WATSONVILLE—All major City of Watsonville events have been canceled through the end of the year, City Manager Matt Huffaker said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
That includes the annual Spirit of Watsonville Fourth of July Parade, the Watsonville Strawberry Festival and the Wine, Beer and Art Walk, among others.
It also includes events not sponsored by the City through August 2020.
The Santa Cruz County Fair, however, has not yet been canceled or postponed from its Sept. 16-20 date. County Fairgrounds CEO Dave Kegebein said Tuesday it is still “premature” to make a decision about the annual gathering, which brings thousands to the city’s outskirts.
He said he will make a decision sometime in mid-July, but is not overly confident that the Fair will run as usual—it could be postponed, canceled or scaled down, he said.
“I guess time will tell but I suspect that will be the case,” said Kegebein, who said roughly 20 county fairs around California and Arizona have recently been canceled.
Huffaker’s announcement came minutes after Santa Cruz County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel on an over-the-phone press conference said the county could slowly start to scale its public gatherings come early May—around the same time the current shelter-in-place order is set to expire.
“I cannot make any promises about that at all,” she said. “I know that the [Association for Bay Area Health Officers] is not planning to lift anything before May 4, and after May 4, we may start with gatherings of under 10 people and see how that goes, and then, perhaps, eight weeks later trying larger gatherings of up to 50 people, if that looks good.”
Huffaker said the City of Watsonville decided to cancel all events because they take several months of advance planning, and meeting social distancing requirements with thousands of people in the same location would be a Herculean task.
Gov. Gavin Newsom at a Tuesday press conference said the thought of allowing mass gatherings any time soon was “negligible at best until we get to herd immunity and we get to a vaccine.”
“So large-scale events that bring in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of strangers altogether across every conceivable difference, health and otherwise, is not in the cards based upon our current guidelines and current expectations,” Newsom said. “Things can change radically…so I want to caution my own words in that context but when you suggest June, July, August, that is unlikely.”
