Page 10 October 22, 2020 EL SEGUNDO HERALD
City Council from front page
Film Review from page 4
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was nice, but she didn’t like the food.
After the five-month trial period ends,
Whalen and the city manager will evaluate
any financial or staffing benefits to the city.
The two leaders could recommend making
the Hawthorne jail switch a long-term deal.
Whalen said Tuesday city officials tasked him
to find efficiencies - including cost savings
- within the police department budget when
he was hired in October 2017.
Because of bail reforms and COVID-19
precautions, fewer people are staying in
California jails. Instead, people arrested on
suspicion of misdemeanor crimes are being
released on their promise to appear for trial.
Defendants arrested for more serious crimes
- including domestic violence or sex offenses
- can be detained until their arraignment
and trial under the new bail-reform system.
“Very few people remain in jail. They are
processed out,” Whalen explained.
Voters will decide in the November 3
general election whether to uphold the state’s
bail reform law or replace it with something
else. Proposition 25 is a referendum on Senate
Bill 10, which the Legislature approved,
but the law never took effect because the
referendum qualified for the ballot. A “yes”
vote upholds the current cashless bail reform,
while a “no” would overturn the lawmakers
and replace their bail reforms with another
formula for deciding who is released from
jail and who stays until they can post bond.
The fatigue felt by residents dealing with
COVID-19 and 2020’s new “normal” is real,
Fire Chief Chris Donovan acknowledged
during his regular report to the council. The
epidemic has stretched to seven months. While
he understands the frustration and impatience
for the virus to be over, Donovan cautioned El
Segundo residents not to let those emotions
override good judgment. The city continues
to make progress in slowing the spread of the
novel virus, as evidenced by the latest Los
Angeles County health department figures.
As of October 20, El Segundo has seven
active cases of COVID-19, meaning people
had tested positive and remained under a
14-day quarantine. The city has registered
139 confirmed cases and one death since
the health emergency began in March. The
city’s case-positivity rate rose slightly since
October 6, while actual case rates fell again.
El Segundo city officials learned Tuesday
their request to Sacramento for a waiver to
lift the city from the purple tier, where all
of Los Angeles County is stuck, is being
considered. The state’s Department of Public
Health is working on a response. However,
a representative who spoke October 14 with
the city’s communications manager, Martha
Guzman-Hurtado, didn’t specify when an
answer to El Segundo’s request might come.
The City Council on September 10 sent a
letter to Governor Gavin Newsom asking for
some leniency from his guidelines for a safe
reopening across California’s counties. The
governor chose a methodology that treats all
cities and unincorporated areas within a county
as a single group, making it impossible for
El Segundo to be evaluated independently.
El Segundo would move up two tiers, and
the South Bay would jump one tier if their
lower case numbers and test-positivity rates
were taken into consideration.
City Attorney Mark Hensley reported that
other cities and counties - including Torrance
- are pushing the Newsom administration to
rethink its one-size-fits-all test for measuring
the risk of spreading the virus within communities.
Cities and counties want Sacramento
leaders to revise the rules for dealing with the
extraordinary public crisis, which has closed
public schools, spiked unemployment, and
put the brakes on the economy. The recession
forced El Segundo to trim nearly $15
million from its budget.
In another COVID-19 development, the
City Council endorsed Superintendent Melissa
Moore and the school district as they
try to reopen some lower grades for partial
in-class school days. The school district plans
to ask Los Angeles public health officials to
allow kindergarten through second grades
at Richmond and Center Street elementary
schools to come back to campus on a limited
basis. The district expects to file its petition
by Monday and must wait three weeks for
county officials to decide.
Under the school-reopening guidelines issued
on September 29, Los Angeles County
Public Health Department can issue 30
waivers per week to individual campuses for
transitional kindergarten through second grade
only. The earliest Richmond and Center Street
students could return to campus is November
30, though it’s possible the district will be
waitlisted because the reopening rules favor
schools with higher numbers of children
receiving free lunches.
The superintendent expressed confidence
the district can maintain a safe, healthy en-
vironment for everyone in the classroom, the
office, and support staff. “We have successfully
offered three weeks of summer day camp
and six weeks of The Learning Connection
(TLC) full daycare and distance learning
support without a single case of COVID-19,”
Moore wrote. These young children have
done “an excellent job” wearing their masks,
following explicit hand-washing instruction,
and practicing proper use of hand sanitizer,
the TLC staff report. •
Morgan Rojas
their nation’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak
(the film’s title accounts for the number
of days when Wuhan first began lockdown
in January to when the country re-opened
seventy-six days later).
76 Days is mostly devoid of a formal narrative,
instead following the many different
moments that happen within the two hospitals
during this chaotic time. From seeing the
respiratory health scares, the medical team’s
exhausted states, and the inevitable deaths
that begin to rise, 76 Days captures the full
spectrum of how the devastating virus actually
cripples a country.
What makes 76 Days so impactful is that
there are no politics or punditry injected
into the film, instead, only choosing to show
incredibly-captured footage of Wuhan’s
medical teams working at breakneck speeds
on the frontlines to treat at-risk patients and
contain the virus.
Director Hao Wu, along with Weixi Chen
and director left as anonymous, captures the
relationships and heartfelt moments between
the medical team and their patients, showing
the best in humanity and what we’re all collectively
fighting for.
Nine Days (124 min.)
A highly conceptual film that’s both spiritual
and sci-fi, Nine Days is ultimately more
rewarding for the cerebrally-stirring questions
that it asks the audience to think about after
it’s done rather than being an exciting watch
in the moment.
The film begins ambiguously, with a mysteriously
quiet and bespectacled man, Will (Winston
Duke), observing a wall of old televisions–one
stacked on top of the other–each playing
through life moments from first-person POVs.
We learn as to why he pores over these life
moments: (somehow) Will is directly responsible
for choosing the souls that will begin a life
on Earth, a gatekeeper or god-figure, however
you choose to see it. And so, over nine days
time, we see Will interview a collection of
characters, asking them all a variety of lifeaffirming
questions with searing intensity that
give the film its conceptual identity.
Nine Days has a very interesting premise,
but the film–directed by Edson Oda–doesn’t
give Will anything for him to grow or for us
to invest in. Zazie Beetz is underutilized as
Emma, a character interviewing for life on
Earth, whose countered-openness and positivity
challenges the cynically over-stoic Will into
rethinking who should be granted life.
While the film is too slow-paced and loose
for a great watching experience, Nine Days
should be rewarded for being a daring and
original film. •
Ryan Rojas