I have come out with the Newsletter on Friday, instead of Thursday, to try something new. It is a bit easier for me to include up to the minute news if I do it on Friday and lots of stuff is happening on Wednesdays and Thursdays. If you have strong feelings one way or another, let me know-otherwise-it will be Friday Newsletter from here on out!
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For many years I have wrestled with the concept of a local preference for Sonoma County and the contiguous Counties plus Solano (Sonoma, Marin, Lake, Mendo, Napa, Solano). The “vision or concept” is that contractors that have home offices in the six counties that were bidding on public work projects in the 6 counties would have a bidding edge over contractors coming in from outside those counties to bid on publicly funded work. Back in 2007, 2008, 2009, this seemed like a good idea to protect our local contractors. The conceptual discussion could also include supplies and services such that if a County was purchasing office furniture as an example, the local company would have a preferential bidding advantage over some national supplier who if they got the work, would, in theory, contribute very little to our sales tax fund and/or our local labor force being employed.
The concept, discussed with several elected officials as well as several prominent contractors, died because of several issues:
- Do we have a sustainable work force in all trades to support contractors who work in building construction, bridges, as well as our ECA forte-roads and underground?
- Many contractors that have local offices here, also do work in the Bay Area and beyond and were fearful if the six Northern Counties banded together, would that not lead to other Counties banding together and putting our “travelling” suppliers and contractors at a disadvantage in a much larger market area?
What resurrected the discussion was that maybe we should consider a local preference on a much smaller scale. The renewed idea stems from some problems I have heard regarding “out of towners” coming in and screwing up fire debris cleanup projects with lowball bids, poor knowledge of local means of hauling and disposing, and not using local trucking and workforce on wildfire cleanup and rebuild work that is small enough in scope that we do not need outside workforce to handle our own “stuff”. I also keep reading about outside developers coming in and bidding high on the Community Hospital site before fully understanding the local problems in developing that site. It just seems we can do better in encouraging or incentivizing our local resources to do some of these projects. To be sure, this would be a “big lift”, but the benefit might outweigh the problems.
Just think about how neighborhoods might modify their resistance to a rebuild project in their neighborhood if they knew the project would be built by their neighbors, friends and business associates. It might make “Nimbys” less oppositional. Might—-
And since we are talking about a smaller segment of work, maybe figure out a way to give local firms an edge in both private and public projects. Perhaps the edge comes only in “emergency work” contracts and bids. In other words, fire debris cleanup, wildfire housing and commercial rebuilds, flood repair, road and bridge repair due to floods/earthquakes/fire, and that sort of work. How about supplying rental equipment, rock, concrete, legal services, accounting work, insurance, trucks, lumber and other materials from firms that are based in the six counties and not from outside?
While it remains to be seen what the details of the advantage might look like given public and private work being considered, the question I ask to the ECA membership is: “Do you want to see a local preference on emergency work in the six Counties?”. Please respond “Yes or No” and provide any comments or thoughts you might have on the subject.
What say you?
That’s all folks!
John
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Where and When Do YOU Get Vaccinated?
Sonoma County Emergency just went live with their Covid-19 Vaccination Website. I have to admit, I am not terribly impressed. Particularly how they have “Spring of 2021” following “Winter of 2021” in their chronological timeline. Details. Who needs them? Also, I would think the “WHERE?” could have been a bit clearer. However-there is some useful information here and I am sure, they are trying to do their best! To get some info-click here–
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COVID-19 Facts
I sent a message to Jason Cunningham who runs the West County Health Department for Sonoma County, and I specifically asked about folks that have previously tested positive for Covid-19 and why they are not recommended to go in and get retested after their positive test. I know several friends who did just that, and they tested positive several months after, which led to some confusion to them and their friends and fellow employees as to whether they should be concerned with that positive test. Here are the facts from someone who knows!
Question: If someone had a positive test some weeks or months ago, and quarantined for 10 days after their onset of symptoms or the positive test, can they still be contagious?
To answer your specific questions: no need for repeat quarantine.
- After a natural infection, for some individuals, non-infectious viral particles can shed for weeks or months. The COVID-19 PCR test amplifies the genetic material from the virus and makes it very sensitive at picking up very small viral fragments and therefore can be positive for weeks to months after the infection, even though the person is not actively infected or contagious. Because of this, it is too confusing to retest at any time and don’t recommend people get tested if they have had a laboratory documented COVID-19 infection.
- Generally, use the rule of thumb of 10 days after onset of symptoms (or date of initial COVID-19 test if asymptomatic) as the period in which someone could be contagious or spreading the virus to others. Afterwards, that person should be able to rest assured they are no longer a risk of spreading the disease or contracting the disease.
- Although there has been a recorded case of an individual who was reinfected with a documented different viral strain, it is so exceedingly rare to be non-existent and I think the science will show a long-term immunity with the natural infections. It may turn out to be true that mild or minimally symptomatic infections give people a shorter immunity and therefore we are recommending vaccination even if someone has had the natural infection because we have clear science behind the immune response (and likely long-term protection).
