Fresno councilman unveils proposal to end shelter-in-place, open businesses amid COVID-19
Fresno Councilmember Garry Bredefeld announced legislation Wednesday to end the shelter-in-place order that has shut down many businesses for nearly two months.
The legislation would do away with all of the local orders related to the coronavirus and allow any business owner ready to open to do so while maintaining safety precautions like social distancing and routine cleaning.
Removing the shelter-in-place order would align the city with the measures taken by Fresno County. Bredefeld argues that alignment will help the county as its presents a plan to re-open to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office later this week.
“We need to be one voice in the county and hopefully get these businesses open,” he said.
The council is expected to consider the legislation at the May 21 meeting.
Bredefeld has been the most visible opponent to Mayor Lee Brand’s March 18 order for residents to shelter-in-place and for nonessential businesses to shutter during the coronavirus pandemic.
Getting enough members of the City Council to support Bredefeld’s proposal could be a difficult task, as the majority has supported closures to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Bredefeld has held at least a half-dozen news conferences while repeating his concerns for what sheltering-in-place will do to the economy and citing unintended consequences of the order, including its affect on the mental health of residents.
The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday reported more than 3.1 million new initial unemployment insurance claims for the week ending May 2. In the seven weeks since the crisis began impacting the economy, more than 33 million Americans have filed for unemployment.
California reported 318,000 unemployment claims last week, the most of any state, according to the Department of Labor’s weekly reports. The national number is seasonally adjusted; the state numbers are not.
Arias confrontation
A segment of Fresno’s business community has expressed frustrations over the hit they’ve taken financially.
Those frustrations spilled into the personal life of Councilmember Miguel Arias on Tuesday. He was confronted by advocates for re-opening the city, who showed up on his doorstep.
Arias was cited by police after allegedly pushing more than one person among the group as they refused to leave the stairwell to his apartment. A number of local organizations condemned the actions of the crowd outside Arias’ door — as did Bredefeld.
“I don’t care whether you like the person or don’t like the person, agree or don’t agree,” Bredefeld said Wednesday. “This kind of behavior, frankly, is reprehensible. There’s no defense for it.”
Among the people who confronted Arias on Tuesday was Ben Bergquam, who runs a Facebook page called Frontline America and organized last week’s Freedom Rally protesting the shelter order.
Two people who work for Frontline were barred by police when they tried to enter City Hall for Bredefeld’s news conference on Wednesday, city spokesperson Mark Standriff confirmed. Only credentialed media were allowed to enter the building.
Critics said Bredefeld’s rhetoric has added fuel to the fire that ended with the confrontation outside Arias’ house. He denied that he has contributed to those actions.
“People who know me: I fight hard, but I respect people’s different points of view,” he said.
“If people like Ben Bergquam or the 300 people (at the Freedom Rally) support my belief that people should be able to go back to work, I welcome that,” he said. “When they do things like they did yesterday, that is completely unacceptable and I denounce it.”
This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Fresno councilman unveils proposal to end shelter-in-place, open businesses amid COVID-19."
