and security ordinance with the affordable care act, and to advise city officials on how to ensure that san francisco gets the greatest possible benefit under the new federal law. i'm happy to report, as you know, that there was broad agreement among the council's members that the two laws were complementary and that the healthy san francisco and the city's employee health care spending requirement should continue to coexist with the aca under the new federal framework. the council, however, did not attempt to reach a collective conclusion norrish you collective finding regarding specific data nor recommendationses that were raised by different participants. in fact, instead of doing that, the council completed its efforts by compiling and reporting the contributions of the department of public health staff and stakeholder groups

and leaving it to the mayor and this body, the board of supervisors, to decide whether or not any changes to a health and security ordinance are warranted. and in the spirit of that work, i think it's imperative that we as an entity, we a a board of supervisors carefully look at the pictures that are needed. ~ as a the council's report makes it clear that the healthy san francisco program and the employer health care spending requirements put the city in a unique position to lead the nation in helping the aca achieve its fullest potential. san francisco is in the best position of any other city to make sure that a many people have access to health care as possible. to maximize that access, however, there are several thing that need to happen. i look forward between now and the time we introduce this ordinance and in the next coming weeks as we move forward

with a discussion and review of the ordinance to have and engage in a discussion with all of you about the best way to maximize access. i do want to point out a couple of points that i think you should know are fundamental to what the ordinance will try to do. first, we must now and finally close the loophole that has allowed a minority of san francisco businesses to use stand alone healthy american investment accounts to avoid the majority of the spending requirement in the law. while the aca out lawed stand alone hras, employers have created a new mechanism. it's called an accepted benefits hra that will allow these employers to continue to claw back up used money in worker accounts. arguably, the accepted benefits hra, this new tool that has

been created, is more harmful to the worker under stand alone hra because workers under the accepted benefits hra are explicitly prohibited from using money in the account to pay their share of premiumses, deductibles, co-payments and other costs associated with carrying health insurance. therefore, while individuals for the first time in our history in other parts of the country have a federal mandate to purchase insurance, these individuals in san francisco, they will not be able to use money and accept the benefits hra to meet their mandate. the fact is particularly problematic because the most authoritative study on the subject projects that without access to the resources he made available by the employer, health care spending requirement, 40% or more of san franciscans eligible for subsidy -- for subsidized health insurance coverage under

the aca will not be able to take it until 2019, 40%. almost half the city. and this is primarily due to the lack of funds, which is especially acute given the profound affordability crisis we face in san francisco. affordability is not just about housing. it's certainly about health care. without access to these funds for the purposes of paying costs related to the purchase of subsidized coverage through cover california, many low-income and middle income san franciscans will not only go without health insurance they need and deserve, but much of the cost of their care will fall back onto the city's public health system and safety providers san francisco taxpayers. as a result it is critical now more than ever that we eliminate this incentive, this perverse incentive for employers to use accepted benefits hras in the hopes of

evading their obligation by requiring that they -- that only irrevocable expenditures will count towards meeting the employer health care spending requirement here in san francisco. the second point that i want to make is that we also have a unique opportunity to [speaker not understood] public benefits program under the health and security ordinance to maximize the number of san franciscans that purchase health insurance and to create a needed wrap around program for medi-cal receipts. one of the unique strengths of the san francisco city option is that because it is a public benefit program, worker can use city medical reimbursement accounts to pay for premiums, deductibles, co-payments and other costs associated with carrying health insurance coverage through cover california without actually disqualifying them from federal subsidies under the aca. during the process thats was followed by the universal health care council, staff and the mayor's office, the

department of public health, and the city attorney's office vetted the question with federal officials, and i believe that they were all satisfied that the city mra funds could be used for these purposes. because of that, i have asked the city attorney's office to explore how we can best codify the structure of the city option as receipts of employer funds and assignment of enrollees to receipt sets of benefits with the aim of ensuring that the funds are most efficiently used to encourage enrollment and health insurance and to provide useful benefits to medi-cal beneficiaries. the third point that i want to make is that while the combination of the aca and the hcso have the potential to make health insurance truly affordable in san francisco, coverage will remain unfortunately unaffordable for significant numbers of individuals beyond the most frequently cited group of undocumented immigrants who are

categorically excluded for -- from eligibility for subsidies. as tom ammiano said, there will be people who simply will not be able to afford to enroll in the aca. therefore, i have asked the city attorney's office to clarify eligibility requirements for healthy san francisco to ensure that the program remains open not only to the city's undocumented residents, but to other groups of immigrants who are excluded from subsidized exchange coverage. medi-cal and medicare, to ensure that it's accessible to dependents who are disqualified for exchange subsidies because their family members have received offers of affordable individual coverage, payer with unaffordable dependent coverage and to other individuals who are exempt from the individual mandate provisions of the aca. the final point, final principle that will be at the heart of this ordinance is that in order to maximize the uptick

of health insurance recover california, the legislation will direct the department of public health to educate employer and employees more urgently on the options available for them to utilize employer's required contributions and access federal subsidies towards that end. i am confident that we will be able to close this loophole this time. i believe that all of us share in what mayor lee has said should be the objective when it comes to health care in san francisco, to maximize affordable quality health insurance coverage for all san francisco residents and employees. i look forward to a robust and productive dialogue over the coming weeks. i look forward to your input. and, again, i want to thank my staff, specifically hillary ronan, the city attorney's office, the department of public health, and so many people including the coalition that brought us universal health care for all their input. i am confident that in the

midst of this affordability crisis that we will make sure that access to health care remains affordable to all san franciscans. the rest i submit. >> thank you, supervisor campos. supervisor cohen. >> thank you. thank you very much. 18%, 18% of 3 to 4 year olds that are enrolled in our [speaker not understood] programs in san francisco were actually obese last year. ~ head start programs. so, today i'm going to call for a hearing on the impact of chronic diseaseses that are related to consumption of sugary sweetened beverages and san francisco's low-income communities. and, you know, recently there's been a lot of dialogue about how diabetes impact our youth and our families nationwide as well as city-wide. but as many of us can attest, chronic disease he related to the consumption of soda and sugary sweetened beverages really hit low-income and minority communities

particularly hard. these diseases include but are not limited to heart disease, tooth decay, liver damage, and obesity. now, i'm sure many of us have seen the [speaker not understood] impacts of sugary beverages on neighborhoods, probably even inside your own personal families. and we know that in recent years that the bayview hunters point neighborhood had more diabetes related emergency room visits than any other neighborhoods in san francisco. so, as you see there is a theme here. supervisor campos is introducing consideration for a measure that will address health care. i am asking for a hearing that will begin to help to address health care disparities. we need to start to do more, rolling up our sleeves, and making sure our walk and our talk are in line with each other. it is my hope this hearing will help us understand the correlation between chronic diseases and the low-income communities in san francisco.

i also hope that the hearing will help shed light on the prevalence, the impacts and more importantly, the cost of these diseases on the most impacted neighborhoods across the city. the rest, madam clerk, i submit. thank you. >> thank you, supervisor cohen. supervisor farrell. >> thank you, madam clerk. colleagues, last summer as we start to dive into spending and what we've done in the city around the homeless population, i requested the legislative analyst put together a report designed to understand where we're spending our money in san francisco for homeless services with also comparisons with other jurisdictions that have a sizeable homeless population both inside and outside of california. today i'm releasing that report. i do believe that an order significantly impact the homelessness in san francisco, we need to under how [speaker not understood] and this report helps us do just this.

i wanted to get this report out today because it served for me an unbuysed base to understand more about the services we provide today as a city. as a starting point to analyze areas where we can improve. the report highlights strides in the city to reduce the homeless population and also highlights that our population over the last 10 years has remained the same. i will continue to say that i believe we need data driven solutionses to significantly impact the homeless population here in san francisco and this report is real data and real facts about the homeless services we currently provide. i hope this report serves as a base of understanding as we move into budget season and begin to make decisions about how we're going to allocate resources for the homeless population. i am also requesting that our budget and legislative analyst produce an annex to this report. there will be a thorough examination for the costs and subsidy -- cost and subsidy variation in our supportive housing programs and units city-wide. the report will also analyze tenant outcomes in the front

end assessment that happens in our supportive housing programs as well as intaking compliance criteria for entry into supportive housing. a previous controller's report irish to youed to theactionv supervisor mirkarimi, found targeted investments into supportive housing generated significant cost saving but specifically mentioned they lacked a greater analysis of the issues i mentioned. we are working with the budget and legislative analyst to help us make beter and data driven decisions about [speaker not understood]. i know our department of public health, the human services agency, along with our supportive housing providers do a fantastic job today, but more analyst is needed to help improve tenant outcomes in the supportive housing programs. i look forward to sharing this report and the additional report i have requested for my budget and legislative analyst and the rest i submit. >> thank you, supervisor farrell. supervisor kim. >> thank you.

i just wanted to add my [speaker not understood] support for legislation that supervisor campos is drafting today and looking forward to renewed discussion on closing the loophole for our health care security ordinance. as you know, we had a spirited discussion three years ago on this issue. one that i was actually really divided about throughout the debate, but came at the end to decide that this was incredibly important for so many of our workers, particularly in our restaurant industry. this loophole is long, long overdue and i support the efforts to close it. and i am excited to see the details of the legislation and looking forward to -- with supervisor campos to make health care health insurance affordable for all san franciscans. and the rest i submit. >> thank you, supervisor kim. supervisor mar. >> thank you, madam clerk. colleagues, last week i chaired a hearing, it was a very heated hearing on the rapid growth of

uber type private vehicles on our streets. also known as ride share companies or, quote-unquote, transportation network companies or tncs. at the hearing, chair campos, supervisor yee, supervisor avalos and i learned that the convenience that so many san franciscans are enjoying with these types of vehicles is coming at a price to the public safety and the city's economy. with up to 4,000 additional private vehicles, cars driving people in uber and vehicleseses throughout the city without proper insurance, drivers, passengerseses and pedestrians alike face significant ~ safety risks. and when medical costs aren't covered by insurance, it strains local public health system to make up the difference. this new unregulated industry or as some of us call it a wild west of additional cars on our city streets, it pose he many

challenges and the issues are extremely complex based on state policy and local policy as well ~. i believe we don't need to trade convenience for safety and we could achieve both. but i think we must study the costs and the impacts of these so-called tncs and figure how they best fit in within our existing transportation system. so, with the co-sponsorship of supervisors campos and avalos, we are asking the budget and legislative analyst office to study two thing. one, the fiscal impacts of collisions involveding uninsured or underinsured tncs on the city and, two, what policies of other cities consider not just seattle, but perhaps other cities are enacted to mitigate the impacts of these so-called tncs. we want san franciscans to enjoy high quality and safe service and we believe we can have both. so, i look forward to continuing the conversation and learning more about the complex issue. a we he craft legislation for accountability, transparency, and most of all, public safety as the new industry of uberses

and other type vehicles expands in our city. ~ also, i wanted to alert people that traffic danger and pedestrian safety issues haven't been only occurring in other districts, but in the richmond district, it's been one of the critical issues of many of us in district 1. last night at about 5:15 p.m., a five-year old child and one adult were struck right outside the golden gate park senior center on 37th and fulton, and my office has been working with residents in that area for quite a while to try to calm traffic, but it's another example of how i believe the city must deliver safety projects much, much faster and the vision zero [speaker not understood] and transportation first are good steps, but i want to keep urging the [speaker not understood] to be

proactive as we slow the number of collisionses and make our streets safer. also i wanted to commend supervisor campos for continuing to advocate and to show leadership on health equity for all of our neighborhoods and for low wage workers, especially around the health care security ordinance. we have an unprecedented opportunity to make health insurance of covered california truly affordable to san francisco workers. i'm hopeful that we can coordinate the health care security ordinance and our affordable care act together in order to increase the number of insured san franciscans. i'm continuing to support supervisor campos and others'ertionv to close the loophole and i'll continue to do soughtv so, thank you to supervisor campos for introducing that. ~ to do so also, as supervisor cohen alerts us of the dangers of obesity and diabetes and other health problems from unhealthy foods and drinks, junk drinks,

i think the anecdote often has been not only increased healthy and affordable food access or taking on big companies that promote and market to our kids and communities, but also it's promoting physical fitness in our neighborhoods. in the richmond district coming up on saturday, we're having the city's mobile rec coming to one of our newly renovated parks in the richmond district. it's the folsom playground and it's from 11:00 to 2:00 p.m. i challenged my colleagues on the board and your staffs as well to learn how to skateboard with me. i'll claim the rock climbing structure with you as well, but i want you to come out and join us as we have a fun day with rec and park staff and others to really look at how we can increase physical fitness and activity within our neighborhoods. so, join us on saturday. also, it's the san francisco

unified school district youth arts festival coming up from march 15th through the 23rd at the asian art museum. and thanks so much to jay and his staff for accommodating the great young artists from our school district and all the schools in san francisco. it really shows what creativity has been generated from our arts education work in the school district and throughout the city. for the past 28 years, the unique san francisco event, young and art, formerly young and art, ha brought together families, teachers, artists and others to make sure that our city can be proud of our supportive arts education. i also wanted to say that 30 years ago i was an intern with an organization that's now become cam, the center for asian american media. it was formerly called the national asian american telecommunications association, quite a long term, name. and supervisor campos and i are

both -- or supervisor chiu and i are both attending the kickoff this coming thursday for the asian american film festival. and i wanted to let my colleagues know that it's running from march 13th through march 23rd and it's at many locations in the bay area, including the castro theater, the kabuke cinemas, new people cinema in japantown, nihamache, unique places david chiu's district great star theater in chinatown as well. the great stars had deep roots in chinatown showing movies since the '20s. it will be a treat to see movies in that old theater again. also, one of the film showing that i'm looking forward to is on sunday, march 16th at the castro. it's a film by a film maker grace lee. it's called american revolutionary, the evolution of grace lee boggs. 98 year old grace lee bogs, many of us met her. i met her 20 years ago the a conference at ucla people conference. she is an amazing

activist in detroit creating gardens, bringing together african-american and chinese immigrant population. she is an amazing person with energy like crazy. i'm happy the films come together with the support of danny glover, so many who helped grace lee make this movie. i urge you to join us for film like that and many others that are coming. i wanted to finish by saying that my colleague, john avalos, and i'm happy it's john avalos day today, and he joins the over 50 club that norman yee has been in for quite a few years. and i joined quite a while ago, but i'm not going to tell you how long ago. but it's nice to have a third colleague in the over 30 club. but i wanted to say, too, that to avalos, i think 50 is the new 30, but i would ask you not to follow jeraldo rivera's lead

in taking selfies of yourself. [laughter] >> [speaker not understood] our colleague, john avalos. and i'll explain them in a minute. i think some in the crowd celebrating john's byerthctiontion day last night were calling him the latino george clooney ~. the latino george clooney, the actor, right. i think that is at the national level i see -- i think that's an insult to our colleague supervisor avalos because i think his leadership with local progress at the national level with city council people and county supervisors and local leaders is tremendous. he's acknowledged from all the cities around the country as an amazing, amazing leader who builds policy from the grassroots and from the bottom up. he also is strongly supported

by grassroots network here of many community based organizations. i view the george clooney comment as an insult. but i think john avalos is more like, i would call him like a senior version of zap [speaker not understood] so i'm giving you one of my favorite compilations. it's live and rare cuts of [speaker not understood]. his colleague from l.a. area. the other thing that i'm giving him, i see avalos as more of a nerdy of herb alpert. when my house burned down and i lost my turntable, i remember we went through my album collection and john took quite a few of my albums. this is a really important one. it's herb alpert's lonely boy album. i think avalos will kind of understand the [speaker not understood] there. but i think if he had to choose

[speaker not understood], his partner and his kid rene and [speaker not understood], i think john really wants to be the latino [speaker not understood] and if he could, lead efforts like the clash ha led over the years [speaker not understood]. so, a gateway kind of version of the clashes from london to jamaica, too. but i think john encompasses art and creativity and brings so much progressive leadership to our city and i just wanted to thank you on john avalos day with these three gifts. so, thank you so much, john. thank you. the rest i'll submit. (applause) >> thank you, supervisor mar. supervisor avalos. >> well, thank you, supervisor mar. thats was really sweet. i didn't realize i was that nerdy, but i do really like herb alpert. maybe that makes me nerdy, i don't know.

don't have much to say about that, but just thank you. [laughter] >> i wanted to thank supervisor campos for his effort around closing the loophole around the [speaker not understood]. that was business that was left unfinished back a couple years ago. i think it's really significant that we make sure that we can have complementary program here locally with the affordable care act at the national level. and i look forward to the work around that. the rest i'll submit. >> thank you, supervisor avalos. supervisor kim. >> thank you. i actually in my role call forgot to say happy birthday to my colleague, and now my new next door neighbor. i'm going to take a selfy of us sitting together. supervisor mar, you should have been in the [speaker not understood] last night. that was great. i just want to also just add on my words of my appreciation for

you, john. i think we've now worked together for 10 years, first meeting -- we were starting to work together back in 2004. and, so, to have a ten-year history with someone on this board, i've been working on so many different issues, actually health care was one of the first issues you worked on 10 years ago, diminishing youth violence and reaching our public schools. so many different efforts, and i'm proud to stand with you today. and i do appreciate your leadership and your service. and i think so many of us on this board -- a lot of things that we do, but the one thing i consistently hear about you, john, is how authentic you are and how honest you are and direct, and that you always stand where you are. and that's something that even with individuals that don't agree with your perspective, it's often what i hear that everyone respects about you most. so, happy birthday, john. i'm looking forward to joining your club one day.

not soon, but one day. [laughter] >> i'll be the one, but i just appreciate your history as an organizer, working as a legislative aide and now here on the board of supervisors continue to support the people. happy birthday. >> thank you, supervisor kim. mr. president, that concludes roll call for introduction of new business. >> thank you. ladies and gentlemen, why don't we now go to general public comment. >> at this time the public may comment generally for up to two minutes on item within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board including the policy discussion between the honorable mayor and the board and item on the adoption without reference to committee calendar. please note the public comment is not allowed on those item which have already been subject to public comment by a board committee. please direct your remarks to the board as a whole, not to individual supervisors nor to the audience. speakers using translation assistance will be allowed twice the amount of time to

testify. and if you would like a document to be displayed on the overhead projector, please clearly state such to sfgov-tv and remove the document when the screen should return to live coverage of the meeting. >> thank you. let's hear from our first speaker. good afternoon, i'm peter wolf, executive director of library users association. on supervisor avalos's 50th birthday, all i can say is for many years, my dad on the occasion of various birthdays would say to me, wow, nobody gets that old. [laughter] today's topic is new and more illegalities officially recognized at the library by the sunshine task force. last wednesday, march 5th, the sunshine ordinance task force voted unanimously 7 to nothing that the library commission had held an unlawful secret meeting in violation of san francisco's open government law.

i might remind this body that you -- the sunshine ordinance is the official launch pad for the city on open government matters and all of the members are appointed by you, the supervisors. this finding is on a complaint filed by my group, library users association, following a hunch or curiosity on some public records request. the library commission committed essentially an illegality upon an illegality. it discussed a letter and agreed to send it to a newspaper that was working on a story about friends of groups, including friends of san francisco public library. and what did this letter say? well, it was written to support the city librarian luis herrera with respect to his acknowledge many of unlawful filingses to the california state fair