good morning. welcome to the government audit and oversight committee. this is april 4th. i am the chair joined by supervisor aaron peskin as well as london breed. i want to acknowledge our clerk and the staff at sftv. they make the meetings available online and ensure they are available to the public.

do you have any announcements? >> clerk: make sure to silence your cell phones and electronic devices. items today will be on the april 10th boar board of board s agenda. >> item one is approving the award of 7095 for natasha khoruzenko leading to detexas of under payment of property tax from an unreported change in ownership. >> we did get a request to continue this so the deputy assessor can attend to offer remarks. rescheduled this prior to knowing whether the office could attend or not. i will enter tain immoment. i will open for public comment on item one. seeing no public comment it is now closed. >> i make a motion to continue this item to the call of the

chair. >> we have a motion to continue to the call of the chair. we can do that without objection. mr. clerk can you call items two, three, for. >> two through four are resolutions approving and receiving reports for the benefit district and the greater union scare business im -- union square district improvement committee. >> i see chris is here to present on all three items. i just want to thank you. many of the community benefits district are in my district. it is a pleasure to work with you. i appreciate the energy and time you put into making churr it runs well and works well with the city. i acknowledge andrea the

executive director is here today along with karen flood, executive director of the union district and the community benefit district and neil who has left and joined us. if there are no opening comments i will move to the presentation. >> thank you. good morning. as you heard we are here to hear three annual reports for the upper market cb d and the business improvement district. there are two codes that govern the community benefit district program in san francisco. 1994 act and the article 15 of the business and tax regulation code. during review for 2016-2017. they ensured they are meeting

management plans. we conducted the annual reports of the financial reviews and provided a summary memo. the castro upper market c bd was formed in 2005 with a initial budget of 4 $13,000 to expire on june 30, 2020. the executive director and service areas are public rights-of-way, sidewalk operations, district identity and street improvements and administration and corporates operations. thethey review the benchmark chk the variance for each service category within 10 percentage points. castros 5% came from sources other than revenue. if the variance was within 10% from the actuals.

benchmark four if the cb d indicates the funds from the current fiscal year and projects in the upcoming fiscal year. for benchmark one, castro cb d met this and has met this historically as well. benchmark two they raised 40% of their budget nonassessment revenue and has historically met this benchmark. benchmark 3 they were within the variance points allotted. they have historically met this as well. they did indicate the carry forward in management and did identify how it would be spent to meet benchmark four. the finding is that they met all benchmarks and requirements, the c bd with on ewd continues with successful programs like castro

cares. it is set to sunset on june 30, 2020. they will begin planning for renewral. they will provide technical assistance. in conclusion they marketed and produced live in the castro and increased to partner with municipal agencies for implementation of castro cares and maintain an active board of directors and shush committees. if there are no questions andrea will present the achievements. >> good morning. thank you for the opportunity to let you know all about the wonderful work that we are do anything the castro. as chris says, castro cb d will be renewing in 2020.

i am here to talk to you this. is the map where we are unusually shaped community benefit district, long and sprawling. all the way down to octavia street including market on castro including childre includ. we include a couple side streets. as chris indicated we have a robust committee with seven committees. they are composed of board members and some members of the community that are not on the board. executive committee, finance committee, street scape, services to oversee the cleaning, land use. retail and castro cares

leadership team. we partner with the major organizations in the upper market, community based organizations, religious organizations and we have great partnerships with public works, pd and also sfmta. collaborating with other issues. we are working on the upper market safety improving meant to work to improve pet safety and bike safety. our major grants are with oewd. castro cares where we provide additional homeless related services and also security-related services through patrol special police. our retail strategy project and improvement program where chris alluded to we run a program called live in the castro.

generally the add hock management team keeping the plaza a great place to it is and relax and enjoy the outdoors for free. the cleaning budgeted is largest by far proportion of the services we provide. we have -- we daily sweep in 16-17 we picked up 109,625 pounds of trash. 1430 instances of human feces from the sidewalks. we have a pit stop in front of the station which is wonderful. daily graffiti last year we abated 15,763 instances of graffiti.

we steam clean hitting each parcel at least quarterly and dispatch number for spot cleaning requests and other kinds of cleaning requests. examples what we find every morning in the district and our team cleans up. this is harvey milk plaza where the retaping walls are. dumped to theters is -- dump toters are going over to dump the compost bins or the recycle bins all over the street, and we come by to clean it up at 5:00 a.m. safety issues, besides castro cares, our core safety budget we also contract with san francisco patrol special police. there is a collaborative effort through other businesses who also contribute to patrol

special place and combination of dollars they are out in the street from 4:00 to 1:00 on weekdayses and thursday through saturday they are in the neighborhood until 3:00 a.m., after the bars closed. our major instances reported by the special police are obstructing the sidewalk, 25 violations shoplifting, loitering near atm and illegal vendors. without the special police these would go unnoted. sfpd is rarely in the castro. upper market in the evening. there is a daytime foot beat which we really appreciate in the evening, though, a car passes by once in a while. here is an instance of john who

passed away. he was the beat owner. cody klemments is before the police commission to become the new beat owner. we have raised a significant amount of funds through grants and donations. our assessment dollar budget last year was $499,000. you can see this is a really significant increase in our ability to meet the needs and in the district our assessment dollars don't go near far enough to meet the need in the district. some of the dollars through the jane warner improvement grant and castro cares grant fund additional cleaning in the streets. and additional security so that is a real concern with us. live in castro mid-may through

october every weekend free entertainment in the plaza. a volunteer program welcoming 5,000 visitors a year to the castro. plaza management is a big issue. we have la use and retail strategy where the focus is spreading the word castro is open for business. we have a grant for shop local. these are pictures what happens live in the castro. some are performances and community events this. is an example of the ambassadors helping visitors giving directions and maps. challenges besides the budget challenges i was referring to. challenges we do not have enough foot patrols evenings and daytime. consistent foot patrol is

critical. dumping ecology t tots is huge. there needs to be a system whereaboutses can afford to give the keys and the totes can be locked up behind the stores and commercial vacancies is a huge growing issue in the city. another issue is mentally ill substance abusers on the street. another example. i went the wrong way. >> can i ask a question? we had this issue in the market as well, we worked to chunk the pickup time to evening instead of early morning. the residents were putting out the bins before they went to sleep. then during the night folks would come and go through the burns creating a ton of trash by the time they would come by at

5, 6, 7:00 a the bins were on the streets. we worked to start the pickups at night, which has made an incredible difference. has the cb considered paying for the locks with the fees on behalf of the business owners? >> i remember along time ago talking to rob hankey. that is an interesting issue to work at night and pick up the trash at night. i am not sure if they can. i will follow up. that is a really good suggestion. as far as paying merchants to keep their -- to pay for the locks. that is really not within our budget. we are struggling with the new upcoming budget to meet the needs of the steam cleaning fields in the district where they are going over the max of

73% and we don't have the funding to even steam clean 16 hours each week. we are funding 8 hours each week. each parcel once each quarter. it is not enough. we are struggling to meet the basic needs. that would be -- i would bring that up to the board to talk about that. thank you for the suggestion. opportunities that we see is again castro cares. we are working in this fiscal year with the aids foundation to develop a case management program so more focused on focused case management rather than general outreach. revitalizing retail strategy and working closely with brokers and highlating that delays are the biggest issue.

represents are too hi, -- rents are too high. iit takes a year to get through the planning department. small businesses can't affords that. collaborating with mta on the dangerous intersections as i mentioned earlier. public art. this year we finally got the public art project opened and installed. we had a great opening. that was in the fall. we are working on increasing foot traffic on market, thinking about are there ways to bring public art to market street to increase foot traffic? improve we are working with mta on bicycle safety and vehicle safety, ideas to increase foot traffic if pedestrians feel safer. there is all way opportunities for increasing homeless services

and law enforcement. jane warner plaza is getting better all the time. we have a grant with oewd for a shop local campaign and also working with new merchants that once they get approval that they can -- once they sign the lease that they put coming soon like in the mall but coming soon, you know, whatever the store or business is so they can promote the windows with branding rather than paper and nobody understanding there is a signed lease. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. i will bring up mr. corgiss. i'm sorry. >> i want to ask a question about we funded larkin street youth services to assist in the cleanup in the area.

i noticed they have been out in the area just a few days ago, several of their workers cleaning up the streets in the castro. how do you coordinate efforts? does that take into consideration the work that you all are paying for to help keep it clean? >> the two years ago when that plan was implemented or last year when it was first implemented with the current manager at larkin street. we gave them a map and talked where we clean and where you clean. we have directed them to be cleaning just outside of our boundaries because those places get really dirty and get the, you know, wind blows trash and so we are not allowed to clean outside of our boundaries.

we felt that would be the best use of their time. >> i noticed they were cleaning along castro and market. they have been in the area. it doesn't hurt. >> it doesn't hurt. >> i see them regularly because sometimes i am in the area. i see them and maybe i don't notice the people that work for the cb d because they are not wearing vests. >> thyrolar or logo. >> i see if it is near the safe way or market street near church as well as castro and market. i notice the young people of larkin street out there on a regular basis cleaning up. i just was really excited about that and happy that program is actually effectively working, but i was wondering how you coordinate efforts.

>> we haven't talked to them in a long time. i will reach out to them again. >> i also wanted to just ask a question about the dumpsters and what is happening besides the fact you are cleaning it up. are there any other solutions or suggestions that you have to address this particular issue? i will tell you, and i know this is in the solution. part of what we have done in our neighborhood because we were having this problem as well. we really tried t to have a conversation with the individuals going through the bins to ask them to at least put the stuff back in the bin. again, i am not saying that is the solution maybe there is a conversation to be had. the second thing is definitely the locks and then also the ability for the econgee folks to

have a key to access the bins would help. i am not sure if the cost for business verses residential is more expensive. wouldn't you think it might be less expensive to have to clean up the mess than to pay for the lock to assist with that particular issue? >> well, we have found the locks not to be effective because people live on the street actually break the locks. >> or to access and get into the location where the bins are. >> it is an interesting question. i will discuss it with my board. >> there is a fee that they charge. they are provided with a key and they have the ability to remove the bins that is another solution besides locks directly on the actual bins. maybe that could be looked at as a possible solution.

i know it is frustratining aroud town. the suggestion on changing the time could be helpful to residents and merchantses in the area as well. >> thank you. >> the community benefit district. in order to save time we did not include the slides regarding the prevailing code and what oawd reviews. the community benefit district is in approximately $3 million budget. it was renewed in 2015. it is to expire december 31, 2030. executive director is cathy. it is franking and mar-- branding and marketing. the staff reviewed the same benchmarks for all cb ds.

the main difference is benchmark two where they had to raise 5.08% other than the assessment revenue. benchmark one they met this requirement. they have historically met this as well. benchmark two. the cb d raised 9.84% nonassessment revenue. they have historically met this benchmark. in beverage mark three they did keep the intending within the prescribed variance and met that benchmark. in four they did include carry forward in the annual report and did indicate how it was to be spent and met that. inen conclusion they have met the requirement also through the code and management agreement with the city. they marketed and produced neighborhood events such as the

activation, increased opportunities with stakeholders and agencies and increased hours for the san francisco pd bike patrol program. if there are no questions cathy is here to present on the program achievements. >> good morning. thanks forgiving us the opportunity to talk about our work. i have a few slides. chris talked about how we renewed in 2015. we were formed in 2008. renewed in 2015 through 2030. we have a board of 28, a staff of three. soon to be four. hopefully within the next month. most slides are photos to give you an idea what the neighborhood is about. this is the iconic image that is

taken from the gardens. boungarys from market street to perry street on the south under the freeway. second to fifth. we have 21 popoparcels -- 2100 parcels in the neighborhood. the core services you can see we have the clean team, community guides and we work in partnership with sfpd with a bike patrol officer works for us. what we did in the last fiscal year. we responded to over 61,000 requests for through through phone calls through app through e-mail or through text. you can see what we did as far as the trash picked up, graffiti. 10,000 graffiti few abatement items.

it is very, very important that we do. >> why don't i ask you questions. i am curious how the big belly trash cans. >> that is the last slide. >> i have a specific question. i am a huge fan. sorry this is inmy district. i love your work. you are the envy of other cvds in my district. thank you. i have a few specific questions. how is the pilot going? is it making a difference? >> it is making a huge difference. we have seen areas around where we put the big belly trash cans are cleaner. we don't have the staining around. i know that karen has big bellies in union scare as well and probably the same experience. i have been surprised. the intersection of fourth and mission by the city college is a

problem area to keep clean. we put the big belly there on purpose. that area is distinctly better that is a contributing factor to that. i want to have a conversation with you after this. we are be beginning to explore the possibility of adding more, and we are asking our teams to give recommendations on other partparts of the neighborhood we they would be well used. we chose high visible neighborhoods with pedestrian traffic. now, i want to look at problem areas for possibility of expansion. that is definitely on the radar. >> do you think the benefits out weigh the costs? i talked a lot with the director about big belly trash cans. i have been asking him and he is reluctant because of the cost. do you think the benefits out

weigh the cost? >> we haven't done that analysis to that degree. now that they are in and we see them function the cost is less painful. let's put it that way. our teams are able to focus on other issues that are out on the street. that has freed them up to do other important work. the cost is real, however. we are looking at it. we are looking at the budget to say how can we do more of these? one of the challenge also, it is an ongoing cost. not like you purchase the cans and maintain them. you are renting the cans. it is a ongoing cost for many years. we are interested in exploring. they are an wildly successful. >> for whatever feelings people have you are able to pilot different ideas and experiment in way that we as city government can't as stewards of

public dollars. we have to be accountable to taxpayers and demonstrate that it is a good use of the investment. i look at the cb d to help us experiment to make the streets safer and cleaner, which is what you do. >> i agree with you completely on a much smaller sale we have responsibility to the property owners. we have to use their money appropriately and show value add. it is a much smaller scale, but i agree. we have been very, very pleased with them. >> i want to ask about and this is neal's area about bike parking. we just don't have a lot of bike parking south of market. what has been the work around that? >> i will talk to that. he can jump in if he wants to. in our particular neighborhood probably five, six years ago we

designed a customized bike rack. we put about 210 to 250 of those out in the neighborhood specifically to add to bike parking in the neighborhood. we didn't want to replace existing racks. we wanted it added. we have done that. we have done a couple of bike chorals. we did the one you know about that goes out for events. we are looking at those kinds of things. we haven't gone further than that as far as in the public realm. we are working with mta to identify places for bike monitoring. >> we have jump bikes now. i see them south of market. i'm sure they are taking up bike parking. i am glad we are experimenting with electric bike. i want to try this out on a personal level. i want to make sure we are not taking away parking from other

cyclists. >> mta has permitted the jump bikes. that was my concern initially. they are taking away public racks for private use, but they have been permitted. the city has vetted through all of that stuff. they are another option for folks to use. our issue is we want to make sure people are not riding bike on the sidewalks. >> with the safety and security work are you seeing an improvement with the investments you have made on security in the neighborhood? >> it is an ongoing effort. about a year ago for this fiscal year we increased our sfpd hour from 10 to 12 hours each day. they are working 7 days each week 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. we have a large residential population we wanted to straddle

the evening hours as well. they work with community guides. it is challenging. the conditions on the street it feels like they are not necessarily getting better. we have larger -- more and more erratic behavior on the streets. there is a homeless situation. our officer has been strumental in helping us address those issues. our approach with our officer and with our social service specialist is we are trying to connect people to services and approach things in a billion dollars relationship, sense of trust over a period of time and connect to services. we have had some successes with that. so much so we authorized hiring a second social service specialist because there is a need on the street. we want to do what we can do to help people get to a better situation. >> i appreciate that.

i think that we have to build a relationship of trust with folks who need help because they don't come to us because they have come to us with such a terrible experience with our customer service. we are rebuilding that trust. that is great to hear that multiple contacts overtime is making a difference. the final question is on the amount of later you are collecting, needles and dumping. the calls for street cleaning services doubled between 2016 and 2017. are you picking up the tonnage or weight increasing and why do you think it might be? >> we are seeing it increase not necessarily doubling. increase in calls and amount of trash we are picking up. there is a dramatic increase in needles. last month we saw a slight decline. an example.

the year for this fiscal report i think we averaged picking up in the entire neighborhood less than 100 needles per month. in september alone it was under 3,000 for the month. that is the increase. in january it was 2500 needles we picked up from that month. it is an alarming increase. we have been talking with the department of public health with a presentation on the opoid epidemic to find what we can do. this is the work of the community guides and social service specialists to work with these individuals. we have seen a dramatic increase in that particularly. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. we are moving to the next

district. >> good morning. i am helen marr. office of economic and work developmentment. in the interest of time we are going to skip over the first few slides for the annual report. we will begin with the parcel map. the union scare business improvement district is around the union scare neighborhood and assesses 597 parcels. it was originally informed in 1999 angry newed in 2005 and -- renewed in 2005 and 2009. a budget of a little over $3 million. i would is to expire on june 30, 2019. the union scare businesses district is led by karen flood. the service areas are clean and

safe, marketing advocacy, beatification and street scape improvement and management and operations. oewd reviewed the following four benchmarks for the bid. the only difference is benchmark two where they were review for 1% of the union square bids from sources other than assessment revenue. bench america one, -- benchmark one they met this requirements. for benchmark two, for the assessment revenue and other income, union square business improvement district raised 35% from nonassessment sources which clearly exceeds the 1% requirement. for three they met this as well and have historically met this. for four they indicated carryover and plans to spend it on certain projects in the

annual report. for the year in review, we found that union scare business improvement business district was successful for nonassessment dollars. they are to sunset at the end of 2019. we are working with union square staff and governing board to continue to prepare for the renewal campaign. in conclusion they have marketed and produced winter walk, collabberated to beauty fiand improve the plaza. if there are no questions i would like to bring up karen flood on the achievements. >> thanthank you, helen for actg as thelactingas the chair to ci.

i am pleased to have this opportunity to present. i will run through the slides. feel free to interrupt. here we are. union square. strategic plan anything 2016. we are about being clean, safe and vibrant. boundaries are here surrounding union scare park. when you think of union square we are in the renewal protest and thinking of adding territory if they are interested in joining us. we are looking at the northern and western boundary of the district. our assessment is straightforward square footage the total budget was $3.4 million. we hope to increase as we go to renewal.

we know we need additional funding to maintain the clean, safe, vibrant area. major accomplishments. above and beyond assessments we are most proud of the downtown streets team and hiring homeless to clean up the streets. this is a win win. we have four workers in the morning and four in the afternoon. we started a year and-a-half ago. they are cleaning up the needles and the poop and such. our needles are lower. 227 a month was a lot. okay. i noted your number. you are talking hundreds. they are talking thousands. i was very pleased. >> that is a lot. last year just downtown street scene picked up 9157 pounds of trash. that is the downtown the total is higher. that is later.

we have housed nine individuals and 15 received full-time employment. this is big. this is what we can do to help move the needle on homelessness. other major accomplishments. we love big bellies. we started with five. we have 25. they are sponsored by individual hotels and retailers, property owners in the district. 3500 each year to lease these cans. there is a remarkable difference on the corners where there are cans. powell corner was bad. much cleaner sidewalk and less debris. garbage stays in. very exciting for us. winter walk. we are proud of winter walk every year. the hotels have supportive during the holidays. this is a fantastic im menty for our visitors and stake holdters.

we hope to continue it. there are other good numbers there. i know you have the reports. i will move on. other accomplishments here. raising money. we raised a lot of money over the years. i think technically it is 53 cents on the dollar last year. we did receive a windfall from silicone valley foundation $1.25 million for essentially police presence in union scare during the holidays. this should be a line item for the safe shopper program. it used to be in there. we will see how much longer the donor will do this. during the holidays there are 39 million visitors last year. we have grateful for the two beat cops. that is seven days a week 14

seven. -- 24/7. we need more. >> i am confused you only have two beat cops because that doesn't sound entirely. >> it has gone up and down. from central it is two right now is my understanding. tenderloin has some on market street. we get a little bit of that presence in tenderloin. we could use more. it goes up and down. at one time it was eight. they move around. we need more. here we go. clean and safe. graffiti. there is a lot of graffiti. trash 4 82,000 pounds of trash. that is two large dumpsters of trash. one cardboard, one trash in the union square garage overflowing.

we are in conversation with public works to help us. we need more. we need more enforcement. we have identified some of our own stakeholders, 20 putting out garbage improperly. they try to put the locks on. they cut the locks off. we are dealing with the same issues on the prior presentation. we need help with the trash. they pay for the pick up which we appreciate. two large dumpsters and counts. this is the needle number. this is all that we are picking up here. 1780 for this fiscal year. that is a little higher than before. we would like that to be zero. services we have ambassadors that wear red coats, public safety ambassadors dealing with

quality of life issues. a lot of it is to individuals calling out, screaming out. it is very disturbing for visitors. it is the number one issue. we had a training yesterday. one of the police officers came to talk about what to do when someone comes to your store and are acting in a threatening way. call 911. in the meantime how do you protect yourself and customers? it was a huge turnout. it worked out fine. we need more training to help deal with this. the panhandling and all of the rest. they address those issues all day long. this is what we would like to do more of instead of be anything the trenches cleaning up.

we would like to attract people to our district. the hotels, shops, this is what we would like to promote in our district. >> renewal. thank you, supervisor peskin for coming to our kickoff meet anything the fall. we are getting surveys back and gets positive feedback from uromere chants and property owners about it. they are not sure they want to pay more. we need more. that will be more meetings with them sitting down one-on-one to let them know if you pay the same, you will get less. costs go up. the challenges are greater than ever, and we need them to step up. we are going through that. we will do the petition face and ballot phase. maybe early next year which is

well with in the deadline to submit. >> i do not have a question this will be for supervisor peskin. >> i have a thank you in addition to the work you do day in and day out. thank you for the technical assistance you provide to the merchants in china time relative to their security project. i want to thank you for that. >> we are happy to share what we have done. we have helped the hende square. >> the merchants on stockton street are excited about that program. >> that is a great connectter there between the two districts as well. >> this question is probably more for the mayor's office. that is just because it is very

interesting to have the three cb ds come in today. sometimes we have two but from different parts of the city talking about homelessness, mental health and street cleaning. do we convene the executive directors to talk about these issues? what we can learn from them. having these mini neighborhoods you can learn about the problem intimately more than city wall. it is harder to fine tune how we target addressing these issues. >> there is a cb d consortium. they have done this on their own accord.

they invite city officials to provide feedback. >> at some point i would love to have the consortium present a gal on just as a cohort, some of the observations that they have made and then solutions that work that we can scale at the city. something more proactive and tangible out comes. >> i would be happy to work with your office. >> with no other questions or comments i will open for public comment on items 2, 3 and 4.

>> good morning, supervisors. i was going to speak on one at a time. the chair decided to put them all three together. i was going to talk about the cass true cb d. they come to seek more city funding and it applies to all three. when you hear that they get some grants from the private sector but they are also getting a lot of money from other city departments. it is not broken down like that in their presentations. i would like to see that more of a breakdown because it is mandatory in the management plan to get a percentage of money

from outside the assessments. also, when they were discussing the trash, well, under the mayor he took out all of the trash cans. putting them this is the logical thing to do after the city took them out under dpw. also, there must be a police code. i have actually walked down the street and i see people in front of me just dropping things on to the ground. there is no enforcement on that. there must be a police code or another code from dpw or something referring to people just thinking they can throw anything on to the sidewalk. this seems to be a big issue. they pick it out but outside the cb d. this is city wide. people come to drop things on the sidewalk.

they are putting in some garbage cans outside these bids there are no large amount of trash. >> thank you. >> i was wondering why the needle exchange program doesn't pay a nickel each for the return of products that they are distributing to the population that is using the needles since they would retape the needles they are using after they have used them. also, i believe garbage can on the curb are a fairly recent practice. when i returned to san francisco some years ago i recall calling

the garbage collection agency and explaining that they will no longer be collecting four fees when we couldn't fill two garbage cans. i explained two can on the curb apthat is what i would pay for. eight months later that was standard practice through the city. i believe it is a lot more efficient for the company that was involved in that work or is involved in that work. also, i believe in eliminating or greatly reducing recurring costs and that fiscal conservatism would provide better working solutions to eliminate long-standing problems. i believe i read that the district attorney requested $1 million for a committee to look into auto break-ins. i think that is absolutely

ridiculous. >> can i have the overhead? first, issue is my name is michaelnulty. one of the main problem we have downtown is air pollution. it is caused by the new cars in the community which are lifts and ubers not regulated. i have a concern about that. i'm not sure which cb ds should take care of that issue. second the issue of the big bins. they are not somebody in a wheelchair or disabled will have a hard time opening them. you are receiving these moneys through the city. because that is what cb ds do