to the. >> supervisor avalos. present. president breed. present. supervisor campos. present. supervisor chris 10 zen. present.* cohen present. supervisor far l -- present. kim -- not present. supervisor mar -- mar not present. supervisor tang -- present. supervisor wiener -- present. supervisor ye -- present. madam president, you have a quorum. >> thank you. ladies and gentlemen can you please join me in the pledge of allegiance. >> [pledge of allegiance]

. >> thank you. madam clerk, are there any communications? >> there are no communications today madam president. >> okay -- colleagues, are there any changes to the may 17 board meeting minutes? seeing no change, can i have a motion to approve? motion seconded by ye. we'll take that without objection colleagues after the public comment session. okay. madam clerk, can you please read item no. 1. >> the first item of business today is the policy discussion between the honorable mayor edwin lee and members of board of supervisors. mayor may provide remarks up to 5 minutes. eligible supervisors who submitted questions from disprict un1 and 3. as long as the entire discussion does not exceed 5 minutes per supervisor*. >> okay. the first question is from our colleague from

district 1 -- supervisor --o, i forget the mayor has opening remarks, everybody. and i also want to mention that we're joined by supervisor kim and supervisor mar. so mr. mayor. >> thank you president breed. good afternoon, everyone. yesterday i joined our homeless outreach team to engage people that are living on our streets. we encountered a number of people who want to change their lives for the better, and their first step was relocating to our city's navigation center. the center's providing hope and opportunities and helps us deliver on our promise to give people the critical services they need. and i want to thank our entire board of supervisors for your partnership on this issue. it's my hope that this approach will help homeless people reconnect with their loved ones at home, move off the streets, go into stable housing, or residential

treatment programs., and begin to stabilize their lives. and as you know part of the donation to the navigation center will fund master leasing of single room occupancy units so that clients can successfully transition out of the navigation center. this is another rung of our housing matter. and at the same time, we are making progress on our housing goals with ambitious legislation and funding proposals. and we've been tracking our progress every step of the way so all are held accountable for efforts in creating housing for all. 14 months into our 2014 pledge, we have opened* the doors to 4,263 new homes with 31% affordable. i'm proud that these new homes deliver on our city's promise to create a city for everyone. we'll continue the bill -- more housing for our residents -- in fact, a few weeks ago some of you joined me

in kicking off a collaborative big-tent process to put a housing bond before the voters this november. as i've done with other major policy priorities that are so important to our city, i'm asking experts and stakeholders all over the city to join me in crafting a consensus measure. and in this case, we're asking 75 neighborhood leaders and housing experts to come together and craft this bond proposal. i'm glad to be working closely with supervisor lun don breed and supervisor* julie christenson on this as well*. we'll propose a bond of about $250 million. i know that's under discussion. it's a significant nsment. and we hope not to raise taxes at the same time. it will provide more affordable housing to low-income san franciscans and create opportunities for middle class families to own and rent homes

in san francisco. this bond, which i announced to my city in january is part of the investments not only in housing but also education, transportation, and more and will fulfill our shared prosperity agenda with the goal of making sure san francisco remains a city for everyone. let's get on with questions. thank you. >> thank you. and our first question will come from the supervisor from district 1 -- supervisor eric mar. >> thank you president breed. mr. mayor, thank you for being here. last wednesday supervisor avalos and run in from supervisor campos participated in shutting down a mcdondle at mission district 6:00 a.m.* in the morning representing fast food workers fighting for $15.00 an hour. as you know i'm really proud you and our board and city supported ground-breking legislation last year that

will* raise our minimum wage as well as provide predictable scheduling and part-time on-call workers in san francisco really helping 40,000 workers deal with those protections with our retail workers bill of rights. in order for these new rights to have any impact, we need to ensure that our ability to enforce these laws is sufficient. which means that staffing levels of the office of labor standards and enforcement -- or olfe -- have to be increased. but it also means we need to fund community-based organizations that can supplement our ability to reach out to workers who may be reticent to claim their rights. and we count on your office to fund -- to create the funding for these critical needs for our upcoming budget process. >> thank you supervisor mar for that question and for being a partner on passing the nation's highest minimum wage last year. i'm proud of our city. i'm proud of our voters, because soon more than

60,000 working san franciscans will get a raise. and as you know the minimum wage increases to $12.25 per hour effective may 1st. i mention this, because i'm taking every opportunity i can to raise awareness about this. we need to make sure that everyone who employs a low-wage worker and everyone out there earning a minimum wage knows about this increase on may 1st. i encourage every supervisor to p communicate with their constituents*, keep raising awareness about this through your newsletters, your community meetings, and your commercial corridor walks. that brings us to your question about enforcement supervisor mar. and i believe that an overwhelming majority of san francisco small business owners know the law and will follow the law. they do care about their workers. and in many cases, they see them as valued friends and critical components to success of their businesses. i have every expectation to believe that

people will receive the wage increases to which they are entitled. but in the case of malicious intent or simple misunderstanding, sometimes enforcement is necessary. luckily for our city, we do have a strong labor standards enforcement office that helps ensure everyone receives the rights that they deserve. we are blessed with a strong worker's rights advocate community that helps ensure monolingual, low-wage immigrant workers know their rights and exercise them when needed. i know that san francisco is a model for the rest of the nation. and when it comes to enforcing our strong labor laws. as far as your question about staff resources, supervisor, i know that some advocacy organizations have proposed certain enhancements to city staff budgets and for increases in our city contracts to community-based organizations to do this important work. i've requested our office of labor standards

to review these requests and weigh them alongside other staffing and budgetary needs. as you know, supervisor, through your position on the budget committee spending choices cannot be done in a vacuum. but i'm committed to putting everything on the table and making choices together. with the board of supervisors, all of you in a collaborative way -- and we've done that every year since i've been mayor -- this budget review process really does begin with the departments and in this case with the office of labor standards enforcement. so thank you for your question. let me reiterate that. please bet the word out on the new minimum* wage that takes effect on may 1st. and i will work collaboratively with this body to make sure funding for this things we know most important get funded. >> thank you supervisor mar. and the next question will come from the supervisor from district 3. supervisor julie chris 10 zen. >> good afternoon ma mayor. i certainly* applaud your

emphasis on housing**. i look forward to working with you on the housing bond. as you well know district 3 is a neighborhood that has traditionally embraced its working-class families. it's a very dense district. in conjunction with the housing we so desperately need and the housing security we crave, you and i have discussed transportation as a natural follown to that. district 3 is a very dense district. and we swell each day with shoppers at union square, workers in the financial district, visitors to chinatown and fisherman's wharf. and so, today i wanted to ask you about the central subway. so phase 2 will be completed in a few years, but brings the subway only as far as chinatown. the report from last fall that the tamta and planning did indicates that the ridership on the t-line would increase from 74,000 people to 115,000 people

a day if we only added those two stops in north beach and fisherman's wharf and the time it takes from moscow knee center to fisherman*'s wharf would be cut in half on mass transit. what can the city do to signal our seriousness on pursuing phase tremendous? how can we improve transit and reduce congestion in district 3? >> thank you supervisor for that question. first i'm very excited about the opening of the central subway which is scheduled to begin service in 2019. i can't wait. it will directly link chinatown to union square, mos cone center,* while providing connections to bart and the city's muni metro system. as a result of years of planning, community engineering, construction, this project will be a transformative economic engine for the residents of district 3 while dlawing additional

visitors* to businesses located there. whereas you know our city's undertaken a number of major transportation projects in financial partnership with regional, state, and federal partners. in addition to the central subway, we're building a new presidio parkway to replace doyle drive. we have the transbay transit center. we have bus rapid transit on van neses nn and we've done a lot of work planning* for how to bring the existing transportation systems into a state of good repair. in 2013 my transportation task force identified $10 billion in necessary investments by 2030. our san francisco voters endorsed this effort with the passage of prop a last year which authorized $500 million in much-needed initial funding to support the existing transportation network. it took many years to get the transportation --

the central subway project moving. and as you know projects of this scale and complexity can time and funding the plan let alone to build. well, as we consider the needs of the entire city and region when making big transportation decisions, we also need to think about which ones can move forward right now. in other words, which ones are shovel-ready? i know how much you have worked with the community and local merchants on this issue. and i believe the city needs to continue that good work so that we really understand the benefits of a central subway extension that could bring -- what that could bring -- while establishing realistic completion timelines which will enable us a better way to understand the funding decisions will need to be made and made consistently to get that project done. thank you, supervisor. >> thank you, supervisor chris 10 sen*. and thank you mr. mayor for being with us

here today. now, colleagues, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. madam clerk, wums read the consent agenda. >> the 2-18 are considered routine unless a member objects. >> supervisor ye. >> yes. i'd like to remove item no. 9. >> okay. seeing no other members, we will remove item no. 9 and we'll call those on the remaining items. >> on items 2-18 minus no. 9 supervisor breed -- aye. campos -- aye. christenson -- aye. cohen -- aye. far l -- aye. kim -- aye. mar -- aye. supervisor tang -- aye. wiener -- aye. yee -- aye. avalos -- aye. there are 11 ie's. >> these item* are passed

approved and adopted unanimously. item no. 9 -- >> resolution to approve settlements axi fox plaza against the city for approximately 3.4 million. >> supervisor ye. >> thank you president. i approve this so that there could be a minor amendment that would be made. and i'm going to turn it over to deputy city attorney gibbon. >> deputy city attorney john gib ner. this is a title -- instead of apn box plaza, it should say asn in both the short and long titles. so we would request that the board make that amendment. >> okay. supervisor ye, do you move to make that amendment? >> i move it. >> moved by supervisor ye. second by supervisor campos. without objection, the amendment passed. and on the

other underlying item -- can we take that same house same call? without objection this item passes unanimously. >> madam clerk, could you please call item 19. >> resolution cypress security. approximate amount of 38.3 m million. >> okay. supervisor kim. >> thank you. i know that i had brought up questions about the armed services last week. and so, i just want to appreciate sfmta taking the time to draft a memo on some of the questions that i had asked. and i see director ris kin here*. and i just had some additional questions. so the memo did address some of the training questions that i had brought up in terms of what type of training security guards got. last week we were told they got 16 hours total of gun training. and it looks like they get a little bit more than that, which is really good

to see. i think and comforting. i also under -- you know, in the memo you also talked about which transit agencies use contracted security guards as arms. and it's good to see what other jurisdictions are doing. but it didn't actually explore any injury dixz that didn't use arms*. i guess i would push again, you know -- did you look at agencies that don't use any armed services and kind of what are the outcomes of that? were there robberies in those cases? did we also explore other types of deterrents? are there other type of deterrents that are just as effective as having a gun out on the street? and so, that was some of the questions that i had. i also read the article where some of the muni employees talked about how late at night it made them feel much more secure to have armed security when there aren't a lot of folks on the street. i understand that

need. my concern is in the daytime -- high traffic high volume areas -- if they're really realistic for someone to take out a gun when there are all these people milling out on the street. what is the protocol set on those areas. it's kind of a litany of questions. couple more p i'll just start with that. >> director ris kin* will you respond to that? >> i will do my best. president breed. director of transportation. to the chair supervisor kim. i first of all appreciate your comments and questions, your concerns about the use of armed services. i think the idea of contracting for armed services is not something that we enter into lightly. so i appreciate the various comments that the board made previously and the opportunity to come back and try to address some of those questions. so in terms of looking to what the practice in the industry is we reached out to somewhat comparable systems both in

california -- in the bay area -- and nationwide. and every one of them without exception had as a standard practice using armed personnel to protect the employees that collect revenue. so i guess we could keep calling and see if we could find one that doesn't. but what we found in our survey was that it's not just a best practice, it is an absolutely universal practice. it's one that we've had here for muni for decades. it's one that seems to be universal across the board. so as we were calling folks and getting that response, we felt that somewhat affirmed the practice. in terms of evaluating less lethal options, that's something that would take quite a bit of time to do. we procured this contract with the expectation that, like all the previous ones that we've had and that have been approved by this board, that they would be with traditionally armed services

looking at less lethal options, looking at time of day and other things as something we absolutely can do. it's not something that in the course of a week we could give you any kind of substantive new information about it. something that we would want to be very thoughtful about, that we would want to talk to industry experts; we'd want to talk with our employees about it as well. i want to make sure that we're -- we try to be as responsible as we could given that the time that we had. but we believe that the research we've done -- the information we've found -- really affirms the modest use, that is less than 20% of the security services that we do procure, is armed is appropriate and is fully consistent with industry practice. >> and i just want to add -- i do -- i'm more convinced that there is a need for armed services given the additional information

that's come out. i think, for me the big question can is -- and i know it's hard* this only comes to us after the rfp is out. you know, once you pick a bid and it comes to the board -- so we're really late in the game to even give input. a lot earlier i would ask asked, "can we do less than we do today?" can we think about just nighttime? can we think about less lethal deterrents? because it is an additional million dollars in the contract. that being said, for the safety of our employees, it's absolutely important that we make sure that we're providing everything that we can to make employees safe. but just as we can hypothesize what would happen to our employees without guns, i can also hypothesize what can happen with guns -- you know, with more guns on the street than are necessary. either way it could be some tragic outcomes. and so, i think -- what i wish we could have explored -- what kind of more options on the table before it got to this point when it comes to the

board. so i'll just say that. and there's nothing we can do from this point on. a week is not enough to intlor options. being that this system has been in place for years, what is the protocol? when you talk about the ballpark? powell market and hiden beach. what is the -- keeping members of the public as safe as we can from a potential gunfight that might occur? >> absolutely. the purpose of the firearms is deterrents. unfortunately it's worked to that effect to that date* to keep our employees safe and general public safe. cay vich to give you a specific answer to that question. >> it's a hypothesis. we don't know what the impact of it is -- if we would have been just as safe without it as well. because we don't have any data to showcase. >> thank you supervisor kim. without putting our employees and the general

public at risk, delve too deeply into security sensitive information, what i do feel comfortable saying is that the armed security officers are in place specifically to protect lives and safety of people, not property. so we don't -- we would not engage in the use of any degree of force -- particularly lethal -- in the interest of protecting money. it is lives only. and this is a component of the training that is something that we emphasize very strongly. so that we make sure that precisely the worst-case scenario that you've described is something that we consider all the time -- the crowd, you know, area powell and market for example is obviously the last place where we would want to unnecessarily engage in the discharge of a firearm with the potential to harm innocent people. >> thank you. anything else supervisor kim? >> no. thank you. >> all right. supervisor campos. >> thank you, madam

president. thank you to supervisor kim for the questions she's raised and to our director of transportation. as i've noted before, my focus with respect to this contract has not been this issue of whether that we should have armed or unarmed security. i think that based on everything we have heard, including more importantly the direct comments that i have received and we receive from the employees, that there is a need for armed security and so, i think that that should be provided where appropriate. the concern that i have is more along the lines of the process that was followed here. i -- as i noted before -- i know that the city attorney has reviewed the legal requirements

that currently exist. and i believe that those legal requirements have been met. but there is a question of legality, and then there's a question of "is it a good practice?" and i believe that, having the individual who was negotiating the contract be someone who, until recently, was employed by a company that is getting the award, i just don't think that's good public policy. it's not how i want my money as a taxpayer to be utilized. and so, because of that, i will be voting against the contract. and again, it's not to impugn any kind of bad motive on the part of the individuals involved. i think that i assume that these are ethical individuals. but i think that there is an issue of appearance. and so, that's the problem. and that's why i will be voting against this. let me note though something else that i think that i hope that we can

collectively work on as a board and with the mta. and that's a question of, "how do we enis that your we provide the best* [ensure]* service in fashion that's consistent with the values and principles that we hold at san francisco?" and i think that one thing that may be required to do that is to perhaps change the approach of how these contracts are structured, because to the extent that the focus is on the lowest bid in a contract, that may not necessarily be the best result, because the lowest bid could necessarily lead to the employees in a given contract being shortchanged in terms of salary, in terms of benefits. i think that we obviously want the taxpayer's money to be used

efficiently, but we also don't want that efficiency to lead to any worker being deprived of a fair wage and the benefits that are due to them. so with that in mind, i would simply note that it might be helpful moving forward to figure out how these kinds of contracts can be structured moving forward in such a way that addresses that issue. and there may be other way of need for legal change. i know city law protects certain workers rightly so. janitors provided prevailing wage. there may be a need to, i think, to explore the need to do that for our security officers. so i think it's something that we want to do. and i know that we have been working on that issue in the context of other contracts and that the director of public transportation is very committed to making that happen. so that's something i hope that we can