[Accrs] What does this say about the Pleasanton Fair?

Sat Apr 25 17:45:13 PDT 2020

Guys, I do not want to be a downer, but for this summer at least, the probability of structured events of more than 10 or maybe 20 or at most 50 people is probably very unlikely. The fair is hundreds of thousands total, tens of thousands per day, it is not going to happen.

I went over this topic on the NMRA Coast Division meetup last Saturday and with the Coast Division Board before we cancelled the June 7th Coast Division event/auction in San Leandro. The key is the answer Governor Newsome gives below to the reporter's question during his opening up press conference on April 14 about how much things will "look different" this year for summer events and schools in the fall.  The text below is from the transcript of the press conference (my highlights in bold).  Read the highlighted parts ("negligible at best", "hundreds, thousands, …….. is not in the cards", and  " June, July, August, it is unlikely"). Now decide how much we want to bet there will be 300,000-500,000 people over 18 days at the fairgrounds starting in mid-June....... there are major concerns about having 30 kids in a classroom in the fall.  How do you social distance at a county fair? Plus, how many of you would be excited about taking your families to the fair this summer? I personally would bet there is zero chance of a fair this year, probably not any realistic chance for either of the Good Guys summer events as well. Hopefully, by the fall, there will be some realistic and proven high positive outcome treatment options so larger events can return.

As to access to the ACCRS facility on the Fairgrounds to retrieve members personal property, unfortunately left there due to the unanticipated velocity and radical closure impacts of the pandemic shut-down, we should discuss how we can potentially get access next week during our Friday Night meetup standing. I am going to propose we use next Friday Zoom Meetup as our on-line business meeting. If there is a desire to have a pre-general meetup ACCRS board meetup we can do that.

Unfortunately, based on the Newsome stuff below and the relative large size of events the fair must host for practical profitability and to justify opening and having staff return exceeding what the governor is anticipating, I personally doubt they will open the fairgrounds this summer at all. Therefore, if ACCRS members want to gain access to the building to get items, we should develop an "access proposal" for Gary to present to the fair. Perhaps we can propose "staggering" our individual access to the building over an extended period of days/weeks (we can credit the governor) so social distancing or sharing common spaces would not be an issue with access to the closed space. Ask to have some time(s) so Gary can assign a slot to a member to get in for 30 minutes or an hour to access their property.  We can do two or three pre-set times every week if enough member want access.  See if they will agree to a proposal. Probably a one shot access for each of us though. Bring your thoughts Friday.

From Governor Newsome June 14th Press Conference on re-opening California - during the Q&A (time marks are minutes into the conference):

Kathleen Ronayne: (49:34)
      Hi governor. So I understand that you’re not giving a key timeline of when these things are going to change, but more broadly you’ve outlined pretty radical changes in what our daily life looks like in California, even as we start to lift these orders. So we’ve got some pretty big holidays coming up into the summer, Memorial day, July 4th, I mean, walk me through, if things go to plan, if we’re able to meet some of these measures, how do those big holidays, how does the summer look different for Californians? And following on that how does the school year in the fall look different for California students if we meet all these measures and we’re able to start doing some of what you’ve talked about?
Governor Gavin Newsom: (50:17)
      I appreciate it. Thank you for the question because you’ve also offered me an opportunity to say something that I wasn’t clear about in the initial presentation, and that is as it relates to mass gatherings. The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible at best until we get to herd immunity and we get to a vaccine. So large scale events that bring in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of strangers all together across every conceivable difference, health and otherwise is not in the cards based upon our current guidelines and current expectations, things can change radically, and we of course can have therapeutics at scale, the kind of community testing at scale, the serology tests at scale and capacity to get vaccines earlier than we anticipated. That can change that dynamic. So I want to caution my own words in that context, but when you suggest June, July, August, it is unlikely.
Governor Gavin Newsom: (52:03)
      As I mentioned to you, we’ve got these teams of people and some of them are more built out than others. The area that we will be building out much more robustly is the school space to very specifically answer that question. We have hypothecated, since you want to offer that lens perhaps of imagination, let me hypothecate with you scenarios where in physically constrained environments where practicing physical distancing within the school come this fall may be challenged, we can conceivably stagger the individual students to come in as cohorts in the morning, some in the afternoon.

Phil Edholm
Office 925-264-9420
Mobile 408-832-5618

-----Original Message-----
From: Accrs <accrs-bounces at mail.accrs.org> On Behalf Of Alameda County Central Railroad Society
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2020 3:38 PM
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Subject: Re: [Accrs] What does this say about the Pleasanton Fair?

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