Owner of San Carlos hotel housing cruise ship passengers offered site

The owner of the Fairfield Hotel in San Carlos where cruise ship passengers are receiving care for the coronavirus offered the site to officials and San Carlos was not asked about the arrangement, the city manager says.

“We did not agree,” Jeff Maltbie said. “We didn’t disagree.”

We were not involved, he told the City Council at a special meeting Thursday.

“We’re not running the hotel,” Maltbie said.

That said, Maltbie continued, he agrees that San Carlos has a long tradition of fostering a safe and welcoming community.

When given lemons, the city makes the best lemonade, Maltbie said. 

Seven people are now at the 120-room hotel that U.S. Marshals and the California Highway Patrol are guarding, the city manager said.

Similarly, the county is utilizing space at the San Mateo County Event Center to currently house two individuals in RVs who need alternative housing and do not warrant hospitalization. The Event Center, like all fairground sites in state, is designated by the California Office of Emergency Services as a location that can be utilized for emergency response purposes.

Twenty RVs brought to the site will provide safe and secure temporary housing for up to 20 people housed individually. Each has kitchen and bathroom facilities. Staff from the Human Services Agency will provide round-the-clock on-site support while County Health will monitor each individual’s medical needs. 

“The county understands that some of our residents require our help to socially distance themselves for an appropriate amount of time and we want residents to know that we are taking all steps necessary to ensure the health and safety of both those individuals and the greater community,” said County Manager Mike Callagy. 

Councilman Mark Olbert recounted that the city of Costa Mesa, facing a similar effort for a site to house coronavirus patients, sued to block the action and was joined by the Board of Supervisors for Orange County. 

Olbert said he does not feel San Carlos should have taken such legal steps.

But he asked state and federal officials attending the City Council meeting about figuring out a way to shut down such efforts. Otherwise municipalities that cooperate will feel under attack for doing so, Olbert said.

“It is a topic circulating in the community,” he said. 

City Attorney Greg Rubens said the February action in Southern California preceded the state order Thursday citing the power to commandeer property including hotels.

If that order had been in place previously, the action in Orange County would have had a different result, Rubens said.

Dr. John Redd, a chief medical officer with the U.S. Public Health Service, told the San Carlos City Council that 198 coronavirus cases have been reported in California.

People under federal quarantine and housed at the hotel in the city “have no home to go to,” Redd said.

Mayor Ron Collins said he hopes when residents encounter people who want those lodged at the San Carlos hotel sent to Tracy or Bishop, California, that they’ll explain, ”We are all part of the family of man.”