>> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. all right, sfgov-tv, thank you very much. good morning, ladies and gentlemen and i want to welcome you today to the budget and finance committee. this is the full committee. colleagues today, march first which is the first day of the official budget season, traditionally what this means is that we can convene a full five-person budget committee

weekly at 1:00 p.m. from now to june to hear from the departments on their proposed budgets and their major project initiatives. as you are well aware this year we are also undergoing a reform process which i believe will make the budget more transparent, more policy oriented and really try to highlight the major issues that are facing our city. and as the budget legislative analyst is about to describe we are going to supplement our traditional hearing schedule with the series of budget priority hearings. so before you get started, dan, hold on -- i just want to do a couple more things here. first i want to take a moment and i want to recognize sfgov-tv and jesse larson assisting with today's broadcast and linda wong, our clerk of the board and at this point i'd turn to her to ask if there's any

announcements? >> clerk: please silence cellphones and give any documents as part of the file and they should be submitted to the clerk. >> thank you very much, and i want to recognize to my left is supervisor catherine stefani and to my right, supervisor fewer and she he. >> clerk: item one, on the overview of the city's budget process and hearing schedule and requesting the mayor's budget office and budget and legislative analyst to report. >> so come on up, dan. this is dan gonsher from the analyst office and he'll describe to us -- he's going to describe how we're going to go about our supplemental and our traditional hearing schedule with the series of budget hearings. thank you very much. the b.l.a. is in conversation

with the supervisors to begin to identify each individual's major policy concerns. and so throughout the month of april we will be holding the hearings on major issues that are facing san francisco and in an intersectional and cross-departmental manner. now i know that there's a lot of big words, something that we haven't done before but what we want to do we want to talk about -- if we talk about homelessness, how that intersects with the department of public health and the department of public safety and p.b.w. and the department of homelessness. and specifically i want to understand where we've been putting our money and where might the gaps of funding be, how we can allocate resources most efficiently towards our city-wide goals. so those that are listening i encourage everyone in the san francisco community to follow these hearings and think about what these policy priorities

mean for the city and how -- and how it can help us to identify the specific programs that move us toward a goal of clean, of safe, and of a healthy san francisco. we will still hear from each department individually -- don't worry -- we are not robbing anyone of any opportunity. the draft calendar of hearings will be made available publicly within the next week, we're finalizing that. i hope that this process will really begin to bring some clarity -- not only on how this body makes decisions but holds the mayor and his budget accountable to the people that of which the mayor's office serves and it will also give us a public forum to debate and understand the tradeoffs that we're going to have to make during this budget season. and these are tradeoffs that we make every budget season and i'm trying to change it where it's a little bit more transparent. with that, all of that, i want

to recognize dan gonsher from the budget legislative analyst office and thank you for being with us this morning. the floor is yours. >> thank you, and chair cohen and members of the committee. and i am dan gonsher for a brief overview of the board's priority process. so as you may recall, chair cohen requested that the budget analysts review the board's budget process and identify recommendations for improvements. our report which was released in november provided three recommendations for improvements and the first was for the board to produce a list of annual policy priorities to submit to the mayor for incorporation into the proposed budget. we also recommended that the budget and legislative analysts provide additional analysis to the board during the budget process in the form of a city-wide overview report which we will be doing. and, finally, we recommended that the board revise the admin code to lengthen the time for

the proposed budget consistent with jurisdictions. over the last couple weeks we have solicited the top priorities from each board office and while we're still reviewing each of these priorities, some common themes have begun to emerge, including homelessness and housing, clean streets and public safety. again, we're still at an early stage in this process and we will review and analyze all priorities that have been provided to us by board offices and we will likely be in touch with board offices over the next few weeks to follow-up on and to further refine priority areas as necessary. and as we move forward the budget and legislative analyst office will conduct in-depth research on each priority, including status of the established programs in these priority areas and the historical level of spending, performance measures that have been published as well as other quantitative measures of progress in these areas as well

as identification of opportunities for funding impacts that the board might be able to make. we're planning on giving a presentation on march 22nd, although these dates on the slide are up to change because they're based on the draft calendar, but we're planning on giving a presentation on march 22nd to provide the committee with a list of identified priorities including high-level analysis on the priorities that have been most frequently cited by members of the board. in april we'll provide in-depth written reports to the board on each of the priority areas. so the goals of this process are to synthesize a list of budget priorities for the board to guide in the preparation of the proposed 018-2019 and 2,020,000,000,000ing and to enable the analyst to provide more extensive analysis to the board, to assist in understanding the city's performance, challenges, and

opportunities in critical policy areas. and potentially to provide a framework for the board to use during the process. the budget policy priorities process is new this year as you know and we encourage feedback in order to make improvements for the current cycle as well as for future cycles. so with that, i want to just thank you and we're available to answer any questions that you may have. >> thank you. well, colleagues, what do you think, i know that is kind of a lot. any questions? seeing none let's go to public comment and hear what the public has to say. any member of the public that would like to come and to talk about maybe the budget priorities or anything related to item one, please come on up. seeing none, public comment is closed at this time. thank you. and, colleagues, this is an item and a topic that we'll be talking about more in the future, so it's okay if you don't have any questions right now and we'll continue to move forward. any other business before this

body? >> clerk: can we please file the hear something. >> i would like to make a motion to file the hearing. is there a second? second with vice supervisor stefani and taken without objection. thank you. >> clerk: no more business for the budget and finance meeting. >> we are adjourned for this meeting. thank you. and i'm gaveling for the next meeting, madam clerk. >> clerk: madam chair, would you like me to call item number one? >> yes, thank you. >> clerk: appropriating $7.1 million to the transportation agencies to sustainable streets and operating fund for the garage parking management operation for 2017-2018. >> very quickly, i'm sorry, i believe that items one and two

need to be called together. >> clerk: yes. item number two, resolution authorizing the termination of the lease agreement between the city and the uptown parking corporation for the garage and authorizing the director of transportation to execute a lease termination agreement. >> great, thank you. okay, folks, supervisor peskin is the sponsor for certainly item two and i'm not sure if there's a representative for supervisor peskin's office or he'll join us today. and item one and two for the garage in union scare and the lease termination for the uptown parking corporation. is there a member here to speak on this item? please come on up. rob malone from the metro transit authority. good morning, thank you for being with us. >> good morning, madam chair and members of the committee. rob malone, the senior manager in the sustainable streets division of the m.t.a. and overseeing the parking garage

portfolio. i'd like to say that we are here to request a support of these items and to specifically say that we are in support of the recommended amendments noted in the b.l.a. report that changed both the source and use allocations from the original amounts submitted to the committee. and with that i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> thank you very much, rob. i think that this is pretty much straightforward and i don't see any -- supervisor stefani has a question. >> supervisor stefani: i have a question with the lease. does the sfmta have plans to address the security measures that have taken place at the sutter stockton garage? >> absolutely. we have been working with what i would call a task force set-up for about the last 2 1/2 years at this location.

that was -- at that point we started having meetings every quarter or so with the police department and the parking operator that runs the garage on our behalf and myself and members of my staff, and members of the union area b.i.d. have also been -- and also the sub-contracted security vendor that works for our parking operator have been having periodic meetings to share data, review the nature of incidents that happened and to sort of plan in coordination different efforts that we can take to try to make things better. it's an ongoing challenging situation but we are working regularly with that group to try to address it as best we can. >> supervisor stefani: you foresee an actual security plan being in place as part of this lease? or if not part of the lease but an actual security plan in place that we could refer to?

>> absolutely. so i would say that we have a security plan and it's not necessarily tied up in a bow and documented in a way that maybe you're asking for and we can certainly do that and share that with your office, you know, with the local supervisor's office and anyone who would like to see it, i think that is a very good idea. by the way, one new thing that we are trying that i will mention because it's starting this week because of the specific nature of things that have been happening recently in sutter stockton garage, we're the first time in at least my 7 1/2 years going to utilize the 10b program to have eight hours a day of an off-duty police officer at varying times -- we don't want to be overly predictable when that person will be there, but i just want to be indicative of the additional efforts we're trying to take to bring new -- you know, things to bear to try to really improve that situation there. and i'd be happy to report back on how that's going. >> supervisor stefani: one last question, does the plan

include security cameras on all floors? >> we don't specifically have a plan for that right now. there are probably more cameras in sutter stockton garage than any location that we have and they're not on every floor though. they do -- they are more at, aggress locations, on elevator lobbies where the payment stations are but not on every level right now. >> supervisor stefani: i want to stay in contact with you about that and the m.t.a. about that. >> absolutely. >> supervisor fewer. >> supervisor fewer: thank you, supervisor stefani, for bringing that up and i have a question whether there's an overall security in our parking lots and what is that plan? and what kind of data are we collecting around what is happening in our public lots? so i'm talking about any kind of

personal assaults that happen in our parking lots, complaints that people may have about not feeling safe, car break-ins, those type of things. do we keep data about these incidents and what we're doing about them and the impact of the measures that we're implementing if they're actually having any effect? >> okay. so for starters in terms of the data collection there has been efforts -- so our group -- the parking sub-unit of sustainable streets -- started working on a regular basis about two years ago or so with m.t.a.'s broader security and enforcement unit that collects data on report -- sort of incidents that had involved the police throughout the m.t.a. system. they typically have been focused on the transit system but starting a couple years ago they also started working with us and the police department to collect

and tabulate data related to incidents at parking garages. so at the moment that effort is really primarily just documenting the incidents that happen and we don't have like a routine, like, reporting mechanism for the ethicity of different strategies that you're asking about. so that's not something that we have in place right now, but it's definitely a good idea. >> supervisor fewer: it's just that the parking lots in my neighborhood are hit up all of the time and i hear it all the time from our residents that there's bloken glass in parking garages and they're on public owned blocks. and i didn't know the strategy around that but perhaps we can work on something together. it's probably time that we looked at it and used your data to analyze how big a problem this is and some of the strategies that we could implement to have impact on these things, but, thank you. >> i know at supervisor stefani

is aware of one in her district. we are trying to work as closely as we're able to with the police department and their data analytic groups. we've had -- not been able to consistently effectively share data, we're trying to work through our security unit that is kind much the prime liaison for m.t.a. with the police department on improving those data-sharing efforts because, i mean, you mention there's glass in the parking lot. we don't have the same data we have found when we take efforts to share -- for example, at the pierce garage in supervisor stefani's district, we have a certain amount of incidents and police have a different number because sometimes a break-in happens and it's not reported or sometimes we may not notice anything on-site but it is reported and so we're trying to sync up those two data sets to get a better shared understanding of what type of incidents are happening, how often, and collaborate on how best to take action to prevent

them. >> supervisor fewer: okay, i think -- i think that the data collection and the sharing of data is very important but i also think that a proactive approach to this is probably what needs to be implemented and what strategies are we using to proactively to prevent these things from happening? but, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> thank you. let's go ahead and go -- excuse me, the budget legislative analyst, we'll hear their report. thank you, rob, thank you very much, mr. malone. >> good morning, chair cohen and members of the committee, and, yes, the termination of the agreement of the lease with the uptown corporation m.t.a. expects to generate about $100,000 a year in savings. on page 5 of our report as mr. malone said we are recommending an appropriation of sources and uses of $2.8 million. on page 67 we recommended amendment of the appropriation ordinance to reflect that and

the details are in the recommendation on page 6, otherwise, we do recommend approval in the ordinance as amended. >> okay, thank you for that presentation. colleagues, i don't know if there's any more questions? all right. let's go to public comment. any member of the public that would like to comment on item one and two, please come on up. okay, seeing none, public comment is closed. thank you. and thank you for your presentation, mr. malone. and colleagues is there a motion? for items one and two? >> i would like to make a motion for items one and two to assess the recommendations of the b.l.a. and also move both of them for a positive recommendation to the full board. >> all right, we'll take that without objection, thank you very much. next item, items 3. >> clerk: item 3, ordinance amending the public works code to establish fees for autonomous delivery test permits and public direct works directors to

increase the fees for nighttime work permits. >> i thought that i saw supervisor yee's representative, thank you, madam clerk for the announcement. and in addition to the legislative aide erica speaking we have deborah leski of public works, good to see you, deborah. and all right i'd like to give eric an opportunity to speak and then we'll hear from deborah. thank you. >> erica baymon from supervisor yee's office. to establish the fees for the permit process is the final step in order to implement the permit program for the testing of autonomous delivery advices. as you know this has been a very long process that has taken about a year to get to this point and we really want to thank all of the departments that have put in a lot of time and energy including the san francisco police department and public works and the m.t.a. and

all of our community groups and each and every one of the current emerging technology that is operating in this a.d.d. sphere and before i have deborah present i also wanted to thank all of the board of legislation and the proceeding legislation that established the permit program went back to committee three different times in order to get to a place that in december was unanimously passed by the board and signed by the mayor. so deborah from d.p.w. can present and discuss the fees and i look forward to answering any questions that you may have. spoirk all right, next we'll hear from deborah. >> good morning, chair cohen and members of the committee. i'm the deputy manager of street public mapping and public works.

we permit inspection enforcement for public works and the public right-of-way. so we have developed a fee anap nal sis for the autonomous delivery devices for the permitting process specific to public works. we have that here and i have john from our team, if you have specific questions that can walk you through the analysis and i'd like to add today as part of the legislation that there's a component for night noise. we don't -- as a permit we don't feel that it's appropriate to include the night noise fee as it's a construction-based fee and not specific to what our puree would do. if there's an issue that we have to go out and inspect and enforce we'd deal with that through our violation process. so i just want to put that on record that the fee that is associatedded with the night noise inspections is construction specific and not appropriate to be included in the legislation. so if you have any questions for the program i can answer them and we have john here if you have any questions specific to

the fee analysis. thank you. >> thank you very much, and colleagues, i don't know if you have any other questions? i have a few questions for erica. and i understand that we want to have a mechanism for accountability for bad actors, is an appeal to the board of supervisors the only way to accomplish that? through the appeal process to the board of supervisors is the only way to accomplish? >> i believe that it goes through d.p.w. first and then comes to the board. >> um-hmm, that's right. i think that we have a speaker from d.p.w. that can speak to that. >> good morning, excuse me. good morning, committee members. john kwong from the department of public works. the legislation allows individuals to appeal to the board of supervisors for the

permit itself, however, within the legislation there are administrative penalties for bad actors, people who are not following all of the requirements as prescribed under that section of the public works code. >> that's good. and then my understanding is correct. >> yes. >> thank you, mr. john kwong, it's good to see you this morning and i don't have any other questions and i think we can hear from the public on this item. and if there's any member of the public that would like to speak on item three, please come up. okay, seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues i make a motion to move to the full board. >> so moved. >> all right. seconded by supervisor stefani. and yes, no problem. and we'll take that without objection. thank you, madam clerk. call the next item. actually, excuse me, call items four and five together. >> clerk: and to reflect the addition of 14 new positions in

fiscal year 2017-2018 at the office of public defender for supporting immigrant unit expansion to defend immigrants from deportation. item 5, aprepare appropriating $1.3 million from the general reserve to the office of public defender to expan expand immigrn unit to the mayor's office of housinhousing and community development to fund legal representation and rapid response for that service and to the department of elections to fund non-citizen voter outreach and education services in fiscal years 2017-2018. >> thank you, madam clerk and we want to welcome the young students that walked into the chamber to the meeting. thank you. just in time for a wonderful conversation. supervisor fewer is going to kick off this conversation to discuss this particular item, she's the lead sponsor of this. and i want to recognize that we'll have our public defender who will be presenting as well as brian shoe and julias.

supervisor fewer, the floor is yours. >> supervisor fewer: i am thrilled to bring forth this supplemental for consideration at a time that i cannot imagine to be more appropriate for this funding to be prioritized. over a year ago a man stepped into the u.s. presidency who initiated unprecedented attacks on immigrant communities. he has revoked temporary protective status for 750 how to salvadorans and nicaraguans who came to this country as refugees and he attempted to eliminate daca and jeopardizing the future of one million dreamers and he tripled the number of immigration officers through i.c.e. and i.c.s e. ha diagnosep their issuance of 19 audits on employers and this week massive arrests of immigrants in the bay area, half of whom have no prior criminal history.

he has specifically set his sights on sanctuary cities but we have no intention of backing down from our values or our commitment to immigrant defense. in fact, today i hope that with the support of my colleagues on this committee that we will reinforce and strengthen that commitment. a huge thanks to supervisor ronan who could not be here today who was my partner in this legislation as the supervisor for this, and this issue is near and dear to her heart and i thank our co-sponsors, supervisor she he and peskin and kim and yee, and i want to thank the mayor and his staff for supporting this important and urgent legislation for their hard work to make this possible. if this passes today at the full board, and at the full board, san francisco will be leading the nation standing arm-in-arm with our immigrant community. i want to acknowledge that this budget supplemental is an expansion of funding for the incredible and critical work that is already happening on the

ground. this funding will increase resources for our community organizations and public defender, not only in the current fiscal year but the mayor's office has also agreed to annualize this critical funding. i have deep gratitude for the community partners who run the rapid response network that responds to reports of i.c.e. activity and dispatches attorneys as needed and, of course, for the non-profit immigrant defense attorneys who work constantly to defend their clients from deportations and to provide a range of other legal services. these community-based organizations have immense respect and trust from the communities they serve and this funding will allow them to significantly expand their staffing and infrastructure to continue this critical work. i also want to give appreciation to the public defender's office whose new immigration unit were able to fund through a tough push last year. this new unit is specifically geared towards providing representation for people who

are detained through san francisco immigration court. the majority of whom have no legal counsel and the majority of whom have no criminal history. this funding will allow them to hire seven new staff, more than doubling the number of attorneys as well as their caseload for a population that is incredibly vulnerable and left without supports to navigate a complex immigration court. i strongly support the city's request to the state to fund universal representation for all detained northern california residents facing deportation and thank the mayor's office for the work they've done on this issue. in san francisco, immigration court with the san francisco public defender is currently taking cases, approximately 1,700 individuals each year are detained awaiting deportation proceedings and kept away from their families and jobs and communities and they are literally incarcerated in prison. the state requests to allow for universal representation for all

individuals from across northern california who are detained through san francisco immigration court and we look forward to seeing this funding realized. finally, colleagues, i have a set of amendments that i am introducing today that i want to make clear before we move into our presentations. first, for item number 3, my proposed amendments to reduce the number of new positions created in the public defender's office to seven which in the current fiscal year is equivalent of 1.75 full-time equivalence and this allows the public defender's office to create four new attorney positions and one new investigator position and two new court specialist positions. for item number 4, there are a few amendments that i have put forth. first, to have a source for this appropriation the state and federal contingency reserve of which there is a balance of $440,883.

and that will are duce the amount of fund -- reduce the amount of funds. because the number of positions created in the public defender's office are reduced the funds have been reduced to $250,000 and finally the funding for non-citizen voter outreach has been removed and while i do think that this is critical we can address this through another budget negotiation. are there any questions on these amendments? >> not questions but i want to make a statement just to have a clairclarification, you said it3 and it's actually item 4 for the a.s.o. and item 5 for the amendments that you made with the general reserve and ongoing negotiations and that's the only thing that i wanted to be clear on. >> thank you very much. >> my pleasure, if you don't mind i'd like to say a couple comments before we get started. great. as the chair of this committee i have certainly made my opinions on the budget supplemental

process known and i believe that they're very clear. i struggle when it comes to supplemental requests. i believe that these requests have -- we have a role and we have a process and that process is the budget. particularly this is close to the budget process and supplemental should only be used for absolute emergencies. and it is clear, however, that in the recent increase in the i.c.e. raids and the discriminatory trump administration that we near a crisis. we're in a crisis for our community and it demands our immediate and expedient attention. as the chair of the budget committee i have the responsibility under the charter to run a balanced budget and to prioritize the needs of all san francisco residents. these amendments allow us to serve our residents and supervisor fewer, thank you for bringing them to us. and i'm hopeful that our partners in the state legislature who sthair our vision and our values and the

vision to protect our neighbors will help. and to help us to identify the funds for universal legal representation for those who are targeted outside of the city and the county of san francisco. with that i'll turn it back over to you, supervisor fewer. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much, chair cohen. i'd like to invite brian chew, from the mayor's office of housing and community development. and is julia here also? yes, thank you very much. to present on the work of his office to fund the community organizations for immigrant defense and rapid response services. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors, brian chu, with the mayor's office of housing and community development. we're delighted to have this opportunity to expand and to continue to sustain the existing services that have been put in place over the last couple of years to provide these valuable services for our immigrant

community. as the supervisors may be aware over the past few years we have created a rapid response network that provides a hotline for those individuals that need -- that are in desperate need of information and legal support because of the immigration enforcement efforts that people are aware of, at the same time we have also been supporting a collaborative specifically aimed at providing full scope representation to these individuals. the amounts requested in the supplemental would allow us to provide full support for both the legal defense collaborative and the rapid response network. as many of you may know that the demands on our attorney time have been so great that our attorneys are not only answering the phones and providing

full-scope legal representation and acting as paralegal and as social worker in some cases and this will enable us to provide the support of legal services and providing paralegals to support all of the increasing amount of research, administrative bureaucracy as you are aware to keep up with the changing law and it requires people on almost a daily basis to update their legal strategies. the number of calls have now increased up to a hundred calls per week on the hotline. and we provide 24/7 services on this hotline that requires someone to not only answer the phone immediately but to have an attorney on call at any time, day or night. and i just want to give you a brief overview from january 2015 to april 2017, over that about a year and a half period, the existing collaborative has provided support to 579 different community members. they're still maintaining 461 of

those cases that are pending. 118 of those cases were resolved and we're happy to say that we obtained an immigration benefit for 100 of those 118 cases and 72 grants of protection for asylum and 72 for permanent resident status and another 17 cases with other kinds of positive outcomes. so i know that it seems as if it's a significant amount of money but the benefit to these hundred individuals that are now going to be allowed to stay in this country is really immeasurable. our plan is with the supplemental to amend the existing contracts so that we'll be able to get this benefit out of the door and with the support of the mayor's office and through the budget process and we will be going out through a competitive process, of course, as we are required to to make sure that the funds fairly distributed next year but we're very confident in the work of

our partners so we're excited to work with the board and the mayor to provide these additional services. >> thank you very much, any questions for mr. chu. seeing none, thank you very much, mr. chu. and now i'd like to bring up our public defender. >> thank you very much, and good evening. just begin with an example of the kind of cases that we have undertaken and it was a young mother of two who was a passenger in a vehicle and she was traveling and the car was stopped for a traffic violation. and she was asked for identification. she was run and based on that she was detained for not having papers. she was in custody for four weeks and because she had an attorney she was able to get out of custody and to be returned to her family pending a date in

immigration court. these are the kind kinds of outs that we are working to achieve in cases for san franciscoians. and this mother lived in san francisco and she had no criminal history and her only infraction is that she was in a car with somebody who was stopped. the case for universal representation if we go to the first slide, it's pretty straightforward. immigrant detainees are allowed to hire attorneys and as you have already heard these are individuals who are in custody so they're in a jail facility, but often at remote locations. and more often than not they cannot afford counsel or they're just shuffled through the system before they have a chance to seek advice or help.

even the national association of immigration judges wants to see more legal help for immigrants. we have been welcomed into the immigration courts by the judges. i have personally met with the chief judge, members of their staff, and they want us there in court. why? because representation would speed the processing times and properly counsel immigrants to understand their rights and they're able to make informed decisions. there's a huge backlog in the immigration courts in san francisco. part of the answer to this is having legal counsel. just a few statistics regarding the san francisco immigration court. in 2016 there were 1698 1698 individual detained cases in san francisco completed and about 20% have legal representation, that leaves about 1,350 people

unrepresented. many people who are deported do not have a criminal record. between 2008 and 2012, only 22.6% of non-citizens subject to an i.c.e. detainer had a criminal record. 50% have lived in san francisco for more than a decade. 65% are employed. 60% live with citizens, meaning that they either have a child that's an american citizen or they're married to or living with an american citizen. and, 77% have families and would be separated from their families if they were deported. in terms of our representation, currently beginning on may 23rd of last year, we have three full-time attorneys, one paralegal, and one clerk who are handling detained cases exclusively. as of december 2017 -- so this

gives you a six-month snapshot of what we've been able to do with the resources that the board gave us last year, that we represented 67 detained immigrants. we held 51 bond hearings -- a bond hearing is a hearing where the court determines whether you'll be released pending the outcome of your deportation or removal proceeding. we had 51 of those and the unit successfully obtained release for 32. so that's more than half of the individuals that were released. and there were six hearings that were held, these are like trials and post-conviction relief there were six and 13 appeals filed, and we had over 270 immigration consultations with attorneys. the american immigration council report on access to lawyers states that immigrants in detention who had a custody

hearing were four times as likely to be released from detention. representinrepresentative immige much more likely to apply for relief because they know their rights and so they were 11 times more likely to seek asylum than those without representation. represented immigrants were more likely to obtain the immigration relief they sought. among detained immigrants those with representation were twice as likely than unrepresented immigrants to obtain immigration relief. and according to a report by the northern california collaborative for immigrant justice, quote, "represented detainees who are at least three times more likely to prevail on removal cases than detainees who were not represented by counsel." and in new york city jennifer friedman is one of our staff in our immigration unit and she actually ran the immigration unit at the bronx defenders, but

in 2013, new york city decides to provide public defenders for all those facing deportation and they provided 2,000 people with immigration attorneys and they reduced the annual deportations from 1200 to 500, over half. new york state now provides representation to all detained immigrants through new york legal aid and the bronx defender and the brooklyn defender programs. according to a 2017 vera institute study, with guaranteed representation up to 12 times as many immigrants are able to win their cases either to get legal relief from deportation or able to persuade i.c.e. to drop the attempt to deport them. universal representation would provide public defender representation to every immigrant in detention in san francisco and they're also talking about including los angeles, if this is a state-wide initiative. it would be a regional approach and we'd reach out to other

countries and i have already spoken to alameda county and other countries who are interested in providing this representation. so it would be a shared responsibility since it is a regional court. defenders would be assigned to staff each of the courts. the caseloads would be between 40 and 60, you know, our caseloads have been either 40 or 50, in that range, and that's what we're projecting for this year. and it would require funding the cost of attorneys, paralegals and social workers and support staff and i understand that there's an initiative to make that happen state-wide. so that's all i have for the presentation and i'd be happy to answer any questions. >> colleagues, any question for our public defender? seeing none, i believe -- supervisor hillary ronan would like to say something and also that she's just joined us also. thank you. >> good morning, everyone. i'm sorry that i was late this morning but i just wanted to

makmake a few remarks before we open up this measure to public comment and i'm really looking forward to hearing from the public as well. we are in unprecedented times in this country on almost every issue but when it comes to immigrant rights the trump administration is specifically attacking our city and they are specifically attacking our region. i don't know that has ever happened before and i don't know that a president who disagrees with a policy that a city upholds retaliates against that city by arresting and deporting some of its residents. it's -- i don't know another example of this happening. in just the past few months the trump administration revoked temporary protected status for over 750,000 salvadorans, haitians and nicaraguans and he

eliminated daca, impacting about a million dreamers. he tripled the amount of immigration officers through i.c.e. and he has conducted raids throughout california and new york and has specifically targeted immigration activists and their families for deportation. also something that i've never seen in the 16 years that i have been fighting for immigrant rights. he's been issuing i-9 audits specifically targeting 77 bay area employees. and he's announcing plans for arresting immigrants in courthouses, again, something that i have never seen before and i'm not sure that any of us have seen anything like it. and then he's made very public announcements that he is specifically going to raid and arrest 1500 immigrants in the bay area. and he's specifically targeting the bay area and doesn't even

try to hide this fact because we're a sanctuary city. again, i have never seen anything like this. just in the past couple days he's made good on that threat and he's arrested 150 people. yesterday i was at i.c.e. and part of the -- the activities that the amazing community stood up litte literally using their s to block the exits of the i.c.e. detention center so that this administration could not carry out our brothers and sisters to private detention facilities that profit off their detention in other counties. they were blocking it with their bodies. and when i was downstairs i was downstairs with edwin who is an attorney who represents -- a paralegal he said -- who represents immigrants. and edwin was with a father

whose son, his 20-year-old son, was upstairs being detained for weeks on end and at his bond hearing and we fowngd out from a text from his lawyer -- found out from a text from his lawyer that he was released on bond. and i watched his father crumble and cry and heave because his son would return to his family. as a mother of a 5-year-old i can't imagine to know what that feels like. that's the difference that a lawyer makes. these are unprecedented times and the mayor, the community, and supervisor fewer and i are stepping up in unprecedented ways to match what is happening in our community. >> supervisor fewer, you're not the only ones that are stepping up. >> okay, but we're offering the measure that is before us today. so, yeah, we can talk about how other people are but i'm just talking about the item that is before us right now. so we are partnering in order to

double the amount of attorneys in the public defender's office and double the amount of attorneys in the community, not just attorneys but also social workers and education advocates that are calming down the immigrant community that are being terrorized and we're doing that -- not just using words which is very easy to do. all over the place now it's very popopular that you'll stand up r immigrants and you stand against the trump administration and that's important but we are putting our money where our mouth is to actually protect immigrants, to give them a lawyer and to protect their due process rights. and i want to say that we didn't choose to put an immigration court in the city of san francisco. that was the choice of the federal government to place its immigration court where deportations happen every single day in our city but that means that it's incumbent upon our city to take leadership to

protect immigrants whose rights are being violated on a daily basis in that court, that stands downtown. and so i just want to take a moment to thank a few people. i want to start by thanking jeff adachi. and supervisor fewer. and last year they created an immigration unit in the public defender's office because what they recognized was just like when people are taken against their own will and placed in jail and accused of a crime that our constitution in the united states demands that they have due process. and we understand that due process requires a trained attorney to be able to defend that person's life and liberty when they are in jail. and jeff adachi and sandra lee fewer realized that that same standard applies to immigrants that are being jailed every

single day in this country and their liberty is taken away and they're taken away from their families and they are not given that same right to an attorney. and let's also recommend that just like in our criminal system where most of the people being jailed are black and brown, in our immigration system, most of the people being jailed are black and brown. so this is not just an immigrant rights issue, this is not just a constitutional due process issue, this is an issue about racial justice. we need to make sure that immigrants are given the -- excuse me -- i have every right as an author of this to make comments, supervisor cohen -- >> you're right, please continue. >> i would appreciate you not saying that i'm grandstanding and i'm not grandstanding and i'm talking about my work. this is a very important due process right.

i also want to thank the mayor for standing up to immigrants. he did this a few years back when he was the chair of this committee, the budget committee. when my former boss, supervisor compost brought forward a supplemental during another time when children in south america were fleeing violence that was perpetuated by gangs and blood bloodshed and the obama administration had a fast track where children were expected to go against judges in court by themselves. and supervisor compost had a supplemental to add 10 lawyers into the community to make sure that each of those children were represented. and supervisor as the chair of the committee stood up and supported that supplemental. those were unprecedented times then just like they are again today and he's standing up again so i want to thank the mayor for standing up for the immigrant community in this -- in this

city. and then there's two other people they want to thank. supervisor fewer, you know, you have spent your whole life fighting for immigrants from the time that you were the president of the p.t.a. to the time that you worked at the advocates for youth, to the years that you have spent on the board of education and from the second that you started as a member of this board of supervisors, immigrant families have been first and foremost in your brain and in your mind and in your heart and in your soul and you have fought for them every step of the way. and i just want to really thank you for that. you have been an example and a hero in this community and it's such an honor to work with you on this measure. and then finally i want to thank the community. i know that every single day that you are out there on the streets and you are dealing with the trauma that our immigrant community are facing. i know that you -- many of you are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders

yourself because you're watching families being torn apart and kids to break down in tears and i know that you're exhausted and i know that you're working double time and i know that you're at your wit's end. and i hope that this supplemental can help to give you some relief and some assistance in this fight and that you feel stronger than ever in defending this community and doing this work. i just want to tell you how much i appreciate your hard work and your fierce stance standing up for our immigrant residents in this community. and then, finally, i'll just say that my husband, fran si francis with the public defender's office and i'm disclosing that since i am a co-sponsor of this legislation, and francisco and i met 15 years ago working in the immigrant rights movement and it's no surprise that 15 years later that this is our heart and soul and what we're fighting for every day.

and i checked with the city attorney's office and i am in no way, shape or form conflicted out of being a co-sponsor for this measure because there is no economic benefit to francisco or my family and there's no title change in his job. so i just wanted to disclose that fact here today. with that i'm looking very forward to hearing the public comment from all of you, thank you so much. (please stand by).