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(Updated at 5:33 p.m. Tuesday to include latest COVID-19 statistics in Del Norte County.)

State Parks denied Del Norte County’s request to allow residents vehicular access to local units, County Administrative Officer Jay Sarina told supervisors Tuesday.

People can drive into Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park via Walker Road, which supervisors reopened last week, but the parking area is still cordoned off, Sarina said.

“Essentially the pavement is a county road,” he told the Wild Rivers Outpost following the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors regular meeting Tuesday. “Then the parking lot off to the right as you pull into Walker Road was developed on State Parks land by State Parks.”

This news prompted District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard to direct staff to send a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom exempt Del Norte County from a soft closure throughout the State Parks system that prohibits people from parking at its units.

Howard brought up State Parks’ decision to install lockable gates at some access points in local state park units without seeking public comment. He also said that a statement on a department web page regarding its response to COVID-19, that it would work with county representatives and their public health officers, had been removed.

“I don’t know where to go from here,” Howard said. “But there’s a lot of frustrated people in this community specific to the gate issue that is now in the state clearinghouse.”

Howard said he has also reached out to a representative from State Sen. Mike McGuire’s office. Continuing to have state park units closed to residents encourages people to congregate at areas that aren’t parking spaces, he said.

Before the Board of Supervisors voted to reopen Walker Road at an April 21 special meeting, Brett Silver, State Parks’ supervising ranger for the Redwoods Coast sector, told Sarina to make the county’s request for an exemption to the soft closure order via California Office of Emergency Services.

On Tuesday, Sarina said he received an email back from the county’s representative to the California Office of Emergency Services’ regional center.

“It’s my understanding once it got to the regional center, State Parks said no they were not interested in doing that,” Sarina told supervisors, referring to exempting Del Norte County from the soft closures in place for state park units throughout California. “It went back down the chain and back to me through our representative and that was the answer. I’m not sure why we had to go through that step, but I didn’t get a lot of detail in talking with Brett (Silver).”

Sarina told the Outpost that the email was an “internal email” forwarded to him through the California Office of Emergency Services on April 22. When asked if he would share the email with the Outpost, Sarina declined.

Mike Coopman, a local fishing guide and representative of the Nor-Cal Guides & Sportsmen’s Association, initially brought his concerns about the locked gates to Howard’s attention earlier this month. On Tuesday, he said he was concerned that the gates were installed without input from the public or from local elected officials.

“My hopes are that this COVID-19 stuff will pass,” he said. “Yet if the state and national park are allowed to put in permanent gates — those are permanent and going in under the cloak of COVID-19 and completely in the dark to all elected officials, including the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors, the sheriff, Congressman Huffman, Sen. McGuire, all of the above — it seems rather secretive and, in our opinion, an overreach.”

Coopman said the Nor-Cal Guides & Sportsmen’s Association has also sent letters to the region’s state representatives in opposition of the gates.

The California State Parks system will work with the Governor’s Office, the California Office of Emergency Services and state and public health officials in deciding to reopen state parks, Information Officer Adeline Yee told the Outpost via email on Tuesday.

All 280 units are closed due to visitation surges that has made safe physical distancing impossible, Yee said.

“Additionally, our State Park peace officers and parks staff were finding it challenging to monitor and ensure that all our visitors maintain this public safety guideline,” she said.

According to Yee, language about working with local jurisdictions and public health officers is still on the State Parks’ FAQ’s page and was included in a news release on Friday.

The latest information park closures can be found here. According to Yee, the list is updated as new information becomes available.

On Tuesday, Newsom provided insight into a four-phase approach to reopening businesses, schools and childcare facilities. California is currently in Stage 1 — people are staying home except for essential workers.

Stage 2 calls for reopening schools, summer programs, childcare facilities and low-risk businesses. Parks, trails and other open spaces would occur in Stage 2 and counties would be able to relax local orders at their own pace, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Stage 3 would include reopening personal care businesses including hair salons and gyms, movie theaters, churches and other in-person religious services.

Stage 4 would mark the end of the stay-at-home order and would include allowing live sports events and concerts.

On Monday, Del Norte Public Health Officer Dr. Warren Rehwaldt told the Outpost that state officials want to see better testing, contact tracing and more hospital beds before they begin to relax social distancing orders.

“They want to have everything ready to go and then change the dial setting,” he said. “That’s being super cautious and super prudent, but they’re worried about losing lives; rightfully so. They know places like Del Norte, Trinity and Siskiyou (counties), we’ve had so few cases up here it just feels like we’re dying on the vine. We’re stuck with waiting for everything else to take place around us.”

Del Norte County saw its third confirmed COVID-19 case over the weekend. The patient, a middle-aged Crescent City man, is recovering at home. Two other patients have recovered from the virus, according to the Public Health Branch.

A total of 344 tests have been administered in Del Norte County as of 5:14 p.m. Tuesday. The results for 27 are pending while 314 cases are negative, according to the Public Health Branch.

Statewide, 45,031 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed with 1,809 fatalities, according to the California Department of Public Health. Los Angeles County has the highest number of positive cases at 20,456, according to the COVID-19 Public Dashboard.

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