths. Further, we think it is imperative to consider how many took their own lives out of desperation and financial ruin due to this pandemic and how the new policies will add to this growing number. Reporting this data and establishing health orders based on it without the proper context does not help us develop sound and balanced public health policy.

Our constituents are questioning why they were told to vaccinate to see normalcy because our constituents did follow protocol and vaccinate themselves. The vaccination rates in our cities have reached what many scientific journals label “herd immunity” for vaccines with 95% efficacy. With this herd immunity established, why are these individuals now being told to wear masks again? We must be exempt.

We have had enough of these policies! We demand that you stop this one-size-fits-all approach to health and health outcomes. If the goal is to have more people vaccinated, then the health department needs to contextualize that data by service area and establish health directives by using the power of data and persuasion instead of setting mandates that defy common sense and science. This most recent order will drive people away from the vaccine. We, as community leaders, did, and continue to do, our jobs to lead our communities to be fully vaccinated. In our cases, the evidence is clear. We need Dr. Ferrer out of our way.

We are not alone in our strong disagreement with this order. The CDC and even our state policies do not align with this recent order. Even county officials are not in agreement with the order. The utter confusion and anguish caused by this order in our communities are unnecessary and painful. We see no reason to punish this county when 57 counties in this state are open to business and not requiring mask-wearing for individuals who have been vaccinated.

We implore you to modify this recent order, engage with us, and set a policy that better reflects the unique context of our area. The arbitrary nature of these health policies only contributes to the instability of our individual and collective recovery from this pandemic.

Most respectfully,

Hon. Drew Boyles, Mayor City of El Segundo

Hon. Suzanne Hadley, Mayor of Manhattan Beach

Hon. Mike Griffiths, Mayor Pro Tem City of Torrance

Hon. Aurelio Mattucci, Council Member City of Torrance

Hon. Heidi Ashcraft, Council Member City of Torrance

Hon. Michael Kemps, Mayor City of Palos Verdes Estates

Hon. David McGowan, Council Member City of Palos Verdes Estates

Hon. Eric Alegria, Mayor City of Rancho Palos Verdes

Hon. John Cruikshank, Council Member City of Rancho Palos Verdes

Hon. Frank V. Zerunyan, Mayor Pro Tem City of Rolling Hills Estates

Hon. Velveth Schmitz, Council Member City of Rolling Hills Estates

First of all, I wish to commend Councilmembers Griffiths, Ashcraft, and Mattucci for joining this letter.

Second, I urge the remaining members of the Torrance City Council--Walser, Kalani, Chen, and Mayor Furey--to join this letter.

Third, the Torrance City Council must issue a clear directive via resolution to every business and every property owner in the city of Torrance that the city will not enforce any so-called mandate from LA County Health Director Barbara Ferrer. This unconstitutional, unscientific madness must cease. It is the government's job to protect the rights of the citizens. It is not the government's job to protect the citizenry's health. It is not the government's job to protect every citizen from death, to paraphrase Manhattan Beach city councilwoman Suzanne Hadley.

Last of all, the city of Torrance should repeal the Local Emergency declarations once and for all. The city may lose government money in the short-term with this action, but businesses will be able to thrive and conduct commerce once again, more than making up for any losses from missing out on COVID-19 relief. Other cities in Southern California (Yorba Linda, Laguna Niguel) have already repealed their emergency orders. Torrance should do the same.

Cities must rise up against this overreach. As Councilwoman Ashcraft had shared with me a few weeks ago, we all simply need to learn to live with COVID-19, or any other pathogen. This whole pandemic overreach has never been about public health or public safety. This whole scam has been about control. It's time for the city of Torrance to take back its control, and let the citizens control their lives to the fullest extent possible.

Sincerely,

Arthur Schaper

Contact the Torrance City Council, and tell them to:

1. Reject Ferrer's Mandates

2. Tell all businesses and property owners that the city will not enforce mask mandates

3. Repeal the Local Emergency Order and Let the City of Torrance Open Fully

Torrance City Council Contacts

 

Pat Furey (pfurey@torranceca.gov);

George Chen (gchen@torranceca.gov);

Aurelio Mattucci (amattucci@torranceca.gov);

Sharon Kalani (skalani@torranceca.gov)

Mike Griffiths (mgriffiths@torranceca.gov);

Heidi Ashcraft (hashcraft@torranceca.gov);

Jack Walser (jwalser@torranceca.gov);

 

City Clerk Rebecca Poirier (rpoirier@torranceca.gov);

 

City Manager Aram Chaparyan (achaparyan@torranceca.gov);

City Attorney Patrick Sullivan (psullivan@torranceca.gov);

Chief of Police Jon Megeff (jmegeff@torranceca.gov)

 

Phone:   (310) 618-2801

Vermont Governor Phil Scott: Balanced Budgets, No Tax Increases

There's good news, even in uber-liberal Vermont with a center-left Republican Governor.

Let's hope that he rejects any notion of moving left on any other issue, all while standing his ground against liberal spending habits and wasteful governement expansionism.

Check out his latest press release:

A Foundation for Growth
by Governor Phil Scott

On my first day in office, I issued an executive order defining the top goals of my Administration: Growing the economy, making Vermont more affordable, and protecting the most vulnerable. We are laser-focused on these priorities and they guide us in everything we do.

That’s why we’ve concentrated on government modernization and efficiency, rethinking and revitalizing our approach to economic development, transitioning to a cradle-to-career education system that is the best in the nation, strengthening our response to the opioid epidemic, and making sure state spending isn’t growing faster than wages or the economy.

With this approach, and the help of the legislature in the session that recently ended, we succeeded in investing more in economic growth, including marketing Vermont as a place to do business, expanding small business development centers, and establishing tax credits that will support our growing aerospace sector and the forest products economy as well as the creation of new co-working and “maker” spaces that nurture small, innovative startup businesses.

To begin addressing the need for housing that working families can afford, we passed a $35 million housing bond that will create hundreds of new homes throughout the state, employ 1,000 workers, generate $50 million in wages in the construction phase and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional economic value over the next 20 years. We also made commonsense changes to support housing developments and downtown growth by simplifying permitting and increasing tax incentives for development – proven tools for expanding infrastructure and spurring growth.

I believe our education system can be one of our strongest tools for attracting more working families who want to raise their children in the nation’s safest and healthiest state. That’s why I proposed significantly increasing access to childcare, pre-school programs and higher education by redeploying ongoing savings in a K-12 system that sees declining student enrollment year-after-year. It’s also why I fought so hard to save up to $26 million each year from the transition to new health insurance plans for teachers, without asking them to pay more or reducing services to our children. 

Ultimately, we increased funding for the Child Care Financial Assistance Program by $2.5 million, and the Vermont State College system by $3 million to help stabilize tuition, and established a full-time focus on career and technical education at the Agency of Education.

To strengthen our response to the opioid epidemic, I created the Opioid Coordination Council, appointed a director of drug policy and prevention, and convened Vermont’s first statewide convention focused on growing the workforce to support opioid and substance misuse treatment.
We also took important steps toward modernizing state government with the creation of the Agency of Digital Services, which merges dozens of IT management functions that were previously spread across state government, and making government more efficient through our Program to Improve Vermont Outcomes Together (PIVOT) initiative, which has asked frontline state employees for ways to make our systems more efficient and easier to use.

Acting quickly and decisively, we upheld long-standing values with the passage of S.79, An act relating to freedom from compulsory collection of personal information. This legislation proactively protects our Constitutional rights, and defends the state against federal overreach by clearly prohibiting state agencies from sharing personal information for the purposes of creating a federal registry based on personal characteristics.

Perhaps most importantly, we achieved all of this without asking you to pay more.

For the first time in many years, state spending isn’t growing faster than our ability to pay for it. And, not a single piece of legislation that I signed created or raised taxes or fees. That means state government is doing its part to help families keep more of what they earn, and we did this while protecting essential services and the frontline workers who deliver them.

The path was sometimes challenging. For example, it took a veto to ensure that – for the first time in recent memory – the state budget didn’t raise any taxes or fees, including property taxes rates. We could have taken the easy path, but I believe Vermonters elected me to improve state government and the state’s economic trajectory. And we’re getting there, but there’s much more work to do.

Overall, this legislative session resulted in real progress and an important shift in our thinking – we have built a foundation for stronger growth. When I think about the opportunities ahead of us, I’m more committed than ever to rolling up my sleeves and building a stronger, more affordable and more prosperous Vermont. 

Paid for by the Vermont Republican Federal Elections Committee
Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.
www.vtgop.org

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