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PSC 10-11-2012 CUPERTINO PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Thursday, October 11, 2012, 7:00 p.m. Cupertino City Hall, Conference Room A I. CALL TO ORDER Commissioner Huang called to order the regular meeting of the Cupertino Public Safety Commission at approximately 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 11, 2012 in the Cupertino City Hall, Conference Room A, located at 10300 Torre Avenue, Cupertino, California 95014. II. ROLL CALL Commissioners Present: Andy Huang Daniel Nguyen Nina Daruwalla Robert McCoy Lily Lim Commissioners Absent: None Staff Present: Captain Ken Binder, Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office Battalion Chief Gary M. Cocroft, Santa Clara County Fire Department Rick Kitson, Public& Environmental Affairs Director Ken Ericksen, Emergency Volunteer Coordinator Staff Absent: None Others Present: None III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Commissioner Huang had invited Tom Munson from PG&E to review a presentation he gave at a recent Disaster Council meeting, which offered insight into how PG&E responds to emergencies and the potential impact on residents. Commissioner Huang states he will re-invite Mr. Munson to appear next month and secure more reliable contact methods. Captain Binder reports that School Resource Officers Bond and Baker are unable to attend tonight's meeting as well, but will ask them to attend the next meeting to review the recent emergency drill at the Teen Center. Commissioner McCoy adds that he toured the facility with Lauren Neff, who pointed out that there is a complete lack of safety plans for active shooter or natural disaster emergencies. Captain Binder agrees that there is a lot to address at this facility regarding safety, and Deputies Bond and Baker can offer useful feedback based on the drill of what improvement measures to take. Commissioner Huang then asks Captain Binder if he could offer the PSC the same Workplace Violence Training that he recently presented to City of Cupertino staff. Captain Binder states that they videotaped his presentation, so it may be more convenient to have DVD copies burned for each Commissioner to watch as their schedules allow. Rick Kitson later notes that he will ask Ray Delgado to make six copies of the presentation for the PSC. 1 IV. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS There are no written communications to discuss at this regular meeting. V. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. September 13, 2012 ACTION: YES VOTE: YES MOTION: McCoy SECONDED: Nguyen 5 to 0 Commissioner McCoy motioned to approve the minutes of September 13, 2012; Commissioner Nguyen seconded the motion; votes taken, sill in favor to approve the minutes of August 9, 2012 with no corrections. VI. OLD BUSINESS 1. Discussion of Walk/Bike/Carpool (WBC)to School project, ongoing ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 0 to 0 Commissioner Daruwalla reports that the Collins' WBC event coordinator seems upset with her over recent miscommunications. Commissioner Daruwalla had emailed her (a couple times) the PSC's response to her initial request for funds, stating that they need more information before such funds could be approved. It seems she did not see those emails, so Commissioner Daruwalla will call to invite her for a meeting over coffee to review the process in more detail, give her the necessary forms, etc. Commissioners McCoy and Lim have no updates regarding WBC. However, Commissioner Lim inquires about the recent Safe Passage event held in Los Gatos and if Cupertino could host one as well. The other commissioners discuss that it is a grant-driven interactive program, through National Highway Safety, held during a certain week of the year for safety awareness. Commissioner McCoy offers to contact the Los Gatos Safety Commission for more information; Commissioner Huang requests him to find out who wrote the grant request and how they spent the money so they may be able to replicate it in Cupertino. 2. Boltage Program progress/updates (Lim) ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 0 to 0 Commissioner Lim asks about completing the funding for the Kennedy Middle School Boltage incentive program, which the PSC approved at the last meeting. She is advised that Captain Binder submits the completed minutes to the City, arid then the City issues a check after receipts are received from the event coordinator through a liaison. The City will only pay in advance if the request is worded precisely for that and includes significantly more documentation. The rules are strict because the City must always show auditors proof of transactions. However, Mr. Kitson points out some other options, including to have invoices sent directly to the City for payment instead of waiting for re-imbursement, or to inform the City of what to buy and letting the City initiate the purchase directly. 2 Commissioner Lim later asks how Kennedy might acquire additional bicycle racks for the students who bike to school. Commissioner Daruwalla remembers that the VTA was giving bicycle racks away last year, so it may be worthwhile to contact them for information. However, other commissioners explain that the school itself would have to fund the building of a fence/cage around the bicycle racks to deter stealing. At elementary schools, the entire campus is usually fenced and gated so the bicycle racks are secure within the fence line. However, at the middle school level, the campus is more open and the bicycle racks require independent security fences or cages. 3. Report on Surveys to Schools (Nguyen) ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 0 to 0 Commissioner Nguyen states that he is waiting for the Fall 2012 Surveys to Schools to be collected. Captain Binder confirms that the SRO's distributed them this week and will collect them next week. Commissioner Huang mentions that the Mayor posed some questions at the last Mayor's Meeting regarding the participation limits of the WBC and Boltage programs. Based on the statistical analysis of Commissioner Nguyen the Mayor sees a consistent 50% participation over the last three years with no effective increase and arguably a slight decrease. He would like to know how much money has been spent so far, and to discuss whether a realistic participation limit has been reached; beyond which no further gains may be expected from additional expenditures. Commissioner Huang notes that funding is derived from a 79,000.00 budget, which the PSC had to share with the Teen Commission. He believes that only about $30,000.00 has been used over the last three years, the bulk of which was for the Boltage equipment to be installed. However, he asks Captain Binder to contact the City Finance Department for an up-to-date spending breakdown of the account since the beginning. Commissioner Huang also asks the PSC if perhaps the program should be stopped for one year to see what happens. Commissioner Nguyen points out that children are constantly rotating through the various schools, spending only a few years at each school. Therefore, if they stop the program, he thinks that the participation levels would definitely decrease. He believes they should measure program success not by whether continued spending increases participation, but by whether participation will decrease by stopping the program. Commissioner Daruwalla agrees, saying that she does not think they should stop program at all. 4. Discuss participation in the Alert SCC Program and the new CAS Program (Huang) ACTION: YES VOTE: YES MOTION: Nguyen SECONDED: Lim 5 to 0 Commissioner Nguyen moves to approve Commissioner Huang's proposal (see page 6) to purchase 20 Red Cross emergency radio/flashlights to be issued as prizes for a block leader competition to sign-up Cupertino residents on CAS; Commissioner Lim seconded the motion; votes taken, all in favor to purchase the prize items. Commissioner Daruwalla mentions that the Garden Gate Safety Night was a huge success. She collected three pages of contact information for AIertSCC/CAS, and attendees received the Sheriff's Office personnel very well. Captain Binder gave a ten-minute PowerPoint presentation that led many parents to ask her how to sign up for more classes, and Motorcycle Deputy Torres gave a very humorous discussion about school traffic. Captain Binder adds that the SRO's brought a patrol SUV for the kids to check out up close, and one of the Sheriff's K9 Units did a presentation on how they search for explosives. Commissioner Daruwalla expressed her appreciation and pride for what a wonderful event it was due to the enthusiastic participation of the Sheriff's Office. 3 Commissioner Daruwalla then mentions that there was some confusion in registering for the upcoming Diwalli Festival this Saturday. The event planner from the Chamber of Commerce claims to have not received Commissioner Daruwalla's booth registration forms for her Real Estate business, although her credit card was charged the $300.00 booth fee, and no more booths are available now due to Fire Marshall capacity restrictions. Fortunately, some volunteers offered that she could use a portion of their booth, so she still plans to attend and try to capture more sign-ups for AIertSCC/CAS. Since booth participants are required to have free hand-out gifts available, she intends to give out her Real Estate business calendars for any sign-ups she captures. Additionally, there is an event coming up at Valley Fair that last year brought 11,000 people through. Commissioner Daruwalla intends to lave a table at this event as well, and needs to obtain the AlertSCC/CAS sign-up binders from Ken Ericksen. She asks if postcards are still available too, but Commissioner McCoy says that Mr. Ericksen told him previously that the County ran out of postcards. Mr. Kitson states that the City is working on a set of simple bookmark cards in time for the Citywide Emergency Drill on the 27t". Commissioner Daruwalla asks Mr. Kitson if she could at least get a sign printed with the CAS link so that event-goers may know how to sign-up at their convenience. Mr. Kitson then offers it may be possible to have some quick business cards printed with the "Cupertino.org/CAS" link, in time for the Valley Fair event. He later confirms that if the cards are printed, they will be available for pick-up at the local Kinko's. Rick Kitson begins his presentation regarding CAS updates. The City Council approved the contract with Everbridge in January-February, but it then took six months to obtain approval from the City Attorney's Office. The issue surrounded the fact that Cupertino is using the technology on a subscription basis, not a hardware basis, but the Attorney's Office kept insisting on an indemnification clause for one million dollars. Eventually, they reached an agreement and Interim Mayor Amy Chan signed it. The second delay was because Cupertino is a small organization lacking bandwidth. Resolving this issue became the focus of the Communications Department, until Apple announced that it qualified for special consideration under the AB900 Environmental Leadership Act. This allows any lawsuit against Apple's environmental impact report to be fast- tracked to the State Supreme Court. They qualified because their new building design is considered large-scale construction that meets high environmental standards. However, to maintain their qualification, the City itself had to meet strict public records sharing requirements, including that they post every email and written communication that mentions the Apple project on a website within 5-7 days of receipt. Normally, they collect all emails and letters and eventually include them in a final response report. Therefore, this intensely time-sensitive demand took significant work force and resources away from improving the City's bandwidth for CAS.The Cupertino Communications Department actually had to construct a public input process especially for the Apple project communications. Luckily, the Apple project momentum has slowed and the new CEO is re-evaluating the plans, so the City can now refocus on moving forward with Everbridge. Mr. Kitson goes on to discuss how the head of County Fire has decided that utilization of CAS needs to be a requirement for emergency services in Cupertino. Therefore, the City needs to give direct access to both County Fire and the Sheriff's Office, and plan some in-depth training sessions later in the year so that personnel understand how to use it. Then, in cases of natural disasters or active shooters or missing persons, emergency services can directly initiate and control the information sent out to residents or specific a-eas of the City. Last year's active shooter event exposed this issue, when the City and various schools began issuing information that conflicted with Sheriff's Office operations. Due to the now required access of emergency services, Cupertino will be collecting 911 datasets from various phone carriers for the basic emergency alert calls. The fact that many residents no longer have landlines makes acquiring a 911 dataset very challenging. In addition, County Communications for instance tries to require that the information only be used during an emergency, but Cupertino believes that any data it receives must be tested to check for accuracy and data quality. 4 In a related matter, Mr. Kitson mentioned earlier in the meeting how Apple was completely under- engaged during last year's active shooter event, receiving no direct communication even though parts of the event happened in their close proximity and they have excellent safety plans in place to notify their employees. He acknowledges the fact that during an emergency, county services focus on safety issues, not on communication. However, since the City and schools have the infrastructure in place for broad communication, county services need to utilize that infrastructure during emergencies. Commissioner McCoy asks B.C. Cocroft if there are plans to add fire personnel due to the Apple building expansion, but Cocroft responds that additional resources are unlikely in this budget climate. However, County Fire is currently working with San Jose Fire Department to establish a true boundary drop so that each agency is clear on their jurisdiction, and to establish a virtual link between dispatches o alleviate the potential need for additional staffing. He states that Apple has an excellent fire suppression system in place anyway, so fire danger concerns regarding Apple are very low even with the additional construction. Mr. Kitson proceeds, revealing that Cupertino has hired a small marketing firm to do some innovative outreach marketing to target groups, such as mobile device users, landline users, and elderly groups. Commissioner Daruwalla asks if there is an App to sign on to CAS and Mr. Kitson confirms that the technology exists but requires a module that Cupertino does not have and would cost additional money. He then emphasizes the established link"Cupertino.org/CAS" and demonstrates what people will see when they access it. First, you sign in or create your login, and then you see your own profile page where you may choose from a list of topic-specific subscriptions. At the bare minimum, you muse:subscribe to Emergency Alerts, but there are many choices beyond that such as West Nile Virus Alerts. The City is in the process of renaming the current categories, to make them more generic to cover broader topics. For instance, they may change the West Nile Virus Alert option to Health Alerts. There are also opt-ins to add mobile devices and space to enter specific addresses about which you would like to receive any outgoing alert. For example, if you want notification of anything related to your child's school, you may add the school's address to your profile as a kind of alert subscription. Commissioner Daruwalla asks if there is a limit to how many addresses each person may enter, and Mr. Kitson answers that we will have to test the limits to find out. Mr. Kitson points out that City staff has no direct access to the CAS system or the profile pages. They may hit a simple reset button if someone has forgotten their password, but nothing further. Users subscribe directly to Everbridge. On the other hand, this is problematic because no one can fully subscribe a new user except that individual. Others can only enter basic information to jump- start the registration and the system will send a message to the new user asking them to finalize their subscription. If they only have an email address, however, those limited entries go to a generic category that only receives community-wide alerts. Another problem is the separately developed Cupertino volunteer portal, which has no interface with CAS and therefore may generate some message overload. Commissioner Lim asks whether someone could add the link to school websites, since parents are very active on those websites already. Mr. Kitson discourages this idea because schools have explicit safety standards. He states it is okay to verbally encourage parents to sign-up to CAS and point out that the alerts would be City generated and different from the type of alerts generated by the schools. Mr. Kitson states that Everbridge will give a presentation at the next Block Leader meeting on October 17 at 6:00pm in City Hall. Commissioner Huang then launches a proposal to capture more CAS sign-ups. He would like to issue all block leaders at the meeting sign-up sheets like the PSC used at the Fourth of July event. He will ask every block leader to sign-up as many neighbors as possible over a one-week period, and then ask them to deliver their forms to the CERT members at the City CERT Drill scheduled on October 27. His target again is 1500 sign-ups, and he would again like to ask teen volunteers to do the data-entry at his house over dinner. Commissioner Lim asks about the data quality captured at the Fcurth of July events, and Mr. Kitson offers to have it analyzed in preparation for the next PSC meeting. Mr. Kitson responds to the proposal, stating he aggress that such outreach efforts are good to bolster the buzz and encourage more sign-ups, but states that the City's position is to tell people to go online and sign-up themselves. In addition, he is not too comfortable with random teenagers having access to confidential contact information. Commissioner Huang laments that just telling people to go online takes away the competition component and reduces the impact. They then discuss creating multiple portals to track referral sources, but all agree that would make it excessively complicated. Mr. Kitson then acknowledges that block leaders have established relationships with their immediate neighbors, so they may capture better quality data. Ken Ericksen then interjects that all block leaders can at least pre-register their neighbors, and then the City can run neighborhood tests asking people to respond so they can test the data quality. People would still have to change their password and comp ete the subscription process. Commissioner Huang emphasizes the importance of obtaining written consent from each resident, for legal protection and to justify using tax money to buy competition prizes. He suggests that block leaders could pre- print each neighbor's information and have each person at least initial their agreement. Commissioner Huang again intended to make the prize an iPad, but City Manager Brandt expressed through Block Leader Coordinator, Laura Lee, that he prefers to choose a prize that is emergency related. Therefore, Commissioner Huang has secured a quotation of 20 hand-crank radio/flashlight devices from the Red Cross at $35.00 each for a total of$700.00. The 20 block leaders who sign up the most people will receive the prizes. As a matter of official record, Commissioner McCoy requests that Rick Kitson inquire about discontinuing the$35 fee for CERT membership, which has driven numbers down in the organization. When the program began, there were no fees, but new membership has significantly decreased since a fee was put in place. The other commissioners agree, so it is the consensus of the PSC that the$35.00 fee should be discontinued. Mr. Kitson states that he will pass along this feedback/request, but it is ultimately the decision of the City Council. He does acknowledge the fact that more CERT members equates to more safety knowledge in general among the public, which would be beneficial during emergencies. VII. NEW BUSINESS ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 5 to 0 There is no new business to discuss at this regular meeting. VIII. REPORTS 1. Santa Clara County Fire Department Battalion Chief Gary Cocroft reviews the September Fire Report. Similar to last month, the total fire loss was very low at $11,800.00. This included a passenger van that caught fire just as the driver exited and quickly became a total loss. Cause is under investigation, but there were no related injuries. Beyond that incident, the report looks very normal. Response times are still good, averaging well within standards, and 70% of call-outs are for emergency medical responses. B.C. Cocroft explains that in 1998, County Fire decided to add trained paramedics to every fire unit of the County, in order to better service the high volume of medical emergency calls they receive. In general fire news, it has rained but October and November traditionally carry high risk of wildfires because any rain tends to dry quickly with intermittent heat waves. Commissioner Lim asks B.C. Cocroft about current public fire education for schools. He answers that County Fire uniquely maintains two full-time positions of Community Education Staff, and their primary work is coordinating school events for fire safety awareness, keeping an inventory of educational resources, and maintaining the very informative website. He also points out that County Fire is possibly the only agency around the Bay Area that allows guided tours of fire stations. School representatives from other cities have often called to ask if they can schedule tours! Commissioner Daruwalla offers to pass on the contact information of Gina Calli, one of the Community Education Staff, to Commissioner Lim. B.C. Cocroft adds that Kristi Moore is the other staff member, but she will be promoting to Director of the Office of Emergency Services soon and they will need to find a replacement. 2. Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office Captain Binder from the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office reviews the September status report. Deputy response times were well under agreement levels. In fact, the average response times for Priority One and Priority Three calls for service were less than half what is required. Crime trends have decreased, with residential burglaries down from 14 to 11, commercial burglaries down from 6 to 4, vehicle burglaries down from 30 to 15 and grand theft down from 11 to 4. He attributes this decrease to the many recent arrests of burglars. Regarding the traffic report, citations in general have increased, although speeding citations have decreased throughout the area. Accidents also occurred less last month with 45 compared to the monthly average of 55. 3. Commission Reports There is no mention of reports from other Commissions at this regular meeting. IX. FUTURE AGENDA FOR NEXT REGULAR MEETING 1. Walk/Bike/Carpool to School Project, ongoing 2. Boltage Program progress/updates 3. Report on Survey to Schools 4. Discuss progress on participation in AIertSCC and CAS Programs X. ADJOURNMENT This regular meeting adjourned at 10:00 p.m. XI. NEXT MEETING The next regular meeting is scheduled on Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. SUBMITTED BY: Jennifer Roth Executive Assistant West Valley Patrol Division Santa Clara County Office of the Sheriff October 18, 2012 APPROVED BY: Andy Huang, Commission Chair Date 7