Rumors of Lacy Park’s closure for Mother’s Day ended up being greatly exaggerated.
After Los Angeles County officials announced conditional “relaxations” of its pandemic-related guidance and restrictions, San Marino elected to keep Lacy Park open for the Sunday holiday after all. Though the park has remained open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — albeit with the playground closed and monitoring for social distancing — city officials had previously closed it for Easter Sunday in anticipation of crowds flocking to the park, a situation they had planned for again on Mother’s Day.
“We were very appreciative that people are doing a good job of adhering to social distancing at Lacy Park,” said City Manager Marcella Marlowe, who added that the Fire Department planned to upload a video on social distancing etiquette this week.
The county also began reopening its own parks, hiking trails and golf courses starting on May 9 — again, with conditions on social distancing and keeping eateries and shops at golf courses closed — and some nonessential businesses were allowed to reopen on a curbside pickup basis on May 8. This runs parallel to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s transition of the state to “phase two” of the pandemic, which allows counties to begin dictating the terms of how businesses and public spaces will reopen as they continue to run public testing facilities for COVID-19.
As if to illustrate the whiplash local officials experience every week with overhead directives, just after county officials said on Tuesday they planned to extend the “Safer at Home” order by three months, Newsom released the state’s plans for reopening businesses and restaurants moving forward. Decisions slated to be considered by the City Council this week included how to proceed with the annual Fourth of July celebration; the annual Memorial Day observance has already been made virtual.
“Regardless of what I professionally or personally agree with, I am bound by certain things. We have rules that we have to follow as well,” Marlowe said Tuesday, later adding, “Everybody’s wondering [about the new orders]. Everybody’s trying to do the right thing and figure it out.”
Though the sixth iteration of the “Safer at Home” was slated to expire this Friday, it was a virtual given that the county would extend it in some form. L.A. County is expected to have a protracted easing of restrictions when compared to neighboring counties, in large part because of how its density relates to the spread of the coronavirus here.
As of press time on Tuesday, there were at least 18 San Marino residents confirmed to have COVID-19, which is the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that was declared a global pandemic on March 11, several months after it appears to have emerged in China. No city residents have died from the disease, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health. The disease has killed 1,613 county residents — around half of them residents of skilled nursing facilities or other institutional settings — and infected more than 33,000 countywide.
Businesses allowed to reopen under restrictions include book stores, clothing retailers, flower shops, music stores, sporting goods stores, toy stores and auto dealer showrooms. Those businesses must enforce social distancing protocols as well as perform infection control cleaning periodically.
The county has outlined its “Roadmap to Recovery” at covid19.lacounty.gov/recovery.
The city continues to operate its resident support hotline for the pandemic — (626) 300-0731 — and encourages residents to also visit cityofsanmarino.org/coronavirus for up-to-date information on pandemic policies and city programming.
City Adapts as State, County Keep Doling Out Changes
