meeting to order. if you could please rise for the pledge of allegiance. to the flag that i. from america to public. which stands one nation under god, indivisible and justice for all. exceptionally, fcc commissioners would like to take roll. commissioner walker here. i'm not going to read it. commissioner benedicto, present. commissioner janez present. commissioner byrne here. commissioner yee and vice president carter obersten are in route. and you do have a quorum. thank you, are you going to call the item line? item one weekly officer recognition certificate presentation of an officer who has gone above and beyond in the performance of their duties. sergeant michael zang, star number 4236. special investigations division.

thank you, commissioner byrne. commissioners. acting director hawkins and chief scott. and to those here and watching at home. so good evening, the special investigations division would like to recognize sergeant mike zang for his dedication and hard work. sergeant zang was one of the primary planners of the dignitary protection for the apec conference, and was designated point of contact for many of our state, federal, state and local partners that the san francisco police department worked with for almost a year. he and others, but mostly him, coordinated and helped plan the routes that dignitaries would use to get to their various venues throughout the city, as we all know, the apec conference served as a big open for business sign and symbol for san francisco and was and sergeant zang was a big part of making that happen, on the police department side of the house, mike is also a consummate professional in the office, and

always prepared to lend a hand when someone needs a hand on a case or an extra body in the field, when i first met mike in 2014, he, he and i were sergeants in the tenderloin station, and i was struck and still am at his jovial nature, which might seem at odds with his strong work ethic and humble demeanor, but it's a great honor to present this commissioner award to him, so i'll read it now. it says the officer of the week in recognition for your dedication and professionalism, demonstrated through outstanding community policing practices and inspiring greatness by exemplifying the ideals of the police officers as guardians of our community, such an example of dedication is worthy of the highest esteem by the city and county of san francisco, and the san francisco police department presented on this 20th day of march 2020 for. thank you. sergeant we don't want to embarrass you, but, sergeant,

would you. do you have anything to say? please? i just want to thank the commission for this award, okay? yeah. a humble man, sergeant. man. a few words. pardon me. he is. he said he's a man of few words, okay. well, on . well, commissioner, you're now the senior one here. yeah, i, we would like to thank you for your service, sometimes, as you well know, it's not appreciated, but, on behalf of the rest of the commission, i'd like to say that it is appreciated. and thank you for your outstanding work. thank you, chief, william scott. thank you. commissioner yi. i just want to say, sergeant zang is, you know, there are some people that are just go to type of people that you can count on. they're they're always they're always reliable, always respond

to the call. he is that type of person. so i know unassuming, not looking for the glory, but it's a well deserved, award. and thank you, commission, for recognizing sergeant james singh's work. thank you, commissioner. benedicto. thank you. thank you, acting president. yi, congratulations, sergeant, it sounds like from everything we've heard from the ceo and the chief that you're doing really tremendous work. and thank you for going above and beyond in your in your service to the department and to the community, and, you know, the responsibilities for your role in apex sounded, tremendous. and that was a real once in a generation event that san francisco had the privilege of holding, and that you'll be able to have contributed to the success of that event is a real testament to your work. and your work ethic and to the department. so congratulations. thank you, commissioner yanez, sergeant zang, thank you so much for your service to our community, your sacrifices that

you made, during the apec conference and making sure that our city is, you know, demonstrated to the world in its best in the best version of itself, and i like that you're a man of action, a lot of humility and few words. keep up the good work. thank you, commissioner walker, thank you so much for your service. and, you know, your willingness to go above and beyond. i know it was a lot of work all over town, making sure that there were no issues and there weren't any issues. and that's exactly what we hope for. so, you often don't get recognized for that, but, we really appreciate it. so thank you. and thank you, sergeant, thank you, commissioner. i'll finish it out there, thank you again. sergeant, michael zang for all you done. and throughout the, i guess, the apac meeting, i don't think it's going to be a once in a lifetime. i hope they come back again. but we'll do it

better again. and continue, your excellent service to the city and the county of san francisco. thank you again on your tremendous work. thank you. thank you, commissioners and, chief, thanks. for members of the public who would like to make public comment regarding line item one, the officer recognition, please approach the podium. and there is no public comment. line item two. general public comment. at this time, the public is now welcome to address the commission for up to two minutes on items that do not appear on tonight's agenda, but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the police commission under police commission. rules of order. during public comment, neither police or epa personnel nor commissioners are required to respond to questions by the public, but may provide a brief response. alternatively you may submit public comment in either of the following ways. email the secretary of the police commission at sfpd. commission at sf gov. org or written

comments may be sent via us postal service to the public safety building located at 1245 third street, san francisco, california. 94158. good evening, police commission. earlier today, i sent a fbi ic3 report via email to the police commission. i urge you to read it in its entirety. yesterday i spoke about this at the mta board of directors. board of supervisors and health commission. previously, i have spoken here and i went to ensure you that i'm not pointing fingers at any agency, but attempting to bring departments together to resolve these issues collectively to ensure san francisco thrives and moves forward. the major problem is that several and departments are giving out credentials to systems who should not have access to systems systems used by various entities to compound the issue, a person could be placed incorrectly onto a system for an illegal intervention that overlaps a legal intervention. for example, if a person places person a on a health related

intervention for illegal gun ownership or a substance abuse disorder, and they have made a mistake or placed that person on it only to discredit them, then person a is near a fight or brawl. person a could would have the synergy and anxiety associated with the over utilization of surveillance and systems. this would increase the likelihood of accidents, injury or worse. this could be in reverse as well. imagine if a minority is continually being profiled, stopped, frisked, etc. and that leads to increased alcohol and drug usage. this could lead to hsa or df incorrectly assessing the person during their intervention or clinician review. i'm urging the police commission, in consultation with the police department and other agencies, to form a task force to address these issues. prior to the fbi and department of justice getting involved locally and just today, the fcc. fcc is investigating amazon for selling jammer devices. and that's basically what this is. it can impact emergency communications,

all kinds of get the right page here. emergency communications, normal phone use and critical infrastructure such as airport navigation systems. thank you . hello, folks, i want to talk to you people behind the camera about back there, though, about an elected police chief. two things that we used to do in this town that would really bring bring, a whole new focus on the scene we used to elect our police chief. right now, about 20 people, including this group here, gets together. you do a search, then you, pick somebody and add maybe 20

people, 450,000 people should be involved in picking the police chief. this present police chief. nice guy. no power. he's pulled between the poa and the mayor. the mayor appointed him. you guys gave the mayor a few names, and. and the mayor picked a name, and then you go pointing back at each other. anytime something happens with crime, voters of san francisco, when you've got a problem with crime, the person you should point at is the person in the mirror, because 450,000 people should get a say in who the police chief in san francisco is. you know, who can make that happen? the mayor can make that happen. but that's giving away a lot of problems. now, these mayoral candidates, let's hear them start to talk about this. bring it up, bring it up. say, hey, what about an elected police chief? we'd like to have a choice in this. not my idea. michael hennessey's idea. 32 years as the sheriff of this

town. he said. ag said, you know, if we elected our police chief, if they didn't do what they said they'd do in the planks, if they didn't give us foot patrols or police kobans or the bart stops in chinatown, then we could vote them out and, elect a police chief. that's a good move. get these mayoral candidates to say that they will support electing a police chief. the responsibility for crime in this town should be the person in the mirror. hello. a lot has happened since the last time we got together. it's been quite an exciting couple of weeks. we had an election, and as the gentleman before me pointed out, the people are fed up with the intervention of the police commission, micromanaging the police department. let them let the police department do their job, that came very that came through very clear in the recent elections. also another thing

that came through very clear is that the people in the city are concerned about ethics of everyone who is an employee of the city. and i know there's some concerns about some people here, and i'm looking forward to learning more about it. i'm looking forward to learning more about what we discover and what actions are going to be taken to hold people accountable. so thank you. good evening, commissioners. good evening. chief and good evening to all. my name is jay connor beretti's. and while i'm not here as a candidate, i am here as a concerned resident. i want to congratulate the officer for being recognized this evening and to also say thank you to all the men and women of the san francisco police department for the incredible work they do, both behind the scenes and on the beat. truly, we would be at the mercy of criminals without them. now, when i, i come to

this meeting all the time and i say the majority of san francisco supports our officers, and after results of prop e and his most recent election, you now have proof that people are waking up and they, like me, have had enough of this commission that constantly gets an sfpd's way to keep our neighborhoods safe. now, prop e is a taste of things to come. if this commission does not get its act together and start supporting sfpd rather than getting in their way. now on a final note, it would be very unfair of me to call on jennifer friedenbach to resign due to a conflict of interest without calling on both commission president elias and fellow commissioner yanez to resign due to a blatant conflict of interests. commission president elias husband was named as an attorney in a letter delivered to this commission by the district attorney's office in january. commissioner yanez, romantic partner is a public

defender, and what's even worse was that there in the news for unethical behavior displayed on cases as both commissioners have major conflicts of interests and cannot uphold the integrity of this commission. so i'm officially calling on the two of you to step down from this commission in the name of transparency and accountability. thank you. it's the question of said before responsibility and critical thinking is has to be pushed by the mayor. she doesn't want to do it. so i think mayor, you are not in good health because responsibility and critical thinking, okay, i don't have much to say tonight. so i'm going to digress big time. you remember we used to talk about, american, italian mafia? it

does. what happened to them? we never hear about them. they just quit their business. it's interesting, isn't it? how come we never hear about these people ? i suspect there is. you know, they are still operating. are you? so i'm digressing. i mean, it was supposed to bring some sort of, you know, love for me, but i think it doesn't work. have a good night. thank commissioners. there is no further public comment. line item three. consent calendar. receive and file action as amended. department general order 1102 second secondary employment annual report 2023. photo booth donation for sfpd's annual bring your child to work day event worth an estimated $500. sfpd 14, sb 1421 and dps, sb 1421. motion to receive and

file commissioner byrne. thank you, vice president carter stone, i'd like to thank, the commission, the commission staff for compiling the information on, the secondary employment of the police officers in the amended, in the amended secondary deployment, employment that was handed to the commission for this agenda. i thank them for their hard work. and i think it's an issue of transparency because without that, we really had no idea what some of these officers were up to. so thank you. all right. i will second the motion for members of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item three consent calendar. please approach the podium. there is no public comment on the motion. commissioner walker, how do you vote? yes, mr. walker is. yes, commissioner benedicto. yes. mr. benedicto is. yes. commissioner

yanez. yes commissioner yanez is. yes. commissioner byrne. yes. commissioner byrne is. yes. commissioner yee, yes. commissioner yee is yes. and vice president carter oberstar. yes. vice president stone is. yes. you have six yeses. line item for chief's report. discussion. weekly crime trends and public safety concerns provide an overview of offenses, incidents or events occurring in san francisco having an impact on public safety commission discussion on unplanned events and activities that chief describes will be limited to determining whether to counter for a future meeting. chief scott, thank you, good evening. good evening, vice president carter stone, acting executive director. hawkins, commission and the public. i'll start off this week's, chief's report with crime trends. and just overall, very briefly, crime part one crime is down 30. that's, about 20, almost 20, 30, 400 crimes fewer than this time last year. property crime is down 32. and violent crime is down 16. and the biggest drop is in property

crime, which is, about 3200 crimes fewer than this time last year in terms of the violent crime, homicides, we have six year to date compared to ten this time last year. so that's a 40% reduction. and shooting victims overall. there's a 31% reduction, 11 fewer than this time last year. firearm. firearm recoveries are at 190 for the year, slightly above where we were this time last year. and overall, crime has been going in the right direction so far this year, report on a couple of significant incidents, that happened over this past week. the most significant was a tragic fatal collision that happened in the 900 block of yolo street, just a real tragic incident. and just for the details, on march 16th, 2024, at approximately 12:13 p.m, san francisco police officers

responded to the area of lola and lola street and lenox way on a report of a solo vehicle collision involving pedestrians. officers arrived on the scene and located multiple victims suffering from injuries. as sfpd officers and sfpd firefighters rendered aid to the victims, and despite those life saving efforts made by the first responders, two victims were declared deceased at the scene. three other patients were transported to the hospital with a multitude of serious injuries, since this saturday's incident, two of those three that were transported have also passed away. officers learned that the driver of the vehicle, identified as 78 year old mary fong lao, was traveling eastbound on yolo street when she crashed into a bus stop at the intersection of lowell street and lennox way. through the course of this investigation, that san francisco police department traffic collision investigations unit developed probable cause to

book the driver, miss lao, for felony vehicular manslaughter and additional traffic violations, this was this was a horrific incident and heartbreaking, there was a vigil held monday night, and the community came out in mass, to support the victims of this accident, this collision, rather. and, it was it was attended by a number of city officials, including members of the police department, public health, fire department, public works, and, it was it was a lot of support for this family there, this investigation is still open and ongoing, even though there was arrest. so we're asking that if anyone has any information that can lend some evidence to this investigation, please contact the san francisco police department at (415) 575-4444. or you can text the tip to tip. tip 411 and begin the message with

sfpd. other significant incidents over this week. there was there were two, homicides reported for this week. the first one was on the 100 block of appleton. that's in the ingleside district. that was on march 13th at 9:11 a.m. officers responded to a possible burglary, and when they arrived, they found a deceased victim suffering from stab wounds. a few hours later, the officers were able to locate the subject during a traffic stop, and a vehicle pursuit ensued that ended up in the city of oakland, where that subject was taken into custody and arrested for that murder. there was also, a homicide that occurred on the 100 block of dakota street in the bayview district. this occurred on march 17th at 554. a m, when witnesses found a deceased person on the ground between two buildings. that investigation is pending. no arrests have been made at this time, but our investigators are

following up on several several leads in this investigation. there were three non-fatal shootings resulting in three victims, one occurred on the 11th of march at 11:17 a.m. at wallace and jennings in the bayview. that victim sustained a gunshot wound and self transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. that investigation is still open and ongoing with no arrest. second one was on three on march 15th at 11:42 p.m. at underwood and third street in the bayview, where officers responded to a shot, fired, shots fired and found a victim suffering from a gunshot wound. that victim was taken to the hospital with, critical with injuries that listed them in critical condition. investigation ongoing. no arrest on that incident and the third shooting was on march 17th at 7:04 p.m. on the 1500 block of galvez avenue in the bayview. officers responded to a shooting and

found the victim lying inside a walk inside inside the property with a gunshot gunshot wound. the subject is known to officers and that investigation is ongoing, but no arrests at this time and that oh, one other significant event, a protest at the san francisco international airport that was on march 13th at 9:05 p.m. it was a pro-palestine, protest with about 300 people in attendance, there was disruptions to airport travel and travelers, coming and going to the airport, but there was no violence. and the protesters, ended up ending the protest without any serious, any serious incidents. and that concludes my report for this week. commissioner benedicto. thank you, acting president, chief, thank you very much for

that report, that was very helpful. i wanted to ask about the reopening of the yanfeng wu, case. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about, i had a couple questions. so i think, just to start, as to what prompted the department to reopen it, and then a status update on, on on where the investigation is you can share with the public. so there has been, additional evidence that has developed that caused us to relook at that case. and so that's where we are really nothing to report at this time except for it has been reopening , reopened. and there we did. the department put out a statement over the weekend that because there have been, requests from members of the public to release evidence from that investigation, which occurred in july, when this investigation is complete and when it's closed, we will do that. but we cannot release it right now, as it may compromise this investigation. okay, perfect. if you could include as a development in that case, in your in your report, that'd be

appreciated. thank you, thank you. that's all. chief, thank you for the report. i wanted to ask you about something that's now a couple weeks old, which was, there was some reporting that looked at, data from our department on vehicle pursuits and outcomes from those pursuits . a couple different outlets did this, and one of the takeaways was that sfpd had the highest collision rate of any law enforcement agency in the state, and i believe the lowest or second to lowest apprehension rate resulting from vehicle pursuits. and i just was wondering if you had any reaction to that, why you think that dynamic exists here in the city? yeah, i am familiar with that. i don't remember how it was ranked in terms of all the other law enforcement agencies, but i do recall reading that our collision rates were high, higher than many departments, and the apprehension rate was low, the collision rate really

is. there's a lot that goes into that in including, of course, the actions of the person that's being pursued, don't really have any answers in terms of the why on that. but what i can say, and this is not scientific, but it's definitely anecdotal, when you have tools that help manage a pursuit, like, air support, where you have an aerial view that can call out intersections, that can call out, dangers, it makes it a lot more, susceptible to not having those types of incidents that prevent it. totally. but it does make it a lot easier to manage that pursuit. and the same thing goes for the apprehension rate. you know, we don't have the benefit of having, helicopters or the use of that type of equipment. and this is a very dense and condensed city, which makes it a lot harder to do that. i do believe that hopefully with the

technology, drones and things like that, that we can deploy post pursuit at the termination, once that program program gets up and running, i think that's going to help. and i really do think that that's going to help with the apprehension rate, don't know if that's going to have an impact. and it could with the other part, the collision factors. but if used properly, i think it could, the other thing that is important to note is really on on pursuits, and i don't have all the details on all the other agencies as to how these collisions occurred. but when you have a very, very condensed city, you're more apt to these type of things happening to. and, you know, we're comparing this to the cities and departments all over the state, some rural, which has less of that type of, of dynamic to deal with. so it's something that we'll continue to look into. and maybe when we get some solid answers, we can come back to this commission with with some further analysis on, on that on those two factors.

thanks that's helpful. it certainly makes sense that san francisco's compactness might in some way contribute to the high collision rate. you mentioned drones. i think we covered this at a recent hearing. sfpd never requested funding for drones in any of its recent budgets. is that right? no, not in the recent budget. so you're talking about last year or year before? no, because we didn't have the authorization to use drones. so we have not. but you didn't seek authorization, correct, we worked toward seeking authorization, and we just never got there. understood. and then, given that our vehicle pursuit policy is poised to change, to allow pursuits in a much wider, swath of scenarios, are you at all concerned about, potentially increasing our already high collision and injury rates? well, i think there is a definitely a possibility that we'll have more pursuits and

what we have to be committed to, to address that is make sure that there is management of those pursuits, supervisory and officers that are always evaluating the crime that was committed, that caused that pursuit to be initiated with the risks that are that are out there. and that's something that we already do, that we have to continue to do. and i think that's going to be our key, actually. i mean, in managing pursuits, you have to be able to weigh the risk. and sometimes things are just too risky and too dangerous to continue pursuing or to initiate a pursuit. and from the beginning. so that language is already in our pursuit policy. that is good language that will remain, at least i hope and anticipate that it will remain. and there's language in the ordinance that reinforces that language. and really that's going to be the key. it does not mean that all accidents can be prevented. but

we have to manage those pursuits and make sure that we always evaluate the risks versus what we're pursuing, whether the gravity and the balance of that, it makes it worth it. even on serious violent crimes, sometimes the risk is too great and we have to employ other means to try to take that person into custody. right. and as you said, officers are already under the current policy doing their best to weigh the risk of letting a suspect go versus the risk, you know, the risk that would be inherent in attempting to apprehend the suspect versus the risk to the public from the chase. they're already doing that, as are their supervisors who are charged with overseeing the pursuit. so the only thing that this policy would do is broaden the number of pursuits, correct, potentially potentially because it gives more latitude of what types of crimes an officer can engage in in pursuit. so and there's no additional safeguard that would reassure the public that the

results would be any different than what we've seen, which is the highest collision rates in the state of california. correct. well, i don't think we can predict that. but what i can predict is that we're going to do everything that we can to make sure that we manage those pursuits. and as i said, the analysis of why these these collisions occur after the fact that definitely that needs to be evaluated, you know, there is a responsibility also of the person who is fleeing to try to make sure that there's accountability when those things happen. if we catch the person then or later that there's accountability to try to deter some of these things from happening, can't prevent everything from happening. but we can do our best to try to make sure that we do our jobs. great. thanks, chief, commissioner yee, thank you very much. there. vice president carter, chief, as you reported on the crime, year to date shows a substantial drop in 30,

throughout all the, i guess the, i guess, all the crimes. so i just wanted to see what your thoughts are for the reason for the drop. you know, you're at 30% lower than the previous year. it's a substantial drop. so first of all, i want to thank the, the officers and the members for their outstanding job, for keeping us safer. so just want to see what your thoughts are, if there's any. so our our strategies i believe are are making a difference. and not just the strategies but some of the outcomes. for instance, our plainclothes units in the month of february had 51 arrests, but of those 51 arrests, there was a very high impact arrests that were made, crews of people that were doing car burglaries, robberies, homicide suspect, narcotic suspects that were

dealing with high volumes of narcotics, it just ran the gamut. and i to me, i believe when we make arrests of people particularly like for the some of the arrests for the car burglary suspects, these were people that we know were very active. and even on the day that they were arrested, that committed multiple crimes, just last week, we arrested a crew of four who committed multiple crimes before our surveillance. and plainclothes officers arrested them out of the city, they had two guns. they had already committed a number of crimes in the city and probably outside of the city. but those are the types of arrests that we believe yield high impacts in terms of reducing the number of crimes, because these are people that are very prolific. i think with our violent crime strategies, as we've, brought this presentation before, the police commission trying to get to and address some of the needs of the high risk population people that are, either prone to be shot or engaged in being perpetrated in a shooting. i

think that's paid out, paid out dividends for us because we've done, i don't know what the count is. i believe upwards of 100 or so community safety meetings to try to engage with that population, before another crime occurs or another shooting occurs in so that that area in the city where we concentrated those efforts had one of the highest reductions in gun violence last year. that's the southeast part of the city, our burglaries, the same thing with the retail blitz strategies that we have done, we've made hundreds of arrests. and that's something that two years ago, we weren't we weren't deploying that strategy where officers and plainclothes are in the stores and they're making arrests of sometimes some very prolific burglars or retail theft operators. so i think all those things have have helped us again, you know, crime reduction is very humbling because you can't always predict how things are going to turn out. i'm just

happy that at least at this point of the year, we seem to be going in the right direction and we have a lot of momentum. and i think some of what we're doing with the for the camera, technology in the city is going to put us in a good place because many cities around us have that technology, and we didn't like the flock cameras that just we rolled out today, at least the first phase of that. and i think it's going to put us in a very good place in terms of being able to being able to apprehend and deter crime in the city. thank you very much, chief, i guess there are two profile high profile cases. one which, kevin benedicto talk about and the one over in, west portal, i guess everybody's looking for the time timeline for the disclosure of, evidence. so, thank you for your hard work there, chief. thank you. commissioner walker. thank you, just a, you know, a little follow up on the on the cameras

and the potential for that around car chases. you know, i spend some time in los angeles. they have a whole cable channel where all the news stations share those kind of chases. and it's not entertaining by any means. but what it does do is it allows for crossover and working with other departments because you have access to that video. and i, you know, i, i feel like often times rather than having a car chasing another car, having somebody at least figure out where they are, are allows for some other alternative. you know, being able to stop them somehow or use some of the technology that we've already discussed. i know we've discussed it in the past, where you shoot a tag, a radar tag on them, and then you can track them. i mean, i think i think that kind of use of technology is really going to help with

resolving the cases as well. so make it seems like, i know la is a very different city. it's got more freeways to accommodate that. but, i mean, i think they're, they're using more helicopters than drones, but in a city like san francisco, where there's very limited, dense space, it makes sense to be able to try that, at least in the downtown areas where you're, you know, not able to use cars. so i'm looking forward to that presentation. thank you, commissioner, and thank you. and we're excited for the opportunity to try some different things and hopefully it's all about public safety and doing what we can to make sure we're as safe as we can be. commissioner byrne, thank you. vice president carter overstone, chief, three issues, the last time we gathered, i asked about when the body worn camera involving the, palestinian demonstration, is that

investigation still ongoing? it is. there's two things. there is a, dpa investigation with that case, but there's also there were, i think last count, at least 61 vandalism. some pretty significant that happened during that protest. so there is an ongoing investigation and we've made some progress. we've identified some of the people responsible for some of those vandalism, but there's still a lot of work to be done so that investigation is still ongoing. but when it's concluded, we will release. right. so yeah, for the transparency as to the actions of the san francisco police department, that. yes. okay. thank you. the second question, the, your staff and the commission got back to me that the three officers that were recently sworn in were assigned to tenderloin station. is that an increase in staff or replacement, well, there i think it was a net increase because in

addition to those three, there were some people that, came back to work from, work related injuries and, there was at least one transfer out. so, but i believe net there has been an increase since. okay. so like a net of two, i think the net of 2 or 3 because there was a transfer out. but i believe at least two. and then, finally, in the, in the horrific incident in west portal, at least the press account that i read that the toxicology reports for the suspect, they didn't have it at the time of printing. has there been a toxicology report done on the suspect? i understand she's hospitalized, she was, she was transported to the hospital. we do not have, we don't have that yet, but that investigation is still ongoing, so i don't want to get too far ahead of myself in terms of what's just. yeah, it's just. it's just so hard to comprehend, given it really is, you know, the nature of the whole thing, that. yeah, i think

the public would be interested to see whether there's something in the toxicology report that might explain exactly. you know, why, why such a horrific thing happened. yeah, i definitely understand that. there's a lot of questions out there that people want to know why and how this happened. thank you chief, thank you. all right. seeing no names in the queue, could we go to public comment, please, for members of the public who would like to make public comment regarding line item for the chief's report, please approach the podium. hello. thank you. doctor chief scott, for your report. it's very, very, great to hear the cline in the numbers, and i really hope they're true. and the reason why i say i hope they're true is because, in my world, i work with a lot of data and the key thing with data is to ensure that you can verify it and, and then work with multiple sources to cross-check it. and i just

know by completely by word of mouth. so this is anecdotes which are not data like i definitely am a believer that the plural of anecdotes is not data, they're anecdotes. but i just know a lot of people are so frustrated with a lot of the crime in this city that there's sort of a feeling like, oh, why bother reporting, so i'm just wondering if a, you have other sources to sort of corroborate this good news. and then b whether you're seeing any sort, like whether there's any trends that people are actually reporting what they are seeing. so thank you. thank you. again, to 450,000 voters. my name is h. brown. i'm a retired special education teacher. i live a couple of blocks from 16th and mission. i've been here

for 44 years. my last teaching position was on potrero hill. i taught special ed kids. i taught the gangsters, six teenth and mission and 24th and mission. when feinstein was mayor was a pretty hot spot for gangs. and you could get killed for getting off bart wearing the wrong color, one of the gangs had an initiation, thing that, as you got off the bus, you leaned over and stabbed somebody and then jumped off at 16th and mission there. 24th and mission. that's why that little, plastic, heavy plastic plate, if you sit next to the door, that's why that's there. so, feinstein went traveling and she saw europe, and she saw an amazing thing. she saw police cop boxes, they call them co bands. and there'd be a cops at a busy intersection standing there, in a cop box talking to pedestrians. and he'd get relieved every half hour or

so because another two cops would be walking a couple of directions, meeting the people. and, and so they they got to know the public that way. right now, we've got mayoral candidates saying we want to get rid of all the vendors or all of this and that. it's because the police do not do their job. feinstein moved the police kobans and put them into bart stops. she put one in chinatown. she put one in civic center. and when the time came for, for the next, mayor's race, willie brown made a deal with the sfpd who were scared to death of them because the gang shot them. and i walked by the same place without a gun for 44 years. and so the cops backed out, closed the cop boxes, made one of them into a ticket stand.

good evening, i'd like to use the overhead. it's not on. could you. before you start my time. it's not on. here. concerning my son aubrey, who was murdered august 14th, 2006. his case is unsolved, as i mentioned, i come here, we talked about the decline in shootings, but there's no decline in solving unsolved. there's no, up, kleiner in solving unsolved homicides, which is my son. again, i come here still asking for it to be pinned on the agenda about how to solve unsolved homicides. other ways to solve unsolved homicides. i'm. i'm not all that

. i'm incoherent. today, my mother is in the hospital. she just had a major stroke. so i'm still here, and i still have to leave and go back to the hospital. but at least i'm there to tell my mother and hold on to her and touch her where i didn't get to do my son like that. but i still have that chance with my mother. you have all the names of the perpetrators who murdered my son, all the names of the perpetrators who murdered my son . i didn't get these off of a book. these are at the homicide department. last time when you had all the, last week, when you had all the homicide detail people here and saying that, all the great jobs they did solving their cases and stuff. but i raised my picture up really high. but my son's case wasn't solved. this is what they left

me with. my son decaying on a on a gurney. me standing over my son. not only that, all the other unsolved homicides that are here that are not solved. what are we going to do about it? thank you. for members of the public that have any information regarding the murder of aubrey abercastle, you can call the anonymous 24 seven tip line at (415) 575-4444. and that is the end of public comment, the commission is going to take one item out of order. we're going to go to line item seven before continuing with the rest of the agenda line. item seven presentation of the annual report required under department general order 5.20. language access service for limited english proficient persons, including addressing the delay in reporting for 2022, a five

year review of data, and efforts to improve language access. discussion with a follow up presentation from the office of civic engagement, immigrant and immigrant affairs at the request of the commission. discussion. thank you, sergeant youngblood for that. and, vice president carter ulverstone for, taking this item out of order. i would like to request that, chloe from the office of, from osha. such a long name. you just said it. whether they can present first, because i think the information that they're going to present is going to give context to the presentation overall and to the direction that we want to take as we work towards improving our language access, provision to our community. so i really appreciate the taking of the item a little bit out of order, and i'm going to introduce george rivas, and chloe noonan from, osha. thank you very much

for being with us tonight. thank you. commissioner. good evening. commissioners, chief scott, my name is george rivas. i'm the director at the office of civic engagement, immigrant affairs, also known as oca. and i'm joined by my colleague chloe noonan, who is our policy and engagement officer at the office . and she is responsible for overseeing a lot of our language access compliance and working very closely with various city departments in their submission of the report to us that the report that then we submit to the board of supervisors and the mayor. with that, i'm going to pass it over to my chloe, my colleague chloe, to give the presentation, and then we'll be available for questions at the end. so thank you. director rivas. i have the powerpoint displayed on this laptop. are commissioners able to see it displayed there we go. excellent thank you. and good evening all. i'm excited to be with you this evening to talk about the language access ordinance and the 2024 language access compliance summary report.

putting this report together is very much a team effort, and many staff members at oca worked on it. i'm looking forward to sharing some background about the language access ordinance and walking us through the contents of this year's compliance summary report. i'll take a moment to share some background about our office, the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs was founded as a startup office in 2009, at which time it was designated to oversee implementation of the equal access to services ordinance, which would later be renamed the language access ordinance. today, oca is a policy compliance, direct services, and grant making city department. our mission is to promote inclusive policies and foster immigrant assistance programs that lead to full civic, economic, and linguistic integration. before i discuss the language access ordinance in greater detail, i want to take a

moment to talk about some frequently used terms to help us have shared language in the discussion. when we say lao, we're referring to the language access ordinance, administrative code section 91, which directs city agencies to ensure that public services and information are accessible to all people, regardless of the language that they speak. the acronym lep refers to limited english proficient, a terme used to refer to people who do not read, write, speak, or understand english, or for whom english is not a primary language. we often refer to san francisco's required languages, which are also described sometimes as threshold languages. the law requires city departments to provide language access services in chinese, spanish, and filipino. languages are certified by oca once they reach a population threshold of 10,000 lep residents. to briefly summarize the requirements of

the lao, the ordinance requires that all public serving city departments inform lep individuals of their right to request language access services, utilize sufficient bilingual employees have recorded telephone messages in all required languages if voicemails are available in english and arrange interpretation services for public meetings and hearings if they receive the request at least 48 hours in advance, plus translate meeting agendas, meetings and notices upon request. under the lao public facing, city departments must collect data about their language access activities and submit an annual compliance report to oca by october 1st. this report covers a wide variety of topics and addresses departmental goals, barriers, and proposed solutions. key data points, including total lep client interactions by language, total number of telephonic

interpretations, in-person interpretation, signs and documents translated a roster of bilingual staff and budget for language access to speak for a moment about data collection. departments have various different approaches to how they track and collect language access data. the lao allows for three different types of data collection methods that departments can use to track their interactions with lep members of the public. these include the intake method, where interactions with lep clients are recorded as they occur. the survey method, where interactions are sampled over a two week period and then multiplied to generate an annual estimate or telephonic interpretation records. here are the link and front cover for the 2024 language access compliance summary report. the report is publicly available on osha's website listed here, though we'll do an overview of the

report in our meeting today. i, of course, encourage folks to take a look at the report afterwards. whenever you have time. here's the table of contents to give us an idea of what's ahead. after the introduction. the next section is a report summary followed by the findings section. the data snapshot of san francisco and supervisorial district data language access, spotlight and more. these are the topics that we covered in the report summary section. this year. we included some federal language access updates and background about state policies that impact language access and then describe the requirements of the language access ordinance and the annual compliance reporting process. this section also includes descriptions of language access, complaint topics from the fiscal year, followed by a report preview. one section of the report summary i want to highlight is

discussion of city department responsible cities under the language access ordinance, as well as our department. osha's responsibilities under the ordinance. so under the law, departments are responsible for designate a language access liaison, implementing a department specific language access policy. submit annual compliance data to oca to coordinating and provisioning for language services. determining and budgeting for departmental language needs, and complying with all other requirements of the lao and oca. advances language access compliance in the city by training departments on lao compliance and reporting requirements. sharing best practices with departments through tools, style guides, consultations, and technical assistance, and monitoring and reporting compliance to the immigrant rights commission and the board of supervisors. as was noted earlier, departments are required under the ordinance to

translate vital information into the threshold languages and the three threshold languages under the ordinance are currently spanish, chinese, and filipino. the departments are also encouraged to translate information for emerging language populations. now, to move on to the findings section of the report, this year's data showed encouraging trends across multiple data measures. specifically, this included increases in use of the intake method of data collection, total lep client interactions citywide, increased in translated materials and increases in in-person interpretations. the data also showed decreases on a few measures compared to the last fiscal year citywide. this included decreases in telephonic interpretations, decreases in total bilingual staffing citywide, and decreases in language services budgets. there

may be a few factors impacting the decrease in telephonic interpretations. for example, more department services and information transitioned to being more accessible online during the pandemic and continued implementation of the city's digital accessibility and inclusion standard has also increased. the amount of information and services that community members can access digitally. the topic of bilingual staff. there could be a range of factors, potentially impacting this number as well, such as staffing shortages in the city, overall, inadequate recruitment, hiring and retention practices, and staff. retirement may be a factor as well, and we included increasing bilingual staffing as one of osha's recommendations in the report this year. the decrease in language services budgets may also be due to a couple of factors to pause for a moment and share some background about this data point. department

language services budgets can be a helpful way to get a sense of how much departments are spending and investing in language access over time. that said, there are a lot of factors that can impact this data point, and this is important to consider when putting the data into context. it's not necessarily an indicator on its own that a department is not prioritizing language access, and looking at the why is important in looking at the departments with the biggest decreases this year, our data analysts determined that the main driver of the decreases was due to operational adjustments. so one example of this that we have comes from d-p-h, the department of public health. we learned that dfe this year had been working to streamline their processes into a newly created department of interpreter services, which will consolidate many aspects of their language services activities. and they also had an issue where they had to change telephonic

interpretation vendors. another example of operational adjustment came from the department of elections. the amount of money election spends on language access each year vary depending on the number of elections that took place, and this can lead to spending fluctuations. for example, when elections is conducting outreach and education for elections one year and for one election the next year. after the finding section of the report, we have the snapshot of san francisco and supervisorial district data. this section includes some citywide data points, as well as lep population data for supervisorial districts. the source of this data is the us census bureau's 2018 to 2022 five year american community survey. and oca made recommendations in the report

this year across several different topic areas on the subject of language access, capacity building, oca recommended that departments increase their department specific language access, instruction, and training for public facing city staff on the topic of resource planning, oca recommended that city departments hire and retain more bilingual staff to ensure sufficient internal resources for addressing the needs of lep community members served by city departments. we also recommended exploration of possible future opportunities to supplement language access activities with new tools and emerging technologies. on the subject of language services budgets, oca recommended that departments increase department language services, budgets and support for community partners serving lep individuals in the context of the current city economic climate and budget constraints, it will be important for departments to be intentional in

partnering with city suppliers and community partners to bolster capacity for serving lep individuals when delivering department information and services. lastly, on the topic of data collection and analysis, oca recommended that departments continue improvement of current compliance data collection processes, track language access data and activities consistently , and refine multiple data sources for a more complete and diverse data landscape. and this will wrap up the formal remarks of this presentation. thank you very much for your time and attention this evening, and we look forward to responding to your questions. thank you. thank you so much, chloe. i think that that gives us a good sense of where the city is, where we're headed, and it gives us a baseline right to work towards improvement and thank the department for putting together all those reports. i know that data collection is not

necessarily a everybody's favorite item, but it is something that helps inform and create evidence base. right? this is the only way that we're going to move forward. so thank you for putting your presentation together. and i think we have the department now with their update. okay are you ready? good evening. acting president carter. members of the commission, acting deputy, our director i should say hawkins, chief scott and thank you for inviting us to speak today on the 2023 language access report. my name is aaron parra. i am the acting commander of the community engagement division, also known as cid, cd covers the language english proficiency, which we were talking about earlier, which is lep also known as and in which covers, which is covered under our general order

of 5.20. we also oversee the community liaison unit. and both these items are going to be talking about in the presentation tonight. so i'm joined here with officer jamie guerin, she's also assigned to community engagement division, and she oversees the lep program , she's a subject matter expert on everything and anything to do with lep. so glad to have her here tonight, we'll be sharing this presentation together. and at this point, i will turn the podium over to officer guerin. that's a really heavy title. i hope i don't disappoint. good evening, my name is officer jamie guerin. i am the limited english proficiency liaison for the san francisco police department to mention a few of the responsibilities of the lep liaison. i am the point of contact for language services within the department. i. i advise on language access, policies and protocols. i oversee compliance with the department. general order of 5.20. currently we have 374

certified bilingual members. the grand total bilingual members, including the five core languages, is 427 and 2023. we certified 71 members. our department represents over 36 languages. the list of languages are listed below. as you can see on the slide, there are over 103 available languages on the san francisco police department website. remote video interpretation services through language line include over 240 languages, including american sign language. interpretation services are offered at our community meetings, including monthly district captain meetings for reference, according to osha's language access data in 2023, san francisco has 145,000 chinese residents and 86,000 are lep. as an example, a pairing policy with needs. informative workshops are being conducted for blessing scams that have been on the rise. park smart

fliers were distributed in target languages and community liaison unit, serve as a liaison for the lep persons or persons, and connect the lep victim to city services. next slide is directly from the annual report. we had 6655 number of calls for service where an incident report was generated. the grand total of interpretation services that were provided to lep individuals is 13,955, and of that total, we had five dpa complaints. we have a five year comparison 2019 to 2023 numbers show a consistency from 2019 to 2022, and an increase in 2023. interpretation services for 2019 to 2023 has also steadily increased. our

accomplishments for 2023, the san francisco police department has partnered with language line and by the spring of 2024, our members will be able to test with language line and over 30 languages, which means officers will be able to become certified and more than the five core languages. repeating that 71 sfpd members in 2023 received their bilingual certificates in spanish, russian, tagalog, mandarin and cantonese. lep audits were completed at all district stations to recruit recruit classes. pardon me? and the one ambassador class received lep training for patrol, preparation and alert members received one on one lep training. moving on to our goals in 2024, we'd like to work more closely with dr. to explore recertifications for our qualified members. i will continue to hold certification testings quarterly to accommodate all interested members. quarterly meetings are

set up with dpa for recommendations. our first 2024 meeting occurred in february. lep pins for bilingual officers and police services. excuse me for those who are bilingual, certified are in the works and update the general order of 5.20 training video to include language, line and reference 5.23. slide nine. the department general order of 5.20. language access services for limited english speaking persons was implemented in 2007. the dgo has now been approved for a 2024 general order review, with a goal completion in 2024. i will now hand it over to commander to discuss the community liaison unit. sorry. so the goal of the community engagement division is to proactively engage with the community through relationship building. and one way we build

this trust is with the community is through our community liaison unit, this unit works to build relationships with the department and the historically marginalized. and lep communities in san francisco. so one way we do this is when we're notified of a crime. and these are crimes like a hate crime or, you know, prejudice based incident or violent crimes where there's a serious bodily injury or life threatening injuries involving marginalized communities. we reach out to those victims and connect them with resources. and this could be over the phone. we can go out to their house, and in some cases, we even go to the hospital and make sure that we get those resources to them. now, the resources are, they're they're not obligated to take them, obviously, but, you know, one of them would be the san francisco district attorney's victim services, and that would be if there was, like monetary loss or something like that, they might be able to give them money. there's other services that they also do. they'll do something like even crime scene cleanup. it's a really extensive list that the victim services provides. another one is department of public health, many of these victims are

traumatized after something like this. so the department of public health can offer mental health support and then other services that are nonprofits will connect them with, would be able to give financial aid, but also just something as simple as this a car ride to the hospital. if there's follow up treatment or if they go to go to court. and then we also work with the victim. we don't get this a lot, but every once in a while, victims might, need help with, you know, understanding or navigating the investigative process or even the criminal justice process. you know, a lot of them are not from around here. they really don't understand it. they may not feel comfortable with the police once they make contact with us, or they have a good rapport and we can kind of, you know, build the rapport between the investigator or the court system and all that, something else that we do is we oversee the anonymous tip line. so there's ten different languages that are on this tip line, we check it routinely or daily. i should say, and then there's if there's any sort of follow up, we'll do that as well. and i'll get the tip line.

now we have it all over, but i'll just give it out here. i'll give it twice. it's 41555, eight, 55, 88. and it's i'll give it again. 4155, five, eight, 55, 88. so going to the next slide here. just with a here's the breakdown for the year of 2023 and 2022. and just kind of gives you an idea of where we're at as far as, the different outreaches that we did . so for 2023, we did 241 different outreaches. and then if you look at the graph down below, we have a broken down by race and ethnicity, ethnicity. so, in comparison of the 2022 and the 2023, you can see that there's an a 95% increase. now on the two graphs. you'll see that there's more and more individuals in incidents. and that's because in some cases there are more than one victim. let's see here. all right. i

think that's that i wanted to touch on this too. on a separate note, i also wanted to address the delay in the reporting of the 2022 language access report to the commission. as i understand it, this report was completed and approved through the chain of command in february 2023, and as we began to prepare for our 2023 report, we realized in december of 2023 that the 2023 report had not been submitted to the commission office following the approval process of and in february. so we had it all done. we completed it. it went to where it needed to go, went through the chain. it was completed for some reason. we didn't make it over to you. so that's a mistake on the part of the department, this is the first time that this has happened, we've been remiss as far as, you know, giving this to the commission. we apologize for the oversight. we were taking steps so that this won't happen again. i will say that although we didn't give it to you when we were supposed to, we did give it to oca. and they. there was any sort of lag on that on our part.

and at this point we're open to any sort of questions. thank you very much for that report and for the update around, the reason why the there was a little bit of a delay. i had understood from oca. i'm going to get it right at some point. oca that the information was available and they actually had summarized some of that information to me, which also kind of raised a little bit of a flag as far as when i was looking at a five year comparison of numbers. there were some discrepancies. right. and i want to ask some questions about how it is that we're gathering and collecting this information because of the fashion in which it is reported both to us and then to the office of community engagement and immigrant affairs. i'm just sell it, say it all. and that because and maybe and maybe this is part of the reason why we're having this conversation is to clarify how we're collecting

that data and reporting it. i know that, they collect information for two for a fiscal year, right. which is very different, which in the way in which you're presenting the information to us, you're giving us calendar year information. and i know that the fiscal year is july 1st through june 30th. so that may sometimes create challenges. right. when i look at the numbers here on page page, the calls for service versus lep calls for service. specifically with regard to the numbers that are calls for service defined as lep, which is the lower number, underneath the total calls for service. right, why is it that we only include a number for, interactions that generate a report as part of that lep number? that's a great question. so on the report for oca, it's broken down

differently than your request or the commissioner's request. so for osha's request, we have a comstat dem. and, let's see the other one. standby. sorry we have we have comstat reports from oca and then dem and dpa. so no, no, i'm sorry, i have to think of all the. there's three, three places where we get it generated. so dem comstat which is that one. and then i think that's the most that other two. and then we generate internally from clu unit. so when we get all of those numbers versus oca is what we're going to try and do this year is actually break it down individually so everyone can see and add more lines, which was not the case. it was kind of being lump sum. right. so it it doesn't really match because you don't know where it's coming from. but i know

where it's coming from when it's compstat in conjunction with dem . right. so dem is the number of service of calls that are generated. but not all calls generate an incident report. so comstat will then pull our crime data warehouse reports, which is a completely different number than the number of contacts. does that make sense? it makes sense, and i'm glad that we're working on improving, and obtaining more granular information. right. more fields. our goal. so chloe and i have been talking in great detail about this is next year to have it very specific so it can be broken down in easier to be, read to anyone who doesn't understand lep numbers. okay and so one of the things that really stood out to me when i looked at, a five year analysis of the information that was being submitted to oca, is that in fiscal year 1718, because one of the public facing budget or items that are published by your

department is the total amount spent on language translation services, and 1718 the department used $418,000 in language access budget spent in fiscal year 1819, when there was a total of $751,000 in 706 cents, and yet when we look at the most recent report of 2223, the expenditure was only 113,851, which is a huge drop. and as far as i understand, and the numbers for, law limited english proficiency, individuals in san francisco has not changed between 1718 and this current fiscal year. can you explain the drop in expenditures? i would have to look at the details in where it dropped, but i'm assuming and this is only an assumption that those numbers do

not include the fees, from language line and that's only our, salary from all the lep bilingual officers. chief is that i would have to review it before we. my understanding was that that cost was actually associated with the lep line or with the, solutions line. i can get back to you on that, with the exact numbers. but again, i'd have to really look into what the numbers broken down, but it should. you're absolutely right. it should increase. and our and i know because i see the bills every month for language line and they're a significant number and it definitely within three four months we it's more than half of that before. so there is another number though that raised flags because and this may be a matter of how we're collecting and reporting the information, for fiscal year

, where one of the numbers that was provided to me was the total number of clients of people identified as lep clients. and in fiscal year 1718, when the department spent close to half a million, we had 24,473 clients. so what? where are you finding that? because i'm looking at my motion that was provided to me by oca, from the reports that are submitted to by the department, to them, and then in fiscal year 1819, there was a no, there was no number attached to it as far as clients. but in 1920, what became the baseline for me, there was a report, a reported 30,738 clients. that's a good number. it's still not, you know, it's a small percentage of total of the total number of calls, but that's still a significant number. the most recent number reported in your graph here, which demonstrates that at least the way the lines look on the graph that we're improving access,

despite going from almost 31,000in 1920, 22, 23, we're only reporting 6354 there. right, and even if we add the interpretation services line, which is the number down here with a greater number, it has 13,955. i'm assuming that that includes the calls, the solutions calls, it's still not even half of the 31,000, close to 31,000 reported in 1920. can you speak to why there's such a reduction in the number of interpretations or clients accessing interpretation services? to be quite honest, you just threw about a million numbers. i mean, i can't actually give you that information until i actually review it. so i would love to review that and give you more of an answer that is clear, because i, i was just going to say, are you are you looking at our report or the oca report? i'm looking at the report that was

submitted to the numbers that were submitted to the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs. right. and in order for me to review that clearly, i'd like to sit down and really look at the numbers in comparison. if you'd like to do that, it's perfectly i'm good with that. i mean, that was part of the reason i wanted to have this conversation today. i think we're identifying finding some, some gaps, in how information is both reported to the city and how we are then summarizing the information and presenting it to this commission, but yes, please, let's investigate what the discrepancy in those numbers is. and if the chief has any comments on that, that'd be helpful. i don't want at this time because i don't have that. but i do. i agree with officer guerra. and let us look into those numbers and come back with a follow up to the commission. we can get that information and what you want. exactly. we don't we're not privy to their all their information. there's i don't know if it's apples for apples is what we're comparing. well, it is it's the information

that was provided to them by this department. are you speaking of all the oca reports generated from the previous years? yes, yes. okay. i do have access to that. and i can review that, also in the previous, previous years. excuse me, i did not generate those reports, so i can't speak how that officer or that person generated those numbers. i just came into this position, but i would love to sit down and talk and review, and i can only speculate where they got those numbers. but, it is the same data info collection that we get. so if it is the same and again, i can't speak on that person, then it should be clear cut. but i can't tell you definitely until i sit down and look at the graphs. great. got it, and we will, i believe, have a follow up. just because i know that in your report you identified, we know that this dgo is up for revision. it's 14 years old. yes and i am going to encourage this commission to, adopt, a working group, process

for it, because i believe that there is enough interest in the community to inform the revision of this dgo, but that is not why we're here today. but i'm glad that you included that in your presentation, in addition to that, i would like to know because obviously this department has different interface with community, right? some of it may. it doesn't, have a proper the way she described the different forms of an enrollment or identification of language access needs, there's no intake process, let's say, where we meet every individual that makes a call to the department. and you have that opportunity, right. could you explain how it is that, limited english persons are identified by the department in order to collect this information? so you mean for generating a police report? no, for generating the data that's being reported to oca. josiah most of these reports are through. the data collection is through contacts that need lep, meaning that

english is not their number one. language. right. and so how do you ascertain that? oh, for our data collection. so we on our crime data warehouse, there's a drop. there's a little box with a drop box and it has the language and you have to insert that. we also have to identify it in our police reports, so when a member interacts with a community member, how do they determine whether that individual needs language access services as most times they ask for it? sir, most times they ask for it. yes. and also when you're talking to an individual on the street, you get a cue if they're answering when you're speaking to someone that everyone here, there's a san francisco, you understand there. someone didn't quite understand. you just keep on saying yes to everything you're saying. and you're like, our officers are. well yeah. you know. so then you ask what their primary language is, and then you can get somebody out there to see if in their primary language you

speak. and then most of the time they feel more comfortable with that. you just get a feel for it. so also request it to also in our training and my training that we provide with the department, when i train officers, there are certain cues that you get meaning language switches. so if there's if they're, mixing their native language with english, that's a definite cue. if they're nodding yes to a non yes answer, that's a definite cue. these are things that officers will not only be trained in, but if they don't understand the question, we also know that they're not responding in in the way that it's not a, real answer. so that right there also when we get the calls from dem and it comes up on screen, it'll say there's a language barrier and my understanding is that there is an effort to improve that coordination, right. that if dem can identify that at the outset, it makes it easier to dispatch someone who's bilingual, always looking for improvement in dem also has a

list of language access officers . right. so we have they have a list of all the qualified bilingual officers who are currently working. there's an asterisk next to their name, they know who's on a call so they can say, are you available for this run? okay. could you speak a little bit more about the training aspects? how do you train on this dgo? and in order to help people identify when there's this need. well, that can take quite some time. but let's see. so years ago oca had a i forget her name. do you remember her name? she was a subject matter expert for law enforcement. i went to boston and took this class with her, and it was a two day course. she then we then came back and formulated a class and it was how to be an effective interpreter. and with that class i, i then left the position. but the previous lep liaison officer

continued the program. and what she did is, is she trained the officers to not only identify, but how to properly document it, how to, get another interpreter if needed, our interpreters are are qualified members. our officers, they should only be interpreting. so, for example, if they show up on scene, it is not their scene. they only interpret. and that is their their only job. right. so that's one way of training. the other is how you conduct yourself when you're speaking to that person. right. so i sir, i can go into hours with this. and if you'd like, you can attend one of our classes, i, the reason why i'm exploring this is i know that there are, there's a different interpretation of what language, or limited english proficiency

may be. right. it's not a very standard, everybody presents in the same way, definition. and i know that, right now, currently, supervisor walton's office is in the process of trying to improve and revise the language of the ordinance itself, which i think will be helpful in us improving our, department general order around this issue, because when i look at, i try to get an understanding of how other departments are doing it, and i know that, every department interfaces with the community differently. but when i found a number for a department that is somewhat similar, you know, budgeted hsa has about, you know, $577 million compared to the budget for the police department in 21, 22 was 590 million. and yet that department , their expenditures were almost

13 times as much as our department during that same fiscal year. that, to me speaks to, the need for more proactively offering the support and for a better system to be able to ensure that when we're dealing with sensitive information that that has to do with, you know, investigations and information conveyed to, immigrant community members or non-native speaking community members, i think it's very important that we, work our our hardest to make sure that those folks are understanding the, the, the, the interaction, the consequences, and that they are supported by having that access to language and not i don't believe that every member of the community who could benefit from this, that could benefit from this, knows that they can request language access. and yet, i'm understanding that that

is one of the primary ways that we offer the support when they request it, and that some of it has to do with, well, if a person believes that this person may be would benefit from it. so that is part of the reason why i think that we're here. i am really glad that, the oca i'm just going to say it that way, is also offering and extending their support. i know that there's a lot of coordination that needs to take place to improve, in this area, but but, chief, i'd like to get a sense from you for how, how we've gotten into this place where when we are comparing kind of apples to apples departments with a similar size budget that had the same kind of interface with community, we are so behind in our investment in this area. well, i can't i can't answer for the other departments, but i do know for us, as has been described by acting commander perry and officer guerin, that

we are trying to expand our ability to communicate with the public we serve, expanding the training, the languages. in the last couple of years, we've been very aggressive about that expansion, so i don't know what the other departments are doing, but we are on a, i believe, a path of trying to improve, as you said so many times tonight, commissioner. and with that, the expansion of the number of languages that we get officers trained in has has increased, so i think we're on the right path. i don't know what they spend or exactly what their, their goals are, these other departments. but i do believe we're on the right path. i, if i may just another thing you had asked, how an officer determines that a person needs language services. one of the things that officers, they have language identification cards in the field as well. so if they can't communicate, the person can look

at the card and point to the language that they need. and then we can use the language lines. or if we have an, officer who is certified to speak that language, we can call that officer to the scene. and those are some of the things that i think we want to promote, obviously. and i and i hope that i know that i saw somewhere in there there's going to be a pin for bilingual members. that's going to be helpful, i think, but but i really do, expect us to, to improve in this area. one last number that i'll just throw out there because, obviously, you know, numbers help inform the decisions that we make and then the investments that we make. when i look at, the clients reported by other departments, and i see one here that in the same periods that we are reporting under 30,000 and in this case, about 13,000, whatever that number is for this fiscal year, some of those departments are reporting over, 180,000, you know, translations,

some of them are reporting, you know, consistent 166,000, translations. and because our the community is the language limited english proficiency community in the city is very big. we have a lot of people that are either working here or living here. 40% was the number that i think, was reflected. 40% of individuals speak a language other than english at home, meaning that if we are doing if we're putting, if we're putting our best foot forward, not that we're going to have to translate, every interaction for 30 to 40% of every call that we have. but it leads me to believe and infer that we should be getting closer to a higher percentage of the calls that are being made and offering this this service. right. and when i kind of did a little bit of an

analysis of calls for service versus calls that were offered interpretation, you know, in 2023, it was 1.2% of all the interactions that the department had, only 1.2% obtained language access support. in 22, it was 2.1, a little bit better. but i think that we will be improving this. i think we need to be improving this because, members of our community will benefit from it. it will create more safety. it will create better improve communication with the department, both victims and potential perpetrators of crime, deserve. right. based on this ordinance, based on san francisco being a sanctuary city and the reason why many immigrants come to live here, is because we do extend these supports. and i really hope that we take this to heart and put our best foot forward. thank you . great. thank you, to oca. and

thank you to the department for the presentation. and thank you, commissioner janez, for requesting this to be agendized. i just had two questions for the department and also a couple questions for oca, for the department. can you just describe the process by which a officer becomes certified to speak a non-english language? sure. so they'll reach out to me via email or call and say, i'd like to schedule a test, dr. and i partner up jen lo and we set up a date, and then i put it out on the department all and say, on this date and time we're going to be testing in these languages. and it's the five four actually, minus vietnamese because dr. currently does not have a vietnamese tester, and they sign up and when they sign up today, we actually had a test and we tested 22 members. so and they take the test, i get the notification when they pass and all of their certificates. i then pass that on to, to our dr.

i'm sorry, to our human resources and our payroll so they can start getting their bilingual pay. great so dr. has kind of a standard written exam for every department to do. they have a standard test and it's specific for law enforcement. gotcha okay. that's helpful. and then just on the slide that can compare the lep calls for service versus total calls for service. i just wanted to ask do the calls for service. the overall calls for service include on view calls for service or just from the public? i'm sorry, i'm trying to get to that slide or. so number of calls for service contacts and investigations. so the reports are 6655. so and then you have the big number of 11,547 through language line. oh no i'm sorry i'm looking at this i see this one here. pardon me. no worries

i yeah no worries okay. so you're okay. the five year comparison sir. exactly. yes oh sorry. yeah, yeah. of course. my question was, does the total calls for service number. does that include on view calls or is it just calls from the general public. does the total number include the calls for service versus on view. no. once it once you're on something we have to let dispatch know that we've got flagged down or we've on viewed something. so that should be the entirety. so just for example, in 2019, the number for total calls for service is roughly 782,000. so does that's what i'm seeing. right. and so is that just calls from the general public that and that's the entire entire calls. yes it it should be everything including the views. that's not that's not lep only the red is lep for

3000. okay. but so but so chief, it does include on views. yes. yeah. the only thing i might suggest maybe for future reports is breaking out. just calls from the general public. if we're if folks, for example, are interested in the proportion of calls that come from leps and how that changes over years, you know, what proportion of calls are from leps changes from year to year in on view calls would skew the ratio and wouldn't give us kind of an accurate sense for what percentage of calls from the public are coming from lep. so that's just, well, if a call if you on view something and they still need help, wouldn't that be a call for service? yeah, i mean that's a fair point , i guess. i guess that might still be a valuable number, but i think it's also it just as i'm thinking about it, valuable to think about calls initiated from the public. well, i guess let me ask this. does the lep number

like the red bar that also includes on view? that's everything. that's everything. okay yeah. so it's an encompass of all the calls. if you break it down and say, okay, well this is just on view. what? it's still the same number. you put it together. it's still the same number. great. okay. that's helpful. thanks. so much. thank you, miss noonan, can i ask you a couple questions? of course. thank you. i had a question. i just. oh, you. oh, yeah. yeah. others. others can ask the department questions when. yeah, when it's their turn. sorry, miss noonan, i'm just going to ask you a couple questions, and then commissioner yee is going to is next up in the queue. okay. i just want to make sure i understand that, terminology. so . okay, so there's threshold

language and emerging language. so if the number of people who speak the number of lep for a given language is over 10,000, but that but that number comprises between two and a half to 5% of the population. is that emerging or threshold? thank you for that question. if the lep language population exceeds 10,000, that would make the language eligible for oca certification. so if the number exceeds 10,000, it would be on track to become a required language. okay. so then if it okay. so that's helpful. so if it satisfies both the standards for emerging and threshold it's treated as threshold or required . that's kind of what my question was i understand. thank you for that question i suppose so but but the if i may share a

bit more context, reference to emerging language populations in the ordinance as it exists. the, the range can be a very helpful way to illuminate for departments, community needs and opportunities to increase language services for language populations where the lep language population group is increasing but has not yet reached 10,000. but but to your original question, if a language population in that is lep does exceed 10,000, it would be considered eligible for becoming required language. okay. thanks so much. that's that's helpful. okay. and then on on so on the page that says findings in your, on your powerpoint point, i

guess there's two pages that say finding the first one, so there are some non required language cities that have higher levels of interaction than a required language. and so i'm curious if you attribute that to so for example russian and vietnamese have higher levels of interaction than tagalog. is that just because russian and vietnamese speakers are disproportionately using services just at a higher rate than their population would suggest, i'm just curious if you have thoughts on that dynamic. thank you for that question, i think the answer is a bit complex, there can be a range of factors that impact the total number of lep client interactions that departments have by language, some factors would certainly include, you know, the language populations

of folks who who are utilizing services, the level of outreach programing that departments are engaging in, the extent of their , community partnerships can be a factor as well, those partnerships are certainly very important for making sure that folks who are perhaps not otherwise connected to services or may be hesitant to come to the city to seek help, those relationships can be very helpful for bringing folks into services who are hard to reach, and then there are also, variances in terms of individual folks comfort level with english and other languages. that may be a factor as well. okay. that's helpful. and then just last question, you mentioned at the outset that the ordinance requires that a sufficient number of employees are bilingual, in your estimation or in osha's estimation, does sfpd have a sufficient number of bilingual employees? thank you

for this question. the ordinance does not, articulate a specific, numerical threshold or percentage. the compliance report that departments are required to submit to oca under the ordinance. departments are actually asked to respond to this question directly in their reporting, in terms of whether or not it based on their understanding of their operations, their community needs of the individuals they serve. do they have sufficient bilingual staff members or not? and so, each department is called upon to share their roster of bilingual staff and also provide an annual response to this question. oh, so that's interesting. so the ordinance doesn't even provide, say, a list of factors to consider when deciding whether a department has a sufficient number. it's just totally the department's discretionary view. i would

characterize it based on the ordinance as it exists now. it does articulate the requirement that departments utilize sufficient bilingual staff, and at the same time, it does not specifically include a framework or guardrails by which departments need to, determine that. but of course, we do expect that departments are the experts in their operations, in their day to day programing and the ordinance strongly encourages departments to really centralize and consider their language needs as core to their day to day operations. great. thank you so much. and i guess on that note, i'll just ask the our friends at the department whether we believe that we have a sufficient number of bilingual employees, as is required by the ordinance. well, that's a loaded question, sir. so do i believe that we have enough? well, we could always use more. there's always room for improvement, recruiting. always would like to

hire people who are bilingual. and we take pride in telling people how many bilingual officers are in each class. is it a requirement? no, it is not. so do we meet the threshold? and in my humble opinion, we don't have testings for every single language, nor do we have every single language to test. so there's always room for improvement, what we have now is what we have, right? so we have to make do with what we have. we have really great resources. language line is always available. it never closes. we have remote video interpretation services available which include over 240, i believe. i said earlier, including american sign language. so are we doing our best? absolutely. is there room for improvement? always thanks. that's helpful. i guess i'll just ask, do we, when we report our numbers to oca, do do we represent that we have a sufficient number of. no i said no. oh we don't i missed that.

no i put no because for testing scope of the testing in the five core languages creates limitations for certifications. but we now have language line as our partner. and we are now testing in more languages. as of, they just finished our scope for testing. so what they had to do was create the test for law enforcement, and now we can start testing. great. thank you so much. thank you, commissioner yee, hey. thank you very much there. vice president carter, i just want to ask the department that, when you're short of staff and then you get a call for a guest translation service, and do you reach out to other community groups? if you're. if you're. i guess this. so let's first talk about translation versus interpretation. so interpretation is verbal and translation is written documents right. anything written. so it's meaning for meaning on the document. so if we're talking

about interpretation services can you repeat that question just well the question i had is if your, your i guess the available service is not available. you know, the resource is not there. do you go outside to the community, maybe a liaison group like cic is as, we need a translation for this person. so per our general order, we do have a very specific way in which we get an interpreter on scene. so our first notification is through dispatch. and if there is no call, no one who can come up for the call, and that goes on an all, if the responding medic on scene, if there is one cannot speak the language or if they're not qualified, then we use language line. okay. and then my follow up question would be, if after the initial contact with the person and then, the person

need follow up where the person, feel that they need translation done again, do you refer them to another agencies, you know, the local community to help them out of this situation? you know, again, six because i heard that, some of their victims or they need some additional translations. so they go to, a group that they're comfortable with to talk. absolutely and that's where clue comes in. the community liaison unit. yes and do you track that too? is how many times that is tracked, sir. and that's part of our data. our data as well. okay that's all i had. thank you. thank you, commissioner yanez, these will be quick, i did want to know how many languages the miranda, is translated into right now. five core languages, sir. only the five core languages. okay and then the other one being, the language identification card.

does that one cover the whole 40 languages? no, that's actually a card that's provided through language line, and that has a lot more. i can't give you the exact number. okay, and last question, i know that a lot of the district stations are staffed kind of with the, with with bilingual members who i hope meet the needs of those particular communities, is there a formula for how this is staffed, either on your end or on your end, chief, because i know that, you know, whether it's chinatown or the mission, there's a higher likelihood, right, of there being the need for translation in some of these communities. how do you determine where officers are placed when they do qualify, i guess, or get certified for that , to be bilingual translators, they're not mandates in terms of deployment mandates to have, for instance, if an officer is certified in spanish or cantonese, did they have to

work, an area of town where that demographic is higher. that particular demographic is higher. we don't have those type of mandates. thankfully, a lot of officers, tend to gravitate where they can be more effective . so even though we don't have those type of mandates, it kind of works out well for us because officers do tend to work where they where they are effective. and a lot of officers work in communities where those language skills, when they're certified, can be be employed, the one thing i also, if i can mention this and it really speaks to commander amin, commissioner's cardoso's question about do we have enough? as officer guerin said, no, we don't believe we had enough certified, but we are trying to increase the number of officers that are willing to be certified. there are officers who can speak a different language, but if they're not certified, then we can't use

them in formal interviews. we can't use them in the ways that we need to use them to provide the service to the public. so, a lot of the things that we are doing and through officer guerin and acting commander pera is really designed to increase the number of officers who officers who are willing to take the test to be certified because it doesn't help. i mean, being able to communicate is one thing. being certified is another thing. so that's our goal is to get these officers certified. we have people that speak multiple languages, but not all of them have taken the test and are certified. so that's our, if i may add, sir, just because they're working in a certain district station does not mean that they cannot go out of their district station to go in for a call for service for lep. so again, we go on on all and that encompasses all ten district stations. and everyone will hear on the air that they need services. you answered my next question. thank you for that foresight, i'm really glad that

the city is in the position in the place that it is. we've made a lot of progress. when i first started here working with probation, i remember they still used to use their children to translate, and i remember being put in that position as myself, as an immigrant, being the primary translator for my family for many years. and we all know the burdens that that places. and i'm glad that this department, i mean, that's an absolute exigency. if and when that happens, but i don't really believe that that is taking place. and i really commend you for your leadership on this issue. thank you, commissioner benedicto. thank you very much, mr. president, i just wanted to take a moment to thank our presenters. thank you, acting commander para and officer guerin and our friends from oca for this very helpful presentation. i also want to take a moment to commend commissioner yanez for his leadership on this issue. i think i was on the commission exactly two weeks when commissioner yanez pulled me outside of the city hall to bring up this issue and his advocacy on it. and i'm glad

that there's someone on the commission strongly advocating for this. i know this dgo is likely up for revision, and so i'm looking forward to collaborating with cid with oca, and with commissioner yanez as we work to modernize this dgo. so thank you to everyone and thank you, commissioner yanez. thank you. thank you for your time. all right. i second all of that and seeing no names in the queue, can we please go to public comment sergeant, for members of the public that would like to make public comment regarding line item seven, please approach the podium. my name is h. brown i've got a long work history because i'm really old, and i spent, i'll be 80 on for 20. the i spent six years in the navy and five years in fire as a firefighter. 11 years proudly wearing an

american flag on my shoulder. and, a big thing in, military tree and in firefighting and in policing is mutual aid. and a lot of times, if you're coming to the mutual aid of another country, obviously you speak a different language. as san francisco's i was a firefighter five years in san francisco's, fire suppression system is different than any fire suppression system in the world. it's very interesting. you have a earthquake here, and you have people come in to help and they won't know what to do. i've got an off the wall thing for voters, especially to listen to. i think that we should consider creating a san francisco public safety, foreign legion and exchange 100 firefighters and cops and nurses with various agencies around the world, give them a two year terme like the

peace corps. and in ten years, you would have a thousand people coming from all over the world, to help out. if you have a disaster, they will know your systems and they will come and visit. how is that a 32nd warning? okay, at 30s, then, close it out, all of this stuff on languages is no problem. claude speaks every language. claude is an eye program, claude, is going to be available, and star trek is with you now, and you can just tap your badge and whatever the person says, claude will know what village they're from. who? the mayor was. there is no further public comment on line item five. director's report, discussion report on recent activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues

raised for future commission meeting. director hawkins. good evening. commissioners. chief scott, members of the public. i am filling in for director henderson, and we'll start with a couple of stats, focusing on the fact that we have more cases pending than we did at this time last year, both in general as well as cases pending with the chief and the commission. we currently have 314 pending cases. at this point. last year we had 252 pending cases. we currently have 13 cases pending with the commission and 93 with the chief, the last time i had the opportunity to be here, i raised staffing concerns for dpa and that continues to be a concern. obviously, we're still meeting our mandates and doing the best we can to be timely, but the workload for our staff is continually increasing and the budget is not, we have received 24 cases in the past two weeks, and, and those are really the highlights of the

stats that i think are relevant for this week's purpose, as far as our audit is concerned, dpa did receive a second round of information related to the stop data audit, and we are currently reviewing that in terms of outreach, our outreach representative, carolyn wysinger, will be giving a deep update at the mission station meeting and we are also working to update our outreach materials and presentations with our most recent stats and to tailor them to specific communities so that we're taking input on relevant information and sharing that when we have these opportunities present. tonight, our staff attorney, stephanie wilson, who has a matter in closed session, and senior investigator brant bayesian, that is all i have for tonight. obviously happy to answer any questions that the commission has. commissioner byrne, i. thank you, vice

president carter, i'd like to recognize, tonight, i understand is, your last meeting with us and that you're going on to a new horizon. that that is true. it is my last commission meeting, and my last day at dpa will be next friday, i'd like to, at least on my behalf, and i think i. i'll be bold enough to say i speak for the rest of the commission, we've enjoyed, your presence. you've always, presented yourself as a very diligent and conscientious worker. and i know that you'll bring that and dedication to your, next phase of your, your journey. and we wish you the best. and good luck. thank you. i've had a great opportunity to work with director henderson and with the team at dpa. i am very sad to leave. i'm actually going into the private sector. i will be working for tiktok. so it's a big change. and the work that

this group has done has been really important. and thank you all for letting me be part of it. chief scott, i just want to echo, commissioner byrne, miss hawkins has been really a pleasure to work with. and although we don't always agree, just a professionalism, the thoughtfulness and, the fairness which we which how she approaches things. if we really appreciate it. so definitely going to miss, working with you so thank you. thank you, chief. and i feel the same about you and your command staff and all the officers i've had a chance to work with as well. all right. seeing no one else's name in the queue, sergeant, could we go to public comment? members of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item five, the dpa director's report. please approach the podium. i would like to suggest that you calendar a study of laterals. i

asked the chief the other night if he knew how many lateral officers he had. he didn't. i got from 1 to 300 talking to various members of the force. do you see denzel washington and training officer? they brought a thug in. i mean, he's the training officer. imagine of making a guy like this a training officer. we did. we did. we had a guy come in, i don't know, 15 years ago or something, he was a real head beater. he taught the other cops. he said where somebody else's jacket with their id on it. when you beat the hell out of somebody in north beach. okay? what they do, they brought him in as a lateral training officer. they made. they made him a training officer, ask them, how many laterals do you got? nail him down. he'll say, i don't know. you know, nail him down and for you, for dpa. how many, laterals you get complaints about? do you track that they hire thugs? the san

francisco police department, they're they're a head beaters are lateral transfers that are actively recruited from other departments. they don't have to go. we have an excellent police academy, these guys get an abbreviated course and they're chosen because they're thugs. two of the five people that shot mario woods had shot people in other jurisdictions. the laterals look up laterals. thank you. and there is no further public comment. line item six. commissioner reports discussion and possible action commission. president's report. commissioner's reports and commission announcements and scheduling of items identified for consideration in a future commission meeting. commissioner benedicto, thank you, mr. president, a couple of reports here, last weekend i attended the saint patrick's day parade, with the department contingent was great weather and great turnout, for that parade, the

mayor joined the sfpd contingent as well, next wednesday, when commissioner is off, commissioner walker and i will be going on a ride along in the tenderloin, and so we'll have, i'm sure, things to report back, after that takes place, finally, a little bit of an update on one of the dgos that i'm assigned, dzho 7.01, which is, the jps regarding juveniles, there's been a draft up for public comment, for a while. i believe that period is closed. commissioner jones is now going to work with the department to, on some of the comments that we found most persuasive and hope to present that to the commission for discussion and action soon. thank you. commissioner byrne, thank you, vice president carter stone, i'd like to thank, deputy city attorney alicia cabrera for the memorandum that, on the implementation of proposition e, i just have one, one question, the goals that are being, that

haven't come to a vote yet or won't before, the whatever the effective date of prop e is sometime in april. do they have to follow the mandates of prop e or are they, grandfathered in because they were started before ? good evening. good evening. commissioner since this item is not on the agenda, it needs to be placed on the agenda for us to have a full discussion about it. happy to talk to you offline about it. thank you. sergeant, could we go to public comment, please, for members of the public that would like to make public comment regarding line item six, commission reports, please approach the podium.

the, the voters of san francisco , 200 and something thousand of them came out and said that they want, they want people who get public assistance to be drug tested. and, i've been asking for 30 years or something for the department, the police department, to get drug tested. i mean, if somebody is involved in any kind of a violent action that cop should be drug tested, obviously you're going to be drug testing the dead guy or whatever, happened and all that, but you've got it in front of you now you've got a mandate, prop f says, let's drug test. why, why, why stop with the people on welfare drug tests? the cops. you'd be in favor of that, right, chief? checking everybody for hgh and steroids. you probably don't have any. that problem with your force. all right, i'm sorry, i should. i be talking to the mayor? should i be talking to the police officers association? i

i'm i don't envy you at all. but you do get a fat salary. but you have no power to elect the police chief. and there is no further public comment. line item eight. public comment on all matters pertaining to item ten below. closed session, including public comment on item nine. a vote whether to hold item ten in closed session if you'd like to make public comment, please approach the podium. and there is no public comment. line item nine vote on whether to hold item ten inches closed session. san francisco administrative code section 67.10 action. motion to hold item ten and closed session. second on the motion. commissioner walker, how do you vote? yes. commissioner walker is. yes. commissioner. benedicto. yes, commissioner benedicto is. yes. commissioner yanez. yes. commissioner janez is yes. commissioner byrne. yes. commissioner byrne is. yes. commissioner. yee. yes, commissioner. yee is. yes. vice

president the department? no, he's talking about the committee. like what the commission's rules and processes are. so although all of them. commissioners, we are back on open session. are you told us the subject matter. vice president, you're on live tv. line item 11. talk my way. vote to elect whether to disclose any or all discussion on item ten held in closed san francisco administrative code section 67.10. action. motion to not disclose. item ten, second, any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item 11. please approach the podium seeing none on the motion. commissioner walker, how do you vote? yes. commissioner walker is yes. commissioner benedicto. yes commissioner benedicto is. yes. commissioner yanez. yes. commissioner yanez is yes. commissioner byrne. yes. commissioner byrne is. yes. commissioner. yee. yes, commissioner yee is. yes. vice president carter. yes. vice president stone is. yes you have six yeses. line item 12. adjournment brian. okay i'm

taking muni >> 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] [♪♪♪] >> i really believe that art should be available to people for free, and it should be part of our world, you shouldn't just be something in museums, and i love that the people can just go there and it is there for everyone. [♪♪♪] >> i would say i am a multidimensional artist. i came out of painting, but have

also really enjoyed tactile properties of artwork and tile work. i always have an interest in public art. i really believe that art should be available to people for free, and it should be part of our world. you shouldn't just be something in museums. i love that people can just go there, and it is there for everyone. public art is art with a job to do. it is a place where the architecture meets the public. where the artist takes the meaning of the site, and gives a voice to its. we commission culture, murals, mosaics, black pieces, cut to mental, different types of material. it is not just downtown, or the big sculptures you see, we are in the neighborhood. those are some of the most beloved kinds of projects that really give our libraries and

recreation centers a sense of uniqueness, and being specific to that neighborhood. colette test on a number of those projects for its. one of my favorites is the oceanview library, as well as several parks, and the steps. >> mosaics are created with tile that is either broken or cut in some way, and rearranged to make a pattern. you need to use a tool, nippers, as they are called, to actually shape the tiles of it so you can get them to fit incorrectly. i glued them to mash, and then they are taken, now usually

installed by someone who is not to me, and they put cement on the wall, and they pick up the mash with the tiles attached to it, and they stick it to the wall, and then they groped it afterwards. [♪♪♪] >> we had never really seen artwork done on a stairway of the kinds that we were thinking of because our idea was very just barely pictorial, and to have a picture broken up like that, we were not sure if it would visually work. so we just took paper that size and drew what our idea was, and cut it into strips, and took it down there and taped it to the steps, and stepped back and looked around, and walked up and down and figured out how it would really work visually. [♪♪♪] >> my theme was chinese heights because i find them very beautiful.

and also because mosaic is such a heavy, dens, static medium, and i always like to try and incorporate movement into its, and i work with the theme of water a lot, with wind, with clouds, just because i like movements and lightness, so i liked the contrast of making kites out of very heavy, hard material. so one side is a dragon kite, and then there are several different kites in the sky with the clouds, and a little girl below flying it. [♪♪♪] >> there are pieces that are particularly meaningful to me. during the time that we were working on it, my son was a

disaffected, unhappy high school student. there was a day where i was on the way to take them to school, and he was looking glum, as usual, and so halfway to school, i turned around and said, how about if i tell the school you are sick and you come make tiles with us, so there is a tile that he made to. it is a little bird. the relationship with a work of art is something that develops over time, and if you have memories connected with a place from when you are a child, and you come back and you see it again with the eyes of an adult, it is a different thing, and is just part of what makes the city an exciting place. [♪♪♪]

♪ [ music ] ♪ ♪ >> the two largest bridges in the road, symbolizing pioneer and courage in the conquest of space and time. between these two great bridges, in historic san francisco bay, here's tribute to the achievements of

our time. he's a dream come true, golden gate international exposition on manmade treasure island. >> the 402 acre artificial island was build by engineers from 1936 to 1937 on the neighboring buena island. 300,000 tons of rock was used to build a seawall around an existing sand ball then followed by filling the interior with dredge material from the bay which was consistent of modern sand. the federal government paid for construction ask three permanent buildings which would serve as a potential future airport. treasure island was constructed at the same time as the bay bridge and it was a project of works progress administration to construct this island, which was initially used to host the golden gate international exposition.

>> carnival gone big. it was busy. >> it was going to become an airport after the exposition but it was turned over to the navy and turned over to a military base for the next 50 years. >> 1941, the united states army moved to treasure island as america prepared for world war ii. the island was a major training and education center with 4.5 million personnel shipped overseas from triangle. after the war ended in 1945, treasure island was slalthed to be an airport -- slated to be an airport but aviation changed and the clipper were no longer in regular service, and the island was never developed as an airport. the navy continued their presence on treasure island. during the cold war years, the island was a myth training center and for military efforts throughout the pacific and asia. personnel trained on

and shipped from treasure island and supported military activities in korea, vietnam and the persian gulf. >> the base was listed for closure by the navy in 1993 and the city began a process in 1994 under the redevelopment agency, forming a citizens reuse committee to look at potentially plans for the island, island's future. after the base closed in 1997, the treasure island development authority was created to develop and implement a reuse plan. >> the navy has completed their environmental cleanup in that area and last week, the california department of public health issued a radiology unrestricted recommendation for that portion of side 12. it's a big milestone for the project. >> the treasure island development facility was setup to implement the master plan that was adopted by the board of

supervisors in 2011. >> given the importance of housing in the city, both the affordable component and the market rate housing, we felt that it was important to review what the housing plan is at treasure island. >> the development facility and (indiscernible) that oversees the implementation of the master plan to make sure that the master plan, which was adopted by the board of supervisors and adopted by the city and after meeting, that's plan that the city approved. the members of the board was appointed by the mayor and the board of supervisors. [multiple voices] >> the (indiscernible) is very detailed plan. looking at the ecological aspects of the island, looking at the geotechnical aspects of the

island, but also making sure that there is an ongoing of development that's in keeping with what the original plan was, which is that we have up to 8,000 rooms of housing and there's retail and hotels. but also that there is open space that's created so it's an overall plan that guides the whole development of treasure island and the buena island. >> materials used during the construction of treasure island severely compromises the integrity to build structures. in today's geotechnical engineers standing, treasure island soil is being readdressed for soil stabilization for future development. a mechanical stabilization process is being used to consolidate the liquid fashion of the mud and sandy soil. >> because treasure island is a manmade island, we have to do a significant amount of soil

improvement before we can build new infrastructure and new buildings on the island. in the foreground, you see here, it's a process called surcharging we we import additional topsoil to simulate the dead weight of the future buildings to be constructed at that site. so this is causing bay mud that underlies island to consolidate over time and we can monitor that and as that consolidation primarily consolidation is complete, then this soil will be removed to the intended finished floor elevation of the new structures. ♪ [ music ] ♪ ♪ >> in the 1989 loma earthquake, the ground level of this island dropped by four inches. pretty much uniform across the island. loose sand material used to build the island, whether it gets hit by a seismic forces, the sand moves and consolidated.

>> one of the processes to further stabilize the loose granular ground, a dynamic rate is used to densify the soil by high frequency mechanical vibrations. >> the rig in the background has four h-piles that goes down through the upper 50 feet of sandy material and as they vibrate, they vibrate causing that san material to consolidate and settle so as we do that process, we observe about 18 inches in settlement so the ground level around that equipment will drop by 18 inches, so this causes that same type of event to happen through mechanical means rather than through a seismic event. >> the dynamic vibrant compaction rate vibrates the soil every four square meters and moved along to the next section. to further assure stability, tamping is followed around the site, compassion

takes approximately three to four months to complete 12 acres. once the compassion and tapping is done, it's settled ask using laser alignments to assure a level service to build on. >> i think that every city when they have the opportunity to do something that is as large as treasure island because treasure island is five hundred acres and it depends on their needs at that time and in 2011 to now, the most important are thing for the city is housing. there's two aspects to that master plan. one, was the new district for san francisco. 8,000 units of housing, which is all levels of stability. the other (indiscernible) is 300 acres of open space and parks. and

actually, it's the largest addition to the park system in san francisco since (indiscernible) 300 acres and this is a tremendous gift to the public, both the housing, which we desperately need in san francisco as well as an open space and park system which really is going to be worm class and it will attract people in san francisco but attract people locally as well as internationally. >> cmg architecture was brought to the project once they award the agreement between the city of san francisco and the united states navy. cmg has earned national recognition and numerous awards for merits and design, social impact and environmental stewardship. >> we were a part of the project

in the beginning when the developer initially was awarded the exclusive negotiation agreement or the ena with the city and they partnered with the planning and architecture group and we joined that team to work with the developer around the city and community to come up with a plan for treasure island. >> so there's quite a lot of open space in the master plan and there's a couple of reasons for that that's pragmatic. one is that the amount of area that could be converted for private use on treasure island was very limited, actually it wasn't allowed at all because treasure island was previously public open waters and protected by the tidal and trust act to be redevelop for public use. but there was a land swap that was allowed and approved by the governor of california, governor schwarzenegger to be put on a public trust for a one to one swap to be taken out of the trust to be developed for

private use such as residential and that amount of land was 89 acres which leaves a bunch more space that can't have housing on it and the question was, what to do with all of that space? there could be other public uses that allowed such as conference centers or museums or universities or things of that nature but what made the most sense for this location was to have more parks in a really robust parks and open space plan and that's what led us to the plan we have now. >> planting strategies for treasure island and buena island are to maximize habitat value in the park areas wherever appropriate and where we can to create comfortable at the pedestrian scale. there are these diagonal lines that go across the plan that you'll see. those are wind row trees like you see in agricultural landscapes where they are tall tree that's buffer the winds to create a more calm areas down at the pedestrian scale. so of course, we do have some areas

where we have play fields and surfaces where kids need to run around on and those will be either lawns or like you see in norm at sports field. >> related to where the housing is on the island and its convenience to the walk to the transit hub, i mentioned we're trying to create high-quality pedestrian -- and the innovations of treasure island is called the shared public way and it's a road that runs down the middle of the neighborhoods. it's a curbless street, cars are allowed to drive on it but pedestrian can walk down the middle of the street and the cars are to yield the right-of-way for pedestrian and it's intended for streets where there's a low traffic volumes and the traffic speeds are low so while car was allowed, there's not a lot of reasons for cars to go on that street but it's to create a social street that's much more pedestrian-friendly and prioritizes pedestrians and bikes. one of the interesting

things is working with all architects that have been designing buildings in the first phase to encourage them, to create architecture that welcomes people to sit on it. it's wlm like sticking its toe out and asking someone to sit on its toe so buildings integrate public seating and places for people to hang out at their base, which is really, the opposite of what you see often times in this city where there's defensive architecture that's trying to keep people off it. this is architecture that's trying to invite people to come and inhabit it at its base. >> incorporated in the landscape architect of treasure island are wetlands, which are designed to factor in coastal erosion control from incoming sea level rise and natural animal habitation and stormwater runoff treatment. >> there's different kinds ever wetlands planned for treasure island and they have different purposes. they are stormwater wetlands that's treating the runoff from the island and filtering that water before it's

released to the bay to improve the water quality in the bay and the ocean and the first phase of the large wetland infrastructure is built on buena island to treat the storm water from buena island. we might see that when we go out there. there are tidal wetlands plan for the northern side of the island where the sea level rise adaptation and flood protect for future sea level rise is held back away from the edge of the island to allow sea level rise to come onto the island to create future tidal wetland which is helpful for the bay in the future as we see sea level wise flood out existing wetlands and there are some natural vernal pool in the wetland that's captured rainwater and capturing certain habitat so there's three purposes of the wetland primarily around water filtration and habitat creation. >> consumable sustainability was

incorporated in the redesigning of treasure island. innovative urban farming is included in the plans to foster economic viability, conservation of water, and to promote ecological sustainability. >> the urban farm is 20 island. and it's a commercial farm to produce food. it's not community where the volunteers and neighbors grow their own, it's commercially run to maximize the food production and that food will be distributed on the island. and interestingly, the urban farm is tied into the on island wastewater treatment plan which creates recycle use for water on the island so water used to grow the island will be a sustainable force and we're trying to close the loop of water, food, and create a new model for sustainability. >> part of the design for sustainable landscape was incorporate natural form water garden filtering systems, the first of three natural

stormwater gardens is here on buena island. and a total of ten will be on treasure island. water from storms, street runoffs from neighborhoods has the possibility to collect toxic materials as it makes its way back into the surrounding bay. this garden has been a model for future, natural filtering systems through out the bay area. >> whenever a storm comes through, all of the water, you know, it lands on the streets, it lands on the top of the buildings, and at times it often collects a lot of heavy metals and greases and it needs to be cleaned and before sent back into the back. it goes into the pipes and stormwater drainage and put into our stormwater basin and then all of the plants and soil you're seeing in there, they are acting as a filter for all those oils and heavy metals and greases and all things

that's coming off the roadways, coming off the development and so it's treated here in the storm water basin and then it's sent out into the bay as a clearer product and cleaner water which increases our water quality here and throughout the bay area. so the structure in the center of each basin is what we call the for bay. that's the point at which the stormwater exits out of the storm drainage system and into the stormwater basin itself. so the for bay is shaped as almost a gate to kind of push all water out through the pipes, all of those rocks help to disburse it before it's sent into the stormwater basin itself. the storm water basin was designed to fill up to the height of the berm of the side you're seeing here. so this is juncus and these are well-known fresh water grasses found in any place around the bay area that you find standing water or in a drainage channel, you're going

to find a lot of these junket species. this is a leave a lifter in the bio treatment. it soaks up a lot of water, to soak up the contaminants and heavy metals, so it's kind of our backbone species. this one is called douglas siana and the common name is mug war. it's a beautiful plant but doing the heavy lift and pulling, those contaminants out of the storm water and pulling oil to help treat the water before its sent back into the system and back into the bay. this plant is known as salvia or hummingbird sage. it has a lot of habitat value in that it's a strong pollinator plant. obviously, you can see the pink and purple flowers which come up in the springtime and attracts a lot of hummingbirds, a lot of bees which help to pollinate the other species within the garden and throughout the rest of the island and all of those native

plants. all of these plants are designed to be able to take a heavily inundation of water over a several day per like standing water for a long time. all of the plants can withstand that and honestly, thrive in that condition. so all of these were selected based on the ecological and habitat value but also their treatment and functional value for stormwater. >> this is super tiny. >> it's very much a big part of our design and master plan for the development of the island. it was a navy base and a lot of navy housing on this island specifically for around 80 years and during that time, a lot of innovative species were introduced on the island, eucalyptus, a lot of different european and algerians plants were on the island. we wanted to

bring in the native eye college here on the island before the navy started to redevelop it and introduce some of those invasive species so the species you're seeing in this stormwater garden in the basin and the upland area was a part of those types of ecology s that's trying to be returned to this side of the island but different other spaces through out the islands development. so whenever we started this process, we identified a number of species of native plants that seem applicable to the ecology that we're trying to grow. there's 45 species, so a -- there's 15 species so they are hard to find in the nursery trade so we needed to grow it ourselves to achieve the biodiversity that's in the design here. as a part that have process, we brought on a nonprofit group called ledge,

l-e-g- which is literacy for environmental justice. they grew those plants and put together the plant palates you see. >> most of landscape was inundated with invasive plant species eradicating species and having the plan on buena island and treasure island. literacy for environmental justice, a community volunteer educational program involved with restoring local habitats and preserving san francisco's unique bio tie varsity, teamed up with the redevelopment group to grow the 50,000 native plants to -- to repopulate treasure island. >> the city of san francisco set up meetings between leg and they came in with high expertise and urban design, and architecture,

and green infrastructure, but they really hadn't worked with flytive plants -- worked with native plants at scale and they were also kind of scratching their heads, like how are we going to grow 50,000 native plants from remnant native plant populations. it was a unique partnership of figuring out what plants can grow, what plants will function in stormwater gardens. not all native plants are ascetically pleasing to landscape architect, so we kind of worked around what plants are going to be pleasant for people, what plants are going to provide habitat, what plants are going to actually be able to sequester carbon, deal with erosion, preserve the island biodiversity as well as be able to manage all of these stormwater treatment on the island. >> there's about 33 naturally

occurring native plant species that survived the last one hundred years on yorba buena island. we were able to go in and get the seed and salvage plants in some cases, some of the development work that occurred was actually going to destroy native plant habitat and we went in before the bulldozers and before the roads were build and the new water tanks were installed and dig them up, divide them, hold them, of the 50,000 plants we grew 40,000 of them in-house and the other ten, we had to rely on our partners to do it. with the 50,000 plants we did, we did 100 species and 95 of them are from the county of san francisco. about the other five are from the state of california. but the other 95

species really are the native plants that have been here for thousands of years. we used collection sites such as angel island, the presidio had genetics for the projects in san francisco. we used remnant plant habitats at hunters point and we used a lot of genetics from san bruno mountain. just to collect and process all of the genetics was a two-year process. and then it was about a two or three year process to grow all the species. >> this is the infamous -- it's a low, growing sprawling native herb and it's in the mint family and i'm rubbing my hands on this and it's extremely aromatic. it feels like a flush of peppermint just came across my face. it's

edible. you can make tea out of it. it's a great digestive plant for settling your stomach. it has been cool to introduce yerba buena to yerba buena. this plant is called dutchman's pipe. when in bloom, the flower looks like a dutchman's pipe. and another thing that's unique about this plant is, it's the whole specific plant for the pipeline swallow tail butterfly. so some butterflies are able to adapt to other species and can use larva and food from different species. in the county of san francisco, there's only about three or four healthy populations of this plant. these particular plants were going to be destroyed

because of the green infrastructure project needed to put pipes in and needed to demolish all water tanks and build new water tanks for the island, so we were able to go in, dig them up, cultivate them, extrapolate dozens of plants into hund hundreds of plants and restore it through the restoration process. one day one of my nursery managers was down here and she found the pipeline butterfly have flown over from yerba buena island and came to our nursery on treasure island and was breeding on this plant. and successfully did its life cycle inside of our nursery. so, it? how that butterfly knows it's out there and find it, this is one of those unique things that we can't explain why butterflies can find this species but if we grow it and put it in the right location,

they will return. so the plants we're looking at here is faranosa known as just dedlia or live forever. the construction is it work happen nothing that area, it's likely to be destroyed. a unique thing about this plant and the unique succulents we have in california and the live forever plant can live to be 150 years old. recently, the state of california just did special legislation to protect this plant. i think in its intact population on the island, there's less than 50 of them, so to be able to grow several hundred of them and have them be a part of the plant palate of the stormwater gardens that was installed recently is an increase of biodiversity and a step forward towards protecting the natural legacy of the

island. >> i moved to treasure island in 1999. i believe i was one of the first residents on the island. i have seen how the island has been destroyed and reconstruct since its beginning to restore the island to its native form is extremely important to me because that will help all the animals come back to the island and make this place even a better place to live. >> i want to be here because these are people i know, so that was my first thing is just, like, i wanted to come here to help out and be with (indiscernible) and to actually put my hands in dirt. i feel like we as people don't work in army -- we don't see the benefits of plants, like, but i just learned about a plant that

if you rub it enough, it turns into soap. that's cool. and we need those things. we need to know about those things. >> one really unique thing about this project is the scale. to use 50,000 native plants over 7 acres is a scale we have never seen. it really is trailblazing when we think about the 350 or 400 acres of open space that is planned for treasure island, it sets the stage for what is possible. there's a way to use nature-based solutions at scale to meet the needs of climate change, sea level rise, the crisis of local extinction and create natural environment. the first phase of the project sets a stage for what is possible and i just feel really blessed to

have been a part of it. >> one of the main focus on triangle is keeping vehicle traffic to a minimum. for residents and visitors, public transportation is highly encouraged and will be the center point of keeping the island pedestrian-friendly, retaining an open space sent and providing an eco system that reducing carbon emission >> we need the transit to be successful because if we had 8,000 homes here and everybody was trying to use their car to access the bay bridge every month, it will overwhelm the system. new on and off-ramp are being constructed but all over the focus of the development is to be very transit oriented. triangle itself is very flat and very bikeable and walkable as a result and so there's a focus on using both bus and ferry service

to get from the island to san francisco in the east bay. there will be a number of transit demand management tools that will be employed of the two new ramps to and from the -- to the island and allowing a limited number of cars to access the bridge and there will be a management toll to encourage the use of transit. >> all the market rate housing on the island, the price for residential unit whether that's a rental apartment or a for sale condo, the price of the unit is decoupled from the price of the parking spot. so people can buy a condominium without paying for a parking spot. they choose to have a parking spot, they would pay an additional price. market rate residents are required to purchase take transit pass each month through their hoa fees or through their rent so the residents will begin the decision of driving or taking transit with a transit pass in

hand each month. that transit pass will function as a muni fast pass allowing people to take muni and transfer within the muni network and function as an ac transit allowing people to take ac transit to the east bay and transfer within the ac transit system and it will also provide unlimited access to the treasure island ferry. >> treasure island is going to take decades to be fully build out. it's going to take some time for it to reach the envelope that was passed by the board of supervisors and maybe there will be changes to it as well. we don't know what is going to happen in 50 years but i'm confident by the fact that the plan that was adopted was fully, fully thinking even for its time and the building the

island to a way it's sustainable, it addresses sea level rise, but also gives the public the open space and parts that are so necessary to fill treasure island. there's economic, certainly, challenges and whether we're going to be able to build out all of what was desired in the master plan, it will -- time will tell, but i think that the last ten years, we've been coming to this point. we are seeing incredible progress and the infrastructure is being finished by the island. market rate housing is being finished. affordable housing is being finished. and so, we feel within the next five years, substantial part of what we had envisioned is going to come to

fruition.

[music] >> san francisco is known as yerba buena, good herb after a mint that used to grow here. at this time there were 3 settlements one was mission delores. one the presidio and one was yerba buena which was urban center. there were 800 people in 1848 it was small. a lot of historic buildings were

here including pony express headquarters. wells fargo. hudson bay trading company and famous early settlers one of whom william leaderdorph who lived blocks from here a successful business person. african-american decent and the first million airin california. >> wilwoman was the founders of san francisco. here during the gold rush came in the early 1840s. he spent time stake himself as a merchant seaman and a business person. his father and brother in new orleans. we know him for san francisco's history. establishing himself here arnold 18 twoochl he did one of many things the first to do in yerba buena. was not california yet and was

not fully san francisco yet. >> because he was an american citizen but spoke spanish he was able to during the time when america was taking over california from mexico, there was annexations that happened and conflict emerging and war, of course. he was part of the peek deliberations and am bas doorship to create the state of california a vice council to mexico. mexico granted him citizenship. he loaned the government of san francisco money. to funds some of the war efforts to establish the city itself and the state, of course. he established the first hotel here the person people turned to often to receive dignitaries or hold large gatherings established the first public school here and helped start the public school system.

he piloted the first steam ship on the bay. a big event for san francisco and depict instead state seal the ship was the sitk a. there is a small 4 block long length of street, owned much of that runs essentially where the transamerica building is to it ends at california. i walk today before am a cute side street. at this point t is the center what was all his property. he was the person entrusted to be the city's first treasurer. that is i big deal of itself to have that legacy part of an african-american the city's first banker. he was not only a forefather of the establishment of san francisco and california as a state but a leader in industry. he had a direct hahn in so many things that we look at in san

francisco. part of our dna. you know you don't hear his anymore in the context of those. representation matters. you need to uplift this so people know him but people like him like me. like you. like anyone who looks like him to be, i can do this, too. to have the city's first banker and a street in the middle of financial district. that alone is powerful.

>> i went through a lot of struggles in my life, and i am blessed to be part of this. i am familiar with what people are going through to relate and empathy and compassion to their struggle so they can see i came out of the struggle, it gives them hope to come up and do something positive. ♪ ♪ i am a community ambassador.

we work a lot with homeless, visitors, a lot of people in the area. >> what i like doing is posting up at hotspots to let people see visibility. they ask you questions, ask you directions, they might have a question about what services are available. checking in, you guys. >> wellness check. we walk by to see any individual, you know may be

sitting on the sidewalk, we make sure they are okay, alive. you never know. somebody might walk by and they are laying there for hours. you never know if they are alive. we let them know we are in the area and we are here to promote safety, and if they have somebody that is, you know, hanging around that they don't want to call the police on, they don't have to call the police. they can call us. we can direct them to the services they might need. >> we do the three one one to keep the city neighborhoods clean. there are people dumping, waste on the ground and needles on the ground. it is unsafe for children and adults to commute through the streets. when we see them we take a picture dispatch to 311. they give us a tracking number and they come later on to pick

it up. we take pride. when we come back later in the day and we see the loose trash or debris is picked up it makes you feel good about what you are doing. >> it makes you feel did about escorting kids and having them feel safe walking to the play area and back. the stuff we do as ambassadors makes us feel proud to help keep the city clean, helping the residents. >> you can see the community ambassadors. i used to be on the streets. i didn't think i could become a community ambassador. it was too far out there for me to grab, you know. doing this job makes me feel good. because i came from where a lot of them are, homeless and on the street, i feel like i can give

them hope because i was once there. i am not afraid to tell them i used to be here. i used to be like this, you know. i have compassion for people that are on the streets like the homeless and people that are caught up with their addiction because now, i feel like i can give them hope. it reminds you every day of where i used to be and where i am at now.