communities of color. thank you. >> hello supervisors. my name is cathy black and i'm the executive director at las casas de la madres. we're pleased and proud to support the nomination of sonia melara to the san francisco police commission. sonia started something big in the city that would change the course of history for women and their children seeking violence--free lives. in the face of opposition they started one of the world's first shelters for victims of domestic violence and from there a remarkable movement took off. addressing public safety and public health issues associated with domestic violence crimes have been a hallmark of sonia's career. as the department of department on the status of women she created a safer san francisco

by supporting programs aimed at reducing domestic violence. many of those programs actively collaborate with law enforcement. at both areas she changed the lives of many by developing and implementing programs that provided economic empowerment and that is for many the way out of poverty and violence. sonia has attracted much-needed federal department of justice dollars to san francisco that address safety -- addresses safety of families struggling with high conflict issues including child abuse and domestic violence. in this work she has convened law enforcement, probation, the courts, communication organizations to address safety of adult victims and their children as they navigate the family court systems. sonia has a keen understanding of how the city and the county of san francisco works and she strives to provide a city that is healthy and safe for all. and i really urge you to unanimously support her

nomination. thank you. >> honorable supervisors, i'm dr. edward chou, president of the health commission and speaking here as an individual and sharing my experience. sonia has been with us for five years and she has left her mark with us as both president, vice president, and in her roles as committee member of the health department. i think you have already heard here today why it this would be important, because that asset, coming to bring a health perspective along with her social background and with her very strong interest in immigrant rights and for the poor and for the underserved will add an asset and balance to our police commission. in

fact,, i see that she could, in fact, help bridge between commissions in the city and improve our understanding and our working relationships. we already do work with the police department in many areas as you know. in order to achieve our goals in trying to work on behalf of the mentally ill and to work on behalf of our citizens, we have collaborated with the police department in many areas. i would hope that with commissioner melara on the police commission, we would be able to help develop the same type of relationships or even an improvement of that beyond what we currently have with the fire department and with supervisor campos work on the health planning that we have put in place working together with the planning department. i therefore urge the support of

her nomination put forth to the full board this coming several weeks. thank you very much. >> thank you, dr. chou. gabriel medina. >> thank you, members of the rules committee. my name is gabriel medina and i wanted to speak on behalf of sonia melara for her appointment and support to the police commission. i can attest that sonia has great and longstanding history with latino community in san francisco and that is a voice that we need an additional voice on the police commission, in issues that have been occuring lately. i know commissioner melara is very sensitive not just from her work with the casa de la madres and where i met mer many, many years ago. so i

would urge this committee to approve her appointment. i know that as a member of the latino community, i look forward to having this additional voice on our behalf on the commission. in addition, to the work of commissioner dejesus. thank you very much. >> thank you. last -- it could be the last up, i really want to apologize, i didn't notice dr. morassi is the executive director of san francisco department of status of women. >> good afternoon members of the rules committee. i had a prepared statement, but sonia melara's opening statement was so comprehensive i don't want to repeat that itch . and that is on the issue of human trafficking, which supervisor katy tang has really led and i wanted to follow up

on commissioner su's remarks because she co-chairs the collaborative against human trafficking. when the police department shifted prostitution from vice crimes to special victims unit was really a seismic shift in terms of addressing this issue. and one of the very creative ideas that is coming up, we are convening sex wockers social service agencies and victim survivors on how to tackle this issue is to look at the safety of trafficked victims and sonia melara when she was executive director led the effort on the theory that all women are entitled to safety.

and so one of the ideas that is percolating up is having police officers distribute information about predators, about bad dates, that may be circulating around and to really give some valuable information to those who are in the sex industry. but her very deep involvement and understanding of domestic violence is really key to helping to solve the human trafficking issue, because many of the folks who are trafficked do not believe their pimp is creating a crime. they feel very loyal to them and it's very much the dynamics of domestic violence/intimate partner violence. so i feel very strongly that adding sonia melara to the police commission will be very important. >> thank you doctor.

any more public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. thank you to the public for making these comments and your testimony means a lot. i also want to thank commissioner melara for her statement. i felt it was very well-done, shows your passion to do this work and certainly what i have heard in your statements is the connection between your past experiences and how it could be a very useful and helpful to the police commission. so commissioner tang. >> thank you, supervisor yee. again, i want to thank you everyone who came out. i think i have seen many very

well-respected communities members here who are in support of miss medical examiner yawn melara and thank you very much for coming out. i am very supportive of this nomination and we heard the depth and breadth that they bring she brings. really public safety is hot just about law enforcement it's about so many other things. it's about as we mentioned about health, the health community, it's about issues that touch upon law enforcement such as domestic violence or human trafficking. you know, she brings also to the table her social worker background. also, i don't think she mentioned this, but she did run a city department. so the police commission is an oversight body and certainly,

in that perspective, has run a department and understands that sometimes there are some things that you need to do to help improve the department's internal process as well. more than that, it's about despite the fact that the police commission an oversight body, how we can really get all the members to work together with our community partners? because that is the only way to improve how the department operates. you bring a holistic background and experience that will really round out and compliment well the existing orientation of the commission. so i would really like to support you and make a motion to send sonia melara with full recommendation to the board of supervisors. >> supervisor campos. >> thank you, mr. chair and i want to thank all of the members of the community for coming out and to sonia melara for her interest. i have worked with sonia melara

and we have met and worked with a number of issues. one thing that we hadn't really done was to have a conversation about the issues that were raised during the discussion today involving the police department. we have talked in the context of health care. so when sonia met with me, what i said to her and what i will continue to say around an appointment to the police commission is that what the community those say about that is really important. because in the end the whole point of civilian oversight is to make sure that the time to find out where people is now and not once they get to a commission. but having said that, i do

appreciate the fact that sonia melara reached out to community folks to talk about some of the issues that we discussed. and the fact that there are people from this community that are coming out to support her, for me, you know, addresses any question in terms of her connection to community on these particular issues. i am encouraged also by not only her experience, her work, but the fact this is an understanding of the need to bring the police department even closer to this community, especially when you have a community like the mission as an example. where the community itself took it upon itself to come up with a five-year plan. i think you have to respond to that and acknowledge how critical that is, because when the community wants to be involved and being part of the

solution, i think that we in government should be excited about that. so i look forward to working with commissioner melara on that. and you know, i think on the issue of tasers, it's one of those things, where i think the main thing is that you speak to different people and that you have an understanding of the concerns. so with that i'm happy to support the motion by supervisor tang. i do think that the police commission is one of those positions that because it cuts across so much different areas that community involvement is really key. there is a reason why this is one of the few commissions that actually meets every week, because you want it to be connected to the community. thank you and i look forward to working with you. >> there is a motion on the floor, with no objection, then the motion passes, congratulations. [ gavel ]

[ applause ] >> madame clerk, can you please call item no. 3. >> item no. 3 is the motion confirming the mayor's appointof gwyneth borden to the municipal transportation agency board of directors for the unexpired [kpo-rgs/] of 4-year term ending march 1,2018. >> miss borden, please come up to the mic. chair yee, supervisors campos and tang, thank you very much for hearing this motion for my appointment to the mta. i am so proud for the opportunity to have served these past six years as a planning commissioner for the city and county of san francisco. those of you who have worked with me know i'm very passionate about land use issues and the things that matter in terms of creating a strong community. to me, the transit agency is the most vital part of the overall network that we are

look at. the connection between land use and transportation is often lost and every week for the last six years we have talked and pondered neighborhood plans and community plans and developments, based upon our transportation infrastructure and our plans for the future. i feel it's my opportunity, if i were appointed to this commission, to make that connection and make sure that those things happen. we all think that we have a great transit system, but we know it's not the best transit system and i think we have a huge opportunity with the transit effectiveness project right before us. it shouldn't

be, i feel like we have slow transit time because those people who have the luxury of time how to fund it and make it sustainable mechanism. >> thank you. >> supervisor tang.

for me more so than who is the body appointing these commissioners is the commission listen to the community and listen to the various supervisor office where we're in touch with our residents. i know that given the commissioners are not appointed, you know, based on districts, that for me it is important to be able to talk to the directors and that they understand what some of the challenges are that we face. as a representative of a district that is very far out and very much in support of efforts to try to make it such that people want to choose to ride transit first. it's about fairness and considering all of the facts and i know you spoke about considering the budget in some

of these policy decisions that are made. so for me it's really a positive experience with you working as a planning commissioner and i know you are fair and i respect that. so i don't have any questions about your qualifications and backgrounds. so i would just ask also what are some of the issues that you foresee coming up? i know that obviously it's about reliability and accessibility for all of our communities and what are some of the goals that you hope to achieve if you are appointed to serve on this body? >> one of which is the bond measure that you know is coming up this november for our transportation infrastructure. i almost also supportive of the vlf and know it's not as popular now, but i feel that funding mechanism needs to go form as well. our on-time performance has been troubling and i think it's great to look at double-berthing of trains in

the tunnel, because there is is a lot of congestion in the tunnel now. the necessary funding for the future and the transit effectiveness project overlaying document that will help inform how we do our rerouting of the businesses and moving our business stops and other improvements is also very critical. i was very supportive of the bicycle plan and making sure that we implement those improvements as well. so it's really about reliability and providing the necessary money that we need so that we can actually improve our fleet of operating trains and our existing right-of-ways. >> thank you. a couple of questions. i guess one question about the free senior muni also. there was a lot of controversy

with the central subway, and there is discussions now about the m line out on 19th avenue. and the possibility of eventually tunneling through there. i would just like to hear your opinion of basically going underground in general. because what i have seen in other cities in the united states and internationally, that the ability to move people, mass transit, is much more effective underground, can you share your opinions. >> every major city i go in

the world i take it, and if we could underground our entire transit system would be effective and one reason that bart does better in the city core it's underground and it's not competing with all of the traffic congestion above ground. it's an issue of funds and it's more expensive. planning was disappointed that we had not studying going as far as fisherman's wharf and with that said, at this point that is water under the bridge, because there are so many areas that are you high volumes of people to move around and as you prioritize that as you said over the m-line or other areas that have large riders. would love to see more subways, but i know there is a financial issue that makes it more difficult to achieve. >> the issue of pedestrian

safety has really floated up onto the top for the board of supervisors, the passage of vision 0, the budget process that we just went through and seen the district ask in regards for the budget show that pedestrian safety is becoming a high priority for all of us. so again, just generally speaking, vision zero has been passed, and mta is going to play a major role in this. can you sort of share your opinion of how strongly you would push for mta to implement, as much as possible the safety measures that we are all talking about? >> i think it's very important as a member of the planning commission, i was one of the people who spoke of and

unanimously supported vision zero. it's a real challenge in this city, because everyone drives so fast and in a hurry. and the challenges are enormous. i at think it's reprehensible, our commercial corridors people drive like are raceways and i think anything to calm the traffic down, i think it's very, very important. if we're going to be be that vision of a walkable city, a place people can feel comfortable accessing the community corridors or walking down the street to the grocery store, we always talk about that vision. but there are many people and seniors who are especially afraid to cross major arteries in the city because we don't have enough traffic-calming and safety measures. so i'm absolutely supportive of that. i think having a liveable, walkable city is critical that we have those measures put in place. and i think that is something

that we can't delay on, because every year we have senseless deaths due to pedestrian safety issues and it doesn't make any sense. it's the easiest thing to work on. so i hope that we get on that education campaign right away. >> i appreciate your answer. thank you very much. we're going to have public comment at this point for the item. [ reading speakers' names ] >> good afternoon supervisors i'm the executive director of the san francisco bicycle coalition and also speaking as a former member of the bdr of the municipal transportation agency to share my support for miss borden joining the mta board. we have been very impressed with her approach on