another-- >>let me comment that 800 ft.2 is basically so minimal that i am not really comfortablewith sitting here without a drawing to look at the qualities of what we are getting. >>this is the reason that i was saying that we would be incorporating portions of the ground floor into it so become more like 1100 ft.2 or 1200 ft.2. >>so you are telling me that the new second unit would be larger than 900 ft.2. >>that is correct. >>okay. i hear you but i am a visual person. i like to see things. >>and, it will be in two floors. >>i am curiouswhat other commissioners have to say because i don't like to talk architecture and building plans withoutactually seeing them.

>>commissioner? >>i am in agreement i like the second unit. it does not trouble me in this case that the second unit is smaller than the first unit in the home. my mother has one and that's how we have her unit. this lays out and steps down to a hill which lays out something in the lower unit. a piece in the upper unit i think would be awkward here. i think you still have a fairly modest 850 ft.2 above and 1200 ft.2 home below. kind of as far as diverse housing types go and if they work, i think this one works. >>commissioner, one of these

units would be providing a four-bedroom unit which is very hard to find in the city. >>i don't think that taking a unit from the first floor and adding it to the basement unit is not necessary. i am comfortable with what you have presented in a smaller-- you are right. i mean granted we have seen smaller single-family homes. we could move to take dr with the modification shown with a unit on the ground floor and stepping back that top deck in the front. >>yeah, on the top. >>by 5 feet was it?

>>yeah. >>commissioner? >>that was my motion >>second >>i'm good. >>commissioner? >>thank you that is something that the commissioner asked for in previous projects. i want to make things easy so i am in support of the motion but i would like to say that i would be in support of suspending the basement unit into the second floor. it looks like f you go above the proposed basement floor plan there is space in the proposed first floor plan and an extra room or bedroom or something. but, if we are okay with the unit as is, i will be okay with it as well. the only thing that i will ask is that oh nevermind, the back deck is only 700 ft.2. nevermind, i

am good. >>if nothing further commissioners, there has been a motion and a second to approve this matter with this modification of adding an additional 5 feet and that second unit. with that we can take the roll. >>[roll call vote] >>so moved commissioners the motion passes 5:0. commissioners that leaves us with general public comment and i have the general public comment speaker cards. >>anyone for general public comment? ? not seeing any so the meeting is adjourned p . >>[gavel]

>> [gavel] good morning and welcome to a special meeting of the government audit and oversight committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. i am the chair of the committee aaron peskin joined to my right by norman yee our member london breed is in the nation's capitol today and won't be joining us. madam clerk do you have any announcements? >> please silence all cell phones and 21 electronic devices and all documents submitted to the clerk and items will be on

the. board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you ms. major. fiscal year can we have a motion to -- supervisor yee can we have a member to excuse supervisor breed. >> (inaudible). >> that is moved. madam clerk can you read item 1 and two. >> item 1 is a hearing on the recently published entitled "san francisco's crime lab" promoting confidence and building credibility. >> thank you madam clerk. first i would to thank the civil grand jury for this report acknowledge our interim police chief tony chaplin is with us and with that turn it over to the foreperson of the civil grand jury to present. >> thank you chairman. i would like to introduce

katherine coffee and chuck thompson who are presenting on behalf of the civil grand jury. >> yes, can you say your name for the record? >> my name is jay cunningham. >> thank you. please proceed. >> good morning. my name is chuck thompson, and i was a member of the 2015-2016 civil grand jury. i want to thank you for holding this hearing. i am here today to discuss the results of the civil grand jury's review of the operations of the san francisco police department's crime lab. the crime lab is a public laboratory that is managed by the city's police department. over the past several years the credibility of the crime lab has come into serious question. this was causeed in part by a serious of unfortunate incidents

ranging from cocaine theft in the drug analysis laboratory to a mix-up of two samples of dna evidence during testing in a homicide case to the famure of two -- failure of two criminologist to pass the test and resulted in the closure of the drug lab. our report summarizes these and other past incidents. we report out the stepped reportedly taken to address the issues and the quality of the lab's work. we see these steps as progress progress in strengthening the lab. it is also our opinion that the current technical staff of the lab is very cable, and committed to their work, and to improvements being under taken. at the same time our report outlines additional steps

needed to sustain this progress and reduce the chances of similar problems in the future. some of these will be challenging and beyond the control of the crime lab personnel. it is these they want to focus on today. it is our feeling that the operations and independence of the crime lab would be strengthened by greater continuity at the top lead by an experienced civilian scientist as director rather than the current rotating secession of police officers. since 2010 the crime lab has had a sworn police captain in charge of the day-to-day operations of the lab. we found that the turnover of the captains has been frequent and their forensic experience as for the most part

has been limited. since 2010 no fewer than six police officers have held the title of director of forensic services. the level of turn over does not provide in our view the needed continuity for effective crime lab leadership. going one step further we believe there is a need for an independent crime lab totally separated from the police department. this is not a new or novel idea. in 2009 a blue ribbon committee of the national academy of sciences recommended that all public forensic laboratories and facilities should be removed from the administrative control of law enforcement agencies or prosecutor's offices. the committee stated and i quote "forensic scientists who sit

administratively in law enforcement agencies or prosecutor's offices or hired by these units are subject to the general risk of bias." we agree with this statement. the need for independence was also a consistent theme we heard from many of those we interviewed during the course of our review. it is time to begin moving in that direction. >> and mr. thompson as this was not actually included or at least i didn't see it in the grand jury report are you awear of other jurisdictions that have heeded that national academy of science's recommendation and civilizing and making this function independent. >> there are a number. i don't have the names at hand but in our research we did find -- >> [inaudible] [off mic] >> okay. houston and

washington, d.c.. >> thank you. >> sure. the movement towards independence could be achieved by a two step process. the first would be to replace the police captain as director of forensics with the civilian scientists. the second step would be to establish an antonymous independently funded crime lab totally separate from the police department. an opportune time to complete the process of separation would be when the crime lab moves into its new facility that it will share with the office of the chief medical examiner. this is currently estimated to be in late 2017. before closing i would like to mention one other issue and that is the benefit of

reestablishing the drug analysis lab. the lab was closed in 2010 after the discovery of the cocaine theft, and drug analysis was contracted to another public drug lab. reopening the drug lab at this time would benefit the city and the lab by reducing cost and training ground for new crim lift in courtroom testimony and analysis. thank you for allowing us to give this review. >> mr. thompson you didn't cover the laboratory management system which is one of your fundamental recommendations. are you under the impression -- is the reason you didn't cover that because you believe it has been implemented? >> no, the reason i didn't cover it was to condense primarily the best i could into five minutes. >> why don't we give you a

another couple minutes to talk about that. >> sure. the crime lab has doptd want to of the lim system, laboratory information management system. at the time we completed our review this had not been completed, and we hope it will move forward. the other point we make in our report is that in developing this system it is very important to take the views of their contichancy within the city government and what their needs are. that would be the prosecutor's office. that would be the defense attorney, and any other stakeholder. i believe that the city is trying to move forward on that, and our recommendation is they continue with that progress but most important build into it a way of interacting and getting

feedback from those that could use it the best. >> thank you mr. thompson and thank you to the civil grand jury for your -- i found this -- albyet half dozen years after the revelations that we read in the newspaper to be extremely helpful, informative and i greatly appreciate the recommendations. supervisor yee any questions from mr. thompson? we can obviously come back to him. >> no. this is pretty clear to me. >> thank you. >> okay. should we -- chief, you want to come up and respond on behalf of the department? i guess the way this works is the responses were as to the recommendations and findings were from the mayor's office, but really on behalf of the department, so the floor is yours. >> good morning supervisors. >> good morning chief. >> first i want to thank the civil grand jury for the hard work and dedication they showed to the city and county by this

process. i met a lot of the grand jury folks and they're very good people and did a lot of hard work and a lot of long hours and i appreciate it. a very comprehensive report. for the police department's role in this i will have deputy chief denise smild respond to the findings of the grand jury and i want to thank them for the work and with they will bring her up. she's the deputy chief of our administrative bureau. >> thank you chief. deputy chief submitted welcome. >> thank you. i am the deputy chief of administration. first i would like to say on behalf of the police department echo the chief's statement. the report the civil grand jury did for us, the work they did for the city it's invaluable and we really appreciate the depth they took in studying us and reflecting and making strong recommendations that will approve this city resource that we need to function the way

it's meant to. i think it's important to note there were 21 findings in the report and 22 recommendations that came through and for the most part the police department, the mayor's office and the controllers agreed with the findings. they were thoughtful. they showed an understanding of the science and they were consistent, and i think that's important to note that agreed with a lot of it and to the extent we disagreed in some ways we disagreed partially and some of that was a function of the time that has passed since they viewed the lab and the progress made through the years and through the last six month period especially. >> i think there were only two that you disagreed with or the mayor's office disagreed with totally as i recall. >> okay. i like your math. anytime i can agree with you i will. i would say that just to

respond or reflect on what was just put in front of us that you raised the issue of the lim system -- >> i take that back. it was four. >> okay. stop doing math. the lim system, the lab information management system, justice track is the vendor identified in the process in late spring. they are on board. captain mar is with us today. the crime lab manager is not here today and with justice tract. we're in the process of customizing the system and it jumps off the page in the report. you need an information system as the backbone so when evidence comes into the city process it's immediately identified. it's tracked through there and reports can be generated, information can be pushed out to all the stakeholders, and even more exciting than pushing out information is the fact we can

build on this system so that the stakeholders can themselves through licensing be allowed access to the system results, and that will eliminate a lot of the things that was evident to the grand jury and evident to us. the time lost of personnel answering phone calls and sending emails f the system is in place that efficiency will astronomically improve the performance of the crime lab. i'm sorry. >> deputy chief as to its customization this is off the shelf product that needs to be adjusted for the unique situation of our crime lab. why is it not just a plug in app? >> i think in the industry you will find that nothing is plug and play and everything requires making sure that the technology

interacts with the existing technology that you have and that the way you want your reports to be formatted making sure that they are comprehensive and track through all of the processes; that they reflect the current fbi standards and other standards and all of that has to be done and that is what part of what the rfp called for, part of what the vendor was required to do to qualify for this. >> and what is the anticipated period of time for the customization to take place? >> so we're -- we will finish the interact process and the online testing and have it functioning fully by the spring of 2017. >> okay thank you. >> you're welcome. second would be maybe to talk about positions a little bit. i think that one of the points that wasn't identified specifically to you but has to do with staffing and making sure that

enough scientists are in place to handle the evidence that we get. we get thousands and thousands of piece of evidence every year. all has to be entered, evaluated, analyzed, results verified and up loaded in some cases and results communicated. we need the people that can do the work. >> and this is a staff of about 30. >> correct. 25. but in the last month we added six additional dna positions. four are on boarded and starting the training process which is standard in the industry that is required of the amount of time, the type of certification they have to go through, the validation of their skill sets and that is in process. >> this is to deal with the backlog of dna rape kits. >> this is in general and to the backlog of rape kits i know it's referenced in the report and i know the report does have

historical reiteration but as it stands now we have screened all sex assault evidence kits and placed them in the process of analysis and we're meeting above the regulations that came out the last year to make sure that nationally law enforcement and crime labs could process this evidence in a timely matter and not just that but you know the board passed additional legislation to make sure that survivors of these crimes should they choose to be notified are notified of the results in a timely manner so captain mar and captain from the special victims unit have worked together to make sure that process is in order with us and we're in compliance with the legislation and we're moving faster with processing the evidence and meet the timelines so results are communicated and survivors are not left you know in the dark.

but to get back to the six positions four have been on boarded of the remaining two -- one starts this month and the last one moving from out of town and a reflection of the ability of the city to attract the national -- from across the nation for the people for the positions. that person starts with us in october so it's a very exciting time for the folks at the crime lab because they're bringing in the human resources they need and they're bringing the technology they need and they can see the potential for this work to start to move in a more efficient means and they know the results of that will be great for them. so the limbs is coming on board. the communication is another important element brought out to the report communicating with all stakeholders. the lab communicates with the results and with the stakeholders with their needs through several

stakeholder meetings that take place under the direction of right now the captain of forensic and the crime lab manager, but also has worked to bring on board the [inaudible] outcome project which reports out the results of samples that are submitted to the fbi coda system so we brought a lot of technology we have existing to make sure we're pushing out information in a more response manner and lastly to speak to the heart of the report which is about the leadership question, and for the city to really take advantage of what has been presented to us the police department knows there's further analysis needed and i think that's what the mayor's response reflected of how we manage this asset. however, there is no question and we are moving

forward on the leadership being science lead. the report that referenced 2009 report and the industry itself has wrestled with this question of how shall we manage this asset? how does it best serve all the stakeholders? houston, washington, d.c. and detroit were the three agencies that i am aware of that attempted the move away from law enforcement and a district attorney or other management. detroit want attempted it and not successful. they found so many issues with the model they went back to the model they had. washington, d.c. has had mixed results, still weighing and i don't know how they will come down on that. houston continues forward and there are issues with it. it is certainly something that is discussed nationally as the industry you know advances. science is developing so

quickly though we know the one thing we need and that is a forensic services director who is scienced based and have the skill set to manage a big city asset like this. >> that's the first step of the grand jury's recommendation. >> right. we have been working with the department of human resources. we have selected a search agency and we are under going oi search for a director to lead the crime lab for the city so that's the big step we have taken because we recognize the decision making there and the person who runs that decision making, who makes the recommendation, the chief of police needs a full understanding of what not only what science exists and what we have but where we can go and we've always had a good relationship with the scientists in the lab. however, they need to be telling us is our feeling

so we're moving forward with that. >> any time frame for that hire to be made? >> i don't know about the hire to be made. probably the company has a 16 week time frame and i didn't get an update where they are with that but we expect to meet with them in the next week. >> and that individual wouldn't be a sworn officer? >> no. the current captain who is assigned to that division is also a scientist, captain mar who is here today but that's not what we need. we need a scientist that understands the special nature of forensic science and different than other applications and that's what we're looking for and we're going to look until we find just the right fit. >> supervisor yee. >> so you mentioned that some of the cities that has been trying to implement this structure has had issues. are

there particular issues that are like common to all of the cities? something that in -- is it something we can actually overcome? >> i couldn't speak to specificity why detroit choose to move away from it or the struggles that washington, d.c. is having, but i will say that the report talks about the two risks, one of which is bias, and the appearance of bias, and i think that no matter where you place the science there's always going to be the risk of bias because we're human beings and even the really smart scientists are and we all have inside of us the potential for that so what we've done in the police department we started training, under taking training with our scientists and crime lab personnel to address that bias to make sure that they're aware of it. they're looking for it

in their practices and they're having that discussion on the national level with the regulatory agencies and with the fbi because this is a concern for all scientists that engage in this type of work that their work is objective, and validated so we do that. we also look at different models of analyzing evidence. there's blind models. there's all different ways that -- nationally the industry is looking at to remove this bias risk from their profession, and the second thing i would say is the report based a lot on the contention that funding and the support that labs need for funding might be better served in a different structural organization and i think that is challenging for all cities because to create a separate department and the infrastructure under that to supports it needs might increase your funding overall costs. right now the lab in the police

department benefits -- especially sitting in the administration bureau -- benefits from the nexus to a fully staffed personnel section being closely tied to the fiscal, the budget, being closely tied to the training and to technology. we are able to support the lab in ways that other organizational structures wight not be able to support the lab and this is the mayor's section and he's right to say i believe that it requires further study. >> i am hoping that if there's not an entity out there and looking at those difficulties or issues that people are having i am hoping that our department as you reach out to the cities and ask what's going on so we can

actually learn from it. >> i think you know one of the examples of the issue is you're talking about piece of evidence and the more entities you have touch a piece of evidence the more opportunities you have to compromise that chain of evidence and cause problems for the courts and your evidence first enters this system through the hands of your law enforcement agency, and little then turned over to and then turned over to the crime lab for analysis and tracked through that process. the more times you can -- the fewer times you can have a separate entity involving itself, transferring itself the better it is overall for the courts which is the end result, and remember the lion's share of the evidence you touch may be exculpatory and not lead to an outcome that the district attorney's office would be

invested in. it might be inculpatory but not sufficient enough -- so where the case goes once the evidence gets back to the investigators may not end up in the courts, but it has to be handled correctly so that if it gets to the courts it's beyond question. >> go ahead. >> i actually don't have anything else. >> so maybe this is not a question for deputy chief but based on what she said perhaps the july 31 letter from the mayor to the civil grand jury may need a little bit of revision based on what i just heard because in a couple of

these instances where they are saying requires further analysis you're actually saying you're moving forward with getting a civilian scientist to be the forensics unit manager, so is there somebody here from the mayor's office? >> good morning supervisor. jason cunningham from the mayor's office. your statement is correct that we working with the police department and their crime lab currently in bringing in the crime lab manager position which was added towards the end of the last budget cycle. as to why the letter states requires further analysis i believe that statement is included as a statement that means we require further work in order to fully develop the mqs

for the position, work through dhr, work through the contractors there in order to develop the required pool of individuals that the police department and the crime lab would then pull in for interviews. >> right, but i think the actually verbiage that is required there is that you partially agree. i mean yes, you can do the minimum qualifications and what have you but i think on page nine of 15 of the response from the mayor's office with regard to recommendation ra3 i think that that's actually -- and i am being argumentative and you actually -- or the department chief partially agrees. >> supervisor based on the information that was given by

the deputy chief i would concur. >> and then with regard to the lims -- not to put too fine a point on it. this is on page ten of 15. i don't think the recommendation has been implemented. i think that you agree and the recommendation is in the process of being implemented and the reason that is important is because i don't want this issue to leave the jurisdiction of the government audits committee. i would us to be able to check in once it's fully implemented so i think we might -- or the mayor's office might want to change that because it has a matter of fact not been implemented. i think you agree and we're in the process of implementing it. >> [inaudible] [off mic] thank you supervisor. we will take a look at that and continue to

work with the board to monitor. >> thank you mr. cunningham. deputy chief anything you. to add because i have more questions for you. >> >> no, would. >> in regards to the drug analysis lab what is the status and what is the future as contemplated by the pd for that unit? >> sorry do you have in front of you the recommendation number for that one? sorry. i thought you were staring at it. >> if i could and i am going to the body of the civil grand jury report and the civil grand jury noted after the madison case after 2010 although they don't call it the madison case it remained shuttered, presumably the analysis functions were contracted out is my assumption but i thought there was a recommendation that

it be reopened , and i can find that recommendation if you -- >> it's rc3 so i wanted to make sure. >> rc3, the drug analysis should be reestablished in the crime lab, yes. >> so we think it requires further analysis. although in -- the analysis that is required is the plan of how we would do that. we do agree with the civil grand jury's conclusion that it serves the city better to have that function be in house in the crime lab. it allows staff to be developed for skill sets. it takes the -- as i just spoke to a while ago, the transfer of evidence through multiple places. it takes that element out and streamline the chain of evidence, your custody of evidence, and we have equipment that can do that. we have staff identified that can do the analysis. we would need

a plan going forward of how we would bring on the appropriate level of staff, what that level of staff is based on the current -- the changes in the law that has reduced the number of these types of pieces of evidence coming in. we still have drug crimes though, so the analysis that is necessary and we would want the forensic service director that is selected to weigh in on this and what is the correct way and serves the city and the lab but you want to make sure you bring in the right people to do it; that you have the right oversight and supervision and includes plans as you know in the new crime lab and current crime lab for -- >> that's the crime lab that will get you out of 606 and into a new building in 2019? >> yes, so you have infrastructure that supports the

proper custody of the samples, the tracks of the areas where they're analyzed. all of that should be planned out and executed smartly, so -- >> deputy chief isn't that an agree but requires a plan? i mean we're not disagreeing. we're actually saying -- [inaudible] >> i think we're trying to -- we didn't want to come at this report and say you know and misstate what we have, so we agree and there needs to be a plan for developing how that goes forward. perhaps it would have been a better response i think requires further analysis was our way of saying let's sit down and plan how this would support the overall structure and how we would get it done

and let's know that one of the first things is getting the proper scientist in charge and develop a staffing and equipment plan to ensure that we do it the right way but i hear what you're saying. >> insofar as -- let me give my theory about the civil grand jury and the reports. some of them with the best of intentions no matter how well written they are end up on a shelf gathering dust. some come at exactly the right time and directions to policy makers and implementers and the executive and legislative branches and their timing is superlative and while this one is half a dozen years after the fact. the recommendations i think are very helpful. they're being embraced by the department and the administration and the board is happy to see it, but it's also kind of an indication of where we've all agreed we want to go

and it's a document that when this body as it does from time to time looks back at past reports to see what has been implemented, what has been forgotten because a lot of things are forgotten and requires further analysis is a pathway to forgotten compared to us looking at this in a year and saying deputy chief schmidt we thought we wanted -- we thought there was willful of agreement here but nothing has happened. at least an indicator to everybody it's a historical record that we actually thought this recommendation was the right way to go albeit it requires planning, thinking, what have you. i mean this doesn't -- nothing in here binds you or us, just intellectually interesting policy recommendations but to the extent there is a public acknowledgment that we agree

want we want to reopen it in the future and to the standards and what have you and this is a good place to say it if that makes any sense to you. >> i would agree with you. i will defer to my boss. >> chief. >> no, i agree with that supervisor. it's one of the things we've always wanted but with the recommendation of requires further analysis i get what you're saying about the language and sometimes putting it on the back burner. it's not what we want to do. in reality we have to look at a lot of things and the narcotics arrests are off 90% when we had our own lab and look at that and the cost analysis on farm the cases out to other labs so bringing a director in that person would be suited to get this up and running. we're not putting

this on the back burner and i believe it's efficient to have these things in house because you don't have folks during trials driving across the bay bridge to a golden gate bridge to get evidence or have people travel from great distances. i think doing it in house is definitely the way to go but again we want implementing one recommendation is going to impact other recommendations which is bringing a forensic service director and that person would be more suited to do what we want going forward so the infrastructure is in place and it's not something we will forget or we don't want to do because it benefits the city and county of the police department as a whole. >> thank you chief. one more question relative to the timing of this which is the startling revelations of half a dozen years ago and you weren't the

chief back then. what in your view as given those revelations, has lead to six captains over this function in six years? >> i think it's just a matter of personnel, just rotating of personnels. we've -- you know, we've had a lot of push back and you know as a supervisor you rotate captains much to the chagrin that captain was in of the district and there are reasons why we rotated them around and we have taken a look at that and there's no ten to it other than the fact that as promotions occurred or moved into other positions and rotated out and why i think the recommendation is a solid one because you have somebody firmly in place and that is all they do. it's not a direct captain or a captain thinking about what their next assignment may be and again captain mar is a scientist

and the best fit if we keep a sworn person in there and obviously we're moving away from that but right now he's a perfect fit and i have bias and he was my partner in the mission and is a scientist and the best person to be in the position but eventually we want to civilize the position and someone to guide the lab and current with the policies nationwide that are best practices. >> until we have that forensic scientist we're going to keep captain mar in that position? >> absolutely. >> captain why don't we hear from you for a second about your science bona fidees. the scientist captain. >> yes, sir. i have a bachelor's in biological science and masters and the foundation of my scientific degree or my

experience and education. >> and apparently you're going to be in charge of the crime lab until -- chief chaplin said you will be there until we get a person hired. >> i will get my orders. >> congratulations and thank you for the oversight of that body. supervisor yee. >> in light of this discussion i agree with you if it seems like we're in a direction that we're actually agreeing to the recommendations we should make a definitive statement that we're agreeing. i think there are several things. you have -- you know a new chief in place whether -- i mean -- in the future, and it be clear -- when you bring in somebody that's a

forensic service director then let's make it clear what direction we're heading with this unit so that the person that comes in doesn't decide they have a better idea so for me if we're in agreement i think we should just make that statement. >> i agree supervisor and i will say that now. we do agree with the finding just to put a period on it. >> thank you chief. and let me say i also agree that relative to desolving the crime lab from the pd it does require further review. i agree with the mayor on that. i don't think that's a easy and cut dry one. i am delighted we all agree on step one and in the process of being implemented and let's see how this works and keep the report under our jurisdiction and let's continue to weigh in on it. there members of the public that would like to seek on items 1 and two.

>> >> seeing none. public comment is now closed. the civil grand jury requested that the board respond to two recommendations r a2 and rb1. r a2 is the one that we just talked about that the mayor should direct and the board of supervisors should approve and the controller should facilitate a transfer of budget facility, assets and personal management from the crime lab from the pd to the general services agency and i think that we agree it requires further analysis which would bring us to a recommendation requiring further analysis with an explanation which i think which explanation is set forth in the mayor's response and we discussed here this morning and

the other one is lab information management system which hasn't been fully implemented because it hasn't been fully implemented so supervisor yee. >> so let me see if i could make a motion with these two recommends so for r a2 i would like to make a motion that the board of supervisors continue this recommendation number two -- i mean r a2 for further analysis because the board requires the san francisco police department and the general service agency to formulate a proposal timeline and feasibility of how the transfer of budget facilities assets personnel and management would be handled. the board requests the proposal to be presented to the g ao committee by october 6.

>> okay. and then that's with regard to -- do you have one for the second one for rb1? >> yes. i would like to make a motion that the board of supervisors accepts the civil grand jury's recommendation number rb1 and reports that the recommendation has been implemented according to the response from the mayor, the police department and the city administrator to the civil grand jury saying that the laboratory information management system contract was finalized and the system purchased in the spring of 2016. it is currently being customized and implemented through interactions of the vendor and the crime lab. the system will be fully operational in spring of 2017 and will allow and improve operations of and

effective communications for the forensic service division. >> supervisor yee i completely agree with you on the first recommendation relative to r a2. with the next one i don't think we need to change the recommendation but i respectfully suggest rather than say it has been implemented insofar it want be fully implemented until next year. that we change it to the recommendation hant been fully implemented and in the process of being implemented and make that tweak to rb1 but with the same explanation i think that would do the trick. >> okay. so you want to change it to the recommendation -- >> the recommendation has not yet been fully implemented but will be implemented in the future with a time frame for implementation.

>> okay. >> thank you to the civil grand jury. thank you to the pd. thank you to the mayor's office and we have a motion that is before us and without objection that motion is adopted. [gavel] and we will send that to the full board with recommendation without objection. madam clerk could you please read items 3 and four together. >> for clarity for item 2 is recommended as committee report and for item 1 will be continued to the call of the chair -- or i'm sorry continued to october 6. >> right. item number 1 we will continue to october 6. item number 2 we will send as amended as a committee report with recommendation without objection. >> all right. item number 3 and four is a hearing and resolution on the recently published 2015-2016 civil grand jury report entitled "auto burglary in san francisco". >> and i want to acknowledge

that supervisor yee has held a number of hearings about a source of common concern throughout the city and county of san francisco that is known to every resident and unfortunately to many visitors with regard to the controversy number of auto break ins and with that mr. foreman. >> again my name is jay cunningham and the foreperson of the civil grand jury and i would like to introduce michael scaihill ph.d who will speak on behalf of the auto burglary. >> thank you mr. foreman. >> good morning. supervisor yee, chairman peskin. thank you very much. i appreciate this

opportunity to speak before you today. >> thank you doctor. >> i guess i would first like to introduce my colleague libby dodd who is sitting right next to me where i was sitting down. we spent over a year very much immeshsed in this project and we have learned a lot but what is ironic about it that jessie -- auto burglary has been a topic for over a year and i don't own a vehicle and libby has a car that is garaged and doesn't drive that often but speaks to the reason we chose this topic because it goes to the quality of life of the people in san francisco whether or not you own a car. it really does, and so with that i would like to continue. what we

would like to do is influence our action, and the reality of auto burglary in san francisco is a significant issue that diminishes the life of all in san francisco not just to own cars and affects us that ride muni and go to the bus stop and see broken glass from cars and all too often happens to tourists and it's an unwelcomed surprise, catches them off guard and sometimes damages the reputation of the city, and we're very concerned about that. the message that we wish for you to understand in a few minutes that we have with you today is that is also supported in detail in our report that is a rampant problem in san francisco and persisting and growing and

nearly unabated and it's been going on for three years time now or maybe a little longer than that. and it is a quality of life issue that touches every person in san francisco and in different ways and economic, public safety and time loss from work and family. it's an important issue. our purpose isn't just to tell you about the problem though. our purpose is to influence and motivate change, and we want you to understand the proportion of the problem to begin with and it's so large that it is a detriment to the city, and in our view of problem as large as this in order to initiate change there needs to be commitment from the top, the leadership of the city really needs to stand up and say "this is an issue of priority"

and to assign resources and commitment to that. it's a complex problem. auto burglary is a complex problem. and in the opening statement what i will try to do is describe some of the attributes of the problem and discuss some of the key recommendations that we make, and then we also look forward to addressing some of the responses that we hear from different departments, so i did give a summary of the presentation today. did you receive that, a handout that has charts on it? at the top there is a table that has -- actually my notes say 30 months but i added july to that so it's 31 months of data to that, and in 2015 using data sf, the open data warehouse, the

public safety data base, we determined there were 24826 reported incidents of auto burglary within the city. i know that varies. there are different estimates based upon who you talk to or how it's calculated but that's the number that we come up with and not that much different from any of the other calculations but you can look it over the past 31 months it's a very significant number and we're on track this year to hit that 20,000 mark as well which is just -- and if you look at the next chart there which is a crime mapping from crime mapping work which the city subscribes to that service it plots each reported incident on to a map of the city, and it's just covered with incident marks where you see numbers that's where the incidents occurred at more than one

incident occurred in the same location. so how are the incident reports made? a great many of them are made online, and that's for convenience i guess, convenience of the people who need to make the report because they need to get their insurance reimbursement. it's to the convenience of the police department and commonly done around the country this way because auto burglary is a common crime that often out numbers resources, but it is grown significantly in this area. other times people call 311 to make their incident report through 311. i heard of incidents where people walk into a station house and file a report and sometimes officers are called to the scene to do investigation on it but most of the incident reports are not

investigated. so the majority of investigators for these cases are assigned to the precinct stations that investigate auto burglaries as well as other crimes in the area. the majority of incidents are conducted by career criminals and criminal street gang members who carry -- they have got it worked out. it's a craft. they know how to operate quickly. they know how to break into cars. they know where the prime parts of the city and know which cars to select where there is more likely of goods to be gotten. and the little chart that i have here gives a bell shaped curve in the middle lists the red which are the career criminals and the criminal street gangs as the most prolific offenders and in the green we have the the most -- the next level of offender who

are oftentimes people who are afflicted, drug addicted, homeless or delinquents or criminal wannabes and they are probably a group that is more accessible for social services resources, but the career criminals are people who have had numerous felony convictions previous to this to any incident they're committing today and employ tactical methods in conducting their crime so the patrol bureau task force is a centralized unit and presently about 11 officers or when we concluded our research was at 11 officers who work to identify and gather evidence and

make arrests and developed a system track being people and conducting the crime and collect evidence and actually charge and make the arrest and charge multiple felony cases which has been a successful prosecutorial avenue, but it's still when you look at the proportion of the crime it's pretty high, so when you add up the number of investigators that are in the precincts as well as the investigators that we have in the patrol bureau task force we have maybe 40 people who are working not full time on the issue of investigating auto burglaries and theft of property from autos. breaks down to 620 incidents per investigator and where would you begin if you were tasked with trying to

identify who to pursue and how to make the arrests? i'm not a professional police officer but i think the case load there is overwhelming and the auto burglary is a overwhelming problem in san francisco and overwhelming sfpd as it would any agency that is confronted with the same kind of situation. so we made a number of recommendations that we believe will address this issue, and i am just going to be brief because i know my five minutes is almost up and we can talk it more in-depth as each of the departments comes up to speak but looking at increased and focused police resources as one area of recommendation. improved information gathering analysis and reporting is another area of great importance and expanding partnerships with federal and regional agencies

is an additional area. i can go into these in more detail if you like but this concludes my opening statement to you. >> thank you. any questions? >> can you -- thank you for your report and thank you for your focus on this issue and it's something that my office has been focused on also, and has been exploring legislation that will get us to focus as a city on this particular issue. >> and that is something we believe is very important. it's no one agency or one action of a single department is going to resolve it. it will take a coordinated effort. >> so one of the questions i have in regards to one of the recommendations of resources. what are -- can you be specific about resources in terms of what you see needed to combat auto

theft? >> sure. well, one of the key things we see as far as police resources go is that there are limitations to the precinct investigators that are basically geographic. precinct investigators are investigating crimes of auto burglary and others within the boundaries of their precinct but the suspects go through the city and beyond without regard for any geographic boundaries, and their systems are such that they have contact that allow them to turn over the merchandise very quickly, turn it into cash and this would be something to look at investigating is the fencing operations that are going on. we also think greater expanded use of the crime analysis unit in the police department could benefit and we also believe that a centralized -- more

centralized approach such as already happening in the patrol bureau task force, whether or not it would be a isolated or new created centralized serial crimes unit or resourcing this patrol bureau task force but clearly 10, 11 officers is an overwhelming case load for that few amount of personnel. >> so can i stop you for a second there? >> sure. >> because your first statement of lack of sort of precinct investigators. >> i'm not saying there is a lack of investigators but i'm saying they're pulled in many different directions and i guess i would say there is a lack of precinct investigators to the extent that the police department is tight on resources all the way through. we did note that the upcoming

initiative on the ballot this coming november forms a neighborhood crime unit, and we're concerned about a couple of things about that. we don't object to it. actually knowledge it's a good idea, but we're concerned that this problem that has been going on that a police response is being pinned to a voter initiative and i think that we think the actions should have been taken before now and really needs to happen now rather than waiting for a voter initiative to pass and what happens if it doesn't? >> i actually appreciate this statement. this is exactly what i am doing for the legislation and if the board wants to support that fine, but i think as leaders we need to step up and legislate and work with the mayor to make this happen. >> yes. are you asking me? >> no, i am agreeing with you.

>> okay. [laughter] >> thank you. >> all right. why don't we hear from our acting chief of police, mr. chaplain the floor is yours. >> thank you supervisor. again thank you grand jury for the report and the work and dedication to this process. this has been a tough nut to crack for almost every agency in northern california and you know just talking about the numbers and i don't want to steal anything of the presentation and our response is handled by commander greg [inaudible] from the investigations' division but using the numbers idprovided by the civil grand jury and talked about the number of auto burglaries and putting it in perspective it's average of 2,000 a month and we have burglars that come from all

over the bay area and have 50 people doing a couple a day and we know there are individuals that do five or six and responsible for the numbers and it's a tough nut to crack and we're dedicating resources to the serial burglars so i want to say that up front and with that said -- >> although you're on track to much better numbers this year. >> yes. with that i will introduce our commander to do the presentation or responses to the civil grand jury's report. >> what do you call you now? >> commander. >> commander. sorry. >> thank you supervisors. supervisors thank you very much chief. thank you for the introduction and i will would just like to echo what the board has said and the chief and thank the grand jury for the report that they gave us on this certainly prolific issue that

is affecting san francisco with property crimes. we responded to the grand jury report and what i will do is speak about a few things that were brought up today and then a couple of responses that we have in the report, and we have implemented and then i would be happy to answer questions that you might have. as mentioned by the chief we have a significant problem in san francisco with property crimes specifically the auto break ins. knock on wood like you mentioned supervisor our numbers have gotten much better this year and i think that is a result of some of the changes that the police department has implemented. some of the changes that were in the works before the grand jury report and some that we have taken from the grand jury report and implemented and help reduced numbers and we are hoping to

continue that so i will speak about a few things we have done within the police department that will address the grand jury report. one of the things that the report talked about was specific resources that the department has and has provided to the officers at the station and to the public. we spoke earlier about the investigative units at the station and each division has a street crimes unit addressing crimes in the district. some of the time is addressed with property crimes and oolt break ins but they're responsible to responding to robberies and aggravated assaults and other crimes within the district but they're responsible and we're require the captains to have a focus on property crimes and specifically in the areas that affect them the most. we have the ability to locate -- locations within

the city where auto burglary is prolific and we're asking the street crimes unit to dedicate resources to that and they have and i will speak a little about numbers later. we have the patrol bureau task force that was implemented. it's been in existence for a couple of years now but our main focus has been the auto burglary problem from late september, october so we're within a year to address the problem. the staffing numbers of the patrol bureau task force have gone up. there is actually 18 members at the task force now and we are looking to increase the numbers as the academy class graduates. as most of you know there are 200 academy recruits in the academy now thank you to the board of supervisors and the mayor's office and it is our intention to increase the number of officers at both street crime units and at the patrol bureau

task force once they graduate and take the seasoned officers and investigators from the stations and add them to the task force because what we have found is that specific unit addressing that problem has had a positive impact. we have done a few things when it comes to our equipment with the auto burglary epidemic we have. the department purchased a number of vehicles and while they're more appropriate for command and captain level vehicles we are able to push down some of the vehicles that the department has that are better utilized for under cover surveillance for the task force and the units at the station so we can provide them the sufficient resources to address the problem in a proper under cover mode that is less likely to be detected by these

criminals. we have purchased a number of pieces of equipment that have helped us in tracking some of the serial burglars out there. without going into those they have certainly helped us have a better understanding where the criminals are, where the criminals are committing crimes and help us tie cases in for the serial criminals that are committing multiple offenses. >> does is it include forensic video? >> forensic video -- we worked with the district attorney quite often on forensic video. some of the things that we have improved on for us is one training officers and obtaining evidence at the scene of an auto burglary and fingerprints submitted to the crime lab for the indicates and obtaining video when available. we partnered with city agencies that have video in place in some locations where it's been more

prolific and we had an excellent collaboration with the district attorney's office trying to identify private video surveillance that either businesses or residents have that we can go back and look at to help determine suspects, motive, locations and so forth. we're actually working with the district attorney's office on a registry and have been for a year and a half now of private cameras where we can go back and obtain private video from the public that wishes to provide it to the district attorney's office for us to utilize in our investigations. >> and what about the kinds of forensic video that you use in penal code 653 cases where you put them in a van like prostcution cases? >> we haven't utilized video like that within specific operations that we run but we're looking at a couple of different

avenues with technology from other companies such as that, and other types of items that we're looking at. additionally we are looking at -- we have actually used a couple of instances where we provided bait cars out there. we know it has been a focus of the public and oftentimes of members of the board of supervisors and so we have partnered with other agencies and used bait vehicles out there with some success, but we've had a lot of our success with actually having a more robust unit that is tracking the individuals that are known for offending and then presenting strong cases for the da who has been a wonderful partner in the last six months with a committed district attorney liaison for these cases. in regards to some examples of where i think we've

had successes. so far this year just in the patrol bureau task force they made over a hundred arrests for auto burglaries and in those instances they charged the hundred people and that's just the task force with more than 200 offenses so that means there were some individuals arrested where we arrested them for multiple cases. there were ten individuals that we charged with 92 separate offenses. one who we charged with 38 just on his own and we were happy that the district attorney went forward with the case and charged that individual who obtained a significant sentence in prison versus the county jail, so what we believe is the numbers that you were talking about earlier. we are approximately 18% down year to date in reported auto burglaries and we think by focusing our attention on a lot of the

serial crime -- these serial burglars, however you want to look at them, working as teams and bringing strong cases to the district attorney and tracking them we know they're committing multiple offenses and hopefully had the impact we have been looking at in the reduction of numbers. >> and commander are these arrests geographically more significant in one part of the city than others? >> it's interesting that you mentioned that. there are three locations that most of the auto burglaries are prominent, some more than others and ironically all of them are high tourist areas where we're findings the offenses. two of the supervisors here are responsible for two of those districts. the leading one being northern station and there's a number of locations there that are prominent from the marina to jap an town and fisherman's

wharf and the lombard and embarcadero and the stations that lead in the number of arrests that we focused on and the next is southern station and south of market area and we also lead in the number of arrests made year to date so we think that's had a positive impact. >> yeah, i want to acknowledge the captain at central and the officers made great arrests recently. >> they certainly v the last couple of things that i touch on in the grand jury report and open for questions. one of the things we have done is partner with the district attorney's office and really to look at the criminals and the crimes is that these criminals are partaking in utilizing crime analysts. last week we assigned four new analyst specifically to investigations and they're working with the patrol bureau task force, our gang task force and other units within the investigations bureau.

yesterday they had a meeting with the krienl analyst unit from the district attorney's office so we're working in collaboration with them on certain cases where we are able to identify individuals in all types of crimes and auto burglaries which are prevalent so i am really happy to see -- i am relationship i think -- happy i think the opportunities to move forward and reduce the numbers will be greater as we work with the district attorney and the crime analysts within those units. the other thing they will finish on is you mentioned earlier about captain lazar and there are captains doing wonderful work and there are educational tools that had a positive impact specifically up in the lombard area down at fisherman's wharf -- >> mark safe. >> bringing out

basses and because we are diverse we have multilingual and have connected interaction with the tourists who are victims by speaking the language but the ambassador programs and at lombard street and fisherman's wharf and others are looking at and park smart and had a positive impact in reducing the numbers and have a good relationship with the car rental agencies -- >> at the airport. >> and at the airport and other locations getting them to understand how positive of impact it would be to notify people renting cars of the problem we're having here in san francisco so with that i am more than happy to open up to any questions that you have to

respond to anything else within the grand jury report that we are either moving forward with or will move forward with as we move to address this additional problem. >> so let me first acknowledge that we have been joined by supervisor farrell to my left, vice chairman yee any questions or supervisor farrell any questions for the commander? >> thank you for your report and i am glad to see in the year to date for that decrease of 18%. i think you -- to me i think the police department is beginning to do things right in focusing -- having a certain focus on this particular crime, and that having some of the precincts having their focus on property crime to me is a good

thing. sometimes as probably throughout the police department people are torn between different issues and i have been saying all along sometimes we just need to have a focus and have several people that can work on that and of course having more resources and building up with the 200 new officers that are coming in is a good opportunity. i am just curious though with the ambassadors program how does that actually work and who pays for that? >> the ambassador program is usually paid for -- it can be funding from the board of supervisors who have appropriations of money towards things that affect their specific district. sometimes they are hired by a business improvement district that pools funds from the businesses that are in the area and trying to address specific problems. they're located throughout the city. they can be down at

fisherman's wharf, down at union square, south of market. there's a number of them and it's a participation from many of the businesses in the community that wants to address a specific problem. it's wonderful pr for the tourism, for people who are lost because not only do they prevent crime but do a great job of interacting with tourists looking for a place to go, a place to eat. they provide information so there's different areas that the funding is provided. >> you may not have an answer but i am just curious and having the ambassador program up in twin peaks help? >> i can say -- i speak to captain lazar quite often and i can say that -- and i have been by the ambassador program he has specifically at lombard street and it has been a big reduction

in the number of crimes out there the community certainly happy about it. it is someone who provides them information on how to not become a victim of a crime so they're programs to look at as a city when you're limited on resources from the police department and other agencies and ways to have best practices and we call it 21st century policing but i look at it as 21st century ways of running a city and those ways that supervisor farrell and supervisor peskin have them in their districts can speak about the successes and so yes, i agree. >> thank you. >> yeah, no, i want to acknowledge that certainly july was so much better than july a year ago with 700 less reported cases, but if you look back to 2014 we -- i mean we're still

the numbers of 2014 and actually higher in july so we have collectively a long ways to go. >> i agree. >> should we hear from the sheriff. >> i wanted to acknowledge the commander in his new role and his work and we worked in northern station for a number of years and continue to hear people sad you're still not in that role for the community. although they love the new captain as well and thank you and we have worked together for years and the palace of fine arts and areas subject to this topic and it's a tough issue but i think one that requires continued attention because as the commander knows we hear about it every single day and just this morning i got more emails and anyway thank you for the efforts and i wanted to acknowledge you personally for everything you have done on the topic. >> thank you. >> should we hear from a representative from the district attorney's office as they are

one of the respondents to the civil grand jury report. good morning. >> good morning supervisors. chair peskin thank you for having us here today and thank you to the civil grand jury for this and multiple reports that involve our office and the opportunity to think more deeply about our work. i must say this is one of the most grand juries we have been able to work with and providing some substantive suggestions to us in multiple areas of our operations so a sincere thank you to the various groups that were formed under this grand jury. i will largely skip going through the findings. we provided them in writing and agree with most of them and the limited xemzs where there was a request to collect data -- >> [inaudible] >> and departments and district attorney's office. it's simply not anything we have the authority to request or mandate they provide us so we will make our best efforts in

that regard to do comparisons and we're willing to share our own data and have countless times in front of this body and others and will continue that commitment to share the data to legislative bodies and the community to improve the work that we do. my comments will echo the commander who is a great partner with us. i think when this issue emerged for us the district attorney requested that the prompted creation of a crime strategies unit in our office for these scenarios because we know that crime moves and ebbs and flows and proclivities change and requires that people in law enforcement are nimble and anticipate problems and actively work on them before they rise to the level -- unfortunately where we are with auto burglaries and the public demanding more action. the good news we're collectively in a place as a city and

understand the importance of that work. in the budget we received a crime analyst, the first time we received one -- pardon me, the first one we received one through the general fund. generally we received them through grants and indicates that the city has a better understanding of what our needs in law enforcement and not just police officers and lawyers in the courtroom but people that can help us understand where the problems are and really focus our resources. obviously a crime like auto burglaries we will never hire enough officers to get the ratios to investigate every one so it's incumbent as agencies to really figure out who are the most problematic individuals, and the areas impacted by the crime and how do we target the resources towards the most challenging situations? and that's essentially what we do in our unit and auto burglary is a big focus for the last

year and as the command every indicated we have seen good success. >> >> we're essentially down to where we were before the spike. >> amber alert. >> i thought i was radioactive or something. and hopefully we can get that number to go down even further with more concentrated efforts. within the crime strategies unit we did what we call security camera interactive map and plug it to the community here and those that might possibly watch these hearings. it's on the sf district attorney.org website and log your privately owned camera so if there is an incident involving people in the community both the police department and ourselves are aware there maybe additional video evidence that could be obtained and used in proving a case so it's an extremely valuable tool that we developed and pleased to share with the

police department and having the collaboration and populate it further and further fruits moving forward. >> does that mean that the district attorney disagrees or partially disagrees with the mayor's response on page three of 14 with regard to the assistant district attorney must acquire video evidence? >> is that rb1 supervisor? >> that is fb1. >> fb1. well, we do often end up doing that ourselves, but i think we've broken through many of the communication challenges we were having around these issues and the commander and folks working with him have been exceptional in this regard and we're hand and hand getting as much video evidence we can. obviously the patrol officers

have the greatest respond there and the data base that we have a good back up to that. can i go into more details that is necessary. i can also stop here. >> if you want to regale us with any places where there are instances of different recommendations or different agreement with recommendations between you and the mayor's office or i should say between the district attorney and the mayor's office. >> no, i think the only concern we had is just making sure it's clear what we can and cannot do that we don't have jurisdiction over the neighboring agencies to report out on their information. we also don't have unlimited access to the police department's data but access to the data crime warehouse will help us do our analytic functions to a higher degree and we welcome them sharing that with us if they're able. it appears something they

could do and we encourage that so we're working with the same data sets but other than that i think we're largely in agreement and hopeful this trend will continue and provide the public relief on this crime. >> thank you. i really appreciate it. any additional questions or comments from colleagues? seeing none -- supervisor yee. >> maybe this is a question for you and also the commander, but in regards to sharing information that cuts across the units how -- what's the procedure for that? how can we improve that? >> so i think maybe a bigger challenge for the police department with district stations and i will allow them to answer that themselves. one of the recommendations in the report was to create a unit similar to the patrol bureau task force and lays out what the crimes strategies unit is focused on and identifying the

larger city-wide prolific crimes and they're addressed appropriately and sometimes it's within the unit or the gang unit where we have prosecutors that have deep knowledge about the different street gangs within the city and can provide a more robust prosecution in that regard and sometimes it stays with the prosecutor we have dedicated solely to auto burglaries and has the ability to pull old reports and make connections between that and arrests and i think we have that and the jurisdictions are less limiting to us and the work that we can do. >> commander. >> just to address one more point to that. the interaction that our crime analysts that we brought over to the investigations division and the crime analyst iewptd from the district attorney's office we will be sharing the information that we will provide the opportunity for us to have a

more robust look at the serial offenders so when she talks about the crime data warehouse there is information that our crime analysts and theirs will be sharing utilizing crime data warehouse to have a more positive effect and how we're solving the crimes moving forward. >> thank you. >> are there any members of the public who would like to testify on items 3 or four? please come forward or a member of the civil grand jury. >> [inaudible] [off mic] >> i'm sorry. >> [inaudible] [off mic] >> yes, please come forward. >> my name is claudia cohen and live in district 7, supervisor yee's district. my car hasn't been broken into but because i have a garage and the question i have is the role of proposition 47 so i belong to a neighborhood website and next

door.com and constant costs on there and people who had their cars broken into multiple times and there is a general belief even if the perpetrators are caught nothing will happen and the crime is reduced to a misdemeanor and even if they're arrested they're not prosecuted and out there breaking into cars again so i would someone to address the issue of proposition 47. >> sure. i don't know if you were -- had the opportunity to read the august 18 letter from district attorney gast con and he addresses that and there were comments by the civil grand jury that this trend actually preceded the passage of props 47 by some number of years, but i will quote from the district attorney's letter that states "while some suggested the increase was due to proposition 47 we know that to be untrue.

proposition 47 did not alter the punishments associated with oolt burglary and it was done before the proposition was voted on and the rate is declining and down to the rate was 2014." mr. grand juror. >> yeah, it's a great segue to where i would like to resume again and we do know -- >> before you resume again and we can circle back to proposition 47 let me see if there are other members of the public that would like to testify for public comment? seeing none. public comment is now closed and the floor is yours. >> i am excited to hear about some of the changes that are occurring now and have been going on over the past few months because we have been active in this particular problem that's very present. and some of the issue about

sentencing and whether or not people get arrest read released again or not if that's a problem, and may lee himself raised the question just a few weeks ago. in addressing this issue have decided there is no evidence that we know of to support that and while we hear rumors this is true that it would need to be studied as an issue and in the report where we look to the crimes strategies unit of the district attorney's office as a potential entity most capable of doing the kind of research necessary to see if san francisco's sentencing policies and practices are different than other agencies, and also to look at how we work with other agencies in the bay

area because auto burglary in san francisco is not just a san francisco problem. it's a bay area problem. it's a regional problem so looking for those partnerships with other eanlses and what i would like to speak to is the federal potential involvement and i have to admit that i'm a little disappointed in my ability or our ability to get feedback from the u.s. attorney's office. we did have some brief conversations but were not able to have really all our questions answered in two cases. we bring up the idea that part of the role of the federal government may be to help coordinate the efforts of regional entities where there may not be the same kind of data reporting capabilities from agency to agency, and if the department of justice can help to build a cohesive bridge among the agencies. that would

certainly probably not just help auto burglaries but other issues as well and the issue of prosecuting cases where we talked about tourism and the interstate commerce laws and i guess we would really like to have the district attorney's office maybe take a second look at that as a potential avenue because we do see it as -- hawaii has successfully implemented and through federal agencies where they view the tourists themselves as an instrument of interstate commerce and often time when is they come into the city they're bringing electronic and cameras and things. if those things are stolen then it's stolen across state lines so it's something of an

interstate commerce issue or international commerce, issue and that brings me to the topic of services for victims who are tourists. we have some grand ideas i think about that, but to be practical what we do believe is that we need to be able to account for the number of incidents that are occurring to visitors to our city, and so the big change that really needs to happen is to include a box on incident reports and people that are visitors or tourists can identify themselves that way. we didn't in the report identify what it means to be a visitor or tourist. there are resources that i could bring to people's attention and addressing that and give a good definition -- >> presumably the victim's

address is an indicator. >> yeah, where they're located from and determining what radius away from the city we want to decide someone is a victim who is not a commuter but a visitor for example and we might even want to have that kind of information too. who is commuting into the city and identified on an incident report as well? so i'm going to kind of briefly go over our final kind of wish list here is that i think that as has been discussed this centralized unit does seem to pose a successful resolution to some of these problems and it may free some investigators in the precincts to work on other problems. i don't discount the need for the investigators in the precincts in this

particular issue but a centralized unit that is well resourced with staff and with information and with resources seems to be the proper approach and it clearly seems to be making some progress here, so i want to congratulate members of the police department for your efforts and for you know what clearly in july is a good number. we would like to see that trend continue. and the continue use of the crime analysis unit where we look within the police department and within the district attorney's office see the crime strategies unit as looking at the larger picture throughout the bay area and within the city as was just previously discussed, so i am feeling good that there's some progress being made. i think there's still progress that

needs to be made, and it will take some time but we really like to call on the board of supervisors to take a leadership role in you know declaring this as a priority one for the police department, one for the community as a whole to focus on and to provide the necessary resources and i thank you very much. >> thank you doctor. i very much appreciate you and your colleagues work on the matter. there were a number of other departments that were respondents in the report but i think we heard from the most important two departments, the police department and the district attorney's office and do not need to hear from the department of public works, the department of planning, the city administrator or the department of technology. i think we have enough before us with the report so why don't we work on

resolving this motion. why don't we -- you have asked us to respond to a number of your findings and recommendations specifically your finding fa1 which finding was that while the pd command staff has steadily added qualified officers to a new centralized unit, the unit will be fully effective until it's outfitted with appropriate vehicles and i believe we agree with that for the reasons that are stated in the mayor's response. as to the second finding fc1 which is complicated cases involving prolific auto burglars are handed by three

units and it may impede the development of information and develop best practices for prosecuting organized criminals. we agree with that finding as well for the reasons stated i believe in the district attorney's letter. hold on one second. fc1 -- oh no district attorney actually partially disagrees with that finding. excuse me. let me restate that. i would like to suggest colleagues that we agree with the district attorney and disagree with the finding partially, the units review cases are in frequent

communication more over the perspective of reviewing of the assistant district attorney of auto crimes and strategies unit and pooling the information to develop and implement best practices for prosecuting organized criminals. as to finding ff1 which states visitors tourists often targeted for crime have unique needs that can be foreseen and prepared for by victim services organizations. while i agree with that i disagree with the recommendation that we should complicate the police officer's forms because i think a smart crime analyst can go figure out who lives where and what radius and i think that information is already available to us if we analyze it correctly so i agree with the finding. i disagree with the recommendation so

colleagues i would respectfully suggest that we can agree with the finding as to recommendation ra1 which states insure the patrol bureau task force has adequate resources and investigators looking at driem and analysts and vehicles and equipment and technology et cetera. i think we all agree with that finding -- excuse me, with that recommendation. that's ra1. yes. we agree with that recommendation. and -- >> mr. chair. >> yes. >> madam clerk. >> the parameters for recommendation is either it has been implemented, has not been, required further analysis or -- >> right, and that recommendation has been -- ra1

has been implemented i believe. isn't that correct? why don't we get that from the commander. >> [inaudible] >> i believe it's stated here on page eight of 14 that ra1 recommendation has been implemented. >> that is correct. those recommendations have been implemented and we continue to implement additional things as we review it. >> so madam clerk if my colleagues agree we will indicate that ra1 has been implemented and we can adopt the language at page eight of 14 from the district attorney's memorandum for the reasons. rc1 which states establish a serial

crimes unit as a counter part to the pd's patrol unit task force and the mission is prosecute cross district and organized crimes by organized career criminals and that is rc1 which requires further analysis. commander mc ken rin -- i mean this is really a matter for the 2018-2019 budget. >> you're looking at rc1? >> yes. >> so as the department moves

forward in 2018 we will be looking at adding additional civilians including analysts to all areas so to answer it some of those have been implemented already with my presentation and analysts that have been provided but as we move forward to 2018 in the budget we are looking at other avenues to improve it and include analysts, additional civilian staffing and additional officers that will be able to provide to those units to address those problems so it's partially implemented but will continue moving towards the next budget cycle. >> ms. desoto deberry. >> for the district attorney's office we believe it's implemented by the crimes strategy unit. i would say to this group we can always augment the work that we have discussed in various ways. we received

two new positions for the crimes strategies unit in this budget and the funding we can hire them maybe in january or february of next year because we don't have enough funds to hire them now so we're hopeful to bring them on board shortly, the new analyst as well, and our hope to we can amplify the work within the unit to help the attorneys analyzing the problems. if i could quickly address the issue of the victims of crimes, both tourists and residents in the city. we requested in the budget that was passed two victim advocates and assist them with restitution. those positions were not given to us and unfortunately the state doesn't allow for reimbursement to individuals victims of property crimes through the state victim compensation so there is little as a local agency we can do about these crimes without funding from the state so i think the city may want to

consider whether we should have advocates to address the issues of residents and tourists and victims of property crime so it's an area that requires improvement. >> thank you. so why don't we actually adopt that this recommendation has been implemented and will be further expanded. i think that is the proper terminology and we would do that based on the fact that in the summer of 2015 the crime strategies unit initiated the secure -- security camera interactive map project, and then the next one is rd5 which states require the da to present the g ao committee the

comparative analysis and annual report of the crimes strategies unit including significant findings and recommendations. i think we agree with that, and that has been and will continue to be implemented, so and the reason for that is self-evident . that takes us to r3d support funding to expand the community ambassadors program and that actually as we discussed relative to community benefit districts has been and continues to be implemented and expanded. rf1 use the customary legislative process to review, vet, refine and vote to approve

a resolution for a visitor and tourist protection assistance program. i don't really think that is part of the legislative process doctor. actually through the good work of pd and captain lazar and the airport director john martin and with cooperation of the represental car companies as well as park smart and other things that have been done administratively and not legislatively -- i mean sometimes we legislate whether we have to legislate but it's always easier to pick up the phone and hey commander captain here's a good idea or they call and we need funding for it but i don't think it's appropriate to say that we need to legislate it. we just need to make it happen. >> yeah, as i said earlier we had some grand ideas for victim assistance program but we felt that the big thing -- the big first step is to really know to

what extent it is a problem which is why we are recommending the accounting for issue and i would like to note you suggested that it may not be necessary to manipulate the police department's incident reporting files but in their response to us they pointed to assembly bill 943 and doesn't have anything to do with tourism or anything but may require revision of the incident report files anyway beginning january 1, 2017 i believe in which case if there is a revision that needs to be done to those incident reports perhaps we can capitalize on the opportunity to include a field within the reports at that time. >> okay. we will take that under advisement commander. >> thank you. >> so with regard to rf1 i would suggest that we indicate

that this recommendation will not be implemented insofar as -- not to put too fine a point on it. it's not necessary to use the legislative process necessarily to accomplish these goals for a tourist protection and assistance program, so those would be my collective amendments to the subject resolution. are there any comments or questions from members? seeing none is there a motion to adopt those amendments? >> i will move your recommendations. >> second. >> motion made. seconded without objection. we will approve that and send it to the full board with recommendation as amended for hearing on september 13 and once again let

me thank the civil grand jury, particularly you dr. skyhill as well as chief chaplin and the commander and the working men and women of the san francisco police department for dealing with vexing problem which is not intractable and we'll remember the day when we finally got rid of the scourge in san francisco which did not always exist and will not exist in the future. thank you one and all. madam clerk could you read items five and six together. >> item 5 is a resolution benefiting a new public benefit civic non-profit entitled the yerba buena gardens conservancy to assume to assume long-term operating and management responsibility for yerba buena gardens and can item 6 is resolution authorizing the mayor to cast ballots in the affirmative of the city and county of san francisco as the

owner of five parcels of real property over which the board of supervisors has jurisdiction. >> i have been informed by the sponsors they would like these items to be continued. are there any members of the public who would like to comment on items five or six? seeing none. public comment is now closed. [gavel] and colleagues can we have a motion to continue these two items to the call of the chair. moved by supervisor farrell without objection. those items are continued. [gavel] . colleagues if we can take a two minute break we will come back and deal with the last item on >> [gavel] we will reconvene the government audit and oversight committee of the san francisco board of

supervisors for today september 1. madam clerk i would like to make a motion to call item 6 which apparently the sponsor doesn't want continued so if you could please call item 6. >> yes. item 160900 is resolution authorizing the mayor to cast ballots in the affirmative on behalf of the city and county of san francisco and as owner of five parcels of real property which which the board has jurisdiction. >> good morning. >> good morning. supervisor farrell and i am from the office of the work force and economic development development and asking the mayor and designees to cast a ballot in the a55ive in the city and county of san francisco over the owner of five parcels of real property and the board has jurisdiction and secretary to the proposed modifications to the plan and en