Today @MyGlendale tweeted a series of nine COVID-19 messages to the public. In their final message, they pled for the public to consider those who have lost their lives in Glendale to COVID-19, citing 225 people who have died from the disease. Unfortunately, their data was two days old, and the actual number of lives lost in Glendale today is 231.
Though responses to the tweet haven’t noted a count error (yet), they were clear about pointing out the City’s hypocrisy when it comes to their embrace of businesses’ retail sales. Commenters pointed out that the Glendale Galleria and Americana have remained open, with a lack of COVID-19 safety protocols and enforcement.
Let’s recall that the two mayors led us through the pandemic, Ara Najarian and Vrej Agajanian, have have been wholly ineffective in their leadership.
Ara Najarian blamed Armenian and Iranian culture closeness for the spread of Coronavirus early in the pandemic. He introduced a face covering ordinance with no intention of enforcement and not a single citation was written until four months later. His failed policy of City Council ‘Dark Days,’ cancelling one meeting per month has remained in effect throughout the pandemic, giving City Council less time to address the issue. And recently he has proposed circumventing LA County Health Department restrictions on outdoor dining designed to protect our health, in order to preserve restaurant sales.
Mayor Vrej Agajanian, often appearing confused at the dais, has watched deaths soar in Glendale while he enjoys his “achievement” of becoming mayor. Though he rarely forgets to remind the public that he’s an “engineer,” he hasn’t come up with one creative, proactive idea for reducing the city’s number of COVID-19 infections and fatalities. As an Armenian television personality some have heard him talk about COVID-19 on his station. However, he’s failed to address Glendale’s non-Armenian speaking public about COVID-19 outside of a few city-produced PSAs ranging from one to three minutes long.
Glendale could not have had two worse mayors during this pandemic.
Ara Najarian 
Vrej Agajanian
The city’s approach to preventing the spread of COVID-19 has been a reflection of its weak leadership; reactionary and not proactive. And their newly found sense of urgency is a reaction to news that Glendale regional hospitals have reached capacity:
From Glendale’s Public Information office (12/23/2020):
Urgent Message Regarding COVID-19. ATTENTION #MYGLENDALE: Regional hospitals have reached ICU capacities. Our regional healthcare system is dangerously overwhelmed, which means there are less resources for day to day emergencies like heart attacks and strokes. Resources like ventilators are running low, as are health care professionals and staff. COVID-19 units are also full and new units are regularly being converted to COVID units. Emergency Departments are also being used to house COVID patients, and it is increasingly likely that if you need to go to a hospital for any reason, they may not be able to provide you with the care you need.
It should come as no surprise that they could not count Glendale’s dead correctly. Timely data updates, and public outreach to prevent disease spread, have not been high priorities for our city government as they focus on saving commerce.
The correct number Glendale residents lost to COVID-19 is not a difficult number to obtain. Look on the LA County COVID-19 Dashboard map below for community death counts. The number of lives lost in Glendale is almost always equal to the highest number in the map’s legend.
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