all of you. my name is george rivas. i am the director of the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs, i am joined by my colleague chloe noonan, who is our policy and engagement officer, who oversees our language access efforts at oca. i am looking forward to sharing

. i am looking forward to sharing more background information about our office and then chloe will share more background on the lao report from 2024, and will walk us through the contents of that report as well, i'll take next slide. i will take a moment to share some background about our office. the office of civic engagement and world affairs was founded in 2 in 2009, at which time it was designated to oversee implementation of the equal access to services ordinance and with time, as you all know now, it's become the language access ordinance. today, eoc has 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 and economic and linguistic integration for the benefit of the public, and as a reminder to all of us. oca moves our mission forward in a few, in a few ways through civic engagement. for example, in our civic engagement work, we partner very closely with immigrant rights commission, where we hear directly from the public and

then advise the city leadership on immigrant matters. we also partner very closely with local groups to provide education to immigrant parents who are voting in the school district. elections to know their rights, and normally are our local lead for the census, for community safety. we our community ambassador program, for example, we it's a workforce development program where we partner provide a safety presence and engage residents with referrals and connections to public services and predominantly immigrant, multilingual neighborhoods. through grant making. we provide grants to further language access in our communities and create spaces for belonging for our immigrants. we also provide grants to provide additional affirmative legal support to our immigrants. integrated immigrant services, where we provide affirmative services for immigrants such as our pathways to citizenship program, who's been around for ten years. we also provide support to daca recipients for them to renew their applications. we also have

a dream fellowship program where we partner very closely with our local organizations and place fellows to gain professional experience regardless of status and of course, language access, the language access unit is a small team of interpreters and translators that provide language services for important public meetings and supplement some department's language access needs. we manage citywide contracts for language services, whether it's through vendors. we also provide technical assistance to city agencies and conduct annual compliance training to city staff. the unit also follows up on language access complaints that are made by our residents, and ensure that there's a summary provided to the immigrant rights commission on a quarterly basis. and we also monitor the department's compliance with the language access ordinance and submit a compliance summary report to the city each year, which which is a main piece of our presentation today. and with that, i will pass the mic over

to my colleague chloe noonan. our policy and civic engagement officer, to present the 2024 language access summary report. thank you. director rivas. hello, supervisors. before discussing the language access ordinance in greater detail, i want to take a moment to talk about some frequently used terms to help ensure that we have shared language in the discussion. when we say lao, we're referring to the language access ordinance, administrative code 91, which directs city agencies to ensure that public services and information are accessible to all people, regardless of language ability. the acronym lep refers to limited english proficient, a term 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 language as also described sometimes as threshold languages. the current

law requires city departments to provide language access services in chinese, spanish, and filipino, and languages are eligible for certification by oca once they reach a population threshold of 10,000 lep residents. this slide has some background about the history of the language access ordinance. the ordinance was first adopted as the equal access to services ordinance in 2001. went through a couple of rounds of amendments in 2009 and 2015, which, after several years of implementation work, brings us here today to discuss current city compliance and additional amendments that aim to further strengthen the lao. here you can see an overview of city department responsibilities and oca responsibilities under the current language access ordinance. one of osha's responsibilities is to monitor and report compliance to the

immigrant rights commission and the board of supervisors, which includes developing and publishing the annual language access compliance summary report . this is the context in which we present and discuss the 2024 compliance report today. under the current lao public facing, city departments must collect data about their language, access activities and submit an annual compliance report to oca by october 1st. and we have. here are just a quick preview of the types of information that departments include in their compliance reports, which i'll discuss more deeply in a couple more slides. 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 today. i encourage you all to take a look at the report afterwards. whenever you have time. on the topic of population data, the report contains 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 census bureau's 2018 to 2022 five year american community survey. as you can see, 1 in 3 san francisco residents is an immigrant and 18.9% of residents identify as lep. on the right side of the page, we have some supervisorial district data points available which show total population and lep population across districts and the district with the highest percentage of lep residents is district 11, at 35. lep population. here you can see a copy of the language diversity dashboards that oca publishes online each year, along with the compliance summary report. the dashboards show citywide data and can also be broken down by

individual supervisorial districts. these numbers reflect both total population language population and lep population within languages, and these dashboards are available online at the website listed here. to take a moment to briefly talk about some of the key data points that departments are asked to report about, i can speak first to data collection method. the current language access ordinance allows for three different types of data collection that departments can use to track their interactions with lep. members of the public. this includes the intake method. the survey method, or telephonic interpretation records. oca usually recommends the intake method, as this is the most accurate way to capture and record the data every year. departments also have to report the number of total lep client interactions their department had with members of the public. broken down by language, we also

ask departments to report on the total number of materials department departments translated during the fiscal year. they also report on in-person interpretations conducted and telephonic interpretations conducted on the topic of bilingual staff. departments also share their total numbers of bilingual staff, including both total staff and total certified bilingual staff. and on the topic of budgets, departments are also asked to include information about how much they spent on language access services during the fiscal year, specifically, departments are asked to report about compensatory pay for bilingual staff, excluding regular salaries, money spent on vendors that provided telephonic interpretation services, document translation and on site interpretation services, money spent on other costs associated with providing language access services such as grants or special programs, and the total sum spent by a department on language access services during

the fiscal year. this year's data showed encouraging upward trends across multiple data measures. this included increases in use of the intake method of data collection, total lep client interactions, translated materials, and in-person interpretations. the data also showed decreases on a few measures compared to the last fiscal year. this included decreases in telephonic interpretations, decreases in bilingual staff 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. 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. on the topic of bilingual staff, there could be a range of factors potentially impacting this number, such as staffing shortages in the city overall, inadequate recruitment, hiring and retention practices. staff retirement may be a factor, 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, which is important to consider when putting the data into context. for example, a department that relies heavily on bilingual staff to address language needs will likely spend less than a department that

relies heavily on vendors to address those needs. it's not necessarily an indicator on its own of whether a department is or isn't, prioritizing language access and looking at the whys really important in looking at the departments with the biggest decreases this year, our data analysts determined the main driver of the decreases was due to operational adjustments. so one example of this we learned that if the department of public health has been working to streamline their processes into a newly created department of interpreter services, which will consolidate many aspects of their language services activities, they also had an issue where they had to change telephonic interpretation. vendors during the fiscal year. another department that showed less spending this year was the san francisco port. their data showed that their interactions with the public saw a rather steep decline during the pandemic, and is just now slowly starting to build up again. one

brief anecdote is that the port actually recently held an in-person industry job fair for youth, and worked with oca to make sure that lep students attending the event would have access to interpretation at the workshop. and the feedback i've heard is that it was really engaging and successful event for lep attendees. a third example of operational adjustment came from the department of elections. so the amount of money election spends on language access each year varies 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 then one election the next year. next slide please. here are the recommendations that oca included in our compliance report this year on the topic of language access capacity building, we recommend that departments increase their department specific language access, instruction and training for public facing city staff,

and that includes training for public contact staff on department specific protocols for arranging interpretation and translation services. on the topic of resource planning, we recommended that departments hire and retain more bilingual staff to ensure sufficient internal resources for addressing the needs of lep community members served by city departments, and we also recommended exploration of future opportunities to supplement language access activities with new tools and emerging technologies. on the topic of language services budgets, we recommended that departments increase their language services budgets and support for community partners serving lep individuals. as we know that this recommendation comes during a constrained budget season and in the context of the current city economic climate, 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. and lastly, on the topic of data collection and analysis, we recommended continued improvement of current compliance data collection protocols. tracking language access activities consists ohlone and refinement of multiple data sources for a more diverse language access data landscape. i'll now hand the mic back to director rivas to talk about current capacity at osha's language access unit. thank you chloe. in addition to the compliance compliance summary report that we're hearing that we're hearing today, and also the amendments to the language access ordinance that were being discussed, we were asked to present a brief summary of what the needs will be at oca to successfully implement the amendments and potentially the trailing resolution that will come with more programmatic direction for oca. here is a quick org chart of the language

access services unit. there's seven ftes currently assigned to this unit. our policy and civic engagement officer oversees the language services supervisor and our languages, our language access data and research specialists. role this also includes three language services specialists, one per current required language and a language access assistant. the roles are supervised by the language service language services supervisor. next slide. the law amendments and the proposed resolution will expand and deepen the unit's responsibilities and activities. for example, implementing the amendments would require more frequent, individualized, customized training and technical assistance provided to department staff. the amendments would also result in changes related to language access complaints, resulting in additional communicative and administrative tasks for processing the processing and reporting. based on the changes

proposed, here are the resources that oca would need in order to ensure successful implementation . this requires upgrading two existing positions and adding two new positions. upgrade in 1823. role to a manager. one classification would be reflective of the increased requirement of this role, including managing a larger team with more responsibilities, increase team activities. increase engagement with policymakers, language access, community organizations. we anticipate that the amendments will result in additional data analysis responsibilities for oca, for example, and working more closely with departments on recommending programmatic and operational changes in response to their compliance data. the role will also have additional responsibilities related to leading complaint investigations, upgrading the 1840 role to an 1824 classification would reflect that increased requirements for the role. on the topic of new

positions, we want to see the addition, the addition, the addition of a training officer on language access unit through our team does provide some training to departments throughout the year. we anticipate more frequent and customized training would be needed with the passage of the amendments and the proposed resolution, and having a role specifically, especially dedicated to focusing on this would help ensure successful implementation. this would also support the complaint investigation activities. lastly, the lao language threshold number is lowered if lowered and language becomes required, we would need to. we would need a new language specialist role to ensure oca can effectively support the department's integrating the new language into their language access activities. adding 1842 role for a new language specialist would enable the language access unit to advise departments on language specific questions, develop written tools

like style guides, and to supplement departmental language services with a directed rotation and translation capacity as allows. we're speaking to potentially vietnamese being added as a language. again, these are the resource needs that we identified to date. we're working very closely with the central office of the city administrator and the mayor's office, so they're aware of the resource needs. this will wrap up my formal remarks for the presentation, and i'm going to invite the chair of the immigrant rights commission, celine kenleigh, to also provide some closing remarks. thank you. director, good morning, chair. ronen. supervisor walton, supervisor safaí. it's an honor to be with you. i'm celine kenleigh, the chair of the san francisco immigrant rights commission. i'm delighted to join our our partners, the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs, as well as nsf and community for this morning's very important hearing, the immigrant rights commission has been a leader in

language access, beginning with advocating for the first iteration of the language access ordinance in 2001 to ensure equal access to city services for all san franciscans. despite a strong local law, we continue to see cases where not everyone is able to access the information and services they needed. at the same time, we particularly saw this during the pandemic, when access to important information like where to get covid tests or vaccines, or how to apply for business loans or financial assistance had a real impact on people's health and finances. and that's why we launched a three part strategy to improve language access in san francisco. we held special hearings with community members to learn where the gaps are in the city's language access law and how it can be improved. we continue to meet with community. we continue to take testimony, and we continue to move forward with the recommendations that we hear. and they informed their will be informing a lot of the work of the commission in the coming

year through our strategic planning process, we have partnered with the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs and the language access network of san francisco to launch a community language access survey to hear directly from over 2000 san franciscans in 11 languages about their experiences accessing services in their language and together with oca, we provided input to help inform the proposed amendments that are being introduced today. we have heard from community members about the importance of hiring and retaining bilingual staff who are culturally competent, and i want to underline culturally competent. it is a huge part of servicing our immigrant community using a community centered approach that takes into account the needs of all san franciscans, san franciscans, and ultimately ensuring that no one is left out . city departments must also be responsive when there is an influx of immigrants due to war, conflict or other crises. this

is something we have discussed as a commission. as we have seen emerging language populations coming to san francisco, it is essential that language services are available to all. we are pleased to join with city leaders in taking a step forward in improving language access and accountability. with the amendments being introduced today, we would like to thank supervisors walton and chen, city administrator chu, the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs, and all of the community partners who have helped inform this process. the commission has been fighting for language justice since our founding over 25 years ago, and we look forward to continuing the work as an active partner with oca city leaders and community members to improve language access in san francisco. thank you. thank you so much, director rivas. miss noonan and chair kenleigh. and again, i want to thank, all the public for being here this afternoon. and i specifically do

want to extend a thank you to all of our interpreters this morning. we have for cantonese, tinky wong, laura kwan, and spanish angelica perez and carmen saldana and filipino raymond perez. so i want to thank you all so much for making sure that all of our residents who want to participate in this hearing have that opportunity. i really feel that the language access report compliance report is very important. we got a chance to see a lot of information, particularly where most of our limited english proficiency, residents reside. and i think that was one of the things that was most at least shocking to me in terms of what part of san francisco we have the highest number. so i really want to appreciate this report. i do have a couple of questions, but i want to check to see if my colleagues have any questions before. okay, to director rivas,

just i have three questions. the first one, and i don't know if this is putting you on the spot, but what would you grade? our city departments overall in terms of compliance with with the lao? thank you. supervisor. that's a very tough question. i think, as a city, we can always do better in terms of language access. i, i will not i will stay away from giving us a letter grade or a number grade, but i think this the introduction of the introduction of new amendments speaks to the need, and it speaks to the fact that there is recognition that we need to do better and we can keep our departments more accountable, and that we need to be working more closely with community to meet the need. so i think the fact that we have amendments and a resolution being discussed is speaks to the fact that we are not at an a plus. so, yeah, and i believe you did touch on this, but i do

want to just make sure the resource needs that you demonstrated on one of the slides. that's included in your proposed budget. that is not that's included in this conversation, not in the proposed budget, at this point. so we will be we've shared it with, city administrator's office, our central office, as you know, we budget with with the city administrator. and we will also be sharing with the mayor's office. got it, that's all i have for now. thank you so much. thank you, so what i do want to do now is just speak a little bit about the amendments that we are going to be adding, to the lao through this legislation and just remind folks that last year, we introduced some initial amendments to improve the lao. and through working with community, with oca, our language access network, immigrants rights commission, and a lot of folks. we've also included some additional amendments, because there are so

many things that we want to do to make sure that we're providing access and for all of our our residents in the city. so i do just want to state, for the record what these amendments are and how they're going to strengthen the current language access ordinance. so we'll be adding findings to adding findings to ensure a safe, inclusive and equitable environment for providing city services and programs and equal access to city information. clarify interpretation which is spoken versus translation which is written and making sure this is uniform throughout the lao. clarifying the role of oca to guide city departments and remedies to city departments who are not adhering to the lao. adding language access for health related emergencies or disasters. as we have experienced through the covid 19 pandemic, expanding language access for digital services and social media, which is an area

that has experienced tremendous growth since the last memorializing the three required languages chinese, cantonese, spanish and filipino, regardless of population changes, require city departments to translate signage codifying language access strategies for first responders and crisis. this requires city departments to inform members of the public of their right to file a complaint, and a and of a process for providing feedback on the department's language access services requiring complaints on departments to be published quarterly on the oca website and to the immigrants rights commission and also the board of supervisors, so we can work together to help departments comply with the language access ordinance and improve our language access services as a whole. impose requirements for the annual language access summary report required departments to post notice of the availability of language

access services and know your rights brochure to access language services. and finally, require departments to budget and plan for the delivery of language access services in their annual budgets. and again, i just want to emphasize, over the past year, we've done this work with oca, human immigrants rights commission, human rights commission, language access networks. all our partners and community. i do want to extend a thank you to deputy city attorney alicia cabrera for helping draft the new amendments. and, of course, to deputy city attorney ann pearson for her support, we did email these additional new amendments to, our colleagues and to your team, implementing updated provisions of the letter, bilingual services act for emergency and disaster translation services. the legislature's amendments were in

response to critical incidents like the mass shootings in half moon bay and monterey park, as well as the broken levee and monterey county, which severely impacted communities with significant lep persons. various new media documented the local agency's failure to provide language services to communicate vital information on safety and access to recovery with impacted community. the updated findings and language access in san francisco, including public service announcements and vital information in multiple languages. one of the things that is very important lowering the language threshold requirement from 10,000 to 6000 residents, now including vietnamese, effective two years from the passage of the ordinance, we also be requiring city departments to maintain lists of bilingual employees in their languages, providing written materials and requested languages for lep persons within

48 hours with good faith efforts for translation within a reasonable amount of time. establishing a streamlined, compliant process through oca for language access. service difficulties while informing the public about complaint procedures and feedback mechanisms. creating a multilingual know your rights brochure. developing standardized vocabulary lists for required languages. strengthening osha's role in enforcing and compliance and we just want to again reiterate that it is very important to include these amendments for compliance and to make sure that not only we are adhering to the lao, but providing access and more opportunity for our residents to participate in the democratic process, to know what we're doing in city government, and providing the public with information needed to be a part of the democratic process. i do have a question for deputy city

attorney anne pearson, and just want to make sure that we are able to include additional amendments to add the definition of bills for our city services or taxes, and the definition of vital information. deputy city attorney anne pearson those amendments are not included in the version that you circulated today, but the amendments that you are introducing are substantive. so this will be back before the committee next week, and we can have those amendments prepared by then. thank you, because we do want to just stay for this, for the public, refine the requirement for translate being the know your rights information brochure by replacing 20 most spoken languages in san francisco with 20 languages in san francisco that are most spoken and have the highest rates of language access. need on page 24, line 23. and so we will, of course, address that in the amendments as well, at this time, chair

ronen, i'd like to open this up for public comment. i also want to thank, co-sponsor supervisor chan for all her work. and of course, city administrator carmen chu for her support through the process as well. and i do see supervisor safaí. supervisor safaí. thank you. just want to thank supervisor walton for your for your leadership on this. this is in a time when, immigrant families are are not necessarily feeling welcome, feeling scapegoated and feeling isolated and pointed out it's important that our city step up and embrace and step forward, a way to make them feel more included and inclusive. so appreciate the hard work that you've done. the immigrant rights commission and the office of oca. so i'd like to be added as a co-sponsor. this is really, really important step forward for our city to clarify and do all the hard work to access, have good, strong language access in all forms. thank you,

thank you. and i would also like to thank you for your work and ask to be added as a co-sponsor. and with that, can we please open the these items up to public comment, yes. members of the public who wish to speak on on these items should line up to speak. at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. there will be a soft chime when you have 30s left and a louder chime when your time has expired . you may begin. good morning. i'm marlene tran. thank you for convening this very important meeting and for the immigrant rights to be here to provide so much information that is updated. i am also a former immigrant rights commissioner and a retired bilingual teacher

with 35 years of teaching at the san francisco's first newcomer school. the former chinese education center covid cidentally. two days ago, the caa celebrated the 50th anniversary of the law versus nichols landmark decision, which enabled millions of non-english speaking students to learn english. since 1974. this morning's proceeding is actually an extension of the basic rights of our diverse and non-english speaking residents in san francisco. from my frequent interactions with non-english speaking residents, we want to make four recommendations. maybe this has been answered already. number one, newsletters from supervisors with diverse constituents to provide translation, which is not done now. city hall tv coverage to

provide at least subtitles as you can see, this screen only shows english and it doesn't help people who want to know the proceedings. number three, we would like to see, oca hire more translators to help with the, community groups, especially during their community meetings. number four, we want to have better outreach of the proceedings, or rather, the, all the information from the irc so that people can have different ways to interact with the, commissions. so i think that these are some of the recommendations that are made and because of time constraints, hopefully i will be able to offer more after i hear from more residents. thank you.

thank you. good morning, my name is sheng yen lee, and i'm the advocate with chinese for affirmative action. we are a member organization of language of nasa's language access network of san francisco, also known as lan. sf the network is made up of six community based organizations representing a multilingual, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural network from arab, latino, black, aapi and other directly impacted communities. first of all, we would like to thank supervisor walton and his office for leading the revision of the language access ordinance and partnering with community organizations and oca to implement this important strategies that serve community members across the country. in san francisco, 148,000 people speak chinese at home, 90 more than 89,000 people speak spanish, and many others speak a variety of dialogs. over the last nine months, the language

access network of san francisco has continued to call for reform of the language access ordinance as the immigrant and limited english speaking population continues to grow, it is crucial to acknowledge the importance of providing services in people's preferred languages. so as someone whose first language is not english, seeking data points for today's public comments takes extra time and effort. accessing well translated city and state websites will save me time and energy, but what i experienced is nothing compared to what others are facing when their needs needs to be received, language access is essential on a daily basis and in every aspect of our life. we stand here together in solidarity to bring experiences from the community to process concerns and bridge the gap between the community's need and the ordinance. thank you for your time. hi tiger, how are

you? hi tony. hi, tony san jorge, come, come. yanto. hi, sam. sam would come from sam. fancy how do you say hi, gang? hi sam. i see you like football. tony yes. thank you for having some fancy qanon. go see how. you go to my gym to go see you. panggung. thank you. zhiyin yao. see the yao song? you take in the hip, you pass it to yao. you see? thank you to my tiktok. venmo morphing song. come see. thank you. so jingle composer yao gong batong. you kaifong to yao kun. yi ji seok. yi yin folk voc-tech. jessica. how you doing

? ma ming yi kim yin sifu bao tong. sao yang. hey ek fu gua sin yi intelli venmo d.o.j. i'll help translate. good morning supervisors. my name is aayu. i immigrated from taiwan and my family and i currently live and work in san francisco. i'm grateful that san francisco is a home to diverse immigrant communities, and even more appreciative of the city's language access that has improved throughout the years. in the past, when i visited sf mta, there was relatively little information and resources available in different languages . now the now the agency provides more materials and information in different languages. occasionally staff the front desk with bilingual clerks and play instructions in different languages on the bus, expanding crucial and necessary language services. thank you supervisors and supervisor

walton specifically for advocating the amendments. ensure that everyone has the right to receive timely translation and interpretation and interpretation, and in the language they are most familiar familiar with, including through telephonic and written materials, as well as ensuring departmental compliance through audits. each year, we hope to continue working with the board and departments to improve language services. thank you. hello, how are you? my okay. how are sometimes you can make a yi sun yi man come a yi yi. come and see san would yi yi the whole day. come get some icu's yi informatio. i think yi venmo tan chin chin. yang yi bing. come. okay, nina. okay. hi, i'm

amanda icu term emergency. venmo. come and see how we go, man. he called you one li li yongfang. go go go go. come coming. you informatio like come to me to me, you know seng. sam. hey, man. zheng chenggong to come to. you joe biden. cheng yi young man. batonga semen cap yi informal kong kanga gong fan. so yi lin. guy so. so you. macao tong. i will help translate. hello everyone. thank you for this opportunity today. my name is aggie and i am a community leader. when i arrived to live

in san francisco as a new immigrant, i encountered a large language barrier because my native tongue is cantonese. fortunately, i soon learned that the city departments are required to provide language service, and in chinese. however, the frontline staff of some of some city agencies still do not provide adequate language services. one time my neighbor had an emergency health issue that needed immediate medical attention. however, the frontline responder that arrived only spoke english and the immediate family wasn't fluent and could not understand. as a result, they searched throughout the building for someone to translate, which hindered treatment. this example illustrates the implementation of the sf language access ordinance is not yet comprehensive. i implore the city and departments to increase funding and budget, to strengthen the training and standard procedure for every staff member to recognize and assist community members who are not fluent in english. thank you . good morning. my name is anisha hingorani and i am a policy manager at chinese for

affirmative action. also providing comment on the lao amendments. oca as we heard releases an annual language access compliance summary report every february that offers critical data and insights on how the city is meeting the language access needs of its diverse constituents. this report also incorporates the results of community driven spot checks, and proposes key data driven policy recommendations. as you heard earlier, the report this year highlights troubling trends, including a decrease in bilingual staffing, a decrease in the number of telephonic interpretations, and an alarming decrease in the language services budgets from 20 million down to 15 million across departments. furthermore, the spot check data shows that 22% of respondents had wait times of 10 to 20 minutes and almost a third of respondents were never connected to a bilingual employee or vendor interpreter.

this demonstrates that a significant number of residents who exercise their right to language access do not receive it. as we know, residents connect with city departments to access essential life saving and emergency services and resources being turned away because departments fail in their responsibility to provide timely language access is not only a civil rights violation, it further deepens the marginalization that immigrant communities experience and erodes the trust that communities place in their government. it is against this backdrop that we uplift osha's recommendations, which calls for improved internal training, hiring and retention of bilingual staff, strengthening compliance, data collection and reporting, and increasing language services, resources and budgets. it is against this backdrop that we earnestly push our city leaders to work with community groups to rectify the decline in language access, investments and the

deprioritisation of departments. language access, responsibilities and really push for a culture change where departmental policies and actions reflect a comprehensive commitment to language rights. thank you. johnson, gawai. good morning, supervisor. my name is josé ng and i'm the immigrant rights program manager at chinese for affirmative action, also providing public comment for the lao revisions. i want to thank you, supervisor warden and supervisor chen, for your leadership on leading these amendments and also supervisor safaí and chair ronen for your co-sponsor ring. we commend osha's leadership and efforts over the years working with the nsf, the community, in identifying the language access ordinance, implementation gap. but we all know that, you know, these gaps still exist and thus the language access complaint process is one way for the community member to share their experiences with the city. yet

the process still has a long way to go in order to hold the city departments accountable based on our experience with the community, we care the number of lao violations does not truly capture the reality of what's occurring on the ground. with the limited english speaking, proficient community members can remember mine, not be consistently find report due to the facts one they don't know about the language rights. second, the complaint form is not translated in the language. third, they do not trust the city will do anything to resolve the issue than violation occurs. we recognize our city's financial resources are being impacted and shrinked. we must reiterate language services, a core city services that are essential to our city's diverse immigrant population. these language services have been defunded and underfunded and need to be prioritized in order to serve our immigrant population in the city. we hope,

you know, oca would have enough staffing and capacity to oversee the equitable implementation of these vital provisions, and we ask the board of supervisor, especially the rules committee, to support all the budget requirement to fully implement this efficient and amendment of the language access ordinance. thank you. supervisor for your report and working with the community, and we appreciate for your efforts. thank you. hello. can i request for an interpreter? what language? filipino. i believe they're in the room. maraming salamat po. thank you. i see theresa do lala's nakatira po ako sa ica isna, distrito de san francisco. i am theresa lala's. i live in district six, in san francisco. i nanawagan po sa inyo. i'm

calling upon you that, ang isang lengua po napaka importante sa mga apo na walang alam po sa lingua in english language is very important, especially to people who do not know any other language except english. halimbawa po na isang to wainganga ng buhay at saka po siya sa nueva uno uno. pero yong tau po na na s'agapo hindi niya alam kung ano po yung lingua. so anong gagawin po. for example, if a person's life is in danger and they call 911 and it happens that the person on the other line does not speak english, what will we do? so napaka importante kasi yung po yung mga tao na na walang alam po sa english atsaka yung na na na na po ng mga nila sa isang hospital pumupunta sa uno, uno sa mga

comunidad at saka ano po na kailangan po na na marunong po masalin po yung isang lingua. this is important for people whose lives are in danger when they go to the hospital. call 911. for those persons, it is very important that there is someone that will be able to interpret their their needs. it's an important aspect of din po isang kakayahan po sa kultura ng isang lingua, isang isang, isang kultura sa comunidad. it is also important that in the process of interpretation, the interpreter, whoever is interpreting should understand the culture of a particular community. yung important isang din ako, isang advocate. may advocacy po sa bilingual edukasyon. so that is important for me, especially for when i

advocate for education in isang bilingual edukasyon para sa mga bata na hindi po sino suportahan ng school district dito sa san francisco. so ako ay nananawagan po sa inyo na suportahan din po ninyo yung bilingual education at saka yung ano po yung yung access, yung access dito sa comunidad natin at saka sana po ay dengan new din po na yung kakayahan ng mga ahensiya po ninyo dito sa san francisco. maraming salamat po. it is important that bilingual education, especially for kids that are not supported by the city, please help us with with this and please, exert your efforts to improve the capacity of agencies with regards to bilingual interpretation. thank

you. good morning supervisors. my name is zachary friel. i'm a d5 resident and i work at the south of market community action network. i'm here to speak in support of the amendments, despite filipino being an official language of san francisco, our staff have found numerous shortcomings with filipino language access as it stands today. our staff often have to go outside their duties to fill the role of interpreter for our clients at public meetings, like court hearings. and one time when an interpreter was provided, they weren't even accurately interpreting what was said, in addition, our staff and clients have found the city's filipino translations, often machine translated by google, to be inadequate and at times indecipherable. in my role, i've often had to remind applications to provide filipino translations for documents. as such, these amendments are crucial in

addressing the city's shortcomings in providing language access services. we look forward to continuing to work with oca on further improvements to strengthen our communities language access rights. we'd also like to thank supervisor walton for your leadership on this issue. thank you so much. hello, board of supervisors. my name is janelle and i am with the filipino community center, which is a member organization of la nsf. despite filipino being constituted as a threshold language in san francisco ten years ago, we have seen many gaps in interpretation and translated materials from city departments. through fcc. we have assisted many lep community members who have faced challenges with navigating housing, immigration, domestic violence violations in their workplace, and other life threatening experiences that is exacerbated because of the lack

of filipino speaking, staffing in city departments. there was an emergency situation where a monolingual community member required immediate medical assistance. however had we not been present as fcc to provide interpretation while medical staff or frontline workers were present, then they would not have understood the actual medical condition and needs of the community member and how dire it was to bring her to the hospital. there were multiple incidents where many community members were also facing wrongful eviction notices, yet they were not able to access materials in tagalog or filipino , nor interpretation in filipino. from the rent board of san francisco about their rights. we've also assisted in multiple court case hearings to provide interpretation on the side, because there wasn't interpretation provided timely providing public safety, emergent health, and human services, and public programs in

the languages that community members understand is essential for monolingual families to live safely and sustainably. in san francisco. an emergency deserves immediate response time and is a matter of life or death. as as in language assistance would delay the, not providing that would delay the critical time to save someone's life. so access to quality language services ensures that our non-english native speakers and migrant community members are treated with dignity and respect. thank you. good morning, supervisors, my name is jared, and i'm a staff member at the filipino community center in district 11, which is a member organization of the language access network of san francisco, language access is an essential for our community members to utilize the critical public services that

they need, but navigating different public services can be very difficult and confusing, especially when these services are not offered in a language that our clients can understand. and oftentimes, our community members who have a limited english proficiency are ignored or brushed off when they are trying to access or avail of different public services and programs, which is why, non-english speakers rely on the protections and support that are made available through the language access ordinance and the various organizations of lnsf, strengthening language access in san francisco for working class immigrant communities, it's not only practical, but is necessary for the community's full participation, respect and livelihood within the city, lowering the threshold for lep residents, having the right to be served in the language our

community members are familiar with. and translating the language access ordinance. know your rights brochure in 20 different languages are just some of the winds that the language access network of san francisco were able to achieve, but there is so much more work to be done in order to improve language access in san francisco, which is why we are looking forward to a resolution that increases the opportunities for oca to work with our communities on these concerns. thank you. good afternoon. my name is jamari, and i'm also a staff member at the filipino community center, so many majority of the clients we serve are immigrants, seniors with disabilities who are seeking to avail of disability benefits. ed and many other services that the city provides, but cannot because the agencies do not have

the tagalog translator readily available, which is why we serve them. and sometimes this would delay access to key services for weeks, especially if they can't find our center or we're not able to get to them. and these cases are case managers have to step in and interpret for our clients through the application process, for many lep speaking community members of all backgrounds, language access is a matter of basic health and safety, before we can meet the material needs of our communities, we must first meet their fundamental need of communication to be understood and to understand, san francisco's vibrant diversity is a testament to that need for expanded language access in city services, so that all our communities can thrive and have a life of dignity. we celebrate the victories of sf, including affirming the right to be served in the language we are most comfortable and familiar with, and lowering of the ordinance threshold from 10,000 to 6000. we look forward to resolutions that will provide more

opportunities for oca to work with the community on this. equity issues such as, establishing permanent bilingual staffing and city departments. thank you so much. bonjour la can say the supervisor, je m'appelle muna african advocacy network, a member of the collaborative the land access network. the language access network, the san francisco. yes, i'm speaking in french. i'm from mali. my mother language is sorry. i speak sorry. the language spoken in mali by most of the population is malinké. i speak malinké. french is the language the colonizer brought to us, i speak french, i came to america. i have to learn english. so i'm assuming you understood what i said in french. because you just guess it. it was easy. imagine this is what the majority of our

community members have to deal on a daily basis when they go seek help and they speak in english in a language that they're not familiar and not comfortable in, they have to guess. they have to answer to the question just by guessing. it's a matter of life or death questions most of the time, but they saying yes or no to something that they just feel like maybe i say yes, this is the right answer here. maybe i say no, this is the right answer here. this is the reason why i'm standing here today. i believe that in a city celebrated for its diversity, black immigrant often face unique barriers due to language and cultural differences. it is not just about translating documents, it is about ensuring equitable access to education, health care, legal services and community support. when language becomes a barrier, people are excluded from opportunities that others might take for granted. we need more interpreters in translators and translators. we understand the linguistic nuances and cultural background of black immigrant community. we

must support community based organizations that work directly with these groups, offering cultural, relevant services. additionally, city services must be trained to recognize and address the specific needs of this immigrant. thank you for your support and time today. hi there. my name is marty doolas and i wanted to share a story with you. so when i had studied abroad in japan, i woke up one day and i lost hearing in one ear and being in a different country, just barely knowing the language and having to seek out city like city government language to find my health access. and that's a whole different language and an entirely different language in japanese. so i was afraid, i was scared, i didn't know what to do. thank goodness. like, i was able to access language services

with my school and get the need that i that i needed for my health, but to even access that is a hurdle. and i know that because i see like people like on the streets, i've actually had like ladies like from the chinese community stop me because they're like, you know, looking at my face, i'm actually filipino, but but mixed. but, you know, they stopped me and they they asked me in their language for like a certain address. and i'm just like, like i find out because, like, they show me their phones and, i'm just like, i know where this is. and i just walk them to as far as i can go, and sometimes all the way to where they need to go. but when i'm there, all i can do is just leave them there and hope that they can get the access of what they need in these city governments. when they get into those buildings, will the will those accesses to their language be there? will they get the necessary help like i did when i was studying

abroad? but at the same time, there was also that lack of cultural understanding. when i did get those accesses as so to be able to fulfill this in the city is a is beautiful and it is a i know it is a big hurdle because we have such diversity, but i know in your leadership, please, i hope that we can make this happen. thank you. good morning. my name is ann lim and i am a tenant councilor from the south of market community action network. most of our clients are immigrant filipino families. our community is directly impacted and we are advocating to close the language access gap across the city. most of our clients are in need of counseling services regarding their tenancy and disputes with their landlords. as a tenant counselor, i have witnessed how most filipinos could not understand notices, legal documents and agreements that are needed for their tenancy.

most of the time, they are being tricked by their landlords and the tenants are forced to move out of their homes just because they do not understand the english language. they do not know how to seek help from the city or rent board. because of the language barrier. filipino immigrant families are also afraid to step out of the shadow to access critical public services. language access supports immigrant families to feel safe in accessing public services. it is essential that language access is available to all. language access promotes dignity and respect. access to language services ensures that non-english native residents and immigrants are treated with dignity and respect. thank you very much. my name is janet, i'm from san francisco. you mind pulling the microphone closer? thank you. okay, tonight, i'm from san francisco, california. originally from eritrea, africa.

so, i took the translation, the interpreter course soon, the community interpreter course. so i'm glad to have that course. so my focus is we don't have enough, in the, in the field of, like, police or hospitals or in social service, we have difficulty, you know, we have some sense of, translators. so i'm focusing on hospital, specially the delivery mothers. you know, they have pain or something. they couldn't translate that, you know, they have shortage. so i have, like, nursing experience. i work in delivery when i was in africa. so i wish i got that chance or people have that kind of chance as a mother. i know what's delivery mean. so when they have pain, which part they have to press, how the husband help her

so that things focus. i focus on that specially on medical field. thank you so much. good morning. can speak english? i need the interpreter. akaboshi. nori. membranous is sama bilang? isang manggagawa nakaranas ng digana is nice na situation. lalo na pagdating sa wikang english isa sa mga una was important papeles para sa trabajo na maintindihan ng mga nagagawa sa akin. kung hindi ito my silence, awakening wikang tagalog namin sa mga naiintindihan ko ang aking mga karapatan bilang manggagawa kasi ito sa amin, sabi ng tagalog, sa montana ng kailangan kong

maintindihan lahat ng aking tungkol sa bahay at immigration, at ibaba ang kailangan natin ngayon ang pag dbi na tulungan kami na maintindihan ng sa language access ordinance. hindi lang para sa mga pamilya nandito kung hindi sa mga para sa kailangan ng malakas na language access. parama tulungan kami. maraming salamat po. translate. good morning. my name is nori flamingo, member of samahan. i'm a caregiver and i live in soma. as a migrant worker, i experienced undesirable situations, especially when it came to language. one of those is understanding important documents for work. how can i understand what i am asked to do if they are not translated in my own language as sam, can i fully understand my rights as a worker because it was taught in our own language? i also go to sam, ken when i need to understand about work, housing, immigration and so on. that's why we need to further strengthen our language access ordinance, not just for

those family who are here, but for families that are coming here that will surely need a strong language access. thank you very much. magandang umaga sa lahat. akong community engagement coordinator. soma pilipinas ang filipino cultural heritage district. dito sa san francisco na ang organization na sa comunidad na na katawan sisang multilingual, multi-ethnic art network na comunidad mula sa arab, latino, black aapi at iba pang director apektado na mga comunidad na sulong nasara gawad sa mga lamang bilang isang ibang comunidad kung sino suportahan unleaded legislation sa pagbabago sa ordinance sa pag

ahsha savika mahalaga na lahat ng residente, i may pantai pantai na privilegio sa mga serbisyo ng gobyerno ay naman ng kanilang katutubong. ng ordinance ito na lang sa wika and sa mga al-sabah isa na makatanggap na mahalagang tulong na kailangan nila bilang isang nakikipag tulungan sa mga pamilyang pilipino. nakita kabataan alam ko kung ano nakaka dismay among system at proceso ng walang supporters sa pamamagitan ng pagbibigay naman serbisyong multilingual naniniwala ako naman natin sulong na makakasama atomica na malakas na comunidad para sa lahat. thank you. good morning. my name is naval. i am the community engagement coordinator with sama filipinos. the

filipino cultural heritage district. i am here in support of the language access network of san francisco, which is made up of six community based organizations representing a multilingual, multi-ethnic and community networks for from arab, latino, black, aapi and other direct communities. advocating to close the language gap on language gap access in the city as a as a member of the diverse community, i totally support the language access ordinance amendment. i totally support the language accidents ordinance amendments legislation. it is important that all residents have equal access to government services regardless of their native language. this ordinance will ensure that language barriers do not prevent individuals from receiving the vital assistance they need. as someone who works

with families, seniors, and health and youth, i know firsthand how frustrating, how frustrating it is it can be to navigate the complex system and processes without proper language support by providing multi-language, multilingual services. i believe that we can promote inclusivity and create a stronger community for everyone. thank you. magandang umaga po ako po sicilian kintanar. good morning supervisors. i am silayan kintanar, a filipino caseworker with the south of market community action network. i work with low income, working class immigrant families and individuals, seniors, people with disabilities, single parents, the most vulnerable members of our community, and many of whom are lep. some of them came with us today to show their support. filipinos are in

dire need of language access services. a lot of our clients have experienced difficulties in accessing public services, such as essential food and health and housing programs, and are also unable to report habitability issues in the bmr, housing and sros that they live in. on their own. due to language barriers, they come to us community based organizations because we provide culturally competent and linguistically appropriate language services. they come to us when they need to apply or call departments or programs to follow up on their applications, or if they need letters and documents translated and explained to them. cbos are filling the gaps. a single mom with children even lost their chance of at affordable housing, even though they were selected in the lottery, since they did not fully comprehend the requirements and the one communicating with them only spoken english. some filipino speak english, but comprehend in filipino language. language

access is a civil rights issue for all. it is core to upholding the values of san francisco. although progress has been made, there is still a lot to be done. we cannot stress enough the importance of providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services for all. maraming salamat po. good morning supervisors. my name is abdul and i'm the director of the african advocacy network, my colleague vanessa and our committee are members, and i have said quite a lot about this, but i will start by saying thank you, because i think the language access ordinance itself is an accomplishment. it speaks to this desire for more integration. and my presence here, as i always say, is also a testament to the diversity of who we are coming from all over the world. and, would it be racial? would it be cultural?

but it's also linguistic. and i personally do not believe that language access ordinance is a static situation. it's an ongoing process. and as we're speaking today, i bet in 2 or 3 years will be here again because the communities are growing day after day. so we believe that the language access issue is not going to be handled without the active participation of the communities themselves. we are the ones who got the natural capacity to speak those languages. we are the ones who have got the cultural competency in order to better convey from one language to another, you know, any kind of message and i think we're here to speak about equity. we speak, we are here to speak about inclusion. we are here to speak about integration, and we are here to speak about empowerment. and we say community based organization. we stand ready to work with oci and then be along with them in order to address this issue. and

again, you know, we're looking forward to great things. and then a resolution that will allow us to work better in a fully manner. you know, with oci will be certainly a step forward, but again, it's an ongoing process. and thank you again for your time. good morning. my name is nick g. i'm on the advocacy team with chinese for affirmative action, also providing public comment on the lao revisions. as we know, the revisions for the language access ordinance has been overdue, and we've waited patiently since 2021 to move this process forward. and so we want to express our gratitude for the recent collaboration with city leadership, including supervisor walton, natalie g. supervisor chan francis hsieh, oca, and director rivas, the human rights commission, and many, many community members for their efforts to identify the gaps and call for additional languages to be included in the ordinance. the work to ensure the language access ordinance truly meets the diverse needs of san francisco's immigrant

communities is not over, and the language access network of san francisco looks forward to working with supervisor walton on a resolution that increases opportunities for oca to work with the community on key equity concerns, as we call for continued efforts to expand language resources to reach the city's top 20 spoken languages, we call for city agencies and departments to provide adequate budgets and tangible plans to provide language resources, as we call on detailed compliance reports, to be submitted to the board of supervisors, which should include detailed summaries broken down by department and language of all complaints, investigations, outcomes, and individual and systemic remedies to address the root cause of the violation. and we call for the city and the board to adequately fund oca to implement the lao through community informed processes. we call for the city to break down barriers and create systems of language justice for all. we look forward to continuing to

advocate for language justice and partner with city officials to address concerns of the community and effectively bridge the gap of language access. thank you. hello everyone. maybe i'm a little bit shaken because the first time for me, i just want to let you know i came here with my class, the esl classes, the families here with me. my name is rania and we need the arabic interpreter here. i'm coming here to present the families from my class. my name is rania. i'm as a esl teacher assistant, and also as an arabic family liaison at the sf isd. one of the schools. and i want to talk about something like some schools sometimes don't allow parents from using their right to have an interpreter present at their parents teacher conferences, despite the fact that the sf isd offers a free language line. consequently, parents are often unable to

fully comprehend their children's academic and social needs, leading to their nonattendance at school conferences due to the language barrier. in addition, all the leaves on google translate most of the time for translating documents as the enrollment application also, i am well aware of the many challenges that non-native english speakers face when trying to access public services and resources. it can be quite frustrating for them and they often interrupt the class to ask for help. moreover, during the pandemic, many people lives were in danger and there was a serious lack of resources available to help them or even know how to deal with it. please support the language access, especially for all these needs. the lack of representative representation for the arab and mena communities in the us census has

created significant barriers to accessing resources support hindering their ability to thrive and contribute fully to society. talk about personal narratives highlights the effects of the language barriers in crucial areas such as housing, education, health care and access. accessing victim services shed light on the urgent need for language access and inclusion measures, especially in the concern of the increasing islamophobia and again, i want to just say again, to insist about how important for us speaker time has elapsed. thank you. oh, sorry. thank you. thank you so much. my name is abdul. i am a resident service supervisor at chinatown community development center, and i'm an immigrant rights commission. i'm i'm speaking on my on my on my behalf and on myself as an individual today, i would just like to thank the

supervisors and ahsha staff and immigrant rights commission for being here and advocating for our immigrant community, i really appreciate the language access ordinance and the amendments, everyone would like to add to, but i would like to add and again, and i would like to thank all the esl class and families and our families from tier one turk and through chinatown and in the tenderloin community for being here today. and i would add to my colleague, even with proposed threshold adjustments, the current criteria for the limited limited english proficiency studies, this excluding the arabic community, as in evidence by the by the low number of like individuals identified, which undermines their ability to access essential services and participate fully in civic life, and as well in hurting

vulnerability to discriminate and marginalize them. the alarming rise of islamophobia underscored the criteria importance, the crucial importance of ensuring that our city processes are inclusive and equitable, particularly for vulnerable communities like the arab and mena population. excluding their community. these communities only serves to perpetuate systemic injustice and further marginalize those already facing discrimination and prejudice. i would just add, i would like really for these communities under war, like the ukrainian and the arab countries and communities, to be really supported by the language ordinance and actually give them more support for their services in the city. thank you so much. marhaban. azmi, amirah and taliban safaí. come on islam,

come to an end. salam. la la la la la la la la la la la. la any la la la la. fema ahsha. mutarjim. hi welcome to let you. all. so what can i do for you? hello, my name is amira. i'm a certified health care interpreter, and i'm also a member of the islamic community center, i'm here on my behalf, but i thought i want to share with you that when i thought that relocating to an english speaking country is going to be easy for me because i speak the language. but that was far from true. and if it wasn't for the

help that was provided to me by my community member members, i wouldn't have been able to overcome many obstacles, and i have had access to many resources. as an interpreter, i have witnessed situations where language access was life saving, and i can't imagine the difficulties. those who don't speak the language have to experience every single day, where language access is absent, whether it's a public service office or their children's school. and sometimes they're at their doctor's office, or simply sometimes they don't have enough time for the interpreter. thank you. good morning, supervisor angelica. and excuse me, director of sam. can i want to thank again the leadership of supervisor walton, his legislative aide, natalie gee, supervisor chen and her legislative aide, francis shay oca, immigrant rights commission supervisor ronen and supervisor safaí. our partners led nsf

members and our community. when the city certified filipino as the city's official third language in 2014, it should have signaled a full implementation of filipino as a language that must be used in communicating essential city services to the public. by the end of 2015, under lao. however, in 2019, sam, along with doctor valerie francisco and chavez and her team of student research from san francisco state, published a report that shows filipino language access has been unevenly delivered across city departments and agencies, leaving many filipino residents unable to reach basic and important services and information. and to this day, that is still the case. that's why we applaud the efforts of everyone here today and their commitment to strengthening the existing language ordinance with amendments. today's amendments are the right steps toward filling those gaps and barriers

our communities are experiencing , and we look forward to a board resolution that will continue our collective effort on addressing key equity concerns, like having permanent bilingual staffing in city departments. currently, there is no percentage across the city departments of how many staff they should have in-house that spoke another language, and that needs to change because nonprofit workers can only do so much. excuse me. in addition, when san francisco needs services, it's important someone is right there to help them. thank you again. and we look forward to working with all of you. hi. good morning. it's still morning. my name is sarah singh. i'm the policy director at the office of racial equity for the city with the human rights commission, thank you to natalie, to chloe, to director

riva, supervisor walton, and, of course, all the community members for their hard work on this ordinance. i wasn't going to speak today, but i felt very moved by this public comment, and i just wanted to call attention to a few things, one is, as you know, as we talk about language access in this room, i was sitting in the back and i could see from the back, that there were still people who have to hold up their phones and ask google translate to translate for them live. even as we sit and one of the wealthiest cities in the country, and so that is how important language access is, and that is also how easy it is to overlook access for those languages that maybe don't make up. you know, i am chinese. i am very fortunate. there are very many chinese speakers, spanish speakers in the city, but there are so many communities with greater need arabic speakers, tigrinya,

amharic, swahili speakers, mongolian speakers, khmer speakers, who need this support, so i want to call attention to two things in the ordinance, one is in the emergency response section. it has a 5% threshold that's taken directly from existing state legislation. i just wanted to note that in san francisco, based on current federal data, if we use that 5% threshold, the only languages that those departments will be required to translate into is spanish and chinese. that's if we consider population at a citywide level. if we look at population at a district by district level, my understanding is that in many of those districts, there would be no language that would qualify for 5% or even a 2.5% threshold, the second thing i wanted to note is one thing in the. oh, okay. thank you. we can get the information from you. i know an

email was sent as well. thank you. good morning. thank you. supervisor walton, for working on lao. and a big thank you to supervisor chan ronen and supervisor safaí for co-sponsoring it. thank you for all your work as well. i am kudrat chaudhry and currently serve as the vice chair for chair of immigrant rights commission and today i'll be speaking on my own behalf. recently, i was in boston and was discussing about leo with someone i mentioned that we have chinese, filipino, and spanish as mandatory languages and that san francisco city departments are supposed to provide information in these languages. i was then told that boston provides interpretation services in more than 35 languages. you go to a city department, point out the language, and they will provide you interpretation within minutes. this is something that san francisco should consider. language access is a matter of civil rights and is a way to empower san francisco's residents. with the

influx of immigrants speaking different languages, i called that the city breaks down barriers and ensures that our current residents and the incoming immigrants are able to navigate around housing, employment, resources, and immigration help and more by having access to different languages. we need to be culturally sensitive and know that language needs will grow and change, just like we're seeing with ukrainian and arabic needs that are that are sperging . so i urge you to continue this conversation going on and hope that more languages are added in time. thank you. good morning supervisors. my name is joyce chan and i'm a youth commission staff reading a public comment on behalf of the commission in the 2023 and 2024 budget and policy priorities, the youth commission firmly supports the need to improve language access

for all san francisco residents. this priority was created by multiple commissioners who held the same belief that the success of youth and individuals is highly dependent on their ability to communicate with others, and that no one should be restricted from vital services such as healthcare and education. on the basis of their language ability. a few recommendations that we made were to provide increased financial support for esl and foreign language programs in both sf, usd, and ccsf to better address the educational and linguistic needs of san francisco's immigrant communities. lower the threshold of the number of people required to speak a language. to receive required translation services from 10,000 people to 6000 people and expand translation and interpretation training and services across city departments to ensure equitable communication. even with limited english proficiency, lep residents. we want to affirm that san francisco is one of the

most diverse cities in the nation and is welcoming to all ethnic backgrounds. we appreciate all the work and support that has gone into increasing language access for all youth and families throughout the city and county of san francisco. it is crucial to ensure that this work continues and is carried out to the best of its ability. thank you. are there any other speakers who would like to make public comment on these matters? i do not see any additional speakers. public comment is now closed. supervisor walton thank you, chair ronen. and first, i just want to thank all the community for coming out for public comment and stressing how important language access is and how important these improvements are. i also definitely want to make sure that i thank my chief of staff, natalie g, for working so closely with community, as well as director rivas and his staff, chloe noonan, as well as

chair kenleigh. also former oca director adrian pond, sarah singh from the hrc, our deputy city attorney alicia cabrera, and of course, deputy city attorney anne pearson. and i also want to thank city administrator carmen chu for her support and all the community advocates through the language access network who are here today, who were at the rally today and who came in to speak chinese for affirmative action, for african advocacy network, filipino community center, som kan arab resource organizing center, central american resource center, immigrants rights commission, and of course, everyone who participated and collaborated in this effort, i do want to announce that we are working with our community partners to come up with a resolution that will capture more of the programmatic parts for language access through oca in san

francisco. and we plan to introduce this resolution at the board of supervisors later this month, so we can have some additional time for a thoughtful process. i also do want to acknowledge i know some of our speakers gave more suggestions and things that we can do, and at the end of the day, we will continue to do the work of we have a longer way to go and we're really not successful until we achieve 100% access for everyone. so we will keep doing the work again. i want to thank supervisor chan, supervisor safaí, supervisor ronen, and supervisor preston for their co sponsorship and i would like to make a motion to accept the amendments at this time. on the motion to amend vice chair walton i. walton, i supervisor safaí safaí i chair. ronen i. ronen i the motion passes without objection and i move to move item number three. to next

week's meeting with the amendments on the motion to continue the matter as amended to may 13, 2024, vice chair walton i. walton i supervisor safaí safaí i chair. ronen i ronen i. that motion passes without objection. and lastly i move to file item number four to file the hearing on the motion to file item number four. vice chair walton i walton i supervisor safaí safaí i chair ronen i ronen i. that motion passes without objection. all three motions pass. thank you so much to everybody. thank you so much, mr. clerk,

can you please read item number one? yes. item number one is a motion appointing supervisor hillary ronen. term ending february 4th, 2027, to the local agency formation commission. thank you. i'd like to make a motion to excuse supervisor ronen for item number one. yes. on the motion to excuse supervisor ronen, vice chair walton, a walton i supervisor safaí safaí. i chair ronen excused. thank you. and did you already read item number one i yes, i did, do you have any comments or statements? supervisor safaí is there any public comment on item number one? yes. members of the public wish to make public comment can approach the podium at this time. i do not see any public commenters for item number one. so much. thank you so much. public comment on item one is now closed, and i'd like to make

a motion to move this forward and file it as a move this forward as a committee report. yes. and a motion to recommend this matter as a committee report, vice chair walton i. walton i supervisor safaí safaí i chair ronen excused the motion passes without objection with chair ronen being excused from voting on this matter. perfect. thank you so much. chair. ronen back at you. thank you. colleagues. mr. clerk, are there any other items on the agenda before us that completes the agenda for today? the meeting is adjourned

[♪♪♪] >> i just don't know that you can find a neighborhood in the city where you can hear music stands and take a ride on the low rider down the street. it is an experience that you can't have anywhere else in san francisco. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪]

>> district nine is a in the southeast portion of the city. we have four neighborhoods that i represent. st. mary's park has a completely unique architecture. very distinct feel, and it is a very close to holly park which is another beautiful park in san francisco. the bernal heights district is unique in that we have the hell which has one of the best views in all of san francisco. there is a swinging hanging from a tree at the top. it is as if you are swinging over the entire city. there are two unique aspects. it is considered the fourth chinatown in san francisco. sixty% of the residents are of chinese ancestry. the second unique, and fun aspect about this area is it is the garden district. there is a lot of urban agriculture and it was where the city grew the majority of the flowers. not only for san francisco but for the region. and of course, it is the location in mclaren park which

is the city's second biggest park after golden gate. many people don't know the neighborhood in the first place if they haven't been there. we call it the best neighborhood nobody has ever heard our. every neighborhood in district nine has a very special aspect. where we are right now is the mission district. the mission district is a very special part of our city. you smell the tacos at the [speaking spanish] and they have the best latin pastries. they have these shortbread cookies with caramel in the middle. and then you walk further down and you have sunrise café. it is a place that you come for the incredible food, but also to learn about what is happening in the neighborhood and how you can help and support your community. >> twenty-fourth street is the birthplace of the movement. we have over 620 murals. it is the largest outdoor public

gallery in the country and possibly the world. >> you can find so much political engagement park next to so much incredible art. it's another reason why we think this is a cultural district that we must preserve. [♪♪♪] >> it was formed in 2014. we had been an organization that had been around for over 20 years. we worked a lot in the neighborhood around life issues. most recently, in 2012, there were issues around gentrification in the neighborhood. so the idea of forming the cultural district was to help preserve the history and the culture that is in this neighborhood for the future of families and generations. >> in the past decade, 8,000 latino residents in the mission district have been displaced from their community. we all know that the rising cost of living in san francisco has led to many people being

displaced. lower and middle income all over the city. because it there is richness in this neighborhood that i also mentioned the fact it is flat and so accessible by trip public transportation, has, has made it very popular. >> it's a struggle for us right now, you know, when you get a lot of development coming to an area, a lot of new people coming to the area with different sets of values and different culture. there is a lot of struggle between the existing community and the newness coming in. there are some things that we do to try to slow it down so it doesn't completely erase the communities. we try to have developments that is more in tune with the community and more equitable development in the area. >> you need to meet with and gain the support and find out the needs of the neighborhoods. the people on the businesses that came before you. you need to dialogue and show respect. and then figure out how to bring in the new, without displacing

the old. [♪♪♪] >> i hope we can reset a lot of the mission that we have lost in the last 20 years. so we will be bringing in a lot of folks into the neighborhoods pick when we do that, there is a demand or, you know, certain types of services that pertain more to the local community and working-class. >> back in the day, we looked at mission street, and now it does not look and feel anything like mission street. this is the last stand of the latino concentrated arts, culture and cuisine and people. we created a cultural district to do our best to conserve that feeling. that is what makes our city so cosmopolitan and diverse and makes us the envy of the world. we have these unique neighborhoods with so much cultural presence and learnings, that we want to preserve. [♪♪♪]

>> i am iris long. we are a family business that started in san francisco chinatown by my parents who started the business in the mid 1980s. today we follow the same footsteps of my parents. we source the teas by the harvest season and style of crafting and the specific variety. we specialize in premium tea. today i still visit many of the farms we work with multigenerational farms that produce premium teas with its own natural flavors. it is very much like grapes for wine. what we do is more specialized, but it is more natural. growing up in san francisco i used to come and help my parents

after school whether in middle school or high school and throughout college. i went to san francisco state university. i did stay home and i helped my parents work throughout the summers to learn what it is that makes our community so special. after graduating i worked for an investment bank in hong kong for a few years before returning when my dad said he was retiring. he passed away a few years ago. after taking over the business we made this a little more accessible for visitors as well as residents of san francisco to visit. many of our teas were traditionally labeled only in chinese for the older generation. today of our tea drinkkers are

quite young. it is easy to look on the website to view all of our products and fun to come in and look at the different varieties. they are able to explore what we source, premium teas from the providence and the delicious flavors. san francisco is a beautiful city to me as well as many of the residents and businesses here in chinatown. it is great for tourists to visit apsee how our community thrived through the years. this retail location is open daily. we have minimal hours because of our small team during covid. we do welcome visitors to come in and browse through our products. also, visit us online. we have minimal hours.

it is nice to set up viewings of these products here. >> driver, bye. >> hi. i'm will b. mixture weltake a walk with me. >> i just love taking strolls in san francisco. they are so many cool and exciting things to see. like -- what is that there? what is that for? hi. buddy. how are you. >> what is that for. >> i'm firefighter with the san francisco fire department havings a great day, thank you for asking. this is a dry sand pipe.

dry sand pipes are multilevel building in san francisco and the world. they are a piping system to facilitate the fire engineaire ability to pump water in a buildings that is on fire. >> a fire truck shows up and does what? >> the fire engine will pull up to the upon front of the building do, spotting the building. you get an engine in the area that is safe. firefighters then take the hose lyoning line it a hydrant and that give us an endsless supply of water. >> wow, cool. i don't see water, where does it come from and where does it go? >> the firefighters take a hose from the fire engine to the dry sand pipe and plug it in this inlet. they are able to adjust the pressure of water going in the

inlet. to facilitate the pressure needed for any one of the floors on this building. firefighters take the hose bunked and he will take that homes upon bundle to the floor the fire is on. plug it into similar to this an outlet and they have water to put the fire out. it is a cool system that we see in a lot of buildings. i personal low use federal on multiple fires in san francisco to safely put a fire out. >> i thought that was a great question that is cool of you to ask. have a great day and nice meeting you. >> thank you for letting us know what that is for. thanks, everybody for watching! bye! [music]

♪ [ 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.

>> growing up in san francisco has been way safer than growing up other places we we have that bubble, and it's still that bubble that it's okay to be whatever you want to. you can let your free flag fry -- fly here. as an adult with autism, i'm here to challenge people's idea of what autism is. my journey is not everyone's journey because every autistic

child is different, but there's hope. my background has heavy roots in the bay area. i was born in san diego and adopted out to san francisco when i was about 17 years old. i bounced around a little bit here in high school, but i've always been here in the bay. we are an inclusive preschool, which means that we cater to emp. we don't turn anyone away. we take every child regardless of race, creed, religious or ability. the most common thing i hear in my adult life is oh, you don't seem like you have autism. you seem so normal. yeah. that's 26 years of really, really, really hard work and i think thises that i still do. i was one of the first open adoptions for an lgbt couple. they split up when i was about

four. one of them is partnered, and one of them is not, and then my biological mother, who is also a lesbian. very queer family. growing up in the 90's with a queer family was odd, i had the bubble to protect me, and here, i felt safe. i was bullied relatively infrequently. but i never really felt isolated or alone. i have known for virtually my entire life i was not suspended, but kindly asked to not ever bring it up again in first grade, my desire to have a sex change. the school that i went to really had no idea how to handle one. one of my parents is a little bit gender nonconforming, so they know what it's about, but my parents wanted my life to be

safe. when i have all the neurological issues to manage, that was just one more to add to it. i was a weird kid. i had my core group of, like, very tight, like, three friends. when we look at autism, we characterize it by, like, lack of eye contact, what i do now is when i'm looking away from the camera, it's for my own comfort. faces are confusing. it's a lack of mirror neurons in your brain working properly to allow you to experience empathy, to realize where somebody is coming from, or to realize that body language means that. at its core, autism is a social disorder, it's a neurological disorder that people are born with, and it's a big, big spectrum. it wasn't until i was a teenager that i heard autism in relation to myself, and i rejected it.

i was very loud, i took up a lot of space, and it was because mostly taking up space let everybody else know where i existed in the world. i didn't like to talk to people really, and then, when i did, i overshared. i was very difficult to be around. but the friends that i have are very close. i click with our atypical kiddos than other people do. in experience, i remember when i was five years old and not wanting people to touch me because it hurt. i remember throwing chairs because i could not regulate my own emotions, and it did not mean that i was a bad kid, it meant that i couldn't cope. i grew up in a family of behavioral psychologists, and i got development cal -- developmental psychology from all sides. i recognize that my experience

is just a very small picture of that, and not everybody's in a position to have a family that's as supportive, but there's also a community that's incredible helpful and wonderful and open and there for you in your moments of need. it was like two or three years of conversations before i was like you know what? i'm just going to do this, and i went out and got my prescription for hormones and started transitioning medically, even though i had already been living as a male. i have a two-year-old. the person who i'm now married to is my husband for about two years, and then started gaining weight and wasn't sure, so i went and talked with the doctor at my clinic, and he said well, testosterone is basically birth control, so there's no way you can be pregnant. i found out i was pregnant at 6.5 months. my whole mission is to kind of

normalize adults like me. i think i've finally found my calling in early intervention, which is here, kind of what we do. i think the access to care for parents is intentionally confusing. when i did the prospective search for autism for my own child, it was confusing. we have a place where children can be children, but it's very confusing. i always out myself as an adult with autism. i think it's helpful when you know where can your child go. how i'm choosing to help is to give children that would normally not be allowed to have children in the same respect, kids that have three times as much work to do as their peers or kids who do odd things, like, beach therapy.

how do -- speech therapy. how do you explain that to the rest of their class? i want that to be a normal experience. i was working on a certificate and kind of getting think early childhood credits before i started working here, and we did a section on transgender inclusion, inclusion, which is a big issue here in san francisco because we attract lots of queer families, and the teacher approached me and said i don't really feel comfortable or qualified to talk about this from, like, a cisgendered straight person's perspective, would you mind talking a little bit with your own experience, and i'm like absolutely. so i'm now one of the guest speakers in that particular class at city college. i love growing up here. i love what san francisco represents. the idea of leaving has never occurred to me. but it's a place that i need to fight for to bring it back to what it used to be, to allow all of those little kids that

come from really unsafe environments to move somewhere safe. what i've done with my life is work to make all of those situations better, to bring a little bit of light to all those kind of issues that we're still having, hoping to expand into a little bit more of a resource center, and this resource center would be more those new parents who have gotten that diagnosis, and we want to be this one centralized place that allows parents to breathe for a second. i would love to empower from the bottom up, from the kid level, and from the top down, from the teacher level. so many things that i would love to do that are all about changing people's minds about certain chunts, like the transgender community or the autistic community. i would like my daughter to know there's no wrong way to go through life. everybody experiences pain and grief and sadness, and that all of those things are temporary.

>> welcome to the heart of diversity and night san francisco celebrating too decades of asian pacific american heritage month celebration as we reflect on the path and look towards the future at the craze roads of moving forward together. welcome, everyone to city hall people's palace the first celebration at month of may is asian-american & pacific islanders heritage month may 4, 1979, when jimmy caterer to commemorate the electrification of asian-american and for the first years was one week-long to the

entire month of may in 1991 it was watched in it 2005 when the idea of a collaborative a establishment of a community celebration. >> the action consideration community the opportunity to showcase the uniqueness of at the same time strengthen the apa community as a whole. >> there we go (clapping.) apa heritage month is special during which we pay contribute to those who that paved the way. >> it is great to be here to celebrate the many of may and for many reasons why our city is zoned spi-3 and have a great welcome to all of you to start the celebration of asian pacific american heritage month for everyone and the activists

continue to inspire change a celebration of unite and the deliberations or trunks that help to shape our city that welcomes. >> all for the an occasion when this has not took place i'm dlptd to continue it moving forward he together. >> very descriptive of what has been occurred not city over the years. the great benefits of this city has we've seen it culturally, climate change and in every way from the participation of asian-americans and californians and asian american pacific islanders, it is just been frankly incredible the city would not be what it is and not the state without that

incredible contribution. the journey to building a stronger community not without challenges by the covid pandemic and the rise on a anti indian-americans when the community has continued to experience from asia from the 1800s and a desire to build a strong network of support. >> one of the main pumpers of this year's animal celebration to bring the communities together. >> in 2018 the celebration was a milestone asian art museum and san francisco public library joined the apa heritage foundation as official celebration partners. >> it is this is a we're spider all of us continue to

make our community contributions and inspire the next generation this dream and create and to continue to make a difference. >> with each year celebration programs and this year as was celebrate the anniversary of the nonprofits organizations have joined no celebration by promoting public participation and what are we celebrating apa and a voice of ethnic and oh, the togetherness of this diverse community known as the asian-american and asian american pacific islanders community. >> what a joy to be with the asian-american asian american pacific islanders from all over san francisco we talk about moves forward he together that is moving forward in communities. that's moving forward by celebrating and sharing our diversity which

convict always been part of san francisco great heritage cwp join us join ace. >> this year we celebrate the tradition we want to invite everyone to join in in on the celebration and happy 20th anniversary. >> moving forward he together. >> and . >> appreciate the diverse and focus what we have no common. >> >> (speaking foreign language.) >> continue to build and strengthen community and apa heritage month is community,

resilience and support within our culture community. >> to be sharing the cultures together as one and the districts are similar and programming together. >> moving forward together. >> moving forward together. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> let's celebrate >> i am supervisor melgar. i am the supervisor for district 7. [music] i am a immigrant to san francisco. my family came when i was 12 from el

salvador during the civil war. this place gave us security, safety and an opportunity to thrive, so i love the city deeply, and as a mother of three kids who have grown up as city kids, i'm grateful for everything the city has to offer for people like me and families. i have been politically involved my whole life, either in government or a non profit worker and i care about the community. i care about people around me, and i want to make sure that as the world changes around us, other people have the opportunity that my family did. >> we are back in san francisco post pandemic. so important to be out supporting our businesses, supporting our neighbors. >> i'm the first woman to represent the district, believe it or not. i'm the first latina elected to the board of supervisors without an appointment first ever, so i do

think that (indiscernible) i want immigrants to be represented, women, moms, people that have different experiences because that brings richment to our decision making and i think it makes for betting decisions so that inspired me to run. district 7 is one of the most diverse districts in san francisco both in economics and ethnicity. it spans north from golden gate park. it includes all the institutions in the park, the wheel. the music concourse, mew seem to the south to the daly city boarder and west to the organization. includes the zoo (indiscernible) all those fun things and to 280 oen the east. includes city college, san francisco state. i had ucsf parnassus

so very large geographically. it is mostly single family homes, so it is the place where for generations family (indiscernible) nice parks, lake merced, mount davidson. >> this is like a village within the city, so we are very close nit community. we tend to band together and try to support one another and it is a friendly place and families and people to have a cup of coffee and check out the park. >> ocean avenue, which is the southern end of our district is vibrant commercial corridor that mostly cater tuesday the local neighborhoods and the students. as you go further west you have the mall which has some of the best pan asian food offerings in the city. if you haven't been there, it is really fun. as you go up a little bit further, there is west portal avenue, which is a very old school

commercial district where you can still find antique shops and cobbler shops and as well as like more modern restaurants. it is definitely hopping and full of families on any weekday. >> i'm matt roger, the coowner or (indiscernible) >> carl, other coowner in west portal. >> we are a neighborhood hardware store. been a community institution since it was founded in 1936. we had a little bit of everything. (indiscernible) to gardening or gift buying. >> my entire experience in san francisco is this community. it is a very small town feel for a big city. the community is caring and connected. >> what makes me excited doing business in district 7 is i know it sell well. i grew up here. i knew a lot of

customers, parents of friends. it is very comfortable place and feels like home. >> if you go up north, you have the innerpz sunset commercial corridor which has a awesome farmers market on weekdays and plethora of restaurants. there is everything you need. >> friendly and safe and (indiscernible) i love they bring their kids with them. they teach them how to use their money, and it is something you dont see in too many markets in other communities. i love to see the kids come and talking to you. it is something different then i see from (indiscernible) >> the ev access to transit in inner sunset and ability to do a lot of shopping on foot, and now the improved biking with jfk closed to cars, because we have a 4 and a half year old

who rides her bike. we now have a safe place to go and ride bike jz don't have to to worry about traffic. >> graffiti continues to be one of these things that during the pandemic just got out of control everywhere in the city and i do think that it is hampering our recovery of commercial corridors, so some of the volunteers on west portal avenue, some of the merchants got together with interns at our office to do some hands on abatement and we have been doing it regularly. we are doing it once a week and we have a wonderful neighbor, carrie organizing and storing the paint and supplies in her office on west portal, but this needs more then just a volunteer efforts. >> i'm grateful for the collaboration. we passed legislation at the board and put $4 million in the budget over the next 24 months to help the department of

public works hire laborers and labor apprentices to abate the graffiti on private property on commercial corridors. i think that for a couple years this recovery strategy so we can get back up as normal after this awful pandemic. participatory budgeting is a pot of money that is available every year for district 7 neighbors to propose projects that improve the neighborhood and the district. anyone, any organization in the district can propose a project and then it's a vote. it is popular vote. we have 14 projects just approved and they span from you know, a vegetable garden at aptos middle school to pedestrian safety projects on (indiscernible) it runs the gamut, but it is wonderful because it

allows people to be engaged in a real way, and then to see the outcome of their energy and work, because the things get improved in front of them. >> i like it is really close to the parecollect parks and bunch of businesses as well as a calm feel. it is a very peaceful feel even though it is close to a lot of things. (indiscernible) also not boring. there is stuff to do too. >> so, there is lots to see and experience in district 7.

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okay. good afternoon everyone. this meeting will come to order, welcome to the may 6th, 2024 regular meeting of the land use and transportation committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. i am supervisor myrna melgar, chair of the committee. joined by board of supervisors president aaron peskin and vice chair dean preston. the committee clerk today is mr. john carroll. and i would also like to acknowledge jaime etcheverry at, sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? yes. thank you madam chair. please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones and other