Registrar Holds Mock Election to Prepare for Real Thing

Registrar of Voter employees take part in mock election.

The holidays are crazy enough but add preparing for a March election and the Registrar of Voters is beyond busy. Among other preparations, the ROV even conducted a mock election last week.

Holding elections isn’t anything new but the next one on March 3 will see a new voting system, new accessible ballot marking devices and satellite locations.

The mock election gets the learning curve out of the way. ROV employees spent several days running through scenarios they’ll face in the presidential primary. They practiced how to use the new ballot devices with pretend voters, who were also staffers. They experienced the process from both sides to be fully prepared for Election Day.

If you’re one of the many employees who volunteer at the polls, you’ll see a new ballot marking device set aside for voters with disabilities. A volunteer will insert a card to bring up the ballot for that poll and from there, the touch screen allows the voter to make their choices, review them, print the ballot, put it inside a secrecy folder or envelope and take it to the ballot box.

The ballot marking devices also provide more flexibility. Because they offer all of the ballot variations, including the different ballot types, political parties and required languages, everyone who votes at the Registrar of Voters and at the satellite locations will use the new devices.

Ever work as an election night warrior? 360 employees from various departments would work into the wee hours feeding ballots one by one into machines to tally the vote.

Large ballot counting machine can count 500 ballots in three minutes.

“Now only 168 employees will be required in the warehouse to count ballots. These new ballot counting machines can count a stack of 500 17-inch ballots in seven minutes,” said Departmental Operations Chief Andrew McDonald. “Larger machines housed in an interior office can count 500 17-inch ballots in three minutes. This used to take a human 40 minutes to scan the same box by hand.”

This doesn’t mean that the Registrar of Voters won’t need hundreds of seasonal election workers for the election. Far from the case. They need over 1,000 seasonal workers to help them conduct the election and they are recruiting. If you have family or friends who are looking for a seasonal gig, refer them to the Registrar of Voters.

Exciting changes for the ROV but the clock is still ticking: less than 100 days and counting. The ROV is working hard to get ready, and voters need to as well. 

“Presidential primaries can be perplexing because political parties decide who can vote on their presidential candidates. This dynamic only happens every four years, so it is crucial for everyone to understand that their choices may be limited unless they act now,” said Registrar of Voters Michael Vu. “Several political parties are opening up their presidential candidates to nonpartisan voters. Other than that, everyone else is limited to the political party they are registered with unless they re-register.”

Vu says voters need to learn the primary election rules, verify their registration and do it now. The ROV recently sent mailers to 1.8 million registered voters with that message.

You can help. If you want to vote for president, check your party status and see if you must make any changes. Sooner rather than later helps both you and the Registrar. And finally, spread the word!

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Fitting Fitness Into Your Daily Routine

Employees at the mills Building Participate in daily zumba dance breaks

Staying active can be hard, especially when work and family obligations fill up your schedule. But starting or keeping up a workout routine doesn’t have to be difficult.

Debbie Ordonez, Revenue & Budget Manager with the Financial & Support Services Division for the Health & Human Services Agency, turned her coffee breaks into dance breaks. Ordonez and a group of County employees at the Mills Building meet up in the building’s fitness center twice a day for 10-15 minutes of Zumba fitness.

“Doing Zumba during the breaks is a way to step away from work, exercise and dance to music,” said Ordonez. “People in the office develop friendships from participating and it’s a fun way to relieve stress and find balance in your life.”

Ordonez and several co-workers started with line dancing breaks about 10 years ago but eventually switched to Zumba since they enjoyed those routines more. The group liked the mini dance breaks so much that they worked with the County’s Employee Wellness Program to bring an hourlong Zumba class to the Mills Building. That class is led by a professional Zumba instructor and meets every Tuesday evening.

The County offers regular onsite workout classes at many of its locations. The Employee Wellness Program also gives you access to relaxation and meditation sessions and various other health resources. Best of all, these are free benefits for all permanent County employees.

But employees like Ordonez also go beyond the classes and start their own routines, inviting co-workers to join them.

Have you and your colleagues started a regular workout during breaks at your worksite to help you de-stress and stay active? Send us a picture and tell us what you do to stay in shape.

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County Staff Embrace Little Free Libraries

Jennifer Lawson’s Little Free Library in Rancho Penasquitos

Little Free Libraries have been popping up in neighborhoods all over the world in recent years. San Diego County has hundreds of them and chances are, you have one near where you live or work.

The neighborhood book exchanges first started ten years ago in Wisconsin and have since spread around the globe. The map on the Little Free Libraries registry lists more than 80,000 Little Free Libraries in 90+ countries around the world.

You might think that the community exchanges may be competition for traditional libraries. Not so, say San Diego County Library staff.

“These Little Free Libraries help traditional libraries by getting books and information in the hands of residents that can’t make it into the library as often as they want,” said Laura Zuckerman, branch manager of the Valley Center Library. “The little libraries promote literacy, strengthen neighborhoods and cultivate generosity.”

Valley Center has three Little Free Libraries that are officially recognized by the Little Free Libraries non-profit and branch staff drop off library calendars, bookmarks and free books to support the neighborhood book exchanges.

Laura Mendez’ Little Free Library in Normal Heights

Some San Diego County Library staff take their love of books even further. Laura Mendez, branch manager of the Lemon Grove Library, started her own Little Free Library in her Normal Heights neighborhood. Community members donated a few books to get the exchange started, and Mendez supplemented the collection with items she purchased from Friends of the Library book sales held at the County Library.

“I think it’s a great way to promote literacy,” said Mendez. “People in the neighborhood really seem to like my pop-up library, and many signed the guest book I attached to the box.”

Since property limitations did not allow her to install her book exchange permanently, she assembled a book-filled vintage suitcase. Unfortunately, her pop-up library recently disappeared, but Mendez is already working on building a bigger and better Little Free Library.

“The neighbors have really banded together to help me out and have offered to replace the box and table,” said Mendez. “I’m actually looking into partnering with a nearby park to see if we can build a permanent structure there.”

Liz Vagani’s Little Free Library in Allied Gardens

Mendez is not the only County employee who started her own Little Free Library. There are several other library staff who have installed book exchanges in their neighborhoods.

Do you visit or maintain a Little Free Library in your neighborhood? Send us a picture and include where it is.

Girl Scout Brownie Troop 1501, led by County employee Melissa Bartolome, used money from cookie sales to donate a Little Free Library to the Altamira community in Carlsbad

Shelly Tregembo's Little Free Library in Clairemont

A Little Free Library near Eyah Swambat’s home in Santee

Another Little Free Library in Eyah Swambat’s neighborhood in Santee

A Little Free Library in Monica Parks' neighborhood near Balboa Park

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DGS Electricians Wire Up Stand Down Event for Veterans

Mike Brass (left) with his team of DGS electricians

This weekend, hundreds of local homeless veterans will make their way to San Diego High School for a three-day intervention program that connects attendees to services and the community.

Known as Stand Down, a military term that refers to relaxing after a state of readiness, the annual event provides homeless veterans with an opportunity to take a break from life on the streets.

Organized by Veterans Village of San Diego, Stand Down brings in more than 150 service providers and 3,000 volunteers.

One County department plays an essential role in the event. The Department of General Services (DGS) provides temporary electrical power setup and removal services to the event site.

Senior Electrician Mike Brass is assisting with the event setup for the 20th time this year. Brass and his team of five DGS electricians coordinate with County inspection authorities and San Diego Gas & Electric to power up the event.

“When we get there on Monday morning, it’s an empty field,” said Brass. “Our team is basically in charge of wiring up the area so that the service providers can do their job once the event starts on Friday.”

Brass and his team kick off the setup efforts by laying out temporary service cables to wire a temporary kitchen, hair salon, as well as a health clinic and courtroom.

Around mid-morning on Monday, the Marine Corps starts setting up tents that are used as sleeping quarters for the veterans during the event. Once the tent city is established, Brass and his team wire up the event’s command center and set up the temporary lighting and electricity for the sleeping tents.

The DGS electricians are available throughout the week to finalize the setup and assist service providers with troubleshooting any potential issues. After the event concludes on Sunday, the team returns the next day to disassemble the electric setup.

It’s a job Brass really enjoys because it gets him away from his routine tasks at the workshop, but more importantly because he knows he is making a difference in people’s lives.

“Stand Down brings homeless veterans into a safe place, where they’re taken care of and I feel honored to participate in this event,” said Brass. “They watched over us and now it’s our time to look after them.”

While DGS helps with the set-up, several County departments provide services at Stand Down, including HHSA’s Office of Military & Veterans Affairs, Child Support Services, the Public Defender’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office.

For more information about Stand Down, visit http://www.vvsd.net/standdown.

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Air and Water: Meet Erin Carpenter, APCD's Skimboarding Inspector

Erin Carpenter will tell you she’s got a pretty cool job, working to protect the public and our local air quality as an inspector with the County Air Pollution Control District.

But Carpenter’s also had a pretty cool sideline—as a trailblazing, female, competitive skimboarder.

Carpenter, 32, has been with the County for about five years, working first as an inspector with the County’s Vector Control program, which monitors animals like mosquitoes, rodents and ticks that can transmit disease, and with APCD for the last year.

An air quality inspector 1, Carpenter works with APCD’s Mobile Source Program, which protects the public by monitoring and reducing diesel particulate pollution emitted by trucks, buses and heavy equipment.

Sometimes that means working with CHP to check trucks at weigh stations. Other times, she’s traveling to talk with business owners and conduct inspections, investigating air pollution complaints, issuing violations and citations, preparing enforcement reports and documents, and answering questions from the public.

“It’s interesting interacting with people,” she said, “and I feel like we’re making a difference.”

While she spends her days testing the air, Carpenter has spent years testing the water, standing atop a board, skimming over the incoming ocean into short-set waves and becoming one of the first female professional skimboard competitors.

Skimboarding is a little like surfing. But instead of paddling out into the ocean to ride the waves back in, you start by racing down the beach on foot toward the water, dropping your skimboard, jumping on and “skimming” on the incoming water into the waves. Beginners are happy to hydroplane along the shoreline. But the best skimboarders ride into waves, perform jumps and tricks and, like surfers, ride the breaks back in as far as possible.

“So, it’s fun to begin with,” Carpenter said,” because you’re like gliding on water—that’s pretty cool. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, I can, like—jump!’ And it’s even more fun. And then you catch a wave and you feel the power of it. You ask people who surf what they like about that. It’s kinda the same thing, just slightly different.”

Carpenter didn’t glide into skimboarding or her science-related occupations in a straight line, but from an angle.

She grew up in Berkeley, California, far from the skimboarding-friendly waters of Southern California. Instead, she was a street skateboarder who occasionally got to water ski and wakeboard when the family visited their lakehouse in Minnesota.

Likewise, Carpenter didn’t aim for science. She studied art. Carpenter earned a bachelor’s in art at UC Riverside, studying “drawing, photography, stuff like that.”

But college indirectly introduced her to both scientific work and skimboarding. To make money during the summer, Carpenter worked with the Northwest Mosquito and Vector Control District in Riverside. And a boyfriend introduced her to skimboarding, even making her first board out of wood.

Erin skimming big surf. (photo courtesy of Chris Beletsis)

“I was like, ‘awww, this is really cool,” she said.

After graduating in 2009, Carpenter moved from Riverside to San Diego to be closer to her grandmother—and the beach. Suddenly, she went from being able to skimboard “off and on,” to being able to do it every day, sometimes multiple times a day. And, even though skimboarding “is like 99 percent guys,” Carpenter said the locals took her under their wing, gave her advice and showed her techniques.

“So, I was kind of watching them, hanging out with them, practicing a lot, falling a lot and kinda picked it up,” she said.

Fast, too. By 2010, a friend encouraged Carpenter to start competing. At that time, Carpenter said, there was a small amateur girls division. However, in the ensuing years it “ramped up”  into a professional competition. Again, friends pushed her to move from amateur to the professional realm with the United Skim Tour (UST).

Carpenter modestly says she’s never won a first-place prize, but she has won a second, a third and fourth place in different tournaments, competed in Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Santa Cruz, and ranked as high as 5th overall in point standings in the UST’s women’s division in 2014. Erin also introduced her wife, Lorena, to the sport as well. Lorena now also competes in the UST.

Of course, the downside to physical competition is the inevitability of injuries—and not just getting dinged up by a flying skimboard, wiping out, or being pounded into the sand by the surf.

Last year, Carpenter had to have hip surgery.

“Yeah, I had hip surgery, at 31,” she said with a sardonic chuckle. “I just got back on the board like a month ago.”

Carpenter said right now she doesn’t know if she’ll ever compete again, but she’s pretty sure she’s going to continue to skimboard.

“It’s highly addictive,” Carpenter says with a big smile, her voice rising in a sonic ‘you know?’ “The only way I can describe it, is the better you get, the more fun it is.”

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National Pet Month: Share Photos and Smiles

Animals bring so much joy!

Celebrate National Pet Week with an overload of cuteness. See a gallery of County employees’ pets. (Please note that this page may take a few seconds to load.)

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Employee’s One Volunteer Outing Leads to Another

He had never volunteered before.

But in 2018, Juan Salgado, an administrative analyst at the County Psychiatric Hospital, decided to participate in the annual homeless count.

He chose the San Diego River, where count volunteers are guided by the San Diego River Park Foundation. While Salgado was counting homeless people in the area near Mission Gorge Road, he noticed the large amounts of garbage on the river banks.

Salgado learned the San Diego River Park Foundation oversees cleaning the river and decided he would volunteer his time and help to remove trash.

“Counting the homeless was such a positive experience, it inspired me to continue volunteering and pick up trash,” said Salgado, who’s been with the County for three years and has been in his current position for the past three months. “I saw the mountains of trash and thought, ‘This is terrible.’”

In 2018, Salgado volunteered one day each week, donating about 180 hours of his time to remove trash from the river. Every year, Foundation volunteers remove about 200,000 pounds of trash.

San Diego River before.

San Diego River After.

Salgado said it’s a common misconception that the trash and debris that end up in the river is dumped there by the homeless people that live in the river banks.

He said the trash in the river is the result of storm water and winds that blow trash into the river. Trash also comes from motorists and people who dump unwanted items into the river.

“We’ve seen places where people just leave their trash in the river. It’s carelessness about the river,” said Salgado, who recently was the guide for the Asian Pacific Alliance of County Employees and Emerging Workforce Association volunteers when they travelled the river banks documenting invasive plant species using a smartphone app. 

Earlier this year, Salgado was a guide during the 2019 homeless count and said he will do it again in 2020. He is still volunteering on weekends and plans to do it for the foreseeable future because he wants to continue serving his community. He lives near the river along Mission Gorge Road.

“It’s really gratifying. When we’re out there, people realize how pretty it is down there,” Salgado said. “You get some exercise and you’re helping your community. Volunteering is such great thing to do.”

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Edgemoor Holds Tasty D&I Event

Edgemoor held a delicious and diverse cook-off this week. Employees at the skilled nursing facility entered dishes from around the world into the first-ever “Taste of Edgemoor.”

Dishes were judged on taste, aroma, presentation and healthiness. Entries included Mexican stew, Japanese beef curry, Toscano sausage spinach soup, Filipino sinigang soup, Norwegian meatballs, kale vegetable soup, and Korean japchae—a dish of stir-fried glass noodles and vegetables.

Medical Records Manager Hernan Amezcua won the cooking competition with a family recipe—his dad’s birria with beef and pork ribs. While Amezcua has been enjoying the dish his entire life, he only recently got his hands on the recipe after asking for the secret details for some 30 years!

The winning dish will be served as the lunch special to both residents and employees on Cinco de Mayo.

D&I Champion Lani Ngo said the event brought together employees and was fun.

“We truly represented and celebrated diversity and inclusion with food,” she said.

How does your department celebrate diversity and inclusion? Tell us in the comment section below.

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APACE Serves Up Lunch

Members of the Asian Pacific Alliance of County Employees (APACE) recently served meals to 260 seniors at the Gary and Mary West Senior Wellness Center in downtown San Diego. The employee resource group members volunteered with Serving Seniors, a nonprofit which serves low-income and food-insecure seniors. They plated food, delivered trays, talked to the seniors and hosted a fun raffle for participants.

APACE holds volunteer events with community partners throughout the year. To learn more about APACE, visit them on InSite.

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