with disabilities regularly scheduled meeting on September 10th.

Thank you for being here this evening.

We will start with uh roll call.

We do have two commissioners joining us with advanced notice remotely and so we will start with roll call.

Commissioner Schmitz.

All right looking for the mute button present.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bond Smith.

I don't know if she heard you commissioner Bond Smith.

Hi can you hear me now?

Yes thank you.

Okay.

Um we'll take that as a present and then uh Chair Mullins present.

Commissioner Beeler.

Present Commissioner Hall present commissioner lip present and Commissioner Lyons is absent this evening.

We'll move into any non-agenda public comment.

Don't see any members of the public here.

Move forward.

We do not have any minutes to approve this evening and then that meet that draws us directly to the regular agenda item which is an informational item the 2024 C click fix accessibility related requests presentation and I will present it.

Okay good evening commissioners I'm Lillian Jewel I'm the ADA coordinator of City of Alameda and I'm here with an agenda item that was requested by members of the commission to go over the CCFix report for the year 2024 and with emphasis on the accessibility related requests.

And let's see if I know what button to push okay so just a quick overview.

CClickFix is a free online service that is promoted and used by the City of Alameda that gives an easy to use platform for all residents visitors and even city staff to communicate with multiple departments within Alameda to submit requests directly to those designated departments.

These are usually issues related to things like broken sidewalks trash on the sidewalk trees that are down maintenance requests etc.

And then department representatives manually review these requests and tend to follow this process which is to acknowledge the request and assign to the staff that's a public facing component this can include an automated response and then it always includes a manual review of some kinder steps within the team this is often handled internally from that can branch off with a comment to the request with a next step or an update for the public so this is something that is shown on C click fix.

If you ever go to the website you can kind of see comments that are fill the queue on each request next step is typically that we take the action within our city department that's internal and then finally the request is resolved with a final comment this is either an update a promise to you know solve the issue a promise to take a next step or some sort of verification or confirmation that it's been received acknowledged and that there's a plan of action from within the relevant city department and no requests are closed automatically.

Everything has to go through manual review process, and the request has to be closed manually.

This is just an example request that I picked.

This highlights sidewalk damage with a tripping hazard.

It was reported by a resident with city staff comments that you can see to the right that acknowledge and address the issue.

Apologies for the quality of the screenshot if the text is a little garbled there.

But this took this was a sidewalk incident or damage report on 1014 Peru Street.

And they specified that there seemed to be tree routes that were pushing up.

They included a photo.

As you can see, C click fix also creates a map and geographical location so that we can track it that way as well.

And it's timestamped.

The this one was designated as the sidewalk repair tag, and the people who were notified were the maintenance management team as well as the city in general.

And then you can see to the right, the screenshot there shows the initial request at the top, and then the public facing assigning notice as well as a comment that might be kind of like an automated or a canned response.

So this might be a template that we use to typically respond to requests like this, since we get a lot of sidewalks requests.

And then finally, it's closed with the notice that it's been assigned to a work order, which they can reference there if they were to call the city.

And then if they have any other questions, they're welcome to call the city as well.

Okay, so moving forward into some more specific data.

This is the request summary from 2024.

The top contender, as you can see, is illegal dumping of garbage with over 2,700 requests.

Wow.

This is typically just people who say, hey, there's an Ottoman on my sidewalk, or this is in the way, it's just like it sounds illegal dumping of garbage.

City building maintenance, other that's the second highest category with an over 900 requests.

A lot of these will were internal.

So these are just people who work within the city reporting city maintenance issues to the maintenance team.

So this is a great way for us to communicate within departments so that we can track everything in the same system.

Street safety concern, parking enforcement, trees or street trees, those are the top few.

And then it goes all the way down to just a few responses or a few requests here and there about AC transit paratransit.

Um I also combine several smaller categories or irrelevant to us categories into what I called miscellaneous slash uncategorized slash other combined, which you can see it's about gosh, let's see, maybe 10 from the bottom or something like that.

Or sorry, 10 from the top, and that one is just over 200 requests.

So again, those was that was just a smattering of things that aren't necessarily related to accessibility.

Um let's see.

So this yeah, go ahead.

Oh, sorry.

At the end, we'll do questions, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I realize that.

Sorry about that.

Never mind.

Um, so then the sidewalk repair program.

We receive a lot of requests.

C click fix is the primary place where we find out about sidewalk damage, typically from residents.

Um, and as residents call or email directly, we also redirect them to C click fix or we start there ourselves.

So the categories that are most often going to be related to sidewalks are going to be sidewalks, obviously, the trees, street trees, pedestrian or bicycle access issues.

Those are the three main ones that concern sidewalk damage, which then also relates to accessibility or use mobility aids in Alameda.

Okay, so then when I was doing a report for 2024, we had over 12,100 uh requests for the whole year.

So that's from all categories.

Um I chose to make some you know counting rules based on the following terms: trip in any form, um, handicap, disability, disabled ADA, sidewalk, crosswalk, curb ramp, wheelchair, and access.

As you can see, this goes from top to bottom in a sequential order so that um just using Excel so that Excel just counts based on starting from the top, anything trip, and then next term that it would find be handicapped, etc., all the way down to access.

I put access last because that could mean tons of things, so I figured there would be other terms named within the text first.

Okay, so going through those, just a few notes at the top.

Miscellaneous, I that's just requests that at the very bottom, the just the four count of four.

That was just requests that were related to landscape encroachment, which can affect access, pedestrian signals, a down tree.

So some of those things are related to accessibility, but they weren't necessarily addressing that issue explicitly.

So I just kind of lumped them into this miscellaneous category.

The averages, as you can see, average minutes to acknowledge in that column and over.

Those may skew slightly higher because there are some requests within each category that are sitting open or have been or were open for longer than usual.

And then the final note I wanted to just make is for the counts, there might be some requests that were included in the counts that aren't necessarily explicitly related to accessibility.

However, there may also be some that were not included because the specific text that I use in my rules weren't included in the person's request text.

Okay, so looking at this table, you can see that if we just gave you know glance across it, trip has 415 requests that used a version of that word, which is most often going to be used in tripping hazard or I tripped, etc.

And then the highest count is in sidewalk, which is 839 requests.

So like I mentioned before, these are people who are most often submitting concerns about sidewalk damage or issues that they've encountered in Alameda.

And then if we go across to the average days to acknowledge, you can see that the lowest number, aside from the miscellaneous, is an average day of just one day to acknowledge for disability or disabled.

So requests that use those in their text descriptions.

And then the highest is going to be under the crosswalk, which is 12 days to acknowledge.

And that might just reflect an interdepartmental process where maybe they don't have it written, you know, as a process tree that they acknowledge things quite as quickly, or perhaps they're not fully engaging with the C click fix requests every single time.

Again, it might also be a skewed number because of the averages for the rest of them being higher or lower outliers.

And then the average days to closed, if we go nearly to the end of the table to the right, the lowest average is the miscellaneous, and then second lowest with seven and a half days to closed is anything that was tagged as including disability or disabled.

So this just means when a request is closed, like I said before, that's either that it has been fixed completely, so it's wrapped up and done, or there's a clear next step and already a work order and process to address that issue.

And then the highest one of average days to closed would be 48.7, which is for trip.

And then you can also see on the far right, I did include the number of requests that are not closed.

So these are things that have been open, possibly they've been acknowledged, but they're still sitting open for whatever reason.

Okay.

So then just the final factor I wanted to point out here is the total, let's see.

So we have over 12,000 requests for 2024, and so the percentage of all the requests for my text rules here is 14.1%.

So this means that according to just my simple search terms, 14% of all 2024 C click fixed requests were related to things that we could say would be accessibility related.

Again, knowing that maybe some of them don't have all the text rules encountered or what have you.

But that's quite a significant portion of requests that we could say would be in street safety concern which are then del this one in particular was then delegated to transportation planning.

It's still open.

So here we have a three four-way stop.

This is a recommendation for an intersection design.

As you can imagine, this would still remain open because that's a lengthy process.

And so this particular department, transportation planning, may not have it built into their process tree that they need to acknowledge and close all requests, especially when it's something like this that maybe it's part of an ongoing plan or you know so this is just an example of something that a resident might reach out about trees or street trees the second one down this one was closed in 40 minutes uh it was delegated to our um our in-house tree specialist Jesse Barajas and he was able to you know go out and assess the tree and move the the branch and check for additional pruning.

The third one down isn't just an example of pedestrian or bicycle access that was then delegated to code enforcement this is a close in less than one day vegetation from the street side and from the house has grown so much towards the sidewalk that it's difficult to maneuver the sidewalk.

So this was one about landscape encroachment and then finally parking enforcement or maintenance management um excuse me delegated to maintenance management this one is just um this one is a concern that I highlighted because it was specifically about uh disabled parking um issues and and asking for better enforcement for disabled parking issues surrounding a school or spaces running a school okay so this was a brief overview of C quick fix but I'd love to take more questions and then comments because it would also help me to just direct maybe some future conversation as well.

So any questions.

Thank you Julie um one of my questions on the parking enforcement does that include abandoned cars?

It can so we encourage um the Alameda police department to receive abandoned cars calls so some of those might not go through C click fix um but if they start in C click fix then we delegate them.

It was wrecked and abandoned so maybe it was like you know stolen and it's been there over a week so we're a couple of the neighbors were saying I was like yeah I don't know if we would call the cops and they would come and put a ticket on there.

Yeah you're welcome to do that or you can always just start at C click fix.

That's that's kind of a good place to go especially if you're not sure how to communicate it or to whom you can start there.

Okay and then the other um on your description cable the ADA handicap that has 89 counts there's um little a little less than a third 24 that are not closed and is that common is that mean they're still being worked on or what would we don't really know the reason.

Great question so some of these might be related to ongoing projects and they've been um assigned to departments much like the transportation planning department where perhaps this is not part of their process tree to actively engage with something that requires a lot more work behind it.

Some of these might also be related to parking enforcement and those tickets might be handled differently outside of C click fix.

So it's there's a variety of reasons that those might still be open but um I did find it interesting that anything with disability or disabled in the text there's only three still open from there which just means that you know those probably had text or requests specifically that were addressed as quickly as possible because um they just probably the nature of the request was more um under an urgent yeah last year the year before there was um at the Mariner um Mariner Square um boat yard area where there's boats and I had been over there for something and in their um in their handicapped spot was a whatever the what whatever the what is the vehicle that the the thing that holds the boat oh like a trailer a trailer that's it there was a rusty trailer that had been sitting there for who knows how long and I did the quick fix and it was gone in the day or two.

Yeah actually okay I think I saw your request then yeah, I noticed that um because you can put photos on them as well.

So I was like, this thing looks like it's been it was rusty and it looked like who knows how and I was like, that is so rude.

So that was good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Sure.

Oh a couple of us remotely have our hands up.

I'm not sure if you can see.

Yes, I can.

Uh we'll just do the in-person questions first and then we'll go to Zoom if that's okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have a few uh data questions.

I'm very curious about um a couple things.

Um I wanted clarification around the SLA procedure and process.

Um I wanted to clarify that it's department by department within Alameda City that determines what their process will be, whether that's an automated response or when they decide a status is closed.

And you're shaking, yeah, you're saying yes, okay.

Um, and then I'm curious how the work order portions fill in and what that means for your average times.

Are you looking at the data with the uh C-click fix is the closed time, or if they are going into a work order, how does that factor into the length to the resolution?

Yeah, great question.

So I can definitely get you more data on work order to actual task closure, um, because that's a separate database.

So that would be our lucidity, which is where we track all of the work orders for within public works and the other maintenance departments.

Um, and so from C click fix open to or request open to request closure.

If there's a work order associated with it, that means that's when it gets closed.

So typically there's not going to be a work order associated to the request, and then it remains open.

Um there have been some where I've noticed that maybe they get reopened because the resident goes back and comments again on their initial request, asking for an update.

Um, and that's reasonable.

Um, and so then once the good thing is that once it becomes a work order and it goes into our lucidity side of things, that's when it's you know, all of us who are involved in that.

For instance, in my world with the sidewalk repairs, once it's the work order, then it begins that notification process of okay, getting an inspection, going through the sidewalk repair program, and then getting to the end what however long that takes for the repair to be completed.

So that that part definitely varies as well.

Okay.

Yeah, I think that would be really interesting, at least for me.

I don't know if the other commissioners and chair agree, um, to see what we're looking at in terms of timeline and making sure that we're addressing the needs of our constituents, you know, that we need to.

Um, so that was one thing.

Um the other thing that I think might be interesting in future reports is to consider the percentages of closed or not closed.

Um I know we have the raw numbers, I could do the calculation, but seeing what's still left open, maybe or what either version, right?

To see how successful are we at closing these tickets and addressing the needs of our um our Alamedans, right?

Like, are we getting to this resolution quickly?

Are we leaving a good percentage open?

Okay.

Um, and then I guess lastly, I'm c curious how these results compare to other tickets, I guess.

Like the the other what, like 85%.

Like, are these, you know, quote unquote good numbers?

Are we turning around these requests quickly?

Um, maybe we're giving priority.

I'm curious about if we can dig into that data a little bit more.

Um, and yeah, I appreciate you uh, you know, kind of giving me this floor for a second because I could really nerd out about all these processes.

This is what I do every day.

I deal with tickets and moving things through your process queues.

So yeah, very curious about more of that and if we could hear maybe from other departments like how they're handling these going forward.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, um, Commissioner Schmitz.

Sorry, my computer's acting up.

Um, and I apologize ahead of time if you said this and I somehow missed it and I just want a clarification.

So these numbers reflect all of the C-click fix, or is this just um ones that have disability or some sort of tie to a disability?

That's my first question.

Sure.

So the the primary portion of the slide with the tables that you know has all the counts and the data and everything.

So um a lot of what's drawn out there are related to accessibility-related text um within the description.

So those are kind of where we're emphasizing tonight.

But then at the bottom, I did include a table that shows that you know, of the 12,159 requests in 2024, which is all requests 2024, the average days to acknowledge was 2.4, average days to close was 32.6.

So that's those figures are for all requests of C in 2024 versus the ones related to accessibility, at least according to these text rules, where it's average days to close 28, so a little bit lower, um, average days to acknowledge 86.5, or sorry, average days to acknowledge 3.6, so a little bit higher on that one.

So that's where the difference lies.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

I think what I would like to see is, you know, I don't know that when people, and maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know that when people do a C-click fix, that they're necessarily going to mention an accessibility issue or a disability related to that.

So I would love to have some sort of button, something, something something that when you put in one of these requests that you check whether this is an accessibility issue or an issue related to a disability that someone might have.

Um I've come across, you know, I walk my dog every night, and and I come across many, many situations where people's um landscaping is encroaching on the sidewalk.

And I think, you know, immediately because it's my world, I think, can a wheelchair get past here?

It definitely can't, right?

And I think about strollers, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a wheelchair, but it could be a stroller or um, you know, somebody on a bike or whatever the circumstances is, but that's just the way my mind works because it's my world.

Um, but I think what makes me a little bit nervous is it sounds like there's a difference between ones that are specifically stating that it's it's an accessibility issue relating to a disability versus one that's just a generic one, and there's clearly a difference in how quickly those get handled.

So I don't know if we're capturing that data enough because I don't know that people necessarily will say, if you know what I mean.

Um, you know, I certainly have lots of clients who would just say, hey, this landscaping isn't is encroaching the sidewalk, but they wouldn't say, and I'm in a chair, and it makes it difficult for me to pass through.

Um, and so I just don't want us to lose those requests because it wasn't called out specifically, and then one get treated faster than the other.

That would be my concern.

For sure.

Um, if I could just speak to that, um I you know, sidewalk has the largest number, and that's even after the um terms such as ADA, handicap, disabled, and disability were were counted as well.

So those four I just mentioned may have also said sidewalk or curb ramp, but um, but then so those got counted first, and then sidewalks still had over 800.

Um, so it's not necessarily relying on people to specify or call out disability, but I can absolutely see what you're saying that maybe it would be helpful on the back end to have a tag or some sort of option button within that um that would be be related to that.

That's a C click fix question to see if it can be built out that way and not just categorize because we don't want to categorize it under like accessibility issue because then that's not that's uh that's a department of one that you know that would be different than um for the process trees that it's already established for the other departments.

So anyway, I I will absolutely look into that though.

I've made a note about the tags or a checkbox or something within the form itself that could be related to that, so that it captures it with regardless of the text itself.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, Commissioner Bond Smith.

Um I thank you, Commissioner Smith, for bringing up that question.

I had this similar question about whether there was a way to tag or categorize things very specifically related to media concerns.

Um I have some additional questions.

One would be if uh someone in the community posts something that uh would normally like result in like a parking ticket or a fine or something.

Like they take a picture of somebody's license plate and they're improperly parked in um a spot without like a uh handicapped placard.

Does that get forwarded to the police?

Is there anything in terms of follow-up that happens for those requests?

Yeah, so um as I mentioned, all requests, even though they may receive an initial automated response as determined by the department, no request is closed or unacknowledged, you know, automatically.

So there's always going to be a manual component to it.

So we do have several requests that come in like that, and they are always redirected to either parking enforcement or the police department, depending on which is more relevant to the case.

Um but because those typically are time sensitive, they um might receive a canned response of please call this number for an urgent parking issue, so that it kind of redirects the requester to go to the more effective channel as well.

Okay, thank you.

And then there's um, as you should kind of a wide variation in how long it takes for a request to be closed or be acknowledged.

Is there a goal within the city for different types of requests of when we want to have those acknowledged or between departments?

Great question.

There's not a standardized goal that I'm aware of.

Um so I think that that's kind of the next stage of this conversation just amongst departments is um what is standardized, if anything.

So it's really department specific and what they have already established as far as their work goes.

Like, for instance, when we get a sidewalk request now, because we have an active sidewalk repair program, those get addressed extremely quickly from within public works.

Um, but other things, you know, like the intersection requests that might linger for a while just because there's not necessarily a process tree built in for that one.

Um, but that's a great question.

Okay.

And for those um uh designated parking spots for people with disabilities that belong to like say a private business, like a private parking lot, does that get routed in the same way as a public street?

Yes, so um Title III entities or or private businesses and their parking spots can be directed to our parking enforcement team, um, especially when it comes to accessible parking spaces.

So typically there's an on-site security or management team that will say that they're handling those, but our parking enforcement team does uh sometimes collaborate or enforce those in addition to that to make sure that the message is heard.

But those requests come into C click fix all the time, and they're usually redirected or you know, not ignored because that is such an important concern.

Okay, one final question.

Um, it's as far as uh areas of the within the city that are managed by East Bay Parks, um, I'm assuming you get a lot of requests, and then it's not really the city of Alameda's job to respond to those requests.

And they're I'm assuming they're forwarded on to the East Bay Parks Department, and do we ever hear back?

Does the public ever hear back from them about how they respond?

Um it depends.

So East Bay Parks would not interact with our with uh requests that are linked on our C click fix platform.

Um we it's not cross-channeled like that.

Um, but there have been requests that have been forwarded to East Bay Parks or the requester is encouraged to contact the correct person.

Um, so I've I've seen those requests handled a few different ways, whether it's by direct referral or we'll submit this on your behalf, even though this is outside of our jurisdiction, but um, but that's a great question.

I would imagine, although I can't say this for certain, but I would imagine that those requests would be closed with the referral, so without under knowledge that the request has or the solution has already been um reached, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, maybe that's all my questions.

Okay, thank you.

It looks like Commissioner Smith, did you have another question?

They did, thank you.

Sorry, I meant to ask this before.

How does the average person, maybe somebody with an accessibility issue or a disability necessarily know to do a C click fix?

Um I'm wondering if we've ever done any sort of outreach to that particular community, like, hey, if you have an accessibility issue.

And I asked this because I think the general person doesn't know that necessarily.

I mean, I think we're talking about it, obviously.

So it's something that we all are familiar with, but I think if you think of the population that would have those issues or see a lot of those issues may not know how to access that or where to report it.

So I'm wondering if that is somewhere, is that on our city website?

Does it specifically call out, hey, do you if you have an accessibility issue, this is how you can help resolve it?

Yes.

So C click fix is pretty um uh widely linked on the main on the home page of Alameda's website.

Um I think one of the large, you know, there's like a little menu of common hit buttons.

Um there's uh have a problem or report a problem, something like that, and that'll take you directly to C click fix.

Um I believe it's been shared on social media and other newsletters and platforms.

Um, but it's not necessarily, you know, it's not always going to be shouted from the rooftops, only because we also want to make sure that we are, you know, managing capacity.

Um and so it's it's uh it's a little bit of a balance there.

Um we don't want every single comment from the public to go through C click fixed because we also welcome phone calls and in-person appointments uh for some for things that maybe are more relevant to that that medium.

Um but anyway, so yes, it's on the website, it's shared pri by departments, especially if they use it widely.

Um, like I said, when I get a sidewalk call or parking enforcement call, um, or tree, something like that, uh, we always will direct them to C click fix.

So it really depends also on how the department uses it, um, and if they rely on it in the same way that public works does.

So when you say you encourage walk-ins and phone calls, so if somebody calls in to complain about the sidewalk, are you taking that complaint, or are you then directing them to C click fix?

Yes, so both.

Um, so it depends on the person.

So for me in particular, um, when I'm speaking or emailing with the person, I will ask them if they are comfortable using uh C click fix or if they'd rather I did a ticket on their behalf.

Um so it really depends on the nature of the call or the person who's who's um submitting the concern.

So it's a little bit of um, and and again, so just to clarify if I don't, for instance, create a C click fix request, or I don't have a member of the public do a C click fix request, it will still go through the same process of becoming an inspection in Lucidy and then being tracked through the work order process, it just misses out on that initial public facing C click fix comment.

Um so it doesn't change how it's addressed or the process of the actual work itself, but it it just removes that initial, you know, you need to tell us what what the concern is so that we can address it when they call or email.

I usually, you know, like I said, I give them the option to do C click fix, or I will consider that okay, you've informed me, so I'll take it from here.

Um so C click fix is basically if we were to sum it up, it's a digital way to just make sure that the city knows what's going on in the city, because we can't patrol all areas at once, so this way it really helps us to engage with the community to make sure that we're aware of what's going on and what the concerns are, especially if this is the best platform for them to use because it's easy, it's automated, you can upload photos, etc.

Um, but if emails or phone are still preferred, then typically that's fine too.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, a couple questions.

Yes.

Two questions.

Um, first of all, are these anonymous?

If I were to enter uh like say I could put about my neighbors landscaping overgrowing.

Yeah, so it's anonymous.

It's optional.

You can choose to be anonymous or not.

Okay.

If I choose to be anonymous, can my neighbor do an information public information request and find my name?

That's a great question.

I don't know the answer to that.

Okay, yeah, I don't know if there's any way if you choose to be anonymous that we because it it would create an automatic an automatic um like ID number or something that would not necessarily be traceable to you as a person.

Okay.

Um so I'm I'm not sure the answer to that.

I mean, I love my neighbors, so it's not an issue, but I think that could be, right?

Yeah.

Um, and then I'm still learning about the sidewalk program.

So is there uh a certain degree the sidewalks need to be off in order to be fixed?

Like, is there a definition for that?

Yes.

So if um sorry, I'm just taking a note on your first question.

If the uh thread or the crack between concrete squares, so in a typical concrete lay it's square to square, um, and there's the seam.

If that has an uplift of more than one and a half to two inches, then that requires typically a full remove and replace, or if there's cracks or uh broken chunks or holes within the square itself, that's remove and replace.

Typically, sometimes you can do patch smear if there's holes or very thin hairline cracks within a square.

If the seam between two squares is less than one and a half inches of an uplift, then that's called that's where we can go in and just do saw cutting, which is where maybe you've seen them around town, they just are grinding down the um the transition in between squares, so that evens out the transition um without having to do full remove and replace.

And then the sidewalk program, the city covers the cost of all saw cutting and grinding.

So we only are collaborating with property owners when there's more work that is required.

Okay.

And also tree roots as well, right?

The city covers that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you for clarification.

Sure.

Um as a submitter to see click fix, I've noticed that the difference between being anonymous and not, and or like entering my information is I don't get updates on what they've decided to do about it if I don't put my info in.

Just in case that's of interest.

Um, yeah, I guess like, are the anonymous ones you could trace it online?

Yeah, so there's still going to be updates and a thread that's posted to the request itself, but you're right, you wouldn't receive a notification or a ping that your request has been acknowledged or anything like that.

Yeah, so I just wanted to offer that personal experience of like a distinction, like whether you put your info in or not on the user side.

Yeah.

Um, first of all, thank you so much.

We have like been so curious.

This has been such a recurring uh like black box of like, is there some magic, you know, info in there?

So it's really fascinating to get this information, and of course, all it does is lead to more questions.

So bear with us.

Um, I have two really small ones or one really small one, like on slide six, there's an asterisk asterisk after trip, and I'm curious about that.

Sorry, what was that?

I said it's a wild card.

Yeah, right.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, tripping, tripped, oh I see, I see.

Like any permutation of that.

Yeah, got it.

Thank you.

I don't speak bullying.

Um, then on a more serious note, um, like curious, and I think the other questions have come up, and I just I'm gonna ask it again, and I apologize for the extent as redundant, but just curious like what other data analysis is happening from C click fix tickets or just having a view of it, and part of it is to alleviate the burden of having to come up with these like perfectly formulated inquiries and analysis.

It's like, you know, does the city or do other departments have some inquiries going to kind of capture a view of it or try to extrapolate trends, like which was always like the original push to like look at this data is like again to your comment earlier.

It's like we can't be everywhere proactively and like you know, engineering a program that we know is gonna preempt a complaint.

It's like we need things to bubble up and and understand them.

So I do you have a sense of whether other departments are I'm not using that correctly.

Like obviously the commission for people with disabilities, we have a particular focus, and I'm just wondering if uh there are other analyses happening with different focus or I'm not sure.

That's a great question.

Um I would be happy to ask and see what comes back.

Um, because I am curious how other departments use it outside of just acknowledging and then processing and resolving.

Um so yeah, I'll follow up.

And then kind of related to that and further to some questions that were happening earlier about, you know, if understanding that C click fix is more of an intake tool, and just kind of a front door, so to speak, on the, you know, for an easy engagement with the city government, you know, maybe consider having a kind of canned version of an entry where even if you don't route the person to entering something in C click fix and you just go and create the work order, and you just bypass the intake product process, like maybe it's worthwhile to have like a you know, a representation in there if that's gonna be where we're kind of tracking trends and problems.

Oh, you mean is that in C click fix?

Yeah, and it seems like you you are trying to explore that and seeing like, hey, do you want me to enter it for you?

Are you comfortable in doing it yourself?

But it sounded like there are scenarios where it gets bypassed altogether, and then I hate to say this, but bear with me, like we don't get the benefit of that data point, right?

Like it doesn't get counted, so to speak, if we're relying on this.

Yeah.

Um, so just something to consider.

Okay.

Um, and then another kind of data integrity or dig it data improvement opportunity.

Um with the not closed category, it might be nice to understand not closed because it's like please have, you know, wheelchair vans take me from point A to point B anytime I want to go, or like you know what I mean?

Like if it's just something that's just massive undertaking or you know, like reroute the crosswalks, or you know, if there are things that are just like it's such a big undertake.

I don't know, if there's some way you could kind of categorize those, like not closed.

Somewhat of an explanation.

Yeah, because we're trying to figure out where to route it.

We're trying to figure out if it's even something we can address.

If it's, you know, we think in process.

Yeah, it's in process, or it's like, you know, we're thinking about slating it into this project, but we can't commit to it yet because we have to go through all of our steps.

I again, I'm gonna give a personal anecdote.

Like I have like entered something about trees and it was immediately closed, and it was like we do that once every other year and don't worry about it, and I was just like, okay, like I guess that's not an example of something remaining open, but just I think it creates some uncertainty or some like concern if we just see things not closed and it's not not closed for like there can be such a variety of reasons, some alarming, some not.

So sure, sure.

Just a thought on structuring things.

Yeah, or just a categorization of like this is just like to a piece of something that's like a whole infrastructure revamp.

Like or it's like a historical obstacle, right?

Like it's something that like we need we can't figure out quite yet, like how to even deal with this, and we're like still debating it, or we can't figure out how to deal with this.

I don't know, just like a little bit more insight there might be helpful.

Yeah, definitely.

Um as I mentioned earlier, there could be a myriad of reasons why something is sitting open still, especially because just because it's uh the text, you know, came back with sidewalk, um might not mean that the request itself was delegated to the sidewalk repair program or to, you know, a maintenance thing.

It could have been related to something else entirely, like you said.

So that would take a lot of digging.

Um, but but I absolutely understand why it would help to just have more clarity around the context of that so that it's not just this can this glaring issue when maybe there's a story behind more.

But basically, I feel like could there be a drop-down menu on status where it's just like status, like still discussing whether it's in scope, still, you know, like trying to find a longer term, like a clearly a longer term project trying to find a home for it, like a longer term project, we know there's a home for it, but we need to get ratification.

Like, I don't know, like I just feel like there could be a little bit more, and maybe it's not even like at that level, and these are not closed for a different reason.

Right.

But I feel like it just creates a lot of um conspiracy theories or just like suspicion about, you know, it does this mean it's never gonna happen.

Sure, yeah.

And um, I believe that the primary statuses on C click fix are acknowledged uh or open, acknowledged and resolved.

So I'm not sure if there's like a lot of tiers within that um that could you know turn into a little bit more of a narrative for some of these that are acknowledged but the but now remain open.

Um so uh but I've I've made a note of that.

And maybe like again to like kind of find the sweet spot between wanting better tracking or just kind of like being able to hone in on the problem maybe it's like when something hits 30 days you know or like you whatever criteria it is just for those things that are aging that you're just like kind of a and it's a forcing function let's be honest but it's also not to create the administrative burden of like everything immediately needs to be like subcategorized like I don't think that would be worth necessarily the the the lift to do that but I think maybe as things linger you know both on the user experience you know the citizen experience side and to just kind of keep things chugging along.

Yeah for sure and again that's that's also department specific too like I said not every department interacts with C click fix the same way.

Yeah.

So some may have a consistent auditing process and some may make note of the requests that are cued to them but not necessarily have a consistent interaction process.

So I think that goes back to the standard standardization question um and just talking with other departments to see how they're using it and and ways that maybe they might want to um increase some of that interaction if that if that's the case you know if that's why that those things are happening so um but thank you.

Okay.

And then my last comment is more of like food for thought where this is fantastic like it's just it's fascinating it's very interesting.

I really appreciate how you put it together.

I can appreciate why you created your inquiries in the way you did and I think we can all acknowledge they're more on the physical built world side of things.

I'm just like want to plant a an idea of like hey like can we like does this inspire us to think hey we have a pretty robust slightly mature maturing way to have intake for feedback from city residents about how the physical barriers need attention and maybe like it gives us like an opportunity to focus on other areas like website or I don't know like other I'm always trying to remind myself like accessibility is a broad term and like you know like how do we make our community more open to people with disabilities and visitors with disabilities you know and like does like do we get to a point where we're like man C click fix is like really casting a wide net you know like we have a good representation there and like maybe we have like a a focus on or just like an exploration on other ways that we can work on that or like suss out issues.

Sure.

Um there are several categories within C click fix that might be you know you could almost pivot them to programmatic um especially within uh recreation and parks they have three different categories that aren't all necessarily related to maintenance or facilities.

I believe there's also just recreation um as one there is a website subcategory as well um which I included in the other miscellaneous ones because all of the ones that were in the website category actually were just miscategorized that requests that you know weren't necessarily related to the website itself.

Which I think shows that not I I completely see what you're saying that you know to cast a wider net of maybe all things but I think in reality at least at this stage of of community engagement there are other ways that people are interacting with the city to to express those things um and C click fix is primarily focused on and promoted as a physical built world um maintenance you know type request central um but I can absolutely see how it could be interesting to to you know make it more robust in that way um but yeah that would or just like I I don't mean to stay within the C click fix paradigm for that but just saying like us as a commission where we're trying to serve the city of Alameda and say you know, like all the ways that we want to make sure it's accessible and inclusive.

You know, maybe part of like the takeaway or learnings from this is like, hey, we have a pretty robust sensor network to understand, you know, and get feedback on the built world and physical barriers and like maybe we could have a focus, like, not related to C click fix at all, or just kind of an exploration or you know, figure out like it kind of like frees, I don't know potentially again, this is still just ideation, but like potentially frees as to say, like, hey, maybe we need to invite a speaker to talk about some other form of inclusivity or like you know, ensuring accessibility because this is pretty robust.

I don't know, like I don't know what the denominator would be and like whether this is like capturing as much as it should, and always like you could everything could be better, it could always be better.

But I'm fairly impressed by this, so okay.

I just feel like it gives us license to maybe explore like some broader things too.

So, add on to that, please.

Your your anecdote about the trees, right?

And it came back closed, you know, and it in your like we have a regular program, don't worry about it.

Right, but a lot of people with the disabilities are also dealing with anxiety and mental health issues as well, all kind of compound.

And if you get a response that could be maybe a bit of a door closing, you may not want to use the system anymore, but create bigger distress tissues with the city, right?

So maybe those issues that the city's in the city's point of view it's closed.

But for the from your point of view it's not, and it could just be an issue of a follow-up phone call to help kind of create the better trust with the citizens.

Well, and I think it does give you options to like if you're like if you if you don't love this answer, or you know, like or you said like people will reopen or recomment, but that's a great point.

Right.

Like, we shouldn't be complacent and just like, oh, they got their like issue lodged in the system, but like if it didn't resolve in a way that felt responsive or address it, and a lot of people might not have the comfort level to push beyond that.

Absolutely.

Right.

No, it's very fair.

Mm-hmm.

Um I have one more question.

Since how long have we had Quick?

The city.

Um, I'm not sure of the exact time frame.

I think it was rolled out in 22, maybe.

Something around that time.

It's not that old, right?

No, but it seems to be a good program.

Actually, maybe 2019.

Sorry.

2019.

Okay.

I'm thinking about older quests now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's obviously working.

Yes.

Yeah.

I have a few more questions.

And in part I want to echo a couple things that Chair Mullings, you just mentioned, well, you were mentioning, I guess.

Um, one, I think it's a good point about the missing data, um, because you were saying, like, you might have a phone call and you may or may not log it, or somebody may come in, or they may come into this meeting and tell us about something that's going on, and we don't necessarily then go to our app and then log it in for them.

Um, and that will be really interesting as you explore the different departments.

What are they doing?

What are their processes so that we can better understand what that gap might look like?

Um, I also like data points, so I would be really interested to know maybe what that gap is that we're missing.

And well, while we're focusing on C click fix, that's also okay, and we can accept that that gap does exist.

Um, and I think you also made a really interesting point, Chairman Lings, when you're speaking to the point of what is the trend data.

I'll just use all the the geeky words, but like what is the trend data that we're seeing, and when we actually can dig into some of these stories to find out whether we could anticipate actually some of the things programmatically, because if we're seeing trends in certain areas, we actually may be able to anticipate them, and I'm sure we do that in planning and in the sidewalk program, like we are probably doing those stories that maybe we're not necessarily telling all of Alameda.

We might not be uh broadcasting all of these things to say, hey, we've fixed um if I my math is correct, 76% of these requests in 2024.

That's not too bad.

Um, if I'm looking at something of an SLA.

So that would be really interesting.

I think to see what does that trend look like?

Are we addressing and starting to anticipate possible future needs or um if we're seeing like particular areas maybe that crop up?

I'm sure that departments do this and are analyzing it, but I'd be curious about it within our lens of what that looks like.

Um, I also thought of another data point that might be interesting, and you were speaking to this as well of maybe the length of aging of the not closed, because it's getting to that point of why aren't they closing those tickets?

And if we look at this again in 2025, are these tickets still there, right?

Like if we're looking at this, or I guess in the beginning of 2026, are these 396 still open or are they new tickets?

And I think that would be actually quite interesting to see that length of aging on those.

Okay, thank you.

This is super cool, really appreciate it.

Okay, one last thing.

I'm like, is there a story that could go in the newsletter too about like to your point about I don't know if it's necessarily proactive, but at least responsive, you know, understanding hey, you know, we want to make sure like the theme is keeping alameda accessible or you know, navigable, you know, making sure like sidewalks can be traversed if you're in a chair or you know, have mobility issues, things like that, like some of your sample requests.

Like not everything has to be like in the deficit zone.

So I don't want to spin things, you know, that's not my goal is like, oh, let's find a, you know, like a cherry pig thing, but I you know, again, like we were so curious about this data and to see it, it just like percolates a lot of ideas.

Yeah, for sure.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Anyway, oh, sorry.

Yeah, no, I would just wanted to make sure if we had any other questions or further comments.

I hope one additional question.

Um I was thinking about the search terms that you were using uh to pull out specific data, and um how I think appropriately because of the scope for C click fix, they focus on interactions with built environment.

Um I was wondering if there were any references or or any um requests that would reference like words like blind or um vision impaired or deaf or hard of hearing because those uh people with those kinds of disabilities do interact with the built environment and might be putting uh tickets into C click fix that might not be captured in other ways, or perhaps they would be captured, I'm not sure.

Great.

I'm making a note to add that.

And is there anything about service animals?

Sorry, about service animal service animal.

Oh, okay, I can check that too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

Comments?

Okay.

I did bring um a four-page snapshot.

If you guys are curious, all identifiers are hidden um in the columns with the text is still tiny.

So if anyone would like to glance through these, you can see how things were coded and just some of like just a sample set basically of the 12,000.

Um, this is four pages worth of the requests.

If you're just curious about how the public engages with them across multiple categories, these aren't just the ones that I use for tonight.

Um, so if there's no further questions, I'm gonna go back to my seats.

Thank you.

That was excellent.

All right.

Um, thank you.

That was the info item 2024 C click fix accessible accessibility-related requests.

Um this is just we can just go ahead and close it since it's an info item and move to the next agenda item, which is commission communications.

Anyone has something they'd like to share?

Yes, Commissioner Litt.

Hi, so this is kind of more of a question, and um, and I'm kind of wearing my my hat right now as a person living with Parkinson's.

Um, yesterday the New York Times published a really good article by Nicholas Christoff, um, looking at the impact of environmental toxins uh and the causation effects of Parkinson's, which is the fastest growing neurological condition right now in the world, um, and also leading to cancer and all kinds of other uh disabilities for people.

And I'm not sure has this commission ever looked at or asked our city in terms of what what kind of uh uh pesticides we're using in our park systems and our golf courses to keep Alameda looking good and kept up for people and and what those chemicals are and what kind of remediation we're dealing with to make sure they stay out of our environment and our in our water system and our food system.

So I'm not sure if we've ever addressed that before.

Not that I'm aware.

So I I would like to maybe ask if we could maybe request a report from probably parks department and maybe public works.

I don't know the golf commission, but like or yeah, I'm not sure that's part of parks or not, and just have a kind of a detailed assessment about what uh type of pesticides you're using.

And is it ever been a thoughtful analysis of those?

Okay, I've made a note to add that to a future agenda.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I don't know that that it's really been looked at, but that's a good point.

Because I I vaguely remember years back when the um the roundup lawsuits happened, it did come into conversation, but I can't tell you what the answer was for our city.

Yeah, okay.

But it was it was definitely discussed at one point by someone on the commission, yeah.

But I think that's a very good valid that you know question we should be asking our you know, for Park and Recs and uh the golf commission, and you know, what are they spraying out there?

Yeah, there's some data right now that shows people that live next to a golf course have a uh five times higher chance of developing Parkinson's disease.

Wow, yeah, it's the new data that shows that.

And the main culprit is paraquat right now, which is which is pretty much outlawed in most countries, but it's still legal here in the United States and in California.

It's a fairly common pesticide.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's a good topic.

Thank you.

Any other commissioner communications?

Yes, Commissioner Hall.

Um, I just want to bring up the um on October 15th, since 1964, it is the white cane day.

And um this is to um bring awareness to um it's a the white cane day is a symbol of independence for the blind community and um and the disabled community.

Um also um in 2011 um Obama signed it as it is also considered the blind Americans equality day.

Closer far away.

Okay, okay.

Um, so yeah, I just wanted to bring that up, and that we should maybe that should be included on our website and for because it's every year October 15th.

Okay, anything else?

Okay.

Okay, uh moving into staff communications, just a couple of things.

Um, your friendly reminder to um, if you'd like to send me a little snippet about your time on the commission or who you are.

I would love to feature it in the accessibility newsletter, um, so that we can just build awareness and knowledge within Alameda of who this commission is and what you guys do and why you're passionate, et cetera.

Um so I'll send out a friendly email as well to that effect.

And um on October 10th at 10 a.m.

I will be joining Morris McKay, who's a recreation manager from ARPD.

We will be opening the fundraising walk for helping hands East Bay, which is a local organization uh with a well-known and beloved adult day program that's pretty active in the community.

Um so we'll be there at it's at 10 a.m.

on October 10th.

If you'd like to register or join.

I brought a few flyers here.

Um if you'd like to grab one, you can.

And then my final thing was I wanted to follow up on last meeting.

When I did the transition plan update.

Uh, there was a question about the sidewalk map that I showed.

I don't know if you guys recall, but the question was why was so much work done in Bay Farm specifically?

And so I followed up with the public works director Aaron Smith just to ask for more clarity on that because that was before my time.

And so at that time, initially when the sidewalk, this was purely removing tripping hazards again through saw cutting and grinding, as we talked about with the uplift.

That at that stage it was done in zones.

So there I think Alameda was divided into five zones.

Bay Farm was zone one, and so it was completely done under that, where everything was done no matter what, and then um and then the work started to progress to the different zones, and then the transition plan was created, which brought in a different way of tackling the sidewalks, including remover place, collaborating with property owners, etc.

And so zone one Bay Farm was done under the cut no matter what protocol, and then all of the other zones were done, which all zones in Alameda have been done because based on the criteria of city trees caused the issue, or um the uplift was able to just be saw cut.

So again, Bay Farm Zone One was done under the no matter what protocol, and then all of the other zones have been addressed under the saw cutting city will cover, and other things are addressed under the transition plan and prioritized with property owners.

So I hope that clarifies the question because I wanted to um give a better answer for that one.

And other than that, that's it from me.

Are there any final comments?

Okay, thank you, commissioners.

We will go ahead and adjourn this meeting.

Thank you.