>> good morning. the meeting will come to order. this is march 4, 2024 rules committee meeting. i'm supervisor ronan and joined by supervisor walton and safai. our clerk is victor young and like to thank jaime from sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> public comment will be taken on each item on the agenda. when your item comes up and public comment is called please line up to speak on your right. you may submit public comment in writing, e-mail to myself at victor.young at sfgov.org.

if you submit public comment via e-mail it will be included as part of the file. may also send to city hall, 1 dr. carlton b goodlett place. please silence cell phones and electronic devices. documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda march 12, 2024 unless otherwise stated. that completes my announcements. >> thank you. can you please read item 1? >> hearing 1 to consider appointing 6 members terms ending june 6, 2025 to the immigrant rights commission. >> we have several candidates here today so we'll ask you to come up one by one to make comments and if you can keep

your comments around two minutes that would be fantastic. we are so grateful to have you here today and so grateful for this really important work. so, first, i'm going to call up aseel fara. and please correct me if i pronounced your name incorrectly. >> you said it perfectly. thank you so much. >> good morning. >> good morning supervisors. peace and blessings upon you all. it is privilege to stand before you. i'm a 24 year old first generation of my family. i want to san francisco state university and received a degree in political science, and a son of immigrants and would not be who i am if not for my father. my father had to sell everything he had to bring my family and i into the country. i often asked him why take such a risk and he would say aseel,

it is for your education so indebted to my father and thankful of the experiences and blessings i learned from him. regardic my qualification, i like to speak about my work in peace organizing and then my work within our beloved san francisco tenderloin neighborhood. i'm founder of urgent care for yemen, which is a organization that delivered fresh water along with aid pract packages. [indiscernible] national legislation and both of those capacities and advocate for peace and diplomacy in u.s. foreign policies and work along with other individuals also advocating for peace in their homeland. regarding the tenderloin,

people when they think tenderloin it is mostly negative thoughts but i have a lot of pride for the tl and i grew up in the tl. turk and hyde used to be the epicenter of dug dealing and drug use and looks like a better block now because of stewardship. many immigrants have to face the same story now and the words need to be elevated which is why i'm pursuing the commission. under the youth tenderloin district i was the youth-open spaces effected by covid-19 hosting community events for immigrant youth and families. convening youth focused discussion with community and city stakeholders. advocating for inclusion of transitional age youth and high level community resource guide. as of right now, my current role lie s with san francisco planning, part of the community equity division and working on

the tenderloin action plan. our mission is bring the tenderloin community voice into action and transform action into realty through investments and that requires a lot of on the ground work. so, i want to thank you again for your consideration. the last thing i'll say is, i know we are living a very polarized times which is i believe that it is important now more then ever that our commission reflects the diversity of our community, which is why i'm pursuing the commission and look forward embracing the task with courage, determination, knowing together we can build a better future. happy to answer any questions you may have. thanks again. >> thank you so much. colleagues, are there any questions? nope. i just want to thank you so much. that was such a impressive presentation and i'm really really excited that you're willing to do this incredibly important work. thank you so much. >> thank you so much.

>> thank you. sure, go ahead. >> i had the situation of having dinner with aseel saturday noit. a great opportunity to talk with him, so super excited about his application here today and i think the work he's doing in the tenderloin and with immigrant communities, particularly his own will really inform the work he does for the immigrant rights commission, so welcome. very happy to support you. >> thank you so much for that. next we have celine kennelly, who is returning and done incredible work for many years for the immigrant commission so great to see you. >> thank you so much supervisor ronan. good to be with you all this morning. it is my honor and privilege and pleasure to serve on the immigrant right commission

since 2012, so quite some time. currentsly serve in the role of the board of commission chair. the work of the commission in my time on the commission has grown, it has expanded, it developed and i'm delighted to have been part that work. we have a phenomenal active dedicated committed and engaged commission. the breath of issues brought to the commission by my fellow commissioner jz we have been in the position to move forward on have been quite significant. highlights from the last couple years, including, special hearings on workforce development for immigrant workerss, the needs of the lgbtq ia plus immigrants. immigrant perspective on housing near and dear to my fellow commissioner jz working on a report out from the hearing. hearings on the language access ordinance. we had great privilege working

closely with supervisor walton's office and look forward continuing that partnership moving forward in the coming weeks. and of course we have had our immigrant leadership awards for the past couple years. we are delighted to be back in person this past june and it has given a opportunity to lift up the voices within our community to highlight the work they do and to give them a platform before the public. the commission has been-is placed within the office of civic engagement and immigrant affair jz i want to thank director rivas and all the team for commitment and dedication they have to work of the commission, but also to the immigrant community in san francisco for the guidance and leadership that they give to the commission as we aim to push barriers, aim to push boundaries and aim to push things forward. our commission-very excited to

see two new applicants for the two vacancies on the commission. we are always looking for new interested engaged individuals and our first applicant was fantastic. i would also like to on behalf of my fellow commissioners who are not here today, to thank them for their service and i do look forward to having the opportunity to continue to work with them in the next. it is a honor to serve on the commission. we are always delighted to be in a position to provide feedback, guidance and advice to the board and to the mayor and i look forward to doing this in the future. if you have any questions, i'm happy to ask. >> i don'ts think so, just a deep deep thank you for your decades long work in this important commission and during critical critical moments and we are in another one of those

critical moments, so to have you there is-and have your history you know, going through the pandemic, going through the trump presidency, going through the boarder crisis that we are in, just thank you so much being there throughout it all. >> thank you very much. >> thank you celine for your tremendous work over the last decade plus. just want to say one thing we have seen in the city over the last year and a half is people trying to scapegoat immigrants, trying to point to them for many problems in our city, and say that they are the cause or dealing with them in a very punitive manner would help solve some of the problems of san francisco. just wanted to highlight that. appreciate the work that you've done and insure that the work that you'll continue to be a

strong voice protecting immigrants and shining the light on all the positive work we do in san francisco will remain a refuge for immigrant as it always has been, so thank you for being such a strong voice for that and i wanted to highlight that because we have seen that rear its uglehead in the chambers. policies, conversations by some members of the board and some other members of the public, so just wanted to underscore that because of all the phenomenal work you do. thank you. >> thank you very much supervisor. >> next three applicants lucia obregon, mario paz and sarah souza, 3 leaders in the community that served on the immigrant right commission quite some time and done a fantastic job are not here, but my understanding is directive rivas wanted to say a few words on their behalf. >> good morning board members. chair ronan. thank you for the opportunity

to speak this morning. my name is [indiscernible] director of the office of civic engagement immigrant affairs and secretary to immigrant rights commission. before i read their statements that they submitted, i want to also just thank the commissioners who have partnered moving the work forward and it has been-- [audio cutting in and out] i want the support the reappointments today. i'll start with commissioner obregon statement so it is in the record. dear members of the rules committee. please accept my sincere apologies not present in person. never the less, i'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to be heard. my name is lucia obregon.

[indiscernible] serving on the commission the past 4 years have been an immensely rewarding experience and i'm humbled to give the chance to continue my service. working alongside dedicated colleagues i have the honor to [indiscernible] the privilege listening to the stories of immigrant struggle and resilience and impactful. the narratives, [indiscernible] resinate deeply with my own immigrant experience. they serve as remindser of the boundless opportunities and power of our city. i am deeply committed to continuing my service to our community and our city. the work i have undertaken not only enriched personal and professional growth and deepen ed my commitment to social

justice and equity. [indiscernible] a member of the planning department equity council, i have been able to leverage my experiences on the commission to effect positive change in the city. i will be remiss if i did not express gratitude to the staff at ocf, [indiscernible] for their invaluable support and guidance stewarding the work of the commission. the dedication and hard work are commendable and i'm honored to have the opportunity to partner with them. i also [indiscernible] appreciation to fellow commissioners for dedication and collaboration. insight and expertise have been instrumental in my growth as a professional advocate. i express gratitude to the rules committee considering my reappointment. it is honor to serve the city and hope for the opportunity to continue this important work. thank you for your time and consideration, sincerely lucia

obregon. i'll move on reading commissioner paz statement. rules committee members, supervisors, hillary ronan, shamann walton and ahsha safai. [indiscernible] requesting consideration of approval of the reappointment to immigrant right commission seat 6. please accept my support for seat 7. seat 10, seat 11 and my colleagues have been demonstrated incredible leadership and dedication and deserving of your approval. i'm grateful and proud oof the work we are accomplished together. i have done my best to include our collective work including san francisco language access ordinance, [audio cutting in and out] also work to protect and stand

behind our policies as a lack of federal immigration reform further creates a hew mareten migrant crisis. i hope to continue contributing to our commission and our city as we face a national election year that create false narrative that [indiscernible] hate towards immigrants. san francisco has always been a beacon of light, speaks the truth and recognize the many contributions immigrants provide to our city and shared society. thank you for your consideration and support. sincerely yours, mario paz. [indiscernible] she has been a very active member in the immigrant right commission and spearheaded a lot of work around immigrant [indiscernible] housing and also working closely with our office on immigrant economic and workforce opportunities as well. >> thank you so much for reading the statements and all

your work. >> thank you. >> thank you. last but certainly not least we have jose ng. >> good morning supervisor, chair ronan, supervisor walton and supervisor safai and everyone in the house. my name is jose ng a immigrant from hong kong and lived in san francisco nearly 7 years now. i work as the immigrant rights program manager at [indiscernible] i'm here to seek consideration for immigrant rights commission. over the years i had the privilege to lead directly engage in the san francisco immigrant community from assisting chinese immigrants assessing [indiscernible]

privilege the work and lead the city wide coalition. [indiscernible] ( and the immigration status. with that, i'm particularly interesting in exploring the

immigrant right role from meaningfully participating in our society. particularly around language access issue and voting rights issue. thank you for your time and consideration for my appointment. happy to answer any questions. >> thank you so much and thank you applying for this seat. colleagues, do you have questions or comments? no. thank you very much for taking this on and again, another very impressive presentation. we are in good hands colleagues. first, before we make any motions, can we please open this item up for public comment? >> yes, members of the public who wish to speak should line up to speak. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. there is a soft chimet with 30 seconds left and louder chime when your time expires. >> come join us. >> good morning.

thank you for the opportunity to voice my support for jose ng as commissioner to the immigrant right commission. i oversee his work and in the last 6 and a half years i attest to the fitness for the immigrant community. as a immigrant fully bilingual in cantonese and mandarin, jose is effective leader. he leads community education programming around immigrant rights issues to insure chinese immigrants have access to the information they need such as crucial changes to the immigration system. he built strong ties to local institutions such as san francisco unified school district, city college, major clineez media outlets feechards countless time and other community based organizations. if you walk around china town with jose it is like being with

the captain football team. jose is department of justice representative as mentioned and he has been able to provide naturalization service to dozens if not hundreds of china town community members and provide councilitation and guidance to hubs more. jose is not only advocate for chinese members but multilingual [indiscernible] the immigrant voting collaborative and live dispatcher on the san francisco rapid response hotline. he understands the concerns and needs of san francisco immigrant communities all over the world would be able to well represent those concerns and needs in constructive ways. jose is forward thinking and solution oriented and would be a great asis etto the commission. thank you. >> thank you so much. good morning. >> good morning supervisors. my name is vincent pan, the

coexecutive director of chinese affirmative action and as my colleague just indicated, strong support the application of jose to the immigrant rights commission. i want to say on a personal note, jose is a steadfast advocate for community clients, insightful problem solver and worked hard to address the system barriers face to access and [indiscernible] grounded in the chinese community. jose helped lead our work in coalitions that bring immigrants and others together across language, class, race, ethnicity and immigrant status. i'm confidence jose will serve with integrity, diligence, collegeality and thoughtfulness and believe of rights on all people regardless of immigration status. i encourage you to vote in

favor of jose's application to the immigrant right commission and ca has been a real privilege to work with the immigrant right commission and office of civic engagement and immigrant afears many years and look forward continuing the partnership. they think. >> thank you so much. >> there does not appear to be additional public commenters. >> public comment is now closed. supervisor walton. >> thank you chair ronan. i just wanted to say thank you to all of the candidates, both the incumbents and also new candidates willing to step up and serve. i don't think people know how much time and work goes into working on commissions here in san francisco, so one, always excited to be people willing to serve and two, excited about the fact that this works out perfect for us today in the math so we don't have extremely tough decision to make today. >> absolutely, and i'll just

say that we have a tough time coming up before us. there is a election and in addition to that, there is just a crisis right now on the border where you don't see much difference between the candidates in terms of closing down the border and really going backwards in terms of our responsibility as a global community to grant asylum to people not safe in their own countries, so the work that you are doing is as important as ever and will be going into the future, so thank you so much for taking this on and for serving this important role in our community. and with that, i would like to make a motion to appoint aseel fara to seat 4.

mario paz seat 6. and lucia obregon to seat 11. >> thank you. on the motion to make the appointments as listed, vice chair walton, aye. supervisor safai, aye. my apologies, i like to back up a little bit. would you like to add residency waver for mario paz? >> i would, please. >> thank you. on that revised motion, vice chair walton, aye. supervisor safai, aye chair ronan, aye. the motion passes without objection. >> passesue unanimously.

thank you so much. please read itedm 2? >> ordinance amending the administrative code to create the legacy business assistance program. >> thank you so much. we have director katie tang and rick who has overseen this program since inception, so thank you both for being here. i'll pass it to you director tang. >> thank you. good morning supervisors and of course i certainly want to acknowledge a important cocreator of the legacy business program supervisor ronan along with supervisor compose. before you today is legislation and really i wanted to highlight the over arching goal behind why we are trying to make changes to this program. really what we want to accomplish is to better support legacy businesses and help them stabilize. so, there are really two key changes that pertain specifically just to the rent stabilization grant program that we are making today.

while preserving the integrity and goals of the overall legacy business program so just reemphasize, we will not be changing anything around who is eligible to become a legacy business or to get on the registry. happy to share that again, thanks to rick crilo the there are nearly 400 legacy businesses on the registry. the first change is we want to be able to require that landlords who participate and benefit from the rent stabilization grant program they share at least 50 percent of the grant they receive from the city with the legacy business tenant. right now that is not a requirement and per rick, roughly 60 percent of the landlords do voluntarily share most or some of the are grants funds with the legacy business

tenants and also this applies for only new applicants moving forward, so who ever benefited and already receiving the rent stabilization grant program, those program terms will not change. the second change is that we eliminate the special contingency provision landlords are allowed to include in their rent lease agreements. currently it allows a landlord to cancel legacy business lease if the landlord does not receive the $4.50 per square foot through the rent stabilization grant program so we want to remove that from the program as well. so, again, those two changes. everything else remains the same. the legislation before you today creates a fund that allows us to make the two changes without going-having to change the measure that was before voters in 2015 through proposition j, while preserving

all the other elements. we want to make sure integrity of the program is in tact. happy to answer questions and want to thank you supervisor ronan for champions with the program while with supervisor compos office and rick. >> thank you so much. supervisor walton. >> thank you. just a quick question directser tang. why didn't we make this retroactive for legacy businesses and landlords who already benefited? >> so, one we don't want to change program rules mid-stream, but when you do receive a rent stabilization grant from the city, tb is multiyear grant so we didn't want to change that. say you are in year 4 out of 10, we didn't want to change a the rules midway because they sign on for a program that they thought had a very specific set

of rules. >> thank you. >> thank you. i just wanted to thank you for this both of you. it makes a lot of sense and i just think you are both doing such a tremendous job and really having your ear to the ground and knowing the challenges some small businesses are facing in san francisco and constantly working to make changes to make it easier, because gosh, it isn't easy to run a small business in the city, so thank you both so much for your work and for this legislation and if i could be added as a cosponsor i appreciate that. sorry ahsha, i did not see supervisor safai. >> thank you. i have a couple questions for the director of the small business program. can you come back up, please? so, the legacy business assistance program fund, how much money is in that fund? >> so, for the rent--talking

about the rent stabilization grant program? >> just reading the legislation. >> i should mention in the creation of the fund we are creating a slightly different name only because administrately we want to keep track of the two different funds accounts. each year in our budget is $1 million for the rent stabilization grant program. >> so, the funds in the rent stabilization are the same thing? >> yes. >> okay. what are it the size of the grants that you offer? >> it really does depend, but it is a calculation of $4.50 per square feet. >> is there a cap on the size of the grant? >> yes, 5,000 square feet. >> so, $4.50 times 5,000 would be the cap? and many grants have you distributed since the creation of the fund? >> you mean since inception of the entire program?

>> just this rent stabilization, how many people are in lease right now? >> 53 per rick or legacy business program manager. >> and are those-how are those distributed throughout san francisco? >> what happens is first, as a first step you have to become a legacy business and you have to fill out an application and be approved. go through the historic preservation commission and routed to small business commission and once approved by the small business commission, the landlord and the legacy business tenants apply together for the rent stabilization grant program. >> i guess what i'm trying to understand, the grants themselves are to pay for rent, correct? >> so, it is actually incentive funding that would go to the landlord to incentivize them to sign either a new 10 year lease, renew a 10 year lease or 5 year lease with a 5 year

option to extend up to 5 years, so again, something to motivate the landlord to sign on to a longer term lease. i'm sure chair ronan can speak to this much more deeply, but seeing issues with landlords not wanting to sign on a longer term lease fl long standing businesses. >> i can chime in on what was the original thinking behind that. at the time, many landlords were increasing rents really really high so the long-term legacy businesses were closeing down so it was a big hit to neighborhoods all over the city, so the idea is, if we gave them an incentive to enter into long-term lease thrz is stability that relieve a lot of stress and pressure on small businesses, and so that's part of the original ordinance, not this change.

this change would allow the city to require there be sharing between of the benefits that assistance between the landlord and the business itself. >> that makes sense. i appreciate that. i'm just reading the headlines under the legislation, it says grants to businesses directly and it says financial assistance to businesses and it says grants to landlords and it says financial and business assistance to landlords and of the legacy businesses, and then marketing promotion. this fund is to cover all those things? >> yes, we want the fund to be as flexible as possible so if we receive additional funding sources we can easily use this fund to grant out funds to legacy business. >> right. and this by the way is a lot of what community benefits districts do in their areas, so this would be in addition to what community benefit districts are doing?

>> not sure what you mean in terms of cbd. >> not just legacy business, they focus on the commercial corridors they are in and do financial assistance, they do do work with landlords, they do promotion, marketing, all these things, so-- >> at this moment, the only grants really-it is directly to--at this moment it is going to lands lords to stabilize legacy businesses so the intent is give some money to the legacy small business. >> is it specified-i didn't see it specified. is that to help the business in any way to invest back in the business or could it be for rent? >> they can apply towards rent. but meant to help stabilize them. if there are particular needs that they have, it is really designed to be pretty flexible for them. >> got it.

okay. great. i think it is a great program. i was just curious how you were envisioning it, how much money was put in it. a million dollars is just my calculation 5,000 square $5,000 square feet at $4.50 square foot is about $22 thousand a business. all that helps, particularly those that are struggling in a particular market. appreciate it. i like to be added as a cosponsor. thanks for answering those questions. >> thank you so much. and we can now open this item up for public comment. >> yes, members of the public who wish to speak should line up to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. >> good morning. my name is calvin yan, representing supervisor president peskin. in support of the item. i want to say as a supervisor with high density of legacy businesses and represent a lot

of legacy business in district 3 and coauthored [indiscernible] jump start the prop j administer the prop j and someone who has supported the legacy program i know rick and director tang has been working on to really highlight the legacy business in our city, and in the district we also followed the foots of kia venta quat row for the conditional use. we want to highlight that in recent cases, i think last week or two weeks ago we have a legacy business where the planning commission has overlooked the process and actually allowed eviction of legacy business without permit permit or process to keep them in place and just remind folks a legacy business is in business 30 years. that is long time for a mom and pop to really work hard on the program and legislation before

you will strengthen some of the programs to support our small business community and really keep them whole and the foundation of many diverse neighborhoods. we urge you to support and pass this with recommendation. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> any other speakers for public comment on this matter? there does not appear to be any other speakers. >> public comment is now closed. i would like to make a motion to send this item to full board with positive recommendation. >> yes, ton that motion, vice chair walton, aye. supervisor safai, aye. chair ronan, aye. the motion passes without objection. >> passes unanimously. thankz so much. mr. clerk, dee do we have other iletms items on the agenda today? >> that completes the items for today. >> thank you very much, the meeting is adjourned.

[meeting adjourned]

>> who doesn't love cable cars? charging emissions and we're free which we're proud of you know, it's not much free left in the world anymore so we managed to do that through donations and through our gift shops. you got a real look and real appreciation of what early transit systems are like. this was the transit of the day from about 1875 to about 1893 or later, you know. cable car museum is free, come on in. take a day. come down. rediscover the city. you can spend as time you want and you don't have to make reservations and it's important to be free

because we want them to develop a love for cable cars so they do continue to support whether they live here or other places and people come in and say, yes, i have passed by and heard of this and never come in and they always enjoy themselves. people love cable cars and there's none left in the world so if you want to ride a cable car, you've got to come to san francisco. that what makes the city. without the cable cars, you lose part of that, you know, because people who come here and they love it and they love the history ask they can ride a cable car that has been running since 1888 or 1889. wow! that's something. can't do that with other historical museums. rarely, have i run into anybody from outside who didn't come in and didn't feel better from knowing something about the city. it's a true experience you'll remember. i hope they walk away with a greater appreciation for the history, with the mechanics with people are fascinated by the winding machine and i hope the

appreciation, which is a part of our mission and these young kids will appreciate cable cars and the ones who live here and other places, they can make sure there will always be cable cars in san francisco because once they are gone, they are gone. it's the heartbeat of san francisco that founded the cable and the slot and without the cable cars, yeah, we would lose something in san francisco. we would lose part of its heart and soul. it wouldn't be san francisco without cable cars. [bell ringing]

you're watching san francisco rising with chris manners. special guest is david chu. hi i'm chris manners and you're watching san francisco rising the show that's about restarting rebuilding and re imagining our city. i guess today is david chiu, the city attorney for the city and county of san francisco

, and he's here today to talk to us about the opioid crisis, reproductive rights and the non citizen voting program. mr chu, welcome to the show. thanks for having me on happy to talk about whatever you want me to talk about, so can we start by explaining the difference between the city attorney's office and the district attorney's office? i think it could be slightly confused. that is a very common fusion with members of the public so um, if you get arrested in san francisco by the san francisco police department, all criminal matters are dealt with by the san francisco district attorney . we handle all civil matters on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. what that means is a number of things. we provide advice and counsel to all actors within city government from our mayor. every member of the board of supervisors to the 100 plus departments, commissions boards that represent the city and county of san francisco. we also defend the city against thousands of lawsuits. so if you slip and fall in front of city

hall if there's a bus accident if there is an incident involving the san francisco police department, we defend those matters. we also bring lawsuits on behalf of the city and county of san francisco, where most famous for litigating and obtaining the constitutional right to marry for lgbtq couples have sued gun manufacturers, payday lenders, oil companies, you name it, who are undercutting the rights of san franciscans and the city and county of san francisco. so now moving on to the opioid crisis. i understand you've had some success in court, um, dealing with manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies. could you elaborate a little bit on that for us, so the opioid industry and by that i refer to the legal industry that prescribes pain pills. um over years. uh, deceived americans and resulted in literally thousands upon

thousands of deaths and tragedies that we see on our streets every day when it comes to the addictions that folks are experiencing. many of the addictions really stemmed from what happened over a decade plus period where the prescription pain industry marketed prescription pills in ways that were false. we were one of thousands of jurisdictions around america that brought a lawsuit against the opioid industry. but we've had a particular set of successes that others have not. ah we initially brought a lawsuit a few years ago against every part of the opioid supply chain, and that included manufacturers, distributors and retailers, including pharmacies over the course of four plus years. a number of these corporate defendants settled with us. we've as of this moment brought in over $120 million of cash and services. to the city to help address the root causes of what we're talking about. but a few

months ago, we had a really historic verdict against the pharmacy, walgreens and their role walgreens was responsible for literally over 100 million pills, flooding the streets of san francisco over a period of years where they flouted federal law that require them to track where they're pills were going to. they had a what? what we refer to as a phil phil phil. pharmacy culture where folks would bring in their prescriptions, and the pharmacist would just fill them without checking why someone was coming in multiple times without checking why certain doctors were seen a 100 fold increase in the number of opioid prescriptions that they were prescribing. so we had a historic judgment against walgreens recently, but it's been a very intense lawsuit. and we know that will never bring back the lives that we have lost to opioid addictions. but it's critical for us that we get the resources that we need. maybe one other thing i'll mention

because it's often confusion. a large percentage of folks who are addicted to street level drugs say heroin or fentanyl started their addictions. with painkillers, opioid medications that were prescribed through doctors provided through pharmacies and so literally the suffering that we're seeing on our streets was caused by the opioid industry over many, many years and has created the significant crisis that we are dealing with right now. right right now moving on. i understand after the recent supreme court ruling, striking down robust as wade that you've put together an organization that's designed to help mm. provide free services to people who are both. seeking abortions and providing them can you tell us about the organization? sure so, um, before the dobbs decision came down, but after we learned about the leak from the supreme court about the draft that suggested the decision would be as bad as it has turned out to be, um, i reached out to

leadership from the bar association of san francisco because we knew that if that decision came down there would be tens of thousands of patients around the country as well as providers whose legal situation would be in jeopardy. women doctors, nurses who could be subjected to lawsuits who could be arrested who could be prosecuted, particularly in red states? 26 states where rights are being rolled back or in the process or have already been rolled back because of the dobbs decision. so we put out a call to lawyers all over the bay and frankly, all over the country, and as of this moment there have been over 70 law firms that have answered our call to be part of the legal alliance for reproductive rights who have committed to reviewing cases and providing pro bono assistance to patients and providers who are at legal risk. we also are looking at potential cases that these lawyers can bring against various states. in these areas that are looking to deprive

women and patients and providers of their of their rights. um it is a very dark time in america, and i'm really proud that that barrier attorneys, the legal community care have stepped up to answer the call. it's very important that's great. so now the non citizen voting program that was passed by voters just for school boards has faced them court challenges recently, but it was in place for the most recent election that we've had. how do you see that situation panning out? in fact, it's been in place for now. five school board elections. um so a little bit of background in our san francisco schools over one out of three kids. has a parent who is a non citizen who doesn't have a say in the election of the policy makers that dictate the future of our san francisco public schools, and so over a number of years, there has been a movement to allow immigrant parents to vote in school board elections. few things i'll

mention about that is our country has a very long history when it comes to allowing immigrants to vote. from 17 76 for 100 and 50 years until after world war. one immigrants were allowed to vote in most states in our country on the theory that we want to assimilate immigrants in american democratic values and institutions, and it wasn't until an anti immigrant backlash in world war one that that sort of ended. but in recent years, um cities across america have allowed this to happen. in fact, at this moment, believe there are over a dozen cities that have voted to allow non citizens to vote in a number of context. now, this is particularly important in our schools just given how challenge our schools are, and given that we know that when we engage more parents in her school system, regardless of their citizenship it helps to lift up our schools for all parents. and so in 2016 the voters of san francisco past about measure that allowed this

to happen. unfortunately earlier this year, there were conservative organizations that came to san francisco to bring a lawsuit to try to overturn this , and i should also mention it is obviously the perspective of our office and our city that this is constitutional. nothing in the constitution prohibits non citizens from voting. and in fact, there's an explicit provision in the constitution that allows chartered cities like san francisco when it comes to school board elections to be able to dictate the time and manner of those elections. and so, uh, we are involved in litigation on this issue. there was an initial ruling that was not good for us that essentially said at the trial court level. we shouldn't allow this. um we appealed it up to the appellate level. the appellate court made an initial decision to allow this past november election to proceed as it has for the last previous four elections. we're going to be in front of that court soon. stay tuned. we'll see what happens. it was good to

hear that the city was able to reach a settlement with the center for medicare and medicaid services are meant laguna honda could still operate. how did you manage to reach that agreement? it was not an easy conversation . just a little bit of background. so laguna honda has been an incredibly important institution in san francisco for 150 years, taking care of our most vulnerable patients are frail, very elderly patients, many of whom are at end of life. and a few years ago, there were some issues in that hospital. some violations of rules that we very much want to make sure don't get violated. there were folks that weren't using proper ppe, who are bringing cigarette lighters into the facility, who might have brought some contraband into the facilities. we have zero tolerance for that and have made that very clear. we self reported some of these violations to the federal authorities. and unfortunately from our perspective, they took the very disproportionate step of ordering the closure. the permanent closure of lugano,

honda. problematic on a number of reasons. first and foremost, there are just no skilled nursing facility beds not just in california but around the country. after their order came down. we literally were putting 1000 calls a day to skilled nursing facilities around california and around the country and could find nowhere to move the 700 patients that we had had in the gonna honda but just as disturbingly as we were forced to start moving some of these patients, a number of them died. there's a concept in medicine known as transfer trauma. when you move someone who is that frail and unfortunately, folks folks died and we were at a point where we were five weeks away from the deadline for the federal government. that they had provided to us to close the facility. so uh and we have been trying for months to get the federal government to reconsider their action, so i was compelled to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the city and county of san francisco and very pleased and

appreciate that we were able to come to a settlement whereby transfers will be delayed at least until next year. we're going to have at least a year of funding. to keep the facility open, and hopefully we can get back up on our feet and ensure that no future violations occur because this is an institution that has to stay open for the good of these patients. quite right, quite right. so finally, congratulations on winning an important public power service dispute with pg and e. um why is it important that the city's rights as a local power provider maintained well, so san francisco has been a local power provider for decades. we are fortunate to have access through our hedge hetchy hydroelectric system to provide electricity to a number of providers, particularly public recipients of that. and unfortunately, pg any has used its monopoly when it comes to private electricity to try to stop that, and to block that, and from our

perspective, they violated federal law in adding literally tens of millions of dollars of expenses to san francisco and institutions that we're trying to ensure um, public power infrastructure. put years of delays on our ability to do this, and so we had to bring a number of appeals in the federal commission. ah we were successful in those appeals, and there was a decision recently that basically held the pg and e could not use its monopoly to unfairly delay or add tens of millions of dollars of cost. to the city and county of san francisco, as we are trying to move forward with our vision of public power. clearly pgd has not been able to serve not just san francisco but northern california. well we all know that with the wildfires with its bankruptcies, with all the issues that they've had, we think there is a different model to move forward on and we are grateful to the court. and providing a ruling that allows us to move forward. well thank

you so much for coming on the show. i really appreciate the time you've given us here today. i appreciate and thanks for your thanks for your questions. thank you. well that's it. for this episode, we'll be back with another one shortly for sf gov t v. i'm chris manners. thanks for watching. yeah. >> [music] what's this for? i will have nile firefighter friends bring me a bench to explain the cool things. joy want to see. >> this is cool marbles up here. a, appliance and hose and this is a y >> why? >> why is it called a y, that's

a great question this . is a y. you see it looks like a y. we use it for yellow in the fight we use it to take 2 different hoses from one hose. that way in a big building like a high rise, and we have a large piece of hose connect here, we are able to take two more hoses in different directions to help put a fire out in a floor that is well above the street level. >> okay. >> fire engines carry 4 firefighters and firefighter paramedics. firefighters should not be considered strangers. firefighters are your friends. >> uh-huh. >> you are in need of help you need to make sure it is okay to go up to the firefighter. firefighters utilize many of the tools we discuss in the a fire engine. such as a fire extinguisher >> what's that for. >> they can be used to put out

fires the size. a waste basket and squirts water. >> oh , >> that is cool. >> yea! >> we have other tools a chain saw. they help us get through the many obstacles we encounter while we are trialing to put out a fire or save somebody's life. >> nice >> that is cool if you see a firefighter like this in a fire the firefighters are friends and this firefighter will save your life. it is okay to go to the firefighter. >> hum. good to know. [music] ♪♪

good morning and welcome to the march first, 2024 treasure island development authority. housing, infrastructure, transportation and sustainability committee meeting . item number ■one call to orde. director richardson, i'm here. director sen. yeah. director. howard howard, absent. and director riif here. thank you. we do have a quorum. okay i just wanted to, uh, say hello and thank everyone. um, at this meeting, commissioners. good morning. and, um, thank you to all those that would be watching. now, later on. so, uh, let's go. okay item number two, general public comment. this item is to allow members of the public to address the hits committee on matters that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the committee, and that do not appear on