he had his typewriter i wish i were here back there it there's rts the meeting spot rich culture and artists and musicians epic people would talk with you and you'd get >> meeting will come to order. welcome to the may 23rd, 2018,

rescheduled meeting of the safety and neighborhood services. i'm supervisor jeff sheehy to my right, is supervisorronen. also thank charles criminak and tom from sfgov-tv for staing this meeting. >> silence your cell phones and speaker cards should be mitt -- submitted to the clerk. items acted on will be on the june 25, 2018, agenda, unless otherwise stated. >> today's meeting public commt m item number 3 will be called out of order. also, a motion to excuse supervisor peskin and supervisor

fewer? >> supervisor fewer is not part of the meeting. but supervisor peskin. >> so moved. >> ok. i've spoken with supervisor fewer and their office would like a continuance -- sorry. mr. clerk, would you please call itemumber 3. >> clerk: resolution urging the sheriff's department and department of public health to conduct a baseline assessment of existing food vendors and evaluate vendor alignment with the good food purchasing standards. supervisor fewer would like a continuance to the june meeting. any members of the public who would like to speak on this item? thank you. public comment is closed. motion to continue to june 13th?

>> supervisor ronen: so moved. >> supervisor sheehy: motion without agenda, motion passes. please call item number 1. >> clerk: hearing on domestic viole c abuse with review of the familyviolce council's findings and recommendations. >> supervisor sheehy: san francisco is the only council with a family violence council, looking at child abuse, domestic violence and elder abuse. only county to publish the family violence data anly proud to be the b ofd supervisors representative on the council. one in 12 violent crime calls to 911 involve family violence. it's ccial to give survivors of family violence options, and the number of agencies participating in our family violence council shows diversity of agencies addressing family violence. prevention programming at the san francisco unified school district, to screening for

partnervience, to batterer intervention programs at the jails. the report helps us see the critical partnership we have with our community-based agency, who in the areas of child abuse and violence respond to many more families than the city age agencies. ikewoo calenosh candell, and also katy albright, i don'te beverl >> beverly is stuck in traffic. hopefully she'll be here. >> supervisor sheehy: also on good morning, supervisor sheehy and ronen, thank you for scheduling the hearing and supervisor sheehy. honored to be the department

that staffs the family violence council andonored to work with our tri chairs, and the family violence council is an example of a really successful interagency work group here in san bleci to identify system gaps and sometimes failures and improve the city's response to child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse. we'll be able to talked to about some the achievements we have had the past year then just to echo your comments, supervisor sheehy about the diversity of our representation, i think we are one of the few councils to include our director karen roy is here, and really innovative programming happening at department of child support services to work with families experiencing domestic violence. so, example of how when you reach out to all city departments impacted you can do really innovative family programming. i would be remiss if iid not k the staff, maggy, hired by

the victim servic, and lise. the report is data from fiscal year 2015-2016. always a little behind because it takes us a while tohe p rgetht. and so we'll besentin on highlights on the data and then as well some of the recommendations that the family violence council has put together based on some of what we have seen with the data. so, we are goin to go order of child abuse, domestic violence and elder abuse, and start with katy albright will present the child abuse data. survisors, for having us here todayism from safe and sound and will be presenting the child

abuse highlights, menush will present highlights unless bev gets here on time, and shauna lder e abuse. and ending violence in the community, in so many ways and so many forum, thank you so much. and equally want to thank the department and the status of women and the leadership of dr. emmy morasi for really moving this effort forward. every good movement needs a backbone organization in the department and the status of women does that. what you read in this report before you get into the child abuse prevention findings, is that this report unlike any otherurisdition in california is truly connecting the dots between child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse. and we know there are generational cycles, we know these types of violences are connected, and so the fact we are looking at it holistically is a great public policy improvement in the direction for our county, and that we can share with other counties

throughout california. in addition, this report uniquely is focussed on prevention. how can we move upstream in our work to end violence before it ever happens. and finally, what you'll see i report as she said, is it's truly a public-private partnership, that's what makes this so exciting where we can go in the future. we truly all do have a role to play in ending violence. let me turn to the child abuse statistics. a great deal of positive momentum, both on the response side after abuse happens, as ll awe the prevention side. metirst talk about the response side. there is a general trend that law enfcemen is incitg response investigations from the police department have increased 37% over the prior year, and cases filed by the district attorney's office have increased by 47%. this is mostly due to sexual abuse and child pornography cases.

equally good news is that we are seeing as a city not only a ea the overall rate of child abuse, actually, if you look at the past 15 years, 67 decrease ihef cases of child abuse, impacting all of us, great news. and decrease number of children in foster care, lowf o 738, decrease over the prior fiscal year. san franciscos being, leading e testament goes toughout the the amazing work of the human service agency for being incredibly intentional how to decrease the number of kids in the foster care system. of concerning news, we are seeing a decrease inhe numr of reports that haven by s mandated reporters. safe and sound where i work, however, has been providing significant training over the last few years, training last year in this report over 2,000

mandated report and w eseeing92% of our child serving professionals or saying this nings.ng one of ing likelihood so, thats good news in terms of raising awareness and ensuringa identifying who are the kids hurt in the community. let me turn to some more details about where these reports are coming in. as menush said, the community is providing a significant amount of outreach to people who are in crisis, families in crisis. and playing a key role of being in that front end of the work. the top lin wch 24/7 phone support line run by safe sound provides, and we have been operating for more than 40 years,e provide that sort of first response to families who are in crisis. d care or diapersey areeekingch or any otherind k of support, we

get suicidecalls, calls where we are helping families get through the cri othe moments don't hurt their child, and similaro doicviolenco the talk line than we are to our child ae prevention response line, which is very good news. we are stoppingse getting there in the first place. the other prevention component tn incredibly supported by the board of supervisors and the ldership pervisor sheehy in particular, thinking about how we are moving forward on the family resrce centers. as you know, there are 26 family resource centers in every community infro. we aren the front lin providing needed services to improve family'scte classes, diapers, counseling, familydinners, r fsis support, case management. see teep their kids safe.

it's andible system. i was just in san diego and in phoenix presenting on it. we are unusual in impact o provid prevention,rimary prevention support to families in crisis, and it is happening because of your leadership and because the leadership of dcyf, first five, and human ce a ncy fing thei funding. so we are thrilled in that, and it's showing significant improvement. nowrno who are the victims of abuse. and here we know that most children are victims of abuse by people that they know. it's not the stranger. 86% of those who are abused knew who their rpr, potential perpetrator was, and overwhelmingly there is a ndatin er pthple of co seeing that in the n

coming to the district attorney th chi protection system. it's important to note these are reported cases, these are people volved in the system.s to and thatsp is concerning to u. we also know and this relates to national trends as well that more girls are victims of violence than boys. butn deeper int data, we see that more boys are victims, particularly older boys, are victims ofalab os td abuse and you see that reflected in this graph. next year we'll being adeeplysi victims of abuse and who are the families that need extra support to ensure that we are preventing abuse from happening in the first place.

fi meus anjor achievements in this ea, from 2016, 2017, again, the board was wonderful i leadership to approve $250,000 child abuse prevention funding. that has been extremely helpful, in particular providing legal support to children and families thankmuc for that funding. ditadon, several years ago as you know, we have created childr'senter in san francisco, and this is really a wonderful multidisciplinary partnerpo cong in and telling their ho are story to do it in the most trauma-infornd w we are very pleasedbe doing that work and in addition, not just the forensic interview piece of , but providing theenta health services so that children can heal. not just get justice, but heal from the abuse that they may have endured. and finally, i want to highlight

and thank the department of emergency management, it's all about data, we can only do our work if we have data, and the department of emergency management is doing a terrific job in collecting data and also being responsive to the other city departments inrmf getting the resources and that first response that they need. so, i'll turn it now over t menush to provide anate on domestic violence. thank you. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. >> i know beverly b here tsent this part, i will try to fill in, but nobody can match beverly. so, just in terms of some highlights of the data on intimate partner violence for mot concerning data points, increase in domestic violence lls t 911 that involved a deadly weapon. so, 87% increase in calls involving a knife and 53%

incrn clls involving a n. and this directly relates to one of our recommendations which is to create a program at the sheriff's department to actively go after firearms in the hands of domestic violence offenders, want tola that for and stalking calls increase to 911, partly ma i e isn actual increase in stalking or just better awareness about coding the cases properly because when we look back at 2008, 0lsut stalking, and was happening then. a lotf w ok to educate law enfoement and d.e.m. properly identifying the cases. one really positive note, work done by the public health rtnece. to screen for intimate a lo domtic violence survivors may seek health in the public healtsystem may not actively disclose, so, screening

and asking everybody about intimate partner violence should be part of routine practice and we saw significant in skreess at department of public health clinics, female patients had, an increase in 80% of people being asked about intimate partner violence, and for male patients, increase of 201% in the number of people asked. these are not people identified as experiencing, but screened, the first step. as with child abuse, we see that black and latinx residents are disproportionately victimized, andy,bisexual high school students are 2 to 3 times more at riskf physical or sexual dating violence. this is the chart that shows the general san francisco population, race, ethnicity, and then the people who are accessing the victim services at the district attorney's ce just in time. i'll finish this sde and then

you can take over. and then seeking services in the community, and you can seehat african american and latinax residentsre disproportionately represented at victim services. when y look at the asian survivors omesti viol, you'll see they are actually accessing community-based enciag at a greater rate, not at the d.a. it's interesting wn you look at the data, you can see where acssing services, and again, s this highlights the crucial role that the community-based organizations play in pingd services to some communities that may not feel comfortable accessing law enforcement. >> thank you, and thanks for doing this.

oh, two hours -- >> i was stuck in traffic, too, we started late. >> so, anyway. we have drawn this little pyramid for fol 1,000 times at differentvenues, right?so if yo at where the community is calling where they are reach out, where they speak their language, where they trust us, look at community calls, 21,000. this is 2016, so it will even be more in 2017 and probably way more in 2018 as people feel less and less safe. missing number is 911, about 7,000. but looking at 3,000 going to the police department, look about half of that actually going up to s.v.u. right? then that's investigated fully at s.v.u. and moves up to the district atrney's office.

so, when we really look at the pattern, people are really seeking their services unless their lives are really at risk community. so w to bring that forward. also th ik you would see the very same trends in child abuse and elder abuse as well. but certainly child abuse ds44 hotline, many more calls there than start at law enforcement. p ush pu-- >> so here is some of the highlights. some of the achievements and highlights in the domestic violence response for the city. in 2016-2017, the full list can be found on page 15 of the report. so, hopefully you ave full report. if you don't, i did manage to bring one with me. lpe you know, they created disseminate a policy and

supplemental form to assist medical providers in complying with the d.v. reporting laws. oh, let me just -- ok. so,lth care professionals have to report all individuals who are showing up at a hospital with an injury that looks like domestic violence. that's somewhat controversial, right? could it have a chilling effect? could it save somebody's life? the answ i yes to .th so i think menush and the community of people aro tae, means law enforcement and the s.f. general came together and revamped that form to be the best it could be for ser tra current law. ok. you can read between the lines there. worked with police department, the district attorney's office and the probation department to create new protocols for special victims units when investigators are called out to a domestic violence incident.

that's pretty self-explanatory. worked with the superior work and the police department to improve timely entry of d.v. retraining orders and so this was really brought, and you are familiar with theissue, brought from the community. our ats,community-based attorneysme to us and said we are having a very hard time getting, you know, people are walking around with a piece of paper they think is protecting them, and it's not in the system yet. so, i am so pleased that the family violence council, perfect for us, right? brought all the stakeholders and problem solved it. meetings with the judges, records department at the police department, set up a whole new protocol and a new email address, those get filed and sent in to the courts and they are logged in at the end of every day. so, that is aesaing accomplishment of the family violence council. sheriff's department enacted an officer involved domestic violence policy to ensure that

employees of the sheriff's department who commit domestic violence are properly investigated. so the year before that, we went through the san francisco police department. this 16-17, we got one through the sheriff's department. t taeople totally off the oes job but limits their access to information about the victim, third parties cannot look into the commuter on their behalf. it changes the pass codes so they don't have access through the computers, as safe as we can make it. looked at about eight promising practices from around the country. >> i want to highlight one of the strengths of the family violence council, you can have a great law, or some cases a bad law, but how the rubber meets the road where it makes the difference, so the family violence council, policies and protocols not necessarily a new

law, but make sure the laws on the books are implemented the best way they can be. >> my colleague from elder abuse is up next. thank you so much. >> supervisor ronen, supervisor sheehy, thanks for having us. i'm very tall, so, honored to be here, presenting with my tri family voinz council about elder i'vedre a say it again. san francisco is so unique in considering elder abuse as part of a spectrum of violence. it is absolutely the truth, but i've not worked in the county yet that has looked at it that way until now, it's my honor to work with both katyd bev and menusha, and the deputy director of the aging adult services here today, i'll be talking about one of her departments. so, generally wre seeing an

increase in the cases investigated at adult protective services. cases received by a.p.s. have risen stdily, 23% since 2012. and you can see the number there is quite high. so, there is about 7,303 elder abuse cases powhen it c substantiated cases, means there isome evidence to support the report, elder physical abuse cases have increased by 21% since the previous year and also d.a. victim services hasreas loa by abus the top three types of elder abuse, and defined in california are those 65 and above, self-neglect cases, where the person is ule caor their own needs, food, water, shelter, clothing, medication and california, elder abuse does not have to be committed by another person necessarily, you can also commit against yourself. so, in san francisco those are the highest number ofca

psychological, otherwise known as emotional ect,glr abuse ui high ine and then financial, and that's the type of elder abuse you are seeing every day now. when it comes to dependent adult abuse, definition is between the age of 18 and 64, with a mental or physical limitation that makes it hard for them to protect theirhts o or carry out their day-to-day activities, self-neglect is also the top type of abuse reported, followed by psychological, and then physical. and yeah, so we are drawing an important distinction between abuse inflicted by others and self-neglect cases. self-neglect are by far the largest category. and when that is occurring, there over other types of abuse happening as well. again we see people of color rtioditely c elder particularly the black and asian communities.

so, looking at cases served by d.a. victim services, you will see over a presentation by those two ic there is a much more even gender distribution for elder abuse than for child abuse. intimate partner violence, it's an issue that affects everyone. however, for the 2017 report, we'll seek to look at the gender of victims across different forms of elder abuse. sexual, physical, financial, this chart includes all abuses toward people over the age of 65, including stranger violence. ti wa look a little bit different pyramid, and that cases are first reported to adult protective services in the city as people who work with elders independent adults in the city are required to report, mandated s, mandated to report any suspicion of elder abuse, independent abuse in the

county. so, again, the number is a lot of cases, 7,303 were reported. substantiated cases, 3,302. police department cases, 608, and then cases investigated by s.v.u., 114. we've also haderetty b achievements. institute on aging, which i am a part, was the co-chair of the family violence council elder subcommittee with the d.a.s office and we accomplished creating a supplemental form used by police officers responding to elder abuse case, modeled on the form by domestic violence case, still in the final stages being approv by the d.a.'s office, we are pleased with it. and d.e.m., prioritized calls from adult protective services

and child protective services to reduce wait times for city employees that report. so, cases, historically, that have been reported by adult protective services workers have been classified as the priority ome me to police be waiting for officers respond and now they have been prioritized as a, and those were some of our achievements. some other highlights, the full list found on page 15. menusha will talk about the recommendations. >> so, just to conclude, i'm going to alk about some of the recommendations in our report. a lot of them have to do with improving some of the policies or protocols the police department and special victims unit but i am going to focus on the top one, implementing a firearm surrender program, to remove guns from persons with domestic violence restraining orders issued against them. so, we have a great law in california that provides when a

domestic violence order is issued against someone, including in family court and civil cases, they are required to surrender guns they have and cannot purchase guns or ammunition, but it's not selftincu it says on restraining order forms they have to turn in their guns. many people do t voluntarily do that. so, we are really wanting to create a program at the sheriff's department to be able to aggssively go after the guns. it's modeled after a gun that the neighbors in san mateo county have, when they see a gun is mentioned, they actively contact theon that the restraining order is issued against and try to get them to give in the guns or go and get them if they are not voluntarily complying, and we would like to see that in the sheriff's department. so as you are looking at the budget, please, please look at that program. these are preventable homicides. not all homicides are easy to prevent. guns and domestic violence are a lethal mbination. this is a resrden flag

that combination is present and so we should be doing everything we can to get the guns out of the hands of those offenders. i'm going to stop there, but obviously we are happy to take uest qns that you might have. >> supervisor ronen: thank you for this incredibly well organized presentation. it was incredibly impressive and i have to say, the family violence council is one of those uniquely san francisco things that makes me so proud of being part of the elected family here. it's just so innovative and so comprehensive and the success shows and all the statistics. i want to thank you so much, menush, for being the backbone increy innovative program and then to, you know, the three chairs for your excellent work. i wanted to get that out. absolutely we have to have this

program, and whatever i can do and i know supervisor sheehy feels the same, maybe we should introduce a resolution at the board just saying that this is a cutting e prog t want to see here in san francisco immediately. as a way to, youkn, make it clear that is triory for the budget. please let us know if that is something you are interested in and we would be happy to follow up with that. >> we can follow up with you after the meeting. >> supervisor ronen: that would be fantastic. and you know, just from meeting with community groups and coming from an organization working with undocumented immigrants, i know firsthand how important those strong community-based, you know, services and homes where people feel comfortable going, receive culturally

competent, linguistically competent care and build important are so important for being the backbone of this system. so i just know there's a lt of anxiety in those community-based organizations about budget priorities this year, i have talked to beverly about it quite a bit. i know that the passing of mayor lee has brought along a lot of the anxiety, he was such an amazing champion of your work, and i want to make sure that you have a champion in me and i am with you 150% that this work is crucial. it is effective, and it saves lives. and so i know that that's the same with my colleague, jeff sheehy, but i want you and the commun organizations t know and say it very publicly that even though mayor lee's untimely passing has created a

ton of anxiety in the city, that you still have incredible allies on the support of supervisors of way, because we knowow st critical and effective your work is. so, i just had to say that here , so thank you so much. it was such a comprehensive presentation that i don't have anypecifi cquestions, but i really felt important to make those remarks. >> tuk and thank you for your support. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you, supervisor ronen. and as you noted, i completely echo the support of what are doing, so keep us in the loop. resolution as well, we'll work together to be champions for. of course, i do have questions. so i just, one is, and i don't know if maybe i'll try to keep them in topic, so, per elder

abuse, do you look at tenant evictions, one of the things i'veheard, and this was talking he sheriff, actually, who conducts eviction, she actually noted that she will go into, she'll be conducting an evicon apacity to really n't understand, an senior, they don't know what's going on, this whole process is unfolded, and suddenly there is the sheriff at the and they are gone. so, is that -- i think, and given what we are seeing in evictions, and as we heard a week ago, given some of the landlords we have, the new landlords in town, such as veratos, i'm curious about that. i'm beginning to feel that may be a gap we may need to look at and partner with you. >> i come from a fair housing

background so evictions are always on the radar. you will hear from jill neilson in a bit about the eviction and self-neglect unit which has my full support and hopefully your full support. i also run the forensic center for elder abuse for the city and county, and a third of the cases involve evictions and gaps in services for those elders areg it. i'll let jill answer that question specifically about the program. >> and just before youstart, i w t that supervisor safai has joined us as a member. >> good morning, supervisors. jill neilson. one of the programs we operate, adult protective ser aesd we were fortunate in las ys budget that we received some new staffing resources. we were able to initiate this past summer a new specialized unit in adult protective

services. we call it the high risk and eviction prevention unit, and we are really serving those older adults and people with disabilities that are really unable to advocate for themselves, experiencing self-neglect, may not be able to manage their own personal hygiene finances, manage their own services, and so this unit we served already close to 300 individuals, and we are working very intensively with these clients, and we are making sure that we are getting them connected before we are closing cases, and we have found a lot of success with the model that we are implementing. we have all licensed clinical social workers that are serving this unit and very close connections with the legal defense programs throughout the city, including legal assistance to the elderly that will do

eviction defense, including half, and we also operate in our department the public conservator's office. so capacity, if we find a client that actually does not have the cognitive capacity, dementia or other deficits to be able to participate in their own legal defense, we may consider them for a conservatorship, under the public guardian, a last case resort. but grateful for the resources, and the new model will keep people housed. >> and then another question. filed by the d.a. in the elder abuse. >> elder abuse are included in the domestic violence case, it's a coding issue at the district attorney's office. subset. the same unit prosecute the

elder abuse and domestic violence cases. >> so, just, and this came up in our sexua violence hearing, as i look at this pyramid, is there a problem, is this -- a problem ethat w should ooinnto kind of, you start with a lot of reports and every single ion,hich for the most part, are not in the criminal justice system. well, flip back through. i think it's -- is elder abuse, but do we have a problem that there's such a huge gap, especially once you start to engage the criminal justice system, seems like a lot of people are reporting community-based organizations but when you look down, except with domestic violence, and i really don't know if that's adequate or not, are we getting charges filed often enough?

does that show up in your data? you endp with st, the very end of it, there's not -- and to what degree -- again, i did domestic violence, i know just getting people, we have the mechanism of restraining order, that gets used sooft you cre rord of the violence. and i'm just wondering in these other cases where you are not seeing a lot of prosecutions, you know, is that a problem? >> i think we could always do a better job and it starts at the beginning, are the cases being investigated, thoroughly, are cases slipping through the cracks, that's why we have done a lot of work with the police department to firm up, are they assigning cases for investigation that they should? and so now they have written assignment protocols. are we supporting victims in all the ways that we can so that if they, there is a criminal prosecution going forward they feel supported in that system.

so i think we could always do a better job and are looking at ways that we can firm up and address any weaknesses. >> well, if there's any way we can h ilin some of of the gaps, i just -- again, having a record of people, even if you don't get a conviction, but just knowing, because -- and i know domestic violence, i won't claim to have expertise, but usually the first incident is not the and not to note and be able to track this, you can have somebody doing something again and again, never really being d ige the criminal justice system and the victim feels incredibly helpless. >> one of the problems, tremendous turnover at the special victims unit, with constant turning of the leadership there, and that has made it feel difficult to have policies implemented, and we have made that point to chief scott and we are hopeful in the future there will be more

consistency there, and having enough officers in that unit to be invtigations they have to is also really important. and they have brought up staffing numbers and they could probably be even higher. >> and echoing, we are seeing the trend and the country, increase of reso furs seeing fewer cases at the justice end, and i wouldendoct on prevention before cases ever get into the system. it is much more cost effective as y econ anasis what the cost of child abuse is to san francisco alone. we have not looked at domestic violence or elder abuse, but one year of reported cases costs our city at a very conservative number, over $226 million every year. and when you multiply that and

if you really think about what we think is the prevalence rate, it's in the billions of dollars. took that and put it into prevention for domestic violence, prevention for elder abuse, prevention for child abuse, we would reap much more benefit in the community than think wou tha other end in the criminal justice end. >> that's helpful, thank you. that is the last question i have. i just want to thank you for this amazingesention. and for thencre ible workat you are doing. >> thank you for giving us this time. appreciate it and thank you to colten for helping schedule this, a labor of love. >> thank you, thank you. so any members of the public that wish to speak? people will have one minute. >> good morning. good morning, chair.

sheehy, supervisor ronen, and supervisor safai. karen roy, director for the department of child support services and also a member of the san francisco family violence council. we have been a member, a founding member, founding department and i just wanted to support the work of this council, and quickly give you an example of what we have experienced in the department in terms of system p. the child support program is required to close -- close child support cases where family violence is an issue. started to see a growing number of families, parents, suffering family violence wanting child support, needing child support so brought the issue before the council aehe zing. they helped us build out training that we then

implemented. we have been able to collect over -- >> thank you. so, thank you, thank you. and again, thank you for the excellent presentation. excuse me, i need to close -- any one else who wouldik speak at public comment? public comment is closed. again, thank you for the presentation. any other comments from members of the board? colleagues, do we have a motion to file the ar >> supervisor sheehy: so moved. hearing is filed. mr. clerk, could you call item number 2, please? >> clerk: 2, hearing on the city's overall diversion rates, reviewing how the city plans to achieve 0 waste, if not by 2020 as publicly discussed. reviewing the methodology for calculating the diversion rate and plans for increasing overall diversion.

>> supervisor sheehy: thank you. i'll turn it over to my colleague, supervisorfai. >> supervisor safai: now get down to the dirty work. just want to see if everyone was listening. a lot of people are not necessarily exced about waste, but if we are really thinking abou the planenure, wast is something th o us deal with on a daily basis, and produce on a daily basis. and i had the great fortune of working with the front line workers in this industry, both the teamsters and the janitors, responsible for dealing with the waste. a decade ago, i know we are going to call up director rafael from the department of the environment. over a decade ago we started this conversation about mandatory recycling and

composting. if many of you in the public mb went from one black bin, to then two and then three, where the green and the blue bin was created, and became part of our daily routine for some people. some people ignored it for a long time, and some people still do. but in general, san francisco began to change its culture, and began to be on the cutng edge of what it meant to be environmentally responsible. ba 2002, a the wayack in 2002, 16 years ago, the board of supervisors passed a resolution sng th we would send no more than -- we would be diverting 75% of our waste from landfill. and then one year later, we came out with the goal of having 0 waste by 2020. here we are, unbelievably,s 2018, and it came out and come

to our attention that we are not theposur of this riste. today is to talk about how and why we are where we are. how much we no longer use the word diversion, now we talk about tonnage, interesting, watching a program 20 years ago talking about waste management and they were talking about tonnage, so i think it's a standard term all over the united states, i think we are changing the terminology, it gives a better idea how much we are producing and sending to landfill on an annual basis. we are going to hear a presentation from the department of the environment that says how much of the tonnage could be recycled and composted. and what are some of the major challenges to achieve getting as close to 0 waste as possible. myself and supervisor katy tang

had an announcement last week, it may have seemed small, and the pieces of waste that we were talking about are small, they have a major impact on the ronmen and that was the you heard about plastic straws. on average, san francisco uses about a million straws a day. and those cannot be recycled. they fall through the cracks, literally, of theachins that do the work to sort, andcy waste. and so we are moving toward paper and we are also moving toward changing people's behavior in that. some coffee and some takeout places consistently give little plugs for the tops of the lids, plastic stirrers, they use single use when you geteou food, a plastic wdeknife, fork and spoon, use it one time. it's some of the worst plastic out there, actually. it's tremendously, tremendously awful for the environment. so, we are tryingo not only

stop people from using materials, and change people's behavior. it's a small way we can have a major, major impact whether we think about the amount of plastic that's in the ocean, larger, there isa cfluenceastic larger than the state of texas. at ths outrageous. and so we are going to have to do something dramatic for the future of our planet, and san francisco has led the way in many ways. we are doing tremendous work, but there are a lot of peoplen our c a a lotf actors in our city that just have not changed their behavior. and that's probably why we are still sending about 50%, 50% of the waste that well send to landfill could either be recycled or composted. so, i called this hearing today to talk about that, to talk about the work that goes into that amount of diversion, the oun work that can b done,

and tal aut the challenges that we still face as a city and how we are going to confront that, and maybe potentially lead to more aggressive solutions to achieve those goals. then firs i would like to cal up, unless my colleagues have anything to say, the director of the department of the environment, debbie rafael. >> good evening. thank you supervisor safai for that incredible introduction and commitment to 0 waste and holding this hearing, and thank you supervisors for allowing us the opportunity to come and explain where we haven and wee need to go. my name is debbie rafael, director of the department of the environment and joined today with a number of my staff who have such tremendous expertise, i wanted them to be here so that you could get the best answers to your mtit on theound, street-wise,

understag of what's going on there. i'm also joined by john porter of recology and his partners. we have staff from public works here. we are here to ge convertion a a ainstorm together on what we need to move forward. so peter is going to help me with that. the so, 0 waste. 0 waste means no material to landfill or incineration. the way we think about it here is getting rid of our black bins, whether those bins be the carts in a single-family home, or the huge compactor you might see in a hospital or a large commercial office building. as supervisor safai said, this goal is not new. in 2002, actually a very important context, when theboa adopted the goal of 0 waste, they emphasized some very important concepts that have been the marching orders and the

underlying values of our department and of recology as well. the first is producing and consumer responsibility. to get to 0 is ared responsibility. it's not onlyn the residents of san francisco and the people who work here, it's also on the people who make the things that we buy. this concept of highest and best use that when we are collecting things for recycling, we don't want to down cycle them so they have no use after one recycling episode. we want to keep using them in the highest and best quality so that they can benefit society for years to go. so they codify, the board e bard referred to the commission on the environment on the timing. they said all ght, we know this is where we want to go and by 2010 we want to be at 75% diversion rate. but commission on the environment go deeper and tell us how fast we can get there.

well, the commission on the environment being the commission that they are and were at the time, decided that what was needed was the most ambitious goal possible, andasrational goal 2020. they knew at the time that was going to be extremely challenging to meet. they also knew and understood that creating urgency drives action. and that's exactly what it has done. so, if you look back at that history since 2003, in the past 15 years, this city has put forward the most forward thinking, comprehensive waste reduction policies in the united states. we get calls from cities and states around the country, around the world, to understand what we have put in place so they can follow suit. so of course, we are familiar with the single use bag ban, the strictest restrictions on styrofoam in the country. 2009 was a really key date for

us. that is where the city put in place mandatory composting and recycling, meaning it's not a choice, it's an obligation. it's a requirement. and because of that law that was put in place in 2009, we have the most amazing statistic ofcc world has. 99% of our businesses and our residents have three-bin system. that's amazing. so it's not about conceen anymore, it's not about availability of the service, it's really about behavior supervisor sheehy said. it's about getting people to do the right thing, put things in the right place. next slide. and the bad news slide.o so, this is the slide that my team has looked at every day and motivates them incredibly to take action. so the good news is, since we started this process, we have, we had cut disposal in half,

2008 was our low point. and, what this slide does not 2008, 75% diversion ened as rate the board asked for by 2010. managed to do that two years earlier. after ten years of decline, things are going in the wrong direction. that the trend is now going up, though if you look at 2016, our latest date, it's leveled off. bu we need to reverse that hockey stick, we need to go back down again. we are still disposing about 580,000 tons t landfill. while we are sending more to landfill, we are also sending a ton more, tons more toecycling and composting. what that is saying is that san francisco is using and buying more stuff every day. yes, moreg toandfi and more to the blue and green bins as well, and we have a very, very robust construion

industry going on, so more and more construction andemolition waste is being generated, put in the right place, the wrong place as well. so, 0 waste means for us as supervisor safai said, it's about the tons. it's just, it's a metric that you cannot argue with. the tons are still going to landfill and our focus is heavily on that. so, now what i want to do, lift up the lid, if you will, of the black bin and look inside. sohen w look inside that black, and it's not just the black bins, it's city-wide, so, not everything ig disposed of through the black specific about that. so, when you look city-wide at what's going to landfill, and ssors -- supervisor safai will notice the numbers have shifted a bit since i was in his office, because we looked rt them again through a tig andlens the news, it just

shifts where we know things are. but 60% of what is going to landfill has a place, it has a place in the blue bin, it has a place in the green bin. 60%. 25% of what is going todfill no thosens, it's thou it's construction and demolition debris. that needs to be sorted better, thatne to in being .e and this 15%, this yellow piece of the pie chart is perhaps the hardest part of all because that's the part where if we don't get the producers on board, we are never gonna, we are never gonna achieve true 0. because that's where we don't have a good place for things to go because there are things like diapers, there are things like dog poop, which certainly are not sexy, but they are problematic for us. carpet, composite materials like a piece of furniture,urn fure that has foam and plastic and

wood, or a chip bag ts made up of mylar and plastic. these kinds of materials our system cannot handle. and so that is why it's so important for this body to stay enga the way products are made and to restrict w cabe sold here because that 15%, we are powerless at our city level to really address. it's the collective challenge. alri so, let me -- i want to dig into three of our main challenge areas, and you are going to hear fromrecogy's perspective as well. very much mirror what we are talking about, because we work closely together, but hear through their lens of having to deal with this on the street. so, construction and demolition, no surprise to anyone there is a 30% increase in permits pulled. ok, everywhere you look, there are cranes. in 2006, this city passed a

constrelidebs removal and recov ordinance, which requires es tlition and take their mixed debris and send it to a registered facility. the reason that's so important, they are approved by us as being able to sort. so they sort as much as they can so that they minimize what goes tolandfill. hapning right now is there are some bad actors out there at construction and demolition sites that are sending their things to those facilities. they send them straight to landfill so the mixed debris is going straight to landfill, it's very heavy. ascribed to san francisco as our waste, and so our tons to disposal are going up dramatically because of those ba actors. and gets even worse because those landfills are not inclined to tell us who those bad actors are. they are protecting their customers. we managed to get a law passed at the state to help us with the