City of San Jose, CA City Manager, 11 Aug 2020

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From YouTube: 8/11/20 | City Mgr. Dave Sykes presents City's Response to COVID-19 & Continuity of Operations Plan

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San José City Council August 11, 2020 Meeting, Agenda Item 3.1

A

All right now, we'll jump straight into the um the eoc uh update, I'm going to pass it off to lee you'll also hear from from jackie and uh colin and rosalind and alexandria. So thank you. Lee.

B

Thank you dave and good afternoon, mayor and council on behalf of kip hartness, and I I will be presenting this afternoon today. We have a few things on the docket.

B

uh First, I'm going to go over some quick emergency operation center update, then we'll hear from jackie and colin on our supported isolation program and the communications around that which is follow-up from the past few weeks, as well as from rosalind and team on development services and then, lastly, from alex felton from our igr team on the legislative updates from the federal side, we'll be doing the state side in a few weeks.

B

So the emergency operations center continues to operate, uh nimbly to slow and reduce the spread of coven 19 and support our our most at risk. People. Currently there are 342 employees staffed in the emergency operations center, which is slightly down from last week at 390..

B

During this past week, we accomplished some of the following that I'll uh review. First, the food distribution team continued with no major gaps. This was led by second harvest and our amazing partners producing uh 2.3 million meals. County-Wide again, our encampment dumpster pilot program is in full swing, with dump dumpsters deployed at five sites throughout the city and last uh the trail. The last trailers we received from the state at the beginning of this response were picked up from kelly park at the end of last week, so no trailers remain.

B

um In addition, in addition to messaging on our supported isolation program which you'll hear in detail uh shortly, we've also kicked up some of our messaging working with the census team to ensure that the community knows about the earlier deadline in completing the census. uh We will be supplementing the messaging out of the eoc, with, um with upcoming uh safely door-to-door visitation efforts to increase the awareness and the census completion rate compared to where we were over a decade ago.

B

We're also continuing to update signage in our parks, as we open new amenities and ensure that we are communicating safely and directly with our public on the latest guidance throughout the county and the state.

B

Our safety branch has released a covid 19 safety assessment, toolkit and checklist for city department managers, as we begin to reopen programs and we've scheduled trainings with all the departments in the coming weeks to go over this toolkit and then thanks to council's ratification of the alfresco orders last week, we are moving quickly to accelerate that program, including the installation of two parklets this past week on south 1st street between san carlos and williams street, and then lastly, we will be holding a community leaders forum with the non-profit sector tomorrow, led by andrea flores shelton and our community and economic recovery section to go over the community and economic recovery gaps and working with our nonprofit sector to ensure um that there are no gaps for our community throughout this process.

B

uh There'll be a morning or there'll be a meeting in the morning and also at night tomorrow with those nonprofit partners, and with that I'll hand it off to jackie morales ferran, our director of housing.

C

Great, um thank you lee. You can go on to the next slide, so one of the tasks that the council asked that I follow up on was trying to get more clarity regarding when the uh county was actually offering the supported isolation program and before I did that. I just wanted you to be aware of, because we haven't really reported this before the three options that the county provides to. People who are who come back with the covet. 19 positive results.

C

So the first option is to provide somebody who might need isolation or quarantine an opportunity to go into a motel in order to safely isolate.

C

The second is they've also worked with people to identify if they have a place to isolate or quarantine, but they may need some limited service and limited service, meaning things that they would be receiving in the motel, such as food or cleaning supplies.

C

And uh if a person indicates that that would be helpful, then they provide those necessary services.

C

And then the third option is they're very sensitive to and aware that we do have some members in our community who might get a covet, 19 positive and would have to stop working and would not have any source of income during the week that they would have a week or two weeks that they would have to be in isolation or potentially quarantine or longer. And so, if somebody needs rental or financial assistance to pay for utility bills, then they work to provide that assistance as well.

C

So those are the three different options that somebody can seek and request help from the county. So I think I did not communicate. I did not have a clear understanding until we went back to the county regarding how people are actually offered these options.

C

So one of the one of the reasons why people are, I think, slipping through the cracks is because, as somebody who just received her uh test results just one minute ago, you just get an email potentially and it says you're, negative, you're, positive and um the offer of these three options does not necessarily come at that time, because there are so many different ways that people are getting tested.

C

What happens next is um the information of who gets tested. Positive is uploaded into a statewide computer system and then on a daily basis. The county uh is able to download that data, but I think you may be aware there have been challenges with that computer-based system.

C

When the county receives the information that somebody has tested positive, then they have contact tracers and they have 300 people who are working as contact tracers during the week and 250 people who are working as contact tracers during the weekend, and these contact tracers have an extensive questionnaire, but they, but what it means is they're calling back people, it could be 24, it could be 48 hours after the person receives the diagnosis explaining or asking questions. So they can determine of the options that the county has.

C

What makes the most sense given their specific circumstances.

C

So there could be times when they're not able to contact the person, because the person doesn't answer the phone or they are not willing to give specific information, and so there are definitely cracks in the system and that's why this whole push that the county is doing now and that we are also going to be joining is so important regarding getting more education out that these options are available sooner versus later, so that people can proactively seek them out instead of having to wait until they're actually offered, and so I'm going to turn it over so that you can hear about how we're trying to support pushing this information out.

C

So people know to call that referral hotline number as soon as they get a diagnosis.

D

Thanks jackie, thank you mayor and council and colin haney, your co-epio with carolina camarena and here, to talk about what we're going to do to get word out about these resources far and wide, because we've heard from council and others in the community this there might be people actually avoiding getting tested because they're afraid of seeing that positive test and getting put in a moral dilemma where they have to choose between keeping their families safe or keeping their family fed.

D

So we've been asked to help raise awareness of these resources, we're still syncing with our county colleagues, but here's what our strategy looks like at the moment. We've begun some of these tactics. First, we're sharing and boosting the county's own communications, both online and in print. At the moment. That consists of a flyer that the county has been distributing. That's in five languages right now explains the support resources, as well as the differences between isolation and quarantine.

D

The county also recently just a few days ago, launched an isolation, quarantine, support website. It's there at the bottom of your screen.

D

Fccstayhome.Org. That website is also available in english, spanish, vietnamese, chinese and tagalog. The flash report that went out last week and those go out every wednesday contained all this information in a news section that we have put in the flash report focused on testing tracing and support. So every week this information will be included, the pop-up testing sites around the county will be included and the appointment-based testing sites around the accounting will be included.

D

Those flash reports also get translated into vietnamese, spanish and chinese and will get shared on facebook, twitter and next door.

D

The county epio is also let us let us know that they are preparing a social media campaign on the topic and we're still working with them to better understand exactly what's going to be included so that we don't move forward with redundant efforts. Next we're planning on producing our own communications in digital broadcast and hard copy formats. We will be reinstating our popular influencer video series that we used a lot at the beginning of this crisis and supported isolation is going to be our first topic.

D

Those videos use trusted community leaders, local celebrities, to convey a message in language. In fact, we don't even write the script for them. We provide some high-level bullet points and we let those influencers write their own script in their own language, so that it is authentic, we're working with the office of immigrant affairs right now to identify the right, spokes people and reach out to them, get those videos in production and we're working with our community engagement compliance branches to target those messages to the right audiences.

D

And of course we know there are many people in this community without easy access to the internet, and many of those people live in our covit 19 hot spots, so to help reach those residents we're including this information.

D

First in a resources brochure that we're helping to produce on behalf of the virtual local assistance center that will be distributed through libraries with curbside pickup food distribution sites, non-profit partners, senior nutrition sites, clinics and more. The trifold is being fully translated like everything else, and we will also be exploring a media buy on ethnic radio and looking at point of service outreach methods like postcards, tent carts, a-frame signs and and locations of high activity.

D

So this is uh kind of the the three-legged stool we're taking on this particular topic and it mirrors a lot of what we have done on other topics as we push health and safety messaging. Thank you.

B

Thank you colin and thank you, jackie, and I just wanted to say thank you to carolina and colin for stepping into the epio role over the last few weeks and and hopefully on a short term basis. Thank you both now moving on, I want to hand it off to rosalyn huey, our director of planning, building and code enforcement.

E

Great thank you lee today, I'm providing an update on our efforts to drive development services during covet 19. next slide. I want to start with an overview on the items that we have been working on and that we have previously shared with you.

E

uh So first uh construction hours have been extended to 6 a.m, to 8 p.m, during weekdays on and saturdays, and this helps our customers make up for any lost time during the early county order restrictions and helps to keep development projects moving forward.

E

We have extended building permits. All active building permits and council will take action today to extend planning permits. For two years. We have completed inspections for those inspection, appointments that were cancelled when we first went into shelter in place now in development services.

E

We are experiencing pain points as it relates to permit issuance, particularly for single family, home projects and a small tenant improvements and later in the presentation, I will share out our tactics around that uh we continue to conduct virtual community meetings for our development projects, including our environmental scoping meetings and the planning commission, historic landmarks, commission and directors.

E

Hearings continue to be conducted virtually and finally, to help keep our development projects moving forward staff will bring general plan amendments to city council next spring for those projects that are not ready for council consideration by the end of the calendar year. Next slide.

E

So as it relates to our planning permit activity um during covet 19, so for these last five months um we have taken in uh 526 new planning applications.

E

During the same time, 338 planning permits have been approved, um and this includes over 1500 housing units and 4.3 million square feet of commercial space approved in the city. So I do just want to highlight a few of these projects. um They are very significant in helping us in our housing crisis as well as downtown development.

E

So the first project was the meridian affordable housing project that includes 233, affordable units. The tamiyan station development project was also approved. This project includes 569 units, including 135, affordable units and then also just wanted to note the city view plaza project in downtown that council approved in june, which includes 3.8 million square feet of development next slide so on the building permit um issuance.

E

um I do want to take a time to to frame um the challenges that we are now experiencing around permit issuance, um and this is really related to the impact of our permit center being closed to the public for our over-the-counter services.

E

um We have obviously experienced lower permit issuance rates and um because we no longer have the in-person interaction with our customers, um it is taking us longer to work with our customers via email, to make changes to their plans and to move the projects along faster.

E

Also, we notice that our customers are also having to adjust to submitting and uploading their documents electronically, so it does take us a bit longer to work with our customers as well.

E

So what are we doing to address the challenges? So? First, we are adding staff resources to help get our permits issued quicker.

E

We are offering overtime to our staff to catch up on permits issuance. This will be both during the evenings during the week and on saturdays, and we have actually identified 400 permits that require plan review that we're going to focus on in these next two weeks to get these permits issued.

E

We have brought on a retiree rehire to support this permit issuance work um and then last month we hired a new permit specialist and we are in the final phases to bring on two more permit specialists to also help with the permit issuance work and then we're also reassigning one staff, member from our inspection team to help process. Over-The-Counter uh permits this particular team member has the experience in plan review and permit issuance, so that is going to help us as well.

E

Next, we are implementing online appointment scheduling for new projects, submittals that require plan, review, over-the-counter permits and adu services, and also this week we are- are expanding our online permit offerings, so our customers can pull their permits right online uh for we're, adding two different permit types to the online offerings. These includes the brace and bulk permits and storage battery permits.

E

We have also reached out to our photovoltaic providers and our brace and bolt companies to actually streamline their applications by creating master files to get them through the process quicker and then, lastly, to deal with the email backlog, we have created a separate resubmittal mailbox for residential projects.

E

So this way we can pull out these residential resubmittal plans from the other emails that our customers are sending us on a variety of different inquiries.

E

So, as you look to uh the graph on the right, this provides a comparison of pre-coverage activity to what we are now experiencing.

E

So you can see back in january of this year, we were taking in over 2 800 permits and issuing about 2 000 you can see in april of this year is when we took the big nose dive. So when we went to shelter in place, it was during this time also that there were county orders restricting um construction activity.

E

But since that time in april, you can see how we have consistently uh increased, both in the number of permit applications that we're taking in and actually we've we've surpassed that number in january, we're now over 3 000 and now we are about 2 000 in terms of um issuing permits, so we're pretty much back on track on permit issuance from january of this year next slide so regarding our our inspection counts and I've um provided uh information previously to the council um on our daily inspection count.

E

So I've shared previously that pre-covet, our average daily count was uh 500 inspection counts per day or 2500 per week. uh So you can see here in this graph how we've been uh tracking since shelter in place.

E

We there was a period of time. It was the first week in june, where we hit just about 2500.

E

That week we did experience um a slowdown the week of june 29th, but that was um primarily due to a four-day work week uh that week included the july fourth holidays. So we only had four days of productivity that week and then you can see since that time we're averaging about 2200 um permit, I'm sorry, 2200 inspection counts each week. Next slide.

E

So, regarding um the universe of inspection, appointments that were cancelled when we first went into shelter and place so I've previously provided this information uh to the council. There was um a universe of 2 000 inspections that weren't that were cancelled, that we have been working on getting those inspections uh rescheduled and completed.

E

um So we're really excited that um over the last several weeks, as you can see in the pie, chart we've been able to get those inspections rescheduled and completed, and as of today, of those 2000 inspections, there are 200 um that are remaining were actually. Customers are not ready to have their inspections conducted, so we're now at a place where, if a customer requests an inspection, we can um get that inspection scheduled within 24 to 48 hours. So in essence, um we have completed that backlog for customers who are ready for inspections next slide.

E

So I did want to take the opportunity to share with the council our continued work on development services transformation and I'm really excited that the team has been able to continue this work uh doing shelter in place um and as a reminder, uh we did our major upgrade of our permitting system, which is called amanda.

E

We upgraded from amanda 6 to amanda 7 in november of last year, and really the importance of that upgrade was that it set us up for future uh um technological improvements. It's basically a new platform that enables us to add new features to our system.

E

So one of the things that we were able to move forward with, we were already working on digital inspections as part of development services transformation, and we were able to roll out the digital inspection form of april of this year, and we continue to use that. So the key thing about the digital inspection forum is that now our inspectors are able to input notes on the inspection on their tablets and the information gets automatically uploaded into our amanda system and also our customers also have the ability to access that information um through our public portal.

E

At sjpermits.org.

E

We are, as I mentioned earlier, we are providing two new types of permit offerings online this week, as I mentioned, for bryson bolt and for storage battery, so that is happening, and then we're really excited to launch our electronic plan review for planning permits and public permits.

E

uh We're excited that this work is on schedule so that we will be able to release this at the end of the month. We are currently working to get our customers trained on this new platform. It's actually called project docs, and so now our customers will be able to submit planning permits, account five categories of planning permits and all public works permits, they'll be able to submit plans.

E

Online staff will be able to review them electronically and the important piece about this is now that our customers will actually be able to track staff comments of their permits and also track the status online.

E

So we have a cohort of customers that we are training on this new system. That training will take place thursday this week and then on friday.

E

We have a meeting with our developers and construction roundtable group, we'll provide them with an overview and then, on friday afternoon we will be conducting a webinar for any customer who is interested in learning more about the new system and then, lastly, as I shared previously, we are providing online appointment scheduling um that will start next month and before I end, I just do want to take the time to thank so many of our staff, who have been working very hard over the last five months.

E

In particular, I want to uh thank chu chang bill main mark garcia, lisa, joyner, mason, dahi, alex powell and really all of our inspectors plan reviewers, permit specialists and our planners for taking on a tremendous amount of work and learning to adjust really well and working hard to serve our customers. Thank you.

B

Thank you rosalind. uh In the past few weeks, we've had quite a bit of movement uh within congress and uh with the white house on uh federal legislation and support for the covid19 response and to review that with us. Today is alexandria, felton from our office of intergovernmental relations.

F

Thanks lee alexandria, felton senior executive analyst with the office of intergovernmental relations um first slide.

F

So, on july, 27 senate republicans introduced the hills act, and this is a 1.1 trillion dollar package that is in response to the heroes act that was introduced by the house democrats. The hills act is a marker for where some senate republicans wanted to start. The negotiations on a fourth release relief package and as of friday august 7th white house officials and democratic leaders failed to reach a deal for the new coronavirus relief package. In response to that, president trump issued a series of executive orders on august 8th, taking unilateral action amid the stalled negotiations.

F

The orders take a comparatively narrow range of actions for coronavirus economic relief. That would first extend the enhanced unemployment benefits, extend the federal eviction, moratorium and institute a payroll tax holiday and defer student loan payments. The constitution gives the congress the power of the purse to approve any changes to taxes or spending. So there are questions on whether the president has the authority to unilaterally intervene on unemployment benefits and the payroll tax. The actions may also face some legal challenges as well.

F

Additionally, as the president's order would require states to cover a hundred dollars of the 400 unemployment insurance payments, there is some concern that the states will be unable to cover that match. Governor newsom actually stated yesterday in a press conference that the president's plan will cost the state at least 700 million dollars a week, which is money that the state doesn't have and currently 75 percent of the state's share of the coronavirus relief fund is already committed.

F

So what happens next? um The current path forward is unclear, while both democrats and republicans have indicated that they're interested in reaching a deal we'll likely not see talks resume until after the democratic and republican conventions later this month. So congress also faces a september 30th deadline for the annual federal budget and the surface transportation. Reauthorization bill comes up as well on the 30th, so on september 30th, so we could see um a relief package negotiations resume in september, slide, 2 or next slide.

F

Although the senate republicans didn't approve any new funding for state and local governments, the hills act does include some new flexibility as well as restrictions for the coronavirus relief funds and the cares act so, first in terms of the flexibility, the new flexibility extends the deadline to 90 days after the end of the state or local government fiscal year in san jose's case. This would be september, 28 2021. It also allows state and local governments to spend up to 25 percent of coronavirus relief funds on lost revenue and then under the new restrictions state.

F

Local governments can't use the coronavirus relief funds for any type of pension obligations or to supplant non-federal funds like state or local funding. Next slide.

F

Regarding our advocacy, advocacy efforts, we're communicating with our delegation on the funding impacts to the city of san jose and our our messaging to our delegates includes demanding that the any package passed by the senate should include additional funding for for local governments and providing an accurate and detailed picture of the city's economic situation as a result of the pandemic, and that includes lost revenue, service cuts and the city's efforts to provide covet 19 relief to the community.

F

We're also working with key coalitions like the national league of cities and the u.s conference of mayors to amplify our priorities. So that concludes our report I'll hand. It back to lee.

B

Thank you alex and uh before we hand it back over to the city manager just wanted to preview. uh Kip had showed you some upcoming topics uh for future 3.1 updates um and to ensure that um we are meeting some of those subjects but have the capacity within the eoc and are properly framing up issues.

B

um In the same context of issues you might have in that council meeting we've put together a bit of a horizon report, which we will continue to report out on uh to the council and make it available.

B

But we will be coming back next week with the library learning pods and a domestic violence update and in the coming weeks, um a bit of an update on the coroner's relief fund, as well as some of our our fiscal recovery updates, as well as our overall budget for the entire response. That's far and a legislative update focused on the state specifically around the eviction moratorium since on that same agenda, we'll be looking at our own extension.

B

So with that that completes staff report and I would hand it back over to you dave.

A

Thanks lee and just want to thank the the whole team for the presentations today and all the work that goes into it and uh mayor, we stand ready for for any questions from you and the council.