any impression to your employer that you may not be healthy for some reason is uncomfortable. it can be scary. i think it is important, and our union stands behind it, and our community stands behind closing this loophole and closing and now. thank you for your leadership. supervisor campos: thank you. speaker. >> good afternoon. i'm director of the office of small business. i am here this afternoon, want to thank supervisor campos for continuing to identify the need that we need to close the loophole. just wanted to note, the commission has not heard of the new piece of legislation and will be doing so on monday, along with supervisor chiu. the new draft still has some of the issues of concern for the

commission, which is the potential millions of dollars out of the economy, and the immediate job loss. i will not reiterate much of what is said in a relationship to what has already been stated. a couple of things need to be taken a look at better economic analysis report did not address. types of jobs in the income of the jobs that will be lost with this. with the current health care security ordinance, there are many businesses i have spoken to that have sort of stunted their growth and chosen not to grow past 19 jobs because they cannot afford the bump up into the 20 or over employees with the ordinance. i think what i want to request is that our small businesses

need to be part of the discussion to address the need of what we want to accomplish in san francisco around health care and be able to keep businesses and jobs in the city. at the small business commission, the commission was interested and did state it wanted to see exact numbers of the businesses using the hra accounts that are not allowing the accounts to be used for health care or severely restricting the use. we will be interested to see what the mayor comes up with in relationship to that. just wanted to state that we want to continue this discussion with all three proposals together. supervisor campos: thank you

very much. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak on this item? public comment is closed. ok. no more speakers. thank you to everyone who took the time to speak on this item. i know there are very strong opinions. we appreciate you taking the time. colleagues, i want to make a couple of points. for the benefit of all the people who have been working on this matter, i wanted to read the list of organizations from threat san francisco that have come out in support of this legislation before you. i want to make sure their voices are heard. many of them could not be your today. there are dozens of organizations. these are those organizations. adolescents help working group, alliance of california for community empowerment,asset

building strategies, vernal heights center, california nurses association, california women's agenda, policy for analysis on trade and health, central american resource network, chinese progressive association, city college board of trustees, the clergy in lady united for economic justice, the coalition on homelessness, community housing partnership, san francisco de labor program and women's collective, the employment law center. the health access, health care for american now, homeless prenatal, jobs for justice, latina breast cancer agency, league of young voters, mission

economic development agency commission house and devoted corp., national employment law project, national physician alliance, people organized to win and get -- when employment rights, people organizing for environmental rights, private work, a progressive workers alliance, san francisco building, trades council, the medical society, the labor council, sci you tend to one, as sciu, unite your local to come a women's community clinic, young workers united, and the building construction trades council. that tells you the broad coalition that is behind this effort. i want to make two points in response to a couple of the things that have been said. it is easy to say this is going to cost thousands of jobs. it is the same parade of horrible things we heard when the ordinance was first introduced.

facts have to speak for themselves. the one independent study on the health care security ordinance that was done not by anyone here in the city made it clear that the impact on jobs was not what was expected. there was no job loss because of the ordinance. those people have looked at that amendment and reached the same conclusion. our economist has made it clear the impact on job growth is minimal and in fact, once this law is implemented, you will continue to have thousands of jobs created in san francisco in the next few years. the last thing i would say is that i do believe, and i do hope that whoever is out there who has the very important task of protecting the consumers of the city and county of san

francisco takes a careful look at "the wall street journal" and some of the practices identified. if it is the case that there are companies that are marketing themselves by telling businesses that they can essentially exploit this loophole as a way of making money off of consumers, irrespective of whether or not they meet the technical requirements of the ordinance, there are a number of consumer protection laws that are still applicable. it is my hope that whoever is charged with protecting consumers in the city and county of san francisco takes a careful look at this. it is not just about workers. it is about consumers being protected. is my hope that that happens. -- it is my hope that that happens. this is an egregious issue. if the facts that are reported in that article are true, that needs to have careful

consideration. with that, president chiu, the floor is yours. president chiu: thank you. i want to thank all of the members of the public who have participated in this conversation about an important issue we need to address. i don't think it will be a surprise that i do not support my colleague's legislation in its current form. that being said, at least with regard to this meeting, i am ok with supporting the motion that we move forward without recommendation. let me explain why. there are a majority of college that have expressed support. we would engage in several weeks of parliamentary procedures that i don't feel we need to do. i would prefer we move forward with an up or down vote on this and call the question. that being said, i also -- i do have an alternative piece of

legislation i would like to be considered by the board at some time. i will request that our chair hopefully schedule that legislation in the coming weeks. i understand that will be the case. i do hope that as we have this discussion, it is pretty easy to have both sides going to their corners in thinking about how this issue is described. i don't think it is as clear as thinking that this is a debate about health care verses no health care. everyone in this room, whether you are from one community or another, believes in the right of all workers to have adequate health care. for me, the issue is, how do we ensure that we provide health care but also minimize job loss? supervisor campos has quoted are city economist on the topic. apparently, we have lost 30,000 jobs over the past two years. 30,000 jobs.

i understand some might think his analysis that this piece of legislation will result in the loss of only hundreds of jobs, that is somehow trivial. i don't agree with that. i think every person who loses a job, we have to figure out how to take care of them. i am trying to craft a solution that balance is those needs, make sure we provide the health care that we have to, but make sure that money is put to use to either hire folks come up with them to work, or provide health care. that is my goal. i appreciate this debate and look forward to continuing discussions on it. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you. supervisor farrell: thank you to chair compos and president chiu. like everyone here, i recognize there's a problem. there's a huge problem. we need to solve it. the question is, how do we deal with it? i like -- i do not support this

legislation in its current form. i'm committed to finding a solution. my only biggest disappointment in this debate right now is that we are not doing it here in committee and we are shoving it on to the full board. that being said, we will play parliamentary games if we don't do it. at this point, i will support the motion to send it to the full board on tuesday and have the up or down vote. i will say that i appreciate president chiu's amendment and i like what i heard from the representative from mayor li's office today. i look forward to considering those together and begin having that debate here in committee so we can vote on it as a full board when we are fully informed. the solution here is not to propose something that will cost jobs in the near term. that is not what we should be

doing in economic times. i appreciate the debate. to be clear, i will not support this in its current form. i'm happy to support the motion to move it forward without recommendation. supervisor campos: thank you. i do want to thank the president and supervisor for their patience in listening to a lot of the testimony. i know it has the long process. with that said, can we entertain a motion to move forward to the full board as a committee for the october 4 meeting? president chiu: i support that motion. supervisor campos: we can take that without objection. the matter is forwarded to the full board. is there any other business before the committee? >> there is no other business. supervisor campos: thank you.

meeting is adjourned.

supervisor mirkarimi: good morning. welcome to the public safety committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. i am ross mirkarimi, the chair. to my left is david campos. supervisor cohen will be joining us shortly. thank you to sfgtv for their ongoing excellence. don and mark are covering this.

please read the first item. >> item number one, ordinance amending the administrative code by adding section 2a.83 to community policing policy. supervisor mirkarimi: on the community policing initiative, supervisor campos, we very much appreciate, and i very much appreciate the collaboration we have had on this. supervisor campos: thank you very much, supervisor mirkarimi, mr. chair. i want to begin by thanking chief suhr for being here. i know it has been a busy day for him. i appreciate him taking the time to be here to discuss a very important issue. i also want to take the opportunity to thank my staff, specifically hillary for all the work that has gone into this, but most importantly to thank so many members of the community

who have really been the catalyst for this effort. let me provide some context of what we introduced this legislation. i serve on the san francisco police commission for a number of years. by the way, i see that the assistant deputy chief is also here. i served for the police commission for a number of years. and one of the things that became very clear in my service as a police commissioner is that we talk a lot about community policing, but that community policing and different things to different people. and while that is in many respects understandable, the idea that community policing by definition has to reflect the specific needs of a community, and therefore there would be some differences, what i found frustrating is the fact that there was no threshold definition of what it meant to have meaningful community policing, and in the last few

months, my office was approached by a number of residents in my district, it covers an eclectic group of people who expressed an interest in making sure that we, as a city, have not only definition, but we had a definition of community policing that truly, in a consistent way, impacted the operations of the police department. and this is something that required an extensive amount of work and numerous, numerous meetings were held to talk about what an ordinance that actually created a definition would look like. and let me say that the reason why an ordinance was something that we thought was important is

that we know that there are personnel changes that happen in any agency by the police department, and while we are confident that the current chief values and cares deeply about community policing, wanted to have some big the was sustainable, and about who was in that position and codify the rules that govern the operation of the police department, something that defined community policing. in defining that term, the concept of community policing, we wanted to strike a balance between having certain elements that were consistent throughout the city, throughout the 10th district stations, but also providing the leverage and flexibility so that in the implementation of those elements, the captain and the police chief had the flexibility to make sure that however it was implemented, it reflected the specific characteristics and qualities of

the neighborhood. and we believe that the ordinance before you has struck that right balance. in the last few months, besides the working group that we put together, we have also received pretty substantial input from the police department, from the police commission, and from the chief of police. and let me say that we find ourselves in this very interesting position, unlike anything that i have seen, since i was elected as supervisor, where we have been working on a definition of community policing. we have an ordinance that is before the board of supervisors, but the chief of police had actually already implemented with the ordinance calls for. and that is a testament to chief suhr, to his staff, and to his commitment to this concept. so i would like to get the cheap and opportunity, to him and his staff, to give us a brief update

on what has happened at the police commission, at the police department, but i think it is truly, truly remarkable that he proceeded to craft it apartment general order that essentially responded to this -- that he crafted a general order that essentially responded to this legislation, and he did this even before the board of supervisors voted for it. i want to thank you, chief, for that commitment. i know members of my community who have been working on these matters are very appreciative, and i also appreciate the fact that not only did you do that, but you actually were a very inclusive in how you approached it, and the major that there was community input in the general order that was crafted and that there was transparency in terms of the amount of information that was provided to the public. with that, if it is ok with my colleagues, i would like to ask chief suhr to come forward.

again, i want to thank chief suhr for doing something that has not really been done, at least in my experience, here in city hall. good morning to you. >> good morning. i appreciate your comments. and certainly, community policing is an absolute priority for the police department. i believe in it always has been. i know that in our discussions that it was not defined, if you will, or codified so that no matter who the chief of police is, it stands. to that end, we said about together to define community policing. the process was long. it was inclusive. it started off with a proposal. then it through committee, it grew. we met with virtually every corner of this city. suggestions were made.

then we took it back to the location of the first community meeting, which was that cesar chavez school in michigan. and we believe that if we could pass muster at a community meeting in the mission as far as no contrarians, that we would be where we wanted to be, at least as commissioner dejesus said that night, as the first step. i know the copy i just passed out says final draft, but that is not true. this is now a general order in the san francisco police department. it fits in the first section of our policies and procedures as a governing, organizational structure and is now they're buying in late into every general order as we will do business going forward if we have not already been doing it. i really want to thank you for being there on it that wednesday

in being heard. i think probably my highpoint of the evening was when that young women, probably in her late teens, early 20's, got up and claimed the line out of this general order as her own. she said i just want everybody to know, and i do not know which one it was, she read it, and she turned it around and said that is mine. i think with that, i know there are members here. i will not mention names, because i do not want to be disrespectful of somebody else. but the people behind me collaborated. i am sure people are watching on television that collaborated. we're very proud of this. and i want to thank everybody from your office that held down held that'shelped -- i want to thank everybody from your office that helped out. supervisor campos: my

apologies, i ever got to a knowledge the sponsors. supervisor mirkarimi, supervisor cohen, supervisor mar, and supervisor avalos. it would not have happened without your willingness to work with us, chief. to your knowledge, how many departments in the country have community policing imbedded in their general orders? >> i believe that every department in the country strives to be a community police department, but i believe this is the first such policy and procedure which actually codify it. i know people in the past have said that it cannot be defined, but that does not appear to be the case. this is how we are defining it. supervisor campos: and i think that is very important to highlight. it is very historic that we are the first to codify it, and to do so in a way -- i think replacement of it as department general order 1.08 makes sure that it is something that really impacts the entirety of the operation. that is one question that i

have, and i will turn it over to my colleagues that they have questions for you, chief. how does this affect what happens on the ground? how does this impact what happens in the 10 different district stations and how each captain approaches the concept of community policing and how they have to fulfill this mandate? >> so, if you will, as with all policies and procedures, now all supervisors, front sargent, a senior officers, however, if an officer is conducting themselves outside of how is prescribed in this general order, as with all general orders, then there would be training, retraining, further training, as far as if you are aware of this. this one that is called an a- bulletin or the officers have to sign up for it to a degree that

they have got it and are now responsible for it into it. going forward now, as of last week, this is the way that we will have our officers' conduct themselves. supervisor campos: great, thank you, chief. that is all on my end. i do not know if you have anything else to add or if my colleagues have questions. supervisor cohen: anybody in the public that is interested in this, i believe it is already online. if not, i am committed to getting it online by the end of the week. it is a public document that anybody is welcome to look at, inspect, and hopefully celebrate the way we do. supervisor mirkarimi: i would like to commend your leadership and the department's leadership in partnering with supervisor campos in making this happen. before supervisor campos was elected but was a police commissioner, we had joint meetings before you were chief, chief suhr.

we had a joint meeting between this committee in the police commission to talk about a 2007 study that the city controller commission on community policing and foot patrols. it was a thorough study, the first of its kind, that the city had never undertaken. there seemed to be a great desire and demand that, at least as the future of community policing, people really do love foot patrols. yet, the conclusion is that, from the police department, at least back then, that is a luxury that the department cannot afford. and that brought up other questions in that conversation and has hands. that is, how do you budget for this level of commitment, when the department's budget is about $480 or so this coming year, how do you then it sort of us in