City of Los Banos Ordinance 92 and signs of hope and growth

I wonder how Los Banos residents reacted a while back when they read City Ordinance #92, requiring all residents to wear masks or other facial covering — not only in stores but “on all public streets, alleys, and in any public place . . . where two or more persons are congregated.”

Granted, it was a LONG while back, November of 1918 to be exact, when the Spanish influenza sweeping the country required extreme measures in small towns as well as big cities.

Ordinance 92, dated Nov. 4, 1918 and recently retrieved by Los Banos City Manager Alex Terrazas, puts the current coronavirus pandemic into perspective.

In 1918 it must have been just as scary as it is now, and it must have frustrated folks who didn’t want to be constrained by masks or anything else back then, when Los Banos was more like the wild west than today’s more urbane times. It was different back then in more ways then one. The ordinance was passed by the city’s “Board of Trustees,” not a city council, and was following the recommendations of the city’s “Board of Health” (whatever that was).

Moreover, the ordinance stated that anyone who violated it would be guilty of a misdemeanor and “shall be punished” by “a fine of not less than $10, and not more than $100 or by inprisonment [sic] in the city jail for not more than ten days or by both such fine or inprisonment.”

A fine of $10 was big then, and a fine of $100 must have seemed enormous. Can you imagine how libertarians then would have cottoned to being fined or landing in the clink, simply for not wearing a mask?

Moreover, the mask had to be of a certain material, specifically “four ply material known as butter cloth or gauze of fine mesh.” And it had to be “at least seven inches in width.” Furthermore, “at its four corners shall be attached a tape so that the mask can be firmly fastened over the nose and mouth.” In addition, it had to be “washed in boiling water each day, or shall be sterilized.”

Those are serious and specific measures, which must have caused considerable concern among the population. Perhaps most people agreed with how the ordinance described the situation, “The[re] is prevalent in the City of Los Banos an epidemic of Spanish Influenza, rendering it dangerous for the public to travel on the streets, or to enter stores.”

Seeing that ordinance, in some strange way, gives Los Banosans today hope. The city indeed was struck by a pandemic before — 102 years ago and got through it, just as residents of Los Banos and other cities and towns in America and in the world will someday get through COVID-19.

I choose to focus on hope. Although I have kept abreast of the news and gotten frequently depressed, I want to cherish hope — not the false hope of so-called cures that don’t cure, but the real hope I’ve seen develop.

During the past two months, probably all of us have come across some positive consequences from all this that provide reasons for hope—people helping others, persons connecting electronically who might not have connected before, individuals learning that solitude and slowing down can be good for the mind and soul.

One positive consequence I’d like to highlight today involves college education, since teaching and learning have become quite different from what was expected.

No one expected all collegiate face-to-face learning to disappear and online learning to become the only mode of education, as it is today.

Two positive results have happened because of expanded distance learning. First, many people, both students and professors, have realized that online education is not as difficult as they thought.

As a veteran educator who remains connected with colleges up and down the Central Valley, I have heard many reports of professors being creative and successful in teaching classes through distance education. These include courses which seemed unlikely, if not downright impossible, to teach online, like chemistry and physiology.

I have heard other reports of students persevering in their virtual classes against strong odds, especially when they lack an appropriate computer or internet connection.

The second positive result of increased online education is that it’s now more evident everyone in the Central Valley needs a strong internet connection, including families in remote rural areas.

Like it or not, the coronavirus has shown that we are living in an online world. But if a family living on a ranch or farm 50 miles from a city isn’t connected by way of a broadband internet connection, the children there won’t have this educational opportunity, and their parents won’t have the opportunity to digitally work from home.

And we as a society won’t be living up to the American ideal, in which everyone has the equal opportunity to succeed, not only in education but in the workplace.

Perhaps this will happen in a public-private partnership, ensuring everyone in the Central Valley has a broadband connection enabling them to learn, as well as work, from home.

I’ve heard of several serious plans presented recently to make this happen. I hope the best of these plans become a reality soon.

John Spevak wrote this for the Los Banos Enterprise. His email is john.spevak@gmail.com