Local or State Control?

Clovis Mayor Jose Flores speaking upon the state’s recent COVID-19 mandates at the City Council/CUSD joint meeting on Monday, Oct. 11. (Karl Cooke/Clovis Roundup)

October 11 – Clovis Unified and the Clovis City Council held a joint public meeting, but one subject and one phrase overshadowed anything else that was scheduled on the agenda.

The Clovis City Council held its annual meeting with the Clovis Unified School District Board at Clovis City Hall in regards to everything that’s affiliated with both the city and school district. While there were many different subjects on the agenda, the vaccine mandate by the State of California was on everyone’s mind.

This has been an ongoing issue for Clovis Unified since Governor Gavin Newsom announced on October 1st that school employees must show proof of vaccination or succumb to weekly testing. Students may be behind the faculty as Newsom looks to mandate vaccines for students in schools K-12.

Students in Clovis Unified are already required to wear masks and parents are not happy about it. For the past several months since the masks were required, parents attended board meetings with the school district to ask for change. Clovis resident Josh Fulfer expressed his issue with the school district for not resisting what the state is passing along to Clovis Unified and other school districts across the state. 

“It’s more of a government-run school board,” Fulfer said. “Anything that is passed down from Gavin Newsom is just blindly accepted whether it’s the mask mandate or whether it’s the vaccine mandate that’s coming soon. CUSD has no local control. Like I said before, they are a government school system and it’s very unfortunate.”

The overall subject of this part of the agenda was merely a discussion since the mandate has become a big talking point in the community. Mayor Jose Flores made sure his voice was heard in the discussion and made sure his point was clear on where he stood on Gov. Newsom’s new law and about the mandates for masks in schools.

“My wife is a preschool teacher and she tells me those kids can’t do it [mask mandate],” Flores said. “They try and they eventually get it, but they struggle with it. Our responsibility as local leaders is to tell the county to do something different so they can tell the governor to do something different. I think if we told the truth, I think more people would vaccinate.” 

Other members of the council reiterated this statement by Mayor Flores and the message seemed to be a simple one. The Clovis City Council does not want the state of California telling them how to run the city that they know, love and want to make a better community. Local control was the key phrase in these matters.

Another law that was passed by the state was Senate Bill 9, which allows construction of at least two units on single family home lots as long as they are at least 800 square feet. This was another state law that the City Council did not approve of. According to Mayor Flores, it was another way for the state to take local control away from the city council. 

To view the entire joint meeting, visit cityofclovis.com and search for council meetings and agendas. You can also find the video on the City of Clovis YouTube page.

I am 27 years old, born and raised in Fresno, California. I am the youngest of 4 kids and am a full time student at Fresno State University. I am happily engaged to be married to my fiance Daniella. My favorite sports teams are the L.A Rams, Dodgers and Lakers. I have two dogs and one cat. I have my own podcast called “The Two Minute Warning” Podcast that you can listen to on any platform that you listen to your podcasts.