so much,

chair. ronan, i am actually to the point where i want to continue this item to the call of the chair, and if necessary, we can probably revisit this charter for the 2026 election. there are more conversations to be had, and i really want to make sure that this is the right way to address ensuring independent investigations of police misconduct and so this will give us the opportunity to work in collaboration to ensure this independence. so i would like to move to this item to the call of the chair. okay. there's a motion on the table. we'll take public comment, just a quick inquiry. would you like to amend the election date on this, on this charter amendment? no. yes. just to note that, unless

it is amended, the matter will be tabled at a certain date and time. yes. on the motion to continue the matter to call of the chair, public comment. members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. a lot how much? two minutes. thank you, just a little bit of history and background. apparently, some pressure came down on brother walton here, and the dfas, let me give you this office a voters this this office, not that long ago, the, the it was called the office of citizen complaints, and they had an angry sergeant at the front desk. and he would abuse you more than what you were coming to complain about the abuse of from the cops. sometimes they had a vp of, of the spoa, the guy, one night

there was a the, the chief investigator got a notice that there was a burglary going on at the acc, so she went over and parked and came around in the alley, and there was the vice president of the spoa coming out and jumping in his car and roared away and tried to run over her. i mean, she got threats all up and down. then the same guy went over and assaulted a member of the police commission, who took it to the, how high can you go? took it to the chief. but the chief, chief fong was a political appointee. and had no idea what to do and said on the complaint. and she came back the next week, and she said, what do you want me to do? so whatever happens to dpa, i like the idea of having some citizen voice on to it. so don't back down, brother walton, bring this thing back. are there any additional speakers on item number one? there are no

additional speakers at this time. public comment is now closed. can we have a roll call? vote on the motion. on the motion to continue the matter to the call of the chair. vice chair walton, a walton i supervisor safaí safaí i chair. ronen i ronen i the motion passes without objection. motion passes unanimously. mr. clerk, can you please read item number two? yes. item number two is a charter amendment, second draft to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to create our children, our families initiative to coordinate efforts by children's departments in san francisco unified school district to deliver outcome based services for children, youth and familie. require the initiative to use an objective and measurable outcome framework to evaluate the budget and spending of each city department, with expenditures that are eligible to be included in children and youth fund baseline. the public education enrichment fund, the pef baseline or any discretionary

funding allocating from the general fund for children, youth, and families require the mayor and board of supervisors to consider the initiative findings during their consideration of the city budget. each year, including by the board of supervisors holding a public hearing and adopting findings about the expenditures required. the school district to submit proposed proposals once every five years, describing how it will spend the city's general fund. contributions to the pef, consistent with the san francisco children's and families plan and outcome framework, and prohibit the city from providing pef funding to the school district until the board of supervisors and mayor have approved the school district's proposal required the school district to submit annual reports describing how it has spent the city's general fund contributions and the pef funding for arts, music and sports and library programs authorize the board of supervisors and the mayor to place pef funding to the school

district on reserve. if the school district expenditures are inconsistent with the charter, the outcome framework, or the school district spending plan, or the internal guideline regarding the student educational outcome, provide that money set aside for school districts in the student fund cannot replace, supplant, supplant, count as, or substitute for other city funding for the school district or children and youth required under the children youth fund, the pef or other provisions in the charter prohibit the city from providing discretionary funds to the school district unless it has entered into a data sharing agreement with the city and an election be held on november fifth, 2024. thank you. and i will be making a motion to send this item to the full board as a committee report, but let's open this item up first for a public comment. yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are

there any speakers who would like to provide public comment on this matter? are there are no speakers at this time? public comment is now closed. i'll make a motion to send this item to the full board as a committee report with positive recommendation. yes. on the motion to recommend as a committee report, vice chair walton walton i supervisor safíi safaí i chair. ronen i gordon i that motion passes without objection. motion passes unanimously. can you please read item number three. item number three is a charter amendment. second draft to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to establish the position of inspector general in the comptroller's office, to provide that the inspector general be nominated by the comptroller, subject to approval by the board of supervisors and the mayor. to authorize the inspector general to initiate and lead investigations regarding potential violations of law or policy involving fraud, waste, or abuse. to expand the

authority of the comptroller's office to issue subpoenas, and to authorize the comptroller's office to execute search warrants to the extent permitted by state law and an election to be held on november 5th, 2024. thank you, and i will be making a motion to send this item to the full board with a positive recommendation as a committee report. but first, let's open the site. i'm up for public comment. yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item should allow him to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. image brown i've been looking at this department, this city, for 45 years, and this is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful move. thank you aaron, let's give some power. let's have some investigative power. let's see some subpoenas out there, let's see some warrants. i love it. and we got a great controller too, you know. but by that time we probably going to have a moderate board. and lord knows

who's going to be the mayor. are there any other speakers who would like to comment on this matter? i do not see any additional speakers on this matter. public comment is now closed. supervisor peskin, president peskin, please keep your comments. please. okay, good. thank you. oh, you don't want to say anything. okay. i will make a motion to send this item to the full board with a positive recommendation. as a committee report? yes. on the motion to recommend as a committee report, vice chair walton. hi. walton. i supervisor safaí safaí. i chair. ronen. i ronen i that motion passes without objection. motion passes unanimously. can you please read item number four? yes. item number four is a charter

amendment, second draft to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to establish the affordable housing opportunity fund for seniors families and people with disabilities to fund project based rental subsidies for extremely low house household consisting of seniors, families and persons with disabilities, and to require the city to appropriate at least 8.25 million to fund annually starting in fiscal year 20 2627. at an election to be held on november 5th, 2024. and do i want to say anything? no. okay. i will. is there any public comment on this item? yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak. at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any speakers who would like to speak on item number four? good afternoon, john avalos from the council of

community housing organizations and san francisco communities against displacement. i want to thank, all the flexibility that was involved in negotiating how we can actually have this piece move forward. our housing programs that we fund with city dollars and state and federal dollars are puzzle pieces that fit together. one important piece is the very the funding for extremely low income individuals and providing operating subsidies for housing that we can predict years ahead to build hundreds of units. this measure will achieve that if it's approved by the voters and it's really important to know that without future revenue to really, put in place for operating subsidies, we could only we will stay to 808,000,008 million 25, $8,250,000, that's not enough, so the planning has been in place to work with people who have a stakeholder in the budget to make sure that we can actually come forward with

the revenue measure in the future. that's way ahead. but i want to thank all the members of the board of supervisors who have co-sponsored this. and, of course, want to thank, supervisor president peskin for moving this forward, we will stand fully behind this measure. it goes forward. and thank you so much for all your work. i want to take aaron down. memory lane about 24 years or something like that. there's a similar thing to this before the board. and it was, given 25 million a year out of the general fund, to the school district. and there was some argument against it, save the school districts ass and got the board a nice tie into the school district for the last two decades. this is excellent measure. it should be more. i'm a senior. you probably didn't notice. victor are there

any additional speakers who would like to provide comment on this item? there are no additional speakers at this time. public comment is now closed. i'd like to make a motion to send this item to the full board with positive recommendation. as a committee report. yes, on the motion to recommend as a committee report, vice chair walton a walton i. supervisor safaí safaí i chair. ronen i ronen i that motion passes without objection. motion passes unanimously. can you please read item number five? item number five is a charter amendment. second draft to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to allow registered nurses who are or become members of the san francisco employees retirement system and have worked on an average of 32 hours or more per week for at least one year to purchase up to three years of service credit for time. previously worked as per diem nurses and to move public safety communications personnel from the miscellaneous retirement

plan to the miscellaneous safety retirement plan for compensation earned on or after january 4th, 2025 at an election. be held on november 5th, 2024. can we open this item up for public comment? yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any speakers who would like to comment on this matter? there are no speakers at this time. public comment is now closed. supervisor safaí i just want to thank all my co-sponsors and just point out also that supervisor chan has now requested to be a co-sponsor as well. you can make a motion. i'll make a motion to send this item to the full board as a committee report. with positive recommendation. have to do that too. yeah, with positive recommendation. yes. on the motion to recommend the matter as a committee report, vice

chair walton a walton i supervisor safaí safaí i chair. ronen i ronen i that motion passes without objection. motion passes unanimously. can you please read item number six? yes. item number six. item number six is a charter amendment. second draft. to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to shorten to one year the period to calculate final compensation for retirement benefits for persons who have or will become members of the fire department on and after july 7th, 2010. change the age factor percentage for benefit calculations, such as persons who have or will become members of the fire department on and after january 7th, 2012, reach a higher age factor percentage at an earlier age and lower from 58 to 55. the retirement age at which persons who have or will become members of the fire department on and after january seven, 2012,

reached a higher age factor percentage and election be held on november 5th, 2024. okay colleagues, so i, have thought a lot about this, amendment. and, first of all, i want to thank our firefighters, for what they do every single day in this city, which is nothing short of extraordinary. and, i've reviewed the research and also just common sense tells you that the number of, carcinogens that the firefighters are exposed to is just greater than the general public. and, you know, they're they're the rates of cancer are just, incredibly high. so despite the fact that i think that this is an ill timed charter amendment, you know, similarly, you could say that

about the nurses, one that we just passed, because this board is facing, you know, an $800 million deficit over the past two years. i want to say that i had a retirement measure that would have been is the right policy call. that would have benefited all, city employees. and i decided not to put it on the ballot because we aren't responsible for just one thing. we have to look at the big picture, and we are in a financial dire straits, not only did the mayor do you know, unprecedented mid-year budget cuts. our budget chair this year told us that she was not going to put, do any add backs because of just the financial dire straits. we're not acting as normal. we have already heard that there will be mid-year budget cuts, upcoming quite once

again, unprecedented cuts to children, youth and their family. i mean, it's we're just not in good financial times. so i really do think that it wasn't the most responsible thing in the world to bring these measures forward, this year, especially for, for supervisors that are exiting the arena and putting this budget strain on the rest of the city. having said that, i do think that it is the correct, policy to lower from 58 to 55, the retirement age of firefighters. and so i am going to support that aspect of this, amendment. i think we need to do more than this to protect our firefighters. from the carcinogens and that they're exposed to on a regular basis, i, you know, we did pass unanimously, the measure to, make sure that, fire, equipment,

the suits, the respirators, are no longer contain toxic chemicals. but we didn't put a budget appropriation. along with that ballot measure. i mean, along with that ordinance so that we can actually buy the new, firefighting gear. so that's something i think we need to be looking at going forward. what i cannot support is pension spiking. i don't know why pension spiking ever got into this legislation. i don't know what that has to do with cancer, as a city, you know, about a decade ago, we did pension reform and i didn't agree with everything in that piece of legislation. but the one piece i agreed with was that we got rid of pension spiking for every single category of employee. and what i mean by that is what we used to have and what this

ballot measure would do if it wasn't amended in the ways that i want to amend it today, is it would, instead of taking an average of the last three years of salary in order to calculate a lifetime pension, it takes just the last year's salary. and what that what that has led to in the past is rampant abuse. because as favors or, you know, you know, with the intention of increasing your salary so you can get a higher pension, employees would get a promotion and then because it was their last year in the job, they would use up sick time and it would end up making our city less safe, less efficient, etc. there. there is no policy rationale to doing that. there is no policy rationale to make firefighters, an exception to this reform that we did in order

to not only save the city money, but also to prevent the rapid abuse that was happening. so i would like to make an amendment which would mean that we'd have to continue this item, to monday. we can still put it on the ballot as the one charter amendment, but i would like to make an amendment to, to remove this. the, the pension spiking aspect that would also miraculously cut in less than half the cost of this measure to the city. so i have to say, i'm really disappointed in the authors of this legislation that they didn't do them, that themselves. this shouldn't be the responsibility of the rules, chair, but there has to be an adult in the room that says this doesn't make policy sense, and enough is enough, and we're in a fiscal crisis in the city and puts their foot down. so that's

what i'm going to do. i will make that motion. i will then turn it over to supervisor walton and then supervisor safaí, and then i'll open this item up for public comment. thank you so much, chair. ronen, i just want to state that i 100% agree with supervisor ronen that we should lower the age, which i think is the most important component of this charter amendment. i don't want any of our firefighters to have to deal with environmental toxins for any longer than they need to. so i think this portion of the charter is very responsible. and i also, as a member of budget appropriations committee, as someone who understands that we are in a major deficit and most certainly trying to do everything that we can to protect our budget and future years, we'll support, supervisor ronen's amendment at this time. and again, the most important component of this charter is to lower that age threshold. so i want to thank supervisor ronen.

i want to thank supervisor safaí. i want to thank local 798 and our fire department, for everyone coming together to work on this, this is a very responsible charter in my opinion. but i also want to make sure that we are fiscally responsible as we move forward. supervisor safaí. yeah i probably wasn't going to speak, but after hearing some of the things that you said, i have to respond. i feel like i'm an adult in the room, so i take offense to that. i also say that in the context of this budget, you know, you referenced the nurses charter amendment that actually is going to save the city money in the long run because of understaffing. so i don't appreciate those words being thrown around. but in terms of this amendment and this charter, nothing was hidden. this has been on out in the open for a significant amount of time. and when we heard from the

firefighters last week, yes, 55 to 58 i think is a no brainer. i'm glad everyone agrees on that. but part of the reason why there was a conversation about, balancing out what is happening within their existing departmen. there's a significant number of people within their department that have one retirement package, and then there's another that have that a whole bunch that have a significantly different. and listen, i understand the fiscal crisis that we're in, and i understand. and that's why i put forward with supervisor stephanie's office amendments that will save over almost $2 million from this proposed amendment. but i do understand how it can be difficult to work within a department and have a completely different retirement package. and so i don't think it's irresponsible to have a conversation around that. and i think that's what the firefighters are trying to do. and they actually talked about it in committee last week to say that we have individuals, and if this were a time to have that

conversation, it's a different time to make that adjustment now to level it out. so there's an equal compensation package. i think that's all they were trying to do. i don't think i don't think. and then also to your point where you said, let's look at the numbers, i don't even i'd like to hear from the retirement ceo, cio here saying that there's rampant abuse. i'd like to hear about that. so supervisor, i don't even know if that's true. supervisor safaí a couple of things, first of all, how many, so first of all, is that different than any other city employee, that there are people in different retirement categories? let's have the let's have the head of the retirement board come up and talk about different retirement packages. i'm happy to do that. do you know how many firefighters are in each category? they talked about it last week. they said there's a whole package of people that were let me tell you how many, because i have that information. and i would hope that the authors of this legislation would have taken the time to get this information. i am a co-sponsor. i'm not the

lead author, but please go ahead. but you you told your you you have cited yourself several times. yes you're right. lead author. yeah so there are 570 members that are in the july, you know, that were hired before july 1st, where there are, 49 members that are in a two year averaging period. there are 1138 members in the three year period. so we are we are working our way out of a pension spiking situation. and i would like to call up the fire chief before we call up the retirement, chair. to talk about what has happened in the past regarding pension spiking in the department. are you going to supersede my request? i am, i'm the chair of this committee. yes, i am, good morning, chair ronan. supervisor walton, supervisor safaí.

supervisor. dorsey. janine nicholson, chief of the san francisco fire department. so what i will say in terms of the pension scenario that i have seen, as a chief of the department, is we do see people who will go to a position, for the last year of their, employment, in order to get that, to get that bump. sometimes it works out because they're actually at the right place at the right time on the lieutenants list or the captain's list or what have you. but sometimes it's people, for example, going to, say a fire prevention position, an h4 position from a firefighter position and that, will increase their salary and will obviously then increase their pension. and that is where we see folks, you

know, burning sick time. and, i mean, we see people burning their sick time at the end of their career in general. but it really impacts it impacts the efficiency of the department, especially on the prevention side of things, where we're trying to get housing through and trying to get all sorts of other things through, because it really takes about a year to train somebody at fire prevention. and so, yeah, i would say, it has impacted us. i don't have the numbers with me. i apologize for that, but it's definitely had an impact on, sort of the efficiency of operations, certainly in fire prevention and elsewhere. folks have done it too. but i think that's the most, impacted area in the department. okay. thank you. is there any other questions for the chief? no, i would just say based on what you just said and the way we were talking about cancer last time

and numbers, i appreciate you being here, chief. i think there's a lot of anecdotal evidence. i don't know what the exact numbers. i knew we were around 1000. i didn't have that exact number, chair, as a lead coauthor. but i will say that i don't think we should be making decisions based on anecdotal evidence and i understand that that's. and we can get that in between the time. if you're going to make that amendment today, that's fine. i think we absolutely should be conscious of all of these things. but i also understand why it was written the way it was written, because they're trying to bring parity within their department. and so i don't have a problem with that. that's all i'm going to say, i would like to call allison romero up. allison romano, sorry, i apologize. thank you, can you just confirm that, that there are no new employees that are hired in the city in any category, that are entitled to, the last year of

their salary only, as opposed to the average of the last three years, for their pension calculation for new hires into the system, across the various plans. it is a three year averaging period. so every single employee in the city of san francisco does not get this benefit. but during the worst budget crisis, as a cost of $6 million a year for the next 20 years, you think it makes policy sense to allow one department, to get this benefit where the fire chief has said it has caused problems in the past, i think that actually the right way to do it would be to balance it out for the people that were hired previously, up until today, and then moving forward, there's a way that you could compromise and say all new hires as of this date going forward, and then all the people that are in the department now that have an unequal package to the people that they're working with, that might be a compromise. i would

be okay with that. but then how does that not create the same problem that you're saying is happening today? because at least you'd have the situation where you'd be going forward as of now, because there are people. and through the chair, i know, miss romano, there are people that are currently in our system, not just in the fire department, that have a that are not retired based on the last three years that are that have been grandfathered in, is that correct? yes. i was referencing new employees, new hires, and why is that not a problem for every other city department in the city? why why would you single out this one? i mean, i think we could have a whole like you said, you had a package for the entire city. i think we could piecemeal this and look at all the different departments and find problems with every single one of them. i think we probably have to have a larger conversation about retirement reform in general. i think this would be a starting point. okay. i and again, this has been written, it's been out there for a significant amount of time. so

yes. and i was told that the author was going to make this change and then she never did. so that's why the rules chair has to do this today at the very last minute. but i really i'm really disappointed, in the colleagues who brought this forward, i think it was incredibly financially irresponsible. and it's time to fix it today. so we'll be doing that. thank you so much. we'll now open this item up for public comment. yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak. at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. h brown, supervisor ronan, don't take it too seriously. supervisor safaí is running for mayor, and he's trying to make points with all of the public safety people around the city. you're absolutely right. i was a firefighter only five years. but, i stood around and listened to everybody at the firehouse, and it was all about how to beat the system and how to pack your pension. so you are totally

right. supervisor ronan and supervisor safaí, you have no idea what you're talking about, but maybe you scored some points somewhere there. i have a message for the fire chief here too. she's, i asked her, there's a fire truck, number 36. they fly a flag behind them right where? if you have to pull a skid on a fire scene, the flag is right there. you guys don't know what i'm talking about. she does try to pull a skid in the wind with a flag blowing on you. so i complained to these guys, but nothing. they laughed at me, you know. so i complained to the chief directly. she said she'd take care of it. that was about a year ago. she's, she has not taken care of it. they fly when they fly by. when they come by. my house, they, they banged their their little bell to let me know that the neofascism is alive in the fire department. and this chief will not live in

the firehouse built for the fire chief either. dennis sullivan died in the earthquake. we built a great firehouse for him, and she refuses to live in it. thank you. good morning. supervisors adam wood, secretary of firefighters, local 798 and vice president of the cancer prevention foundation. i just wanted to explain why the one versus three year smoothing was in the legislation, and it was there at our request, the rationale saw this as a partner with the reducing the fireman, the firefighter age. and the reason is what we're trying to do with this measure is remove the incentives for firefighters to stay on the job any longer than they have to, because, as we explained last week, and we've met in person and discussed the elevated risk of cancer that we face as firefighters, especially during that time of life, where that combines with the elevated risk we all face with age. we want

people out by their mid 50s. if we're able to implement lowering the retirement age at which the maximum pension calculation can be instituted three years, but we leave in place a system that requires someone who finally gets a promotion that they've been trying to get for years, or gets the last rays of a contract that they must stay an extra three years to realize the value of that we've blunted the benefit of reducing the firemen age by incentivizing the stay that extra three years. after all, that's why they went together. there was no intention for pension spiking. it was just to help save firefighter lives. and i would like to take ownership of that as the firefighter population, not so much the sponsors of the measure. this was this was a request we made to them to assist us. we would still like to see that as part of the measure, as an important component of it, that

accomplishes what we're trying to accomplish. we would also be open, as we were, with removing the earned versus earnable. we're cognizant of the cost issues we would like to continue working with you on cost issues. one idea that was raised was the idea of perhaps a delayed implementation to get us through these crisis years that you're talking about. supervisor ronen, we'd be open to that. good morning. my name is floyd rollins. i'm the president of local 798. there's a lot of things that i could say, but i will respectfully, decline to say a number of things that are on my mind. what i do resent is the implication that this was, in some way, some veiled attempt to get something over on someone because what's not veiled and what's not hidden is the numbers of, of the real, true lives that we lose by working longer. that was the intent of this. we have sat in funeral and funeral and

funeral. we have sat with family after family, after family to try to deal with this. we are trying everything that we could to curb this scourge that is that that is affecting the entire firefighting population. this is not something that just exists in san francisco. this is something that the international association of firefighters and the international health committee has taken up as a class one carcinogen. so i openly have to say i resent the implication that in some way that this was a veiled attempt to try something, to get something over on someone. we are very simply trying to help our members to leave this better than we found it, because our newer members, we don't want them to go through the very same things that we have had to go through, that we have had to fight, that families have had to fight, that children have had to fight. we are openly we are open as adam said, to working with

any amendments that come forwar. but please do not i ask you please. it is an insult to those who have lost their lives to say that we are intentionally trying to pull something over on someone because we're not. we are very simply trying to take care of something that is our responsibility as elected officials of this local. thank you. are there any additional speakers on this matter? there are no additional speakers. public comment is now closed. i have no idea what the president of local 798 was talking about. i don't i've never said this was veiled. it was right out there in the open in the measure. what i thought was that the author of the measure was going to take that out. when we found out that more than half of the cost of this measure is the pension spiking portion of the measure,

and i in the, chaos of last meeting, i had thought that that had happened. and when i realized that it hadn't, i talked to the sponsor, who was fine with us taking this out, i am frustrated that it leaves it to the rules chair and not any of the authors of this legislation. to privilege one employee sector. out of all the others, when pension spiking is a known area of ripe abuse throughout the city, when it was allowed in every department before that changed over a decade ago. so i don't think that this was done in a way to obscure it. i think it's right there for anybody to read, but i think it is the wrong policy. it is irresponsible and i am sad

that i have to be the one to make this change, and that we didn't have any authors of this legislation, think to themselves, wow, this is wrong. we're facing an $800 million budget deficit. we've cut to the core every city department, but we're going to allow pension spiking in one department. that's not directly related to the cancer risk, which is real, and we are lowering the age for that matter. but there is a certain a certain amount of individual employee responsibility that needs to happen here. number one. and number two, we need to do more as a city to protect our firefighters, you know, i, i'm not even sure that lowering the age and having firefighters, retire at 55 and sit at 58 really protects our firefighters from cancer. i'm not sure. three years. i'm not sure. there's

evidence that if, workers retire three years earlier that they're any more protected. so we need to start looking at other things. we can do as a city to protect our workers. i think the legislation we passed recently to, require the city to buy uniforms that don't have chemicals in them, for example. we need to fund that so we can actually buy those uniforms. that is a real way that we can protect the health and the safety of our firefighters. that probably has more scientific validity than, randomly lowering the retirement age by three years, having said that, i am happy to do that because there is a very real risk that our firefighters take that is higher than any other city employees. and for that reason, i think there is a real public policy rationale to lowering, the age. i think that, the fact that the

vast majority of members are already on the three year averaging period and very, very soon the, the, the, the members that were hired before, january, or july 20, 2010, they will be no more and then everyone will be on the same pension schedule. if what actually makes it more unequal is if we put a whole new class in, like supervisor safaí suggested, and put them in one pension class and then for all new recruits, create this same inequity. we're about to have no inequity in the pension plans. there is not a policy rationale in my mind to, allow pension spiking for one class of workers and no others. and i in no way, shape or form, are making any

allegations that this was hidden. i just thought that it was going to be taken care of last week. it wasn't. there is still time, to put this measure on as a late measure, in fact, we got the amendments from supervisor stefanie's office. that's where we thought. we thought you. that supervisor stefani was going to introduce these last week, so with that, i will turn it over to supervisor walton. thank you so much, chair. ronen and again, i just want to emphasize that i think the focus should be lowering the age and also making sure that we do everything to reduce the exposure for our firefighters. i think down the road, having a conversation about what makes sense for averaging in later years is something that we can explore with all city departments and equitable manner, and having a thoughtful conversation across the board. but right now, i think we should get this done and really do everything we can to decrease

exposure for our firefighters and so i definitely support the intent of the charter and support the amendments brought by supervisor ronen, supervisor safaí, thank you, thought a little bit about what you said earlier about why this classification should be treated differently. and i'll just go back to, again, this to me was eye opening. someone that's been on this board for eight years. it wasn't until recently seeing the data, hearing the stories. and then also if you want to talk about fiscal impact, the cost to the city in terms of claims that are put in related to cancer, you're talking about hundreds of families that put in claims to cancer, to the city because of the irresponsibility of the city. so we're looking at this from a numbers perspective. i understand why in terms of the

rationale, and you said it was not the lead sponsor, but i am a co-sponsor, and it is my responsibility to articulate. and so i will do that. now i can see the policy rationale why this was paired with lowering the age, because if you have a system where people have a higher propensity exposure to cancer, particularly in the later years, and then you have a system now that you're going back to that says you have to stay additional three years to get it makes sense that you would pair it with that. you might disagree. and we can go back and forth all day. and i don't i don't want to do that. but that is you don't want in one breath. you don't want to lower an age. and then in another breath, encourage people to stay beyond, because there's an incentive in the system to get the highest salary over the last three years. so that's really what it is, i get it, why? you're why you're doing it. and i think it's important that we move forward and we can continue to have conversations

at the end of the day, but this classification of employees is different from all other classification of employees in our city in terms of their cancer exposure, their cancer rate, the rate of heart failure, which we just saw, a member. it's another thing that i worked on as a president of the retirement board. when i was on there, we worked on legislation to have a presumptive injury based on heart failure, and we just saw a member just two months ago die. he went home. he was in the swimming pool and had a heart attack. so this is a classification that has a much different level of stress, exposure and then cancer. and so i think that was the rationale behind it. chair, and so my only reason for speaking more is because of the, the words that you used about being irresponsible, the adult in the room. and we always have a really good relationship. i've never thrown those words around to you. i mean, if you really want to put numbers on the tabl,

there's a lot of other things that we voted on today that are a lot more just number cost to the system that you and i believe in, one of them being the children's fund over $30 million. right. and we agree on that. and we agree on the affordable housing one that we just voted on, which was an $8 million hit like so these are really expensive decisions that we're making that will be spread out over cost of time, and our city will recover. our economy will come back. i think this conversation today was about saving people's lives, and i understand why it came forward when it did and the way it did. because if you don't want to lower the age and then encourage people to stay so that that's all i'm going to say, and we can agree to disagree on this. now i feel like i have to respond to that, because i, you know, i think that that was, very interesting. supervisor safaí. so let's, let's, let's talk

about the fact that, in this budget, there were in this, in this ballot that's coming up, we as a board are putting, several measures on the ballot that cost money, and we're doing it at a time when the, state, the financial state of the city is pretty horrible. let's let's go through each of one of those measures. the student success fund, what passed last, last year. and we made a the voters made a decision pretty, pretty substantially over close to 70, 70. made a decision that they want to set aside $35 million a year in order to deal with the

abysmal, outcomes of our students. the majority of our students do not are not at grade level in math and in reading. definitely african american and latinx students, a majority, in some schools, barely 8% of the kids in those schools is at grade level. so the voters decided we need to do something about that. the city then the comptroller, then we were never told by the city attorney that this would happen, even though the intention was crystal clear that we were were putting this money forward not to. then take away money from children's after school program and mental health programs, but to add to their academic success. we're just fixing something that was never intended to happen. so we're not

actually creating a new expense for the city. we're restoring what the voters thought they were voting on. so to call that out as an additional expense on par with it is pretty shocking, supervisor safaí, given that you constantly said that you were 100% a major proponent of this 100, and that you thought it was insane that we even had to go to the ballot. so the fact that you're bringing that up, i think once again shows a lack of judgment. the second measure is the second measure is, a measure to house seniors and families that are living in sros. okay, absolutely. those children, have the same outcomes as homeless students and despite the fact that we put this measure on, we delayed the implementation of that measure because of the

fiscal crisis that we're in. so this is about this is about, you know, folks that are homeless and folks that are living in sros that are families, children's, and seniors, and even there we limited the cost of it and delayed implementation. so to say that that's on par with this is quite shocking. the next one is the nurses and the 911 operators. i think that's the right policy. i think this is the wrong time to put it in the ballot, and i never would have brought it forward. you brought it forward. choosing this time, even though you you will no longer be on this board, it is going to cost the city around $6 million a year. so it's not that 3.5, okay, 3.5. so even less. right? so it's a much lower value measure. and to me it's the right policy because we don't

have enough 911 operators. it's not like firefighters where we have no workforce crisis with 911 operators. we've had to call emergency after emergency class. we don't meet the call time requirement. you know, 71% of the time, only 71% of the time we don't meet it, you know, at the standards that we're supposed to. so there is a real emergency there that has to happen. so it's a low amount of money for a real serious emergency that's happening. then there's the fire department measure. that measure is going to, you know, before the change, i was going to make is going to cost about is it 9.8.6, $8.6 million a year over the next 20 years? is that right? i'm asking the comptroller's office. sorry, janice levy through, i think we're talking about 9.2. this is

the, fire department service retirement item. and it's 9.2 million in fiscal year 25. and increasing through fiscal year 41. okay. and can you just increasing to what, apologies. i we're referring to the sfers, report, which doesn't have i don't believe all of the figures in the out years. okay. so the lowest year, the lowest amount would be 9.2 million a year. that's going up. that doesn't include the amortization. that's why i said 8.6, because they have to make that decision. that's not a decision that we can make i see. so whether it's 8.6 because we're going to increase the, the amortization period or 9.2 because they don't that's not something within our discretion. the retirement office will choose. they, that will cost, you know, a little less than $10 million a year, but increasing every year that,

and, you know, the longer we amortize the, the bigger the increase, correct. the more expensive it will be to the city. what will be the cost of this measure if we remove this pension spiking provision? so if we remove the changed definition of the final compensation, again, according to the sfers, analysis, the estimated cost in the first year of that provision is 5.5. so it would be $5.5 million less. okay so in the first in the in the first year. so we're, it we're cutting the cost in half. and that's because the vast majority of workers are currently a firefighters are currently on the three year pension plan. and that there's really a minority, of workers that are, are, are have their 1 or 2 years of, of, sorry, the cost of their last year of employment or the last the average of their last two years,

the vast majority. and i just want to call this out again, because this is a major point of this. there are 1138 members that currently have a pension where it's calculated based on their last three years average period of salary. there are only 49 members, that it's the average of the last two years of their salary, and there are 570 members that only use their last year of salary as the calculation. so again, the vast majority of hirees are already like every other, city employee hired after 2010, have this, this three year, and then finally we're going to get to the drop measure, which is coming up, and i've got, similar issues with that one. so, so i think to put these all in the same category, supervisor safaí is the irresponsible as the chair of the committee, i am

trying to look at the big picture. i'm trying to look at the fiscal state of affairs of the city. i'm trying to look at the policy rationale for each one of these, and i'm trying to make decisions that balance out the needs of our community, the needs our budgetary needs and the fiscal health of the city going forward. i think that's what a leader does. they look at the whole picture and then they make decisions. and i wish that we were not voting on many of these things because i wish, like me, these you had decided not to introduce these measures like i didn't introduce my measure because it felt irresponsible. but you made it. you made another choice. so rather than you lumping these all in together, supervisor safaí i needed to go through each one separately to understand what our job is. as supervisors, i have had department heads tell me they are so disappointed with the board of supervisors. they've never seen such irresponsible

actions. and as the chair of this committee, i am trying to act responsibly. supervisor safaí yeah, no, i listen, i appreciate that my only point in bringing it up was to talk about the totality. every single one of the things that we're voting on today has a really important rationale. i'm 100% behind the money for seniors. i'm 100% behind, the school fund, you and i, i don't even need to get into that. you know how much i. i care about that. and it's unfortunate that the interpretation was such that they're requiring that that the mayor chose to take money out of the children's fund rather than using what was allocated. and so here wasn't the mayor that was the comptroller, but yes, but okay. the comptroller then then ultimately we're having to go back again and fix this and so my only point was there's a lot of good rationale for all of these things. the rationale behind the fire department's proposal is to discourage people from staying on beyond when is necessary and trying to save lives that was my only point,

and we can disagree about the responsible. yes, if you want to take it in totality, you can make the argument that none of this is responsible right now, that none of this should move forward right now because of the crisis that we're in. but we have to make these choices and we know that the city is going to come back financially. we know we have reserves that we can dip into. we know that we can balance things out. and it's important because the more seniors and families are homeless, the more it costs our city, the more nurses don't go into work and we're using contract nurses, or we're not responding to 911 and we're burning people out. it costs our city money. the more that firefighters are dying, it costs our city money. if you want to just look at it from a numbers perspective, we're doing some really, really good things. i stand by every single one of them. i enjoyed working with you on every single one of them, and all i'm saying is, i don't think we need to make this personal. i think at the end of the day, you're doing your job as the chair. you're making good,

responsible decisions from your perspective, and we can move forward. and ultimately, the voters will decide. i think the voters are going to decide to support almost every single one of these, because they're important to san francisco. and again, i we are i could kill this entire measure. and i'm not and i'm not doing that because i do think it is the right policy, perhaps the wrong time, but the right policy to lower from 58 to 55, the retirement age of firefighters. so, with that, i would like to make a motion, by the way, the amendments are in your email. if you want to look at them. is this are these these as well that, that were handed out? yes. did jackie hand those out. yeah. she did. oh i missed it okay okay. yes you handed them out but anyway yes he brought them in i don't know where those are. the right amendments. i'm looking at the city attorney. great so, we

passed out the amendments. i'd like to make a motion to amend the measure as i stated, and to continue this item to next monday's rules committee meeting. i just ask a question. oh, sure. hold on. i don't i don't know where i know that you spoke about them. i just oh, i think it's here. is it on page seven final compensation where they strike any one year of credited service in which the members average compensation is the highest. yes. higher of any three. okay. got it. okay. and, and continue this item to the july 22nd rules committee meeting. yes. on the motion to amend and continue the matter to july 22nd on that motion, vice chair walton a walton i supervisor safaí no. safaí no.

chair. ronen i vote and i that motion passes with supervisor safaí dissenting in committee. motion passes unanimously, not unanimously. i'm sorry. the motion passes 2 to 1 vote. i apologize, mr. clerk, can you please read item number seven? yes. item number seven is a charter amendment, second draft to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to define the term fo d sworn officer, modify the criteria for establishing recommended staffing levels for sworn officers. changing the requirement for the chief of police to submit a staffing report every two years to every three years and establish a new voluntary deferred retirement option program for the period of july 2025 through july 2023. for eligible members of the police department in the rank of officer, sergeant or inspector that allow those members to earn additional deferred compensation and retirement system for up to 16 months in exchange for agreeing to perform neighborhood

patrol or investigative work at an election. be held on november 5th, 2024, i have some comments, but i'll. i'll turn it over to you first. supervisor dorsey, thank you. chair. ronen, i'd like to express my gratitude to chair ronen, vice chair walton and committee member safaí, and i want to just briefly express my gratitude, actually, to all my colleagues who worked on this, including the members of this committee, to offer a high level overview of the measure and then to field any questions you may have, i did want to note that since we last met, supervisor connie chan has added herself as a co-sponsor. and that means that in addition to me and my primary coauthor, president aaron peskin, co-sponsors, now includes supervisor stephanie melgar. mandelman safaí. thank you, and chan, and i do appreciate, listening to the debate around fiscal responsibility, i would note that the amendments we adopted to this charter amendment last week removed approximately 65 to $75 million

in estimated general fund costs from the controller's estimation last week. and in addition to the real cost to taxpayers, i think you touched on this, but it's i think it's worth emphasizing that when we talk about ballot measures, we also have to be mindful of the electoral sticker shock we are risking when we're asking voters to consider some important investments that we want to see on things like student success, funding on public health, affordable housing, transportation infrastructure, improvements to the public real. we're asking for a lot, and i think we have to be mindful that it's not just about how we are going to be spending money, but also that we could be risking a lot of no votes in just asking for too much and risking tanking things that are really worthy public policy and investment priorities. so with this charter amendment, my intention right from the start, but including up to now, has been to maximize consensus on police staffing and public safety. i do think it

will make a real difference to address police attrition at a time when police recruiting is more competitive than any other time in our modern history. i'm incredibly grateful to president peskin and my co-sponsors for working collaboratively, on this, especially to pare it down last week and obviously, members of the police department and others who were instrumental in this. and i want to express my gratitude to the rules committee for adopting those amendments last week. i believe this amended and improved charter amendment will provide our city with a powerful and effective tool to stave off a potential retirement cliff and address attrition challenges that hamper our ability to build back toward a fully staffed sfpd. our budget analyst estimates that this proposal could delay up to 50 retirements next year, more than 38 in 2026 and more than 43 in 2027. these are significant numbers in light of our current recruitment efforts, which, while showing some modest improvements over the last 6 to 12 months, you know, could be

entirely undone by retirements and attrition if we don't act. so i want to thank everybody again for their help on this measure, and i would respectfully ask that it be forwarded to the full board with a positive recommendation. and i'm happy to take any questions you may have. thank you so much, i wanted to appreciate all the amendments that that you have made, but i have, looked into this quite extensively and, and really been struggling with it. and i have come to the conclusion that it's not the right policy for the right time, so let me explain my thinking around that, since, first of all, i just want to go backwards a little and provide some history because i think it's important. since 2017, the board of supervisor has approved nearly $200 million in increases to sfpd's budget through our annual budget process. last year alone, we approved a $60 million increase to the sfpd budget and a $25 million budget

supplemental to pay for overtime costs. our new mou with the san francisco police officers union increased that the line item for salaries by over $166 million over the next three years to, to fund recruitment and retention bonuses. there's a public narrative out there that the board is constantly stifling sfpd, that we've made it impossible for the department to do their job. but in reality, in reality, for the past two years, this board has given sfpd every single thing that they've asked for, despite having to make difficult decisions to cut or downsize many other vital services, some of which have to do with public safety. the deferred retirement option program also known as drop, is a tool that supervisor dorsey has said will serve as a stop gap for the officers leaving the force when they reach retirement age. at 25 years of service. we

have been told that many other counties have the drop programs making us less competitive and that senior officers were leaving san francisco for other jurisdictions. so they could double dip and draw down retirement benefits while taking a salary in other areas. again, something no other city employee can do retire and then get a full salary and their retirement, prior to the rules committee meeting, we received a costing analysis from the comptroller's office that this charter amendment could cost more than 80 million in the first fiscal year. as a result of that, astronomical and admittedly negligent financial impact during a massive year, i asked a series of questions to better understand the policy rationale for moving this forward. given the cost. i asked which other bay area counties have a drop program? if officers have been surveyed either by the department or by po to determine if they would opt into this program, how many full time sworn officers that have reached

25 years of service have left san francisco to work in other jurisdictions with job programs, among others? i have, supervisor dorsey couldn't provide a list of other neighboring counties with drop program. the department said they didn't survey officers to determine if they would use this program, and both supervisor dorsey and sfpd said that they didn't know how many officers were leaving the city to work elsewhere. we already implemented a drop program into 22,008, and in 2011, when it was sent to sunset, the board of supervisors at that time chose to end the program in its entirety. it was deemed a failure by both the board and by the comptroller's office, which released a report in april 2011 demonstrating that the program was both costly and failed to meet the goals set out by the program. we don't know if officers would stay in san francisco if we implemented this program, and quite frankly, we don't even know how many officers have left sfpd for other neighboring cities. we

don't know that this will attract lateral hires from other counties. we don't know that this will incentivize officers to extend their retirement. all we know for certain is that we tried a version of this program in the past, and it was deemed unsuccessful. time and time again, we have prioritized funding law enforcement agencies and law enforcement initiatives at the expense of other effective interventions, despite having equally damaging workforce crises. in other work areas. we have been experiencing great budget challenges, and we have had to pick and choose what to fund and whether or not it's fiscally responsible to be yet again, inflating sfpd's budget. this charter amendment takes sfpd's eye off the ball. and this is another thing that i've been really thinking about. there has been a massive recruitment issues, not just at sfpd. we know this is true in law enforcement. departments all across the country, and the board of a supervisors have been really, really focused on, on

trying to support recruitment efforts. that's where our priority needs to be. we need to change the image of policing so that the job of being police officer is, again, a point of pride and desirable, that police are there to protect our communities, not have adversarial relationships with our communities. we need to work on relationships between civilians and police instead of prioritizing band aid measures that don't address the root cause of our recruitment issues. this has been a year of hard decisions. this has been the worst budget that i've ever seen in my 15 years at city hall, and we just have too many priorities to risk yet another try at the drop program that chose to be expensive, and that would negatively, negligibly, maybe keep officers for a few more

years, but do nothing to ultimately address the root cause of the problem. on why we're having such a hard time in this country recruiting officers to the job, so with that, i do plan on making a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair. perhaps another time might be the right time to try this this experiment again, this is not the time, supervisor safaí. i just had a i just had a question. i'm just. what? i heard you say something about $80 million. and so you just got a letter. what letter was that? that was the original. oh. oh the original estimate. and, supervisor dorsey, to his credit, you know, eliminated the minimum staffing parts of the measure so that it went down substantially to, i believe, around. let's ask the comptroller. yeah, i have the numbers here. that's why i was

at it, said 600 to 3 million. that's right. in the first year. and, and i guess the only, the only question i had was maybe to the, the to the comptroller. oh, actually, it was the bla that wrote the report. the thing that, the thing that got me in the end, supervisor, i agree with you. 1,000. if you look at the recruitment budget of the police department or the focus on recruitment, it has literally stayed stagnant under this mayor for the last 5 or 6 years. and in terms of repairing and recruiting, and if you only have a quarter million dollars, you can't do anything when you're in a competitive market. and i think that was part of the reason this was, as i understand it was coupled with that because with the bla wrote it, if this is implemented in year one, you, you, it has the potential. and i think they felt strongly it would save about 50 people from retiring. and as you know, from being the budget chair and all the work that we've done together on the budget over the last number of years, every june we have a certain number of drop off, and then we have the recruitment classes and we try

to keep pace with that. the design of this was to say, if in year one we keep 50, in year two we keep 38 while we're pushing those recruitment numbers back, it helps us get those numbers back up and so that was the only reason, in the end of the day, i felt it was really necessary to do this because it could stave off the numbers from going down further. so anyway, but we don't have someone here from the bla, do we know that's not the usual? i mean, sometimes we do, but, anyway, that that was what i was referencing. i just wanted to put that out there. thank you. supervisor dorsey. oh. oh, i'm sorry, supervisor walton. thank you so much. chair. ronen, i just want to say, you know, it's it would be hard for me in good conscience, to tell the firefighters that we should wait and have a conversation to discuss the appropriate amount of years to average out final compensation. and then, on the flip side, support a program that would further balloon the city department moving closer to $1 billion budget in the midst

of a major city budget deficit. and i do also want to say that i even personally did not move forward with the charter that i was proposing, for this november ballot, because i feel it's not the right time for that charter. and my focus right now is to do what's right for the entire cit. thank you. supervisor dorsey. thank you, chair ronen, and i appreciate, the concerns around the cost of this. and i do want to address some of the reasons that motivated this approach. one one, there is no way to do anything with retirement without going to voters. so this isn't this is much different from than the original, much more ambitious charter amendment that i started with last year and earlier this year, it really is. i think when you think about the ways that we need to be approaching, police staffing, there are three kind of categories of, people that we

need to be focused on. one, new recruits, young people who are considering careers in law enforcement and what we're doing to compete with other jurisdictions. this isn't really about that. this charter amendment, but it is about the other two pools. one is the pool of lateral officers. and right now 1 in 4 of our recruits is coming from other law enforcement agencies. one of the benefits of this program is that we are making the drop open to, lateral hires. that is also has a public safety benefit in that these are, are, long experienced law enforcement officers, and we don't need to spend as much time with the police academy as we would with a younger officer, it also makes a bigger difference on on safety sooner for that reason. and then the other thing was the third category are the people who are eligible for retirement. and it's not. and i and i did we did in good conscience try to ask about you

know, what what we're tracking and what we're not. one thing that i will make a commitment to you right now, because this is going to be a priority for me. and during my time here, i do want to make sure that anything that we need to do legislatively to require reporting so that when we are seeing people leave and by the way, not just from the police department, but i think we should be, thoughtful and we should have a methodology for why are people leaving if they are where are they going? what can we do to better compete? so i'm you know, even whatever our disagreements, i absolutely agree. and i'm disappointed that we don't have data to bring you there was we never or i never at least made a representation that there were other drop programs in the bay area that we were competing with. it was more along the lines of, i am aware, at least anecdotally, that there are other jurisdictions and other other private and public sector roles to which officers who are retiring are going to. and in that sense, we're competing with

them. if they're going to be going off to the next for the next 7 or 8 years to do something for somebody else, and we've got a chance to compete with them, maybe we can keep them here. so i think there was a benefit to that. i think there's also a financial benefit that i would have to mention on this one. you know, i represent a district that has the convention center and hotels and but i think it really does apply to every district in this city, right now we are seeing some reputational issues around safety. and if we can do better to just compete with for laterals and then staunch the bleeding on retirements, i think it will ultimately help the bottom line. it's hard to measure that how this is going to play out. but we do have you know, i have said, since i got here, that looking at things that affect our bottom line and tax dollars, it has to do with the retail experience. we want people coming to downtown in union square. we it's about shoppers. it's about tourists, it's about conventions, and it's about commuters. you know, i

think that's something else hopefully we're looking at in terms of what we're doing to incentivize or disincentivize people to not work here. what i have heard from a lot of the large employers and retailers and others is that if we can make some improvements on safet, that would make a big difference. and then i would only address also the major issue with the original drop was that it was represented as something that would be cost neutral, because that was at a time when we only were short, about 25 police officers from what was then the minimum staffing level, today we are about 5 or 600 officers short of the minimum staffing level. there is no universe in which we would ever say this is going to be cost neutral. i think that the pitch back in 2008 was we can save money by preventing people from retiring because we're not going to be doing academy classes and recruits. the reality is we're not getting off on the cheap on this in any shape or form. but my hope is

that we can, make sure this is a wise and prudent investment in public safety that gets conventions and tourists and shoppers and commuters back and also and i will just close with this, the thing that i have supported that i'm the least proud of supporting are these budget supplementals for overtime, because i just feel like this is we're asking people to spend more money for less policing, and we shouldn't be in a situation. i'll do it because the alternative is unthinkable, but i'm not proud of it. and i think that's why this has really been a priority for me. i hope that you would reconsider or maybe let the full board, you know, send it out without a recommendation and let the full board, decide. and then ultimately, obviously it's voters choice. but i do appreciate the objections you have raised. i don't disagree with them. and i will say, especially when it comes to what we need to be doing to track,

what are we competing with? we need to have much better visibility than we've had. and i appreciate when chief walsh mentioned last week some of this is uncharted waters here. you know, we haven't seen this before, but any legislation that i can put in to help our visibility. and the only other thing i would add to is that the charter amendment does increase reporting requirements on a number of fronts related to civilianization recruiting and retention, and also progress toward 30 by 30, which is to make sure that we have more women in the police, 30 by 30. that's great. okay yeah. no. and i, i really struggled with this one quite a bit, because i, i, i see your points. i don't, i don't deny that, i guess where i'll start is that i agree we have a workforce crisis in the police department. i do genuinely believe that. i think what ultimately made me decide

to come out on the other side of this are, are two things. one, i think we need our police department to really be spending its time on root causes, like what is going on that it is so hard to hire police officers in this country that this is this is an existential crisis for our public safety regime that we've had in this country ever since. you know, the 18, you know, late 1800s. and i do believe that in the past, not every community, but many communities felt like the main job of officers were to be members of our community, to protect us. but they weren't our adversaries. they didn't shoot or violently beat up people,

citizens, members of our community. and i think the racial inequities in law enforcement that have existed since slavery are the main problems with why we have such a recruitment issue and that we need to get back to the core. we need to get back to the core. how do we rebuild a public safety system in this country that restores the faith of communities of color, that they, too, are protected by police and not targeted by them? that keeps our community safe, keeps chaos off of our street, what poverty issues we have to deal with that aren't law enforcement related, but are basically, you know, pushed and caused forward by poverty. we should be thinking in in those ways. and what drop does is it might get us a few more officers for a few more years. it might genuinely do

that, but it takes away the impetus of the department to actually be dealing with the root cause of our recruitment issues by yet again, inflating their budgets in order to place band-aids on a system that is in jeopardy and is broken. and because it because of deep, deep problems. and we have in this in this city which i'm very proud of, we have invested incredible amounts of time and money in police reform. i think we've done some really great things, the amount the decline in officer involved shootings, violence has dramatically decreased and that's something to be extremely proud of. and, you know, we've done some amazing alternatives to policing. we've started the street crisis response team, we've moved work from the police

department to the office, the department of public health, and to the fire department, where they make a lot more sense when it has to do with homeless and poverty and not crime. but we have gotten away from, from as a city that there is a crisis in law enforcement that's national. it's not just san francisco, it's national. and i think we should be the san francisco that we're always proud of, that are looking at these issues in a root cause way. and that focuses our attention and our time on fixing the perception of a of what it means to be an officer so that more officers apply, because we've already done all the things to make sure that sfpd is the or the highest paid officers in the region in many, you know, in many, years of employment. we've already done that. we've already have an incredibly great retirement practice. but to double the salary of an officer for five

years is an extraordinary measure to say you can retire, you could put your pension into a savings account at 4% interest rate and then draw down your huge salary at the same time. that's an extraordinary thing to do, that no other city employee gets to benefit from. and if we're going to do that, and it's only going to minimally deal like address our staffing problem, we've tried this in the past. it's failed in the past. i mean, i'm looking at the data from the 2011 when we did this pre-drop, we had a 12% retirement rate at 55 with 25 more years of service post drop, it went up to 21. that's not very huge. that's not a huge jump. there right? so we're talking about doing this major policy change that would allow officers to get double their salary for five years so that we can retain maybe a few officers.

and then our attention gets put away from our real recruitment issues. it just doesn't fundamentally make sense to me. and so i appreciate it. i literally i, i have been put into a position that i don't want to be in. i am chair of a committee where i think collectively, as a board, we put an irresponsible, group of ballot measures together that we cannot afford. so i am trying to make choices that make sense versus policy and that are fiscally responsible with the whole panoply of ballot measures that we're placing before voters. because there wasn't the self-restraint to do that, you know, in colleagues that, quite frankly, are leaving the board and yet leaving the board with massive debt. so i am trying to act as responsibly as i can, as a budget chair who has been responsible for looking at the big picture during this entire time. and so i, i am going to

continue this item to the call of the chair. but i do i do agree with you, supervisor dorsey, that there might be a right timing for this. i maybe , i definitely don't think now is the right timing, and we do have that fundamental difference of opinion about where the police department should be focusing its energy on recruitment. supervisor dorsey. okay. i i do appreciate the, the points you've made, what i, what i would say is that we really have been as thoughtful as we can be in terms of how we approached this drop. and it is very different than the one that was originally proposed. and it was also endeavoring to do something that was different than what the 2008 one accomplished. this is limited to the frontline ranks of officers. sergeant and inspectors. this is something that's going to make a difference in terms of incentivizing neighborhood patrols and investigations. this

is about delivering public safety. and in terms of what we can afford, that the message that i have heard from the large employers and from the small businesses and, not just in my district but elsewhere, is that safety is a priority that we can't afford to not solve. and then in terms of, you know, i do really appreciate as well the points you have made generally about policing in this country, most of my career, i was down the hall in the city attorney's office, and i was there for most of the civil litigation that played out when san francisco was having our local versions of george floyd. you know, when we had the mario woods and alexander nieto, and other kinds of cases, the kinds of cases that led then mayor ed lee and then chief greg, sir, to invite the federal government in to do a top to bottom review of the police department and to propose reforms. i will tell you, back in 2019, i was interviewing with

a few different city departments about coming back to the city when i had left for a couple of years to work in the private sector. when a position came open in the san francisco police department, the reason i wanted the opportunity to work with bill scott was because i knew the value of what he was doing on the collaborative reform initiative, and it was heroic when, you know, the in the obama administration, there were 16 or 17 different police departments nationwide that were leading police reform, that to fulfill what president obama did in the task force on 21st century policing, when donald trump was elected president, his attorney general, jeff sessions, pulled the plug on all of it. and there was only one police department in the entire nation that went back to the drawing board. started from scratch, reinvented the entire program with their state attorney general. and that was san francisco's police department under the leadership

of bill scott. i will say, as somebody who you know, could point to some things that i'm incredibly proud of, including same sex marriage and saving city college, i don't think there's many things that i'm more proud of seeing than the work that san francisco has done, and i don't know that san franciscans fully appreciate it, but i will say this when george floyd was murdered, there were 18,000 police departments that needed to look at what they needed to do to reform their police departments. and at that time, there was only one police department nationwide that was actually doing that work. under the leadership of bill scott, and that was san francisco. so i do think that the work that the nation leading work this department is doing is worthy of support in doing everything we can to get to a fully staffed police department. laterals and retirees are a part of that, i

think we have done everything we can to bend over backwards to make this cost effective. right now, i've got seven co-sponsors and i know that there is at least eight votes on the board for this, i would just strongly ask if there is a way that we can trust the board and then voters to give them an opportunity to, to do this. i feel strongly that this is a prudent investment in public safety dollars that will make a difference. and will save things like the overtime that we just, in good conscience, shouldn't be spending that much money on overtime. we should be doing more to incentivize and support people to stay with the department to lateral into the department later. and then we also have to continue doing the great work that is being done. on recruitment. but at the end of the day, what matters to for me is that this is about really fulfilling the promise of 21st century police reform, it's going to be really hard to do

that, especially in the realm of things like community policing and foot beats. if we can't have a fully staffed police department, those are just luxuries we'll never get to. yeah, and i would just again, one last time say we just don't have the data that we need to meet to double the salary of police officers, to put a band-aid on a recruitment topic, recruitment problems. so again, when we have that data, then we can fully consider if this is the right policy supervisor. safaí. thank you. chair, i think given what's gone on in this chamber over the last year, it's funny for supervisor dorsey and i to be on the same side on this issue, but the thing that got me and i said this earlier was the fact that because, we can stem the tide and the bla came back and said, we have the ability to stop, the numbers in subsequent years. and because this is a

five year plan, that is why i'm, i'm, i'm in favor of it. but i understand everything that you're saying too, because some of it is also based on past practice and supposition, and we're not exactly sure how it will all play out. but i do know that there could be cost savings for sure in the amount of overtime, that goes to the department, but i understand your perspective, being the chair and seeing how much we've put into many different initiatives to try and support that department. so i will i, i am in support of this. i would like to see it, see if there's a way that we can go to the full board. but i understand your perspective and see what you're doing in terms of balancing all the things out that are in front of us here today, given all of the circumstances. because to your point, again, this budget did not have a significant investment in, in recruitment. and we asked the chief, when you were the in in this chamber,

last year when i was still on the budget committee. why is that? the case? and have you asked for a greater investment and the answer was yes. and they said, this is the this is the budget that we've gotten back from the mayor's office. so there doesn't seem to be a commitment to recruitment in that manner. and it's unfortunate. and i understand why supervisor dorsey is doing what he's doing, because if there's a way that we can stem the tide from people retiring, even over a short period of time, it will allow us to catch up on some of those numbers. and i think we all collectively agree. okay. supervisor dorsey. sure. i just, i, i mean, i would just, make an appeal to the, to the fairness of a process, understanding that that there is a supermajority support among and the board, seven co-sponsors. and i know that there's at least eight votes for this. to just send it to the board without recommendation so that we don't have to have a kind of floor fight. i think this is something i have tried

to do everything i can from the beginning of this one, knowing that i wasn't really focused on the in my original charter amendment. it wasn't, you know, consensus was wasn't what i was working on, but on this one, i really do think consensus is important to the extent we can get there. we've got seven co-sponsors, and i think we're going to get eight votes, i think this is something where we in good conscience, we have done everything we can to get the cost of this down, i am committed to doing everything i can to support and push the department hard on reporting out on what? what are the things that are getting in the way of recruitment and retention. but i would just respectfully ask if this committee, can send this to the out to the full board so that we can avoid a situation where, we would need to pull it out at the full board. okay. can we open this item up for public comment? yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this

item should line up to speak. at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. i i'm h brown and i really hate to see, supervisor dorsey gloat and gloat and gloat because the guys behind me, they got guns, what what is this? you're like robert duvall and the godfather, the problem is, folks, that all of these people are running for office and the cops are coming down hard on them, and it's the worst cops. these cops. you're going to pay $300,000 a year for these 30 year guys. they're the worst of the force. they're the ones that came up under the training of. beat the hell out of the homos, man. i mean, i mean, women shouldn't be cops. hell no, racist, i'm not even going to use the words of my

they call my grandkids. i mean, this is the department you're dealing with. they got a slick salesman here. they want to give $300,000 a year, and you're. i got chan, i got chan, i got peskin. they're running for office, and they're afraid of the cops. and you're a some kind of a whatever and all that, but voted down to the members of the public. if this piece of crap gets through. drop, drop. you do not want to keep the people who are eligible for drop. hello again. supervisors adam wood from the firefighters union. i just wanted to speak on this that the police officers have a unique situation they're facing as a workforce, just as we have our unique situation in dealing with our cancer threat. it's the immediate, drastic short staffing that they're facing right now, and that's having an impact on public safety in the city, from neighborhood to

neighborhood, we run alongside with the police on many calls, some medical calls, fire calls. and there are often times where when the squad car arrives, they inform us that they're the only squad car covering. for instance, the entire sunset district that night. the citizens are not aware of this, so there definitely does need to be a long term fix towards our recruitment process and restructuring the department as one that will attract incoming members. but we really do have an immediate need right now, and i think supervisor dorsey really worked hard to build consensus and to build a drop program that is much more citizen centered than the one that was adopted in 2008, both in terms of the costs, who it would apply to, who would be excluded from the program. i with the level of support that he's got on the board, i would urge you to move it forward with no recommendation. and allow the full board to vote on it. and

again, i'm speaking as someone who will not be impacted by this program in any way except by, seeing morale go up in the workforce that we often work alongside. are there any additional speakers who would like to provide comment on this matter? i do not see any additional commenters at this time seeing none. public comment is closed. i'd like to make a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair on the motion to continue the matter to the call of the chair. vice chair walton, a walton i supervisor safaí safaí know. chair. ronen i ronen i the motion passes with supervisor safaí dissenting in committee. motion passes 2 to 1. can you please read item number eight? item number eight is a hearing to consider the proposed initiative ordinance submitted by four or more supervisors to the voters for the november 5th, 2024 elections, entitled

ordinance amending the parks code to establish new recreation and open space by restricting private vehicles at all times on the upper great highway between lincoln way and sloat boulevard, subject to the city obtaining certain required approvals, making associated findings under the california vehicle code, and reaffirming the existing restricting of private vehicles on the great highway extension. thank you, supervisor engardio. thank you. thank you, chair. ronen. supervisors safaí and walton, so five supervisors dorsey, mandelman, melgar, preston and myself have signed a ballot measure to let voters decide the future of the great highway. it served as a part time park with the rose, with the road closed to traffic on weekends the past few years. and now i believe voters should determine if the city should plan for the great highway to become a permanent oceanside park. so when discussing the great highway, it's important to understand these points. what's already been decided? what's proposed for the future, and

what's staying the same. so what's already been decided? both directions of the great highway south of sloat are set to close due to coastal erosion, and that's already been legislated unanimously by the board of supervisors. that means we'll never again be able to use the great highway as a direct connection to daly city and interstate 280. traffic from daly city will have to use skyline and go around the zoo, and traffic from san francisco will need to turn left at sloat and continue south past lake merced. so what's proposed for the future? without a direct connection to daly city, we have to think about what is the best use of the section between lincoln and sloat. the ballot measure only considers closing the road between lincoln and sloat. there aren't any on or off ramps between lincoln and sloat, so that stretch of the great highway doesn't provide access to most sunset residents. this is an opportunity to reimagine this section for the next century as an oceanside park, and this includes improving traffic flow on lincoln and sunset boulevard to

get people where they need to go. and now what's staying the same? the ballot measure will not close the entire length of the great highway. it will remain open to cars 24 over seven from the richmond neighborhoods to lincoln. drivers would still be able to travel 24 over seven along point lobos avenue and the great highway from the cliff house and past balboa, fulton, the beach chalet, the soccer fields, and the ocean beach parking lot all the way to lincoln, where they can access the sunset neighborhoods just as they do now. there was a november 2022 ballot measure that called for reopening the great highway to cars full time citywide prop. i failed 65 to 35% in the sunset. prop i failed 53 to 47. the failure of prop i meant the part time park pilot could continue. the great highway would serve as a park on the weekend, then revert to a coastal highway during the week. but it's a temporary arrangement set to end in 2025. and as the deadline approaches, the question of what

to do with the great highway will only intensify. city hall will be forced to answer this question. if it's not before voters, the board of supervisors will likely legislate a closure in 2025, but after this november, there is not an election until june of 2026. that's why it's important to let voters have a say this november. we're asking a momentous question should a coastal highway remain what it was the past century, or should it become something new for the next 100 years? and a decision of this magnitude deserves to be made directly by voters. a recent study published by sfmta says traffic volume on the great highway is down nearly 40, and traffic volume on sunset boulevard is down 30% from pre-pandemic highs. this means there is capacity on sunset boulevard to handle additional north south traffic. we can get drivers where they need to go while also creating an iconic oceanside park that will benefit san francisco for generations. the controller's office today

issued a memo that says the closure of the great highway from lincoln to sloat will save the city millions of dollars by reducing the need for sand removal and traffic related capital improvements, namely, the traffic signals that are past their lifespan and their rusted out and need replacing the already determined closure of the great highway south of sloat is a reality we have to accept, even if we don't like i. but this inconvenience offers a lemon into lemonade opportunity. if we can improve the driving experience along lincoln and sunset boulevard, drivers will be able to get to the same point in a similar amount of time. whether they turn left at sloat or lincoln. the stretch from lincoln to sloat will have less utility as a direct connection to daly city. now that everything south of sloat is closing, no matter what, that's the lemon that we have so do we turn this section into an oceanside park by creating a new traffic route with better flow. that's the lemonade. we could make. and this lemonade will also help small businesses think of the potential economic

benefits to small business owners throughout the sunset. two train lines, l taraval and n-judah, offer a direct ride from downtown hotels directly to the ocean. imagine the spillover effect of all those tourists visiting the oceanside park. sunset businesses would see increased revenue as new customers hop off the train for lunch or dinner on their way to or from the park. the decision to tear down the embarcadero freeway was controversial 35 years ago, just as the decision about the great highway is today. i wonder, will the great highway for cars become as forgotten as the old embarcadero freeway? will our kids and generations after them be able to imagine san francisco without an oceanside park? let's give voters the chance to make this decision this november. thank you so much, kim, if since there's no other comments, we can open this item up for public

comment. wld you like me to call public comment or. yes, please? sorry, i'm members of the public who wish to speak on this matter. should line up to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. hi supervisors, thanks for your time and this very packed room, my name is lucas lux. i'm the president of friends of great highway park. we're an all volunteer group that's focused on making the most of our city's beautiful coastline. putting this measure to voters has broad based support across the political spectrum and for good reason. our oceanfront is one of the city's most beautiful and special places, and the pilot, using this space as a coastal promenade, made clear the san franciscans want to enjoy the coast in more ways than are possible on the beach itself. by doing nothing more than closing gates to cars, our city created its third most visited park with over 3 million visits and counting, and now with coastal erosion permanently closing the southern part of the great

highway, as supervisor engardio mentioned, the question for san franciscans is how they would like to use our limited amount of flat oceanfront space. placing this measure on the ballot allows the most san franciscans to have a voice in answering that question. the measure gives us an opportunity to transform our oceanfront, just like we transformed the embarcadero. just like the people got the final say on how the city's eastern waterfront should be used, the people should have the final say on how our limited coastline is used. thank you for giving you, giving san franciscans a chance to make this important choice. good morning, supervisor zach lipton. i'm a volunteer with friends of great highway park in full support of this ballot measure. this is a once in a generation opportunity to create a brand new three mile oceanfront park and leave a legacy for future generations. for san franciscans, the sunset forward study from the planning department asked everyone across the district what they want for the neighborhood and overwhelmingly, people said

their needs were more parks, more open space, and more community spaces. this directly responds to that need. this is not a road that provides access to the coast. right now. there's nowhere to park or even pull over. drivers can't even turn off it anywhere to get to the sunsets. great small businesses. we have 48 avenues, but only one ocean front. people want to know that this is being done right and it is. city departments have piles of studies, and it's time for the voters to make a decision. with the great highway south of sloat already set to close for the puc's work, the time to decide this issue is now. traffic patterns will need to shift inland no matter what, and we need to plan ahead for that. the staff report is clear that turning inland at lincoln instead of sloat can only add a maximum of three minutes of driving time at weekday rush hour, even less at other times, and will create space for a transformative oceanfront park. this is a great opportunity to create a win win for everyone. we can create an oceanfront park for all and streamline the path for commuters at the same time.

instead of spending millions to replace those traffic lights in the great highway, we can use that money to smooth the way for people driving on lincoln and sunset. i hope we can take this to the ballot. let the voters decide. look forward to continuing to work with the city to create an accessible and joyous oceanfront for all. thank you. are there any additional speakers on this matter? there are no additional speakers. thank you. public comment is now closed. supervisor safaí thank you. thank you, supervisor engardio, it's not easy to make difficult decisions like this, particularly when you're facing reelection. and i know you will be running for reelection soon, and this will be something that you'll be talking about for the rest of your time. but that's what bold leadership is about. i think this is the right move at the right time. the one thing i will say, as i've talked to more and more and more people, and i think this is something to consider as we move forward, all of us collectively, is that i

think the sfmta plays a big role in this, because so much of what is being promised, besides the wonderful opportunity to create an oceanside park and restore a lot of the activity. i mean, a lot of people don't realize fleishhacker pool. they don't think about playland, they don't think about the sutro baths. they just think about kind of going to ocean beach. and but we did have an active waterfront. we did i mean, ocean front. and that is something that in terms of kind of a larger vision for san francisco, i 100% support. so i think this is an amazing, amazing opportunity. but what i've heard from many people that i think want to support this is that the idea of new traffic signals, the idea of traffic calming, the idea of all the things that go along with this. i think there needs to be a firm commitment that that those things will be done and they'll be done aggressively and timed

appropriately so that this will be a success because so many times and supervisor walton and i worked on, safe parking, for example, where we did it in my district first and then transitions to his district and then city doesn't invest in the electricity. they don't invest in the, the, the water for the residents. they're there and it becomes half a success instead of a whole success. so i just want to highlight that we have to hold the sfmta accountable. if this is successful, we have to make the commitment that the timing of the improvements will be done in an appropriate way. and i know you're committed to that. i just wanted to say that on the record. so i'm very happy to be a strong supporter of this. i think it it's a wonderful opportunity to reimagine part of our city, very similar to the way it was done with the embarcadero and what happened after the embarcadero was torn down and what it's done for our waterfront. so thank you for being bold. and i'm happy to

sponsor this with you. supervisor walton, thank you. chair. ronen, i just want to say and just real quick, the issues that the vtc around electricity are not on the city supervisor safaí all that is pg and e fault. so i just want to make sure that the record does not show that for sure. but the majority of those issues are not on on not on the city. so i just don't i don't want that message to be out there, i did have one question through the chair, just i know, supervisor engardio, you said that there will be a savings in terms of not having to deal with sand removal through this ordinance anymore. how do you stop that in that area? yeah. so the sand will always be there. it's just, if it's an active four lane highway as it is now during the week, it's just more intensive to remove the sand. if you create a park, you can design the park to actually integrate some of the sand into it. so there will always be an expense of sand

removal. it just won't be as intensive for vehicle traffic. got it. thank you. thank you so much, i just wanted to thank you, supervisor engardio, for bringing this forward. i have seen some mockup designs, for what this park would look like, and it would be an incredible addition to san francisco and the amazing, beautiful city. this is, our coastline should should be part of that, or or the a continuation of our coastline because part of it is already the most extraordinary vistas in the world. it would be incredible to make this one, you know, such a fun, athletic, safe car free space, for the same thing. so i'm excited to support this measure. and thank you so much for bringing it forward. and with that, i would like to make a motion to file this hearing. yes. and a motion to file the matter. vice chair walton walton i supervisor safíi

safaí i chair. ronen i ronen i that motion passes without objection. motion passes unanimous unanimously and mr. clerk, do we have any other items? there are no additional items on the agenda. meeting is adjourned.

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real. start your legacies >> [music] what's this for? i will have nile firefighter friends bring me a bench to explain the cool things. joy want to see. >> this is cool marbles up here. a, appliance and hose and this is a y >> why? >> why is it called a y, that's a great question this . is a y. you see it looks like a y. we use it for yellow in the fight we use it to take 2 different hoses from one hose. that way in a big building like a high rise, and we have a large piece of hose connect here, we are able to take two more hoses in different directions to help

put a fire out in a floor that is well above the street level. >> okay. >> fire engines carry 4 firefighters and firefighter paramedics. firefighters should not be considered strangers. firefighters are your friends. >> uh-huh. >> you are in need of help you need to make sure it is okay to go up to the firefighter. firefighters utilize many of the tools we discuss in the a fire engine. such as a fire extinguisher >> what's that for. >> they can be used to put out fires the size. a waste basket and squirts water. >> oh , >> that is cool. >> yea! >> we have other tools a chain saw. they help us get through the many obstacles we encounter while we are trialing to put out a fire or save somebody's life. >> nice >> that is cool if you see a firefighter like this in a fire the firefighters are friends and

this firefighter will save your life. it is okay to go to the firefighter. >> hum. good to know. [music] ♪♪ television. >> (music). >> my name is vet at a original artist based in san francisco. >> i love it i love it i've

never seen something else and we see how the people see which is happening and what is going on. kind of cool i wanted to be part of that. >> i saw it 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes you yeah. >> so we have you - yeah. i started going when i was young but not the type of kid would get food but this is something i really have been progressing on a talent from like other artists. >> this is amazing. >> this is so good yeah, it is so good like the artists. >> i love it. >> what a great project. >> part of the part for have i

grants. >> yeah. i love it. >> i serve in for 2 two years now and i really am fortunate to live in a place for art. >> an effort creating places it serve san francisco soul and that makes them want to see this place; right? with the experience of art in san jose experience in from the get-go sometimes our environmentalist has created tests but we have an opportunity for that and have artists in the storefront part of project you can walk in and experience and hoping we'll be there for a long time. >> this is the first farther easy way of going to spaces i

didn't know how it is really cool it would be and we're forced to be in the moment when we're test and creating something really cool. >> makes us feel good. >> as far (unintelligible) done all temporary and took them down i like the temporary aspect base (unintelligible) (microphone distorted) not permanent can enjoy it. >>

>> i'm paul. i worked at sfgov for 3 years now. >> as a cylinder kid i was in photographer, i went to college for broadcast journalism. early on i paintd and enjoyed art. artists other most interesting people i interviewed. they have an interesting take on life and how they see the world. i mean, i find it inspiring. you know to talk to them and show case their work. >> it is hart to be a full time artist anywhere. there is thousands of them and you can only name one or two in the country. the biggest challenge was i did not finish college because the department change and i had got

an internship my junior year. i really like today the nbc affiliate and i hung out with the photographers and the editors. and about 2-1/2 months into it than i offered me a job as an editor. this is great. i went to the new department and said, i will not do you know the afternoon classes for my senior year and he said, well, you know, we can't give you the degree then. so i dropped out and started work. but i did finish. what i would tell the younger audience this has a passion for multiple things is -- you know stick with it, because it is not going to work out t. is first people are going to discount you and -- get in your way, but you gotta believe in yourself.

>> good morning i hope everyone had a great pride and the mayor is unhelp with mow for doing a monday morning press conference. we had a great, amazing time y. congratulations mayor on a wonderful day >> today, we are with much provide and happy ness and excitement. announcing that due to a state law that i senate bill 423, today a nice post pride gift to

san francisco. today san francisco goes from the longest period of time to get a housing permit in the state of california of all 500 cities to one of the shortest. [applause] it will do so by removing housing permitting approvals from the hyper political mosh pit of san francisco. where if you follow all the rules, around zoning and everything else this does in the money you get a permit it means that you are now entitleed go in this political pit and fight for a number of year bunkham may be you get it and may be you will not. no more. now we are doing good governmentful means we set the rules ahead of time this is the zoning. these other design standards. here other rules. if you meet those rules with your project, you get your permit in a matter of months.

no discretionary hearings. no ceqa lawsuits. 91 of the politics of the board you get your damn permit. period. mruz mrauz when we talk about the housing crisis in california, you know we are here talking about technical stuff. discretionary approvals and ministerial approval and ceqa and zoning and sb. a number after temperature it is so important always, always. when we talk about housing that is off the technical words are really about people. and weather people are going to be able to afford housing in san francisco and in california. about weather people are going to continue to be pushed out of california, middle and work class family who is decide they can no longer make a run of it

there is no pregnant for them to get the housing they need. it is about people as a bottom rung of our economic leader. low income renters, who understand this if than i lose their apartment they can't do when normally we expect people to do you lose your apartment you find a different one. they understand this than i then may have i choice between leaving san francisco or becoming homeless. in san francisco. it is about people, young people who want to make their home and life in san francisco and don't see a path to be able to do this. these other young people who are the future of our city. the creativity and innovation and energy for the future and we are pushing them out. so, we are talk a lot of technical stuff it is about people, that's when sb423 is about and the good news is

about. we spent decades in san francisco lierring process after bureaucracy after obstacle after process, one after the other for the left 50 years. and have made it hard or impossible to build a number of hope this is we need t. is not coincidence that san francisco is literally before today the slowest permitting time line in the entire state of california. and so the last 7-9 years my clothes and i and two fwonors in a row worked pleasant the seeds to have housing be depoliticized and permits happen faster. change zoning so we zone for enough new homes. to make it possible to dig ourselves out of the massive shortage we dug for ourselves. and we are making progress.

well are other issues somewhere beyond our control we can't control interest rates. when than i come down, we need to make sure that our structure that we have empowerhouse the building of new homes. so specific low on friday, the california department of housing community development declare had san francisco is the first city to be stream lined under sb423. you may recall for those following it. i include a specific amendment for san francisco in sb423 so it would take affect quickly in this city and would not wait another couple years. reason dithat is because san francisco had the slowest permitting time line. san francisco was an end and needs extra help to play catch up. we know this this the

predecessor of the senate bill 35 which i offer in the 2017 was being used in san francisco for a handled % affordable to great affect this is successful. thousands of new subsidized affordable home in san francisco had been permitted over the past 5-6 year in i matter of month its has been a game change fer subsidized affordable house nothing san francisco this is 10% of the new home in san francisco temperature is great but not must have. and had this this bill will do is mean instead of 10% of new homes subject to the acceleration for permitting it will be 75%. of new homes. [applause]. basically all new housing in san francisco other than the megadevelopments those have development agreements this deal

with their approvals. so, you know i want to note that there are some in san francisco and they have become more organized and louder these days. and than i even have a patron saint in city hall the president of the board of supervisors and their goal is to shut down and stop housing production in san francisco. they don't want classic mem biism. don't want new homes near where than i live them don't want multiunit apartment buildings near single family homes. and am here to say that does in the represent the majority of you in san francisco. a large majority want more housing. a learning majority understandses building new housing does in the harm existing neighborhoods. it makes existing north americaeds better, i have scombrant diverse.

more people to shop at local stores. this is what this is about and i'm very excited that we are here today. i want it bring up mayor breed. i want to siaha it is much more fashionable to be now than 6 years ago. it was tougher then. the approximately ticks were hard exert perception it was a losing political argument. everyone says they are now and that is great like welcome. join the movement for a brighter housing future. there are some people who got it early on and mayor breed was one of those people. and i want to remind people that in 2018, i was authoring the big rezoning bill. sb827, sb50 and rezoning, it was a big huge scombil it sparked a political fight throughout california. asked goners were asked about it

at every debate. it was infusing political dialogue in california. and in the middle of this press, we had an unexpected major's race in san francisco because mayor lee passed away. and of all the major candidates everyone of them except one came out and opposed our bill. and the only one who came in favor television in 20 ain't was london breed. a lot of people told her not to do it. and she did it and did can with support. and won that race and that's the volume about where the people of san francisco are, so mayor breed thank you for taking riskos house and for your, mazing leadership for the future of san francisco and with this, mayor london breed.

>> thank you. so much senator wiener it is great to be here to talk about housing and senator brings sba27. i remember when i was here in san francisco in fact on the west side of town during a mayor's debate talking about sba27 and the question i asked to the people who were there and in explaining my support for sb a27 was how many of you have been in san francisco your life and born and raised or raised your kids and been here for 50 years and everybody hand goes up. how many of you raised your children here? my kids were born and raise in the san francisco. how many of your kids still live here. hard low any hands went up. public housing that i grew up in spent 20 years of my life living there my mother grew up in public housing had 300 units.

that were taken down and 200 built. point is there have been really many mistakes made in the past. and the fact is, all roads lead to housing. if we want to be able to attract and retain city employee who is can afford to live in san francisco we have to build housing, construction work torse afford to live here the housing units than i build here we need to build more. when we talk about the folk who is work in san francisco how do i get talent to stay here in it is so expensive to build here? it is all about housing. get people autopsy the streets we gotta put them somewhere temperature all starts with housing. and for a decade, this city has said no to housing. they talked about it. but then here come another policy. here come another obstructionist and creative two people in the neighborhood. to stop a development.

and the fact is, we have tried to issue executive directives. make changes to local laws we are not giving up. but because of senator scott wiener, we are final low now seeing real opportunity. not just with sb423 but sb35. already 3500 affordable housing units have gone through a process without the obstruction it has had in the past. and for the first time, we built i broke ground last week on 90 new units of affordable housing in the sunset! [applause] for seniors. for families. enough is enough. san francisco is not a museum. that should be stuck in time of it is a city with actual people.

and opportunity for people to live here and we'll always be a beautiful city. and there is no hrm that will come to a neighborhood if we build 6 or 8 stories of housing in those neighborhoods in opportunity cites. no redevelopment 2. 0 and bulldoze people neighborhood we are not going back. we have to move the city forward. the way we do it is is we have to get honest about our horrible process here and get job done. the fact this you can go from years, years to build units and there is a unit a building is 100%, 100 units of affordable housing for families that took 10 years from the time we identified the property until we went through this ridiculous

process. this legislation is a game changer. it is going to stop the obstruction so we can move housing forward in san francisco. for the people the next generation san franciscans the poke who is want to work and live here. want to raise kids here. how do we make it affordable? we build more housing. hudo we make it affordable. get oust way of being obstructionists. we can't control interest rates but the ridiculous fees and layers of bonjourockacy if i have my may i would take all the housing pop3s put them in chat gpt and type and up start from scratch with something this makes sense this get its moving you can't say you want more house and brag about being a housing leader when you are not willing to take risks to get the job done that's what senator wean cert doing every day and when we have to do here if we

want to make sure this our city employees and construction workers, kids growing up now. we gotta think about the future and when this means for san francisco. it means, build housing now. thank you senator wiener for your leadership. [applause] >> and before i bring up the next speaker, i want to acknowledge you see we have i bunch of carpenters back here. i really the nor cal carpenter we have fight in sacramento for years around labor protections and not whether to have them but what should they be. and created paralysis and then the carpenters showed up and changed everything and i game change and played a critical role in passing us and a strong forum.

i want to thank the carpenters -- [applause] next i want to bring update guy who implementing the sb423. the director of the san francisco planning department rich hill us. >> thank you all, thank you mayor and senator wiener. we are truly in a new era at the planning department and how we approve projects. so 423 applications are alive. operators are standing by and planners are standing by you can come in today online and apply for a housing project. this will be approved by the end of the summer. and that is [applause] that is truly a game changer where this would have normally taken a year or two as the mayor pointed out. 10 years or more ceqa and

appeals involved. so between this legislation and then local low the mayor's constraints legislation, which passed again we'll able to approve project in weeks and months. instead of years. it truly is that is -- it allows us at plan to focus on the work that planners came to san francisco or go in the profession to do instead of project by project refereeing. and this is how planning works in most cities. it is important for us and staff to work on learning are planning issue this is we are facing whether it is climate change and, dapping for sea level. reimagine magging the downtown and filling vacant commercial space. fill in the i world class transportation system or rezone negligent city that has not seen

housing that is the role of planning. and when we should be doing. i want to thank senator wean and mayor breed and advocates who have been push for these changes so we can focus this work. thank you very much. [applause] >> so, next want to bring up 3 great housing leaders. who helped play us critically in geting and many other piece of housing legislation pass said. we have a really amazing prohousing coalition and we are winning. so we will hear from brian the executive director and will you evera foot the executive director of action and corey smith housing action coalition.

[applause] >> across california cities like san francisco have failed to approve new homes in a timely manner the delays lead to less house and higher costs. research shown that california ranks the slowest and most expensive states to get permission to build new home and the ascertain mentioned, san francisco has been the slowest in the state. permitting delays cost a lot of money. and every penny goes to rent we pay or the cost purchasing a new home. faster approval process created will not solve all challenges but it it is a major contribution. san francisco and other cities can now dramatically stroll line the permitting of new homes leading to approvals in months or faster instead of years that monies more housing, low are cost and affordable california. on behalf of california i extend

my thanks to senator wiener for strong leadership on housing including authorship of sb423 cosponsored with our partners at the california carpenters. the california housing consortium and the law center. thank you. [applause] >> back to the short people. i was at a park with my po 2 kids and an older woman sat down and we talked and she told me it takes her 2 houros the bus to commute in from the east bay where she had to move she had mobility issues and was not able to find an apartment in san francisco where her kids live and grand kids are thriving but she could not find an affordable

apartment on a fixed income. she is commuting 2 hours on the bus to visit grand kids and 2 back. if she was able to live here she would be able to baby sit the kids. more present in their lives. and she can't go to a planning commission hearing. she is not going to show up at a meeting where supposed lite voice of san francisco people who are invest in the the projects where we make the politicized debates about whether we'll build a housing project or not. she can't participate in that process. but she matters as much as everyone who has 3 hours to kill on a thursday afternoon. which is a very specific demographic. this bill allows us to give voice to so many of the voiceless. they matter in our process. they should matter in our goal

this is we set for meeting the housing goals. i want my kids to be able to live in san francisco. and the trajectory we have been on that is in the like low. we have to change the game here. and i want top thank not only mayor breed and planning department, when we make the luin sacramento it does matter if you are city shows and up says we want to follow the law. we want to implement the policies. we want to make sure we meet the housing goals. it is planning upon department is taking an active role in saying how will we make sure we make good on the promises we have made to have an inclusive san francisco. how do we use the snat laws to hit the goelsz this are there for i reason. they are there to give voice to the people who will be excluded from the city and pushed out. men we can stop tuck burglar displacement and do something

about temperature bring people back to this community. we cannot be a sanctuary city if you cannot find hozing in san francisco this is a meaningless commitment if the rent is too high. we have the opportunity today to do this. make good on promises and be a community this welcomes people in instead of one this has a welcome sign on the door and kicks you out when you sat in the p for 5 minutes thank you for applying, bye. back to where ever we don't care our housing of the cos are too high. we can't do that it is bull and we continue. we need to welcome people in. i want to hand over, thank you. [applause] we have been fighting this. i want to tell one more store. when i got involved in san francisco politicis was i crazy bhorn should a full time dead end sales job and want watch

sfgovtv on my laptop. and wait for the moment when i could run the 3 blocks to city hall to give comment. tell my boss i was getting a coffee and run and give comment and run back. 9 times out of 10 i of the only person who was a working person able to give comment i was the youngest person there by a few decades. this is what happens when you have a process that is set up to enable people who have the stability in their lives who can luxuriate through 3 hours of public comment on a thursday afternoon. you don't get the working people represent in the this process. this process means we are giveingly voice to the people. >> thank you. good morning. i'm corey smith the executive director of housing action. we represent the builders who will builted homes the develop

and contractors and land use attorneys the labor unions who will build california out of this mess. and the senator said we are here for a simple reason. san francisco is not building enough home and we are not tracking toward our state mandate target. god knows we tried. we attempted. we will keep doing the board through up consistent barriers and fortunately, the state stepped in and thank you senator wiener for your help on that. as -- a resident and a renter in this city the two of these people here, represent a path forward in a different dreshgz. not for just san francisco but california it is simple. if you follow the rules you should be able to build your building without getting sued by antihousing neighbor. i know in limachine's term this is seems the reasonable and what else could help inform san francisco and california that

was not the rule until today. and the bill will reduce the cost housing we are eliminating risk and as we deal with raising construction costs figuring out ways to e eliminate it from the process will help more are feasibility. and moves the needle. speaking of losing the needle i want to shout out for the carpenter's union up here. folks don't appreciate the shift this happens because of jay brad shaw and pete rodriguez and leadership they have taken in the state of california to stop saying, no. and the carpenter's say, yes. the carpenter's say, yes. yes to more housing protecting work and a better california. today is a really fantastic day i'm excited. you will seat boards on the wall and now they are empty that's

where we are. people are not building housing but today is a new day in california. new day in san francisco and look forward to the boards filling up we will see more affordable housing come across san francisco. and we got one that is getting under way. next sfeeshg i want to introduce a half member and builder from the bernal heights neighborhood center. gina. [applause] >> good morning i want it thank senator wean and mayor breed for inviting me. to a celebration and as an affordable housing developer it is an honor to recognize when sb423 means to the city and ability to make affordable housing easier and faster. we have a saying on our housing team this there is in easy

affordable. no easy housing site left in san francisco. and so what this means for us and building in bernal height system that some of the challenges of the site and location. are going to be part of a challenge. and when this bill does is allows you to do our own contribution to affordable housing. for those of when you minot know the agency is an award wing neighborhood service provide and are affordable how doing developer and our mission to preserve and protect affordable housing. and we have 18 develop the cites over 500 units and through the types of deals sb35 and for you 23 we are now on our way to breaking upon ground in december for the first time in 10 years. in bernal heights. >> followed by another --

development where we were able to purchase the big lots and convert terror to affordable housing for another 70 units. this is done through the types of bills. this guilty neighborhood community based center can do it in all of our afford okay housing cites can do it when we have this type of support. we also are very concerned about our community age nothing place. we serve over a thousand seniors and i want it make sure that as our seniors age in place they don'ts to worry about where they will lay their head the night. they don't worry about where than i will live or aged out of the or priced out of the community and so we want to be able to continue to contribute through our work and through the sb423. it will allow you to do so. thank you. [applause], thank you very much. thank you to speakers that

concludes the press conference and will take a few questions. you mentioned other thing in the way enter rates and construction costs are in there. are there other [inaudible] in your way? housing like this and when efforts are med to address that. >> interest rates that is i bit above our local and state control. i hopeful low we will resolve itself. and benefit many other things in the economy as limp in terms of there was an issue which is better now but i challenge was cost of materials. but this is in the i bigs problem as it was before. the board supervisors and the mayor did lower the inclusionary which was set at infeasible level they reassessed make sure that it would pencil out and deliver the affordable homes and

the market rate homes as well. and -- you know impact fees are certainly -- a challenge and especially in san francisco and other cities that have high fees that are imposeod projects which increase the costs and we were working on this at the state level this is something this needs to be addressed. 2 of the big, zoning, this is if i canned because we changed state law and required cities to zone for more in san francisco is doing that now and approving homes more quickly that is what this is about. we are not solving everything in one swoop i wish we could. we are resolving 2 of the big issues and the others will over time resolve themselves as well. >> [inaudible].

>> well i would say that this legislation provides an opportunity to get to yes and make it easier. san francisco has been known for saying, no, mostly because senator wiener mentioned decades built up processes made it difficult for people to invest in san francisco and do business here and build housing and this is an opportunity to get to yes t. is easier. it is user friendly and we are excite body what this could money for the future. [inaudible]. >> it isseen stronger. so, sb1227, a bill this is

mirest in peace no longer with us. would created a temporary seek kwa ceqa exemption we are looking at future possibilities. 423 is not just an exemption it lit irrelevant removed the project in ceqa entirely they north a project for purpose of ceqa it is stronger then and there the exemption. [inaudible] it is we need to have a can did attitude. first, we have a large number of homes that have been approved via development agreement, harj projects like park merced and

the ship yard and treasure loishgs landful mission rock, et cetera . that is tens of thussands of new homes. i'm speak for myself. some of the development agreements need to be revisited there were, let of costs put on them this make them difficult or not possible to build. and so, we need to make sure that the those projects get built this . takes care of a significant can chunk. you'd in the new project by project and bernal heights or other locations 70 here. 200 there. 500 there plus adu and duplexes when you add it together there is a pregnant path. that is an improvement when we have done in the past. yes, we have a path.

we need to be open to all of if mayor. >> keep are in the press of looking at a lot of the development agreements that exist and trying to understand when will it tick for the city to mend in the development agreements to move the projects forward. the other thing is we have a creative financing tool because of the state. we have been able to invest over 265 mission on a front end in order to make sure that treasure i land continues. the and tressel power station project continues. those projects had not been for our financing tool would not be continued than i would be a stand still. it is creative financing. you know the state it is semi like redevelopment where you provide money that we will have to pay for like the utility and infrastructure and under grounding. we usually you know in the

development agreements the costs are a per of the projects in the city usually has i responsibility and the developer as well. so, reevaluating the agreements. providing financing on the front end and reducing responsibility from the development agreements to some case you know we had layers of impact fees for transportation. jobs and we you know will maintain prevailing wage in the jobs there are other investments than i have to give to other organizations and things we need to look at whether or not the types of investments should be provided in the projects because we want them to move forward. and the big are projects there will be discussions with community we can't there was commitments med to communities and now we will reevaluate those made in order to do you want housing or property it stay vacant for 10-20 years.

those other discussions happening now with major preshths under way we are trying to move them forward. >> is there anyone else this has a question. >> senator. the similar things earlier [inaudible]. >> so what happened is we through a law that i authored 6 years ago, changed how we set housing goals for california. and in the past, every 8 years every city gets their husbanding goal for market rate and low income and than i were absurd

low low. most famous locality city of beverly hills a housing goal for 3 homes. and other cities got very, usually wealthier cities got lower numbers. and san francisco our number of twhend this is over 8 years we are a large city. that was low. what we did we did not set up for failure we looked at the reality of the situation. how much husbanding do we need? the goals were set by looking at the facts instead of the political process where we make up numbers out of thin air. it is recognizing reality. is this reality a hill this needs to climbed? absolutely because for 50 years we made it impublic to build enough new homes. we use build thousand ammeds of home in the 60s. 70 and 80 down zone and made it

hard to get approved and built and that hundreds of thousands turned to 70-80,000. it is we will have to climb out of this hole and we are working heard to do this. but we need a can do attitude, let's solve the problem and do what it takes and stop you know ringing our hands. which is when we have done too often. >> am these two and this will be it. question for planning. [inaudible]. planning staff milook different do you have plans [inaudible]. >> like i said, you know things like the rezoning and looking at major portion of the city that has not seen a lot of development and focus on efforts around rezoning, sea level rise. you know we are going through a

large press with the army course to do a flood study and the future of water fran. transportation planning got short within the department and downtown come that future of retail looks like in the city. a host of your this is we look at in addition to planning for additional housing that we're equip exclude focused on. it is a comment we get from commissioners who sit on planning that we spends too much time on dr or project refereeing instead of the learning are issues. final question. >> public housing.

the residents in bernal heights neighborhood center. throughout the city what does housing mean for them. i think it means security. you knownualy prior to covid our organization puts on annual congress and it is for community members to in in and share what their concerns are. i will never forget in the housing round table one of the singers said shoes living on the couch of i friend in her clothe in i treasure bag and asked me. would this housing i want my basic needs. it means dignity elders work in the the city and criminalitied in a variety of ways and all of the housing merits for me i have

a hearted for older adults making sure this is in the i problem than i inher exit we can be part of the solution with the creative housing solutions likes sb423. thank you, everyone. [applause]. .

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>> [drums] [applause]