Loading...
PSC 11-08-2012CUPERTINO PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Thursday, November 8, 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, November 8, 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 Robert McCoy Lily Lim Commissioners Absent: Nina Daruwalla Staff Present: Captain Ken Binder, Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office Staff Absent: Battalion Chief Gary M. Cocroft, Santa Clara County Fire Department Others Present: Tom Munson, PG &E Supervisor of Public Safety Specialists Peter Dine, Randy Ong, Pam Reed, Isabel Rodriguez, Ed Bloom, Steve Hill, Tina Okawa III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Tom Munson from PG &E speaks about workshops they offer to First Responders. They last about two and a half hours, and the purpose is to educate emergency responders about how gas and electric utilities work. Beyond fire and police, this also incldes CERT members who are becoming a big player in California. The workshops are hazard - oriented, covering safety precautions, what actions the first responders may initiate, and what to leave to the PG &E professionals. Attendees receive a flipbook at the workshop to use as a reference in various types of emergencies. There has already been an enthusiastic response to these workshops, with 400 people offering very positive feedback. In 2013, PG &E plans to coordinate more functional field exercises as well, including fire, paramedic and police personnel. In Milpitas recently, they performed an exercise to simulate a vehicle hitting a gas terminal and practiced evacuation, street closures, emergency and medical response, etc. Mr. Munson talks about some of the information points discussed in the workshops. Only PG &E personnel may operate the major shutoff gas valves, because of pressure calculation issues. In some cases when a first responder has turned off a major shut off valve to protect one house with a leak, the pressure has built up and caused an explosion in a house down the street! It is safe, however, for anyone to shut off a gas valve at an individual home, but it is not recommended unless you actually smell gas because you must wait for a PG &E employee to turn it back on and relight it. Mr. Munson reviews a number of good resources and procedures that PG &E has put in place. There is a web portal for first responders that will inform them of where the major gas pipelines are in their area. There are mobile command vehicles, purchased after the San Bruno incident, which allow supervisors to print underground maps in the field, coordinate radio communication with emergency personnel, etc. There are diagnostic devices that go by the acronym 'pig', which perform thorough checks on gas pipelines and produce crucial information about the pipelines' current condition. Annually, PG &E checks all gas distribution lines using `sniffers' and runs a risk analysis to target which pipelines need replacement. Mr. Munson states that a huge problem exists with people digging into underground facilities. Mostly contractors, but even homeowners trying to plant a tree on their property have increasingly hit water lines, fiber optic wires, gas lines and electric facilities. The best way to avoid this problem is to dial 811 at least 48 hours in advance, and request location of underground utility services. Mr. Munson answers questions from guest Peter Dine and discusses scheduling a PG &E presentation at the elderly community where Mr. Dine lives and works, since many residents have serious concerns about gas pipeline safety on the property. Commissioner Huang later mentions that he would like to invite an AT &T representative to the next PSC meeting for a review of ongoing communications issues in regards to cellular coverage and reception in Cupertino. IV. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS Captain Binder presents a letter written by Deputy Baker, a Sheriff's Office School Resource Officer, in lieu of a direct presentation due to continued schedule conflicts. The letter informs the PSC about the SROs' meeting with Lauren Neff and Commissioner McCoy regarding the Cupertino Teen Center. Deputy Baker lists the possible safety concerns and reasonable solutions to resolve the issues indicated. Commissioner Huang asks Commissioner McCoy to follow -up with Ms. Neff and monitor the recommended improvements. V. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. October 11, 2012 ACTION: YES VOTE: YES MOTION: McCoy SECONDED: Nguyen 4 to 0 Commissioner McCoy motioned to approve the minutes of October 11, 2012 with an amendment to strike a sensitive portion of information due to safety concerns; Commissioner Nguyen seconded the motion; votes taken, all in favor to approve the minutes of October 11, 2012 as amended. VI. OLD BUSINESS 1. Discussion of Walk/Bike /Carpool (WBC) to School project, ongoing (all) ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A Oto0 Commissioners Nguyen, McCoy and Lim have no updates regarding W /B /C. Commissioner Huang states that the Lawson school W /B /C event coordinator informed him that their program is now well- funded and they have no need this school year to request funding through the PSC. Commissioner Huang reports no response from Faria school, but expresses no surprise because students at this school mostly carpool. 2. Boltage Program progress /updates (Lim) ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 0 to 0 There are no updates regarding this program at this time. 3. Report on Surveys to Schools (Nguyen) ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 0 to 0 Commissioner Nguyen discusses how he altempted to impute data in an effort to improve the numbers' outcome, but determined that doing so made no improvement. He then suggests an alternate approach to demonstrate that funded programs are successful. When a school has a big event for the W /B /C program, the PSC may ask the school to complete an extra survey for that specific week. Commissioner Nguyen offers io process the extra data and believes this approach would garner good results. Captain Binder reports that the School Resource Officers received great response to the current Survey to Schools, with all schools except Lawson, Kennedy and Collins turning in completed surveys. In addition, these three schools plan to complete their surveys the first week of November, so there may be full participation this survey period. Captain Binder states that he has the surveys completed so far at the substation, and Commissioner Nguyen offers to pick them up. 4. Discuss participation in the Alert SCC Program and the new CAS Program (Huang) ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 0 to 0 This meeting began by Commissioners awarding nine neighborhood block leaders with solar emergency radios for gathering the highest numbers of new sign -ups for CAS. Commissioner Huang reports that other block leaders participated by emailing their neighbors instead of going door -to -door with paper forms. This contributE!d to a strong number of 600 sign -ups, but prevented a tracking count for those who participated only online. Therefore, half of the radios remain and Commissioner Huang suggests that the PSC initiate another competition in the spring so that more radios may be awarded. After this latest boost, Cupertino is now number one among the AlertSCC participating cities with 13% of residents signed -up, surpassing Palo Alto as the previous leader and exceeding Cupertino's own goal of 12 %. VII. NEW BUSINESS ACTION: YES VOTE: NO MOTION: N/A SECONDED: N/A 0 to 0 There is no new business to discuss at this regular meeting. VIII. REPORTS 1. Santa Clara County Fire Department There is no report at this regular meeting. Fire personnel have been frequently called away in the last few months due to mutual aid responses. 2. Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office Captain Binder begins by informing the PSC that the Executive Assistant who normally types these minutes will be on leave for three months and unable to produce the minutes through February. He asks that a Commissioner take over this duty until her return in March. Captain Binder proceeds with the October status report. Deputy response times were well under the limits set by city agreements. Priority One calls for service averaged a 3 minute deputy response time out of the agreed 6 minutes, Priority Two calls averaged 5.75 out of 9 minutes, and Priority Three calls averaged 11.25 out of 20 minutes. The Captain points out that the Sheriff's Office clocks these response times from the second ring of a resident's call to the time a deputy arrives on scene. The Sheriff's Office knows how important quick response times are to Cupertino residents and therefore hold very high performance standards. The crime report shows a decrease in residential burglaries, with only six in October which is very good. The Captain notes that neighboring ci-:ies have conversely seen an increase in residential burglaries. Unfortunately, criminals seem to be targeting stores now because commercial burglaries jumped from four to fourteen in October. Vehicle burglaries dropped by one. Domestic violence crimes remained low; there were no sex crimes reported, and only two simple aggravated assault cases. In traffic activity, moving citations dropped overall, and there were two D.U.I. related accidents in October. Theft crimes jumped in October. Although lo", for the previous few months, identity theft rose back to a normal level of 11. This is one of the most difficult crimes to investigate and prevent, since it mostly occurs through mail theft and online contact. In fact, for every group of identity thieves caught, there are usually many more victims. Moreover, after a short sentence of one to two years, the same thieves claim many more victims. Mr. Dine asks Captain Binder how Cupertino compares to other cities in regards to crime. The Captain states that Cupertino is a very safe city, pointing out that property crime is the biggest problem as compared to person crimes or crimes of violence. Captain Binder also notes the excellent cooperation and community partic pation the Sheriff's Office receives from residents, which makes a positive difference in keeping the city as safe as possible. 3. Commission Reports Commissioner Huang reviews what he presented to the City Council and Mayor during the annual PSC Activity Report. One goal of the PSC is to reduce traffic congestion in Cupertino through programs including the Walk/Bike /Carpool to School grants, the Boltage program, and bi- annual Surveys to Schools. Over the last three years, student participation has hovered around 50 %. Out of the shared grant budget, the Teen Commission has used a total of $11,000.00 on expected items such as competition prizes and office supplies. Commissioner Huang intends to meet with Lauren Neff to review their planned budget for 2013. Commissioner Huang highlighted during the presentation that response times for both fire and sheriff personnel were consistently well within agreed limits. However, he noted that the biggest concern regarding the Fire Department has been having personnel away frequently to offer mutual aid elsewhere, and the biggest concern regarding the Sheriff's Office has been the high amount of theft targeting Apple products. Commissioner Lim interjects she thought there was another concern among residents regarding the Fire Department, and Commissioners Nguyen and McCoy remember the complaints about the CERT member fee. Commissioner Huang says that Rick Kitson is working on that issue and possible reimbursement of the fee to Cupertino residents. Commissioner Huang acknowledged Commissioner McCoy's dedication, being the one to attend the most meetings of other commissions as a liaison each month. Then Commissioner Huang states that the alert systems received the most discussion, with council members asking the difference between CAS and AIertSCC and the various alert systems through schools. Captain Binder attended the meeting and offered a helpful explanation as to how all systems could be well coordinated. Commissioner Huang reported that in 2010 the PSC doubled their 2% target participation in AIertSCC to 4 %, and have now exceeded their adjusted target of 12% by achieving 13 -14% this year. 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 8:54 p.m. XI. NEXT MEETING The next regular meeting is scheduled on Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. SUBMITTED BY: Jennifer Roth Executive Assistant West Valley Patrol Division Santa Clara County Office of the Sheriff November 14, 2012 APPROVED BY: Andy Huang, Commission Chair Date /' /i 3, /i2