Congressman Harley Rouda is in favor of Governor Gavin Newsom’s order to reopen certain Orange County beaches. Rouda represents California’s 48th District, which includes Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.
This week, Gov. Newsom gave six beaches in California permission to reopen: San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Dana Point, and Seal Beach. These Southern California beaches are only open for recreational activities, such as walking, running, exercising, swimming, and surfing. No sunbathing is allowed.
Laguna Beach: Open now, weekdays from 6-10 a.m.
Newport Beach: Open now, daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
San Clemente: Open now, daily with no specific hours announced
Huntington Beach: Open now, daily from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Seal Beach: Open May 11, Monday through Thursday during daylight
Dana Point: No guidelines announced
“Laguna Beach and other communities here in California, as well as across the country who have a phased in approach of beach access, historically are looking at set beach hours, so it might be something as in four hours, six hours a day, it might even be the whole day, but it starts on weekdays not weekends,” Rouda said. “They’re maintaining the closing of the parking lot so that people can't come in large droves to access the beach.”
Rouda said opening beaches in Orange County with limited restrictions is a “great step in the right direction.”
“Those restrictions would then be reduced as time goes by,” he said. “You may take a step back and then take a step forward as you figure out how to navigate the pandemic with the required physical distancing.”
Gov. Newsom closed beaches in Orange County on April 30 after crowds flocked to Newport Beach on the last weekend of April. After a large protest in Huntington Beach on May 1, Gov. Newsom changed his mind this week and allowed some beaches to reopen.
Rouda believes opening San Clemente and Laguna Beach shows a partnership between the Governor and the cities.
“Like many residents of Orange County, we were frustrated with [the decision to close beaches] because, even though we had some incidents with a couple of our cities in the district, we felt that there was a way that the beaches could be open and managed in a thoughtful, pragmatic way that maintain a physical distancing and maintain the health outcomes that we were hoping to accomplish for our residents,” he said. “What we have seen be approved for Laguna Beach and San Clemente is a great example of working together to find a good solution and hopefully we can extend that to the other cities in the County as well.”
For beaches to reopen, cities must submit plans for state approval. San Clemente and Laguna Beach were the first two approved.
“We relied in part on Laguna Beach's plan of action because it was well-thought-out and it accomplished the outcomes we were hoping for,” he said.
Rouda believes opening more beaches in Orange County will help with congestion. When Newport Beach reopened in late April, people from L.A. and San Diego Counties flocked there for some fun in the sun after weeks of staying at home due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“A couple of our communities opened up beaches on [Friday, April 24], after people have been shut down for five, six weeks in their homes, it was a heatwave, and even though they had a good intention of reducing the amount of traffic and people coming to the beach by closing those parking lots, it ended up causing havoc in the local communities where people would park their cars in those neighborhoods, provide a lot of congestion on the walkways to the beaches, and really exasperated the whole idea of maintaining physical distancing,” Rouda said.
While Rouda said there was actually “generally speaking good physical distancing” at Newport Beach during the last weekend of April, “it provided real challenges in these local neighborhoods.” That’s why Rouda supports reopening more beaches in Orange County on weekdays.
“I think by doing it on weekdays helps eliminate part of that potential outcome,” he said.
Even during a pandemic, Rouda said unfortunately politics always plays a decision in policy.
“It would be nice if we could all arc the polarization and the limitization off to the side because we are dealing with a serious health crisis,” he said. “There will be tens of thousands more Americans who will die before we get our arms around managing the continued spread and infections from COVID-19. So this is not a time for politics, this is the time for helping our neighbor, helping our community, and helping maintain the health and integrity of those around us.”
Rouda knows that he can’t please everyone when it comes to reopening the Newport Beach economy.
“I believe most Americans in residence of Orange County want us to maintain physical distancing, want us to do our best to not put pressure on our hospital system and our front line health care workers, but they also want to see these restrictions to have a planned process of lifting these restrictions as we continue to flatten the curve. And with the governor recently bringing out that phased approach and now us getting to doing the same thing with our parts that are beaches, we're making progress,” he said.
He said for some, the progress of reopening is too fast, and for others, it’s not fast enough.
“Usually when you have both ends of the spectrum believing in opposite viewpoints, we’re probably doing the right thing because we're somewhere in the middle,” he said.
Rouda said he wanted to be back in Washington, D.C. weeks ago. He believes there’s important work to be done during this global health crisis.
“We have passed four major pieces of legislation in a very quick time period. There are holes that need to be filled, there are technical glitches that need to be fixed, there’s additional legislation that needs to be passed,” he said. “We have work to do. And when we look at essential workers, I believe members of Congress fall into that definition for the good of our country, the good of our communities, we need to be serving in D.C. and doing our job.”
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