From Mayor Fuller Monday night…
The most effective tool we have to slow the spread of this coronavirus is social distancing – including when people are outside. We can save lives by staying separate.
For this reason, with Commissioner of Health and Human Services Deborah Youngblood, I made the decision today to close all City tennis and basketball courts and prohibit athletic games between people from different households in Newton’s parks and on our fields.
City of Newton Parks, Recreation and Culture Department personnel will be using zip ties to close access to all fenced City of Newton tennis and basketball courts. Zip ties will be put across basketball hoops to prevent ball playing.
Families and people who live in the same household can still play games together, but until further notice, pick-up and organized games among people from different households are prohibited.
Remember:
- Stay six feet away – Use social distancing:Abide by social distancing guidelines in Newton parks and on Newton fields by staying 6 feet away from people who are not members of your household. Hiking, biking, jogging and walking are all great ways to enjoy parks right now, just remember to give a wide berth to your fellow residents.
- No pick-up sports: Refrain from playing any type of sports with people who are not members of your household. This includes tennis, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, bocce and other activities.
- Do not climb on playground structures: All play structures at Newton parks/schools are off limits.
At this time, we need our Newton Police Officers to keep their focus on a lot of other matters so I am asking that Newtonians adhere to these guidelines, do your part to help flatten the curve, and help keep our community safe. It is so important that we slow the pace of transmission so that our health care personnel and facilities are able to keep up and care for everyone who needs it.
All good things to do. I would also suggest putting barriers around playground equipment to remove the temptation.
I know public golf courses are closed and hope private ones are too. They need more than a sign at the gate to keep people out – as shown by a photo on another thread.
Let’s see if this is actually enforced. The playgrounds being “off limits” hadn’t been enforced and their attempts to keep kids off of them have been really weak. The city needs to step it up big time.
I disagree here. Has the mayor pinpointed that cases are coming from people playing basketball or tennis or play ground equipment? If so, she should let us know and then this would make sense.
This is another indication of a divided city. The haves use their own basketball nets. The have nots go to the park.
Show us evidence that basketball at the park is spreading the virus. The most dangerous place is the supermarket. Wear a mask and gloves when you go! Who knows how many people’s things the cashiers have touched before yours.
Good luck and be safe!
Why not deputize school custodians to enforce the 6ft limit? They have nothing to do! Crossguards? Teacher’s aides?
Once people are fined ($100, at least), they will stay away.
Why stopping a teen from shooting baskets and let off steam? Or people playing tennis who respect the 6ft limit?
Trying not get annoyed!
I think that Mayor Fuller has been doing an outstanding job dealing with this crisis. Her communication with the public has been superb. If the Mayor thinks it’s necessary to close basketball and tennis courts, I totally support that decision.
Mayor Fuller has been encouraging residents to support local restaurants by ordering takeout and delivery food. Personally, I stopped getting takeout food about 3 weeks ago because I was concerned about getting the virus. I know there are a lot of people who feel that same way and we all could use a little assurance.
I’m really surprised that Newton’s Health Department hasn’t issued any guidance on takeout food. It makes me wonder if the city has taken any action to adjust protocols for commercial kitchens? Are the body temperatures of food preparers being monitored daily? Are they requiring food preparers to wear masks? Is the city still conducting regular health inspections of restaurants during this crisis?
If the Mayor really expects people to support local restaurants through this crisis, the answers to the above questions should be forthcoming from the Health Department. I don’t understand why putting ziploc ties on basketball rims seems to be more of a priority than food source risk reduction.
@Mike: The Health Department did issue guidance. That guidance went to all licenced establishments, which is where it was supposed to go.
Speaking of the haves and have-nots, how are personal landscapers considered “essential?” In my neighborhood strolls, I’m seeing teams of landscapers (i.e. 7 men for a moderately sized two family home in West Newton without a big yard) not practicing social distancing or wearing masks. Is this safe or necessary? People can let their yards get overgrown a bit or do their own landscaping in this time.
@Isabelle – teacher’s aides are still working in the online classrooms
@Arthur Jackson – in case you hadn’t noticed, basketball is a contact sport. People aren’t going to stay 6′ away from each other while playing.
As to playgrounds, I wish they’d at least put up police tape as some places have done.
@Greg– Thanks for letting me know. Do you have access to the guidance? Would you post it here?
I’m sure there are a lot of folks who feel like me. We want to support local restaurants, but have some concerns. If the Health Department could help alleviate some of those concerns it would only be good for business.
Tennis isn’t exactly a contact sport, and is often played by those in the same household … What would really help is closing some streets to non-abutter vehicular traffic to encourage safe distancing on walks and runs. Lake Ave. is just one example of a popular strolling spot that would benefit from a street closure…
As I said in another thread, we should require essential businesses to provide a COVID-19 health and safety plan. It would describe company policy for social distancing, hygiene (hand washing/sanitizing, cleaning of shared surfaces), sick leave policy, and reporting illness to the relevant public health department. We can specify minimums as need be.
From those reports, the public health department can decide if emergency changes to health code need to be made.
If we did that, we don’t need to close down all landscapers. My landscaper (Go Green) came today. Two people, two trucks, no shared equipment, separate food and drink, one person works in front and one in back, offered to talk to me by phone. Totally compliant and conscientious.
There’s no reason to put this company out of work, and out of business, when they have thoughtful policies like these. Let’s instead identify and fix risky behavior through existing regulatory mechanisms.
Jeff Jacoby is outraged by Mayor Fuller’s decision. The Boston Globe savant believes this is a civil liberties violation.
I wasn’t as clear as I could have been earlier. I think a family going to a park together and shooting baskets or hitting tennis balls should be considered acceptable and allowed. Those making these decisions especially now when all rules will be applied until May 4 are not considering the benefits of physical activity on the brain and on the body.
Until Newton can demonstrate a chain of virus spread from a park to others in the community, the parks should remain open.
And if you don’t have kids, you don’t know how difficult this is going to be.
@AJ hard evidence. virus can live 2-3 hours on hard surfaces. Swings and slides are hard surfaces. Boom. Estimated 200K will die in the next few weeks. Hope your advising your family well.
@JC Jacoby is a boob.
Correction. 2-3 days on hard surfaces. not hours
Thank you, Arthur, and a few others here pointing out that shutting down tennis courts is pretty silly under the circumstances. There has been whispering lately about extending this lock down into the summer and it would be crazy not to find a way to make the parks viable for families.
Mike C.,
JJ is insufferable.
@craig, You won’t find closing parks now as silly and crazy when someone in your family dies before summer arrives.
@Craig and @Mike Ciolino – No one’s being cavalier about human life or safety. No ones being silly and crazy. We’re all together trying to figure out how to safely navigate our lives in the coming months – in a situation that none of us have any previous experience with. There will be inevitable differences between us, between officials, between states, between doctors about some of these issues.
While we’re all trying to figure this out, please lets strive for a bit of restraint when talking to each other. Thanks
Thanks Jerry, I understand and respect where your coming from, but I don’t see this as a time for having restraint for people who are being cavalier. At this point saying we are being silly or crazy to close parks in a public forum is reckless and I don’t see any benefit of being polite about it.
I continue not to understand the landscaping argument. Is there any periodic landscaping that is not purely aesthetic? Is there anyone who can afford landscaping, but not afford to pay the landscaper not to come?
I just can’t see any reason to have landscapers travel to your home in a pandemic. What does landscaping provide that is more important than doing what we can to stop the spread of a deadly disease?
@Jerry: There are _not_ inevitable differences between doctors. The medical community is quite consistently clear: social distancing is necessary to reduce the numbers of deaths, in fact to keep the deaths in the hundreds-of-thousands range instead of the millions range.
As Neil DeGrasse Tyson said, we are in the midst of a huge experiment about whether we as a society are going to listen to science. Unfortunately, those who will die are not limited to those who refuse to listen and refuse to follow scientifically based guidelines.
If we as a community cannot keep our children off playgrounds and maintain social distancing on park paths, and the number of deaths in the region spike too fast, then we’ll wind up facing total lockdown, where we cannot go out at all.
@Mike Ciolino is right that people who are cavalier are putting all of us at risk and should be called out for it.
@Newton Upper Falls Resident – I don’t believe there is anyone on this site who has suggested that social distancing isn’t necessary. The details of how that distancing happens in each sphere of our lives is what we are all dealing with … and it all is evolving and changing day by day.
“Social distancing” isn’t a black/white, all-or-nothing thing. 6’1″ is not a guaranteed safe distance, 5’11” is not a reckless plunge to disease. Things that official were comfortable with last week, they are not comfortable with this week. Stores that were open last week are closed this week.
As for the courts. There are certainly lots of recreational activities that can be safely and responsibly done in parks, particularly among families. A husband and wife can safely play a game of tennis with no significant risk to anyone if they are prudent. In the last couple of day, the powers-that-be made a judgement call – even though courts can be used safely, in some cases they haven’t been. A decision was made to close the courts for both safe and unsafe uses. That’s a trade-off, not a right/wrong decision. That decision was made differently the day before, because circumstances are constantly changing.
I personally think its a good decision that the city has closed the basketball and tennis courts. If someone else thinks they should have kept them open, it doesn’t mean they are scoffing at science or the need for social distancing. It can equally mean that they have just as much concern as you do about the spread of the disease, but would make different trade-offs for the same end goal.
Sean, my landscapers want to work. Two of them came as part of a prepaid year round service (I didn’t proactively call them, if it makes it better). They came in two trucks. Shared no tools. Worked in two different parts of the yard. Used all electric or hand tools. No shared food or drink. Wipe down the inside of their trucks after each shift. Each uses the same trucks every day. All according to a plan. Workers have the option to not work if they don’t feel comfortable or are sick.
They are as safe working as not working, possibly more safe. They are doing what they like (they are a small company). Maybe I’ll find some other projects for them to do if we can agree they will be done safely and that it won’t force some other risk in the supply chain. That’s money I’m injecting into the economy right now that I wouldn’t have spent otherwise.
We will win or lose this fight based on identifying and minimizing vectors of transmission, not by arbitrarily decapitating pieces of the economy even when there’s no risk.
As I have said before, I believe every essential business should have to have a social distancing, hygiene, and sick leave policy approved by the local or state board of health. That would let us set an enforceable standard, reward the contentious, minimize the risks of the non-compliant, and shut down abusers.
Not sure if you noticed, but we’re now well beyond decapitating pieces of the economy – we’ve obliterated the whole thing, and just about everyone is going to be very, very badly affected by this for generations to come. So at this point, we’re all in this together, and it’s not fair to allow certain groups of non-essential business owners to start gaming the system just because they’re willing to put together some baloney “social distancing plan” that corresponds to their oh-so-unique circumstances.
If you believe that it’s OK to start letting any of these non-essential businesses to get back to work, then for consistency’s sake you should be telling almost every business (maybe barring tattoo parlors and nail salons) that it’s okay to get back to work so long as they’re able to present us with some unenforceable plan involving masks, sanitizing gel, wet-wipes, gloves, and “spacing between workers.”
It’s absurd s to start pleading your “special” cases of those businesses that are raring to say, crank up their diesel leaf blowers and douse some lawns with carcinogenic lawn chemicals, or (as was the case in a thread from yesterday) those who make their livelihoods in the cape-to-McMansion teardown business (which is now toast).
We know that your lives and livelihoods have been massively disrupted, and that’s horrible, but if you’d read the news then you’d soon understand that almost all of the rest of us are in the same sinking ship and your case isn’t really all unique, after all.
@Mike Halle, the “you” in my above rant was intended to be directed toward non-essential business owners looking for special dispensation, and not you personally.
Sorry for the poor choice of the second person, especially since you raise very legitimate and sympathetic concerns in the case of your landscaper.
@Michael: I don’t think we are far from having many more “non-essential” businesses go back to work as long as they can demonstrate safety protocols. However your contention that since the economy is 80% ruined at this point, we might as well go all the way really misses the mark. The more economic damage we have, the harder it is going to be to put this thing back together. We absolutely should be finding sectors where people can work safely, like mowing grass or framing houses, and allowing them to keep going.
And just so you know, the aftermath of this pandemic is going to absolutely concentrate wealth and speed up the changeover of “affordable” old houses in Newton to McMansions. Allowing working class people to hang on for a few months is one small thing we could do to stop it.
@Craig, I’m not hearing any serious discussions about certain non-essential businesses being allowed to reopen earlier so long as they have safety protocols in place – are there serious policymakers proposing this? Regardless, it’s obviously not my contention that we should prevent everyone from returning to work simply for the sake of cratering the entire economy – there’s a legitimate reason for the shutdown. The viral spread can only be contained if everyone stays home, and the more exemptions granted, the more infections and deaths there will be.
I agree that as usual the uber-rich will certainly survive this, albeit not as comfortably as before, but if you start looking just a tiny bit farther down the economic food chain to the top 1% or the top 5%, you’re going to see damage far in excess of what anyone could have expected. A lot of the poshest jobs and seemingly untouchable income flows that have driven suburban economic growth in these parts, e.g. medicine and top-tier academia, are going to evaporate, in addition to the more predictable job losses in finance, pharma, and consulting. In addition just about everyone will have seen their life savings and 401(k)s slashed in half and most employer contributions ceased ( https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/27/metro/coronavirus-rages-doctors-hit-with-cuts-compensation/ ). As a result, very few people will be able to afford $2 million homes anymore, which in turn is going to wipe out everyone’s most treasured golden egg, i.e. their real estate paper gains.
@Michael: You are right that there are no serious discussions about smart strategies to enable non essential but low risk business to get going soon. Hell we are closing tennis courts to families. Leaders are pretty committed to obliterating this economy.
How that will impact the rebound for each sector is anybody’s guess but I’ll bet you a $100 gift card to Buttonwood that Newton home values are higher in three years, both median and mean.
@Craig – Buttonwood’s a bit too fashionable for us, could we make it $50 at Pressed Café?
Most homeowners in Newton were already leveraged up to the hilt as it was, so the upsizing market is dead. As for new buyers, there will be very few families able to afford a $10k/mo. mortgage + $3k/mo. in heating/electricity/cleaning/landscaping/upkeep + $25k/yr. in property taxes, especially given the SALT and mortgage interest deduction limits.
After this, unfortunately there just won’t be enough $500k jobs to go around. Never mind the evaporation of any invested savings that prospective homebuyers would have been using for downpayments.
I can’t see how the suburban real estate market can possibly survive what’s happening right now – but I do hope I’m wrong and you’re right.