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CAL FIRE Capt. David William Lutz, 33, tragically died in a hiking accident in Pfeiffer Burns State Park near Big Sur on Wednesday, according to CAL FIRE San Mateo-Santa Cruz and Local 2881.

Lutz was dedicated to his family, his faith and to his calling as a firefighter, his colleagues say.

Born in Los Gatos and raised in Corralitos, Lutz attended the Monterey Fire Academy and began his career as a volunteer firefighter with the Corralitos CAL FIRE Station. In 2008, he joined the San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit as a Fire Fighter 1 and worked as a Fire Captain at El Granada Station within the Coastside Fire Protection District.

Lutz is survived by his wife, Tisha Lutz, step-daughter Alyssa, and young children Bailey, Caleb and baby Hope, who is due at any time, according to CAL FIRE. He is also survived by his parents, 12 siblings, and nieces and nephews.

According to his colleagues: “He was known for his deep faith; his personal relationship with God permeating all areas of his life. He was bold and eager to live all kinds of life’s adventures, ready to learn something new or head off on a new adventure, all with his wife Tisha an beloved children by his side. As a firefighter he was brave and always willing to tackle any task or danger, large or small. He was eager to help others, mentor those around him, offer practical support, and was loyal of all things outdoors, and his dedication to CAL FIRE and the calling and people he cared so much about.”

Photo credit: CAL FIRE San Mateo-Santa Cruz 

Easing of COVID-19 public health restrictions earlier this week have led to some easing of restrictions at various sports courts in San Mateo County.

In Redwood City, all tennis courts and dog parks are expected to be open Friday, June 26, but some are already open now, parks officials say. Two tennis court locations in Redwood City will reopen to everyone today: Red Morton and Dolphin Tennis Courts. Those courts had been open on a reservations-only basis to Redwood City residents since June 1. The Phil Shao Memorial Skate Park in the city is now open from dawn until dusk. All playgrounds and picnic areas remain closed per the health order, the city said.

In San Mateo, dog parks are now open, are bocce and basketball courts (although basketball courts are to be used only by people within the same household), according to City of San Mateo Parks and Recreation. Al tennis courts will be available without reservations starting Thursday, June 18. Based on positive community feedback, ‪starting Friday, June 26‬, reservations for Central and Beresford Courts will be available between 8 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., with open play resuming in the afternoons.  Fields are open for passive use, meaning no team sports or pick-up games allowed. Park parking lots reopened with the exception of Ryder Park, Upper Beresford Park and South Parkside Aquatic Park.

In Belmont, a slower reopening. While parks are open, sports courts, playgrounds, dog parks, picnic tables and restrooms remain closed, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department said.

As of June 15, the San Mateo County Parks Department has reopened 17 of its 23 parks. Parks that remain closed include Friendship Park, Moss Beach Park, Sanchez Adobe, Tunitas Creek Beach and Woodside Store. At Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, trails and restroom are open, but the tidepools are closed. At open parks, playgrounds, picnics and visitor centers remain closed. See a list of open parks here.

In the wake of community calls to reexamine policing in Redwood City, the city has proposed a budget for next fiscal year that won’t immediately change current police service levels but allows for modifications in October based upon a community input process that will run from July through September.

In addition, the city is proposing immediate steps by the council at its Monday meeting, including endorsement of the Obama Foundation Mayor’s Pledge to review and reform police policies via a community engagement process, and to increase the frequency of racial and cultural diversity training for city police from every five years to every two years.

In response to community requests to demilitarize police, the city proposes to return a military tactical vehicle donated by the federal government in 2013. Also recommended is a prohibition of the use of carotid restraint, a type of vascular neck restraint, except in cases where deadly force would be authorized.

Neck restraint tactics have come under increasing scrutiny after Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd for nearly nine minutes, causing sustained asphyxiation that resulted in his death. Floyd’s death sparked nationwide protests over police brutality and racial injustice, including a large, peaceful demonstration in Courthouse Square in Redwood City on June 2.

Along with the above proposals, the city wants to preserve art related to the June 2 Black Live Matters protest and develop a temporary display that includes information and resources on racism. The display will initially appear at the Main Library Parking lot and move to other community locations.

The list of proposals comes after the city faced criticism over what some in the community perceived as an overly scripted Virtual Town Hall meeting on June 10 on community policing. Over 500 people participated in the virtual town hall involving the mayor, vice mayor, city manager and police chief.  The city received hundreds of inquiries both during the meeting and over the last few weeks on the topic of police reform – the most City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz said she has seen on any other topic.

“People want to talk to us right now,” Diaz said. “They really just want to share their concerns, they want to share their hopes for the future.”

The city manager said the virtual town hall made it clear that “we need to have more ways for us to listen.”

Through September, Diaz envisions a robust public outreach process on police reform. While still done virtually for safety reasons, the process will likely feature smaller groups to better facilitate dialogue between city representatives and residents. The city manager’s hope is that priorities and themes will emerge from the discussions that can be put into action when council reviews a revised budget in October.

Question is, what will the city be able to afford? Like many cities, Redwood City is projecting budget deficits due to the COVID-19 shelter in place period. City officials don’t yet know the full impact that will be caused by reduced tax revenue from local businesses amid the lockdown.

While council is required to pass a budget by June 30, the city has for months been planning to push big decisions on service changes until the fall, when the COVID-19 economic impacts become clearer.

“We don’t have a good way to predict what this recession is going to be like,” Diaz said, adding the city has taken steps to limit spending and save money.

Meanwhile, the city wants to spend the next few months addressing community needs and concerns so they are factored into the budget discussion in October, Diaz said. Not only does the city need to address community concerns over racial injustice, it needs to respond to a new normal posed by the health pandemic, Diaz said.

“We’ve already been thinking we’d need to reshape city services in some way,” she said. “The current climate is providing more ideas as to what we need to meet the community’s needs better.”

Diaz added that she’s heartened by the outpouring of community participation inspired by a national call for reform, including from those newly engaging with the city.

“This is a critical time for communities nationwide to listen, learn and act to address racial inequality,” she said, adding, “We are committed to truly hearing from our community, and taking positive steps forward.”

One week after a large, peaceful demonstration in Courthouse Square sparked what many viewed as a positive start to a dialogue on police reform, Redwood City held a Community Policing Virtual Town Hall on June 10 that some in the community believed was overly scripted and inadequately addressed police reform.

This week, the city told Climate the meeting was the first time the city has hosted a virtual town hall, but not its last.

“We are in the process of planning additional opportunities for residents to be heard, and to be in dialogue on issues related to policing,” said Jennifer Yamaguma, Communications Manager at the City Manager’s Office.

Over 500 people participated in the June 10 town hall. The city received over 150 questions in advance of the even and over 200 questions during the meeting itself, including through the Q&A feature and from live public comment, Yamaguma said. A number of questions were posed to town hall participants Mayor Diane Howard, Police Chief Dan Mulholland, Vice Mayor Shelly Masur, and City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz, whose answers drew criticism for focusing largely on how policing is done in Redwood City than how it could be envisioned in the future.

“Spoiler alert: this is all a PR stunt for the @RedwoodCityPD like we were all expecting and not an honest dialogue of concerned community members,” stated one of about a dozen critical Twitter posts.

Councilmembers Giselle Hale was also critical of the virtual town hall, stating, “I had hoped for more.”

“Too much time was given to pre-scripted answers and not enough time hearing and listening to your concerns and experiences,” Hale said in a statement posted to Facebook. She acknowledged that city staff “are trying” and that it’s “difficult to do deep community engagement virtually and during a health pandemic.”

In a post on medium.com, fellow Councilmember Alicia Aguirre added, “It was clear to me …that we needed more time to listen to all the voices wanting to be heard. Listening is one of the most powerful ways we can respect, support, and promote healing.”

Yamaguma said the city is working toward that goal.

“We are developing a Frequently Asked Questions to share on the City’s website to answer questions we could not address during the Virtual Town Hall,” Yamaguma said. Also, more Virtual Town Hall meetings on other topics are planned in the coming weeks. Those in the community with recommendations can email social@redwoodcity.org, Yamaguma said.

In a statement Thursday, Chief Dan Mulholland said the police department’s website on community policing will be updated to answer questions by the community in an effort to increase transparency.

“We understand the community wants to know more about how we operate and we want to share information openly,” according to the chief’s statement, which can be read in full here.

Welcome back, San Mateo County. To what?

With some restrictions being eased even as the Covid-19 pandemic continues, a debate has broken out throughout the nation: What should be the balance between lives and livelihoods?

Here in the Bay Area, the “saving lives” argument has taken precedence, with unparalleled restrictions on daily life.

In downtown Redwood City, the change has been striking. At the height of the shutdown in April, streets were almost deserted. The only sign flashing “OPEN” was at All-Pro Bail Bonds. Among the few other places doing business were the post office and the Dignity Health urgent care center, which offered Covid-19 tests.

By late May, some restrictions had been relaxed and so-called quarantine fatigue had set in. Much of the auto and pedestrian traffic had returned, along with an increased number of restaurants offering curbside and table service. Less than half the pedestrians wore face masks, which are required for entering businesses but only recommended for outdoor exercise.

This story was originally published in the June edition of Climate Magazine. To view the magazine online, click on this link.

Even after the virus recedes, the scene won’t return exactly to what it was in January, as society adjusts to a “new normal.”

The restaurant industry faces one of the greatest adjustments. Open Table reports that even in states that have allowed table service to reopen, bookings remain down 75 percent or more.

According to a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, “The restaurant industry seems particularly vulnerable to a long crisis. Restaurateurs believe that they have a 72 percent chance of survival if the crisis lasts one month, but if the crisis lasts four months, then they give themselves only a 30 percent chance of survival. If the crisis lasts for six months, then they expect to survive with only a 15 percent probability.”

Redwood City suffered a loss on May 19 when Specialty’s Bakery and Café, known for its giant cookies, permanently closed its 50 bakery-cafes, including one in Redwood Shores, after 33 years in operation.

In Palo Alto, Dan Gordon’s, a beer and barbecue spot owned by the Gordon Biersch co-founder, announced April 13 it would not reopen.

But Freewheel Brewing Co. in Marsh Manor, which sells homemade craft beers as well as food, is hanging in there. Since reopening for takeout in April after a five-week shutdown, General Manager Devin Roberts has seen traffic picking up.

“We actually had a pretty good last couple weeks,” Roberts said. “We’re lucky to have a lot of support from the community and we’re preparing to reopen fully whenever authorities give the go-ahead.”

Federal Guidelines

Guidelines issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration call for infection control and social distancing measures including discontinuing salad bars, buffets, and beverage stations, increased wiping down of surfaces, practicing social distancing when delivering food, and maintaining six-foot spacing for pickups.

Freewheel’s prior seating arrangement—including barstools and a long 16-person table for large groups having happy hours—likely won’t be allowed due to proposed rules calling for maximum table sizes and six-foot spacing between tables. Roberts is making plans to arrange smaller tables both inside and on the patio.

Despite the disruption, “for me personally, I think it’s fair.” He and the two owners “are all of the same mind, it’s for the greater good. Nobody’s complained nobody’s said this is BS It’s obviously very hard for businesses like ours predicated on socializing.

“We are fortunate that we don’t have that big a space and have a dedicated community pushing people to drink local independent beer, made down the street. They want to see you succeed.”

The possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 infections concerns him, though. “One thing we’re apprehensive about, if we did see another surge, that would be tough.”

Don Burrus, Redwood City economic development manager, said one of the first steps the city took was to allow temporary parking in front of every restaurant, so delivery-service drivers could pull up and grab food to go.

David Kassouf, owner of The Sandwich Spot on Broadway, has been making do with takeout and to-go orders, but has lost up to 94 percent of his business from the prior level of 500 to 600 sandwiches a day. Through April, his losses totaled $23,000.

“I am hurting big-time. It’s not just me, it’s the whole world.”

He hasn’t laid anyone off but nonetheless lost four employees who couldn’t or didn’t want to work during the pandemic. With so many restaurant workers laid off, he received a record 90 applicants through a single Facebook posting for a job opening.

Kassouf has installed feet stickers on the floor and a Plexiglass screen dividing customers from the pickup counter. He is awaiting guidelines on what will be necessary to fully reopen.

“I love Redwood City,” he says. Although he counts several city officials as customers, he says they haven’t been able to tell him much pending instructions from health authorities.

On-Street Dining

A wild card is whether the city decides to block off Broadway to auto traffic, a proposal that’s being formulated at the staff level.

Under the plan, restaurants could put tables and chairs in the street for open-air food halls, making up for the loss of interior seating. Broadway already has characteristics of downtown pedestrian malls in other cities, including wide cobblestone sidewalks, planter boxes, and a focal point at Courthouse Square. Under one version of the plan, temporary closures would last until the start of rainy season.

While traffic and parking are concerns, more customers might dine out on warm sunny days if they had confidence they were only being served the right kind of Corona.

“I think it would be good depending on how they do it,” Kassouf said.

Besides downtown, outdoor expansions could be done at other retail centers including malls. For example, a furniture company could have clearance sales in its parking lot, Burrus said.

In San Carlos, city staff presented the council with a proposal to close the 600, 700 and 800 blocks of Laurel Street temporarily to encourage pedestrian activity and allow restaurants to serve more patrons while practicing social distancing.

“We want to see if we can figure this out. We’re reaching out to restaurant owners and a couple others,” Mayor Ron Collins said.

He noted that while the city is in relatively good fiscal shape thanks to recent surpluses and a rainy-day fund, it needs to manage expected sharp declines in sales tax and hotel tax revenue.

“The more we can do to encourage businesses on Laurel Street, it helps everybody,” he said.

Regina Van Brunt of the 95-member Redwood City Downtown Business Group said a key step in reopening is getting clear guidelines from the San Mateo County Health Department on what will be necessary, so businesses can get prepared now.

Those preparations include spacing measures, such as stickers on the floor and Plexiglass shields.

One concern she has is that “not a lot of people who are visiting downtown Redwood City are wearing masks.”

City Budgets Slammed

Covid-19 also poses a challenge to the budgets of most municipalities, including Redwood City. At a recent council meeting, staff estimated there would be a $5.1 million shortfall for the fiscal year that ends in June. That is expected to be made up by measures including delayed filling of vacancies and a $1.5 million reduction in an extra contribution to CalPERS that had been planned to work down the shortfall in pension funds.

However, in fiscal 2020-21, the challenges get more severe. City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz told the council the source of 32 percent of city revenues was at significant risk, including sales tax reductions each of the next two years, and business license taxes.

Sources of an additional 45 percent may be at risk, including property tax, with a preliminary forecast showing a decline starting in 2021-22.

The crisis also has required additional spending estimated at $2.6 million thus far.

There is special concern for undocumented immigrants, many of them in the Fair Oaks neighborhood, who are not eligible for the $1,200 federal stimulus checks.

Working through the Fair Oaks Community Center, the city had distributed $644,719 for emergency rental assistance to 349 households as of mid-May, with hundreds of applications still pending.

“They’re the ones struggling the worst. They’re having a really hard time making the rent payment,” council member Alicia Aguirre said. Many have lost their jobs at restaurants. Others are jeopardizing their health working in hard-hit senior care facilities.

About two-thirds of the county’s Covid-19 deaths as of May 21—50 out of 76—were associated with residents or staff at long-term care facilities.

The council also approved the contribution of $300,000 to the San Mateo County Strong Fund’s Small Business Grant Program to help small businesses in Redwood City. The donation was matched by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Pension Shortfall

Looking ahead, the crisis turns the city’s $300 million obligation to pay its workers’ pensions into even more of a fiscal cliff. CalPERS, which manages the pension program, assumes a 7 percent annual rise in the value of its investments. However, recent stock market declines have changed the forecast return for 2019-20 to minus 4 percent. The shortfall would mean increased contributions starting in 2023 and continuing through 2027 totaling more than $10 million.

“There has to be some legislator somewhere who understands the potential for this to bankrupt cities,” council member Ian Bain said at a recent meeting. “I’d like to think how we can proactively advocate for something that will create a long-term structural change for cities.”

Worries about fiscal disaster are even more acute for transit agencies. Shelter-in-place has reduced the number of Caltrain commuters by more than 95 percent. Near-empty trains chug up and down the Peninsula hourly. (The situation at SamTrans is similar, except that the drop in bus ridership isn’t quite as severe).

“It is clear that the railroad is facing a financial crisis for at least FY21,” staff wrote in a recent presentation for the board. Preliminary projections show revenue gaps of $22 million to $66 million for fiscal 2020-21, with additional declines in Go Pass sales since employers probably will not need to buy as many for their workers.

Before the crisis, commuter trains ran at 130 percent of seated capacity during peak hours. This could be reduced to 50 percent or less due to social distancing rules and riders’ unwillingness to board packed trains.

Once the orders are lifted, “We expect to promote social distancing and the wearing of face coverings for as long as medical experts recommend doing so. Given that these practices dramatically decrease the odds of contracting Covid-19, we expect that to be the norm for the near future,” spokesman Dan Lieberman said.

Caltrain in Peril

“Due to Caltrain’s heavy reliance on farebox revenues, and its lack of a dedicated revenue source, the pandemic has been financially devastating. The federal relief package has been sufficient to keep the agency funded through August, but we will likely need further support to cover us until we can return to our usual levels of ridership. We’re currently evaluating a host of financial and service scenarios in an effort to stay flexible as riders return.”

“Caltrain’s funding and maybe even its governance model looks utterly unsustainable for the foreseeable future … and there’s long been an excellent case to be made that it never was,” said Adrian Brandt, who runs the Friends of Caltrain Facebook group.

If public transit is significantly reduced, traffic could get much worse.

A model created by Vanderbilt University researchers showed the San Francisco area facing the worst delays in the country, even more than New York and Los Angeles, once workers return to their daily commutes.

If only one in four transit and casual carpool users switches to driving alone, the two-way commute time is projected to rise by 20 minutes a day. If three out of four drove solo, the additional time would be 80 minutes.

The Bay Area is particularly vulnerable by virtue of being relatively transit-heavy, with roads already close to maxed out at peak hours.

“Cities that depend on transit are at risk for extreme traffic unless transit systems can resume safe, high throughput operations quickly,” the authors noted.

Effective transit also depends on having enough workers going back to their offices.

Redwood City has about 6,600 business license holders. Burrus said the city is working on preparing guidelines for businesses to reopen safely. For example, offices typically require 175 square feet per employee. With social distancing, more space per employee might be needed. “If on your floor there are ten cubes, that could go to five because of social distancing.”

As an offset to lower densities, telecommuting is expected to become more of an option since companies have become accustomed to holding meetings via teleconferencing. For employers, this has long-term potential to save money on rent.

Out of the Office

A Bay Area Council survey of 123 top executives in May found that 89 percent were planning policies that allowed working remotely, with 66 percent figuring on rotating work schedules during the week to reduce the number of employees coming into the office. Almost a fifth of the companies were planning to move to full remote work.

Major tech companies are taking the lead. Twitter and Square, which share Jack Dorsey as CEO, announced they would allow employees to continue working remotely after shelter-in-place orders expire. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said as many as half his company’s employees could be working remotely within 10 years.

The commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield has come up with a concept called Six Feet Office that uses a variety of techniques to keep employees away from one another. These include widely spaced desks with circles on the carpets to remind employees not to come too close, and patterns to guide one-way foot traffic.

“The six feet rule isn’t going away anytime soon,” the company said.

One business that has remained open is Marketing Direct Insurance Services on Brewster Avenue. Martin Sullivan, who has been in the insurance business since 1984, says it’s relatively easy for him to maintain social distancing because customers only come in one or two at a time.

“We mostly serve the Hispanic community. They like to deal with you on a personal basis. If we stayed closed, people would have a difficult time maintaining their car insurance. We take care of those people in difficult times.”

For example, Sullivan has been processing registration renewals, a business that has picked up since Department of Motor Vehicles offices have closed.

New business has been “cut down to almost nothing” from a normal level of 20 new policies a month. “People are scared to come in except those who have talk to you to keep their insurance.”

He believes the stay-at-home orders have gone too far, putting many businesses in danger of closing. “The governor should back off a little. If people don’t start going back to work, I don’t know …”

A burning issue nationwide is whether the government is going too far in restricting movement and free association.

In six Bay Area counties including San Mateo, a shelter-in-place order was issued March 16. Governor Gavin Newsom made the order statewide March 19. An order generally requiring face masks in places of business was issued April 17.

Most notably, the order was challenged by entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose Tesla factory in Fremont was shut down. Never shy with his opinions, Musk termed shelter-in-place “fascist” and said it is “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights,” although the order does allow people to go outside for necessary shopping and exercise.

Musk threatened to move Tesla’s Palo Alto headquarters out of California and reconsider having its plant in Fremont. Eventually, an agreement was reached with Alameda County allowing the factory to resume operations on May 18.

While few others have used such inflammatory language, there is quite a bit of opposition to the safety measures from the conservative end of the political spectrum. A poll by the UC-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that 78 percent of those who strongly support President Trump thought the state would suffer unnecessary economic damage by leaving shelter-in-place on too long. By contrast, 91 percent of those who strongly oppose Trump had the opposite worry, that that shelter-in-place would end too soon, as did 69 percent of voters overall.

The Tradeoff

In the Bay Area, it hasn’t been socially acceptable to make the lives vs. livelihoods tradeoff explicit. Antioch Planning Commission Chairman Ken Turnage II found that out after a Facebook post that read “In my opinion we need to adapt a Herd Mentality. A herd gathers its ranks, it allows the sick, the old, the injured to meet its natural course in nature.” He also said the virus could cure the homeless problem. The Antioch City Council voted unanimously to remove Turnage from its post after he refused to apologize.

The San Joaquin Valley city of Atwater made headlines in May when it declared itself a “sanctuary city” that would not enforce shelter-in-place orders against businesses that reopened ahead of state guidelines.

In the Bay Area, however, with the exception of Musk, there have been few signs of rebellion.

The general attitude was expressed by Van Brunt. “We want to do this in the right way to protect the businesses as much as possible so that when we do reopen we do it right and no closures will have to happen.”

San Mateo County’s first easing came on April 29, when outdoor businesses, including gardening and construction, were allowed to resume operations. Retail businesses were allowed to resume curbside and delivery service on May 18. Still, the county is early in the governor’s four-phase recovery plan.

As April turned to May, more people hit the streets and gasoline sales picked up, illustrating Admiral David Farragut’s Civil War observation after lobbing shells into besieged Vicksburg: “After people are harassed to a certain extent, they become indifferent to danger.”

Perhaps the closest comparison is the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which lasted until the winter of 1919-20, killing an estimated 675,000 Americans. As is true today, the response included quarantining, bans on public gatherings, and mandatory face masks.

In a timely paper published in March, economists including Sergio Correia of the Federal Reserve system found that the 1918 response on average reduced manufacturing output by 18 percent, but less in cities that took strong action.

“We find that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively do not perform worse, and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over. Our findings thus indicate that (non-pharmaceutical interventions) not only lower mortality; they may also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued a new statewide mandate on the wearing of cloth face coverings in both outdoor and indoor public spaces. The mandate does not change existing social distancing requirements.

While people don’t have to wear their masks while dining at restaurants, drinking at a bar or engaging in outdoor work or recreation, such as hiking, running or biking, there are other situations that require face coverings, including while:

• Inside of, or in line to enter, any indoor public space
• Obtaining services from the healthcare sector in settings including, but notlimited to, a hospital, pharmacy, medical clinic, laboratory, physician ordental office, veterinary clinic, or blood bank
• Waiting for or riding on public transportation or paratransit or while in a taxi, private car service, or ride-sharing vehicle;
• Engaged in work, whether at the workplace or performing work off-site, when:
  • Interacting in-person with any member of the public
  • Working in any space visited by members of the public, regardless of whether anyone from the public is present at the time;
  • Unless exempted by state guidelines for specific public settings (e.g., school or childcare center)
  • Unless directed otherwise by an employee or healthcare provider
  • Working in any space where food is prepared or packaged for saleor distribution to others
  • Working in or walking through common areas, such as hallways, stairways, elevators, and parking facilities;
  • In any room or enclosed area where other people (except for members of the person’s own household or residence) are present when unable to physically distance.
  • Driving or operating any public transportation or paratransit vehicle, taxi,or private car service or ride-sharing vehicle when passengers are present. When no passengers are present, face coverings are strongly recommended.

Those exempted from wearing masks while in public include persons under age 2 for safety reasons, for those with medical or mental health conditions or a disability that prevents wearing a face covering, including people who are hearing impaired, or those obtaining a service involving the nose or face for which temporary removal of the face covering is necessary to perform the service.

More information on the state’s guidance can be viewed here.

Photo credit: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. In this photo, the governor was celebrating a state employee’s milestone.

San Mateo County has issued a revised health order that is effective immediately and aligns the county with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Resilience Roadmap. Now able to open or resume operations with new safety guidelines:

• Dine-in restaurants
• Hair salons and barber shops
• Casinos
• Family entertainment centers
• Restaurants, wineries and bars
• Zoos and museums
• Gyms and fitness centers
• Hotels (for tourism and individual travel)
• Cardrooms and racetracks
• Campgrounds and outdoor recreation

On June 19, personal services like nail salons, body waxing, and tattoo parlors can resume options after creating safety plans.

The new order limits gatherings to no more than 50 people and requires businesses to implement a social distancing protocol and written health and safety plans.

“We are moving away from opening businesses according to certain categories and instead focusing on behaviors and practices,” said San Mateo County Health Officer Dr. Scott Morrow. “As we ease restrictions, the power to control the spread of the virus lies with individuals and communities. Collective behavior will determine our destiny. If enough people, businesses, or organizations in the community do not follow the protective recommendations, the virus may spread with abandon.”

On Tuesday, county officials announced the state had granted its variance to fully align with California’s Resilience Roadmap on the grounds that the county has met the required benchmarks to further ease restrictions.

For more updates, visit here.

This week, the City of San Mateo has begun converting on-street parking spaces into protected areas for outdoor dining as part of an effort to boost business for local eateries economically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The city also plans to completely close B Street from 2nd to 3rd streets to vehicular traffic using barricades, and also to close one lane on B Street from 1st to Baldwin to vehicular traffic, in order to enhance space for outdoor dining.

At its meeting Monday, San Mateo City Council adopted an emergency ordinance allowing restaurants to use parking spaces for outdoor dining during the public health emergency. B Street, Baldwin, and 1st through 4th avenues are on-street areas receiving parklets. Dining on certain sidewalks and in parking areas of shopping centers are also being temporarily allowed by the city.

The council Monday also provided direction to city staff on which streets to close to vehicular traffic based upon feedback from businesses on the blocks. It decided to close only the west side of B Street from Baldwin to 1st in order to leave access open to a parking lot near Donut Delite. Council decided against closing 1st to 2nd streets due to mixed reviews from businesses.

For those wanting to grab food to go, some on-street parking spaces will turn into short-term parking, according to the city. Garages will remain available for a longer stay.

The council said it would review the progress of the outdoor dining initiative and adjust as needed.

Photo credit: City of San Mateo