By Michael Hernandez
VENTURA COUNTY—Four Ventura County residents from Oxnard, Camarillo, and Newbury Park are proposing a Call To Action with four action steps by “Residents to Re-Open Ventura County.”
- JOIN a Saturday or Monday Round-Table (by zoom) to share your ideas for re-opening
Ventura County at either 8 a.m., 2 p.m. or 8 p.m. (May 2 and May 4)
“We request your Point of View. RSVP: [email protected] giving your city/employer/interest or comment. The Zoom invite is 959-213-1556.
- WRITE Letters to the Editor to:
- MAKE Public Comments at:
- Ventura County Board of Supervisors: May 5
- Camarillo city Council: May 13
- Ojai City Council: May 12
- Oxnard City Council: May 5
- Fillmore city Council: May 12
- Moorpark City Council: May 20
- Port Hueneme City Council: May 4
- Santa Paula City Council: May 6
- Simi Valley City Council: May 4, May 11
- Thousand Oaks City Council: May 12
- Ventura city Council: May 4
- PRAY:
- National Day of Prayer: 8 am., 2 p.m. 8 p.m.
Phone Line: 1-515-604-9586 (Access: 389244#)
Thursday: May 7th
“We are asking Ventura County residents to JOIN a Round-Table and give us their ideas for “Re-Opening; WRITE Letters to the Editor to local media outlets; MAKE Public Comments at the meetings of our elected officials, and PRAY for Ventura County, California, the United States of America, and the world as we endure this pandemic,” said Michael Hernandez.
Hernandez, co-founder of the Citizens Journal (Ventura County’s online news service) and co-chair of Hispanics4LaRepublic is organizing the National Day of Prayer phone conference call on Thursday, May 7th at 1-515-604-9586 (Access: 389244#). The first prayer time at 8 a.m. will be hosted by local Ventura County lay leaders; the 2 p.m. phone call will be facilitated by local clergy; while the 8 p.m. call will be in Spanish.
“In these times, we need to bring hope and have a conversation with our residents of Ventura County,” said Gloria Massey Chinea, former hospital administrator and Point of View Founder and co-chair of Hispanics4LaRepublica (a non-partisan effort to engage Hispanics in the community) facilitating the “Re-Open Ventura County” Round-Table sessions. “Health as I define it is body, mind, spirit and financial equilibrium. As residents of this great county in California, we all can partake at the table and bring suggestions and possible solutions in how to solve together all the issues that involve health of our community.”
The other two Ventura County residents assisting Hernandez and Chinea in the “Re-Open Ventura County” grassroots campaign are: Lorena Saruwatari and Rolando Chinea (of both Point of View and Hispanics4LaRepublica).
“The Force be with US,” said Rolando Chinea. “In Unity and Harmony everything is possible. We are just instruments of Him. Without Freedom, we will be nothing. By definition, Freedom is one of the pillars or cornerstone of our Nation. Let’s together protect it.”
Michael Hernandez, Co-Founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service; editor of the History Makers Report and founder of History Makers International—a community nonprofit serving youth and families in Ventura County, is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. He worked 25 years as a middle school teacher in Monrovia and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted by email at [email protected].
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Getting sick from the virus can happen, but the death rate per million for California is about 56 now. Ventura county rate per million is even less, I think. To try and live only by the motto “Stay Safe” is neither practical nor needed now. Life being controlled by fear is a disease far worse than the virus. Live free and open Now!
It should be a requirement that anyone commenting against reopening must disclose if they still have an income.
The original intent was to “slow the spread” and that has been accomplished. We don’t shut the economy down for the seasonal flu each year, and this virus is turning out to be no worse. The data have been revised and it’s clear this disease is treatable and survivable by most.
Time to reopen everything now. Anyone choosing to stay home to protect themselves can do that, everyone can choose how much risk they want to take, but no one has the right to tell others to stop working. We must get back to our work and our lives.
Most of the key objectives for the shutdown have been met. The county health department has done enough contact tracing to know where the hot spots are. We know our hospitals have sufficient capacity to handle the illness. No forecast proposed that we completely stop deaths from Coronavirus, because that is unrealistic. The cost of the shutdown has been high for many families whose earners have been out of work. We sacrificed religious liberties, freedom of assembly, and freedom to use our propperty to earn a living. Now it is apparent that any further shutdown is political rather than scientific. Open up so we can get back to work and have all of our consititutional freedoms.
Stay home as long as possible. The SAH order is WORKING. Let’s not do something stupid that we WILL regret. Provide loans to the businesses that cannot stay closed so they can survive. Make sure people have food. Stay home.
I believe we should wait until May 15 at least before we make any decisions about reopening
Speaking as a resident of Ventura Country—I know people are anxious about finances and work, but without a vaccine and available testing for all, it is too risky to reopen Ventura County. We will inevitably see our numbers jump and our hospitals overflow. At the moment, we are doing well, but this is because we are at home. It’s as simple as that. It will change if we undo this. Additionally, lets be mindful of our essential healthcare workers and prevent overwhelming them with high numbers of sick patients, which also puts them at risk. Lastly, let’s make our decisions based on science and evidence, not emotions. The virus will not simply disappear because we’ve stayed home for 2 months. We need a way to combat the virus medically in order to move forward.
Anna Christine: Are you aware that vaccines have never been developed for AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, etc? If we had applied your criteria to those, we would have been locked down for decades.
Oh, no! You used logic and intelligence. Emperor Newsom’s subjects can’t deal with that.
Good morning I believe it’s too soon to re open Ventura or our beaches and everything else. We need to lower our numbers of cases first in the county and we need to follow instructions on social distance, wear a mask, 6 ft apart. I as a resident say absolutely not to reopen. We need to lower our number on coronavirus cases. We need to clear first.
It too early to open anything around city do want people to sick again from the thing shut down the Ventura country fair tell people to stay home or will be paid fine or go jail just listened to us