Hello Team Carlsbad,
We are seeing continuing signs of progress in the fight against COVID-19:
The positivity rate in San Diego County has decreased by more than half in just a week, from 13.9% to 6.4%
Vaccination sites continue to open across California and San Diego County, with the newest locations in Vista at the Linda Rhoades Recreation Center and at the Del Mar Fairgrounds
More than 6 million people statewide have been vaccinated
Employee cases
As cases decrease throughout the county, they are also decreasing among our employees. Since my last update we have had one new employee case of COVID-19 and no new workplace exposures. Please continue to work remotely if you can, wear a mask, maintain a 6-foot distance from people outside your own household and follow all the other precautions that work to prevent COVID-19 spread.
Operation Collaboration
I mentioned that our Fire Department has been involved in Operation Collaboration, a partnership between fire agencies and the County of San Diego to help vaccinate San Diego County residents. We recently started accepting public appointments at the former Farmers Insurance building at the corner of El Camino Real and Faraday (appointments are listed on the county’s website). Here’s a video that gives a behind the scenes peek at our staff in action.
Pickleball courts temporarily closed
Enforcing the state and county health orders has been a challenging and time-consuming task for many of our staff, including those in Parks & Recreation. Assisted by the Police Department, Parks & Rec staff have repeatedly been called out to the pickleball courts at Poinsettia Park due to players not complying with the singles only rule.
As I’ve explained before, the city can be stricter than the county and the state, but not less strict. After giving players repeated warnings, staff ultimately made the hard decision to close the courts. The amount of time being spent on this one area of enforcement was keeping staff from taking care of other needs. This isn’t easy for anyone, but we made the right call.
Goal setting
The City Council completed the second of three goal setting sessions last week. So far, Council has identified three categories, taken from the Carlsbad community values, where they’d like to focus their fiscal year 2021-22 goals:
Neighborhood revitalization, community design and livability
Local economy, business diversity and tourism
Open space and the natural environment
The final session for the City Council to choose its short- and long-term goals was originally planned for today. We postponed that until March 11 due to Council Member Priya Bhat-Patel’s early labor with their first baby boy! We wish the new parents all the best!
Mandatory training
Last week you should have received an email from trainingandengagement@carlsbadca.gov about mandatory sexual harassment prevention training. Please complete this as soon as possible. The deadline is March 31.
And if you haven’t already, please complete your mandatory cybersecurity training ASAP. Cybercrime activities happen every single day, and employees are our first (and sometimes last!) line of defense.
New speed, security and capacity
Over the weekend, IT started to connect some of our city facilities including Aviara Community Park and Monroe Street Pool, to our new, high-speed, fiber-optic network. Once a building is connected, staff at that location will enjoy network speeds that are more than 100 times faster than the old network, in addition to new capacity and security features. Kudos to the IT Department for their work over the holiday weekend to start these connections. The rest of the city will transition over to the new network over the next month. You can read about the innovative partnership that resulted in the city’s new high speed digital network here.
Virtual interns
Is your department looking for some additional support and a teaching opportunity to our next generation of public employees? HR has all the tools available to onboard and seamlessly integrate interns with your online team. Check out this video to learn more.
It’s a short week, but there is no shortage of great work going on throughout the city. If you haven’t already, please like and follow our city social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It’s a great way to stay up to date on projects and other work courtesy of Team Carlsbad (that’s you!). Thank you for everything you do. You continue to make a difference for our community every day.
Miss my last update? Read it here.
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