Recommendation to Endorse Implementation of Temporary Street Reconfigurations to Provide Space for Social Distancing in Response to the COVID-19 Emergency. (Transportation 4226287)
Thank you. And I would like to thank, obviously, Rochelle and Andrew for helping to basically write the staff report, which is very complete and thorough. So in the interest of time, as the mayor suggested, I will be relatively brief in my comments. I'm going to start out with a presentation on the Commercial Street component so that all members of the council can be present and then we can break off later. The Commercial Street's component was really initiated by Davos through a letter that they had sent to the city, requesting support from city staff to help out their local businesses during this COVID 19 pandemic. It's something that clearly, as we read the start of their letter, we are very much in support of their goals and their aims. Really, what they look to do is to expand the areas that are available to pedestrians and the patrons to help out the local businesses. It's also an attempt to promote the social distancing that's required in our commercial areas now and for several months that we expect into the future. It's also a way to provide a potential for outdoor dining opportunities for businesses as they come back online and have limited seating indoors. And lastly, to provide some curbside pickup. So I'm going to touch on these items three, three items. First, curbside pickup, and we'll talk a little bit about how we can do some outside outdoor dining. That, by the biggest piece, is really the potential for some lane reductions on both Park Street and Webster. Now, initially when this came forward, it was proposed by Dava. And at the time the staff report was written, WADA was not 100% sure if they wanted to support, but they have since come come on board and are also supportive and requesting a similar kind of treatment for Webster Street as well. So starting with the curbside pickup, it's really an attempt to pursue parking spaces or set aside parking spaces for quick pickup for whether you're getting to go food or whether you're doing curbside retail. And it's a really pretty simple thing for us to do. It's really a matter of almost changing out parking meter signage at select locations, allowing, for example, say, a ten minute parking so that someone can go or just loading, unloading only. We can certainly work with the business associations to kind of spot where the most opportune locations for those specific curbside pick ups would be. It's also easy and inexpensive to implement and really we're talking about changing out some signage on the parking meters. There are a couple of cons in the sense that we might be losing a little bit of parking meter revenue. I don't know. That's necessarily going to be a significant sum of money, but it is certainly something to be considered. And then lastly, you know, there's as with anytime you talk about parking in a downtown environment, there is a need to have some degree of enforcement to make sure that people don't abuse these short term timelines. So that's a relatively easy thing that can be accommodated quickly. Second thing I want to kind of jump to and talk about our parklets. It's the idea of enhancing the outdoor space to use for dining or potentially waiting to get into to restaurants or other retail areas. And the idea is really is to take over existing parking stalls and convert them to places where people can wait or congregate as they're waiting to get into a into a restaurant or a building or potentially even have dining outdoors. The advantage of using the parking space for these kind of dining opportunities is it maintains the sidewalk clear. One of the challenges, if we try to do a sidewalk dining program is that if you someone eating at the dinner table, the ability for someone to pass by that is really constraining, particularly if you have people come in different directions and it's really difficult to maintain that six foot distance. So if we're able to take the diners and put them out into the parking area, or if there's a you know, if you're waiting to get into a retail establishment at some later stage of of opening, that can also be done a little further out. So there's an advantage for that. Now, the city does have parklet guidelines that date back to 2013 and the city has participated on a. Couple of different occasions in a national event called Parking Day, where you basically convert a parking stall into a dining facility for a day. And most recently, last September, West Cafe on Webster Street did that as well. But what that shows, I think, is that these these kind of dining options can be done. They can be implemented. They can actually be done relatively inexpensively. One of the key things that we are always mindful and considerate of as we do these is we have to maintain accessibility in whatever we do. So most of time when you step off the curb, there's a six inch drop. So any of these parklets would have to have some sort of a built up platform to raise it up to the same elevation as the sidewalk. We've shown through that part of the process that there are relatively easy and inexpensive ways for businesses to do that. I think another thing that that has been requested both by Vidarbha and staff certainly supports is, you know, there may be multiple businesses that request these things and there may be multiple like overlapping uses of some of these Parklets and staff would certainly be supportive of a district wide encroachment permit such that, for example, applying for a permit for all the park, street and lava could apply for a permit for all of Webster Street. And we could use that to simplify the administrative process. And then while still being able to review each of the specific applications on a case by case basis to to see how they function and make sure they meet the accessibility requirements and anything else we need to do. So that's the second piece, and I think that's something that's because we already have a parklet policy adopted. It's just a matter of implementing that and rolling that out in a little larger and quicker fashion. I think that's the next big piece really is the idea of Hart and Webster Street Lane reductions. And the idea here is that we want to go from a roadway with four lanes of travel to a roadway with two lanes of travel. The idea that we take what is now the outside lane, the quick lane, exclusive parking and we convert that into a parking area. And what it allows is we can basically convert more, if not all of the existing parking into curbside or outdoor dining facilities that are out there waiting facilities. I will pause for a second and we'll see if this works here. On on on the zoom, Laura, can you see if you can pull up the first slide? I think sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and see if this works here. It's. We're making that happen now. Cool. There it is. Okay. It is so and so. I'll just be brief about this slide, but this is a nice way to illustrate kind of what we're talking about where right now this is example on Webster, it's very similar kind of thing that would be applied over on Park Street. There are now four lanes on Webster and we take just the inside two lanes, the blue lanes here, and that would be retained for travel. And then what is now parking, which is the orange would be converted into an expanded sidewalk area, whether it's outdoor dining or other kind of uses. And then lastly, what was the outside lane that would become a parking parking stalls? And so maintaining obviously areas for a bus drop off. And we worked with the business associations to find out where the best pick up and drop off locations. But this is a nice, quick cluster of example of how it could be done. So and so this is good for the slide line. If you go back to what the regulation is saying, we will certainly work with both AC Transit and the fire district to make sure that they're satisfied for language. I think that if you look carefully in the reminder, show the temple and we would certainly need to have Olympic lanes to satisfy satisfy the fire requirements. You know, the other thing I'll add to the idea of a lane reduction is as part of the Park Street Signal Improvement Project that was just accepted by council a little while back, we did traffic counts on Park Street and similarly we did traffic counts on Webster Street in the past two years. And on both of those streets, the amount of traffic that we have is conducive to a lane reduction using that old data before the pandemic came through. And as everyone, it's clearly known that the traffic volumes are certainly lower now than they were last year at this time. So not only do we think because of the reduced traffic in the short term, because of the COVID 19, we also have data from last year that would suggest that doing this lane reduction is possible, is feasible with the traffic volumes that we have had. And we'd certainly expect to see in the near in the short term. Details. Obviously, there's a lot of details to make this thing work correctly. And we are kind of at this early stage here to kind of proposed the idea to council and really seek your support and recommendation to see if we should go forward and really kind of flesh out the details, developing those fast forwarding platforms, basically reshaping roads to accommodate this, making sure we can accommodate right and left turn movements at each of the intersections and even considerations about if we're moving the parking out to the street, what are we going to do about paying for parking? In terms of parking meters? Do we have adequate turnover for those parking sources? A fair amount of work that still needs to be done. But we are we're kind of bringing this forward to council to seek your input about us furthering this program going forward. I will note also for this program that if we take of it in terms of a relatively rapid deployment, this is the kind of program that we can get out in the order of a month or two. And it's certainly something that could help the businesses as they come back online and certainly could be in place through the duration of the summer all the way through, say, the end of October or even into early November, at which time we could reassess the program as we go into the winter months and potentially then look at if it is successful and supported by both the business and the community, potentially look at what next steps might be to make it more of a permanent kind of installation as well. So those those are the highlights for the commercial items. Yeah so really seeking direction from the council to move forward largely consistent with outlined in the report and we if given that direction we will certainly be working closely with both both business associations downtown the association and the business association. So with that short staff report unavailable for any question. That was sweetened to the point. Thank you, Mr. Wickstrom. Um, I suspect we have public speakers on this item, but before we get started with our public speakers, any clarifying questions for Mr. Wikström? Okay. And, madam, quick, do we have public speakers? Oh, I'm. Sorry. Councilmember Odie. Yes, sir. Now we have to step away. Right. Um, we are discussing the commercial streets, and that's Park Street and Webster Street. And are we going to finish that discussion and then go into the residential streets, which is where you would recuse yourself? Mr. Chan, the city attorney? Yes. With the exception that I. Advised a councilmember step away during public. Comment, because it's too difficult to determine which which portion it is for. I see what you're saying. Okay. Yes, I would. Yeah. If I could get to I think members of the public might have comments on the residential portion and would want to hear the presentation first as well. So we're probably going to call them. Oh, so you. Oh. Okay. So we'll wait to hear public comment until we've heard both staff reports. So at this point, we're going to ask, well, so then we'll just excuse our two colleagues who have conflicts because they live on streets that are being contemplated in this so street discussion. And we will keep them away both for this next staff report and the public public comment period. Right. Okay. All right. So you can go tune in to your favorite TV show or something. Yes. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Okay. So then we will move on to the. And I don't think there were any clarifying questions on Mr. Exchange Report. So then who are Mr. Wikström? Are you also presenting on the streets? Yes, I am. All right. The floor is yours. Okay. Thank you again. The mayor and members of the council again present in the second half of this presentation about the residential component of the low streets. This is a program that was launched on April 29th as a pilot program, really looking at two streets. We started at Pacific Avenue, running from Oak Street to Grand Street and Rosales from central to Fern Side. Initially, we started out with a relatively limited number of barricades that effectively closed the streets to through traffic and allowed local residents to go into those streets to get to their houses and also any deliveries or services that needed to be done there. So the streets were initially selected with help from the Transportation Planning Department, really looking at the notion that they are bicycle boulevards. In our existing bike masterplan. We also looked at them, you know, geographically being on the east end of the side of the city, because we are recognizing that there is the James Park Open Space Trail and also the cat ramp trails along shoreline to get a little bit of geographic diversity about where these streets would be. Now, the intention and the goal for these is to really provide additional space for residents who, due to shelter in place requirements, are not doing their normal activities, spend a lot more time in their house and sometimes feeling cooped up. Want to get out and get a little bit of exercise, get a bit of fresh air. Yet there is the challenge then of potential for social distancing when there's multiple people on the sidewalks. So the goal was really to kind of create a space for these activities to occur and allow pedestrians and bikes increased use of the streets. And really the rationale or the way of doing that is to close the streets to through traffic. As I said when I started, this has been out since April 29th. We have had a part of the city web page that's been open with a survey that has generated a fair number of responses during during that time. And as of I think it was yesterday, there were 467 survey responses, and the vast majority of people, 75%, are in favor and are in support of these these slow streets as they have been deployed. There's the smaller communities that are 20% that are not in favor. And the concerns ranged from people not wearing masks or people walking out in the street and just a concern for some safety around that. That's one component. The other piece I want to kind of bring forward is a piece about traffic counts. Now, we did a informal survey. It's not super detailed, but we did do that for a one hour period on Thursday afternoon, several weeks apart. The first was in April 24th, just before the pilot program went into place. And then we repeated that survey again last week on Thursday. And on Pacific Avenue, if you combine both the pedestrians and the bikes, there was a 130% increase in the number of kids in bikes during that one hour period. At the same point, there was a 50% decrease in automobiles. So you can make a statement that the the the closures just through traffic are having their intended effects. Similarly on resales had bikes increased by 54% and the autos actually decreased by 77%. So, you know, in both cases there's been I'll say it's met its intended use. I will kind of kind of move a step. And I think many of you may know that I've had some my personally I city engineer have had some reservations about the program and it really relates around the idea that objectively having fewer cars on the road creates a safer situation, but it doesn't necessarily create a safe situation. And I'll do it by way of comparison to a couple other programs that the city does and how a couple other cities throughout the country are implementing this program. You know, first of all, where we do like a block party that occasionally residents will apply for it and hold during the summertime, streets are fully closed to traffic such that there's no vehicles going up and down and so that pedestrians can roam around the street safely and not have to think about or even consider the idea that there's potentially going to be a car on the road. And if we also look to how some other cities like New York has implemented their what they call their Open Streets program, they basically have it open or physically closed to vehicular traffic from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., subject to. NYPD staffing. And in all the photos that I've seen, there's always a uniformed police officer at one of the barricades to physically, if a delivery or emergency vehicle has to occur or come through to it to allow that vehicle to pass. San Francisco made some waves recently. They've closed off the great highway. They closed off JFK in Golden Gate Park and also at Twin, I think it's Twin Peaks Boulevard going up to the top hill. The advantage that San Francisco has in those particular cases is there are no residents that live or front directly on those streets and take access, are easier to do, physically closes off and there's alternate pathways for them. Now that's in comparison to, I think, what our neighboring city, Oakland, has done. And we are largely following the Oakland model of closing the streets to through traffic. And while it does again provide an improvement in safety, it does not fully, if you will, provide a complete and safe environment for the public is one of the considerations I have about how far and how fast we might want to go and how long we might run this program here. So a couple other things to keep in mind is barricades tend to wander when left on their own, I should say. It's actually residents tend to move these things around to their to their liking, to in their probably their opinion, more properly and fully close the road. And it does take a fair amount of staff time and effort to, on a regular basis, reset them to the proper locations. And should we expand this program further? Right now, that work has been doing in-house. But if we expand the program further, it would probably be warranted for us to hire an outside vendor to kind of be in the position to kind of reset those barricades on a regular basis. That is exactly what the queen is doing as well, to have an outside vendor that's coming through and having those things through. So that's kind of the brief version of the staff report. I think the question before the council is whether you endorse the program, whether you feel comfortable that we would extend this program through the shelter in place as kind of outlined in the staff report. And I think what it may lead to at some point is a a longer term discussion potentially about if this is really supported by the public and there's a desire to expand this program beyond the shelter in place orders, would it be appropriate to incorporate this into the active transportation program as a mechanism that we might look at for a more permanent or more durable type solution? I suggest the active transportation program largely because, you know, as I said about the Pacific, the number of vehicles going down and the number of vehicles going down, those are both the both those counts are taken after the quote or after the shelter in place orders went in. So what that really represents is a diversion of traffic off of those streets, onto adjoining streets. And to do that, if we want to make this more permanent, it really rightly should be done as a more community based conversation through and including the Transportation Commission and I think the Active Transportation Functions Program be an appropriate venue for that. So with that, I'm available for any questions. Thank you, Mr. Wickstrom, and good job of giving that brief. And thank you to the staff. I know we have Andrew Thomas and Rochelle Wheeler who have worked hard on these programs. So thank you both. So any clarifying questions before we go to our public comment? Vice mayor next week. I have just a couple and I will start with my my thanks to staff for not only putting together a really great program and presentation, but doing it very quickly. I know that they they worked really hard to get it here tonight. Looking at the map that's in the staff report, it looks like the current program is does not have signs that every is at every intersection is the goal to put signage at every intersection or is the are we doing that? As we move forward, I know that we started with fewer and there have been more and more, which is great. Sure, I'll I'll answer that briefly. We started off when we put the program into place, we had the ability within our maintenance department to do I think it was nine installations and we installed seven them on the first day. We then then created basically a work order for staff or for the maintenance department to create additional road close to through traffic and additional pedestrian warning signs. We at this point have 20 total installations available, and I believe we have I think 14 of them installed right now are deployed right now. The rest of them are being held back to see if we would move forward to phase two. We are going to be in a position to deploy those by late this week or early next week. Part of it comes down to just the capacity to create the signage and to then get them set out there. The intention was not to do every single intersection, but the intention was to to really get to the primary intersections. And if the program would go on further, we could get staff back some of those in with the lesser traveled or lower volume cross streets. And is that off? You know, that speaking more muted. Oh, okay. Yeah. Never a good. Thing. No. Okay. So it during the pilot. Well, it's been up. Have we had a chance to determine whether we feel it is safer with or without signage and whether there whether we think having signage at the intersection is safer? I know. I know. We're not going to say it is safe. So what are the early some of the early survey results? And a lot of the initial feedback we got when we started, when we first deployed on April 29th, was at that point, we did not have enough sufficient science to do some of the intermediate cross streets. And there was a fair amount of complaints that people would be coming down with, say, sales. They would come down on Santa Clara and make a right turn or make a left turn. And what we've done is we believe it was deployed on the 11th of May. We deployed additional barricades and additional signage to start blocking off or closing off to through traffic of those streets as well. So it's now on Santa Clara, also on point of Vista and then of Park. We added both Chestnut and Willow to or just out one or two little that was already closed off. We could add additional signage, but that is what we're somewhat limited by is, you know, the MSI is ability to our maintenance departments, ability to create signage and to the extent of, you know, we could go out and do a whole bunch of signage, but we're not really 100% sure about how long this program is going to last and how much effort we're going to put into it. So, yes, more signage does make it safer, but there is there are some limits that we're kind of as we're feeling our way through this this pilot program about how far we want to go in, also keeping in conjunction how long this program may be in effect as well. Thank you. That's all. Okay. Councilmember Vella, did you have your hand up for a clarifying question or you were just. Yes, Councilmember Vella. I do know that it was noted in the staff report about the barricades and the issues with the barricades. And I guess following up on some of the breaking news questions, I'm just wondering, I know that there's a resource issue. I also know that there's a statement about the people moving them. But I am a little worried because on on some of those through streets, there have been issues. Have we had any reports of near-misses or anything like that or other traffic safety issues that have happened since we implemented this? I have not heard anything directly. And I might ask Rachelle, who I think probably looked at some of the survey that a little more closely. If I if if you if you've heard anything. Wheeler have. Yes. Good evening, Mayor and council members. Rochelle Wheeler, Senior Transportation Coordinator. So in some of the survey responses, people have said that there are cars that are coming speeding down the road and there's there's obviously like worry about that. I can't recall that there are people who said that they were almost hit and we're not aware of any reported collision happened on this closed streets during Q during this program. Okay. Anything further? Um. Okay. And I take it we have some public speakers on this item, Madam Clerk? Yes, I. I have public comment to read in the record, and we also have a number of attendees. And so but I'm afraid the public speakers are going to take us past 11 and we would need for council members to do the 11:00 vote. So I am thinking maybe we want to pause and ask council members Otis and Jason Song to come back and take care of the 11:00 vote before we get into the public speakers, if that's okay with everybody. I think we have an address. Okay. Can you. Can you do that? Yes. We're getting councilmember disorganized. Have texted Councilmember Odie. Okay. Perfect. Getting him to come back. So. Okay. And so we are. But will get them back. Hi. There we go. We need. It. Jason. We need. Yeah, we need to vote to go past 11:00. And so that's where we needed a majority of four to do so. So the remaining items, if you if the whole entire consent calendar. And then, of course, we have a six, a, B and C on the regular agenda and 9aa referral. And I will just say that I, um. I definitely. Want to get us to the the regular items. I think A, B and C are very important and I don't think six and six B are going to be very long. I think we have a little more time on this one. But council, it's almost 11, so we agree to either hear certain items or go until a certain time. And I know we're going to try to move things along as as expeditiously as possible. So. Yeah. And, you know, if I had to make a time estimate of how much longer on this one. Oh, I'm not sure. Councilmember Rudy, what were you going to move? Well, I was going to move if we hear the remaining items. And not to put a time limit on it, but. I mean, I don't know how many speakers we have on any of them. Well, I would imagine we have a number on this. When I add that's a suggestion and I do take all your suggestions seriously, I would like to suggest that we finish up this item, then move to the regular agenda, including the consent calendar and item six, A, B and C. Price may not quite. I'm not hearing you. Sorry. I forgot the push button again. I was going to I was going to second Councilmember Ortiz recommendation. I would just say the only the consent counter and a, B and C, I think if we just. My guess is looking at the referral, this is a very quick, not long discussion. So I would be inclined to just finish it all off with a commitment from myself to keep it short. I am not willing to go past midnight. That's just me. I don't think. A question. There is a fair to the public. If we could make a motion that we. To the balance of this agenda and finish by midnight. I would go for that because I think it kind of keeps us on our toes. And I'm going to ask for brief staff reports on everything. Coming forward. Or do we have a motion in the second or third? That would be my goal. Councilmember de SAG, we haven't heard from you. I'm fine with doing the agenda and finishing up until 12, largely because I think, you know, there are several there are issues about this years, several years ago. And and I think it's a good point that, you know, is the public served up by us making decisions at 1215. And keeping them out past midnight. To. Yeah. Okay. So I'm not. Out there at home. But they're not they're not fast asleep or maybe we put him to sleep. Okay. And Eric and. I would say it sounds like you've got support from two council members to get this done by midnight. But when that. Happens on the. Right, you know, if we're in the middle of the referral and we only need five more minutes, I don't mind going over, but I'll, I'll do my best to talk briefly. Okay. I won't support a motion unless we end at midnight. We're ending at midnight. Sure. And fair. Here. What's the motion? Let's cut our time from 9 minutes to 3 minutes then. Hmm. I think on this particular item, we need more than 3 minutes. I would like. As long as there's a commitment to finish six C, I am fine to say midnight. But if it's midnight and we're done with 60, my expectation is we're going to finish 60. We asked the council, we asked the respondents and the staff to make sure that they made this the agenda. We pushed them really hard. That's my biggest issue. And maybe we put 60 next on the item, although I have a commitment from staff that six and we are going to go quickly. Councilmember Bell, I see your hand up. So my referral was just going to come up. It's been in Council Communications which got cut off at a previous meeting and it is timely. So I don't want to just keep pushing it forward. It's. It should be fairly short. To get a motion that we end by midnight. Well, I move items, talk quickly. I finish by midnight. Anything we don't finish, we continue to tomorrow. 7:00. Continuation meeting. Second. It's not that. Okay. Surrounding by midnight or sooner. Okay. So we have a motion by Councilmember o.T. Second, by the vice mayor mean we have a roll call vote, please. Yes. And I will just clarify. That means if you're still in part of your continue, if you're still discussing, say, item six or six or one of those items, you would still stop the discussion at midnight and then that would continue to tomorrow night. Right. Just to clarify that, that's what the motion is. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Vote or vote to overrule. Okay. Okay. And then so Councilmember de SAG. Yes. Not quite. Yes. Yes. Yes. At mayor as Ashcraft. Yes. That carries by five eyes. Okay. Thank you, gentlemen. We'll excuse you again. Oh, yeah. Sorry we had to bring you back. Okay, finish second. We'll start with our public comment. Let's skip Mr. De Sack one minute there. All right. Okay. So. Okay. For the attendees who are on the Zoom call, if you could please raise your hand now if you would like to speak on this item. Okay. And also, in addition, there's members of Dabbagh who are in the on the attendee as attendees, and they said they could answer any questions. If you get to the portion of the business district and have questions for them, they wanted you to know that. So it looks like we have only one who wants to speak on Zoom, but then I have six comments to read, so that is a total of seven and does reduce the time to 2 minutes. Okay, let's take our person who's live first and then 2 minutes to each comment. And the first speaker is Robert Del Rosario. Oh, hello, Mr. Del Rosario. Oh, Mr. Del Rosario. Yeah. And I welcome. Good evening, everyone. Robert Salazar, director of Service Development and Planning. We also submitted a letter. From AC Transit. Perhaps? Yes, from each other. That is correct. We did submit a letter to the city council commenting on this item. So that doesn't need to be read in the record since I'm going. To provide the same. Talking points. So AC Charter does acknowledge that there is a strong tie between strong commercial districts and strong public transit and vice versa. We therefore support the city's proposal for commercial slow streets that promote social distancing and economic development as businesses begin to open in this environment. As you're probably aware, Avicenna does still operate service during these times. We're carrying the most vulnerable in our communities and those that have no other transportation options to make their essential trips, whether it's for work, health care or groceries. With that said, we hope that the city treats all forms of alternate transportation modes equitably through the Slow Streets projects, proper street streetscape treatments for Haiti. Transit busses are measured, in my opinion, by three goals. One is safety. Two is accessibility. And three is operational performance, which is essentially the speed and reliability of the bus and the schedules. So we had to coordinate with the city staff to monitor operational performance and introduce any mitigations as we need to or even reopen travel. And should trains have been negatively impacted or delayed by these projects on Western Park for ensuring safety and accessibility? We're requesting that the city pay particular attention to the treatment of bus stops under the project. The bus that's become a potential point of conflict between busses pulling to the curb and either pedestrians and cyclists entering exiting the proposed expanded mobility zones on a given block, depending on what the uses of those mobility zones will be. So therefore, our HS2 request installation of temporary bus walls or boarding islands to avoid a potential conflict, to maintain safe transit access for riders while providing a safe path of travel for cyclists, pedestrians and other users. This treatment also helps keep the busses moving so that they're not ducking in to traffic to serve riders, which is particularly important in the single lane. If I could just wrap up residential streets, we don't want to have them close down fixed route and we also want to maintain paratransit access. So I thank you for allowing me time to speak and I'm happy to further coordinate with the city on this effort. Yeah. You're muted in there. Okay. Sorry. Thank you, Mrs. Reisinger. And. And thank you, Mr. Del Rosario. And that's going to our written comments. Okay. The next one is from Ingrid Baumann from Alameda. I've been an Alameda resident for 15 years, living on Broadway, and for 15 years I have only lived on two major and problematic thoroughfares of Alameda. I have would have very much preferred living on a quiet street where kids play basketball and can ride their bikes safely. I'm a pedestrian. I ride a bike and take public transit whenever possible. Through many well-crafted plans, I've seen Alameda rooms become much safer than when I first moved to Alameda. These improvements done by the Transportation Commission and advocacy groups need to be fully acknowledge and appreciated regarding the Slow Streets and Commercial Street Plan. However, I have some concerns. I came upon this plan as a friend, sent it to me to sign the petition in favor of slow streets. I would not have heard of it otherwise. I have since tried to read over the plan and feel quite overwhelmed at trying to make sense of it. It seems that the implementation of the plan will be largely up to the evaluation of the plan itself and the response from the community. But through which channels? Who do we expect will chime in on this? Right now, our community is coping with an unprecedented situation. Families are working from homes while homeschooling children. Many people are taking a risk every time they go to work. Many people have lost their jobs. No one is left untouched. Let's face it right now, the people who can educate themselves about community initiatives read about it at length and chime in at city meetings, are the only people who have the luxury to do so at this time. It is a luxury to be able to focus on large, sweeping plan to reshape almeida's urban fabric and come to the table to share enthusiasm or concern. It's unlikely that anyone who recently lost a job or income has to homeschool children or care for sick family members will have any bandwidth left to speak at council meetings in that sense, because this moment makes being an entire community input challenging. The input is likely to be lopsided. The program is trying to accomplish some ambitious and remarkable goals. Making access to our local businesses easier during social distancing is a fantastic goal and we should all support it. Trying to make our streets safer is an urgency for Alameda. Increasing use of public transit is essential to reducing our carbon footprint. What the. And she had many further comments. The next one is Cindy Johnson. I support Slow Streets and hope you do too. Despite the pilot being limited in a number of ways, I've been grateful for the program and know that expanding it will make it better. When I was young, our neighborhood streets were slow streets in the sense that cars drove slowly, expecting kids to be playing there. We spent hours in the streets biking, rollerskating, skateboarding, playing dodgeball, even pogo sticking. We didn't have scheduled activities and our parents didn't spend hours driving us around to get to them. I didn't think it was special then, but now I know it was. The Slow Street pilot program has been a sliver of flashback in that sense. Occurs to me that even post-pandemic, we could benefit greatly from dramatically slowing cars down on all neighborhood streets and treating our streets more as shared assets for people of all ages, not just for the exclusive use of cars. Regarding commercial district, my heart goes out to the local merchants that are under tremendous strain right now. I'm eager to support them with my business and hope we can implement strategies that allow them to open without endangering the health of customers and staff. I live about ten blocks from Webster and have been there a few times recently on my bike to pick up food and felt cramped on the sidewalk by other customers waiting. It wasn't that it was crowded, but with others walking by, especially in small clusters or with dogs, the distance can easily get eaten up. So I am encouraged that there are initiatives afoot to create more space for people by claiming road space. Taking a lane from car traffic and moving parking out is one good option. I would feel more comfortable shopping in an establishment if I can stay in front of the store while I wait while also maintaining six feet of distance from others. If it is a safe, comfortable and inviting space, I may even want to stay a while and dine when that's possible, but that would require significantly more outdoor space and more street charm. The European model of pedestrian street and large court outdoor dining areas in front of restaurants may be worth considering. The natural temptation will be to make it easy for people to drive cars and pick up purchases. But a drive through district. She also intentional comment. Thank you. Okay. Next, Pat Potter. Wow. Who would have thought six months ago that you all would have an opportunity to turn Park and Webster streets into world class spaces? With your vision, Alameda will be ranked up there with the best European pedestrian plazas. We just have to make people our priority. Visualize this. There is a beautiful plaza between Central and Alameda Avenue with seating for dining stalls, for shopping and art exhibits. This plaza becomes a musical and outdoor movie venue as well. Once COVID 19 is controlled, walking and biking is encouraged when coming downtown and the parking garage is a place to park. If you are not able to ride or walk, the sidewalks on Webster Street are expanded and the business owned parking lot such as US Banks and Mountain Mike's our reason for parking for anyone who can't walk or ride a bike. But biking and walking is always prioritized along the street to create the best shopping and dining experience. To really make our business communities fun, relaxing and inspiring places, we have to envision them as places where we can stroll, shop and dine, not the places they are now, where people rush in and out of the area in their cars. We want people to see Park and Webster as places they can bring the family on a summer afternoon or see friends and enjoy. Our wonderful business community has to offer. And next is Denise Trapani. It. Yes. Start by thanking staff for all the work they've done so far on the Slow Streets program and thank you staff and council for your science and fact based leadership. I've never been prouder to be an Alameda and the existing slow streets though a bit out of the way for me have been wonderful. I'm fortunate enough to still be working from home, but the uncertainty that I and so many others are facing is difficult. Having the opportunity to safely go for a walk in the evenings down Pacific has been sanity saving, I remarked. I'm reminded of my youth when we were expected to go play in the street until dinner and it wasn't a death wish. It's so wonderful to see parents teaching their kids to ride bikes or children chalking up the streets for hopscotch and foursquare. It seems like everything might be okay. I want to ask you to please not only approve staff's recommendation to expand the Slow Streets project, but also consider adding pieces reminding folks who should be prioritized on the streets. Some drivers may still be surprised to see people outside of cars on the streets. I'm also very grateful for DARPA's support for reconfiguring Park Street to better support shoppers and diners. With today's further loosening of restrictions allowing for retail curbside pickup, I would like us to consider reconfiguring our street space and our business districts to allow for safe, separated bike infrastructure on both Park and Webster in order to facilitate car access to these business corridors. I believe this should be a priority over personal parking while there's a parking lot one block from Webster Street. We don't we still don't have any way for people to bike safely on Park or Webster. There are many recent and local studies that prove that decreasing car infrastructure and supporting biking and walking is good for business. Please, if you're going to do the work and reconfigure our streets, please don't continue to allow for on street parking while not doing anything to provide a safe place to bike. Thank you again for your thoughtful consent. Thank you. Next. Lara. Yes. Olaf, Scotland. Sorry. Olaf Fallon, who's an Alameda resident. I recently saw an article about Berkeley closing some streets to allow restaurants to use sidewalk space or lanes for outdoor seating. This will allow many to serve the same number of patrons at once as they did before the pandemic struck. As I'm sure you know, the restaurant business is very episodic. There are busy times a day and quiet or dead times of day. When we get to the point where anything other than takeout is safe, barriers and testing requirements that limit a restaurant to half or less of its normal capacity will cut their revenue in half or less. The business will not spread out significantly. As a result, many restaurants will be unable to cover their expenses and will be forced to close permanently. Most restaurants operate on the very edge of profitability. In addition, allowing outdoor dining will simply be safer. Sunlight decimates viruses and destroys them. The large volume of space and air any shed virus spread into it will reduce the amount of individual. An individual comes into contact with end points of concentration, such as air conditioning units will be removed from the system. Similarly, most shops are small, intentionally to minimize rent and expenses. With few people in stores, revenues will be drastically reduced. Surely we can make this happen for our fine city. My wife and I moved to Alameda over 20 years ago for the sense of community we feel here and the local restaurants and shops are an enormous part of that. Please do everything in your power to help the city find creative ways to allow our restaurants and stores to open without endangering the health of our loved ones. Closing streets and lanes would be an excellent start. Thank you. And next, the last one. Unless I think you just make sure. Oh. Okay. Yes. Last one is driven straight lo alameda resident. Temporary street reconfigurations involve reusing traffic lanes and parking spaces. The following is regarding the section Commercial Streets, Park and Webster. There is a proposal later tonight to remove 23 parking spaces that Central Avenue businesses and neighborhoods needs. Without those Central Avenue parking spaces, the existing parking spaces on Webster Street near Central Avenue become more necessary for the neighborhood. That is one of the reasons why it is extremely difficult for Webster Street businesses to in mass easily convert parking spaces to restaurant use to provide space for social distancing. Park Street, Oakland's Jack Glennon Square, and San Francisco's Market Street have parking structures. Webster Street does not. Individual businesses. Businesses should have permission during a limited COVID 19 emergency time frame to implement some street side expansion. But the city needs a plan for a Webster Street parking structure solution. Remember, outdoor temperature, fog, rain, wind and street lighting are factors that a normal indoor restaurant does not normally need to consider for its restaurant service. Such weather factors extremely limit the number of hours they can actually be used. For example, 6 hours successfully for outdoor dining. Most streets are designated for 24 hour vehicle use, and in particular, their use is for emergency evacuation, which is the daily basic public safety need for most of us in Alameda. Separately, I dislike the city's partial closing of First Avenue without advance public discussion. And that's the last speaker. All right. Thank you. And there are no further public speakers with their hands up, correct? Correct. Okay. So with that, I will close public comment and I see. Miss Wheeler, shall we? There you have your hand up. I do. Yeah, I wanted to just if I could just amend a comment I made earlier in response to Councilmember Miller's question about near misses. So I was I was looking at the data again on that. We've gotten through the survey in the service request. And there there there was a recent report on Pacific at Schiller of someone who said that there that their child had almost been hit by a speeding car, their child on a bike. And and that is one of the intersections without a barricade. And so they were requesting the barricade there. Uh, thank you for amending. That's your comment. I appreciate that. All right. So, um, let's see. We've got two, three councilmembers. And so the, um, the items before us, we've. We've heard and the recommendations. So let's see, we should discuss the, um, the residential streets because that's the, the items that our colleagues were excused from. And so let's get that done, and then we will bring them back in because that time keeps marching on. So who wants to lead that discussion? Vice Mayor Next slide. How about you? Sure. Yes. Um, the video seem to make that clear. Thank you very much. I want to I want to thank again thank staff for all of the incredible work. I want to give my my strong appreciation for the network map that was that is included in the the packet. It shows some thought about developing this program into something that can really sustain what I would say is help to sustain and support that that part of this discussion, the business part of this discussion later that we will be having. You know, I appreciate the kind of how we have piloted this, that we've learned a lot of things. And, um, and I appreciate the acknowledgment, although I think it was said is it possibly is a point of concern, but that actually these slower streets are safer. They may not be 100% safe, but they are safer than what we have. And this morning, as as we on the council know, we had yet another pedestrian hit at a properly designed intersection at Constitution and Buena Vista. We know that the streets we have right now are not overly hospitable to people walking and biking. And so I'm excited to see this program when we're trying to encourage people to get out and exercise and actually keep their distance from each other, expanding and finding ways to reuse our public space adequately. For for me, I want to you know, I think there needs to be signage at every intersection. Well, I heard that we don't have it all right now and that we have to take some time to to create this. I think that should be a priority as as a as a part of this program, is to just continue to to roll that out. Because we did hear that where they've looked at it, signage is better than no signage and barricades, etc.. I'd like to make the clarification and it's one I've made it to council meetings already. I don't see this as a shelter in place program. This is a social distancing program. We're rolling it out. There's a shelter in place because we have the time to do that. And and we can spend some time thinking. But this is you know, we are going to be sheltering in place at least through the end of this year. They're not sheltering in place. Sorry, socially distancing. And part of the socially distancing is going to be don't travel too much, you know, keep your distance, etc.. And so the the staff report talks about, you know, we don't know if this will be around for a couple of months. We know that this program is going to be needed in around through at least the end of 2020 and probably very possibly into 2021. The good thing about the kind of the temporary way in which we're doing this is if that is a gloomy projection and things clear up or easier, we can always we can always take it down or decide what how to move forward earlier as necessary. Other than that, I, I just like I said, I think it's I think we have a great network. I would like to see it move forward as fast as possible. Most of my other comments are about the the second part of this conversation. So that was it. Thank you. Thank you. To Staff Council member Vella. How about you? Admit that. Yeah, I think, you know, I echo a lot of both mayors comment. I think we need to add more signage. I think we need to add more barricades, especially where we know we have near-misses potentially that have occurred. I think we need to stay on top of that and make this a state of design as possible. I also worry just because I think their normal methods of getting information out, like people at the coffee shop and things like that are limited right now that unless we have the whole street blocked off, like all of our sales, all of specific, then people just don't know about it. And they're, they're learning about it after the factories they drive through or as they pass by. So I just think the signage is absolutely critical and we need to do better on that and also do better on the barricades, especially for streets that we know people use as a cut through to pass pass through those areas. I notice on, for instance, on beer sales, there's there was almost like nothing there right around Addison school and that that makes me very nervous just because that's a place that draws a lot of kind of foot in bike traffic going through. So I just wanted to, to try to make this a safer design as possible. I do think we're going to be doing this for quite some time. It's not just about social distancing. It's about the fact that we also have a lot more people that are going to be working from home or doing remote learning for adults for the fall police to the end of the year. And they need places to go and be active and to do it in a way that is not going to overcrowd certain areas. So it's both of these factors together that I think we need to take into account. And I think we should just plan on having there at least through the end of 2020, if not longer. So I would say that I am very fond of this program. I, I regret that it brought up very fast in residents for not notified in advance until they saw the barricades going up. And I got a few emails that were people who were upset when I emailed back and said, I hope you understand that at this point in time our staff is stretched very thin and so some things didn't get done. I got really nice responses back. Now we understand this is a good program, but I do think for a number of ways, you know, this was brought about by an unfortunate incident, the COVID 19 pandemic. But as I have said often since we learned about all this new, new normal, there's always silver linings to every cloud. And and for me and for my husband, we try to get out every evening before it gets dark and take a walk on the weekends with active writer bikes around. And I'm seeing people out and people waving and chatting from a distance with people, even people they don't know. And I think this is this is part of what makes community. I do think that the way to go about it, though, is to expand it with time, but under the auspices of the transportation the active transportation plan , because then we have the ability to get that community input, which is which is important, because. That's. Just to say that, you know, you divert traffic from one street and it heads to another. But I also know just anecdotally from the walking, try to do a, you know, a walk to the west end of the city on one Friday night to pick up dinner in the east and the other. And it's really fun because you talk to people in their yards. And so we were walking back from Webster Street one night, a couple of Friday night, to go down Haight Street and set to talk to some people. And and somebody recognized me even behind my mask as the mayor. How do we get our street history to be one of the slow streets? And I said, well, you could ask the mayor, you know, email me at my at city hall. And so I will say and I said, you know, if if your neighbors really feel this way, have them email. And I promise I talked to our city engineer on the phone earlier and I said, I've got a bunch of emails to forward you. I am hearing from the street neighbors, eighth Avenue, maybe. Your street. Whatever it is that they're interested, too. So people, you know, residents like that, you slow things down. It's just it's healthy, it's good. But we want to do it properly. So as long as this shelter in place and we still are sheltering in place, even though we've opened up to early stage two and we've opened up curbside retail manufacturing, we still the public health officer says you stay at home as much as you can and just go out for those essential activities. But exercise is one of them and it's healthy. So we'll be doing this for a while. But then that also gives our Transportation Commission and whoever I will be overseeing this the time to work this into the active transportation plan. And then I think we all have to be cognizant as councilmembers to that. We are spreading staff very thin. So if we want to get these things done and done in permanent fashion, then I'll have to figure out a way to to manage that time. Um, so I would say, um. I think I've heard a lot of kind of. And the other thing I'll just throw in is that I have heard on a couple of occasions now from Ellen Corbitt, who is ah, she's at the U.S. Regional Parks District Board member whose district includes Alameda County Beach and Crab Cove. She has asked all the mayors of Alameda County to please do things, and I love it. At the mayor's conference last week, she held up Oakland and Alameda as examples of please close some of your public streets where you can to give people more space to spread out and recreate, walk and ride their bikes to take the pressure off our district parks the beach, because in some areas of the county and other counties, they've actually had to close these big regional parks, district parks, because people were just coming out in huge numbers and not doing things safely. That has not been the case in Alameda, but we are kind of bursting at the seams. So I'm glad we're looking at expanding this. I always want to see geographical equity. And I, I think this is an important program to move forward. So to move this forward, we need a unanimous vote. So, um. Who wants to craft that motion? Vice mayor. So I'm assuming a good dove. Councilmember Vella was raising her hand like. I couldn't tell either. Councilman Rivera, did you want to make the motion like she did? No, I didn't. I can read that live. Read one's elbow. Yes. Okay. No. All right. I so I would like to move that. We endorse the temporary street reconfiguration to prevent space for social distancing in response to COVID 19 emergency with with clarification that this is during social distancing and not just shelter in place and with endorsement of moving forward with the in the in the spirit of of Mr. Corbett's request of expanding this program on a temporary basis as we work through the active transportation program to identify how to address it on a more permanent basis in the future. Okay. Um, and do I have a second? Michelle Ellis. I can. We have a second? May we have a roll call? Vote, please. Council member Our Vice Mayor. Not quite. I remember Bella. Hi. Mayor. As the Ashcroft. I. Okay. Let's bring those colleagues back in and talk about the commercial streets portion of this. We're getting them now. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome back, gentlemen. Okay. Now we are going to discuss the covered commercial streets has kind of a dark side sound to it, but they this, you know, opening up the the commercial streets Park Street, Webster Street. We had a nice staff report by the city engineer, a council discussion motion. It's almost 1130. Who wants to start? Councilmember Odie. I'll go fast, hopefully in fewer than four and a half minutes year for half of it. I think we got to go big on this for a number of reasons. One, other places are going to do this. I saw where Berkeley is thinking of doing this over at Oakland, maybe doing this in other cities. And our residents that are going to want to go out to eat are going to have that ability, are going to go. And if we don't give them the opportunity to do that safely here, they will go somewhere else. So I think just for that share equal a level playing field for our residents and our shop owners that we need to do this. I tweeted something last week. I thought, you know, every Friday and Saturday night we need to close park from Winter Vista down to San Jose and close Webster from Bonita Vista down to central and parking lots across the city where we have restaurants like South Shore and Alameda Landing and others. So I mean, that's my go big and go bold. And then thankfully, I was recused from the last discussion. And what popped up in my Facebook feed while I was checking the Internet was that the California ABC Alcohol Beverage and Control just released an update regulation that would allow restaurants and bars to serve customers on sidewalks, parking lots and street. So this is something that's going to happen. And I don't want Alameda to miss out on it. I don't want our restaurants to miss out and I don't want our residents to miss out and I don't want our shopkeepers to miss out on it. The only concern I have with only shutting down two lanes is I don't know anyone who's ever eaten with exhaust next to you, but it's not a very pleasant thing to do. And we're going to need a lot of space for people to walk and be distant from each other. So I say go big. Thank you. Okay. Councilmember de thug a great. You know. Can you hear me? Hopefully you. Can. Yeah. Judging by the emails we are receiving, this is something that residents are incredibly enthusiastic about. So I think definitely we should get behind this. They'll definitely help out many of our businesses in our commercial areas. The one thing that I would certainly encourage when it comes to Park Street is I do like the idea of closing off of the side streets like the portion of Alameda Avenue between Oak and Park Street, but also north of north of Santa Clara Avenue. We might want to take a look at closing off a portion of Everett Street between a portion of Webb. Yeah. A portion of Webb Avenue between Everett Street and Park Street. So that's something to think about. But this certainly, you know, it will certainly rejuvenate our commercial areas, making them what sociologists call a third space, a place where people come together and in times like this, obviously in a socially distant, safe manner, obviously. This is something that I think not just businesses, but residents will look forward to. Mike, thank you. Thank you. Casimir Vella. So, you know, one thing that I would like to add and somewhere along the lines of what Councilman Brody said, is that we have several street fairs scheduled typically during the summer on both Park and Webster Street. And obviously with the new guidelines, events aren't going to happen. But I would love to see some form of a special event street closure opportunity like that, where we close off sections of Park in Webster to all vehicle traffic for several days. But we allow for outdoor dining in in those spaces and it might be something that we could do potentially in in July and August. I think that there is a few different opportunities for that. I would love to see the area opened up and made available for outdoor dining again for foot traffic, foot traffic and biking. I would add that if that's the case, I do want to make sure that we have we think about bike parking and bike crawls and things like that that are going to be safe and clean for folks and ways to do that. I think this is these are these are things that we just need to think about now. And the other thing that I would like to add is, you know, if on Webster, we can't have the same types of closures that we can get on park, that we think about using those outdoor parking lots that exist off of off of Webster to allow for businesses to utilize those spaces. And I think that we need to do that because losing 50% of their tables, which is what they would have to do in order to comply with the distancing inside , is just not going to cut it. And I would just want to thank staff for their work on this. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Vice Mayor? Yeah. Most of my comments would mirror what I said earlier, so I will adopt everything my three colleagues have said before me and just say that I don't think that, you know, I appreciate how fast this has come. The reopening is happening now. And so, you know, let's get as much of it done as fast as possible and not spend too much time trying to iterate our way into this with the with the obvious caveat that I'm not saying do it tomorrow, but let's let's not be cautious, let's go big and be glad we did it and supported our businesses when they needed it at the immediate open. Have and so thank you thank you to staff. Good job in a short period of time. Thanks to all my colleagues for their comments and the public for all the emails you've sent us. I'm really enthusiastic about what was presented in the staff report and I endorse it all. I, I would be hesitant about closing Park and Webster completely on Friday and Saturday nights, simply because those are both bus routes. And I want to be mindful and respectful of people who do need to rely on public transportation and maybe getting to and from their jobs, even in the evenings and even on weekend evenings. And we all know what a hard hit public transit has taken lately. I don't think these are mutually exclusive concepts. I think that we will work with our transit partners and see what can be done. But, you know, yes, they do do a, um, a rerouting on when we have the street fairs in the summer, but that's usually for just two days during a set period of time. But when I was listening to, I think it was Councilmember Vella talking about closing off streets for outdoor dining, maybe for July and August. I was thinking there is a restaurant month which oh, that's probably at the wrong time of the year, but we could declare a restaurant month whenever we wanted to. I think it's traditionally done after the holidays, which is kind of a slow period and to just get people out to restaurants. But, you know, this might be a way to highlight Alameda restaurants and come, you know, dine outdoors at your your favorite restaurant. And I think there's lots of potential. And I know our business districts associations are listening. So I would say that we, we move this forward as that, uh, uh, we've move this forward to, to become a permanent, permanent feature. I, I'm really excited about the, um, the features that Mr. Wickstrom presented to us. And I really like the fact that the traffic data and I think there might have even been some webcam footage that showed we don't need all those traffic lanes on Park Street. And when you've got wide open lanes, people are driving faster, which is kind of happening now in parts of the city. So, um, who wants to make a motion? Councilmember. Vice mayor? Not quite. Sorry. I didn't think I would have to be the one making the motion here. I get it. No, I didn't, actually. Yes. I did. I paused, but nobody else raised their hand. I would be happy to to move approval of endorsing the plan with direction to staff, to look for opportunities for closing streets, whether they be Park or Webster, in order to support our our business districts. I have a motion. I have a second. Any council comment session? All right, Mr. Councilmember Odie. Just quickly, I mean, I understand that concerns about busses and everything and, you know, that's why I was proposing just an evening closing and then there'll still be cross streets. You know, my concern about, you know, you're still have three lanes. There are four lanes on Park in Webster. And I don't know if that just those extra park parking spot areas is really enough for people to social distance and enough for all of our restaurants have space to have the table that they need to recover. And, you know, and then if the areas are smaller, you know, then you get into issues of lottery and who, you know, the park in front of me is closed. So, I mean, am I allowed to go down the street or, you know, just because it's the park in front of me is open, am I prohibited? So, you know, all that things need to be taken care of. But, you know, I see this work in Canada, Montreal and Quebec because they're copying Vilnius. I think in I've never been there, but Berkeley is copying that. So again, our neighbors are going to be doing this and they're going to be taking away our dollars that could be going into our merchants pockets. So. So the motion allows staff to explore, I guess. Get that. Okay. Any further comments seeing then maybe we have a roll call vote, please. Councilmember de i, i, i. I. I may or as the Ashcraft. I. That carries by five eyes. Nice. Thanks, everybody. Okay with that, we are adjourning the special city council meeting and we are moving to. Oh, Madam Clair, this iPad is going to be the under. I'm back. Okay. Already addressed the gender changes and the proclamations are information only. So I think we can just go straight to all communications unless there's anything else. I think that's brilliant. Let's do that. And we do have one speaker that has submitted a public comment, and then I will ask any attendees to raise their hand if they have a public comment on their oral communications. Okay. So we're I know we're an item for of the regular agenda now. Okay, let's have a oral communication. Okay. There are no one's raising their hands. So I will read the one comment that we have from Robert Pon Alameda. They are ASHCROFT members of the City Council of Alameda. I am requesting the City of Alameda studying House Resolution 908. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., can condemning all forms of anti-Asian sentiment as related to COVID 19 and consider supporting it. We support the health care professionals on the front lines battling the COVID 19 pandemic, while Asian Pacific Islanders and foreign medical graduates represent greater than 5% of the U.S. workforce. They are very well represented as doctors greater than 19% and nurses greater than 8%, with Filipino Pinay representing nearly 20% of our friends in California, according to a 2017 U.S. Department of HHS HRC report. Sex Race and Ethnic Diversity of U.S. Health Occupations 2010 to 2015.