 You're tuned in to the COVID-19 community report here on KDRT LP 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Audemars Laberino and today is Tuesday, December 8th, 2020. We share local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities and Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. My guest today is Davis Mayor Gloria Partida and we'll get to that interview in just a few minutes. First, some local news. Last week in our interview with Dr. Amy Sisson of Yolo County Public Health, we conjectured about the state's forthcoming shelter-in-place order and, sure enough, that went into effect last week with Yolo County preemptively enacting its own order a couple of days prior. In short, the order directs us to stay home as much as possible, noting that activities that bring individuals into contact with people who are not household members do pose a risk of virus transmission, even if masks are worn. The order also details what critical infrastructure is, what businesses may remain open at what level and so on. It's a lot of info. You can find the complete order under the COVID resources spotlight at yolocounty.org. And also there, you'll find the new vaccine information page the county has set up. So speaking of vaccines for COVID, the world watched this morning as the United Kingdom began vaccinating its citizens. It was kind of exciting to see a 90-year-old woman be the first to receive the vaccine. As discussed with Dr. Sisson last week, there's cause for optimism as several vaccines clear regulatory hoops and are ready for the American market. But according to a report in the Washington Post yesterday, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals has told the Trump administration it cannot provide substantial additional doses of its vaccine until late June or July because other countries have rushed to buy up most of its supply. This really makes me question, what one person is telling the next and are we playing a game of telephone here? But what that may mean is that the U.S. government may not be able to ramp up as rapidly as it had expected from the 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine it already purchased earlier this year, raising questions about whether we can keep to an aggressive schedule to vaccinate most Americans by late spring or early summer. We'll keep you posted on that. Meanwhile, more opportunities for saliva-based COVID-19 testing in Davis became available this week. Anyone who's had the test with the nasal swab will tell you this is a good thing. Testing via Healthy Davis Together in December is available at two locations. The first is the Davis Senior Center at 646 A Street and the second, the Mondavi Center, the UC Davis campus 523 Murakal Drive. This testing is offered to anyone who lives or works in Davis but is limited to asymptomatic individuals only. For more information, including testing times, dates and appointments, visit Healthy Davis Together dot org slash testing. And as we are in December and dealing with some mighty cold nights, I wanted to note that the Yellow County COVID-19 Eviction Prevention Ordinance and the COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Grant program remain in effect for low-income residents across the county. The ordinance stops many residential and commercial evictions related to COVID-19 impacts and will remain in effect for 180 days after the public health and local emergencies are terminated. And of course, all of that is still very much in effect. To receive eviction protection under the ordinance, tenants must be experiencing substantial loss of income due to COVID-19, substantial out-of-pocket medical expenses resulting from the virus, or compliance with a lease term that would violate a state or local requirement. Basically, the Rental Assistance Program provides a one-time rent and utilities grant to low-income Yellow County tenants who have been unable to pay full rent because they've experienced and can demonstrate hardships. There are so many, many stipulations around both this ordinance and this funding. And a frequently asked questions document is available on the county website under the local assistant tab at yellowcounty.org. We're going to take a moment for music and we'll be back with the mayor in just a minute. All right, my guest today is Davis City Councilmember and current mayor, Gloria Partida, elected to council in 2018. I remember interviewing Gloria back then about her concerns that the same reason she was running, equity, inclusion, advocacy were perhaps not electable issues that clearly turned out not to be the case as she became our community's first Latin ex-mayor and has continued to advocate for those issues and more. It's my pleasure to welcome you today, Gloria. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I'm always happy opportunity to visit with you. Oh, thank you. You know, it was just over a month ago. We we hung out for a bit on Zoom as co-host during the live election night show here at Davis Media Access. I remember we spoke very briefly then about how the pandemic has impacted the city. But I know there's just layers and layers of stuff there. So tell us a little bit about the job of helping to govern the city at this moment in time. What have been some of the most visible impacts in terms of day to day governance and how has your work on council been affected? Sure. So I would say that the most visible effects of the pandemic is really just is the very vacant downtown area and the lack of students were usually about just kind of here, you know, seeing students leave. But there hasn't been a real difference in, you know, the summer that sort of quietness we get over the summer when students are out of town and then you can really feel kind of the vibrancy of the city return for students. And so that, of course, affects the amount of business that happens not only downtown, but throughout the city. And, you know, of course, we've had the challenges of hotel occupancy. And Lisa's really having our apartments filled. We've never had a vacancy rate, which is this low. And that is challenging for everyone. And of course, you know, comes back to affect the city budget. And we have to be very careful in how we proceed forward. We had at the beginning of the pandemic instituted a lot of furloughs and cuts in projects or, you know, put off a bunch of projects that we had intended to do. And we are still in a wait and see mode because we don't know the full effect of, you know, when this current surge is going to be over. And, you know, what will where we will end up financially when it when it is all over. Yeah, very, very cautious. Cities are in such a difficult position right now. You know, you've mentioned some of the the occupancy issues, the business struggling, and I it's really impacting our restaurant severely, you know, and they can open and then they have to close and they can open and they close. And we all understand why the public health orders are in place, but it doesn't make it any easier. You touched on two things. I want to explore a little bit more. And that was a loss of sales tax from businesses and then the transient occupancy tax, which I know the city of Davis uses to fund a lot of things. Most familiar from it with my work with Arts Alliance and how it has funded arts and culture projects. So how how is info about the potential shortfalls from the state? How is all of that communicated to the city? What what's the line of communication there? Shortfalls as far as revenue? Yeah. Or. So reporting, you mean like for the for the taxes? Yes. So we get that on a regular basis, usually very late in the fall. And I know that we just got, we just had our report out recently. And I think that, you know, of course, we were low, but we were not as low as as we thought that we were going to be, at least not in the city of Davis. But as I said, we can we're still, you know, waiting for the for the full effect of all of that. Yeah, it's kind of waiting for that other shoe to drop, unfortunately. So we did give the hotels a pass, you know, initially for the for them having to to pay their their the transient occupancy tax, but it wasn't a forgiveness. And so we do, you know, think that we will recoup some of that, of course, not very much because they they couldn't take any, any. Right, right. Yeah, that's another industry that's been heavily impacted. I wanted to check in with you, you know, over the years, I've worked a lot with many city staff members and I know that the city staff has been weathering furloughs. So how how is how are things at at City Hall and what kind of projects have been had to been deferred simply because employees have been furloughed or cut back? So the the projects that have been deferred have mostly been the capital improvement project. And so we kind of like a rating system for things that that could be put off until later things that needed to be done right away, needed to be fixed right away. Those those were the ones that we put forward things like, you know, for instance, there was a conversation around a bicycle pump trap. And that was already kind of on the back burner because there, you know, it was it was really one of those nice to have things and not a need to have things. So even before all of this happened, it was, it was, you know, there was a question of when that was going to happen. And it wasn't a priority. But then, you know, you have, you know, we have to seal the streets so that they don't continue to deteriorate. And those sorts of projects were the ones that went forward infrastructure that needed to be updated or kept kept up so that so that there wasn't there weren't safety issues, those sorts of projects. Right, right. We're prioritized. Yeah, you know, you and I live just, you know, maybe five, six blocks from each other. And there's been a lot of that work in in our area. They were they were out sealing the cracks kind of for the second time, I think, preparatory to a slurry seal and all of that. So it is good to see that that happening. And it makes sense to do it at a time when perhaps there's less traffic on the streets and things like that, too. Yes, for sure. Yeah. Unfortunately, with the slurry seal, they did seal the cracks, but the slurry seal, the weather changed. And it, you know, you need a certain temperature for that. And so we're now waiting on for the for the rest of that. Okay. Yeah, it got cold. Got really cold. Yeah. But anyway, there, as I said, it, it's kind of, I think, a little, I think people sometimes feel like they, they're not sure what's going on because some things come from grant money and not the general fund. And so they may see projects that are going forward or that are still being worked on. And people may think, well, you know, why are why are we doing that? Yeah, if there's no money. But there, you know, people always forget that there are different parts of money restricted funds, right? Yeah. So Gloria, what do you hear about most from constituents? And this could be, I mean, there's public comment, which we all have access to. But I imagine people talk to you all the time. What's on everyone's minds? What's the thing you hear most frequently about? It really depends on what month you asked me. And even like what week you asked me that question. But I would say that what has emerged and has been a pretty steady stream of concern recently is the is rising crime. And that, you know, there, you know, we just got the specifics on that. And there is a increase in crime. It is not, you know, just in the city of Davis, it is statewide. But I think that, you know, sometimes things take up a life of their own. And so sometimes these issues can be amplified just by, you know, next door, things like next door, other social media outlets, where, you know, people begin to, you know, the chatter starts and then it amplifies. That's not to dismiss the fact that there are real issues that are happening for people. And, you know, when you have your business broken into or your car broken into, it's a real thing. And, you know, it's always very stressful for people and traumatizing. So I, you know, I don't want to give the impression that I'm dismissing it at all. Yeah. But but I do think that it's, you know, the increase is not, you know, as as bad as it is in other places. And with with our also challenge of continuing to recruit police officers, sometimes, you know, it's hard to keep the level of patrol up. Yeah. And it's kind of an interesting thing to be happening right now when we're having so many discussions around reimagining police. Right. So I probably hear equal amounts of get rid of the police. And, you know, you need more police. Right. And and of course, you know, it's not just COVID we're dealing with this time, but it's been the whole just a whole lot of social and political foment. And here in Davis, as you mentioned, there's there's been this huge focus on police accountability. So I know that the city has just completed a process of council appointments. I know that you and council member Carson are the the subcommittee that, you know, vets people for those. And I'm just going to say that the community was highly engaged with the process this time around. There's an event on December 14th about the nine recommendations submitted by the public health and safety joint subcommittee to the Davis City Council. I'm hoping you will tell us more about the process kind of and what what led to this event? Sure. So this process started way back in the summer after the George Floyd incident. And and so this was when, you know, most of the nation started the conversation around the funding of police. Yeah, there were many cities that came forward almost immediately. Instead, you know, we're cutting our police department by 20% 5% throughout a number there. And I know that there were many citizens that were disappointed because we were talking about the budget at that time. So it would have made sense if we said, Okay, we're talking about the budget, let's cut the police budget by a certain percentage. And I felt like there, we would get a great headline, like a lot of other cities received by saying, you know, making a very definitive, quick decisions. But it wasn't really, they wouldn't have really been very meaningful, I felt, because we don't know where we didn't know at that point, you know, where we needed to make changes in the police department policing, that would be most effective for us. There are other cities, all cities have a different, a different dynamics and different issues and what would have worked in another city might not necessarily have worked for us. So we wanted that process to be much more thoughtful. We wanted to engage the community. It's one of those things where people want you to do things quickly. But they want you to also give the community an opportunity to weigh in. And you can't do both of those things. Not gracefully, anyway. No. And also, I mean, we're a community that, as you said, is highly engaged. But it's the exact same people that are highly engaged all the time. Yes. So if you really want to bring all the voices into the conversation, it takes a little more work because the people that speak up, always speak up. And so you always get the same viewpoints, you always get the same viewpoints from the people who have the most agency already. And so I was really pleased that we did this process. And I said, on a lot of that, those conversations with the tri joint commission, three commissions that were put together. And there were there was a lot of public comment that that happened in those at that, you know, in those in those meetings. Yeah. But again, the same people that we heard from in in the city council. Yeah. So, so the event on the 14th, I noticed it's it's sponsored by maybe not the usual suspects when we think about city politics, indivisible, yellow, ACLU, yellow chapter Davis Phoenix Coalition, and yellow people power. So that's kind of a nice cross section of people. And I imagine that was deliberate based on what you're saying. Yes. Yes. So, and, and this that particular meeting on the 14th was it was spearheaded by yellow people power. And so it's great that they are doing that outreach and engaging, you know, the areas of the community that, as I said, are are typically not engaged. So, and I think that the hope for that particular meeting is just to get the information on the report out. So that people understand what the recommendations are from, from the commission, and to also give input around the, the recommendations that that came out, like to understand how people are are feeling about those recommendations, how we how we got there, essentially. And then those recommendations go to the full council. And when will the council vote on those? So it's more, it's not necessarily a vote of, you know, on the recommendations, you know, yes, we're going to accept all of these recommendations, or we agree with three of these recommendations. I think that some of that will go forward. But it's, we will give our input back to staff and go forward with collecting what we need, what the city needs to implement some of those recommendations. So, for instance, one of the recommendations is developing a crisis now model. We would need information about what that would look like, what, you know, all the, all the necessary structure around that is, you know, trying to figure out what's needed for the structure. We would have to coordinate with the county on some of the recommendations. We'd have to figure out like how to fund the recommendations. And so there's there has to be a more robust, you know, betting and information that has to come back. Right. And so and this is why we put this off. So this conversation, this particular agenda item started on the first and she put it, we have 153 commenters, that's a lot, which, which took most of the evening. And, you know, Fred said, let's not take up the discussion at 1 30 in the morning. Yeah, which was a good call. And so we are, it's a continuation of that conversation that started on the first. So what will happen on the 15th is that we will open that agenda item at the discussion. Right. So we won't take more public comments off the 15th. Good to know. As I said, as I said, at the top of the interview, layers upon layers of work and understanding how city government works, how the council works, Gloria, we're about out of time. We've got about another minute and a half. So just anything, any parting thoughts for us? Anything else you wanted to communicate? I would like to communicate to people to be safe. We are really in a very bad time right now with COVID. And so I know, I know it's tough already. But I really am encouraging everyone to, you know, be as safe as possible. If you don't need to go out, don't go out. Yep. Sure to wear your mask. Sound advice. Thank you so much for your time for always making yourself accessible and for your service. And I do wish you happy holidays. You as well. All right. Thank you for having me. Take good care, Gloria. Bye. You know, my pleasure during the show is always learning so much about how people do the work of governing, running a business, teaching, whatever it is they do. Thanks so much for tuning in. You've been listening to the COVID-19 community report from the KDRT studio.