09.07.2020 Facebook Live Briefing Transcripts

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Larry Little: Hi everybody. Thank you for joining us. I'm larry little and happy Labor Day to you. We begin this morning with the focus on COVID-19 business enforcement in Santa Clara County. As you may know, last month the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that allowed fines to be assessed to business owners in violation of compliance with COVID-19. Of course, this morning. I am joined with by Beatrice Santiago, who is with the Business Compliance team here at the emergency operations center and we will be discussing uh the process and the procedures and everything about this new enforcement effort that is taking place. But first want to let you know that we have removed our face coverings prior to this segment so that everyone including our American Sign Language interpreters can clearly understand and properly communicate the information that we will be sharing this morning. Beatrice, thank you for being here.

Beatrice Santiago: Good morning.

LL: So just start out by telling me about what is the purpose of the enforcement efforts  being led here in the county. BS: Absolutely the business compliance unit and this enforcement process was created to ensure that businesses are operating in compliance with the health order and the mandatory directives. We want to make sure that anyone going into a place of business as a customer or even going to work is in a safe environment, where they're not experiencing unnecessary risks, so this is what this was created for. We're seeing that generally businesses want to comply and do the right thing but we've had a few cases where we need a little bit help with enforcement there so this process was created and businesses that do not understand the seriousness of their responsibility to the community could be issued notices of violations or even fines.

LL: So what's the process of enforcement?

BS: The process begins when the business compliance unit is contacted with the concern so it could be a member of a public it
could be an employee it could be anyone that brings up a concern that the business is having maybe an unsafe practice, not
operating compliance with the order. The business compliance unit then reaches out directly to the business, that could be through a site visit, it could be through a phone call, and we investigate. We let them know of the alleged violation. We have a discussion seeing what practices are in place. We will even check and see if they have their social assisting protocol on file with the County, which is the requirement of all businesses, so we go through the process of what exactly they're doing there. If we find evidence or if we believe that maybe they aren't operating in compliance with the order, we talk to them about how we want to correct the violation, things that need to be done to make it a safer environment for the workers and the public. So once that happens, there could be a warning, or in some cases, a notice of violation will be issued at that time. Once the notice of violation is issued, the business owner then needs to comply they're given a timeline, it could be up to 72 hours, it could be immediate, depending on the severity of the violation, and a fine is also attached to that violation. Now the good thing is, because they have time to comply, is most of these fines do have a grace period, so it gives the business owner an opportunity to correct and do the right thing. In some cases, unfortunately, where the violation may be repetitive or it might be it might be something where which just puts the community at great risk, maybe we we can't issue that, but it could be up to 72 hours or immediate, and the fines can range up to $5,000. So it is very serious, and we want to make every effort that the businesses are still allowed to operate it might not be in an ideal way, but in some cases, it's unfortunate, where the businesses will just have to close, or maybe move operations outdoors to make the business safe.

LL: Yeah. Yeah shutdowns due to COVID-19 has been very hard on businesses, so we are not looking to find any business. The first step is always education, uh here at the county. So how are these fines collected, and because i know a lot of scams are happening during COVID-19 ... a lot of people trying to take advantage of people during this time of the pandemic. So talk us about how fines are collected as well as what to expect from an enforcement officer and what not to expect.

BS: Correct! So you will get like, as I mentioned, a phone call or a site visit. Our enforcement officers will always identify themselves, they should have a county issued badge on them at all times, so you can know that you're talking to someone that is truly representing the County.

We do understand unfortunately, people are taking advantages of the circumstances, and we have had stories of individuals showing up at businesses and saying, "I'm here to fine you."

Fines are not our first step, I want to emphasize that, as Larry mentioned, we are here to educate and work together to find a solution. So we will never ask you to provide money ,especially cash, right on hand we will not come up and say hey you're not wearing a face covering you need to give us $500; that's not how it works. There is a process: you will be provided with the information official letterhead; you will be provided contact information; but you will never be asked to give money directly to someone that approaches you; you will not be called and asked for your credit card number. If you are, and there's any suspicion, ask the individual, or even if one of our officers show up ask them to provide um identification, ask them to provide a phone number back to you what you could do as well you could contact as a verifiable county source.

LL: You know uh someone said here about you know the the process, or our efforts being threatening, again we're not threatening anyone, we're actually working with businesses. It's safety first here at the County and our our goal is to educate uh businesses, so our community can stay safe. uh when will it uh ... so enforcement has already begun?

BS: Correct.

LL: um talk about that a little bit.

BS: right, on ... on August 11th, the um ordinance was passed by the Board of Supervisors that allowed for this enforcement process to begin for businesses that are just not coming into compliance, and as part of that whole process, as  I mentioned it is as larry mentioned begins with education, goes through the whole process. So on August 11th when this was passed, we did, shortly thereafter, start the whole implementation of the notifications for a warning sometimes for businesses that are in violation ,notices of violation and some fines being issued with grace periods, and we've been working through that process consistently throughout this month, and as i mentioned, again, we are seeing again time and time again that businesses are
wanting to do the right thing and comply sometimes it's just a little bit of education that we need to provide.

LL: um is there an online portal where people can voice concerns about COVID-19 here in the county?

BS: There absolutely is. As part of the process when this started We established scccovidconcerns.org. That is the place where anyone from the public could go and click on a link, and through it, you'll be able to submit your concerns about businesses, about schools, about even healthcare providers that are operation operating in violation of the health orders. So you could click there. What we want you to do is provide as much information as possible. We want to know specifically what actions are these businesses taking that are putting the community at risk so you'll go through and you'll answer a few questions, you'll provide the business name. You could remain anonymous. You could provide your contact information, and we will go and investigate it. In addition on that page, there's also valuable links for business owners, once again to provide the education, links back to the COVID-19 page that the county provides. There's also links to the business call center, where businesses could call for information, and links to report case outbreaks at a place of business for the business owner as well, and we will also be providing in the upcoming week or two. uh avenue for part of the compliance process is to submit a statement of compliance, it'll be as easy as clicking on there and submitting the actions that you're taking in order to comply with the health order.

LL: All right any closing thoughts?

BS: um just once again, I want to reiterate the education aspect of this. Our County continues to go through outreach and education first, compliance, and then enforcement as a last resort. I just mentioned a lot of different links that are available on the sccovidconcerns.org web page that's available there as well as forums like this. There are a lot of members of the Santa Clara County team that participate in business forums, where there's industry specific, where we could get out there and have some interaction with specific industries and provide guidance on how to best comply during this difficult time. In addition to that, when the compliance unit started, we also rolled out our business engagement team, that team is out there actively engaging the community, and interacting with businesses such small businesses that might not have the resources available to them, also the monolingual community and areas that have been disproportionately impacted. So once again, we emphasize the education first and in this last month where we've been doing this our team has engaged with over well nearly 300 businesses and of those 300 we've only had three that have resulted in fines, so that shows you that that together we could really accomplish a lot, together we could find a solution to this, and just like all of you my hopes are we get back to normal very quickly.

LL: Exactly. Thank you so much for being here. Ijust want to share some quotes from county officials regarding this new ordinance this one is from County Council James Williams, he says, "This ordinance provides an added tool to enforce the health officer's orders and protect the public in Santa Clara County. It is our hope that businesses will use the grace period to make the necessary corrections and avoid fines, but if they fail to do so the penalties are significant. The vast majority of businesses are playing by the rules and keeping our communities well-being as their priority, but those that are not need to know that our community is serious about enforcement. We all have a responsibility to do our part, and closely
and consistently follow public health
directives."

We also have another quote here from Director of Environmental Health Michael Balliet, "Our goal is to educate and not fine businesses, but fines will be issued if businesses refuse to comply with the laws protecting the public from COVID-19."

So as you can see here, we are working, and I know businesses have experienced a very difficult time, some being closed for several months, but it's education, education, education. We are not going out and immediately assessing fines to businesses.

I want to remind you that it's going to be another extremely warm day, here in the County, in San Jose. We could see temperatures as high as 105 degrees, and in Gilroy and Morgan Hill as high as 108. i won't be going there today. Also our air quality will be unhealthy for sensitive groups so if you can, stay inside. If you must go out, wear your mask, practice social and physical distancing, and wash your hands. All right, take care of yourselves. We'll see you next time. Have a good day! Bye, bye.

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