>> please turn off your electronic equipment because it tends to interfere with the equipment in the room. let's

say the pledge of allegiance. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag to the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. mr. president i would you like to call roll. >> president mazzucco. >> present. >> vice president truman. >> i think he's in route. >>en route. commissioner marshall. en route. commisioner dejesus present. >> commissioner chan. >> present. >> commissioner kingsley. >> present. >> commissioner loftus. >> here. >> you have a quorum and with us is the chief of police and ms. frankel. >> welcome to the january 8, 2014 police commission meeting and we have pretty much a packed

agenda with a timely issue that will be discussed during the chief's report but without further adieu let's start with approval of minutes line item one. >> approval of the minutes for the dates so listed. >> commissioners you have the minutes in the packets. any changes or recommendations? >> move to approve. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> thank you. please call the next line item. item two. >> item two general public comment. the public is welcome to address the commission on items not on the agenda tonight but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. the speakers shall address the comments to the commission as a whole and not to commissioners or to personnel. under rules of order during public comment neither police or occ

commissioners are required to respond to the public but may provide a brief response. they should however refrain from entering into discussions with speakers during public comment. please limit the comments to three minutes. >> thank you. first speaker. good to see you again. >> good to see you as well. i am marina traily. you know i hate crime, terrorism and corruption. because you have a lot of people here to speak and it's only three minutes per person i'm going to make this as short as i can and i'm going to turn this paperwork into all of you so the police commissioners and greg suhr can review it. on october 3, 2012 i gave a letter to you mr. mazzucco and mr. greg suhr and regarding

terrorists and technology. thank you very much. i am asking to you read this asap. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. next speaker please. >> good evening commissioners. i am mark ruberg and a taxi driver and a spokesperson for the united taxi cap workers. i want to talk about a death of a child sophia lou the night of new eaves night in the tenderloin and the driver of the vehicle that struck her and her mother and brother was a driver for a company called hoover and you maybe familiar with uber,

but the company put out the word after this accident took place that they would not be responsible for this accident because the driver was not providing service on their system at the time. the driver was logged in and by his admission was looking for a ride at the time. california public utilities commission calls these personal ride service tnc. we call them illegal taxis and that's an issue to be decided. it is required for them to have a million dollars in liability insurance but the statements are ambiguity and uber is not taking respond for the accident and the policy is a secret and it's fair to presume it doesn't cover the situation

and others have similar policies when they don't cover accidents when there is no person in the vehicle and the personal insurance won't accident the accident and they have told them the insurance policies exclude from claims for vehicles transports passengers for a charge so there maybe no insurance in this situation. every minute one of these vehicles is on the road without a passenger it's driving around without insurance. that's the upshot of this, and we believe that the department has probable cause to stop any such vehicle from operating without insurance. it's not the whole of it. keep in mind there were no markings on this vehicle indicated it was a tnc. if the driver didn't admit they were

working for uber they wouldn't be the wiser and in most instances the driver's interest is to hide the fact as to not personalize the personal insurance and their job with the tnc so when the police are called to a accident in a personal car it's maybe a vehicle riding around without insurance and the person is want admitting to it and i think you need to do what you need to do within your powers to stop this from happening. >> thank you very much. there is a taxi commission that deals with this. we're the police commission. and i apologize. you bring up good points and the police department has some powers but that lies with the taxi commission. >> may i briefly respond to say -- thank you. >> thank you. i am carl mc

muir also a career taxi driver. i'm going to respond to it then. >> thank you. >> thank you. this is an enforcement issue. if insurance fraud is committed and it's parent and you're advised we think the police should pullover the police committing the fraud and the insurance in california has written an opinion there is no coverage if something has a pink mustache on the car they need insurance and we know 95 of the vehicle don't have it so the fraud is out there but they have just a few investigators state wide for this. i was in dialogue with sheriff mirkarimi as well and shares jurisdiction in matters such as this -- excuse me. during the nine months and i sent you the

lengthy email and i apologize for that and the companies and the term they came up with are private vehicles -- they're really de facto taxis but they will take years to litigate that issue that these are valid and allowed but in any event we know these people don't have workers' comp. we think they don't have liability insurance. they don't train the drivers. the vehicles weren't inspected. one of the colleagues had a side car and based the vehicle on a photograph, no one lookinga the tires or under the hood. these vehicles don't meet cleanirra standards like ceqa. they don't have ada compliance, et cetera and as was pointed out uber is distancing themselves and the vague language that puc made and the driver is providing service

at the time of the accident so that leaves the public without any protection. i do want to say that the economy of the taxi industry is completely being eviscerated and if the city had a corner store every three blocks and the proprietor makes a living and the neighborhood gets served but this will cannibalize itself with our industry and it's an extraneous point and selling the taxi medallions and the millions of dollars and whatever money was taken from the -- taken off the taxi drivers pails in compare if this program fails. >> again it's a puc issue, a taxi commission issue and officers as enforcement issue if they don't have insurance they

should be pulled over but the officers aren't clairvoyant and can't guess about it and i am trying to help you out on this. >> i want to clarify the taxi commission was replaced by mta. >> yes. thank you. >> hi. my name is john hahn. i'm a san francisco taxi driver as well i and understand the probable cause about pulling somebody over. it's just the reason why we believe it's within the authority of the san francisco police department to pullover identifiable tnc vehicle because that personal federations and insurance associations have publicly stated when a private vehicle is used commercially for the "ride share services" that they

don't have applicable personal insurance so when you see a car driving around acting like a transportation vehicle for hire, and they have the tnc markings like a pink mustache or orange cover mirror or something like that it's a very reasonable assumption and fair and reasonable to assume they don't have liability insurance and it seems to us reasonable that pulling them over to ask them "are you aware that a vehicle like this should have commercial insurance?" or whatever. what we want is these -- we would like the police departments or the sfmta or both to have communication with insurance companies because i don't understand the kind of a business model where people have to conduct business on the sly. that seems like it's an illegal business model to me because the majority of these drivers who

are performing these services are not disclosing to their insurance companies that they're actually out there providing these commercial services. if they did disclose it likely they would drop the coverage and we think the police department does have some reasonable cause and jurisdiction to pl them over, so we hope you really consider that. it's a matter of public safety. what we have as a result is a tragic accident on new years eve which not only the uber company that the man was driving for is going to deny liability it's most likely that the personal insurance company that was covering that man's vehicle will also deny the claim and that's what this inaction is going to leave victims in this kind of a position. >> thank you. and we all share your concerns. chief, would

you like to chime in on this at all? >> well, again i share the commission's concern. i understand how contentious this issue is but it seems to me it's a tough distinction for the officers to make, so if they're driving and not engaged they're on their own insurance and by the discussion we're hearing now when they have a passenger then whoever the tnc is saying they are insurance by that person so this is tough distinction for officers to make on the fly and i know this is in court over the whole matter, so i think right now with what we're having with pedestrian safety and bicycle safety the officers have plenty to do with those folks while this is settled in the court. >> may i have the overhead projector please? >> thank you chief.

>> sure. >> i'm barry [inaudible] and president of the san francisco taxicab association. i realize this isn't the taxicab commission but this is a public issue. this is a statement for the personal insurance federation of california to the proceeding on this matter. she issued a statement similar to this as far back as january and if you wondered if probable cause when you see a car with a mustache, side car thing. there's lots of identifiable ways to identify these and passengers getting in and out and have a personal plate. that's probable cause they don't have commercial insurance. this statement says they're not insured by the personnel policies and they're not obviously telling the companies this and to get an idea how many vehicles there are our association has been collecting

plate numbers we observed providing this service including several hundred pictures and we've collected over 3,000 different plates. all right. there is only 1850 cabs in the city. all right. this is causing extreme extra added congestion and danger to the public. these people are looking at their cell phones and texting and looking for an order and i suspect that is what happened with the accident and this is a public safety issue. if nothing is done and the city knowingly knows this i think they should be held for the financial responsibility for this and uber fails to take responsibility and the insurance companies aren't going to cover this. these people are providing taxi service and calling them anything but taxis to avoid regulations. they're breaking the law and they're only

getting away with it because of the millions of dollars of venture capital behind them, and just because the mayor is getting contributions from the companies it is no reason for the police department to ignore law enforcement and public safety and it makes it more dangerous for us too. it's like having 3,000 rookie cab drivers out there. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon -- even police commissioners. i am john burgeon and represent the african commission. i want to show you this. on january 1 i picked this sign to illustrate what happened to my car on

may 19, 2005 parked about 40 feet from the entrance at 547 page street in the district matthew gonzalez supervised. between the hours of two and 6:00 a.m. my car was vandalized and driven across the bridge towards richmond and totaled. i made the comments before the san francisco board of supervisors. barack h obama and whose father and american mother hasn't kept the circumcision abraham made with lincoln. he would have to be circumcised or face the judgment in africa concerning the 1995 millennium development goals. c, kenya national examinations council republic ex parte [inaudible] and others

civil appeal 266 of 1996. on october 29, 2012 i reiterated the statements of the november electionses of 2012 -- 2008 and 2012. barack h hussein obama want me dead and the 12 apostles. the individuals above have been on a mission in san francisco to forestall conflicts in africa of a black president. in the united states despite glaring irregular airities and go to the african review mechanism and have been in san francisco

facing challenges including accessing health care, housing while fulfilling the missions of their community faith based organizations and also personal commitments. the winter shelter homeless program was initiated this year and it's apparent to me that a newen burg style trial is happening in san francisco and after the world war and united nations and israel and the rights of disabilities enforced disappearance of all persons. thank you. >> next speaker. >> good evening. >> good evening. how are you? >> i am jordan engel. my family has a building on broadway and owned it per 150 years. david chiu has introduced legislation

that would put a moratorium of liquor licenses in that neighborhood. this is classicically an entertainment district and the oldest west of the mississippi river and this will increase blight in the neighborhood. it's increasing vacancies and crime and dark street at night and doesn't help anything in the neighborhood, the residents, property owners or help the economic problems happening on broadway and i am bringing it to your attention hoping that the police commission will not support this initiative. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening. i am steplow [inaudible] and a consultant in san francisco and i have done extensive research on the broadway corridor in the last year and a half which i will provide you an independent study on 147 pages of police

incidents reports, so r so call -- so-called cad reports and where problems are and calls for service and the pattern of behavior. what i would like to see is troubled youth, gang bangers who come to broadway not to come taw. they bring weapons. they are predatorries. they drain resources. police have to deal with the troubled youth. they don't take authority well or listen and provide disorderly conduct. the area of course through the neon and the 200 girls that work on the street what is a attractive nuisance and a public nuisance and drains our resources. what i would like to see there are eight strip clubs on that corridor. they're the adult entertainment industry. i would like to see all of the clubs come under the purview of the entertainment commission and have a standard

of conditions and there has to be checks and balances. the strip clubs had it their way for too long and do what they want for too long and this is a systemic problem. there are stewards of broadway trying to do different things and this moratorium -- they don't work. we often lift them because they don't work. we have a conditional use process. we have other processes. we have vet it in that nature. it's a contributory system that is contributing to the problem. weaver all part of the problem. we all need to be part of the solution but it's too far gone to have this conversation. now there are major incident reports that i have uncovered that have not been publicked that i will not discuss publicly and i do will it off line and i don't want to point figures or anything else and we can handle

and manage this. there needs to be businesses down there, a better demographic of people, like the tasa cave a and other people will bring good energy and the lounge will bring good energy and bring them together bring the demographic together and discourage the youth from being there and it's a mature place and not good for their well being. thank you. >> thank you: hi barry. long time no see. >> hi. good evening. happy new year. barry toronto. i haven't been here in ages. what spurred me to come here the night of the 49er game my last fare was two young black males and i trust the them and they got out of the cab and started to disappear. i called the cops. officer ma badge number 1653 shows up --

thank god he showed up. he said "i'm not doing anything for you. it's a civil matter. i'm not doing anything for you:" . civil matter? i don't know who to sue. it's a robbery. he said "go to hell. i'm not doing a damn thing for you." this is what you want. this is like i should be a racist and not trust the police and they don't care. they don't care what happens to us. a little girl is killed by an illegal taxi and they're not doing anything and how many the pedestrians and how about dealing with this and go through

the department of transportation and doj like we do. i agree. you can't just check the insurance but you could issue double parking tickets and in the middle of the block waiting for hours for the fare and getting a no go, 5-10 dollars for no show -- and fine them and you may not like this during the prime hours on castro on 18th and market this issue and thousands of illegal u-turns in the middle of the black. i see thousands a night -- well, i am exaggerating -- but lots of these guys flaunting the law. i saw one want using the hazard lights or anything to go back on to franklin. they don't care about following the law like cab drivers do. we are required to

follow the law but officer ma can careless if people break the law. i was told to go to the occ. but you know what? it's hard to contact them. i need a form and get a letter saying provide me more information. it's a hassle. there has to be a better way to deal with officers that pick on us instead of working with us. i think you should honor the officers that worked hard at the 49er games dealing with traffic control and the illegal taxis and limousines and the officers out there and their time at candlestick. thank you for your time. >> is there someone from the occ? i know since you took the time to be here tonight. samra is from the occ and we want you to make it easy to talk to them and make a complaint. we want

to look into what you allege happen because that isn't supposed to happen. >> thank you. next speaker. >> i am mary mcguire and a taxi driver and former taxi commissioner for seven years, sat there every other tuesday. i do have faith in the police department. if you can't have faith in the police where would we be, but your department, your officers -- they can't do their job if you don't give them the tools and it's to you to give the tools to do the enforcement. there is stuff you can do. these guys are texting. texting is part of the business model and i think that's why the accident happened the other night. a witness said he told the police he had the phone in his lap, probably