Skip to main content

tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  August 11, 2018 3:00am-4:01am PDT

3:00 am
last crash was at broadway near rock t stockton, and that crash involved a pedestrian crossing the block being hit by a vehicle early in the morning, and that construction was under completion. [inaudible] >> -- such as the broad case, and then, projects that are pending implementation where we have projects that are coming but they didn't, unfortunately, come soon enough for the fatal that happened. this was a picture that we did on manzell, again, this is -- mansell, this is just an indication that this is not a safe place to pass other
3:01 am
people. we are looking at more changes along the corridor, but again, this is a project that had recently been completed, so it had a lot of other projects built into it. like i said, construction can be an issue. this is a case where we worked chosely with public works in the case of the fatality that happened on broadway. we wanted to make sure that the construction was not a cause or a contributing factor to any of the crash details, so public works staff was on the field with police department immediately after the fatality, and i was able to be at the site at well and talk to people about the crash details. so that's the case of a project that is now completed. there was a ribbon cutting yesterday for the broadway project that has additional improvements in terms of pedestrian sidewalk areas. for the second quarter, fatalities included ocean and victoria which we discussed as
3:02 am
a senior fatality last week. we are making a series of changes to ocean in terms of signal timing and markings, and based on your request, commissioner yee, we are also doing a no turn on red for victoria at ocean, so that will be implemented shortly. there was a fatality at 19 avenue and winston, where we visited the site at night where the crash happened and discovered a streetlight light wasn't functioning, so we indicated that to the sfpuc. arthur and cargo way was kind of a case linked to a criminal activity. vehicle ran and crashed into an intersection. we did not feel that there was a lot of engineering things that we could do at that intersection for the crash itself, but we do have a pending project there to make some changes. at 20 and castro was another case of a fatality where a tow truck lost control of a vehicle and it slid into a work site
3:03 am
and it killed one of our fellow city co-workers, a very tragic incident. and this was considered to be a crash, but again, it was more of a work related incident with a tow truck and the work site, so we have not looked at that location for engineering changes, but instead, other parties are following up, including the parties that investigate the tow truck and the work site conditions. and the embarcadero and sansome, this involved a pedi cab driver being hit by a motorist in a corridor that was under study for cycle track and other. . s and staff has also gone out to the site and looked at other things we can do, shorter than the long-term projects. and finally, the fatalities that happened in july, a fatality happened at 16 and mission, where a pedestrian was walking midblock and was hit at
3:04 am
mission. we are doing some changes at the intersection of 16 and mission in terms of extending a transit bulb. we had already done a red lane project on that street. and then, finally, the crash we had just discussed with caltrans at 36 and sloat, where caltrans the prior week had activated a new h.i.c. beacon, and the pedestrian was crossing the street. >> supervisor yee: okay. thank you very much for your presentation. by the way, i'm really happy that we have this response team that's been created so that the different departments can actually share the same information and data and do the analysis together because it seems like in the past, there's been a lack of coordination. from your presentation, i can see that you're doing a lot more what we call reactive
3:05 am
strategies, i guess, after the fact. and one of the things from even last week that i mentioned is that we can't forget to also be proactive in trying to get this -- use the information you're getting to look at other situations to say even though it hasn't happened in the particular intersection, let's be proactive and just go ahead and do the -- whether it's engineering projects to improve the intersections or to put a signal or whatever, you know. i think those are important steps that we take. thank you very much. >> yes. i was to emphasize that my presentation is purely focused on a reactive part of the work we do. i think it's important, but obviously, the agency and the city are also working on a proactive basis to look at where could the next fatal happen, install traffic
3:06 am
signals, signal beacons, additional markers, regulations. we're retiming the entire downtown area, and we're looking at what additional safety recommendations we can do. there's a very proactive component as well, and whatever lessons we learn from the crashes, severe and fatal, we also try to extrapolate and figure out how can we learn from these so they don't repeat themselves and apply them in a proactive fashion where they don't happen again. >> supervisor yee: thank you very much for your work and your presentation, mr. oleja. >> thank you. >> supervisor yee: any public comment on this item? come on up. >> thank you. kathy deluca.
3:07 am
we know that vision zero is just bigger than responding to individual crashes but it matters to people who are impacted, to communities who are impacted, so i just want to thank the sfmta for their quick work and responsiveness. >> hello. commissioners. my name is kristin lecke. in the days following the hit and run on the embarcadero, i was regularly in touch with people who new kevin manning, the pedi cab operator who eventually passed away from injuries from the crash. i am concerned about the people who are impacted by these traffic collisions are not yet being supported. in the days following kevin's death, we were immediately working with his close friends and family for a ghost bike memorial event. where was the c.r.t. then? then, we turned out for an m.t.a. board meeting. while we appreciate the
3:08 am
condolences from director ed reiskin, there was no mention of the rapid response team or the results of their engineering team to bring near term improvements to the embarcadero. time and time again, it is instead up to the friends and family who are grieving after loss to push for more. on behalf of our 10,000 members, we urge the city to do more and to do it faster. if even the loss of life isn't enough for immediate street safety improvements, our city is failing our people. commissioners, thank you again for bringing this to the attention and let's keep pushing our city departments to do more. thank you. >> supervisor yee: thank you very much. any other public comments on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed. any othermen comments, colleag? seeing none, then, this informational item -- let's move quickly to item six. >> clerk: item six, update from vision zero community groups. this is an information item. >> supervisor yee: miss
3:09 am
deluca. >> good morning, noonish, good afternoon. good afternoon, chair yee, and commissioners. i am kathy deluca, the project coordinator for walk sf. so first, i'll start with the senior and disability work group. so this group forms in -- formed in 2016, and ad vocates from several departments came together and decided we needed to do something. it wasn't okay that two was killed. we knew that market was a high injury corridor. so we quickly formed this
3:10 am
group, and we actually rallied together and made some changes. we were able to get leading pedestrian intervals on market street after we joined together. we got better turn restriction signage because we know on the safer market street project there are a lot of turn restrictions, and is it ae confusing -- and it's confusing, and we were also involved in the city driver training, so we've been getting a lot of good things accomplished together. the city has been putting in a lot of protected bike lanes, which is really good, but there are a lot of consequences, and so we got a group together to talk about this. basically, when you have protected bike lanes against the curb, you lose access to the curb, so folks who used to pull up to the curb and get out on the curb, which is really important for seniors and folks with disabilities, that access
3:11 am
is gone. and now if you're getting out from the curb, you have to cross a bike lane. so we wanted to really talk about this and make sure that improvements that are really important for bicyclists that should happen could also work for seniors and people with disabilities. so we had a big workshop in march. we invited city staff from all different agencies, advocates, consultants, and we even had folks from oakland department of transportation come. and we had a great day really opening up this conversation and talking about the challenges that these communities face and coming up with solutions. so -- and i just wanted to give you a few examples because i think visuals help kind of understand what we're talking about. so when we have transit islands, when the bike lane's against the curb, and we have a transit island, it could be harder fore people with disabilities and seniors to get off the island. is it a ramp and only on one
3:12 am
end of the island? that could be difficult for seniors and person with disabilities. if you're blind or a person with low sight, and you're used to going to the curb to find your bus stop, and then somehow the bus stop moves out into the street, how are you supposed to find out where that is? so we were talking about how can we make this work? we talked about sidewalk level bike lanes, which is the city is planning in some of our corridors, which again for seniors and people with disabilities there are a lot of concerns with that mixing. we know that those people are more at risk if they're in crashes, so we talked about how to design these so that they were safe. floating parking. so if the bike lane is protected by parking, this is -- this is causing all sorts of challenges for folks with disabilities and seniors. so again, you used to be able to step out of your car onto the curb, but now you're stepping out from your car into
3:13 am
this hatched zone. so sometimes folks find that hatched zone isn't big enough to get your walker or stroller out. sometimes instead of, again, you used to be able to step right onto the curb. now you have to travel down this zone and try to get onto the curb which is a longer distance to cross. and the group also found there were few you are accessibility parking spots. we could go into this forever, and i like to -- oh, again, post protected bike lanes, just an unintended consequence is how are folks who need to get to a destination right at that location accessing it? it's blocked now. so we had this great discussion where we talked all of these -- these problems out, and we came up with a handful of solutions. and so the group really talked about hey, if we had raised crossings across the bike lanes, that would really help pedestrians be safe and
3:14 am
visible. if we had really visible and predictable crossings, that's going to help people find these transit islands. universal design was talked about a lot, which is just making sure a street -- a design of anything, street building, works for everybody, so we talked about that. the group also -- you know, we tried not to get mired in write offs, so this group just thought we needed more space for people. and then, flexible designs where you can try things -- this was a short-term low case transit island that the city put in, and trying these out and seeing how they work. and finally, the group found the need for multiple access and crossing points. sometimes the island is really long, and there's only one ramp
3:15 am
at the end. so that is a ton of info -- okay. that's a ton of info, but i skbru just wants to raise this info because i don't think the group was talking about it, and we want to make sure that vision zero includes everyone. we're continuing this conversation, and the senior and disability work group is -- we're actually going to form a temporary design review group with the city to make sure we're looking athe some of these new designs and really getting some standards down that will work. we're also going to be putting together a toolkit with all the information that's easy to digest that we can handout and share with other cities because we've gotten input from other cities because it's really not happening elsewhere, so that's the power of this group. >> supervisor yee: could you remind me this group, when did it finish meeting and come up with these solutions? >> these -- so we met -- this
3:16 am
charrette, this workshop was in march. so we have been meeting with the city since then to figure out next steps, and then, we recently decided to form the design review group, and so we're still working on this toolkit, too, so we're going to get that done in the next month or so. so that's kind of a lot of information for you about the senior and disability work group. we're going to keep working on the protected bike lane work because we're not done yet. and then this year, we're going to work on safe streets for people with disabilities. we love the safe streets for seniors program, and we really want to see an equal focus on folks with disabilities. so that is the first group that we are fortunate to be involved with. the other group is near and dear, i know, to supervisor yee's heart, san francisco and bay area families for safe streets. so commissioner stefani, i don't know if you've had a chance to hear about this group yet, so i'm excited to get to tell you about it.
3:17 am
so walk sf has the great privilege of working with this group and supporting this group, which is why i'm here to tell you about it. so sf bay area families for safe streets is a group of people who have survived crashes or who have had loved ones who had have been in crashes or loved ones killed in crashes, and they came together to basically support each other and advocate to the end of preventible injuries and deaths on our streets. so they're an amazing group of individuals, super inspiring. here you'll see one of our members. elvin lester, speaking with acting mayor breed in the beginning of the year to really announce that vision zero victory last year. this group has accomplished a lot in two years. they formed two years ago, and then, subsequently put an event on in 2016 and 2017, and every
3:18 am
year, participation has just gone through the roof. so really great way to raise awareness of this problem. last year, we were super excited, our members -- so we're a bay area wide group, not just san francisco. some of our members live in san jose, and they lunched their first day of remembrance in san jose, so we're really excited to continue that again this year. automated speed enforcement, which we all know about. this group, san francisco bay area families for safe streets was the heart behind getting this bill to sacramento, was the heart of getting this bill sponsored and the heart of getting this bill the furthest any bill has ever gotten for automated speed enforcement. they haven't given up. they're going to keep meeting with folks and keep testifying and keep working so that no one has to die from speeding in this city. they worked a lot with the department of public health on a traffic fatality response protocol. it's not the one that ricardo
3:19 am
was talking about. that's the rapid response. this is when a traffic fatality happens in san francisco, this is a protocol that all of our city agencies work to come together to basically make sure when someone's killed in a crash, there's a quick response, tfamily gets sort of a -- not sort of, gets a quick response. a lot of times, the victim gets blame. they should have had a helmet on. that sort of language does not work for people suffering trauma, so the families were able to work with city agencies, talk to the police department, talk to fire, talk to the department of public health, and the city respond does with this amazing protocol, which i think is really a model for the whole country. the group has been involved with ad campaigns with the sfmta and john knox white, to
3:20 am
really spaed awareness of traffic campaigns in our city. we had our first retreat this summer where we came together and stepped back and start today do some planning, so that was really exciting. and then finally, just last week, the group won the golden wheel award from the san francisco bike coalition which was a really big honor and big deal. so i will end by telling you what we're going to do now. they're going to go to new york in december for the nshl bike cities conference. we're planning day of remembrance, which will be november 18, and we're hoping you'll all join us, and we're doing a lot of foundation building for the group. we kind of got out of the group really quickly with a.s.e., and now we need to step back and get some things in place. but we're really strong and really excited, and so i hope that the group can come -- i hope some members can come and meet you all. it's hard.
3:21 am
some of the members have full-time jobs and they don't live in the city, but i hope you can get to meet some of them in person because i'm just a full-time representative. so that's all. thank you. >> supervisor yee: thank you for your presentation and any questions? seeing none, any public comments? >> hello, again. i'm kristin lecke from the san francisco bicycle coalition. i just want to take a minute to thank walk sf and the working group for the great charrette they held this past march on how the city can design bike lanes that are safe and accessible for all pedestrians. through my own work to extend healthy saturdays year-round, i've been lucky enough to work
3:22 am
alongside rec and park and the mayor's office on disability in regards to access ibltiblity -- accessiblity issues in the park. we're very excited to be a part of these conversations and we look forward to making more spaces accessible for all ages and abilities in the city. thank you. >> supervisor yee: okay. any other public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed. i -- oh . okay. so the recommendations from the disability community, i know you're putting it altogether, and i know at some point, the -- i guess sfmta would look
3:23 am
at it, but in our next meeting, i want to make sure it's on the agenda that we get a response in terms of what has -- how sfmta will be utilizing some of these recommendations and -- and whether or not there's a plan to move forward with some of these recommendations. so that should be on our next agenda. okay. thank you very much. so this information item, can i have the item number seven. >> clerk: item seven, bold ideas update and next steps for action strategy. this is an action item. >> supervisor yee: bold ideas. >> good afternoon. my name is ryan reeves. i work at m.t.a. at our vision
3:24 am
zero program lead. i'm going to talk to you very quickly because i know we're the last item about a recent workshop we held for the bold ideas and how that feeds into the next action strategy that we're developing. so we held this some response to the vision zero coalition as well as supervisor yee's office to really think about the longer plan for vision zero. our goal was to talk about what else we needed in the city to really move the needle beyond -- move the needle for vision zero. we had more than 70 people attend, including about half representing community groups or advocacy organizations, and we also offered a scholarship or a stipend for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to taebd to increase our -- attend to increase our outreach and
3:25 am
participation. these are long-term initiatives that we want to advance that might have significant political challenges, perhaps have high costs, perhaps are equity concerns to really think through carefully or might require legislative changes to achieve. so these are the six bold ideas that were elevated by our community groups who attended the workshops, and i'm just going to briefly go through these. we also have a report in more details that we can share with you. so the first is this idea for major street redesign is that we could really continue to do these even more transform ative projects as part of a larger citywide conversation about a lot of the tradeoffs that tend to hold us back. in terms of high visibility community engagement, so this is really thinking about a culturally per sesive marketing campaign about behavior change? think about something like an
3:26 am
antismoking campaign. something we've been thinking about is how we can get our vision zero out more on an informational level? how can we really extend our marketing and -- excuse me or education and outreach to really reach the broader bay area. for automated enforcement, this is building not only on automated speed enforcement but also thinking about enforcement opportunities for things like illegal turns? so this is something that would require legislative change for us to pursue? curb side management, so this is really about how we are currently using our curb space and are we really reflecting the flexibility of the needs of the curb that we're seeing today for pick ups and drop offs? again, this would require a larger city conversation around
3:27 am
parking relative to other needs in the kmubt. the next one is about changing urban speed limits? so this would involve legislative change that would allow you to change the methodology in terms of how we set our speeds, and it would reflect safety and mobility goals a little bit more than our current methodology that we're authorized with? so again this is something that would require political support and legislative change. and this last one is pricing, which is really a demand management strategy that has potential cobenefits for safety? and they're really opportunities to think about this beyond just a citywide pricing strategy but also like a quarter pricing or pricing for emerging mobility services. and so we would need a citywide conversation on the value of doing something like this. so this is just the beginning of the conversation, and these are the gold ideas that community and citigroups at our workshop really elevated that
3:28 am
they're looking at us to think about more. so in terms of how theed bold ideas feed into our next action strategy, we're developing that to release in march of next year as a policy platform for some of these bold ideas. so our first action strategy in 2015 really laid what the vision zero and established public safety as a public health crisis. in 2017 we moved beyond the five e's that are defined at safety and started thinking about vision zero as a safe systems approach? and now we see this next action strategy as a real opportunity to elevate these bold ideas as a policy platform. so just at a very high level, some things that we're envisioning that would be different. again, this policy platform for our leaders to think about at our next meeting, what can we
3:29 am
think about pursuing. synergy is thinking about the cobenefits that we need to achieve our other citywide goals to really accomplish and achieve vision zero. within safe streets, we really want to emphasize engineering aspects, and so thinking about how do we link more of our capital improvement program into our action strategy. lastly, for safe vehicles, our current action strategy is really focused on city fleet, and we've seen with all the emerging mobility trends that we really want to better address how we're going to think about autonomous vehicles and other emerging technology. and across all of these, we will continue to have a strong focus on equity as a core
3:30 am
principle. so we're currently in our outreach process for action strategy, and we'll be developing content in the fall with the goal of releasing in march of next year? and for my last slide, i just want to briefly highlight some of the outreach that we've been doing? so we had a workshop yesterday with the community? we had about 70 people attend a four hour workshop to talk about the new ideas and the things that are important to them as we move forward? we're going to be holding something now that we're doing that we're calling coffee talks in your districts as well as across all the districts in san francisco to really go to the community and to the public to make sure that they are engaged -- people who aren't otherwise to spend half a day with us to talk about the action strategy? so we're going to places like senior centers, food pantries, to really get that input. so we really want to make sure in this action strategy, we're reflecting what we've heard from the community? and we look forward to sharing
3:31 am
more with you as we move through the outreach process. thank you. >> supervisor yee: thank you. could i ask, with the strategy -- not the congestion, but the one before that, with the -- >> yeah, the speed limits? >> supervisor yee: the speed limit. what was the thinking beyond that? >> i -- i think it was -- just from what we heard, being able to reduce speeds across the city, and there's been some state legislation that would look at changing the methodology in terms of how you can set speeds to better reflect safety? that state legislation has changed a bit in terms of the scope, and it's now being proposed as a state task force to sort of explore these issues more? so we don't see the actual
3:32 am
legislation moving forward in its original state, but it's an opportunity to really think at a state level of how do we better think about safety in terms of setting speeds. >> supervisor yee: what's -- what are our restrictions for setting speeds in san francisco? i know -- >> [inaudible] >> supervisor yee: i know if it's caltrans or whatever, it's a little more difficult. it took forever to slow down monterey boulevard, but we were eventually able to do that, and we were able to do the school zones to be 15 miles per hour. is this something that the state controls or can we just lower speeds? >> hi, commissioners. i'm an engineer with the sfmta.
3:33 am
currently in the state of california, we're required to follow the provisions in the california netcd for setting speed limits based on the 85th percentile of flee flree flow traffic, so our hands are kind of kind of tide when it comes to reducing speed limits. we typically do a speed survey, we sample 100 vehicles in free flow conditions, we take 85th percentile of that speed, we then round up our down to the nearest five miles an hour increment, and we can typically reduce that on things such as land use, population density -- we typically take that reduction in all studies that we do given the land use and density in all areas of the city. >> supervisor yee: so i think i heard that same explanation for monterey boulevard in which they originally said they couldn't slow down because they
3:34 am
tested it, and it -- are there waivers to that or is it just just you have to follow that particular requirement area? and then, the question i have, i don't know if you mentioned this, but london, the city of london is exploring or maybe implemented for the city core area, central area, that they're going to slow their traffic down to 20 miles per hour, so is that something that we're thinking about for san francisco? at least, if not everywhere, i mean, in the core area of the downtown and financial district and so forth? >> i can answer your first question. in terms of waivers from the 85th percentile, speed seeding methodology, we can arbitrarily set lower speed limits, but they're not enforceable through
3:35 am
electronic means, meaning sfpd cannot issue citations using lidar or radar if there's not a valid 85 prs tile speed survey. in terms of -- i'll turn the mic back to ryan in a bit, but in terms of setting speed limits as part of our north of market and south of market retiming project that ricardo was describing earlier where we're retiming about two thirds of our signals citywide, we are typically lowering it to 20 miles an hour, so we are trying to do as much as we can under the legal framework that we operate under. >> supervisor yee: thank you very much. >> on your second question, it's not something we're currently exploring that i'm aware of. i think this bold idea that we heard from the community groups is really just about changing
3:36 am
the methodology to give us more flexibility and better reflect safety as a real goal in speed setting. >> supervisor yee: okay. which means that we're really thinking of the lower speeds. >> yeah. >> supervisor yee: okay. thank you very much. >> and i think linda from the t.i.d. did have a few comments on connectsf, is that right? >> supervisor yee: what? i'm sorry? more presentations? >> i'm sorry. maybe i misunderstood. no -- then no other comments. thank you. >> supervisor yee: okay. did i ask for public comments on this already? any public comments on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor yee: i guess there's no other comments on this item, so this is an informational item. next item, please. >> clerk: item eight, introduction of new items.
3:37 am
this is an information item. >> supervisor yee: no. >> clerk: item nine, public comment. >> supervisor yee: any general public comments? seeing none, public comment is now closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor yee: and so is meeting adjourned yet? >> clerk: yes, no other items. >> supervisor yee: okay. meeting is adjourned.
3:38 am
[applause] >> the hon. london breed: hi, everybody. i am so excited to be here today to sign my first budget as mayor. thank you all for joining us today. today's budget is really a team effort. it involved so many of you here who made this possible coming together to put together what is going to be, i think, one of the best budgets to implement what we know are our priorities
3:39 am
so we can see change on our streets here in san francisco every day. i'd like to thank our board president, malia cohen, who's here today to lead the budget process along with members of the budget and committee, supervisor stefani, supervisor fewer, and supervisor yee. and i'd also like to thank members of the board of supervisors who are here today. supervisor mandelman, supervisor brown, supervisor satisfy tang, a safai, and supervisor tang, and all the budget and legislative analysts who will be fighting me, and the director of the mayor's budget office, kelly ki kirkpoint rick. yes, you can give all those people a hand. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: you
3:40 am
know, these are really challenging times for our nation, and we have a federal administration pursuing an agenda that threatens our core values and dismantles programs for people that we know that need them the most. but this is not the first time that san francisco has faced threats from the federal government and sadly won't be the last. now more than ever our city must respond by protecting our values, protecting our residents and making smart investments for the future of our city. this budget is a clear reflection of our priorities, a clear demonstration of how we will invest our process perin making sure that there is equity and inclusion. and we are happy to be here today at bishop swain community house because my top priority as mayor is homelessness.
3:41 am
we need to get people out of tents, off the streets and into the care and shelters that they need. and bishop swain, a permanent -- we'll just let that go by. we're going to ban helicopters in the city. this will be a permanent housing site for formerly homeless individuals does exactly what we want to see happen in our city. i met earlier with some residents here, and it is clear that our problem with homelessness is not intractable. budget investments like the ones we are making today change people's lives. michael, who i met here, was homeless for three years, sleeping in his van, living on the streets, sleeping in golden gate park after he lost his job of 14 years. he is now housed and living a
3:42 am
great life. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: brenda is here today, as well. -- oh, brenda, is it okay? i better not tell your age. homeless for four years before being connected to bishop swain by the sanctuary, a 24 hour shelter in the south of market neighborhood, these two examples are what happens when we provide a safe environment and permanent, supportive housing where we can make real progress. and the budget includes $60 million in new funding for critical homeless services and programs which will include 430 new permanent supportive housing units over the next two years.
3:43 am
now we know it's not enough to get people indoors. once they get the care and the assistance they need, we are committed to providing permanent, affordable housing and doing more to make sure we ensure housing in our city. $4.4 million will go to operate a navigation center specifically for transitional age youth -- that's young people between the ages of 18 and 24. $12 million is allocated to expand rapid rehousing programs for youths and adults, and $2 million will go towards creating two access points to families and residents struggling with homelessness. additionally, this budget will fund four new navigation center facilities, including one that specifically works with women and expecting mothers. these navigation centers go beyond the traditional shelters in offering intensive counseling and services to help people break the cycle of
3:44 am
addiction, poverty and homelessness. we're investing $6 million to create a dedicated street medicine team, a first in the nation program, to bring treatment directly to people suffering with addiction on our streets. finally, we know the best way to fight homelessness is to keep people housed in the first place. this past election, voters approved proposition f, which provides a right to counsel for tenants who face eviction, and i'm proud that this board and this mayor is investing $5.8 million to fund this program. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: additionally, we are reviewing our -- renewing our commitment to creating and preserving affordable housing by investing
3:45 am
more than $800 million to construct and preserve over 3,000 units of affordable housing. while we work to help our homeless population into care and shelter, it is clear that the daily conditions on our streets are unacceptable. i'm committed to cleaning up our city. i want people in san francisco, when they walk out the door, to feel the difference when they step outside. this will take a focused, sustained effort, and we're making the investments to make this happen. in addition to the $67 million that we are currently spending on street cleaning, $13 million in new funding over the next two years will go to fund comprehensive efforts that will help make a difference. 44 new neighborhood cleaners, split across all of the districts here in the city so that no provider is upset about getting their fair share.
3:46 am
we are opening five new pit stops, and we're expanding the hours so people have rest rooms to use rather than using our streets for that purpose. and we are expanding our efforts in cleaning up needles. that is going to be so important to the cleanliness of our streets and the quality of life. i also recently announced that we are going to be investing another $725,000 for the fix-it team. these are really neighborhood-driven project that's can help make the neighborhood better based on feedback from community members. this is all a part of making our community safe and making our communities clean. this budget includes a strategic plan that will deploy 250 new officers on our streets. over the next two years, you will see more foot patrols throughout the city and additional officers will be added to help address violent
3:47 am
crime and property crime. this budget also includes $1.7 million in funding to implement the 272 reforms recommended to our city by obama's department of justice. and we are adding, because supervisor president cohen is making us do this because of her leadership around police accountability, another $1.5 million to create four new positions at the department of police accountability. when i was on the board of supervisors, one of my proudest accomplishments was helping address our ambulance crises. but today, there are still emergency response issues we know we need to tackle. we're adding personnel resources to the 911 emergency dispatch center to ensure that san franciscans get the immediate help they need, especially when there's an emergency. we're investing $1.5 million in
3:48 am
funding for the fire department to staff a medical assistance response team to quickly respond to medical service calls in the tenderloin areas where we know there is a high call volume for those services. all of these investments equal one thing: positive change for yo our residents, and i am optimistic that we are going to be able to make these changes together. when you walk the streets, you will feel the difference from our neighborhood cleaning group, our mental health and homelessness investments meaning better and quicker response to people who are in crises on our street. this budget investment means more police officers in our neighborhood, more beat trained with 21 century policing. and our significant spending on affordable housing reinforces
3:49 am
my commitment to affordable housing in san francisco. this budget represents our values for a safer, cleaner, more equitiable city. i keep saying this. we all want to make a difference. i love this amazing city. many of us who work for the city and these nonprofits, we know how hard it is to get our city to a better place. we want to do that. we want to focus on making san francisco, and these dollars, invested right are the first steps to help us get to that better place, and i am excited to be signing this budget, and i'm going to be even more excited when i see this money being put to work on the streets of san francisco so that each and every san franciscan can feel the difference for a cleaner, safer, and more beautiful city. with that, i'd like to turn it over to the president of the board who is also the finance chair for this budget,
3:50 am
supervisor malia cohen. [applause] >> president cohen: thank you. hi, everyone. what city would we be in if there were not the occasional hecklers. you heard the remarks from the mayor. she talked about how the budget was going to be spent, and i want to spend a couple minutes talk about the process that we went through that brought us to where we are today. first of all, this is an $11 billion budget. it's a reflection of the city of st. francis, a city that we both grew up in. this budget is supporting the city's most vulnerable with passion and dignity and also helps us solve some of problems
3:51 am
that we are facing. it's the result of a robust, transparent, and inclusive process with an open and often vigorous discussion around our priorities. what i'm most proud of are the investments reducing homelessness, and i want to acknowledge our guests here. thank you for allowing us in your home today. and i also want to call out that we are champions of public safety for all citizens, and we are also committed to making sure that our streets and our parks are clean, that they are safe, and i'm proud of our commitment to serve the residents of all of san francisco. so some of you may remember previous budget processes as being bruising, yes? no? yes, says ben rosenfeld. bruising and somehow contentious and somehow would draw the ugliness not out of
3:52 am
only department heads, not only out of elected officials, but also our advocates. i'm just being honest here. the mayor talks about how she was excited to be signing our first budget, i'm excited to be signing my last budget. now i'm grateful that i was given the opportunity to chair the budget and finance committee, and it truly has opened my eyes on the entire internal workings of local government, but also, many things were revealed to me last year that i set out to correct this year, one of which is how we evaluate the departments that are making requests. and for what reason are we not more policy driven? so my goal, along with my legislative team, headed up by sophia kitler, our goal was to take out the politics of the budget process and really infuse the policy access of how we are driving our budget. and i think we created a budget
3:53 am
that was more transparent, that created robust, in depth, and thoughtful policy conversations that helped shape why we do what we do. i mean, in essence, we're all public servants. most of us took an oath to be here, but we are serving because we believe in the work that we're doing. we believe that we are given an opportunity to help people and have a -- to help them have a positive impact on their live, and we cannot ever lose that focus. and sometimes, it gets lost, so what we set out to do was to have a stronger, more transparent and more democratic process. we wanted to make sure that we are funding our greatest needs and investing in the most effective programs. you see this is a unique process because if you recall, the budget actually starts in september. many people don't know that, but the process starts in september, and last september, it started with ed lee. he gave a directive to his department heads, he gave some rules on some constraints, on where -- and where the budget
3:54 am
priorities should be, and then, by december, department heads have an idea on where they're going. they submit this budget -- excuse me. to ed lee has his hands on this budget. and then, you may recall, he had an untimely death. and so then we were placed in a chaotic state. mayor farrell made the presentation on june 1 on the budget. he had his fingerprints on this budget. so now we are going to be celebrating signing of abudget that has the fingerprints of our mayor london breed. that is a moment in our history. we need to celebrate this because we are resilient. we are resilient, and we didn't do it alone. there are certain parameters that people like kelly kirkpatrick and ben rosenfeld helped put into place. what we did was we took an entire comprehensive list of requests from all across the
3:55 am
city, $140 million that my colleagues had, that departments had, that advocates had. instead of making this list secret, we made it public. we put it on the website and we made it available to everyone. and i think that helped demystify the process for process. what we also did, we had long, multidepartmental meeting to understand not only what we had funded in previous years but also how we are doing in those areas. are we, as a city and are we as a department, meeting our mark? or are we continuously throwing money out there, trying and hoping to meet our mark? so we introduced some metrics that we're going to be implementing -- i hope, in the future. i will not be here, so i'm going to look at my colleagues to do that, to make sure we are doing a good job to fund programs that are solid and
3:56 am
help us solve major problems that we have identified, such as homelessness, such as the cleanliness of the streets. we use this as a framework to evaluate the budget's proposed budget, and so we were asking critical questions such as how do these investments make further the priorities of the department? are the investments missing anything? as we know, the june budget season has always been a chaotic time where the community benefit organizations and frankly those front line people that are working directly on the ground have come to the budget to ask for additional funding. i'm proud to say nothing was cut. the list of budget that the mayor presented to you is an expansion of good things. i at this point would be remiss if i did not think carmen chiu, the assessor recorder who was
3:57 am
instrumental in bringing in the funds so we could have the benefit of spending it. this has been an iterative process. i would like to just call out the committee, the budget and finance committee, the vice chair sandy fewer, supervisor yee, supervisor stefani. i also want to recognize supervisor sheehy because he had a significant role in shaping this as well. jon givner, our deputy city attorney giving fantastic advice. i say a fantastic sparring partner when you spar with him, and ben rosenfeld, who has been our rock. he gives solid and sound advice. and kelly kirkpatrick, a wonderful woman who stepped up in the absence of melissa whitehouse and has now been donned the queen of the
3:58 am
budget -- budget team. i also want to recognize harvey rose because harvey rose is a critical entity in the process of the budget because he takes out the politics, and he just goes straight to the numbers and goes straight to the crux of the issue, and he squeezes, sometimes bloods comes out of this process, but he squeezes dollars and cents that allows us to begin the discussion on how we can add to the budget priorities laid out by the mayor's office. so harvey rose, thank you, you have been fantastic, the consummate professional, and i want to thank your entire team. and of course the clerk of the board, linda wong. as you know, the clerks run the machine. they run the committee. they start on time -- well, relatively on time, but the notes are there, and i would not be able to do my job if i did not have the outstanding help of linda wong. so folks, i hope you will enjoy this moment. i'm excited to stand next to
3:59 am
mayor breed to sign her first, my last, budget, and i just want to say congratulations to all the department heads that participate in this process, that come before the budget and finance committee, and they plead their case. i've tried to make the process fun and thoughtful and most importantly informative, and with that, i thank you. malia cohen. >> the hon. london breed: the last point i want to make as we sign this budget, i want us all to remember that we know that there's a lot of work to do. and the work that we do every single day can be the difference between someone's life and whether or not they make it. and that's why when you go out there, and you spend this money, make sure you remember that everything that you do for the city, it matters. it matters for people like michael, it matters for people who are here in this location where we are today, and so let's make every dollar count, let's make every dollar matter
4:00 am
for the lives of so many san franciscans, and i want to make sure, again, that we walk out the doors and we feel the difference for a better san francisco. now let's sign this budget. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: all right. are we ready?