Governor Diane Carrow has cancelled every measure in the State’s statement of 26 September. Reading a statement at Fort Zancudo on Sunday night, hours after she was sworn in, the new Governor lifted the freeze on disaster aid, revoked the “presumed abandoned” rule that threatened to hand evacuees’ homes to the State’s “recovery partners”, and ended the curfew in Paleto Bay with immediate effect.
She also announced a one-off Earthquake Support Payment of $10,000 for every resident, to be paid through a new government portal that is being set up now.
She withdrew the State’s figure of fourteen deaths in favour of the Los Santos Fire Department’s count of at least 700, cleared every officer and first responder under State investigation, including Sheriff’s Captain James Kellow, and dismissed Harlan J. Mercer, the Chief of Staff who issued the 26 September statement.
Earlier this evening, the State had said only that those measures “remain under review”.
The statement in full
Governor Carrow read this statement aloud at Fort Zancudo on Sunday night. It is reproduced here in full, as published.
“Tonight I am cancelling, with immediate effect, every measure announced by this Office in its statement of 26 September.”
“The suspension of disaster assistance is lifted. The figure of fourteen deaths is withdrawn, and so is the reclassification of deaths as pre-existing, lifestyle-related, or firearm-related. The State accepts the count of the Los Santos Fire Department. Every one of those people died in this earthquake.”
“The provisions of the Emergency Land Stewardship Act relating to presumed abandoned property are revoked. No home and no business in Los Santos will be handed to anybody. Any transfer already started under those provisions is void. Every property remains the property of its owner.”
“The arrangements with the State’s so-called recovery partners are terminated. There will be no Resilience Recovery Loans from Maze Bank on the State’s behalf. Merryweather’s contract is ended, and so is its authority to use proportionate force. Dynasty 8 has no role in the future of Los Santos.”
“The curfew in Paleto Bay is lifted tonight, and so is the rule that gatherings of more than six evacuees need a permit. The instruction to motels to check whether evacuees can pay is withdrawn. The Los Santos Resilience Commemorative Coin is withdrawn from sale, and everybody who bought one will be refunded in full.”
“Every resident will receive a one-off Earthquake Support Payment of $10,000. It will be paid through a new government portal, which is being set up now. How and when to claim will be announced when the portal opens in the coming days. Nobody will have to travel into the Evacuation Zone to claim it.”
“Every State investigation or referral into the conduct of officers and first responders during the earthquake and its aftermath is closed and cleared. That includes the referral of Sheriff’s Captain James Kellow to the San Andreas Ethics Commission over the motel rooms he paid for, and the so-called safety review of a senior fire officer who went back to work after he was shot. The State will take no action against any officer, deputy, firefighter or medic for what they did to protect people. I have asked every agency in San Andreas to follow the State’s lead.”
“To everyone who went towards the danger when this State did not: thank you. You carried people out of buildings, paid for rooms and fed strangers at the side of the road. Some of you did not come home. You are owed the State’s gratitude, not its suspicion.”
“Harlan J. Mercer, who issued the statement of 26 September, has been dismissed as Chief of Staff with immediate effect.”
“I am sorry. I am sorry for the statement of 26 September, every word of it. It told you the Governor was safe when he had already died. It told grieving families that the people they had lost did not count. It told people sleeping in their cars that their homes could be given away on Monday. None of it should ever have been written.”
“I am sorry that you were not told for almost 40 hours that Governor Ashcombe had died. You had a right to know who was governing you, and you heard it from the news before you heard it from us.”
“And I am sorry for how you have been treated since you left your homes. People have spent nights in their cars and in motel car parks along the Great Ocean Highway. Families have been fed by strangers and housed by a Sheriff’s captain paying out of his own pocket, while this Office sold commemorative coins. I have seen the photographs of the dead laid out under white sheets in the streets of Los Santos. I have read the Fire Department’s count. I know what the State’s silence cost.”
“I understand the anger in Paleto Bay and across Los Santos. You are right to be angry. In your place, I would be too.”
“I am not going to stand here and tell you that everything is fixed tonight, because it is not. I need time to review the whole recovery properly, and I will not make promises I cannot keep. You have had enough promises from this Office that meant nothing.”
“What I can promise is this. In the next few days I will come to Paleto Bay in person, to meet residents, to listen, and to talk with you about what happens next. Not from a secure location, and not through a statement. In person.”
“Governor Diane Carrow. Office of the Governor of San Andreas.”
What changes tonight
For families in the motels, the line that matters most is about property. The 72-hour clock under the Emergency Land Stewardship Act was due to run out on Monday evening. It no longer matters. The provisions are revoked, any transfer already started is void, and every home and business stays with its owner.
The 22:00 to 06:00 curfew is gone from tonight. Nobody in Paleto Bay has to be indoors by ten, and groups of more than six no longer need a permit.
Motel owners who were told to “verify each guest’s ability to pay” no longer have to. Anyone who paid $49.99 plus shipping for the commemorative coin will get their money back, although the statement does not say how.
What we still do not know
The portal does not exist yet, and the statement gives no date beyond “the coming days”. It does not say who counts as a resident: everyone evacuated from Los Santos, everyone who lives in the county, or everyone in San Andreas.
Nor does it say when Los Santos will reopen. The Preservation Teams still estimate Thursday, with buses leaving Paleto Bay at 10am, and the statement does not mention it. It does not say whether the State will repay Captain Kellow, or whether anyone besides Mercer will answer for the decisions taken in the almost 40 hours before a Governor was sworn in.
Mercer dismissed
Harlan J. Mercer’s signature was on the only statement the State issued between the earthquake and Sunday evening. He is the only official dismissed tonight, and the statement gives no reason beyond the fact that he issued it.
It does not say whether he acted alone, or on whose instructions. Weazel News tried to reach Mercer through the Office of the Governor tonight. He did not respond.
In Paleto Bay
The news reached the motel car parks before the Governor had finished speaking. “Ten thousand dollars,” said Rosa, who has been sleeping in her car outside a motel on the Great Ocean Highway since Friday night. “I’ll believe that when I see it. But she said sorry. Nobody has said sorry to us. Not once.”
A woman who told Weazel News on Saturday that the State had called her brother a “lifestyle death” was close to tears. “He died under a building on Vespucci,” she said. “Now they’re counting him. That shouldn’t feel like good news, but it does.”
Captain Kellow kept it short. “It was never about me,” he said. “It was about a bed and a door that locks. The rooms stay paid for until people have somewhere better to go.”
Governor Carrow has not given a date for her visit. Weazel News will be there when she comes. If you work inside the Office of the Governor, our tip line is open.
