Manatee County Commission votes 4-3 to extend nighttime curfew until Tuesday
The Board of County Commissioners voted 4-3 to extend the local curfew until Tuesday in an effort to stop the spread and flatten the curve of a nationwide COVID-19 outbreak.
The board will meet again to discuss a further extension of the 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, which first went into effect on April 3. President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis have both said they will provide coronavirus updates on Monday, and commissioners hope to use some of that information to make their decision.
Commissioners Priscilla Whisenant Trace, Misty Servia, Reggie Bellamy and Carol Whitmore voted in favor of extending the curfew. Commissioners Stephen Jonsson, Vanessa Baugh and Betsy Benac voted against the proposal.
Benac said she voted against the curfew extension because she didn’t think there would be any groundbreaking updates on how the coronavirus is spreading through Manatee County by then and preferred for the board to make a 7-day decision.
“I don’t think we’re gonna have significant new information by Tuesday. I think we’re punting,” Benac explained. “I’d rather say we extend for seven days or not.”
Baugh and Jonsson, who have now voted against the curfew for three straight weeks, said they felt the statewide stay-at-home order is effective enough.
“I don’t see the correlation between what’s going on and the value of the curfew. I think people are scared enough,” Jonsson said. “I don’t know that I’m convinced enough that it’s the curfew that’s driving those numbers down.”
Baugh also took issue with the limited coronavirus testing in Manatee County, where only 2,115 have been tested, compared to more than 3,000 in Sarasota County and over 14,000 in Hillsborough County.
“That’s where we seem to have our weak link — in testing,” Baugh said, suggesting that the county should begin working to acquire more tests.
County Administrator Cheri Coryea said county staff are researching several FDA-approved COVID-19 tests, and will meet early next week to discuss which is the best option to purchase for additional testing availability.
“We’re relying on that meeting on Monday to talk about appropriate locations for those tests and appropriate dispensing, so we can bring our numbers up and flatten that positive rate in Manatee County,” Coryea said.
In a presentation to the board, Public Safety Director Jake Saur recommended that they authorize an extension and used traffic and emergency response data as evidence that the curfew is working to keep people at home.
“Manatee County has not achieved the flattening of the curve, so slowing the spread remains more crucial than ever,” he explained. “We need to be doing all that we can to build and maintain resiliency in our community.”
“What you’re seeing with these short extensions of the curfew, which is in the middle of the night, is a balance between civil liberties and small restrictions, during a very dangerous time, with the goal of trying to keep people from dying,” said Servia.
The board is scheduled to host a public meeting using video chat technology on Tuesday at 9 a.m. to determine whether the curfew will be extended again.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 4:28 PM.
