01/14/2022 City Manager’s Update

City Manager’s Update (pdf) 
January 14, 2022

Greetings, all. We are riding the Omicron wave…I hope people are staying relatively well, bouncing back quickly, and being kind and patient to short-staffed businesses and service providers, like us! We’re experiencing staffing shortages at City Hall and out in the field. If someone hasn’t returned an email or phone call, please check our website at www.cityofwinters.org and reach out to the department or division manager or call 530-795-4910. Thank you for understanding the rapid pivots of the week. We hope to be back on our feet in a couple weeks and appreciate your patience.

COVID-19

• The WJUSD continues to offer COVID testing for the community. This week’s schedule was disrupted due to staffing shortages. Next week’s schedule is below:
• District Office (909 S. Grant Ave): Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 1:00pm-3:00pm
• Winters Library (708 Railroad Ave): Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00pm-6:30pm

Given the Omicron surge, schedules are subject to change without notice.

• Yolo County continues to need volunteers for its COVID-19 vaccine clinics. If you're interested, please complete the brief course offered here. At the end of the course, you can sign up as a volunteer. Questions can be sent to: coordinator@yolocounty.org.
• As of January 11, Yolo County reports seeing an average of 85 cases per 100,000 residents per day or almost 600 cases per 100,000 residents this last week. Hospital capacity is low; the goal is to be able to maintain care levels which is why individual protections are important. It is primarily the unvaccinated and immune compromised that need hospital care for COVID.
• In-home vaccinations are still available in Yolo County.  Call to schedule: 530-902-3230.
• For all vaccination locations including pharmacies and community clinics, visit ca.gov, or call 833-422-4255.
• The US Government will issue free at home COVID-19 test kits, 4 per household, starting January 19. More information is available at https://www.covidtests.gov/ . The site is available in English and Spanish. Fingers crossed the site doesn’t crash in the first 30 minutes… Please be patient.

Vax’ing, Boosting, Masking and Testing ~ combined are the best strategies

recommended by public health officials for reducing risk, individually and for the community.

 Please Note:

• City offices will be closed on Monday, January 17, in honor of Martin Luther King Day.
• The local concrete plant is closed for overnight work; therefore, Caltrans has approved rescheduling the night work for the Grant Avenue median in front of the Chevron Station to daytime. Work will begin next week. Please watch out for construction and slow down in the zone.
• We are proceeding with speed surveys on W. Main Street and Niemann Street in order to provide some feedback to drivers with heavy feet. Please respect local speed limits and watch for children headed to and from school.

Don’t Miss Out!

• The Health Education Council has launched a COVID Youth Ambassador Corps, which is a 4-week community health training and PAID community project program for Yolo, Solano and Napa County youth and young adults 17-24 who are interested in promoting vaccination through social media campaigns, art/music, and community / school / homebased events. For any budding journalists, public relations, public health, and / or communications majors, advocates, or peeps out there, this is a great opportunity for you! Please spread the word. Applications close January 18 for the next cohort. More information is available here or by contacting Patricia Guzman at pguzman@healthedcouncil.org.
• Yolo County jobseekers now have free access to five Grow with Google professional certificate programs to obtain Google Career Certificates. You can participate in IT Support, Data Analytics, Project Management, UX Design or Android Development professional certificate programs without a college degree or prior experience at NO cost. For more information, please go to yoloworks.org / the JobSeeker Tab and Grow with Google. Courses are available in English and Spanish. For more information, please contact Erica Johnson at erica.johnson@yolocounty.org or call/text (530) 631-2289.

 Did You Know?

For all of us newcomers in town, check out this photo Eric Lucero just shared of a prominent corner in town…. What a change!

• SB 1383 requires organics be removed from the landfill waste stream, meaning please put food scraps in your green waste bins. Food businesses must also separate food waste from their trash containers. To learn more, please visit wm.com.

Upcoming Council Meeting

Our next Council meeting is January 18, 2022 via Zoom. There are a number of consent calendar items related to the Winters Highland development and the construction of Well 8 at the west end of Vasey, and various agreements and purchases. The two discussion items relate to the rural recreation grant application and development of paseo park in downtown and a new State mandated Water Conserving Landscape Ordinance.  The agenda is linked here.

To register to receive an auto-notification that a City Council or Planning Commission packet has been posted, please register through our Granicus platform on the City’s website at https://www.cityofwinters.org/granicus/.

Woot Woot!

On Monday, January 10th the Fire Department responded to a medical emergency for a gentleman who collapsed at home ~ cardiac arrest. Captain Schechla, and Firefighters Kitsia Pelayo, Cameron Simental and Michael Curran along with AMR paramedic crews conducted CPR and provided advanced life support treatment resulting in a field save. Kudos to our team and partners at AMR for saving his life!

Please note that the three firefighters who responded to this incident were volunteers! The Winters Fire Department has only 5 paid full-time staff (including Captain Schechla) and is supported by a cadre of dedicated volunteers and reserves. And we need more help. If you’re interested in learning more about joining the Fire Department and getting involved with a strong, community-centric group of people, please check out information  on the Resident/Reserve Volunteer Interest Form.