Off the meeting.

So good evening, everyone.

I'm representative Tom Bouchard from District One.

And I'm the chair of the public safety and health committee for the Stanford Board of Representatives.

So I'd like to now call the meeting to order.

This is the 32nd Board of Representatives, Public Safety and Health Committee call the meeting to order at 6:32 on the 28th of May 2006.

Thank you all for taking the time to attend.

Our board members, and of course, our invited guests.

So I'm just going to take a quick roll of the committee members who are in attendance.

I do see Terry Adams on board.

Thank you.

David Blank, Matt Dilo, Michael Field, did you join?

Not yet.

Chandra Graham, I see is on, and Kendra Walson is on.

I did get two who coordinated that they would not be able to attend, and that was uh Carl Gilbride and Eric Morrison.

Um so again, thank you for joining us.

And of course, any uh exficio members who are members of the boards but not members of the committee.

Thank you for joining us also.

Um so at this time I'd like to introduce uh the single item on our agenda, and that is item number one, PS32.007.

It is an overview of the Stanford uh restaurant inspection and rating system uh in the public notification process, and that was submitted by myself uh Chair Bouchard.

Um joining us to discuss this.

Uh of course is our invited guests, uh Miss Jody Bushop Pullen, who is the uh director of health and human services for the Stanford, um the city of Stanford, and then members of her team who are joining us.

Um I see that uh Raquel Early is on.

Um, and then we also invited uh Imbrell Job.

I don't know if she's gonna be joining us later, um, but of course um it's nice to have you on board.

Um so I'd I'd like to entertain a motion to um take up item number one.

So can I get a second?

Second.

So smooth and so seconded uh at this time.

I'd really appreciate the opportunity to pass it over to Ms.

Jody Bishop Pullen uh to discuss the item on the agenda.

And again, is an overview of the Stanford restaurant inspection and rating system uh in the public notification process.

Thank you very much for your time in joining us this evening.

Thank you, representatives chair.

Um so uh uh director of environmental health and inspections in Brian Joe was unable to join tonight.

Um if we have something really urgent we need to discuss or that he can answer, I will try to get him on, but otherwise we can get back to you with anything that we he would need.

He's the only one that could answer.

Um, and we have Raquel Early, who is the um administrative supervisor and really does a lot of the systems work.

She oversees all our our systems, um, our software, uh, which we have many because of our many programs, and um the one that involves licensing and permitting also has inspections included in.

Uh she has done a lot of work over the years with that since implementation of a new um online system in 2020.

Um so I just want to say that this is a great opportunity because I know that there's a lot of interest in this subject.

The administration, mayor's office is very um concerned about making sure that this information is available to the public, and um we we are working diligently to get that done, but we have um some barriers really to still address.

Um the uh food establishment inspections.

We have uh about 900 of them in the city.

Um, and this involves not only restaurants that you go and eat at, but all the takeout places, all the um uh, you know, just coffee shops, um, and you know, every uh McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, you know, all kinds of establishments, including retail establishments, a little bodegas, um, the uh food stores like ShopRite, Whole Foods, all of those.

When the Whole Foods opened, um, that had to be done under our purview in order to make sure that uh they had, you know, their plans were correct and all of their procedures were uh the way they uh had to be.

Um so overall we have had um system barriers that have prevented the um inspections from being uh easily transferred to public venue.

Um and uh while we worked really hard with the vendor, uh current vendor to have that happen, it didn't, and they weren't able to do it.

Uh we were hopeful with the new system coming in that it would be able to do that, but that system is still in the implementation process, and uh we you know we we don't know.

We hope for an integrated system, but you know, until then we've had to do some workarounds.

Um uh supervisor early uh would have to you know hand upload every inspection, um, and that is more time intensive than we originally anticipated.

So uh she can speak more to that uh later on, I think.

What the other thing that happened uh in addition to the systems differences is that the um the uh state adopted, we work under the State Department of Public Health, they certify all our food inspectors and uh oversee how we run food inspections.

Um they uh adopted the FDA food code.

Um, and while they had talked about it for a while and were preparing environmental health teams to implement it by with some training and uh other resources, they pretty suddenly um adopted it and uh we were um we we had to implement it pretty quickly.

Uh and to that end, um, you know, we had to wait for them to approve all of our processes.

So that's really the overview of why it hasn't been what it was previously, and I know that's frustrating to um the public, but um, you know, we do want to say that we we do appreciate that and are working to correct.

Um thank you very much, uh, Ms.

Bishop Pullin.

Um do you want to drive on or should we open it up for questions?

Um, you know, I I certainly you know would appreciate I won't put it for questions at this point.

Um so you noted a number of of issues associated with kind of getting the back up and running.

So what is your plan moving forward um as far as getting the systems uh getting the folks trained, getting them back out there and kind of pushing forward to to kind of meet the expectations of the residents of the city?

Right.

Well, we do have um nine, nine or seven, seven of our food inspectors, the seven of our inspectors are food certified.

We are in the process of training two additional ones.

So again, they have to be uh certified to be able to to perform food inspections, and that is a state process overseen by the state, and that's rather lengthy.

So whenever we hire a new inspector who is not already food certified, um, then we have to spend quite a bit of time, couple of years training them and getting them up to R on that.

Um, and in order for the state to certify them.

So that the that's one thing.

The inspectors are uh able to do the inspections um online as long as they have a connection to their, you know, um to it to the internet when they're out in the field, um, and Raquel's been working hard to make sure they have all those things um available to them.

They have to make sure that they're able to uh work with the um the manager or owner who's on site at the time of the inspection to make sure they have that signed, which um was another uh workaround we had to do to make sure that there's a signed inspection.

Um and so the training part is you know isn't so much, it's more the time and you know, staff time that it would take to uh make those inspections public once they're in our system.

Now they are available and we can pull them if people request them or if we need them, um, so it's not like people can't get them, it's just not as easy as going, you know, searching something and having it come up.

I'll monopolize the question for one more.

Is there a um requirement for the um establishment to post the inspection for a period of time like they do in New York?

No.

Okay.

Um that might be something we want to consider as far as um, you know, something for us to to potentially look at.

Uh is I'm not aware of anything that they are required to to do that, okay.

It is, but it is probably.

I've never seen them posted uh in any place that I visited within uh within the city.

Um I do see a couple of hands up, so I'll uh go directly to to David, please.

Representative blank, excuse me.

Which you're still on mute, yeah.

Not anymore.

Sorry about that, Tom.

Um, I have a couple of uh questions for uh Ms.

Poland.

Um Bishop Poland, my apologies.

Um so I'm hearing maybe for the first time, I'm not I wasn't keeping track that there were issues within the um establishment inspection food inspection uh department within the city.

Um but it has nothing to do with the actual inspections but the record keeping thereof.

Am I correct on that one?

Well, the records all exist, the inspections are being done and the records exist.

It was just the ability from the open government cloud system where they live to get that pushed out publicly.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate that.

So for all that's a purposes, the job is still being done.

It's just that if somebody wanted information on a specific restaurant or food establishment of any kind, they would have to go directly to you.

Correct.

To the department.

Um that's due to software incompatibility.

Am I hearing that correctly?

Yeah, Raquel, maybe you can explain it a little bit better, having being so familiar with the system and worked with the vendor for so long.

Um thank you.

Uh so our previous system that we um are all accustomed to seeing with uh the ratings and the chef hats.

Um that system was developed internally with our um city department, our city IT department.

So it allowed us more control and functionality over how we wanted to push out information of our inspections.

Um, when we outsource that information to a vendor, which we're currently using, which is VPC Viewpoint Cloud, um, the compatibility to your point, um, there are some challenges and limitations.

It's not impossible for us to pull that information out.

Um, we are working uh for workarounds to um ensure that we are uh moving towards a more transparent uh strategy for um showing our inspections where you don't have to uh request a freedom of information request to the department in order to get those um results.

Um, but going forward to the new platform that we are still implementing and developing, we are requiring that the that the vendor um give us live demonstrations on how this can be achievable without the manual um manpower in order to do those things.

Um so obviously the timeline is not ideal, and it is a little frustrating.

Um, but the goal and the the efforts to kind of mitigate our current situation is is consistent.

And I want to point out that it's not just a health department system.

This is a city system that integrates with other with all the licensing and permitting.

Okay that is done.

So it's not the health department decided to do this or anything.

It was sort of an overall um system, which you know makes sense, but I get it, okay.

So the city did something and then didn't catch up with everybody else, basically.

And the compatibility was the major issue.

Yeah, I mean, the city when they decided on the system that it was a system for licensing and permitting that would incorporate all the departments that are involved in licensing and permitting.

Okay.

Yeah.

Uh thank you.

Um the other thing is um we discussed the time, uh Cal was nice enough to discuss almost the timeline.

Uh and what are we looking at for implementation?

I mean, are we looking at six months?

We looking at a year.

What are we looking at?

That timeline hasn't been um disclosed to us.

I know that we're actively working on it.

Um, they have some re-engagement um meetings that's on my calendar for um us to work directly with the future vendor to uh ensure that we're moving in a positive direction.

Um, but currently I have a seasonal staff member dedicated to manually pull out that information, um that uh information is currently being worked on and I foresee some type of inspection um being publicly uh interfaced by I want to say mid-summer.

So I'm looking at like July for some type of inspections to be shown on our um department website.

Um, that's good as any place as any.

And and that's not a bad timeline.

Um so I appreciate that.

Uh if there's anything the board can do, you know, we are here to help, um, as well as be part of what you need.

So feel free to reach out if we need to do something or facilitate some way.

Uh I don't believe I have any other questions at this time, so I yield the floor.

You're muted, Tom.

Sorry.

So um, I'm gonna go to committee members.

So representative Walstron, um, she has her hands up.

Okay, um representative blanks, he answered one of my questions as to when this new platform would go live.

And with that, uh Director Pullin, she said that the other, this this link was other licensing and other permitting for other departments.

Are they experiencing the same thing that you're going through?

That's one question.

Director Pullen.

Well, I I mean, I don't know that they had the same requirement that or the same um process previously where something was taken and put public, like an inspection was being transferred out to the public.

So I think that's the challenge we're having.

Whereas the the workflow and the licensing and permitting goes through the different departments, um, but this inspection process is a little bit uh, I guess would be different than maybe some of the other departments would be requiring.

Okay.

When did when did this all start it happening?

That they weren't public.

When the system changed over.

And how long ago was that, please?

In 2020.

Okay, so non-public since 2020.

And so since 2020, we've been trying to rectify this problem.

There was a lot of transition into this new system, yes.

Okay, so we're now in 2026.

I'm just doing this for the records, but so the dates, whoever is um listening.

And okay, I think that's it.

And you said that this is kind of my last question.

If I wanted to know about a restaurant, I would have to call your office to get it manually.

That's what I think you said.

Right.

We would have to pull it out of the system to be able to send.

Okay.

Now, is there anything on your website to communicate that to the public that we would have to call your office or they'll click on something, then go to your office.

Do we have the I can I can answer that question?

So right now we have a freedom of information act um form that's on our website.

Uh if you go on the city's uh, well, the department, the health and human services department website, you can actually um fill out the Freedom of Information Act form.

It's an electronic form, and then you can request the inspections from whatever timeline, whatever area for whatever restaurant you would like.

And then um within three to five days, you should get a response saying that someone is processing and working on your request um to fulfill whatever you uh are looking for.

Okay, so that's the process now.

So once it goes live on the new platform, what would be the difference?

Well, the difference would be that you wouldn't have you would no longer have to request to see food inspections.

There is a food inspection tab that is under construction that's actually live on our web page, and you'll be able to fully see the inspection results on your own.

So you can click whatever restaurant and whatever location that you're looking for, and then you will see the actual inspection as far as the last inspection, what the inspection results for were and what was the inspector's comments.

That's right there, right there.

Okay, I know that we have a lot of restaurants that's open, but this has been a problem since 2020, and I'm just surprised that you know hasn't been corrected since then because we're like 2026 now, but that's not towards you, but I'm just talking out loud.

And I yield the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Alstom.

Um, Representative Adams.

Yes.

Um, I guess the question to you is um when a wrestler is inspected, isn't there a rating certificate that is posted on the wall?

You know, was it got a rated A, B, or C?

Yeah.

No, um, no, and in fact, with this, and and that was the ability to be done, and uh Stanford was using Chef hats um to do that rating.

Um, they uh it was it was something that was this like Raquel had explained, it was a system that was developed um internally, but then that was the way the inspection process was and there was it it came with that you know kind of system.

That's how food inspections were done.

Now the FDA food code that the state has adopted no longer has that kind of a system.

The inspection form is much different, and it's not a rating system.

It's uh past fail, there's certain things that are um higher priority than other things.

Um it doesn't lend itself to that.

Okay, so so we so you won't see a rating system when it does go live, it will be just the inspection, but there is a summary sheet that has the most important information on it that tells you um if there were violations, what the violations were, and you know, what if they were, you know, some of the violations are more serious than others.

Say uh food being out of temperature is more serious than having uh maybe having a dented can.

Okay, okay.

Okay, uh yeah, I mean, I I wish they would somehow incorporate that rating system.

You know, people like um I'm um eating at a A-rated restaurant or B or C or Double C, then people choose to go based on the rate rating.

Um, you know, does that mean uh A would have one one percent failure?

It's B would be like four or five and and down the line.

It would be great if they could uh implement something like that.

That way you can it's almost like going to a hotel, you know, it's double is it's an A or double A or triple A rating and people choose to stay based on the rating of the hotel.

Uh it would be nice if if they could implement something like that.

That way I don't have to look at the whole inspection.

I just want to know the people that wash the store did the inspection and they rate just to be good because the fear was less than five, less than 10, less less than 15, would indicate what rating they get, but uh just a thought.

But thank you and I yield the floor.

Thank you, Representative Adams.

Um I'll go to Representative Stone.

Thank you for your patience.

Stone.

Representative Stone.

Might have frozen on us, unfortunately.

Um I will take the opportunity to ask.

Oh, I do see uh representative blank.

Um go ahead.

What about field?

You don't have your hand up.

It's up, but it's a different color.

I don't know why.

Oh, I see it now.

Um, I don't know why it's not bright yellow.

I'm like technically challenged, I guess.

I didn't know that.

It was it was it was up.

I saw it.

I see it.

I'm sorry.

All right, so apologize.

It's getting a little out of hand.

So I will go to Representative Field, please.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, so actually I was gonna begin with the same questions as Terry.

I I used to live in Los Angeles, and I remember it was the best thing in the world.

Every restaurant had a big letter in there A B C D.

And it communicated with customers immediately.

You knew like I'm just getting a sandwich, a B's fine, I don't know mine.

My friends and I, we were really cheap, and we thought the place was great, and it was a C.

I was like, don't tell me why you got a C.

I like the food and your Jeep.

I'm gonna go there twice a week, right?

But it's just simple, straightforward, it's very engaging and simple to understand.

I question, you know, A, why aren't we doing that?

And B, who's really gonna look up on a website and read an inspection report before they go to a restaurant.

This isn't constituent friendly, and and it almost seems like we're trying to hide something where the letter system when you walk right in, it's transparent and honest.

Is there any way we could get to that?

I could not, I mean, that would not be something I could do because I wouldn't have authority over that kind of situation to decide based on the FDA food code who gets an A, B or C.

I could do that.

I mean, we could, you know, you could uh query the state, the food protection program, um, to get more information about that.

And if they've considered taking that inspection and creating some kind of um of rating system from it, but I it my understanding about the the this is inspection process is not to do that, it's more of a making sure that violations are corrected and corrected as soon as possible.

Right.

And so I don't I don't know, you know.

I mean, it would not be within my authority to do that, nor would I be able to take on that kind of like, you know, kind of uh I don't know what um what basis I would make that that decision.

Maybe we can do I'll do some research or something and see how Los Angeles does it.

I mean, New York City does it.

Right.

And and they may not be using that, and that may be a it maybe that they aren't you, I don't know.

I only know what Connecticut has directed us to do.

Yeah, so it it you know, I'll interject, so it seems like it's more of a state issue versus a city issue, um, but it kind of begs the question of whether or not there could be some sort of overlay that we could uh implement, um, but it does require a little more research.

So um, but with that, um I lost track of who had their hand up sooner.

Um, representative Stone.

Um, I'm sorry, thank you, Jody.

Uh thank you.

Um, so a question that I had, I know uh director you and I spoke a couple months ago about this, and I appreciate the info you had given me at that time.

I understand the shift to the FDA model, uh the food code model and the challenges of you are collecting the reports, but you said that it's too time consuming to be able to have the information um sort of posted in terms of say PDFs or scanned in a publicly available way.

Uh, given the way that the FDA food code is where it breaks out priority items versus uh foundational items and the prior items.

If I understand the code correctly, requires remediation in like 72 hours or so.

Isn't it possible for those particular restaurants that are having violations that are triggering priority items to have that be posted on the public website?

I know the information you know goes out to the media.

Um, I know the advocate often posts about what restaurants are having critical issues, but even if we just limit the scope of it to have something not as a punitive way, but just to inform diners, because no one's going to go file a FOIA request when they're trying to decide where they want to go out to eat over the weekend.

But if they could at least see which restaurants are in violation and have outstanding priority items and have that subset be posted on your website, I think that'd be a very good interim step until we're able to get the integration aware.

Um, as Miss Early was saying, hopefully later this summer we have the ability to do online searches.

But is that an interim step that is feasible?

Uh I I mean it would take a search of um of the inspections to find those um and pull them out specifically.

I think uh well if something is what what Raquel is trying to do is to just get them all out.

But if there's some mechanism that currently exists, and when something is filed, I would think that there'd be some sort of automatic trigger saying restaurant X has priority items.

Wouldn't that serve as a sufficient flag to be able to then have that particular report hold and available on the website?

If the advocate's able to get on a monthly basis that sort of list, it seems like there's some sort of way when it is filed that it could be flagged and then posted on the department's website.

They yeah, they they do request the the every month they've been requesting the uh inspections, so we're pulling those inspections.

When a new inspection happens, if if a restaurant has a priority of violation and they have to get a fixed within 72 hours, isn't there some way that that could then trigger that report that inspection being posted online so people know that there is a current issue with that restaurant, so that then makes it a much smaller subset of restaurants that you're having to go through and post, but it's a lot more time sensitive to the diamond community.

Okay.

Well, let's see if Raquel can speak to that.

She sees them as they come through.

And then the inspectors obviously know when they have to do an re-inspection.

Thank you.

Um, I think that that goes back to um the original point of trying to figure out the compatibility between systems.

Um, because we have the vendor and the vendor has uh a software that sometimes isn't compatible with how we're pushing things on the website.

Um it does create a barrier.

Um, I can work with the IT department um to see if there's some type of um mechanism or workaround in order to see if we can flag those things at this time.

There is none.

Um you would just have to get the full inspection report.

Um, but I can see, and then we can bring that back.

I understand that viewpoint cloud can't do that right now, but if there's some sort of flag, couldn't the report just be scanned into a PDF for those particular restaurants that have priority cloud violations and have those PDFs be posted on the department website as a way of informing the public?

There's no flags without someone manually doing it currently right now.

So when um the advocate is asking for priority foundations, there is an inspector or a staff member that's going through each inspection that has occurred over the time span that the advocate is looking for and they're picking them out manually.

So what we're trying to do, and and our goal is to figure out um how to automate that, which would in turn post it immediately and also minimize the manpower that it would take to get that information to the public.

I understand the manpower issue, but I guess my one suggestion is if there is a way when the inspectors are going through the process, they identify the priority code violations.

If there's some sort of way of flagging that, so those particular restaurants could then be prioritized to have that information posted on the website.

I think that would be a good service to the community.

But um, I understand that viewpoint cloud can't do that automatically.

I'm just asking, is it possible to investigate some sort of manual way of flagging it?

Since as new inspections happen, the inspector is obviously noting which ones have those priority code violations, and therefore that could be uh coded.

So something for you guys to think about on the monopoly conversation.

We'll look into that.

Thank you, and I yield.

Yep, thank you.

Okay, thank you, Representative.

Thank you, Representative Stone.

Um, I'll go back to uh Representative Alston.

Chair, please.

You haven't spoken yet?

I'll I can wait.

I know you have a question.

I can wait because I've already been.

No, it's that's fine.

I had I've been kind of interjecting my questions as I go along.

Okay, okay.

The benefit of being chair.

Okay.

Um my question is how many restaurants do we have in Stanford?

Rachel, do you have the phone number?

Um, Ibrahima is on director of environmental inspection, so he can answer that.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

This is Ibrahima here.

So for for the uh restaurants, yeah, it's about almost 900 restaurants.

And that's exclusive stores.

Okay, so 900 restaurants, and how many do you guys inspect the food trucks also?

Yes, we do inspect the food trucks as well.

Yes, okay.

How many food trucks do we have registered with the city of Stanford?

I don't currently have that number off the top of my head.

Uh, Raquel, do you know the number by any chance?

Roughly the last time that I ran the report, which was about six months ago.

We had a total of 135, roughly.

And I know new ones came on board recently, maybe two or three.

And we also have pushcards as well.

Okay, and um, we have I think is it nine or ten um inspectors?

We have about 12 inspectors total, but it's only eight inspectors uh who are certified to do food inspections at this time.

Eight certified.

Okay.

And how many inspections are done?

Do you uh do inspections like Monday through Friday?

Yes, we do inspections Monday through Friday.

It does depends on the workload for each inspector because obviously we have about 16 programs within the health department, so it depends on you know the time that they have available to do food inspections.

We prioritize the food inspections, but we also have the housing issues, we have the environmental health complaints that come in.

Okay.

So it depends on what in a particular week.

And on the weekends with their special events and food trucks and such, then we go out on the weekends.

Yes.

Okay.

Um do you inspect like the service stations who are selling like the hot dogs and all of that?

Do you go there to the gas stations?

Yes, we do the gas stations that have food, those are all classified as class uh tools.

We inspect them as well.

So there's one of them have hot food, yes.

Okay.

So we have 900 restaurants and uh and I see you.

I forgot about you guys do all those other inspections.

So what um to Jody, to that director Jody, what how many inspectors do you think that the city of Stanford should have?

We can always use more.

It as I said, it does take time to get them food certified, and that's been part of the challenge as well.

When you if we lose a food certified inspector, then you know it takes time to replace them.

There aren't a lot that of uh those candidates out there that are already certified in the all the things that inspectors need to be certified.

What I'm expecting from like the uh department of health in Stanford, I know the summertime is coming, and I know we have a lot, a lot of food trucks popping up, and I don't know.

Sometimes I'm concerned about the cleanliness, and that's why I'm trying to figure out how many do we have, and I see you guys got a plethora of other things to do.

So uh when does it become laser focused on the food trucks?

Because the summertime is coming and they're out there from day to night.

And I'm like, how clean can they, you know, if they're sitting in one location from I'll say, like 10 o'clock in the morning to like 10 o'clock at night, how clean can they be?

I I'm concerned because we don't have enough food inspectors.

We just don't.

And I'm just concerned about these food trucks.

And I see I see them, you know, what they do.

You know, I know they don't have bathrooms and all of that, and you know, you can't tell if they go to the bathroom, wash their hands wherever they go, you know.

So I'm very, very concerned about the food trucks and a lot of the legal carts that are out there too.

And I yield the floor.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you very much, uh, Representative Alston.

I think we all share your concern.

Um, yeah, that's kind of frightful actually when you think about them being out there for extended periods of time in the hot sun.

Um, I will go to co-chair Adams.

Thank you.

Yeah, uh, just to suggest in Tom, maybe uh that's a resolution we could do about X and the state to include the rating system like it was before and and let them take a charge of um uh creating a system and let the local cities um engage in it or use it.

But that might be a resolution that we can request the state of Connecticut to uh put back the rating system, make it easy for um the 169 um different towns that we have.

Just to suggest, are you looking for?

No, I appreciate that.

Thank you, uh Representative Adams.

Um that is also something that popped into my mind.

It seems kind of strange that the state has not taken that on board.

Can I suggest that maybe um uh director job speak to a little bit about the differences since the FDA food code was adopted?

Because he's probably the most well versed in um in food certification and food inspection.

Absolutely.

Uh you don't mind.

Yeah, no, thank you.

Uh um I can't, I'm sorry.

Is he Brima?

Prima job, please.

I just want to say that I mean, it I think it's gonna be very challenging to uh to have uh pass or fail grade with the FDA code based on the fact that it doesn't allow us to do that.

Obviously, it's looking just for compliance and it's looking for priority violations and uh coal violations and for foundation.

So the challenge will be: how do you make somebody pass or fail when the FDA quote requires you to fix things on site?

So if they can correct the violation, then there's no failure.

But if you have to go back, even if you have to go back like 72 hours or a month later or two months later, it's still not considered a failure.

It's just out of compliance, and then they have to comply and then you go back and inspect.

So that was very easy with the public health code to give a pass or fail grid because the public health code requires that any time that there is a like a priority violation, it's an automatic failure.

So let's say they have a temperature violation.

If they have a temperature violation, everything else looks good, but they have one temperature violation, then that establishment fails that inspection.

So then you can have a pass fail inspection.

But with this one, even if they have a temperature violation with the FDA code, there's no pass or fail, you just have them to correct it on site.

So I think that would be a challenge to uh to have a pass or fail grid if we have to continue using the FDA code.

No, I I appreciate that color, but uh, you know, I think it kind of begs the question is how are the other large states like California and New York establishing a rating system?

Is it um, I mean, I'm just kind of off the top of my head.

Is it a situation where you have um you know repeated violations or repeated code um, you know, such that you know they do make the recommendation or they do, you know, if it's out of compliance, they make the fix, but you go back in the next and it's another item and another item and another item, and so they have a over a period of time that they have a number of failures um to rectify issues that you know that that might be again off the top of my head generate a situation where you would not have an A rating, you would have a B rating.

Um again, just off the top of my head, but I think it re it kind of begs a question of looking a little bit deeper into how other entities uh in you know state and and local governments uh establish those types of um uh you know rating systems.

Um and I will yield and I'll turn it back over to Representative Blank, please.

Thank you, uh Chairman uh chair.

Um I apologize if I'm being redundant on everybody else's time and uh actually uh I'm I understand that we're we're following a federal guideline mandated through the state, um, but it appears that it serves one way, um, and we as representatives of this of the constituents of the city need to look at that and say it doesn't work, because we're and I I apologize to the whole department, uh and I want to I want to let you know right now that I know this is you you guys are between a rock and a hard place.

You're being told by the state, which is being told by the Fed that you guys gotta follow what we wrote, blah, blah, blah.

And I I think it's going to take some work by this by this team uh within our own committee and then within with the board to provide the constituents uh better um method to know if our restaurants are good or not, um, or healthy, uh safe uh or not.

Um I get it.

I understand, I understand the manpower issue.

I live it every day where I work, um, but I I on the flip side, I do not um think that this is providing the proper uh the proper uh information and and and timeliness.

And again, I am not blaming the department.

I I apologize if it sounds like I am, I am not.

Um I feel bad for the department.

I feel that you guys are being put in a bad place, and between that and your software problem, um, which the city didn't help um by changing things, it it's still I think I think we need to as it as a a group as a as a as a committee to look at this and try to come up with something that will give our constituents the entire city a better feel of how our restaurants uh are perform our food sources are performing.

Um I greatly appreciate your time and i do appreciate where you guys are coming from so uh i want you to know that it's not you i'm addressing but more the committee and i appreciate that thank you thank you representative blank yep no uh your your comments are well taken and i appreciate that and i'll uh go to representative walston if you have your hand up representative walston i never took it down okay so i will go uh one last time on questions i i you know i again most of the questions that everybody presented were ones that i um you know that were similar to mine um if there are any questions i really do appreciate um you know miss jody uh bishop pollen and your time uh understand you know some of the issues you're facing that obviously representative blank previously discussed uh and then thank you very much um uh miss early uh and mr job for joining us um you know we will we've got a little work to do as a as a committee to kind of look at the issue and um we'll certainly circle back with you um in and you know we look forward to kind of tracking the progress uh you know this summer to to get some of those ratings online um and you know those are efforts that are are certainly our constituents and appreciate um but again i think that there's uh some some things that we need to evaluate and understand a little bit better as far as um you know being able to provide you know maybe some guidance and resources uh going forward uh so with that uh i will entertain a motion um to adjourn the meeting motion to a zero motion to a zero second thank you very much everyone and so i will conclude uh this meeting of the thank you public safety and health committee of the standford board of representatives at 7 19 thank you all very much for attending and and thank you all for uh for sharing your insights and uh and and uh and information thank you thank you thank you for me and thank you good night good night