>> no matter if you are from ant

arc ka, you are going to be represented and yet for the person in the san francisco immigration court and some have suggested that we, you know, only i don't want to be part of that sort of system or representation, and what about the people that work here, and what about the people who have family here, where do you draw the line? that would be incredibly cruel to going to the courthouse and to say that you are from san francisco and say that you lived in south filipino, and you moved outside, sorry. >> that is not what i am trying to get at. >> so i am just trying to say that because there are people who are in sf immigration court from other jurisdictions. and because, we would like them to step up, and even if they don't have a public defenders office, like we do here.

we don't have that information, and that information is not currently kept, and so if you look at the detention centers, right, there is one in richmond and there is one in bakersfield and they are all over california and so theyed that it is not practical given what we are experiencing. >> and then i know that the other colleagues have questions, and my last one is you know, actually when i first came into the office, and i know that, the

number of cases that have forth ahead of your department, and for for example, since 2001, and 2002, the total ftes in the public defenders office has grown by 49 percent, and total cases have declined by 44 percent, since that same period of time. and so, and then the budget has grown, 155 percent since then, and so i am just, again, i think that we are all very supportive of this he have /* effort and if you could in the six month report, that just came out there was an identified salary savings of 238,000 within your own department and so i am wondering if there is a way to figure out how we can achieve the staffing within your own

>> when i came into the office in 2003, we worked with the controller to determine a matrix for our work load as well as our caseload. and with realignment, and prop 47 and a number of criminal justice reforms, and there is a shift in san francisco. and we are rather than with the felony caseload, rather than again, ten or 12,000 low level felonies that number is now down to 6,000 or 7,000 but these cases now are the more serious case and there is a shift by the district. to focus on homicide, and violent crimes frment and serious felonies.

we are seeing many more serious cases ask what is reflected in the work load, which i provided tho the budget analyst and i will provide one to you now, shows you that in terms of the work load, and misdemeanor attorneys are handling approximately, 70 cases, and in a given time, and they are working 68 hours a week, on average, and we track all of this information, and precisely for this purpose, in the felony attorneys, are handling cases of over about

>> we are expected to the surplus at the end of the year and believe me that i tracked that number very carefully. and the reason why it shows as a higher number, about 200,000 is because we have an employee who was out on family leave, to leave before the 6 month period that is required before the employee is not required to pay it back. >> she had to pay back well over 100,000 dollars, and 125,000. and that check was written to the city, however, it is posted to our account.

and so our surplus as i see it is 63,000. now, if the city wants to give me, another 150,000, i will be happy to take it. and certainly, you can apply that to this program. >> thank you. >> i think that i just want to say that, your line of questioning is to get to where we feel confident about what we are asking, and what we support.

and primarily because as you know, and melissa has mentioned that we don't and there are so many unknowns we have to be really careful about our next year's budget and so forth. so, just i wanted and i have several questions here and it is sort of unrelated. and in regards for the people that are detained, where are they? i mean, or detained in san francisco? or is it a bulk of them where they have a whole jail just for detain ees of undocumented folks? >> i mean, so do you have that answer? >> yeah, i mean, there are primarily, 4 centers which include bake kerz field. and the closest is in richmond county, and also in sacramento county. what has happened is that there

is some countia ills and some counties, which have made the space available in their jails to hold the ice detain ees and san francisco did that for a while and are not doing that any more, because we don't have the space and the policy decision, i think was made under then. and what we are also concerned about is that under the trump administration, they are going to start now using.

they are using some video, and video, taped sort of appearances and in order to facilitate that. that is where the attorneys will go and meet with the client and they will be brought there from the facility, by ice to meet and that is another reason to ask why, that is why to have the mayors in san francisco. >> so the attorneys don't have to worry about the travel time to these facilities. >> no, there may be some need for that and certainly cases that that could be. and thus far, in our practice, we have not had any problems

having ice bring the clients to court either for the client interviews or for the court dates. >> and then, there seems to be more cases than the attorneys that you wanted. and would be able to handle, even if they could handle 600. there is still more cases than that. so, how does, how does one, determine the priority of who they serve? >> well, currently, right, we only handle about 12 cases so we have to do that too. >> yeah, how do you do that? >> we look to the cases where now, all of the cases are former clients. so they are clients of the public defender, who are in immigration court. and we will intervene on cases where we believe the person has the best chance of prevailing. and now, of all of the

non-profits in san francisco. three, handle detained cases and it is estimated with the current level of funding, and the additional funding by the mayor, they would probably be able to handle anywhere between 50 and to 80 cases. so if you take that off, the 1005, we will be able to determine if the person does not have a good defense and, maybe the person does not want to stay here, and we will be able to help that person to get to a place of safety, and if that is desire, where there are case and issues that will be litigate and we will do that, and it is no the to say that every case, will

require the same level of attention. so you already explained the patterns and why you need more staffing for the fewer cases. so we will need less staff than n >> no, no. >> yeah. >> this is supervisors eokay. >> tang's question was asked earlier. >> yeah. >> okay. >> the last thing, i, you know, we had a hearing or something a few weeks ago and a non-profit came up here and made their case. and i, are the non-profits are they here? >> yeah, i see. >> are they in agreement that

you should that the public defender should be taking the bulk of these cases? you know? how are you communicating with them? >> you know, would it be okay if i yielded to. >> is somebody here. >> yeah. >> that can speak for them. >> yeah. >> i don't think that we have any. >> all right. >> all right. >> is anna here. >> that is okay. >> that is okay, we will continue with you. >> okay. >> if you want to speak you have to come up. >> you will have to come up and be on the record so anyone can hear you and see you. >> bill hersh with the aids legal referral