Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/category/topics/public-safety/)
Orange County’s property tax collector now says she will not waive late penalties for taxpayers who are impacted financially by COVID-19 pandemic – a position at odds with the state legislature and other counties, which have urged a broad relaxing of property tax deadlines for people financially impacted by the crisis.
Local hospitals, eyeing surges in coronavirus cases in other parts of the country, are stretching out their capacity to a total goal of 5,367 beds available countywide, and county health care agency officials say the medical facilities are more than 60% full.
Grocery workers are demanding increased safety and sanitation measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in their stores while they endure waves of customers filling the store and panic buying.
With OC jails experiencing a novel coronavirus outbreak, County officials are beginning to early release about scores of prisoners early and workers are getting apprehensive. Meanwhile, a group of criminal defense attorneys are asking a federal judge to clear out the jails.
It would be the latest city to join a growing list banning evictions throughout the county amid the coronavirus public health emergency. Many residents in Little Saigon area live in rental units with many others living in accessory dwelling units and mobile homes.
Orange County officials found the first case of the novel coronavirus hitting their jails after a man tested positive among the scores of inmates currently locked up. Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes will address the virus case which came from the Men’s Central Jail at the 1:30 p.m. news conference today.
The new measures will result in less people in the jails, reads an administrative order from OC Superior Presiding Judge Kirk Nakamura, “thus alleviating some of the pressures for arraignments within 48 hours and preliminary hearings within 10 days.”
At a time jurisdictions up and down the state are expanding emergency homeless shelters to slow the spread of coronavirus and save lives, two of Orange County’s main shelters are being downsized with replacement shelters that have 200 fewer beds in total.
Doctors in at least one OC hospital, UC Irvine Medical Center, are ringing alarm bells of crucial supply shortages and a lack of adequate response by administrators to a local outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Spitzer denounced what some attorneys decried as a serious public safety hazard at the main courthouse in Santa Ana today, but a day earlier he urged court staff and attorneys to remain calm and assured that measures were in place to protect attorneys and court staff.