istic 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 work on moving forward. and with that, to the chair -- i don't know mr. rus kin if you want to add anything to that*. instructor: if i may briefly* to the chair -- i fully agree with you. it was something we recognized -- in fact, initially we did procure this under a low-bid methodology. and for reasons that may or may not be related to that, we had to reinitiate a second procurement. and doing so, we did switch to a cost and qualifications-based selection process for some of the reasons that you said. what we also did was sought and receive board of

supervisors approval to extend some of those prevailing wage protections that currently exist in admin code such as custodial to extend that to security personnel for the purposes of this contract. it wasn't a general extension of the admin code. it was specific to this contract. which allowed us to incorporate some provisions to protect the workers for particularly in terms of retention and in terms of prevailing wage. so it is something that we, i think, were able to do successfully with this contract. and we'll be happy to work with you and appreciate the offer on contracts going forward where we might again need board of supervisors support in order to incorporate that in the future competitive solicitations. >> thank you very much for that. and i would simply end by saying that i don't know what's going to happen with this contract, but my view is that the right result would be for this

proposal to be rejected for the existing contract with cypress to be extended so there's a renewed process that addresses some of the concerns that have been raised about this process. but again, thanks to everyone involved. and thank you to the workers especially who've come out to provide their comments. >> thank you supervisor campos. supervisor wiener. >> thank you very much. madam president. first, i want to thank the mta also for answering the questions from last week. and i'm glad to hear that -- from what i've heard that some of my colleagues are, have come around to understanding that it doesn't make sense to turn our bear collectors into sitting ducks* who are often waiting around at night collecting large amounts of money with basically no security other than someone to chaperone them around. as much as we would like to see guns disappear from

as much of our planet as possible, that unfortunately victimization does happen, and people who are -- whose job it is to collect and carry around large sums of money need to be protected. it is a public safety issue. it is a worker safety issue. i think the various arguments -- and we've heard against this, against this contract -- have all been in my view addressed. we -- the mta is not some sort of aberration in using armed guards to protect employees who are collecting some of the cash. we see that all these other major transit agencies are doing exactly the same thing. mta is simply doing what appears to be very well established best practice. it is not the case that mta is sort of willy nilly arming security personnel. since as mr. ris kin noted* 80% of

security personnel do not carry arms. it is only those guards for whom it makes sense -- for whom as a matter of worker safety, they need to carry arms that do so. and 80% do not. that we do not want these guards engaging in some sort of gunfight on the streets. 23469, that hasn't happened*. that is an unfounded fear. this is a deterrent so people who might be thinking about robbing these san francisco employees know that they are protected and that hopefully they'll be less likely to do so. and the fact we have not had a problem with robberies -- i think in my mind -- shows that the deterrent has worked. we've heard before that there was some sort of inadequate training. and we now see from the mta these security personnel receive 70 hours -- if i add up the numbers correctly -- 70 hours of training. including significant training on use of force. and in addition, they

have to every six months take an additional 16 hours of training at the firing range and re-qualify at the firing range every six months. in terms of the issues around the process, as we've heard the city attorney has determined that there was no ethics violation. so someone can be of a view that the process should be different or that the law should be different -- and that's a poa blik policy decision* that is totally appropriate to have. but to reject the contract for some sort of ethical problem when it's been determined there was no ethics violation, that doesn't make sense to me. so, you know -- no process is perfect; no contract is perfect. but this is an existing contract that has worked well for the agency, as shown by the fact we haven't had some sort of epidemic of

robberies. it's worked well. it's protected these workers. it's kept them safe. it's allowed them to do their jobs in a safe environment. and we should approve this contract. >> thank you supervisor wiener. supervisor mar. >> thank you. i appreciate the concerns raised by supervisor kim and campos. and generally my philosophy is also not increasing guns among public employees and reducing it wherever possible in creative ways so that their jobs are protected and that they fulfill their functions. but on this one i'm convinced by -- especially by testimony from many of the guards themselves and sciu* and others that the armed protection for the night -- the 18 of the security guards -- the 20% -- is a necessity. and i'll just read kind of one of the quotes from one of the security

workers from the mta. she says that she and her coworkers are really concerned about this -- the heading is that she wrote to many of us -- "armed security is a must." and i think she's talking about the narrow amount of people that need this defense. she says, "if the contract is eliminated by april 30th at midnight, my coworkers and i will be defenseless against robbery attempts. without armed guards, the likelihood of violent offenses could increase putting mta employees and the community at risk." i'm appreciative that we've heard from a number of staff of the mta about this issue pch but also mr. ris kin has answered every single question not only for the budget committee and following up with what the budget and budget analyst has given us as well. but i'm appreciative of the training ris kin has gone through including training at the firing range for the narrow

officers. training is continuing even after the initial training. on this cypress contract, i think it's the right thing to do. the question of whether armed guards in public institutions should be continued is a broader question that we'll hopefully address at another time. for this contract, i'm really supportive of the comments from the workers themselves. thank you. >> thank you. supervisor cohen. >> thank you, madam president. i have a couple questions for the director of security. thank you. in the letter that director riskin drafted and said to us, talks about -- in a section talks about the training of our armed security guards. you make a reference that the armed security guards receive training that is extensive and beyond the minimum requirement that the

state puts out. i'm curious to know, "what is that minimum requirement that the state puts out?" >> madam president -- director of security enforcement at mta. forgot that last time. the state requires six hours of class time and four hours at firing range that's followed by a test. >> is that a written exam? >> it's written exam and they have to pass the firing test. >> my question is to director riskin now. thank you very much. director, has there been any internal internal policy changes* to ensure that the potential of i guess the process out of which the contract was negotiated -- the discrepancy -- whether it was a fair process? is

there internal policy put in place to ensure this doesn't happen again even though the city attorney found there's no violation, it just -- doesn't quite pass the smell test. >> well, i guess what i would say is that the city attorney did at our request investigate and found that there was nothing that he did that was not compliant with the relevant laws. i think to the extent the board feels the law was required -- i believe it's a 12-month waiting period -- for somebody transitioning from the private sector to the public sector to have dealings with their former private sector employee. to the extent the board feels that 12-month is not good enough -- i think somebody said that's a good debate to have and change the ethics code accordingly. recognizing there are optics associated with this even though the city attorney has confirmed what we believe to be the case that the process was fully legitimate. i think it's

something we would definitely consider as we're thinking about, "who's going to be involved in a procurement going forward?" we always check to make sure we're within the law to the extent that this procurement has raised issues, we might consider whether we want to do something above and beyond the law until a such point in time as board of supervisors might want to change that law. but our practices are cognizant of the law, have followed the law, and in this case as in all others (indecipherable). >> another question -- has your department ever considered -- has your department ever considered arming guards but with a non-lethal weapon? >> it's not something that at least in my time that we've looked at. i think as a result of this conversation, that's something we'd be happy to explore. that we did confirm

that using armed security for -- to protect the folks who collect revenue is an absolute industry standard. so i think we would have to think hard about willing to deviate from that standard. it's something we can look into. at the end of the day we're going to defer to our security experts. work with our employees for potential changes to make. it's something we can look into. >> the reason i'm a little uncomfortable with this item is that i understand there's an industry standard to arm guards, but we're all human beings, and we're all subject to make mistakes. and when an armed guard makes a mistake, it has cost and can cost a person their life. and i don't think that we are in a position to take this gamble. and i don't think that we're in a position to take the safety of the worker and their concerns of -- and a

desire to see some level of armed security. i would very much like to see a proposal that takes into consideration arming security guards but with a non-lethal weapon. thank you. >> thank you, supervisor cohen. supervisor far el. >> thank you supervisor breed. colleagues, i would just say two points. first of all, i appreciate your comments about the process here. it does seem strange. i will say this contract was up before us budget committee in 2014 with -- and there were only two bidders. and the other bidder was the one who won the contract for the first time. and we were prepared to vote on them and approve it. and so, all of this what lately has been discussed came to light after we budget committee. so i do

share some concerns. look forward to amending the laws so we don't even have these potential for optics. i think it's well-worth it as a board of supervisors. will be happy to work on that. in terms of the conversation around armed guards, i appreciate that conversation. i wish we could do everything to eliminate armed weapons in every facet of our city life. i think after listening to certainly labor and also mta staff, you know, at times there is a reason for this. and certainly carrying currency late at night from my perspective -- that is something that is a job that is incredibly risky. and one could again -- there's no data to support that, of course, but there's an argument to be made that the reason we haven't had incidents is because they are armed. and we could debate that around and around. but from my perspective, i would er on the side of caution and allowing -- especially since there have not

been any serious incidents and all the training that has been outlined earlier to continue to allow that. so i will be voting in favor of this today. in terms of voting on contracts, we have to work on those issues. >> thank you. supervisor avalos. >> thank you. i will be voting against the contract for armed services. and but i do appreciate the explanation i got. last night from director riskin. i can understand the need. i can understand why they feel there's a need. my concern -- i'm voting "no," but i do vote "no" saying, "if there ever was a change where armed services were dropped from security services but security services continued, security workers keep those jobs and they actually get paid the same amount of money they got for carrying arms in the new jobs where they're not carrying arms, that to me is

really important that the workers do not see any loss in take-home pay. just want to put that out there that my "no" vote includes that comment. >> thank you supervisor avalos. supervisor kim. >> i just want to say i do appreciate all the answers and response from sf-mta. i just want to concur with supervisor avalos and cohen. i'm still not convinced. i'm not saying i'm against it 100%. i actually could see how it's useful and how armed services is a deterrent. i just don't see feel like i have all the needs* to vote the contract moving forward today. in general for our taxpayer dollars to make sure we're spending it the best we can and to make sure everyone is safe doing that. i'm confident moving forward we'll have this conversation. but in weeks time as sf mta did as best they could response to all these questions. i just don't think in