The city of Clovis is easing COVID-era restrictions as the pandemic eases.

At its meeting on Monday night, the City Council voted to repeal five orders covering the stay-at-home requirements, price gouging, RV parking restrictions, waiving of bus fares and the city’s enforcement of such orders.

The COVID emergency declaration and several other policies remain in place.

The vote was 4-0, with Councilwoman Lynne Ashbeck absent.

Fresno County is in the orange tier, after months in the more restrictive purple tier.

Orders Redundant, City Manager Says

“Some of the orders that we adopted literally a year ago or more are no longer needed,” City Manager Luke Serpa told the council. “It’s no longer an issue or it has been made redundant in other ways.”

The spike in price gouging has subsided, workers are no longer using RVs parked in their driveways to quarantine, and the council already passed a permanent bus fare waiver, Serpa said.

The rescinding of stay-at-home and local enforcement orders is more of a technical change. The order allowed the city to bypass warnings and escalating fines for potential violators.  Such steps will now be reinstated, Sepra said.

The city is still waiting for orders from the state, specifically Cal OSHA, on guidelines to fully reopen City Hall.

“As long they are in fear … and they don’t believe in science, they’ll continue doing what they’re doing,” Mayor Jose Flores said.

Despite the city rescinding orders, state mandates are still in place.

Fresno County COVID Figures

As of Tuesday morning, there were 101,405 reported cases of the pandemic and 1,678 deaths for Fresno County since the pandemic’s inception last year. More than 263,011 county residents are fullly vaccinated.

In Clovis, the totals are 8,100 cases and 160 deaths. The rate of infection has declined rapidly since December.

Flores praised Clovis residents for helping lowering the infection rate.

“Our community has done a great job because we trusted them to do a great job and they did. They know what they need to do to keep themselves healthy, their families healthy, and our community healthy,” Flores said. “I want to praise our citizens because the numbers show it. It’s not (that) the science shows it.”