EDITORIAL – Just when we thought we would see a way out of California Governor Gavin Newsome’s PURPLE covid-19 tier, Madera County has been pushed back down again with several more weeks or months of businesses in our county being forced into bankruptcy and permanent closures. All the while our neighboring counties to the north, south, and east have been allowed into the RED tier where gyms, churches, and indoor restaurants are free to operate under safe conditions (as of today they are also back in purple). Our community has already been locked down since March; 36 weeks of our economy shut down and some lady (Our County Health Director, who happens to live in Fresno County) wants it to be even longer?

A few weeks ago Madera County met the arbitrary number set by the state on positivity rates and should have moved into the RED tier, and then Madera County Health Director Sara Bosse pulled the rug out from under our county’s economic base yet again saying our Covid-19 numbers doubled and our county’s businesses are put on hold for two more weeks. At the same time, she was upset with the Madera County Board of Supervisors for releasing county numbers before our state’s governor got to do it on his nearly daily television hour. The health department director scolded the board because the information she shared was “embargoed” until Governor Newsome released it.

Who does this lady work for, the state or the county? My sources within the board of supervisor’s office tell me if some of the members of the board have it their way, very soon she will not be working for the County of Madera. Last month the Madera County Supervisor from District Three, Robert Poythress, expressed his frustration during the weekly board meeting over the lack of information the board receives from Ms. Bosse’s office. Apparently during a pandemic the health director, no matter how unqualified, supersedes the elected board of supervisors. WRONG!

The gatekeeper to our economy opening back up is a Madera County employee of a department that by her own office’s admission is not an enforcement agency and therefore conducts no compliance checks. In other words, if you owned a fitness gym like the Fit-Republic Health Club in the city of Madera at the corner of Schnoor Avenue and Cleveland Avenue and decided to open your doors in defiance of Governor Newsome’s’ orders the county is not going to stop you.

Another group in Madera that has been open for the last three months in defiance of the governor’s orders is the First Christian Church on Sunset Avenue which has been conducting indoor services since July with the full knowledge of Ms. Bosse and the Madera County Health Department. Scott Stuttsman, senior elder for the church says it is no different than Walmart being open. And he may be right because it sure is healthier than making their elderly parishioners sit out in the smoky air from the fires the state refused to put out. The newly hired senior pastor for the church is Derrick Purl who has refused any comment about the defiance, even when asked by me as a concerned father rather than a newspaper editor (members of my family have attended the church for over twenty years).

So if being in defiance is so easy, why are we keeping our indoor restaurants closed? Studies are showing that the COVID-19 virus will spread in those cramped walled-tents the county has people eating outdoors in faster than inside the safety of the restaurants themselves, so why are we still eating outside. We don’t shop at Walmart and Home Depot outside. Why are our restaurants being punished when Ms. Bosse herself has publicly stated that the majority of the county spread is because of the farm-workers and multi-generational households?

Maybe that is where the problem in Madera County exists? The information that Ms. Bosse is willing to share with the people of Madera County is, basically, no information at all. Mr. Poythress was right in questioning what information she shares with the board of supervisors. The people of Madera see businesses closed down for deep cleanings but the county will not tell us if that was caused by a COVID-19 issue. The county will not share where the positives are coming from, but Bosse will attribute them to a specific group and nationality of our population.

We came across a few of the emails Ms. Bosse sends to the board of supervisors (public records) and it has a list of media outlets she has contacted about COVID-19; Big Valley News, Sierra Online News, and the Madera Tribune are not on that list. The only media outlets are the ones with bright lights and television cameras. We have a very non-politically correct term for a bureaucrat that seeks out the spotlight of television; they are called “media (expletive deleted)’s”.

Why are Madera County’s numbers so high? According to county sources, we do not conduct enough testing. The majority of tests done in this county are on people who have symptoms.  So, of course, our positivity rate is going to be high. Where are all the drive-thru testing facilities we see on the news for Fresno and Merced Counties? We do not have them. There is no money being provided to fund them. Madera can only afford a little hole in the wall at the Madera District Fairgrounds and I can honestly tell you we have received no information on how to secure a test time from them. We need our County Health official to assist with coordinating state-level financial support for a county-wide testing effort. If there is not a county-wide testing effort, there will always be a high positive rate. More testing means more negative numbers, which means lower positive rates for the county and lower rankings on the state’s color tiers. A lower ranking on the color tiers means more open businesses, churches, and restaurants.

Another way of lowering the spread of the COVID-19 virus would be a four-week mandatory mask ordinance enforced by local law enforcement. Studies have shown that in states that have ordered the wearing of masks, the spread of the virus has leveled out. I was in Monterey this summer and all along Cannery Row were signs stating masks were required with a $100 fine for violators. If our elected officials would only pass such an ordinance for Madera County and demand our law enforcement back it up, we could level out the spread and bring down our numbers which again would mean, a lower ranking on the color tiers means more open businesses, churches, and restaurants.

It is not rocket science but we need the right person in charge of our health department who can, in turn, collect and send the correct information to the state level. We need someone with a medical degree and not a bachelor of arts as a dietician. We need to send Ms. Bosse packing back to Fresno County where she can bother them about smoking cigars and drinking sodas, and leave Madera County's economy alone. We need a professional Health Director leading Madera into the future and not trying to push her agendas and power grabs for the spotlight to find a bigger better job when this is all over. The Madera County Board of Supervisors needs to follow their instincts and fire Sara Bosse before she destroys this county’s fragile economy beyond repair.

Save Madera County’s Future – Fire Sara Bosse Now

Romans 13:1-2 says: "Obey the government, for God is the One who has put it there. There is no government anywhere that God has not placed in power. So those who refuse to obey the law of the land are refusing to obey God, and punishment will follow."