Friends,
Our team has been working around the clock since Thursday night, managing and preventing a last minute decision by our federal and state governments to make Costa Mesa & Orange County the epicenter for quarantine and isolation of Coronavirus patients in the United States.
It’s been a whirlwind with information evolving by the hour. Our Costa Mesa City team along with our legislative, local and community partners dropped everything to help and we are all grateful.
COURT UPDATE: On Friday, after our team became frustrated by the inadequate information and failure to follow established protocols and then received written confirmation that the government was preparing to transfer 40-50 patients to Fairview Development Center, we filed for an injunction to halt any transfer. The court temporarily granted our relief and requested briefings. We are set to go back to court for a hearing on Monday.
In their briefings, the government failed to show any compliance with established emergency response protocols. They skipped all steps to properly evaluate and coordinate with local governments.
In the hearing, the Judge grilled the lawyers for both state and federal agencies to determine what scientific, medical, safety and security criteria was evaluated to select Fairview Development Center. Their response was misdirection, blaming, lack of knowledge, and, frankly, disrespect for local government.
THE GOOD NEWS – The Judge stated she believed ours and the county public health officials questions were appropriate and directed the government to answer. She also directed them to meet with local representatives, including the county, this week.
You can read the court papers and the city press release and a good summary of the court hearing in these links:
