LAKE COUNTY— An effort by a local group of residents seeking to repeal an ordinance regarding enforcement of COVID-19 requirements approved by the Board of Supervisors on Aug. 18 has failed to gather the requisite number of signatures according to the county’s Registrar of Voters Maria Valadez.
The referendum, advanced by a group known to be associated with anti-masking and anti vaccines based mostly out of south county, submitted 2,555 signatures on September 16 which were then checked for validity. Valadez said Friday that 1,712 of the signatures were determined to be valid but 843 were invalid. Had the group achieved the required threshold of required signatures, the board would have either stricken down the ordinance or would have needed to put it to voters in a special election. County staff had said in the interim the ordinance remained suspended until the verification process was completed.
The Lake County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last month at their September 22 meeting to send the referendum to the registrar of voters to check the signatures in the wake of a meeting where anti-enforcement group members threatened Supervisors Moke Simon and Tina Scott with a recall effort should they not to give into their demands to repeal the approved ordinance.
The ordinance spelled out a process for dealing with violations of public health orders, including first a warning and chance to correct the violation within five days. If a correction hadn’t been made, an entity would be given a notice of violation and 10 days to make a correction. If still uncorrected, the offender would be subject to an administrative fine.
The County’s Registrar of Voters’ office legally had 30 working days to count the signatures (Per Elections Code sections 9114 and 9915) from the date the petition was filed, but the effort took longer and further discussion of the failed referendum effort is not included in the agenda of the upcoming November 3 meeting of the Board.
One of the reasons given by the group that organized the effort to protest the ordinance was because of potential fines to local businesses. Matt Nelson, who is running for the District 4 Assembly seat currently held by Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, has claimed publicly the failed COVID-19 ordinance could impose fines as high as $10,000, but says now that he was referring to a Yolo County ordinance. The Lake County ordinance in fact carried a $500 maximum penalty.
The full text of the ordinance can be found and read on the County’s website.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the fact the Registrar of Voters has 30 working days from submission to verify the signatures, in order to determine if the petition is sufficient and to clarify public statements made by Matt Nelson.
