>> thank you, mr. mayor after two years of credibly hard work and countless meetings and testimony and a lot of discussion in the city we're feinstein at the point i want to thank everyone behind me and san francisco thank you for sharing (clapping) i want to take a moment and specifically thank some of the stakeholders we worked with tenant organizations and landlord representatives and small property owner owners and labor and management we worked with neighborhood advocates all over the city and worked with many departments the department of building inspection the city attorney their staff and commissioners, i want to thank my aid amy chang that worked on this two years of her life and the colleagues the board of

supervisors in particular supervisor wiener supervisor tang and supervisor malia cohen and i want to take a moment and thank an individual not with us ted was one of the first leaders in the tenant community we worked with over a year and a half ago he helped that the legislation in april with us in spirit and thank the thousands of individuals from all over our city the seniors and artists and tenants our landlords and homeowners that represent the amazing diversity of home sharers here in san francisco thank you for being with us today (clapping.) i am very proud of our san francisco board of supervisors in recent years we've worked together to resolve the land use issues recommended to sequa and

confirmations and we've done it again why are we hear we're here because everybody knows that the status quo of short-term rentals is not working we've seen an consolidation in short-term rentals in our city technically it's not been legal yet no regulatory enforcement structure for years we've not had a solution everyone knows we need an approach the heart of our approach is addressing the affordable housing how can we all afford to live in our city without changes in local law short-term rentals has made housing be fooblthd more difficult and easy at the same time, we need city policies that reflect that on the other hand, current practices have pushed many san franciscans out of our city whether or not you're a landlord ellis acting a whole

building or a tenant that entered into multiple leases and engaged in bona fide we'll have a regulatory and enforcement structure that says no to you if you're using airbnb or others to allow housing to be used around the clock as vacation rentals you'll face penalties for multiple offenses on the other hand, we've heard from thousands of home sharers who have been struggling san franciscans to struggle to live in our great city seniors and workers from all ero e over san francisco if you're a permanent resident that lives in the city 9 months out of the year and play by the rulings you get liberate insurance and registration with

the city and abide by the law safety laws and may your 0 full share of tax you'll be allowed to live in san francisco i want to thank the planning commission and the board of supervisors for having made dozens of amendments to increase enforcement and mayor we're protecting affordable housing and making sure we're maintaining our quality of life but at the end of the day that is about how san francisco once again buildings in teaching and showing the world how we share today, we have two thousand of home sharers that are you here to tell their stories one has a name that sounds like a baseball player ray deposit inform can you say a few words (clapping) and. >> as a senior and former teacher i'm proudly proud to be standing here we going to sharing our world to add more

security to our retirement in the need of fixing my together it allowed us to help our son with his graduate school not only has home sharing behind us but contributed to the success of the small businesses in the western edition as well spreading the misconduct to all the neighborhoods in the city not centered downtown and i'm going to introduce tourists to other parts of city that we wouldn't have experienced one example is on embarcadero street a couple said going to eddy's for breakfast they returned to eddy's there after without home sharing we wouldn't have been able to share your guests will milestone like a couple becoming engaged honey murndz and first

visits for grandparent and marathoners and families going home after a successful surgery supervisor chiu said at a recent meeting no, i shouldn't - supervisor chiu said he was initially opposed to the idea of home sharing until he heard how it helps people stay in the homes in our city city of meant a lot to me to be a participant to speak on protective that changes that will have a tremendously positive and life changing folk for home sharers across the city we thank commissioner hur for peterson thank you to supervisor breed supervisor cohen

supervisor tang and especially supervisor wiener who chaired the land use committee thank you, mayor ed lee and thank you all (clapping). >> again there are so many people to thank but we have a person that representatives thousands of people in san francisco nancy (clapping.) good morning mayor ed lee and supervisor chiu and keep in mind guests i'm honored to tell my story on potrero hill as we sign the mayor select short-term rental activities in san francisco seeing our democratic process in action and participating in that process had not been an sxrirgs i want to thank our board of supervisors for their thoughtful deliberations on this complex

legislation their attendance to all our e-mails and hundreds of stories how sharing our homes helps to benefit our lives and neighborhoods and city i thank in particular president chiu for his navigation of our city politics supervisor wiener for his skillful advocates and supervisor malia cohen for her votes and passionate remarks at the last board meeting and thank you to amy chang i must also acknowledge pier 27 for his sponsoring i arrived in san francisco 42 years ago and have would on potrero hill ever since bought a two unit building in 1975 i couldn't afford to buy today, i rent the second floor

and contribute to the human resources historically charging that below that market rate i want to make my space available to a regular person like myself a retired social worker over the last 3 years i've offered a private bath 10 to 15 days per month 0 only when i'm present that makes a difference it is a lifesaver this year with medical expenses and secures my ability to remain in my home and san francisco because i'm spared depleting my savings and thus postponing selling my home the income literally allows me to subsidize my long-term rent i carefully screen my guests in my private space they're an asset to may be neighbors they're wonderful people who are respect

nell full and quiet and they've been very appreciative of the home sharing commerce and love our city i cherish my neighborhood and welcome those who are giving our activity a bad name i see our planning department can and will enforce those provisions it introduces me to wonderful people around the world especially my follow hosts who believe that we can belong anywhere this experience makes me feel a great sense of community and belonging in my own city i'm grateful to have been part of this historic initiative thank you (clapping.) ready? >> ready.

>> there you go. >> yeah.

. >> to my right is supervisor tang, the vice chair, president chu will be joining us soon and we are also joined by supervisor scott weiner today. the clerk is erica major and i'd also like to thank the sfgov tv folks who are filming our meeting today, jessie larson and josh what alexander. madam clerk, do you have any announcements? >> please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. speaker cards and all documents to be included as part ftd file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted on today will appear on the november 4 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> item 1 is municipal transportation agency to discuss auto fees for stolen vehicles. >> supervisor weiner, thank you. >> thank you, madam chair, for angendizing this item today. i very much appreciate it. today, colleagues, this hearing which i called for this month has as its purpose a review of our city's

automobile towing policies and fees with respect to stolen vehicles. and i called for this hearing because the mta's contract with auto return, our vendor that provides towing services, expires next year and will be renegotiated and then ultimately presented to the board of supervisors for approval or rejection. so rather than wait for this contract to come to the board of supervisors and then at that point have a discussion after the negotiation about the treatment of stolen vehicles, it seems it me that now is the time to do it. so the purpose of this hearing is to have a discussion about the city's towing policies with respect to stolen vehicles, how the fees and penalties are structured, how stolen cars that are recovered are structured and how we may change the contract to treat the

owners of stolen vehicles in a better and more respectful and fair way. i want to be clear that i am, the purpose of this hearing is not to criticize auto return. actually i am a fan of auto return. this city has a long and sorry history in terms of our towing contracts and corruption and other significant problems and auto return came in and really drained the swamp and cleaned up towing operations in san francisco and our towing system is much more professional than it used to be. this is not about criticizing auto return. the problem is not auto return, it's the contract itself. and right now the contract does not treat the owners of stolen vehicles fairly. it used to be that if you had your vehicle stolen and then it was abandoned in san francisco and towed for many years you had your

towing and storage and administrative fees waived, you didn't have to pay them. that changed in about 2005 when the board of supervisors i think incorrectly repealed that waiver. looking back at the record, it looks like the police department did research and found that we were an anomaly, that we were one of the fee venues that actually provided that waiver which of course is fine with me because san francisco often leads the way and we should lead the way here as well. so in 2005 the board and the mayor repealed that exemption. the current contract, as i mentioned, is with auto return. auto return processes, tows approximately 45,000 vehicles a year, that's in the last fiscal year. of this 45,000

towed vehicles, approximately 2500 are stolen vehicles so that's about 5.6 percent. so we're talking about a pretty small universe in the big scheme of things. when a vehicle that has been reported as stolen is found on the street and is going to be towed, the san francisco police department contacts the owner and gives him or her 20 minutes to retrieve the vehicle and that makes sense because we don't want police officers to be having to spend all day baby-siting a stolen vehicle. so that's not the problem in my view. the problem starts once the vehicle then gets towed and gets placed and stored with auto return. the m.d ta assesses a $266 administrative fee. that fee is waived if the victim presents a police report indicating that the car has been stolen.

in addition the mta and police department, to their credit, will waive parking tickets incurred as a result of the stolen vehicle being abandoned. however, the owner does have to pay the $220 tow fee, in addition to storage fees that accumulate once the vehicle is stored. san francisco residents receive a four hour grace period for stolen vehicles so if they are able to retrieve the vehicle and get down there within 4 hours of its tow they don't have to pay. non-residents receive no grace period so if your car is stolen in oakland and dumped in san francisco you receive no grace period whatsoever. at that point, either immediately for non-residents or 4 hours for residents, storage fees begin to accrue and they accrue and they accrue. so if for rafr reason you don't learn your

vehicle has been recovered for some period of time, if you are out of town and you are notified and you are not able to get down there, you could have to pay significant storage fees and we have heard over time from various people who have accrued hundreds or even thousands of dollars in storage fees and there are times when those fees are higher than the actual value of the vehicle, in which case typically people will simply not retrieve the vehicle and auto return per the contract, per state law, will simply auction off the vehicle to pay for the fees. so the system is not fair, the contract is not fair. when you have your car stolen uefr been victimized by a xripl -- criminal and we shouldn't be victimizing that victim yet again by saying you have done sluertly

nothing wrong, your vehicle was stolen, it was dumped somewhere in san francisco, it was towed and now here's a bill for thousands of dollars. no one should have to be subject to that. while some people have comprehensive insurance that can then reimburse them for the cost of the tow and the storage, we know that many car owners do not have comprehensive insurance. comprehensive insurance is expensive and particularly for owners of older vehicles they often do not have comprehensive insurance, it tends to be something that you have for a newer vehicle and older vehicles, of course, are the ones that are most likely to be lower in value so it's worth just abandoning your vehicle at auto return rather than paying the fees and retrieving it. so today, colleagues, the goal is to really have a discussion to hear from the mta and from the police department and from auto return about what the system is, just making sure

that we have, you know, know exactly what the facts are, and then we can have a discussion about providing in my view guidance to the mta about what we expect when this contract comes to us next year. it is my intent after this hearing in the next few weeks to introduce a resolution at the board indicating our intent formally to the mta and really sending a clear message and again trying to get ahead of the curve on this to give the mta guidance on what we expect rather than waiting for the contract to come to the board and then creating a kerfluffle because there's something about the contract that could have been fixed and we didn't fix. with that, colleague, if there are no other comments we do have a few presentations today and i'd like to start with the san francisco police department, we have commander ali here, the operations commander of mta

commander ali >> good morning, mikail ali, san francisco police department assigned to mta and i must applaud you, supervisor, you clearly have the issue in hand. >> that's because i have good staff. >> the one thing i would say, we do do our part to lessen the impact of the vehicle stolen which is not unique. we make an effort to recover them through proactive policing as well as respond to incidents where others identify the vehicle as being stolen. we attempt to lessen that impact by all persons by having, while the officer is in the field, making an attempt to contact the owner of that vehicle, waiting the 20 minutes of time not just for san francisco residents but for

all, particularly in this day and age where your ability to contact folks by way of cell phone is instantaneous and then in many instances you have individuals who actually are working or playing in san francisco and their vehicle was either stolen or recovered so it affords them an opportunity to avoid that process of having their vehicle towed. so that's the only thing i would add. we do abide by all the ordinance rules in terms of waiving the $194 administrative fee the police department charges when they are involved in these types of towing a vehicle. >> for that waiver, how does that work? is it an easy process for people to get that fee waived? >> it is an easy process. what takes place is at the hall of just stus -- justice they come down and receive the waiver from the ofrsers that

work the tow desk. all vehicle tows, information for the public on how to go about the various processes, whether to simply pay the fee and recover the vehicle, if they have a concern that the tow was improper we have procedures in place to evaluate those circumstances and to remedy them if in fact they were improper. so those things are in place now. >> thank you. supervisor tang has a question. >> just to build on that, if someone has their car stolen do they have to provide some kind of police report or insurance claim form that their car was stolen. >> the lion's share of folks with stolen cars, they are aware of their vehicle being stolen prior to

it being recovered and towed by the police department. there is that instance where the vehicle is towed for some reason, maybe it was improperly parked and then you become aware that your car was towed and the circumstances lead up to the fact that it was actually stolen. so that's the minority of circumstances. so when a car is stolen, is entered into a statewide system and then a nationwide system. the statewide is called the california law enforcement electronic telecommunications system. every law enforcement agency that deals with these types of incidents enters that information so if your car is stolen in san francisco and it's in san jose, for that matter, san jose officers will become aware, they can also have the mechanism by which they can contact -- clearly i don't think they would have a policy of waiting 20 minutes

for non-residents just as we don't as well. >> so essentially it's pretty easy for, again, if someone was trying to get this fee waiver that it should already be in the data base that it's been stolen. >> absolutely. it's typically in the data base, the officers who work those assignments have access to the information, they can see it was stolen and the person typically will be advised and that waiver is made. >> in terms of the distinction between residents and non-residents and this is something that to me i think is an issue. i don't -- and this applies, we'll talk about more with the mta -- to me i don't think it should matter whether the person is a resident or a non-resident. if they've been victimized and had their car stolen, i understand the desire to maybe help out san francisco residents a little bit more but in the end whether someone lives here or is visited or

never set foot here and had their car dumped here after it was stolen, to me they should be treated the same. does the 20 minute period that sfpd stays with the car, does that apply to the residents? >> it does. >> the waiver of the $190 fee is just for san francisco residents? >> it is. >> what's the rationale behind not applying that to non-residents. >> it's the ordinance. the ordinance only speaks of waiving the fee to residents of our city. >> these are all board of supervisors ordinances which of course the board was then removed from this whole process when the voters voted on prop e in 1999 so we'll definitely, that's an issue we're going to be bringing up to try to equalize the treatment. thank you very much, commander. >> supervisor. >> okay, so now i want to call

up the sf mta which administers the contract with auto return. >> good morning, supervisor, steve lee, sfmta, manager of financial contracts and services. i'd like to begin by saying i can't imagine that the mta wouldn't take this opportunity to make things better for people who get their car stolen. i totally agree that this sort of situation adds insult to injury in terms of when you get your car stolen. we're going to do everything we can to work with your offices to make sure we cover as much as we can in terms of making things better. supervisor weiner, you spoke to a lot of things i was going to mention so i think i will start with the contracting of the existing agreement and go into what we anticipate in terms of a new agreement. so the existing agreement today is

based on volume, multiplied by the rate that is set by auto return for recovery of storage and fees which goes to pay for their operating expenses. so it really depends upon volume. when they first started the contract in 2005 the volume was in the range of 75,000 vehicles and has dropped dramatically to 45,000 today so we want to move away from the volume type model agreement because it's too volatile and too risky for a vendor. we may be considering an operational reimbursement type model where all operating expenses are reimbursed and the vendor is paid a flat management fee. this will provide the mta with the flexibility it theeds in terms of adjusting service levels and the fees that we charge.

if there's any questions you have? >> a few things. so as i understand the auto return collects about $531,000 last fiscal year. >> correct. >> relating to stolen vehicles. >> that's correct. >> and that's in the contract. so what's the total amount of revenue collected by auto return? >> i'm sorry? >> what is auto return's total amount collected for all vehicles? >> we estimate it to be in the range of $16 million. >> so it's a pretty small percentage of the total. >> well, i kpbts speak to what it cost them to return the entire operation, so what we're really talking about is the net income they would have to absorb in terms of providing this relief. >> right. and in a renegotiated

contract that provided your complete waiver for stolen vehicles or a significantly longer grace period or lower storage fee or whatever, however it might be structured, that lost revenue would have to probably be reabsorbed through the rest of the contract. >> possibly. i mean when we go out to and we do a new agreement it is really early to tell. we really need to see the proposals to know what it's going to cost us to run the business. we're hoping to see some savings that can apply to some of the reductions but if we were to eliminate that completely, yes, it may be spread among the other fees. definitely would be abdomen sored by the mta because a new contract, as i mentioned before, possibly will be doing an annually approved operational budget