them 5 cents perride and that goes into the city coffers. it's just like the horse and buggy. the old business -- >> supervisor safai: thank you, sir. i appreciate it, but your time has run out. thank you. thank you for your time. >> in 1999, voters approved prop e. this stated, for too many years, san francisco's municipal railway has been the public service its citizens most love to haste. what should be the nation's best transit system is instead known for late trains and buses, long delays in the tunnel, frequent accidents,

accidents and dismal customer service. in 1999, there were expectations by the voters that mta would bring improvements. they've had almost two decades to do that, but has that happen? now is the time for voters to weigh on whether the mta experiment has been a success or not. i would strongly urge the board to respect the voices of the voters and place this charter on the june ballot. let the mta and others make their case in the voter handbook, not in the board chamber. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. so as i said, we intend to, and a lot of it was represented

today. we intend, both supervisor peskin and i, to have some further conversations with those in the taxi industry at their request. i think we need to give that a little bit more time, so i would like to entertain a motion to continue this item to the next meeting. >> supervisor yee: before we do that -- >> supervisor safai: oh, supervisor yee. i didn't see you. i apologize. >> supervisor yee: yeah, yeah. no problem. first of all, i want to thank the authors of this. i'm going to say that this issue of a check and balance is important to -- to me. i put something on the -- try to do something in 2016, i believe, making a charter amendment to maybe get to that check and balance with different mechanism which is to have the board be able to appoint commissioners on the

mta and at the time, even with no really campaign to move it forward, it almost passed, and i think, you know, if we had added something, it would probably have gotten through the hurdle. so i'm looking at this a little more carefully in terms of how the checks and balances would be than to have just the board have the ability to appoint commissioners on there. >> supervisor safai: thank you, supervisor. appreciate that, and we did talk about that, and -- as part of our process in rolling this out with groups that you had put that forward and in some ways, in that same spirit, we're trying to create a mechanism with which we would have more authority and there would be some more checks on the overall system, so we really appreciate that. so i'd like -- can we entertain a motion to continue this item

to the next meeting on january 24th? >> supervisor yee: i'll make that motion. >> supervisor safai: so moved, without objection, it is ordered. please call the next item. >> clerk: item number 8 is a charter amendment for the june 5, 2018 election to provide that whenever the projected budget deficit exceeds 200 dplr million, the city is not required to increase funds for certain museums, funds or cultural centers, provide these funds remain unspent and maintain the commitment to maintain and fund a symphony orchestra. >> and we a >> -- and we are joined by supervisor tang who is the primary author of this charter amendment, so i'll hand it over to supervisor tang. >> supervisor tang: thank you very much. so back in july, supervisor peskin and i had introduced this, and this charter

amendment mainly does two things, and i'll speak to the third thing in a bit. but one it provides a mechanism for us as a city to pause the growth of set asides. not cut, not eliminate, but pause the growth of set asides during an economic downturn when the city's projected deficit exceeds $200 million at the joint report. second it requires that unspent baseline and set aside fund be returned to the general fund starting in fiscal year 2018 and 2019, and i will introduce an amendment to that piece, as well. so based on a hearing and a report that we had asked the controller's office to put together, and i want to thank the controller's staff for that, san francisco, we currently have 19 set asides. that is the most out of any other jurisdiction in the entire nation. just by comparison, los angeles has two adopted set asides. san diego has one, and san jose

has none, and i believe this actually puts san francisco in a position where the city may not be able to respond to the needs of priorities in the future. and of course, i think set asides sound really good when taken on an individual basis. of course when you see a library set aside on its own, you see a children's baseline on its own, a dignity fund on its own, all of it, of course is something we would all want to support. but when taken as a whole and as new ones continue to be added, i do think this poses a huge budget balancing problem for us in the future. i think it's certainly very convenient for us to punt to the future and ignore problems that we can't see, but i think that's -- you know, to me, that's not okay. and hence i have this measure before us today. also, according to the report from the controller's office, a voter-adopted baseline spending in our city has trael increased

from about $200 million from fiscal year 1994-1995 to 1.2 billion in the current fiscal year budget and a projected 1.6 billion in fiscal year 2021-22. so the thatportion that's mand has increased, and at a time when federal funding remains unclear, we as a city need to manage our budgets. i do have a couple of amendments, and i want to thank deputy city attorney jon givner for working on the measure so quickly. number one is in terms of regarding the general provision fund claw back, it's already in the charter if you have the funds encumbered, that in

addition if the funds are to be set aside for capital, then they would not be returned to general fund. again if you have capital expenditures that you've identified. secondly, for the children's baseline to be distinguished from the children's fund. to the children's baseline, we are eliminating the line return to the general fund unexpended funds there in because there's a difference of how the children's fund works in comparison to the other baselines. we do have our controller's office staff to explain that if you have any questions. and then, of course, we also clarified how the controller's office will calculate what the version will be, and that's based on the total that the department receives. so those are the amendments

that i will ask the committee to adopt later. regarding the similar phony baseline removal, i only included that provision in there because there was a measure that was -- that is being proposed and signatures are being gathered at the moment regarding arts funding. and at that moment, the similar phony was part of that. i didn't feel it was right for the similar phony to receive two baselines. we've had some very productive conversations, and we will continue to do so, but i just want d to clarify that. our charter measure says that the city is not required to increase the funding and

throughout the measure it also says that we may suspend the cpi growth. so i want to let you know that it doesn't say that we must, it says that we may, so it allows the city flexibility during that economic time. now i've received questions and concerns that we've always projected a $200 million plus deficit, but based on the controller's analysis in the last 20 years, it has actually only happened six years during our worst economic times here that a lot of us can remember. so in the last 20 years only six instances where it would have triggered a freeze in the cpi growth. it would not take into consideration any freezes or increases that might have happened in the previous year. so i hope that that clarifies some of the provisions of this

measure. i've certainly seen quite a bit of correspondence that i think doesn't speak to actually what this charter measure is doing. one of the things that, you know, i'm not trying to target any particular baselines. this is really to me about good budgeting and allowing us as a city to have the flexibility during downturns. i know that many of you will come up and say well, we have a baseline because in the past, we have historically not had enough funding in these certain categories, right, and i will agree with you. but we also don't have baselines for departments such as department of public health, human services, unless you're counting the dignity fund. also counting the department of homelessness. but we can argue that especially during the bad economic times, these are some of the most vulnerable people that we need to exist. i hope that we'll have the

flexibility to budget as needed when we're faced with tough times. one last thing i will say is -- or a couple few last things is i've also received a question about why the police, for example, the minimum staffing requirement is -- or the police baseline is not included here. it's because it's a mun maximum staffing requirement so it's structured very differently from all -- many of the other baselines that we have here in san francisco. so it wasn't -- there was no effort to try to only target nonprofits and exclude public safety. it's not it at all. it's because the police is a minimum staffing requirement, so i want to make that very, very clear. okay. my last point is i don't see this measure as a threat to our baselines and set asides that are in existence. to be very honest, i had contemplated, along with my cosponsor, many other provisions that we would have loved to included in this

charter amendment, but we chose not to because we wanted to be able to allow the baselines to be the way it is right now without impacting all the hard work that many of you have put together in order to fight the battles at the ballot to put these measures on. so i feel that these two provisions are actually quite conservative in terms of what we initially wanted to achieve. i think the real threat which, you know is something that maybe, you know whether you see it or not, the actual threat to your baselines are other baselines that people put on the charter or put at the ballot. so for example, if it is successful, this arts measure that's for the june ballot, that would actually cut into the baselines that are in existence. in fiscal year 2018-2019, if that were to pass, it would impact the mta's baseline by

$6.1 million. it would impact the children's services, including child care baseline by $4.3 million, peace by 1.4 million, the library by 1.5, and other general impacts by 9.6. that's just that one year, but it grows in future years. i just want to make it clear this measure doesn't attack your baselines. it does consider in bad economic times your growth in the baseline, but frankly there are other measures that if passed by voters would dip into your existing baseline. so with that said, i don't know if my colleague has any -- my cosponsor has any remarks, i will be happy to hear from all of your community members from all of your -- >> supervisor safai:

supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: this is a tough conversation to have, and i think just having the conversation is very important whether it was the hearing that we held at the government audit, an over sight committee where you could start to see the magnitude of this over time. and it's also, i think important for virtually every one of these charter amendments aren't put on by popular signature. they're put on by six or more members of this body. and they're all for extremely laudable uses. whether it's early childhood education, whether it's for our ageing and adult population. and of course these are always uses that are under tremendous pressure: housing, libraries, recreation, parks and open space. but to set aside is the easy

way out. the tough way for elected officials to go is to actually pursue new sources of revenues and use that terrible word call called raising taxes, whether it's a gross receipts tax or other tax. i'm as guilty of this over you know the last 20 years as anybody i've supported. many of the ones that are on here and was proud to do so, but they were not accompanied by new sources of revenue. so we were -- we were slicing up the pie, tieing our hands in certain ways, because you sometimes have emergencies. this year, it could be a homeless crisis. next year, it can be a housing crisis, and that is not by way of diminishing any of the other needs, but they have not come with new sources of revenue, and i have since i got back on the board in 2015 tried to be

extremely disciplined. it gave me no pleasure to be one of two dissenting votes on the dignity fund. it gave me no pleasure to be one of two dissenting votes on supervisor farrell's rec and park set aside the year before last. but that kind of discipline has to be instilled in the board of supervisors. and the problem is we can't pass a law saying that we can't do that because the charter is the charter. and we can't say that members of the board of supervisors won't vote for a charter amendment unless it's accompanied by a new source of revenue because the charter doesn't say that, and the charter's a function of state law. so we're looking for ways to try to discipline this board and the community and understand the impact. so i want to say that i think it's very kraj us of supervico

supervisor tang to go down this road and start this conversation. but as she said, we are having set asides that are canbalancizing other set asideset -- cannibalizing other set asides. we've really got to get our hands on this, and i think it's long past time to start having that tough conversation. it gives me no pleasure, because i've got a lot of friends who have fought and worked very hard to get those set asides. and the most important thing here is this is not aimed at taking them away, it's aimed at set aside reform, and with that, i will turn the mic back over to the chairman. >> supervisor safai: okay.

so any additional comments or questions from committee members before we go to public comment? seeing none, let's go to public comment. please step forward. you have two minutes to speak on the microphone if you'd like to speak on this item. please lineup on the right. please proceed. >> hello. my name is francis collins. i've been a renter in san francisco since 1970. since there is no money from the federal government, and with this administration cutting hud, i would appreciate that we keep the set aside from the housing for the housing fund. if something happened to me concerning my housing and the fact that i'm on a fixed income, i'd like to know that there's a housing fund that i could access in any case of an emergency. thank you. >> hello. yes.

my name is ernesto escuarez. i am a homeowner, and in 2011-2012, we stopped the foreclosure right on the steps of city hall. i think money set aside, it should be to help foreclosures or for the specific needs of the community. you know, the community is the one that makes the city, and i'd like to ask you the charter amendment is not a good thing for the community, and thank you for listening to us, and money set asides should just be money set aside for the community. thank you so much.

>> supervisor safai: thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is sandy morey, and i'm representing the dignity fund coalition. originally in my thinking of testifying today, and knowing all of you are very supportive of seniors and adults with disabilities, and all of you except two of you support the dignity fund, but the two of you were very helpful in not publicly coming against the dignity fund coalition, and we appreciate that. hearing your comments today, because this is a complicated issue, i agree with you. it's very complicated, and it's big issue for the whole city to look at. so why are we trying to rush this through? i just think that we need to have a little bit more conversations. the issues that i raised today, supervisor tang, i've got to go back and look at that, because you know it's very complicated. so i just really -- my initial

thought was to just encourage you to just reject this whole thing today, but at the same time, given the fact that you're trying to come up with some ways of looking at this in a productive way, i say just delay this for a little bit and have morconversatie conversatie community. i know all of you support these issues. i know all of you support these populations that we're talking about, and you're trying to do your fiscal responsibility for the whole city. you're trying to balance all that out. so please consider, we're just rushing this through, so just please consider that. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> hi. i'm margo baker. i'm also with the dignity fund coalition. sandy and i are teammates. she said a bunch of stuff that i was about to say. i think what's important is something that supervisor

peskin made -- you were saying in terms of, you know, the vulnerable population and the importance of being able to move money where it's needed as opposed to having it all tied up. and i think the thing for us in the community and set asides and democracy is that many of us in the community, as many of you know fought for, you know, money for ageing services. well i did the whole 21 years i ran an agency. and as our population was spiraling, and it still is exponentially, the city -- it wasn't on the radar screen to give funds so we could prepare as a city for this population, which is as everyone knows, it's going to be 25% in -- you know, within the next decade, so it's huge. 20% who are poor. so you know, we didn't want to

get the set aside route, and we didn't. and we talked about it for years and years, and we finally did, because no matter what we did, we couldn't seem to get enough attention from the board and the mayor. so i think it's important for people here to understand that it's not like we all -- you know as sandy was saying also, set asides wiare the end all b all. i really appreciate the comments you made, supervisor, and supervisor tang. it was really helpful, and yes, i'd love to talk about it. i think it's really important. thanks. >> hello. patrick bran oon. i'm a vet, and what i'm most concerned about is age 41, 47th avenue, my friend was foreclosed after 20 years.

it was foreclosed for 320. mr. mohamed -- pardon me, please recnanian, he was convicted of bid rigging. i called the fbi, i have case number 95035, i would like some justice. and i also think that in a case of foreclosure, instead of foreclosure, why not sell the property in an upmarket, which seems to be the case -- on behalf of the homeowner, pay everybody off, let the homeowner scale down and get lesser funds so they can start again. these people, their future is ruined. >> supervisor safai: i just want to remind members of the public to speak on the item that we're speaking of here, this particular charter amendment. otherwise i have to cutoff your

time. please proceed. >> good afternoon -- thanks. my name is reese isabel. i'm on the friends of the san francisco public library board. been on the board for a few years. and i want to follow up from something you actually just said a few minutes ago and read a quote from the controller's report, which is all of these mandatory charter baselines were placed on the ballot by the board of supervisors except for the library veservation fund and children's fund which were placed on the ballot by initiative petition. so not to say that the library fund came from the community and came from the voters, but it seems as if the overall concept of this blame that is going on around set asides is coming from within the house, right?

i know working with all of you many times in the community, endorsements for a set aside happen all the time. support for a good cause happens all the time. measures go onto the ballot. in regards to the library preservation fund, i do want to say that prior to 1994, when the community and the voters put this on the ballot, we did not have a stable funding source for the library. we continually had fights over budget, possible closures, possible cuts of hours, possible loss of libraries. and now because of the foresight of the voters and because of the foresight that has continued over the last 20 years, 25 years, we have a world-class system of libraries that now we can utilize as a strong piece of our public

infrastructure. we've actually seen the library system fill up to be part of -- [ inaudible ] >> supervisor safai: thank you. thank you, reese. next speaker. >> hi. my name is marie cepella. i'm a friend of the san francisco public library. not reiterate what reese said, but i first want to thank you for the fund on the capital fund project, and just reiterate that you may suspend the cpi growth, but not required. like reese said, this was one of the first set asides, and it was put on by popular measure because the library's budget was consistently cut. i think there was a point where they even stopped collections because they couldn't afford the book, so this was a popular measure to ensure that that

would just not happen constantly. and so of course we are getting very protective of our library which has grown into one of the best in the country. and in the tradition of the library, which is about discussion and democracy and dialogue, i do appreciate the comment about discussion, and perhaps slowing down. we are certainly available to have any discussions with you, so thank you very much. >> supervisor peskin: and if i may, mr. chairman, i just want to say the first set aside was in 1932, believe it or not. >> supervisor safai: thank you for that historical perspective. next speaker. >> supervisor tang: 1935. >> supervisor peskin: '35, sorry. when you get this old, you start forgetting. >> supervisor safai: please proceed. >> thank you for that information. my name is initial cosano. i'm the executive director of the richmond neighborhood center. i started in youth work, and

now i'm the executive director and we're growing our senior programs, too, so i'm able to see firsthand the impacts to the children's fund and the dignity fund, and i see the many people we are trying to support. the seniors on wait lists, the kids that are trying to get into after school care when we don't have enough slots after school as well as in summer. i think that any threats to the children's fund and dignity fund are significant, and do need to be heard from the community. so i appreciate on making sure this is right for the chish and for the families in san francisco. i just want to also remind people that this was a voter approved and that we want to make sure that this still has a very public process and the voters have passed this, and we want to make sure that it continues to be the voice of san francisco and reflect the values of san francisco, as well. so thank you.

>> supervisor safai:

and the needs of the children, youth and families of our city. clearly we're seeing increases of violence amongst the population of lgbtq young people, a sobering 97% of violence and increases of homelessness from 39% six years

ago up to 68% in this past year. thank you. >> hi, i'm tracy, a native of san francisco, homeowner and an advocate for the community. my community is under attack and underrepresented in city government and the set-asides make us feel part of san francisco. this is my city. this is our city. this is a sanctuary city for everyone. in 1994 and please correct me if i'm wrong, i worked on the first children fund campaign, i was a mother of three children under six. i needed childcare to be able to work, i needed after school services to work and provide for my family, so i could stay in college. so i could do a lot of these

things that the services that the children fund protects. therefore the next time it was up, i was a mother of four and all of my kids worked on the campaign with me. this last time around i had three of my grand children working on the campaign. we are three generations of family working on the set-aside because we believe in it and benefit from it and we need it. san francisco is a great city. that's why the voters protect children and these services. that's why i'm urging you guys today to sit down and talk with us. there are leaders in our communities that would sit down and try to come up with reform legislation. but unfortunately we were not invited to the table for this discussion. we're reasonable people and we are also leaders in a different way than you are. i urge you today, i beg you

please include us in the conversation and keep san francisco for me, for my family and for everyone who has ever helped pass these legislations. it's like you're almost taking your voice away in what you're doing. >> hi, i'm a [indiscernible] sometimes i don't know what we're doing here. i come here and i see some of you on your phone. i know you might have some business but what she said was very important. so i just wanted to say i wish you can find different ways in balancing the budget. cutting from social services should be the last, last, last

resource. we cannot balance our budget on the fences of the people who need -- people still have very actual and basic needs and we are not covering everything here in the city. and i think that probably it wouldn't be extremely hard to find other ideas for revenue, really. i mean this is a very wealthy, you know, city. so i urge you to really look into different ways of balancing the budget. thank you. >> good afternoon greg moore representing ace coalition serving the elderly and dignity

fund coalition and justice fund coalition. we're representing one in four -- one in five currently san francisco citizens, in 10 years it will be one in four. when we were crafting the dignity fund legislation, i had the experience of learning a lot about set-asides. and appreciate the remarks today, it is a complex situation and understand the huge constraints it places upon supervisors in managing the budget. however i think there's a reason the set-asides are there as was stated. i would echo one of my colleague's comments earlier that we need to slow this down. we need to discuss this situation. the idea of having unspent funds rolled back into the general fund and not to be possibly used for purposes other than which

they're intended frightens me. i run a small nonprofit in the tenderloin serving low income and homeless seniors and with city funding process being what it is, it can take three to six months to get reimbursement. that could mean doors opened or closed for my organization. so, again, i urge you to exercise caution and restraint and open it up to discussion. we are here to help find the best way forward. thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors with the council of community housing organizations. i think it's important that the city does have 19 separate set-asides. it expresses our city's intentions to prioritize our schools, libraries, the arts, the seniors, the homeless,

housing. it is why we are a special city. i want to bring up two particular concerns, one of which i think supervisor tang started to address, which is around the club acts the measures have. as some of you know the housing trust funds and other measures are largely measures that fund capital improvements and those can't be funded year by year but need to be added over time. it sounds like that particular aspect is perhaps being dealt with. our member organizations provide critical services and their contracts don't go one year to one year. the payment for those services that are done for this city often run from one year to another, those of you who have worked for nonprofits know what it is like to wait for the check from the city to come in. i think it's very important for us to make sure we are not unintentionally affecting things

that we don't want to. i want to make a few more general concerns. one is supervisor peskin talked about how many of the measures do not necessarily have revenue attached and some of that gets lost in the history. when we passed the housing trust fund in 2012, many of us worked on the gross receipts business task and part of the agreement with then mayor lee, we would recapture the funds lost from redevelopment in order to fund the housing trust fund, and the way it increases overtime is based on that increase and revenue. similar with hotel taxes that historically went to serve housing and art uses, the measurement before folks -- >> same would be tree of the street tree maintenance fund by prop w.

>> good afternoon supervisors. from the san francisco human services network, the suspension trigger fails to address the real drivers of deficits identified in the joint report, which is primarily city employee, pensions and healthcare costs and wages that are rising over time. in order to cover those it robs funds for vulnerable populations and voter priorities. these are priorities that voters have chosen to prioritize in good and bad economic times. we should not deprioritize them when the economy goes down and the need is the greatest and it treats all set-asides alike, even those that rise and fall with particular funding sources and where is the provision that says we do not need to add new police officers when the deficit

is large. even that set-aside happens regardless of cost. the general fund return is very bad policy and open to a couple of types of abuse, allowing city officials to undermine the priorities to not incumbent funds and allocate funds as the year of the end approaches because it's use it or lose it. and it's unfair to put in a poison pill against a measure that received two thirds of voter support last time on the ballot. we ask the board to work with the community on real set-aside reforms that fairly looks at all set-asides. they should be proportioned to city revenues and have policy and needs based allocation plans with accountability measures. look at the children's fund as a

model. we want to have this conversation. thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors. i'm jacqueline zimmer jones from the dignity and budget justice coalition. i want to reflect on how the proposal would impact our organization and that is that it wasn't until this past fall that a dignity fund rsp became available for us to apply for. it was sort of a long process between the submittal and time people were alerted they were awarded. we came in 9th out of 22 proposals and the agency funded the top 7. so we were close but we would love to have another opportunity to apply for the funds again and that won't happen until some time next year. i think it's difficult to put a

timeline on when an rsp is going to come out from the department. i think they're extremely busy and have their hands full and it's a never can tell when something is going to arrive that we can actually apply for. we have a $50,000 hole in our budget that came up last summer and we have been in fundraising mode since and we have cut people from our programs and there's a need for us to serve even more seniors in the northeast part of town and so we rely on opportunities like the dignity fund to help carry us through. i'm looking forward to a continued conversation about other opportunities to help the city thrive without taking funding from these necessary human services programs. thank you. >> and maybe it's important through the chair to supervisor tang, to mention that the dignity fund is a model for what

we're trying to impose more broadly, that actually does have provisions in it to deal with economic downturns. if all the other charter amendments had that language, that would actually solve a lot of the problem that supervisor tang and i are trying to address in this. just -- >> i do understand that. but it's still nerve-wracking, thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm a district seven resident and here in my capacity today as the policy director of coleman advocates. i am interested to learn more about the proposed amendments that were just spoken about earlier this afternoon. i appreciate that information supervisor tang and i look forward to continue to review it. i want to underscore this all feels really fast and to try to get something on the june ballot, feels like as folks have mentioned previously, it's a

complicated matter with many interests and voices involved. we want to be sure to uplift the voice of community that have put the set-asides as a priority and have been historically underfunded. and we're concerned that right now it seems there's a lack of transparency in the process. the shift in the city's budget process is a concern and we want to make sure we're intentional about any such shift. and the other point i want to make is that budgets represent values and so as many have said, at the risk of sounding redundant, when we're looking at the shifting landscape on a federal level and shifting demographics, i grew up in san francisco, going to college and coming back and going to law school and coming back, the san francisco i know and love no longer exists and that hurts my

heart. i want to make sure we're intension intentional about the ways we're trying to retain what is at the core of the city to support those who need us most, including low income communities of color. thank you. >> hello, i'm representing the budget justice coalition and just cause. this charter amendment would make the process less democratic. this charter amendment threatens to cut people's safety net. we do not approve of the charter amendment. just cause has a program that builds the leadership of san francisco's black and brown youth. this charter amendment would impact the youth and our future. we serve thousands of residents

threatened with eviction, they come into the clinic and learn how to protect themselves and stay in san francisco. this charter amendment will eventually impact these residents. and finally there's a poison pill written in that would kill prop and that's not right. prop s which supports homeless services and arts, this would kill that proposition. so that means the plan is to cut eviction protection and then homeless services. that is not acceptable. and also, so -- also supervisor peskin, you had said it would be very brave to raise taxes instead of pause set-asides. i would support that bravery. and i would support that bravery from all of you and us.

>> good afternoon supervisors. thank you for holding the hearing and having public comment. i'm one of the founders of the transgender cultural district. i'm sure it comes as no surprise that i'm opposed to the legislation. while i understand wanting more flexibility especially during a deficit, i can't understand cutting potential funding that many small community groups and projects rely on and have worked so hard for. it provides for jobs and life saving services and some of the most vulnerable communities will be disproportionately impacted. it does feel like a bullying tactic. that may not be the intention but that's how it feels to those working hard to serve their communities. i would like to point out for

example, art organizations from my perspective are not only doubling their own baseline participating in the ballot efforts but participating in a diverse coalition to increase to underfunded and largely independent organizations that are such an important part of the cultural landscape of san francisco. i think it's imperative, if we are to try to limit the funding made available through the set-aside process, to undo the work of hard working advocates and concerned citizens, we must first identify other sources of funding. if the bill is reformed, with he need to offer reasonable solutions to a process that has served as one of the only ways that community members and voters can make voices and needs heard and addressed. i hope you will continue to have meaningful conversations before any reform is introduced or voted on. thank you.

>> good afternoon. i'm kyle, i work for transgender justice project, an organization that supports formerly and currently incarcerated trans people and primarily our base formerly incarcerated and currently impacted black trans women within san francisco. many of them have disabilities, homeless, low income and are elderly. so when it comes to the set-asides. the set-asides have been an opportunity to invest in supporting community members, especially as the black community in san francisco has been genderfied out of san francisco, where the black community is at 3% and is going to continue decreasing unless we work on supporting our community members. what the charter amendment would do is target a lot of the underfunded and impacted

services that are supporting our community members that are life saving and really necessary to be able to thrive within san francisco without really challenging any of the ways in which they're being criminallized. so just policing. i think it's vital for us to be actually investing in our communities while also moving away from investing in opportunities in organizations that are actually criminallizing our community members. i think it would be great if we could work with our community members to be able to actually be able to create a better budget. thank you. >> thank you supervisors for holding the hearing. i'm here representing compass family services and we serve about 5,000 homeless families living in san francisco each year. we're here with the human services network and a lot of

other partners in wanting to voice our concerns. it may not have been the intent as many said but it feels like an attack on nonprofits. we believe the legislation undermines the nonprofit sector in particular that provides a bull work of the service delivery system. particularly in the highest need communities. our sector operates under great stress with inadequate resources, low salaries for staff and long waiting lists. this is the last place we believe we should be looking for to save money, especially during the hardest times. and the nonprofit sector saves the city money in the long run and undercutting them is short-sided. in addition, we believe this is terrible public policy, flawed. there may be ways to address real budget shortfalls through a more rational process but taking the things prioritized by the people of san francisco because

there's no other way to address them makes things worse. it institutionalizes the already existing flaws in the budget process. ask yourself why the finances of the city should rise on eliminating pathways to funding for vulnerable populations before passing this piece of legislation. in the spirit of collaboration, we hope to continue this conversation and not just let it end here. >> good afternoon supervisors. my name is marsa ryan. in 2016, i have been working with homeless families, homeless pregnant mothers and families for 29 years now and in 2016 when i was called and asked to be the proponent for homeless

families on the prop s for ending family homelessness i said yes. historically i don't get into politics, i usually roll up my sleeves and do the work, but i'm tired and more importantly the families are tired. the increase in families is enormous and we as a city are not going upstream enough. we have babies living in cars. toddlers in vans. pregnant mothers on the streets. the set-asides are voted by the people. they're voted because the people believe it's our responsibility, the city to invest in the most vulnerable communities. over the last 29 years i have seen our safety net erode and family homelessness increase. the idea that if the set-aside

was not used at the end of a fiscal year and then had to be returned to the general fund really makes no sense. it means you don't really understand that it takes a long time as mentioned before, for people to get the money. i think we're moving too fast. that's been said, too. i know that conversations have been had with the arts community but nobody has called the homeless family services community. i would love to continue to have this conversation. i beg you to please stop racing forward, let's do the right thing for our families and for the most vulnerable communities in san francisco. >> thank you next speaker. >> [indiscernible] anyway. i work in coalition of homelessness for many years.

i would like to say mr. peskin to hear what i want to say. i know mr. peskin for a while. working with the homeless for 24 years, i know mr. peskin. i would like to hear from him or any of you guys if you have a clear proposal how we want to [indiscernible] the homeless people in san francisco. we have more than 3,000 homeless people in san francisco school district without housing. families are living outside in the streets. with children. so i work in -- we work with the families and with the different organizations and coalitions to end homelessness.

we intend to pass the proposition s last year, but we had difficult -- this year we want to go to and we wanted you guys to support in that. and forget about what you're doing right now. these kind of changes you want to do in the budget, what i see and hear, it's not really called for, the families for homeless people. you guys need to put more emphasis for the families, for the people of san francisco, for homeless people. we need housing, it's a priority. there's a need in san francisco. and we have the money. we know for sure. we can cut the budget for the police officers and put in the money and housing and any of the homelessness. we can do it but we need to put a little effort together. thank you so much and i would like to -- >> thank you next speaker.

>> thank you for having the hearing. i'm molly brown i'm proud to say i cast my ballot and attended the swearing in of supervisor fewer so congratulations. i'm sorry commissioner peskin is not here. i was there in 1990 collecting signatures because we didn't have a supervisor on board. it wasn't until we collected the signatures that then we were very attractive. people jumped on later. a lot of the other set-asides, initially it was through polling effort that swayed some of the vote of the supervisors. there is a lot of history about how some of these got on the ballot and i think there's a failure to believe in our good government. it's hard to make the hard choices that will help the budget crisis. so as a citizen who has values,

i think the set-asides exactly represent our values. i don't believe any voter in the city would have voted for healthcare rights after five years of unemployment. there's a lot of decisions made in the government that citizens don't support and the set-asides are our way of what we do support and i think we should look at big government. i think people would be more willing to have conversations about growth if we're responsive. i would be happy to get paid in three to six months. i'm happy to get paid nine months later. if the board looks at good government practices and what it took to be a nonprofit in the city and provide the necessary services, they might be willing to make sacrifices that we're not seeing you willing to do on other places. i hope you give it more thought and consideration before you put this