 You're tuned into the COVID-19 Community Report here on KDRT-LP, 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn Lab A Renaud and today is Tuesday, September 29th, 2020. We're sharing local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. My guests today are Jesse Salinas, assessor, clerk recorder and registrar of voters for Yolo County, an artist and community organizer, NJ Vondo, about the new interactive healing art project, and we'll get to those interviews in just a few minutes. Lots of news on the COVID front locally. Yolo Public Health announced last week it had appointed a new public health officer. If you've heard this before, you're not alone. There's been a process here. Beginning October 26th, Dr. Amy Sisson will serve as Yolo County's new public health officer following the retirement of Dr. Ron Chapman in June and the terms of two interim officers. She previously served as the public health officer for Placer County and comes to Yolo with a wide breadth of professional experience. She's board certified in public health and general preventive medicine and licensed by the state of California as a physician and surgeon and she's trained in epidemiology, which is mighty handy these days, and she teaches graduate students in public health. In addition to Dr. Sisson's formal public health career, she also promotes public health through her passion for urban farming. She views farming as an extension of public health efforts to increase access to healthy and affordable foods, which of course is a focus of Yolo County's Health and Human Services Agency. Sounds like a great fit for our largely agrarian county and I look forward to interviewing her at some point after she gets settled in. Today we will find out if Yolo County gets to move from the state's restricted Tier 1 purple level to Red Tier 2, under which many more types of businesses could reopen, including gyms and fitness centers, movie theaters, places of worship and indoor dining at restaurants. Each of these locations would have restrictions as to how many people would be allowed in at any given time, and by the way, nail salons are reopened as of last week. Also, schools could technically resume after two weeks of Yolo County being in the Red Tier. So far seven private elementary schools have applied for and received waivers for in-person instruction in Yolo County. No word yet of how public school districts across the county would respond to the opportunity, but really, I think it's a waiting game at this point. Over the last week, Yolo County has averaged about eight new cases per day, according to the county's online dashboard. So we're on the right track, but public health officials are concerned about a post Labor Day surge, as well as the fact that numbers are on the uptick elsewhere in California. And according to the Davis Enterprise last week, the city of Davis recorded its second COVID related deaths since the pandemic began. The report noted the individual was a woman between the ages of 75 and 84, and the city's previous and only other COVID death, which occurred early in the pandemic, also involved a woman in that age group. And as Chancellor Gary May mentioned in our interview last week, UC Davis continues to test all students moving on to campus, into campus housing and updates its COVID dashboard weekly. As of yesterday, the university reported a total of 79 positive cases total, including 29 students and 52 employees since the pandemic began. With the students back in town as of last week, it's really a waiting game to see what those numbers yield as well. You can view their data at safety services.ucdavis.edu slash coronavirus slash COVID cases. All right, let's take a moment from this music and we will be back with our first interview shortly. My first guest today is Jesse Salinas, who serves as the assessor, clerk recorder and registrar of voters at Yolo County. I want to acknowledge that his office is responsible for multiple key functions within Yolo County. But today we're going to focus on his role as registrar of voters. Jesse's team has been very busy getting out information about the changes to voting during the November 3rd cycle, and we're glad he's here to get us up to speed. Welcome, Jesse, and thank you for joining us. Hi, thank you for inviting me. So the remote voting and absentee ballots have long been available in California. On May 8th, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared California a vote by mail state, and that was to minimize voters exposure to COVID-19. I'm hoping you'll help us break down what that means for us here in Yolo County. Let's start with if you are not registered to vote or you're not sure you are, what should you do? Well, the first thing you want to do out of it is folks should check the status of the registration by going online and going to voterstatus.sos.ca.gov. That is the Secretary of State's website. We'll be able to check the status of their registration. And if for some reason they need to update their registration or even register for the first time, they can go on to registertovote.ca.gov to do that as well online. Great, and this year what is the deadline for registering? The deadline we have is October 19th to be able to get you a vote, a ballot in the mail. So that is our deadline for that process. Of course, in California there is the ability for folks to even register and vote on election day, but we want to encourage people to utilize the vote by mail option because then they can be able to vote at home and have it be very convenient for them and if they'd like, they can then drop off that on the loop with that ballot inside at either a mailbox or one of our drop box locations or even one of our voter assistance centers. Right, and we're going to talk about all of that in just a few minutes. So last week many of us got a postcard in the mail from your office and we were asked to, it was to check to see if our address and our information was correct and we were asked to return the card, but I saw a lot of chatter on Facebook. Are we supposed to return this card? So are you getting those cards back and is that process working? It sure is. We've gotten a lot of those cards returned in. For those that are wondering if I forgot to return it or I didn't return it, will that impact the ballot that will be coming in the mail to me? No, will not. This was an opportunity for us to continue to do updating of our database and our records and the same goes, no news is good news. So if we haven't heard from you, we'll assume that that was the correct address and information and you will be getting your ballot, your voter information guide and your ballot in the mail. But there were a number of people that sent in updated records for us, which was really helpful moving forward to be able to continue to clean up our database and our records for future elections as well. Sure. We're a mobile population. People move. It happens and we want to get those voters registered. All right. Now, if you are registered to vote, the number one question I'm seeing online is, when do I get my ballot? I got the thing from the state that tells me about the propositions and I'm reading up, but when do I get my ballot? So okay, so your official ballot will be we're targeting October 5th when it'll actually arrive at the West Sacramento Distribution Center. And then from there, it will be distributed out to all voters. So we're expecting that the postal services they expect anywhere from five to 10 days for that to arrive in the mail. So again, if our target date is October 5th, folks should be seeing it later that week, coming into their mailbox. And if they haven't received it by the end of October 15, they should contact our office so we can follow up with them. Okay. Do you want to give us a phone number or an email there where people can do that, please? Sure, absolutely. So you can I'm going to give you both so they can email us at Yolo elections. So I'm sorry, elections at Yolo County dot org again, elections at Yolo County dot org. Okay. That's an easiest email to send it to or if they'd like to call in, they can call it 530-666-8133. Great. Okay, just to recap that point briefly, if you haven't received your ballot by October 15th, it's probably best to check in with Jesse's office and get the status of that so they can get you set up. All right, for the rest of us, my next question is about how and when we return our ballot and I want to add two things to that question. The first is that some people are concerned about the postal service and the act of voting by mail. So I'm curious how you're responding to those sorts of questions. Sure, there's a couple of items there. One is we have had conversations with our postal service distribution center and the leadership team here locally. We're very fortunate in Yolo County that the actual distribution center is in our county and they cover areas that go all the way up north and all the way down to Fresno, not quite to Fresno but south of Fresno, quite an area they cover but they've assured us that no equipment have been removed from the premises, from this West Sacramento premises and nor will any of the equipment be removed between now and election day. So they have a high level of confidence to be able to deliver the mail in a timely fashion. I'd also like to encourage people, if they haven't done this, to sign up for Where's My Ballot. It's a ballot track initiative that we have signed up with here in Yolo County and it's being offered statewide but you as a voter can go to California.BallotTracks and there's two T's on that, B-A-L-L-O-T-T-R-A-X.net forward slash voter and you can sign up so that you can track your ballot as it comes through our process. So the nice thing is when you put it in the mail it'll be identified as being received by the postal service and we'll give you an update that's been received by the postal service and then as it comes into our office and we've received it we will scan it and be able to tell you and you could have either an email, a call made to you, or even a text message telling you that your ballot has been received by our office and then it'll even tell you once we've processed it and if the signature is verified and it's all being prepared for scanning and future tallying and we've completed that process it'll tell you when that's done so people can have a high sense of confidence that they've seen where the ballot, their ballot is in the process and if we have issues we will reach out directly with the information we have if there's a signature issue or for example if people have forgotten to sign their envelope that we can reach out to them to make sure we cure that matter in a timely fashion. Okay that's a lot of tracking going on and that's good news I imagine that will set some minds at ease. Another thing I wanted to mention just real quickly is that voting by mail no postage is necessary correct? Correct. Postage is prepaid. We've taken care of all of that so we just have to put it in the mail and it will be delivered to us. Great so no barriers there. Before we get into talking about voter assistance centers and drop-offs and all of that I have a couple of other questions. Just so everyone can be clear what is a provisional ballot? So a provisional ballot is an option that's available for voters if there's an issue that there may be some conflict with their registration process so for example and we have some of these in Yolo County because of students are a good example of that. If a student has come in and they are not necessarily clear on terms of the the election process there's an ability for them to always vote provisionally if for some reason they for example have put in a if they're not sure if they voted in their home their home residents back at home let's say they live in Los Angeles as an example you know there are some students that aren't quite sure if they voted or not and they're like I think I might have voted vote by mail I don't know if I turned it in or not and so at that point we allow them to vote provisionally because we have the ability to check if in fact they voted already because whatever you cast that first vote is what counts and if you accidentally and sometimes people do accidentally cast a second ballot if they're not already in the system and having identified that that's been processed we will let them vote provisionally because we don't want to disenfranchise people they legitimately do have an opportunity to vote but at the same time we want to make sure they're not voting twice okay that's what the provisional process allows for great thank you for explaining that all right let's spend a minute talking about remote accessible vote by mail system ravm so their remote accessible voting system is really it it's designated to really provide additional assistance for people who may need additional accommodation and and it's really very helpful in that extent for individuals who aren't able to let's say use a standard paper ballot process it also can be used for for folks that are overseas and have unique situations where they may not have access to certain items that the mail may not work for them yeah they may be deployed for example yes deployed or they could be and some of the in this is again a uniquely kind of Davis experience that we have students that are maybe studying abroad and maybe in very remote regions where they can't have access to to mail getting to them easily so we need to find other ways of allowing them to be able to vote abroad so there's lots of unique experiences that we encounter here in yellow county that we want to make sure of those who are eligible to vote still have that opportunity and that's just another service that we provide as well great and everything we're talking about today folks is on the the website at yellowcountyelections.org correct yes all right before we run out of time here we have two more important things to talk about so first I want to tell you that I am a person who loves to vote my polling place has always been at the elementary school my children attended I love taking them in with me and showing them what voting it was about and how important it was and so you know I'm I'm I'm definitely aware of a little loss going on for some of us who really love going in and doing that in person there will be no neighborhood polling places but you will have something called voter assistance centers so what are those and what types of assistance will be offered okay thank you sharing that with your your listeners yes we are no longer able to provide the neighborhood polling places and this is as a result of emergency legislation that was introduced it was first an executive order and then follow up legislation to make sure we can provide in-person voting to to compliment the fact that every voter will get a ballot in the mail and so these these centers that we call voter assistance centers will be opened up starting Saturday October 31st through Monday November 2nd from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and so we wanted to make sure that they were before election day that they were open for three days consistent with state law that just recently was of course all day election day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the purpose of these locations is to allow people additional days to walk in and vote and hopefully if they want to vote a little early a few days early to vote any to avoid any lines or crowds that may exist on election day itself and in addition these centers have large large locations so that we can ensure people safety for purposes of of the physical distance requirements that we need to meet as a result of COVID-19 so the locations that we have in Davis and I'm gonna quickly go over them because they are very large locations that you'll probably all be familiar with because those who live in Davis have at one point or another probably have heard of these locations or in her interacted with these community look key locations and the first one is Pat won elementary school we're gonna be using the multi-purpose room and that's over it to to to to shaft to drive in Davis and the other one is Montgomery elementary school okay multi-purpose room and that's at 1441 Danbury Street and of course in the more downtown area we've got the Veterans Memorial Center and that's their multi-purpose room right and that's at 203 East 14th Street and there I'm sorry they're a total of we're about to run out of time so I want to say there are a total of 12 centers throughout the county and they're all of all is everything's listed on on the website yeah I hate to round up our time together because you've just given us a wealth of information and I know you're an incredibly busy person so thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge with us we really appreciate it Jesse all right take good care again that was Jesse Salinas with yellow elections and his one of his roles is as our county's registrar of voters go to yellow elections org for all those sites for everything we talked about and I will be back in just a minute with the next interview all right again I really appreciate it Jesse Salinas coming on and talking about elections with us okay NJ Vando is a writer an artist in music visual arts and theater and a pop-up bookstore owner and community organizer based in Davis California she curates multiculturalism rocks a blog that celebrates cultural diversity in children's literature and today we're speaking about her latest effort the interactive healing art project here in Davis welcome NJ hi thank you so much for having me on on the show appreciate it it's my pleasure all right so what is the interactive healing art project and what moved you to begin putting this together so the interactive healing art project acronym has is a collaboration between artists and community members and the local business owners as well so we're focusing on healing and I'm asking artists what healing looks like to them and the answer you know with the major of their choice whether it's a collage or photography a painting and some people are even making short films so lots of very original answers and then those are being shared on businesses windows downtown but also outside of the downtown area and the community members are at the same question so they can submit a piece of art but they also we have writing prompts so we're asking inviting people to share a lot of encouragement for anyone who needs it and also we are asking you know what is a change that they would like to see in the world right this moment so those answers yeah so those answers are printed and last day that displayed alongside an art piece of artwork on businesses and we have an online platform as well a website that will be a virtual gallery where people who cannot you know physically leave their house will still be able to be to enjoy the project and to just be a part of it so it's a community effort really okay and you and I have talked about this a little bit before but what's the impetus behind it right we all know there's a lot going on but but you had some interesting things to say about why you wanted to bring this to the community yes it's I've been very concerned about the mental toll that's all that we're dealing with is you know taking on us so I don't need to name it but I mean there is COVID-19 we've been confined since March we've had to put on masks and limited in a lot of what we can do and we all under a lot of stress for various reasons we have the you know social protest that are going on we there's some uncertainty about the future political future lots of lives have been changed because of that and then just mentally I think it's important to acknowledge that it's off on us and we not all dealing with it in the same way we don't all have access to the same tool we don't all have access to people who can support us and hear us and again as a community this is a pretty tight sound there's a good sense of community here and around and I thought it would be not just interesting but very comforting if we're able to hear from each other and even if you don't know each other you know if we able to to reach out to each other in that way I also want to emphasize that how I think sometimes tend to be undervalued yeah and the loop for all the benefit that it actually brings to our life and especially to our mental health so that was also the driving force you know behind the project like kind of a knowledge out for the place that really has no life and the fact that in my humble opinion we cannot live without it like you take out music if you take out you know visual art etc I think I don't want to say that you know I don't know I don't know how to express it but it's just gonna be very hard on that yeah now I think you've expressed it well and you're also you're really expressing what we talk about in in arts alliance circles about art playing the role of second responder you know after the crisis after the the horrible events art has a way of coming in and healing people so you're you're really walking that that talk here so what is the timeline and how do businesses get involved when does this unfold thank you for asking that question so right now we are accepting submissions from artists and then from community members and you're also talking with several business owners the project is going is going like on October 21st and then one week before that from the 14th we would like to have as many artwork and messages from our community members as possible okay so the website is doing live on the 21st when you work downtown you'll be able to see artwork already on several business windows and but the project itself will go on until the first week of January okay so and then during that time we will keep accepting artwork and we inviting anyone also looking at the art whether online or in person to send a message great you know they have yeah so let's let's give the website it's davishealingartproject.com that's not quite live yet but there is a Facebook page and event I believe by the same name if you start typing in interactive healing on Facebook it'll pop right up for you it did for me today and then can you also tell us the URL for your blog so Multiculturalism Rocks is a platform that highlights especially voices of color so we're focusing on how diverse culturally diverse our world is and the goal has always been to give more visibility to black indigenous and creators of color but I also to bring us all together as a community as opposed to I feel like sometimes when I read the news major there is so much division in the way some stories are reported and in the way our cultures I think portrayed so we really aim to just provide more knowledge but also more fun and also highlight the wonderful work that is out there and I know we at the end of our time together but I want to give a shout out to all the businesses already reach out to David Mediacos, Scott, Sherty, Mishka, Stem's Gallery and many others I thank you all for supporting this project. Great and we'll we'll get some of that highlighted in the blog post too and Jay thanks so much for your time and for bringing this work to Davis we really appreciate it. Thank you all time and thank you KTRD. Alright take care. Alright folks that is our time for this week another episode has gone by episode 30 oh I don't know 37 I think we're at this is Audemars Bay Renaud live from the KTRT studio this has been the COVID-19 community report