My name is Luis Velez Ayala. I am a frontline public employee in Arlington County. My father's career in public service showed me how dignifying contributing to our community can be. When the pandemic hit, everything changed. However, when the Emergency Temporary Standard took effect everything became streamlined and has protected me, my coworkers, our families and ultimately our community. With two essential workers in my six-person household, it is tremendously important that heightened workplace health and safety measures continue.  

I have worked as a Service Technician Trainee at Arlington County’s Water, Sewer, and Streets Division for seven months. Prior to that, I worked seven months part-time at Parks and Rec and also worked two stints with the Solid Waste Department during leaf season, which runs from November 1st to Christmas Day.  

At the Streets Division, we are responsible for maintenance on sidewalks and perform general concrete repair. I work as part of a five man crew in close quarters, and that makes it difficult to socially distance. However, due to safety requirements under the emergency temporary standard, we have been provided with source control in the form of face masks. The county is also having us utilize a symptom checker to ensure that we are not coming in to work if we are symptomatic or have been potentially exposed to COVID-19. We have also started driving to job sites separately, where we previously traveled four people in a work vehicle. My crew is also having the supervisor clock folks in and out, to enable compliance with social distancing and to limit the number of hands touching the time clock. The department has those who can teleworking in order to reduce the number of personnel in the building.  

The emergency temporary standard has kept us safe. Keeping us safe means keeping our families safe. I don’t want to bring any disease or illness home to my loved ones. I support a permanent standard so that we can continue the workplace practices that have been necessary to keep us safe. I urge the Board to adopt the permanent standard and make it and all provisions take immediate effect on January 27, 2021.