>> good afternoon everyone. my name is david campos and i'm the chair of the neighborhood services and safety committee of the

board of supervisors of the city and county of san francisco. it is our regular meeting of october 23, 2014. we are joined today by supervisor mar and scott wiener. the clerk of the committee is derek evans and we'd like to thank the following members of sfgtv staff who are covering this meeting today, jessie larson and joshua alex sander, district clerk, do you have any announcements. >> please make sure to silence all electronic devices. [inaudible] be on the november 4, 2014 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you very much. if you can call item 1. item 1 is amending the police

code to appeal the position [inaudible] to prohibit individuals from falling from the entrance of the facility, to prohibit impeding access to the door. >> thank you very much. today is a very special day for the neighborhood services and safety committee and on a personal level we're -- it's a very important day for me because we're dealing with two of the most important issues that my office has dealt with in the last year, and since i became a supervisor and i want to acknowledge the incredible work of my chief of staff, hillary, who has spent many years work inging by a number

of protestors who come from the extreme position that they can dictate to women what options and choices they can make with their bodies. the free standing clinic that

is planned parenthood sits before a relatively narrow sidewalk. every week as women enter the clinic to receive reproductive healthcare services, they must pass by several protestors who scream don't kill your baby or abortions cause breast cancer. the 8 foot tall posters contain pictures of bloody fetuses at different stages of gestation and faces like repent or burn. oftentimes religious music is playing on the radio they have and then the protestors have video cameras facing the front door of the clinic to videotape the women and staff as they're going in. in addition to the protestors, women often have to walk by

counter protestors, usually neighbors or pedestrians who mean well and who engage in arguments with these protestors. the arguments are often loud and heated directly in front of the clinic and again, these are well intentioned individuals who usually disagree with the protestors and believe strongly in the right of women to choose for themselves, but these arguments and the yelling, counter protestors are often very difficult for the patients. they cause them a great deal of stress as they wait for sensitive medical procedures to be completed. anyone would feel harassed and intimidated having to pass by this scene, however if you're a woman seeking sensitive health services, a woman who has made the difficult decision to obtain an abortion this harassment can be

detrimental to your health. last year to address this situation in and effort to up hold the rights of free speech and to protect the citizens, i introduced and this board unanimously approved a 25 foot buffer zone outside of reproductive health centers here in san francisco. after the implementation of this legislation the situation in front of planned parenthood improved dramatically. patients were able to freely access services and avoid some of the stress that's associated with the loud protests and conflicts that they have witnessing for these years. unfortunately at the end of this year our united states supreme court in that was substantially similar to the san francisco law. because of that my office and i have been working over the past few months with our city

attorney's office to amend this buffer zone law so this is compliant, but still accomplishes the objectives of women to access reproductive health services without infrining upon the first amendment rights of these protestors. i believe the law we have introduced strikes that right balance. it will allow quiet consensual conversations between anti abortion protestors, without subjecting planned parenthood and patients and staff to scary and intim intimidating harassment. it prohibits anyone from following and harassing any person within 25 feet of a reproductive healthcare facility in san francisco.

it inhibits impeding access to a door. it prohibits individuals from shouting on any public street or sidewalk within 50 feet of a property line of a reproductive health facility. if an individual violates any of these prohibitions after a written warning a police officer can require the person to disperse and remain 25 feet away from the health facility until eight hours or until close of business of the facility. i want to thank the city attorney's office, and especially erin bernstein for the incredible work she has done throughout this process with this piece of legislation. i want to thank the police department for the work they have provided. i believe that we are simultaneously complying with the law, but in the typical san francisco fashion, pushing the envelope to ensure we stand up for women and

reproductive choice in no uncertain terms. what i will continue to say is that if a woman's right to choose cannot be protected in san francisco, then where in this country can that right be protected? that's what this is about and i want to thank my cosponsors of this important legislation, supervisors, yee, avalos, kim, and mar. i know supervisor wiener is here to speak on this item as well . and lastly, and more importantly, i want to thank the women, the patients, the staff of planned parenthood for the courage that they've had over these years, for the dignity and strength with which they have carried them. you have put up with a great deal and this is the very least that our city can do. thank you for what you do for the women of this city on a daily basis.

supervisor wiener. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for bringing this proposal forward and for the work of your office in doing that. i just wanted to come by today to express my strong support for the legislation and to add my name as a cosponsor. you you know, it's been 41 years since roe v wade and extraordinary in a very negative way that 41 years later we continue to see concerted efforts all across the country to try to nullify the right of women to control their bodies through every conceivable kind of obstruction of behavior, whether it is legislation that is passed in various states around the country pretended that the u.s. constitution doesn't apply in those states. laws that either restrict

reproductive services directly or make it impossible to actually operate reproductive health clinics in large geographic areas so that particularly our working class and low income women are effectively and completely denied access to those services. we see it here in california where it seems like every few years statewide ballot measure pops up on the but it is exhausting and requires a huge amount of resources that we should be able to use in more positive ways instead of playing defense. and then we see in more informal ways in terms of harassment of women who are simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights to access healthcare and to control their own bodies and it is despicable and the awful and we have to make sure that we are doing everything we

can to ensure that women have access, consistent access to healthcare services and they are not bullied and harassed and shamed out of actually accessing those services. we have always stood united at this board unanimously passing legislation to ensure women have that access and do what we can do, and i think it's appropriate that within almost immediately after the supreme court's unfortunate decision in june that we're stepping forward again to do what we can do. and as we always do in san francisco, we respect the law. we may not agree with what the supreme court has done, but that is the law of land and we need to make sure we are pushing the envelope and stepping up to the line and doing everything we can to protect access for women to these reproductive health

services. i'm proud we're doing this, i strongly support this and look forward to getting this passed, signed and into law and enforced. >> thank you for you cosponsorship. supervisor mar. i >> i wanted to acknowledge that supervisor campos has been working on this for several years. i urge the mayor and supervisor cohen, who are also interested in this issue to join supervisor campos to end the gauntlet of harassment many women face. i guess to me the so called free speech of the haters that are out there trying to prevent women from accessing their reproductive rights are more on the equivalent of hate speech to me and i'm glad supervisor campos has crafted narrowly tailored effective

policy that i think we should be passing unanimously at this board. i urge the mayor and others to join the rest of us on this measure as well. thank you. >> thank you very much supervisor mar. supervisor yee has joined us. >> yes, thank you. i just wan to join the comments that i heard that i'm glad to be coauthoring and i'm proud of you, supervisor campos, that you didn't just back off of the court's decision, but actually utilizing another court decision to craft this so that hopefully we will continue to be able to protect the rights of women. >> thank you supervisor. and again, thank you to my colleagues on this committee

for their cosponsorship. why don't we now proceed to public comment. i have a number of cards, but if any member of the public would like to speak on this item, please come on up and i would ask if you can line up as we call your name on your right, our left, and normally i give people three minutes, but i don't want to lose a quorum so i'm going to limit public commented to two minutes so we can proceed with the business of the committee. here are the names for item 1, henny kelly, dana klein, patricia, and i want to thank patricia who has traveled from los angeles to be here on these two items. anyone who would like to speak, please come on up and again, i want to thank you for being here.

>> hello, my name is henny kelly. i spent my childbearing years pre roe versus wade and it was a different world then. it was a world where you -- where people died because they had to seek abortions in back alleys. it was a place where doctors went to jail if they tried to save women. in my lifetime this has changed and yet, there is something that is going on in this world that doesn't want to give women their rights, that doesn't want to give women their equality. if i am a man i can get viagra and i can get cialis and

hopefully somebody will buy me a tub or two of them so my husband and i can lol in them after the cialis, but if i'm a woman i have a hard time. i don't have a control of my body in some states. if we don't have this in san francisco, if we can't show the nation how to treat women, then it's a very sad time. i fought for roe versus wade and i will fight for this because i believe this is a way of giving women their rights and their dignity and control of their bodies. i want to thank all the people who are coauthoring and i want to especially thank david campos for bringing this up and for not just letting it

go when the supreme court ruled. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. next speaker. >> hello, my name is dana, i'm here on behalf of women's community clinic and i simply just want to say that on behalf of the 5,000 women and girls that women's community clinic sees each year as a stand alone reproductive healthcare facility we support this measure. there is plenty of data that shows that supporting access to reproductive healthcare you're not only improving health outcome for women and children, in particular women seeking abortion or birth control, but the population at large. i applaud your efforts into making this into san francisco law and i'm excited for a unanimous vote. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker.

>> hello, i'm vice president of parenthood. we provide healthcare to 100,000 clients each year at 22 health centers in 20 counties and here in san francisco we serve about 13,000 patients here year in our health centers. thank you for working tirelessly on this ordinance. thank you supervisors for cosponsoring. the u.s. supreme court's flawed decision in june striking down the buffer zone in massachusetts has exposed patients and staff at the san francisco health center to filming, blocking, insulting, following women as they approach the planned

parenthood center for preventive healthcare which includes cancer screening. they play music loud enough to disturb patients and staff inside and their force patients and staff and neighbors to walk a graunt let of disturbing and graphic images. i'd like to put up one of those -- projector, so you can see some of it, just a little bit of it. >> go ahead. >> so i'm also submitting some for the record and want to also say that staff, patients and neighbors have reported consistently on the abuse that's happening and we know there are altercations happening in front of the health center and we know nobody wants to see that escalate. thank you to this board, the san francisco city attorney, the sfpd for moving forward with this very promising measure that will up hold our

city's proud mission of protecting women, balancing first amendment rights. thank you. >> thank you very much. thank you to all the planned parenthood staff who have to put up with this for yearings. >> good afternoon. i'm representing california family health council. we're the manager of the title ten program for the state. we have a large network of clinics that offer reproductive health education, including four centers in the city of san francisco including the planned parenthood clinic in supervisor campos' district. we are here in strong support of supervisor campos's ordinance and we thank you for your leadership and tireless commitment and ensuring women can have access to the vital healthcare services they need. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. i want to thank patty for flying up to san francisco. it's an honor to have you here.

>> it's an honor to be here and i want to thank you for bringing this legislation to the floor today. there is nothing more important in recognizing women's full humanity. nothing more important. and unfortunately we have to live with the supreme court that defines free speech as harassment and terroristic threats and all sorts of things under any other circumstances are illegal. it's a really weird bizarre, not neutral world when it comes to women. and having san francisco put an exclamation point on what it really means to be free in america and part