good morning and welcome to the december 8th, 2023, regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. today's meeting is live cablecast on sf gov ethics .org/ ethics life for public comment. members of the public may attend in person or may participate by phone or the webex platform as explained in our agenda document. mr. clerk, can you please explain how the remote public comment will be handled today. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. each member of

the public will be allowed three minutes to speak for those attending in person. opportunities to speak during the public comment period will be made available here in room 400 city hall for those attending remotely public comment period can also be provided via phone call by the. number 14156550001 acts code. is 26638815752, followed by the pound sign and then press pound again to join as an attendee when your item of interest comes up, press star three. to raise your hand to be added to the public comment line. public comment is also available via the webex client application. use the webex link on the agenda to connect and press the raise hand button to be added to the public comment line for detailed instructions about how to interact with the telephone system or webex. client. please refer to the public comment section of the agenda document for this meeting. public comment may also be submitted in writing and shall be shared with the

commission after this meeting has concluded and will be included as part of the official meeting file. written comments should be sent to ethics commission at sf gevorg. members of the public who attend commission meetings, including remote attendance, are also expected to behave responsibly and respectfully during public comment. please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not to individual members. person who engage in name calling, shouting interruptions or other distracting behavior may be excluded from participation.

thank you. and now i call the meeting to order. roll call, please. commissioners, please. verbally indicate your presence by saying i after your name is called commissioner finletter high commissioner flores fang high chair lee present commissioner salahi. present commissioner sai chair lee. with four members present and accounted for. you have a quorum. okay i understand. commissioner sai is on his way. okay. let us go to agenda item number two, which is general public comment. do we have any public comment in the room.

good morning. my name is ellen. l e. n l e. z who i would like to begin with. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic which it stands. one nation under god in indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. just for you to know. born and unborn and vaccinated and vaccinated, we all under god. thank you. i am here today to let you know i have been coming here the ethic commissions for many years. i am the island that i run for mayor in 2018 and 2019. and you have been mentioned my name in many, many of the occasions in the past. today i took my time and come in person to let you know when i run for mayor campaign in 2019, i have no advisor, no manager,

no no campaigning team whatsoever. that is paid. i run a campaign. it's all volunteer based. but you this unethical group of people in here now non-american, represent tentative continue to go after my volunteers. i am here to urge you to quit, to stop your tyranny agenda targeting my volunteers. i run a campaign in 2019. i report so much corruption. to you. ethics depart meant you did nothing to investigate but turn around and targeted me and continue to harass me. since 2019, you all remember my billboard was about how human trafficking drug trafficking, homeless issues, crime against the people in america. yeah it when i put up

my billboard less than two days, it was a draw a lot of attention on many of the elected officials . the deep state politicians put in by george soros, 21 agenda, agenda 21 into the office as came out and have to news press release and calling me was is how am i racist when i address issues in san francisco that in 2023. that is the reality that we see in san francisco homeless dying crime working businesses are living in san francisco. our population is diminished. the good people have no place to hide but run. and the people coming in here draw the open border, the sanctuary, every city and sanctuary state. i am here to urge you quit going after me. thank you. and for

your public information, i'm going to hand you my message in here for public information. i don't know who's going to take it because this is a public hearing. i'm here to express myself for your public record so you will not spell my name wrong and you will not twist it around that i come here, say something else. thank you. okay. thank you. next speaker, please. is well. good morning. ethics? yes we. it's understood. i think that your hands are tied. i mean , because they're all the government's generally speaking, everybody has his or her hands tied by the system that is absolutely oppressive, obviously. i mean, we know that. what can you do as far as for you being responsible for ethics , is that. yeah, the question is, is it ethical to let yourself being a, you know,

unable to act? that's the could be part of the ethics. i believe . now, what can we do? i don't know. last time i spoke to you is three months ago since then, i've been all around the place, you know, here, talking to commission for 40 times. i think . so it's a slow process to try to make the understanding of the situation. let's say take it, take responsibility for it, and step by step, try to let's say, communicate that it is important to take responsibility for what we do. i do believe it's important for ourselves, otherwise we won't we can't be happy with that. it's going to be a total failure for our life. so step by step, i don't know what you can do, but i'm here to

help. basically, everybody. i want everybody to be happy. that's all. i don't want anything else. have a good day. thank you. um, i don't see anyone else in the room. um, can you check the queue, please, madam chair, we have one caller in the queue. hi good morning. my name is john wadsworth. i'm a health care worker at zuckerberg san general hospital. also many of you hopefully have remembered me, part of seiu. 1021 health care chapter membership representative. i would like thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to the ethics commission. i have been

part of discussions with the ethics commissions years past. i was part of the group that was brought in to amend the whistleblower ordinance is at years ago when we were having issues with retaliation against whistleblower call people to people that were blowing the whistle on on different issues. and i would like to ask the ethics commission to please look into the job losses for the. and workers that have been displaced by the covid policies nationwide. the military sorry, the fire departments, the police departments, everybody is.

circling back and addressing the issue with these jobs and i'm just asking if you would please speak to the powers that be and look at these job losses and consider for all of the all of the sacrifice losses that these workers have made. thank you. thank you. madam chair. there are no more callers in the queue. okay. public comment to item number two is closed now we go to agenda item number three, which is discussion and possible action regarding hearing on the merits in the matter of paul allen taylor case number 22 433

1920 dash 031 yesterday day the respondent, mr. taylor, served the ethics commission with his hearing brief in this case. today today on our agenda item number four is a potential closed session item regarding an employee appointment. the hiring of a new executive director for the ethics commission. the hearing on the merits in the matter of paul allen taylor is important and it is important that this hearing and the arguments of the parties be given enough time for consideration in order to allow the ethics commission ample time to consider the arguments of mr. taylor in advance of the hearing and to ensure ample time for the pressing business of the closed session without limiting the length of the hearing in the taylor matter. i would like to

continue this item number three to a future hearing date. i understand this may also allow a witness who the enforcement staff will be presenting to have the opportunity to present to appear in person rather than remotely with a potentially poor connection. but before i take action on continuing agenda item number three, i want to open up to public comment. any public comment in the room. as part of public comment? good morning again. my name is ellen. l. l. e. n. l e. z. who i am that candidate. ellen lee zhao for mayor in 2019. the item you just mentioned and i spoke earlier today, today i am here to ask you to end your investigation.

endlessness with nowhere to go. you wanted to save the public money because as i'm here to ask you to end the investigation to my volunteer for paul allen taylor, because if you continue to push the lawsuit will be 1 million to 5 million against it. the ethics commission, city and county of san francisco and anybody individually liable for the lawsuit. and i've explained to you many times publicly when i run for my campaign, i am by myself. i did everything under my name, myself, and i have no pay staff at all, no advice, no manager, no consult, nada, zip. it's all volunteer. and i report every item. according to ethics commission's instruction. i work with your staff, john. he was step by step, instructed me to

do how and what. and i report everything to you. so your communism agenda continue to violate my campaign right? instead of going after the elected officials who are paid and bought into the office by the board deep state system, they came out. when we move all my billboards within four days, i hang it out about human trafficking, drug trafficking, homelessness and crime against the people in san francisco. but you don't go after the election interference with the people who are already in city hall. but you rather going after a person like me that i am a christian. i believe in god. i believe in jesus. i believe in our nation, one nation under god. i put out a message about ending crime against humanity in san francisco. but you continue to go after conservative live. so today i am here to ask you, all

of you today, once and for all, and end your investigation and no more from air. those are bs. is going to cost a lot of money for the taxpayers as you are here. one and for all i'm asking you to do your job and you supposed to end the slavery system in san francisco. i am here to earnestly urge you to think about what you have done since 2019. to me, i am only a christian who believe in god and gave you a message stop crime against humanity in san francisco. but yet you're going after me since 2019 and today is december eighth, 2023. already your time is expired. shame on you people. stop that. thank you . any other speakers as a party to this case, i request the ability to make comment outside of public comment. is your

journey. but that's permissible all as long as the other party has an opportunity to comment. if he's here. if he's not here, is it you? you can proceed. okay, one second, madam chair. there's no callers in the queue. okay. please thank you. just briefly want to comment on the process on this case. ethics commission staff throughout this case over the last two years has followed protocol, submitted document requests that the respondent did not respond to, submitted, sent, served the respondent with several subpoenas over the last two years that he did not respond to. we served probable cause. he did not respond to that. we submitted motions to the pre hearing. commissioner, commissioner finley, in accordance with deadlines set by this commission, the respondent did not do that. we complied with commissioner finlay's pre hearing order. we submitted a

hearing brief. respondent did not do that. i would comment briefly the chair did refer to the respondents mailing as a hearing brief. i would disagree with that as it did not comply with the with commissioner finley's order. it did not come based on the deadline. it was over page limit. it did not address substantive arguments further, i would note that we notified the respondent of the deadlines on all of these issues . repeatedly got confirmation from him, but he still did not send anything. so briefly, again , moving on to the actual document itself, he sent a i mentioned it doesn't comply with any of the orders in commissioner finley's issued order b, it refuses to acknowledge the commission's jurisdiction or authority whatsoever. it advances something known across the country in courts, both federal and state level as sovereign citizen theory. the sovereign citizen theory has been debunked by many courts across this country. if we have the opportunity, i will not do so now. but we are prepared today

or at a later date to address this theory in whatever level of detail the commission would like. although i don't wish to give it credence, i would like to address the commission's jurisdiction and where that power stems from. we are prepared today to go on with the hearing, although i understand that since the continuance has already been noticed and the respondent is not here, that may still be inappropriate. the hearing on the merits is the way prescribed by the charter for reaching some sort of order when a settlement is not possible, a settlement is not possible in this case, we have offered one several times. the respondent has refused to engage with those offers. the respondent does have an avenue for appeal through the court system to any order issued by this commission. that appeal can include challenges to the commission's jurisdiction. but the commission cannot issue an order until there is a hearing on the merits. so there is nothing to appeal at this time. finally, i would note that after a hearing is held, the commission does have 45 days to analyze all evidence submitted, both paper evidence and evidence at the hearing. so there it

would be possible to have the hearing today and still have time to review the documents sent in. and i just hope that the commission takes seriously the fact that lending credence to the response, its tactics encourage, potentially encourages other subjects of investigations to delay and obstruct as much as possible. with that, thank you. okay. thank you for those comments. agenda item number three is continued to a future hearing date once the new hearing date is determined, enforcement staff shall notify mr. taylor of the hearing date pursuant to this commissioner's enforcement regulations. now let us go to agenda item number four, which is propose and close session item. today's agenda includes the proposed closed session item under item number four for public employee employment

hiring of executive director. this item has been scheduled for the commission's discussion and possible action. let us entertain if there's any members of the public who wish to comment on this item. yes. again, my name is ellen. l. l. e. n. l. e. z who i have been a public worker for public health for more than 15 years. i was a public servant. i have been coming here to voice all my concerns about unethical practice by unethical staff and commissioners. i am opposed for anybody who, from this day on to be hired by the city of san francisco, unless that you will hire or the unvaccinated workers

that it was fire in 2022 last year as you know, christians and catholics are called lights. we are light beams because we believe in god. for 1168 christians and catholics filed the exemption paperwork, turn it into drt and in return, they fire all of us. 1168 people. now, august 20, 23, they lift the mandate vaccine requirement, yet they refuse to rehire all the unvaccinated workers. i am one of the 1168 christians and catholics. i firmly held my belief this nation coven is under god and one nation under god. and i believe that jesus is my personal savior. no matter

what you do in here, the unethical department, you publicly discuss innate or unvaccinated workers. if you continue this process to hire this new person from this day on , we will launch another lawsuit again against illegal government practice. our nation is found by biblical principles. we believe in equality. we believe in justice for all. but for you to hire another director, but not hire all the unvaccinated workers back. you're talking about about 1168 families. that's hypocrite. that's illegal . that is lawless. i do not have to be attorney. i don't have to be an ethical staff like you sitting up there. it's common sense. nobody in america should be discriminated just because

they are unvaccinated. and yet. 1168 christians and catholics being terminated, wrongfully terminated. thank god we have 11 lawsuits in the federal and six lawsuits in the state level. we are not going to be silent. so if you proceed, this one, go ahead and hire the director of ethic commission. we will launch another lawsuit for discriminated. consider this as a public delivery to you. thank you. thank you. has expired. any other callers in the room? was it what so it doesn't matter what i'm talking about, i guess because. yes. something has said in the past is yes, absolutely. it is not allowed to ask anybody to inject anything in his or her

body. it is not allowed by the skies. that's it. thank you. do we have any other callers in the queue. madam chair? we do have a remote public comment there. yes. hi. good morning again. my name is john wadsworth. i'm a healthcare worker at san cisco general hospital. also a representative of seiu. 1021 san francisco chapter. i was part of the negotiations during the formation of the covid mandates and policies, was advocating for the once a week testing and the n95s to be given. to the

workers. i also am calling in to ask that you please consider bringing back these health care workers that were displaced at post covid. please take a look at what's happening across our country and ask yourself, do you want san francisco to be at the at the to lead with with these type of practices or do you want them to be remembered for the city that took away over a thousand jobs as from persons that that would have families over a vaccination and pandemic that has passed. please consider bringing these persons back. thank you. thank you. madam

chair. we have no further callers. okay. public comment is closed. we will now proceed to a vote under item four for be on whether to meet in closed session under california government code. section 54957b1 and administrative code section. 67. 110b2 discuss public employee employment and hiring of the executive director. do i hear a motion on this? i move to go to closed session. okay second, second, second. so motion has been made by commissioner finley and seconded by commissioner flores. fang let us take a roll call, please. a motion has been made and seconded to proceed into closed session. i will now call the roll commissioner finley,

commissioner flores. fang chair lee high commissioner salahi high commissioner sai. i hey, chair lee, you have of five votes in the affirmative. the motion has passed unanimously. okay thank you. and we will now move into closed session. and for our members of the public who are viewing online the onscreen notice will be stating the commission. this meeting in closed session and will remain on for the duration of our closed session on the audio and visuals will resume live once we reconvene in open session. thank you for your cooperation. okay we are now back in public session and i want to thank members of the public for your patience and continued

engagement. and now we are going to resume our open session meeting. if i could entertain a motion whether or not to disclose any action taken in closed session, i move to not disclose what was discussed in closed session and seconded. it was made by commissioner. for instance, i by commissioner venmo. so let's call the roll on the motion to not disclose closed session deliberations that will now call the roll commissioner finley high commissioner flores ving high chair. lee high. commissioner salahi high commissioner sai with with four four votes in the affirmative. the motion is passed unanimously. let's go to consent calendar, which is us agenda item number five draft minutes of the ethics commission on october 13th, 2023. regular meeting which was continued from

our november meeting. item six acting executive director report also continued from the november meeting. item seven fiscal year 20 2324 budget update item eight draft minutes of the ethics commission on november 9th, 20. and number nine, ethics commission regular meeting scheduled for the new calendar year 2024 ten. acting executive director's report for december for and 11 director of enforcement report highlighting enforcement division operations. 12 proposed stipulation decision and order in the matter of christian kitchen sefik complaint number. 2223527

commissioner, do you want to remove any items from this consent calendar for summary discussion? i see none. i'm sorry, i promise to be really brief, but i did want to talk about item 12. the proposed stipulation. okay, let's take out number 12. let us do i have a motion to approve consent calendars item five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and 11. do i have a motion for that? so moved . second, second. let's go to public comment please. madam chair. we're checking if there's callers in the queue. madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. okay. public comment is closed. let's call the roll for consent calendar items. five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. and 11. on the motion to adopt

the consent calendar. as noted, commissioner finley. yes. commissioner flores thing i chair lee. commissioner salahi. aye. madam chair with four votes in the affirmative. the motion is passed unanimously. okay let's go back to agenda item number 12, which is the proposed stipulation. i had a couple of quick questions and i'm happy to go unless mr. ford wants to say something first. no nothing for me. so i have no concerns about this at all. good work. i just had a couple of specific questions about the memo. one i noticed in the mitigation section one, you credited the respondent for cooperation and you listed as one of the cooperation, i guess, that he amended the filings at issue. i don't see that as a sign of cooperation. i see that as what

you're supposed to be doing. so i don't think in the future we'd want counsel to say, hey, my clients are getting cooperation credit because they rectified their improper filings. i'm not at all questioning the outcome here. i'm just noting that as a issue for me. basically, they're just complying with the law as is. one other question about the penalty amount. as i understand it, it's either up to 5000 per violation or triple the amount not disclosed. i guess. so does that mean in this case it was either between 1 and 5000 or 900,000 or whatever the amount was, but there no, basically in between in the 5000 cap and triple the amount, not disclosed, essentially, the charter allows for the penalty be, like you said, up to three times the amount that the respondent failed to disclose, which in this case the respondent failed to disclose approximately $1.5 million. so three times that would be a very large amount. clearly not appropriate for this case, but that just sets the cap. the penalty could fall anywhere here

in there. but obviously, we know i think this is what's appropriate. something up in the six figure and above range. it would not be appropriate in this kind of case. we chose to include all of the violations within one count. this could have been broken out into multiple counts. but because he did end up filing the forms and in the interest of trying to move this case along, we decided to collapse all those violations into one count. but even within that one count, it could have been anywhere up to three times the amount that he didn't disclose over the five, four, seven hundreds. got it. so it's up to 3000. sorry, up to three times. there's some flexibility there. correct. so here, in effect, we have kind of the maximum statutory cap for one count, the 5000 max, but not the max alternative. alternative of three times the amount. i would have been comfortable with a higher amount given the amount of not disclosed money. i think 5000 is pretty well, i would have been happy with the higher amount, but i think this is a

great case. nice work. so thank you for all that. and those were the points i wanted to make. okay, that's very helpful feedback. thank you. i move to any other comments from my colleagues. i move to accept staff's recommendation on item number 12. second. okay, let's go to public comment. chair lee. we're checking if there's callers in the queue. chair lee there is no callers. okay roll call, please. on the motion to approve the stipulation, i will now call the roll commissioner finley commissioner flores vang chair lee high commissioner salahi high. madam chair, with four votes in the affirmative, the motion to pass is unanimously. thank you. now let us go to agenda item number 13, which is discussion and possible action on ethics commission draft annual report for the

fiscal year ending june 30th, 2023. this item was continued from our november meeting. acting director. for i know, madam chair, i can give you a brief update on this item so the commission is required to issue an annual report per our bylaws at the end of after a fiscal year ends and typically we try to do that soon after june 30th, which is when a fiscal year ends. this time due to certain hiring priorities. we started a little later. so we presented a draft version of our annual report in the november 9th commission meeting, which was again continued to a later meeting. so it now appears on this agenda. um the version that you see here is slightly different from the november 9th version as we made continue to make a few improvements. so i look forward to any feedback that you may have, which i can

incorporate and bring back in the next meeting. if the commission feels that the report can be adopted as presented, we can finalize this and publish it. thank you. i candidly have not had a chance to look at it, so it's not required by today. i prefer to wait, but. but from looking at it, the prior session, well, i guess that's the question. it sounds like there's no requirement to do it today, right? that is correct. but charlie. i thought we had this item on the november prior to november. we had already the record and i thought i thought there was some notifications that if anyone has any comments or suggestions. so let me let you know by a certain date. so i did that and i assume other commissioners had taken that opportunity as well. so. yes, we

we're sort of late, but just want to get this done by the end of the year, if possible. do you have any specific concerns on this report? no specific concerns. if it's important to move it today, i'd fine with that. i'm not sure i saw the current version in the exhibit materials that were handed out at the meeting today. maybe i just missed them. but if there are no dramatic, my colleagues have them in your packets. i saw the item. yeah. there was no red line or anything, but. okay, so that's fine to move it today if that's the chair's preference. okay. okay okay. so a motion to approve the submission of the annual report. okay. second.

second public comment, please. madam chair, we're checking to see if there's callers in the queue. madam chair. there are no callers. okay roll call. on the motion to approve the report. as noted, commissioner flores feng i chair lee. commissioner salahi. hi chair. vice chair finley. hi madam chair. with four votes in the affirmative, the motion is passed unanimously. thank you. agenda item number 14 discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. any i just like to revisit some of the proposed

was made by the other commissioners about certain presentations to be made. i think in the past i was wondering what the status was on those and whether we should be. i know you guys have been very busy, but just wondering about the timeline. one of the items that came up in prior meetings was a presentation on the lobbyist program. we currently looking at planning that early next year, february 1st is the lobbyist registry deadline. so we thought soon after that timeframe, we may be more appropriate. we can give more current and updated data. so that's when we're planning that update. and there are other items too, that we are we will be getting to. yes. thank you. i have one thought for the ballot measure that we supported. i think it'd be helpful to know at some point what exactly we as commissioners are allowed and not allowed to say, because i know there's a line between advocacy and just explaining the content of it. so whenever you think that's appropriate, i think that could be a very short item, but it'd be helpful to

have those guidelines in front of us. sure, sure. that's also an item that the city attorney's office can provide individual commissioners with advice on. yeah, you know, that's a good point. and maybe that's a more efficient way to do it and not take up a meeting. so thank you for that. thank you for that. anything else that's open up to public comment. madam chair, we're checking to see if there's callers in the queue. there are no callers. okay. agenda item number 15, an additional opportunity for general public comment. madam chair. there are no callers in the queue agenda item number 16 adjournment. thank you, everybody for this meeting and i want to wish everybody safe and happy holidays. until next year. all

right. thank you. thank you. sf govtv, san francisco governmemememememememememememem >> (music).

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you would like to do workreation covers real life working skills and expansion can be allowed (unintelligible) it is a really great program because um, students get placed all the time for what they like. join us in the experience and opportunity and i really like the workreation program it is fun to workout at the summer camp with all the kids each is different and the staff is really nice. >> why? is because i used to go to the local park often when i was a little kid. with my mom i often had to translate for my mom i applied in the hope to provide assistance for other

people with first language was for the english. >> i like this job we have fun and working and i feel welcome. >> hi. >> like how a job actually works like maybe before then i didn't know like all the jobs i don't know any of that now i do. >> it has to be self aware of things and independence of value of this taught me how to be progressiveal but still learning as i go on. >> i learned a lot like a got to adapt and challenges and obstacles come up everyday and . >> i like that we're able to really work with other people

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>> (multiple voices.) >> landing at leidesdorff is as the new public school in downtown san francisco for people to come together for 0 lunch and weekends a new place to enjoy the architect and our culture. >> landing at leidesdorff one of several initiatives to the road map for the initiatives all about using your public space and network for now environments to 0 invite people adopted not just to the office but any time of the day. >> it shows there is excitement and energy and people wore looking forward to enjoying the space that people may want to end up in downtown. >> we've been operating in the financial district since 2016 with the treasury and coming up we had a small surge in business

in the leidesdorff and in about the financial district and a good time to grow here. >> as a small business the leidesdorff is making us being part of it as being part of in project. for me makes we want to be part of san francisco. >> so landing at leidesdorff for me represents hope for san francisco and the sense that this is become such a safe welcoming area. >> we local artists coming in and exercise boxes and live music but the hub of culture. >> the downtown partnerships has a studio in san francisco. they identified 6 locations throughout the downtown area we come together with new activity and spaces. >> is between us a place to tell our own story and history.

>> it was named after a captain one the black leaders of san francisco before that was called san francisco he was the first treasurer of the city and commercial street a cross street the hifblg original shoreline of san francisco was just a few feet behind where we're 12357b8z around opportunity to bring people to locations we have an opportunity to tell stories and for local businesses. >>

>> my name is sylvia and i'm the owner of the mexican bistro. we have been in business for 18 years and we first opened on garry street in san francisco, and now we are located in a beautiful historic building. and we are part of the historical building founded in 1776. at the same time as the mission delores in san francisco. (♪♪) our specialty food is food from central mexico. it's a high-end mexican food based on quality and fresh ingredients. we have an amazing chef from

yucatán and we specialize on molotov, that are made with pumpkin seeds. and we're also known for handmade tortillas and we make our own fresh salsa. and we have cocktails, and we have many in the bar. we have specialty drinks and they are very flavorrable and very authentic. some of them are spicy, some are sour, but, again, we offer high-quality ingredients on our drinks as well. (♪♪) we have been in san francisco for 27 years, and our hearts are here. we are from mexico, but after 27 years, we feel part of the community of san francisco. it is very important for us to be the change, the positive

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>> there is a lot of unique characteristics about visitation valley. it is a unique part of the city. >> we are off in a corner of the city against the san francisco county line 101 on one side. vis station valley is still one of the last blue color neighborhoods in san francisco. a lot of working class families out here. it is unusual. not a lot of apartment buildings. a lot of single family homes. >> great business corridor. so much traffic coming through

here and stopping off to grab coffee or sandwich or pick up food before going home. >> a lot of customers are from the neighborhood. they are painters or mechanics. they are like blue color workers, a lot of them. >> the community is lovely. multi-racial and hopefully we can look out for each other. >> there is a variety of businesses on the block. you think of buffalo kitchen, chinese food, pork buns, sandwich. library, bank of america with a parking lot. the market where you can grab anything. amazing food choices, nail salons. basically everything you need is here. >> a lot of these businesses up and down leland are family owned. people running them are family. when you come here and you have an uncle and nephew and go

across the street and have the guy and his dad. lisa and her daughter in the dog parlor and pam. it is very cool. >> is small businesses make the neighborhood unique. >> new businesses coming. in mission blue, gourmet chocolate manufacturing. the corridor has changed and is continuing to change. we hope to see more businesses coming in the near future. >> this is what is needed. first, stay home. unless it is absoluteliness scary. social distancing is the most important step right now to limit spread of virus. cancel all nonessential gather

everythings. >> when the pandemic litly land avenue suffered like other corridors. a few nail salons couldn't operate. they shut down. restaurants that had to adapt to more of a take out model. they haven't totally brought back indoor seating. >> it is heartbreaking to see the businesses that have closed down and shut because of the pandemic. >> when the pandemic first hit it got really slow. we had to change our hours. we never had to close, which is a blessing. thank god. we stayed open the whole time. >> we were kind of nervous and anxious to see what was going to come next hoping we will not have to close down. >> during covid we would go outside and look on both sides of the street. it looked like old western town. nobody on the street. no cars. >> it was a hard eight or nine

months. when they opened up half the people couldn't afford a haircut. >> during that time we kept saying the coffee shop was the living room of the valley. people would come to make sure they were okay. >> we checked on each other and patronized each other. i would get a cup of coffee, shirt, they would get a haircut. >> this is a generous and kind community. people would be like i am getting the toffee for the guy behind me and some days it went on and on. it was amazing to watch. we saw a perfect picture of community. we are all in this together. >> since we began to reopen one year later, we will emerge stronger. we will emerge better as a city because we are still here and we

stand in solidarity with one another. >> when we opened up august 1st. i will not say it was all good. we are still struggling due to covid. it affected a lot of people. >> we are still in the pandemic right now. things are opening up a little bit. it is great to have space to come together. i did a three painting series of visitation valley and the businesses on leland. it felt good to drop off the paintings and hung them. >> my business is picking up. the city is opening up. we have mask requirements. i check temperatures. i ask for vaccination card and/or recent test. the older folks they want to feel safe here. >> i feel like there is a sense of unity happening. >> what got us through the pandemic was our customers. their dogs needed groomed, we

have to cut their nails so they don't over grow. >> this is only going to push us forward. i sense a spirit of community and just belief in one another. >> we are trying to see if we can help all small businesses around here. there is a cannabis club lounge next to the dog parlor to bring foot traffic. my business is not going to work if the business across the street is not getting help. >> in hit us hard. i see a bright future to get the storefronts full. >> once people come here i think they really like it. >> if you are from san francisco visit visitation valley to see how this side of the city is the same but different. .

15 2023 to order roll call, mr. steele. thank you, commissioner alexander here. commissioner fischer here. commissioner lamb. commissioner. motamedi here. mr. sanchez here. vice president. wiseman. ward here. president. bogus here. thank you. all right . uh, at this time, we'll go to item b for a closed session. uh, at this time, before the board goes into closed session, i call for any speakers of the closed session items listed in the agenda. there will be a total of five minutes for speakers. are there any public comment cards in person in there or not? are there any speakers for public comment at. i'm seeing no virtual participants. okay. seeing none, we will now recess the meeting