I was able to get this corrected, although I’m not sure if the persistence fixed the issue or just something else.
I had to perform a “Power Down” from Control, Safety & Security option. They key is that you need to be in Park, sitting in the driver’s seat and do a power down. You need to wait 2-3 minutes and don’t touch anything (breaks, door opening, touching the screen, etc.) After 2-3 minutes, tap the screen or open the door and the system starts up. It almost sounds like the clicks that you hear when the Firmware is being installed.
After doing this 3 times without success (although I might have anxiously rolled the windows down because the temp in my garage was 120 due to the car’s fan running and trying to cool the batteries perhaps), I was able to get the A/C working on the 4th attempt .
At the same time, I was on my laptop with Tesla Support’s chat which took 45 minutes just to get an agent on the line. He sent me a canned set of instructions including what I just described and when I did a power down again and was waiting, he said he was going to end the chat and close the ticket.
I don’t know if he did something remotely or this was just a coincidence but the A/C is working the way it should and the car’s cooling fan is no longer running all the time. I’m still going to take it to service in 11 days which is their earliest time that they can get me in, but at least I can drive the car for now.