>> yes. it would not be a tuesday if there were no appeal. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- supervisor chiu: good afternoon. welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors meeting of tuesday, have you very seventh, 2012. clerk, please call the roll. >> [roll call] mr. president, you have a quorum.

supervisor chiu: ladies and gentlemen, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. >> i pledge allegiance to the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god with liberty and justice for all. supervisor chiu: colleagues, i understand that supervisor," -- campos is not here. he is excused without objection. are there any communications? >> no. supervisor chiu: please read consent agenda. >> items numbers one through nine, acted upon with a roll call vote, unless it is discussed by request. supervisor chiu: would anyone like to sever these items? roll-call vote. >> items #139. -- one through nine.

[calls roll call vote] there are ten ayes. supervisor chiu: those ordinances are approved on final reading. item number 10. >> item #10. ordinance amending the san francisco environment code by: 1) amending section 1702 to extend the restrictions on checkout bags from supermarkets and chain pharmacies to all retail establishments and food establishments in the city and county of san francisco, an. supervisor avalos: this was extended to allow for outreach to the community. our office had done significant outreach on this issue. i want to thank my staff for having reached out to dozens of

merchants and 15 organizations that work within the district. i also want to thank the department of the environment to help to sponsor a public meeting where we discussed this matter with dozens of attendees. as we did do a lot of outreach, all of us agree that we need to do more, regardless of the outcome of today's vote. to continue that outreach, i have proposed an additional amendment to this legislation to conduct outreach to stores and provide multilingual information to employees and customers to distribute recyclable, composed of all, or reusable bags. i have circulated that amendment, as well as a second amendment the addresses a second concern raised in my district, particularly chinatown and elsewhere, on using plastic bags for delicate and larger items.

specifying that the bags that were required for those would not be covered under this ordinance. with that, i would like to make a motion to amend those items. supervisor chiu: is there a second? second to the motion, supervisor mar. to the amendment? no. seeing no comment on the amendment, can we have a roll call on the amendment? >> rol[roll-call vote] there are 10 ayes. supervisor chiu: to the item as amended, i would like to call up

the director of the department of the environment to talk about some of the issues that we discovered over the last couple of months, as we worked our way through the legislative process. my first question is around the question of outreach. you heard loud and clear from the board that we all wanted more outreach, particularly several months ago. can you talk about the efforts that your office has been involved in to make sure that we are reaching out to understand people's concerns? >> absolutely. i am pleased to be back here to report on the educational activities that have taken place for the plastic check out bag? and legislation before you today. first, i would like to thank the supervisor for taking the lead on this legislation that will benefit the environment and help to sustain and the environment. i would also like to thank the leadership of supervisors chiu

and wiener to address the issues we heard from the community over the past couple of months. as you are aware, when this legislation was continued last fall, you call upon the department of the environment to conduct more outreach for diversity in the city. we answered that col. since early december, we have conducted a robust outreach effort that is unprecedented for any pending legislation. we invested staff time and resources to make sure that the proper work was done. i wanted to take a moment to detail those activities. they have included one-on-one outreach. you can get merchant organizations. my staff reached out to be supervisor to get input on which neighborhood associations you would like to ensure were reached in your community.

we also worked with the mayor's staff on his recommendations as well. on starting the outreach through the list of priority organizations, we were happy to join the supervisor for a forum in chinatown that he and his staff co-sponsored. we were also happy to present on the proposed legislation. we presented at the small business commission hearing, the value mission association and south of market association. in total, we reached out to 35 key merchant organizations across the city and all districts, using e-mail and phone. we heard back from 23 of these

organizations after multiple attempts. the second tactic that we employed was merchant walks. in addition to the one on one outreach in key leadership organizations in the district, we activated our environment now outreach teams. our team is right back there. hello. it is the department of the environment's green job training program. we currently have 19 staff in our two year program learning soft and hard skills for the outreach in our environmental programs. they do everything from energy efficiency for small businesses to recycling and cart monitoring in the neighborhoods, and door- to-door canvassing for home retrofit programs. i wanted to take one moment to talk more about the great work they have done. since october of 2009, staff has been canvassing the city and has

had conversations with over 25,000 residents of san francisco and had over 7000 conversations with city businesses on a wide range of environmental issues. 7000 residents have been through this program, learning skills to been -- to build green urban forest sectors. their existing responsibilities were suspended for four days to be trained on the back ban issue. -- bag ban issue. we have staff on the team that speaks spanish, cantonese, mandarin, and [unintelligible] and were essential to reaching a diverse group of local businesses. each person explain to the representative on duty, and any merchants that have further questions or concerns were noted and followed up with by a program staff person from the

department. fliers in different languages were left behind and included the department of the environment's phone number to call for more information. these fires have been translated into spanish and chinese. overall, 11 districts were covered, talking with 901 businesses. to give you a sense of what we heard, here are three quotes from march's it -- from merchants who spoke to our staff. in district for a merchant said that he was happy for this extended legislation. for once, the city is doing good. mark from the liver decaffeinate told us that it was about time. "we stop using plastic bags a long time ago, and our paper bags are 100% recyclable." amy said "i am really excited that we are going forward with this, as i am committed to sustainability within small- business."

we are poised and ready to conduct a multilingual outreach campaign to merchants and consumers throughout san francisco over the next several -- seven months. it is being codified within the amendment and will contain back tears for merchants to connect with suppliers, as well as a bag giveaway program. although the final details are still being worked out, the department of the environment has set aside $20,000 to help those in need, as well as the community at large. we have received interest from a couple of corporate sponsors. the time has come for san francisco to catch up. there is great promise to reduce the amount of a single use bags

in the bay and streets. you will have the chance to regain leadership roles in the issue, making sure that san francisco continues to lead the way. thank you for the question, thank you for the opportunity to address you on this legislation. we are here to answer any question -- questions that you have. supervisor chiu: i am happy to hear that your department is willing to commit to a reusable bag program. this is something that i absolutely support and i am glad the you will be able to find the resources to get that done. one question the continued to rise from merchants on what folks would do, once the effective date of this legislation kicked in in october, there were confusions around what this legislation would permit. what would they do these of the merchants who do not have a lot

of plastic bags that they can use up? >> if and when this is passed, the first thing that we will do is raise awareness amongst merchants about the implementation date. we will be encouraging merchants to use up their existing inventory. the ones with excess inventory, we can work with merchants on a one-on-one basis to provide exemption. this is something that we have done with the food service where band, as well as other pieces of legislation. we have worked to make sure that money that's has been invested delicate wasted. supervisor chiu: this legislation has been in the works for months. i think that at this point, after several rounds of amendments, we are ready to move

forward. i hope that the board acts today. supervisor olague: i have a few talking points that i have prepared. i will read them verbatim. i am pleased to sponsor the ban on check out plastic bags. it would extend the ban on non- composed of all plastic bags to retail stores and encourage customers to reuse their bag. this will dramatically reduce the impact of hundreds of millions of disposable bags currently used in the city. the wind up as litter on the streets, trash in the day, and the harm marine life. it is a costly nuisance in our waste processing system.

as stewards, it is our responsibility to care for and impose safeguards, as we did in the adoption of the bird save building standards. i appreciate the response of the department of the environment to the concerns for my colleagues regarding outreach in the under- represented communities. the department reached out to many communities in all districts and contacted many merchant groups as well. still, this reminds us of the work that we must continue to do regarding outreach to the community's most impacted by the decisions we deliberate on here. i believe that we should consider adopting guidelines for to our most under- represented communities. our office will continue to work toward this goal. one of the questions we have heard is -- why charge 10 cents? experience around the world and here in california shows that

the only effective way to change the behavior of consumers is by instituting a charge. in los angeles, stores have seen an 85% reduction in bag used from charging 10 cents. this is common practice in many european and scandinavian countries. bringing it back to the market is part of the culture. our city economists said that retailers must be the prime beneficiary of the legislation. in addition, the reduction in plastic and paper bag use will reduce overhead costs, directly increasing the process. although a lot of hype has been given to the issue of green jobs, i hope that this legislation holds promise for spurring new opportunities for green businesses, creating new green job