what i want to ask the candidates, how come i haven't seen them in the trenches? the san francisco police commission is dysfunctional, and so is the san francisco police department. for the longest period in the nation, the san francisco police department has been a type of operation and hasn't come back on track. the police commissioner in this case at this time has to have the ability to make changes. good leaders in making changes, not the grand stuff that we have heard. good leaders who know the way, show the way, and go the way and make changes and write

reform. thank you very much. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. you. >> mr. chair, supervisors, willard duffy. i appreciate your attention in this issue that's been contentious, and working it through, especially since the other confirmation hearing that's happening in washington right now. certainly when the wind shifts in our direction from there, it's not a nice thing. it's all the more important at the local level. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item. >> yes. let me get my camera. i'm so busy getting everybody else, i need to get my shot. let me just start off by saying as someone said, these are very qualified people and i'm supporting them both. the reason i got out of bed, dressed like this, i'm reading the papers this morning, it

says the mayor has criticism. i'm not here to criticize, i'm here to analyze to see if we're going to get what some of the black people said for our community. i thought the asians was objecting because they didn't have no asians on the commission. if i was to say that, you would say london breed is doing well for them in their community. you can't even have cannabis in their community. when they brought all the heroin and cocaine in our community, i'm just telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help ace god. now i don't know either one of them personally, but i've been hearing good things about them. you all know my name. my name is ace, and i'm on the case. you see, the bottom line is

yours truly, ace on the case, is going to be following ought of these departments, particularly the police department because that calls from the migration report of all the middle class people leaving the city because of our relationship with the police department. the cops from 10, 20 years ago, they're gone. most of them, they're old. the candidates, they need to be trained, so i can go in front of chief scott and tell him things that are not. i can't even go in to the mayor's office saying i was being threatening, but my name is ace, and i'm on the case. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor safai: okay.

so now, the committee can ask any questions now of any of the applicants. supervisor yee? >> supervisor yee: yes. first, i want to thank the public for coming out and expressing their opinions of whether to support or not support these candidates of the police commission. as you know, many of you have seen other hearings, and this particular commission in the city of san francisco is one of the more important ones. i will assume today wouldn't be any different, you'll spend your time asking questions. so in regards to the two candidates, it's pretty evident that you have good character, you're both bright, so the

questioning is not about your character, it's not about how bright you are or whether or not you went to cal. i don't know what's the best way to ask them questions, both at a time or one at a time? okay. i will pick on the one that went to utah. and it's okay you're from fresno. >> you don't get to choose where you're born. >> supervisor yee: true. some of the questions that i'm going to ask you have been asked of you privately, but

this is something that i think should be on record. i just want to hear your opinion in terms of what do you see the role of the commission in terms of transforming the police department to become one of the best in the nation? there's many positive things about the police department, there's many bad things about the police department as you know about the reform report from the department of justice. can you talk a little bit about that? >> i'm speaking specifically to my mentor, mr. derek tolliver. we had a very good conversation the other day, and we were speaking about the history of the san francisco. there was something i learned from my history teacher in high school, that said if you do not learn the past, you're doomed to repeat it. even when i sit down today and look at the d.o.j.'s

recommendations, i want to look back at some things that have historically been done through our police department so we can continue to push forward those department of justice recommendations that we currently have now. so i think that's going to be huge, is being able to go back, look at the past and look at how we can systemically affect change, systemically. so right now, when we sit down and we look at some of the d.o.j. recommendations, and a lot of which were being pushed forward, let alone, i think we've seen 15 to 20 of the recommendations that folks are going over and had hit. if we don't dig down to the core systemically and help regain public trust with law enforcement, we're doing a disservice, so it's going back, looking at the history, looking at the current d.o.j.'s that we have, and how do we push

forward while creating the change systemically. >> supervisor yee: let me ask, there's been a history of racism within the department in terms of, again, i don't want to color the whole department, but it's come up again and again, whether it's true the text messages or the way they behave. how would you as a commissioner help address that issue? >> well, i definitely think as i stated earlier, we're looking at the bias and we're looking at d.o.j. recommendation three, one of the things that i want to continue to help with is the work that commander lozar is doing. i think that's one of the things we miss out on is the work we're doing to push things forward. just what he's focused on and working on, i would love to be a part of that, if they can continue to engage with community, spend time in community through a variety of

events, through a variety of forums, so we can continue to sit down and have those conversations. i also think in this role and in this position as a commissioner, it's imperative that we spend time in each of the communities. that's how we continue to push forward and make change. that's how we sit back -- and we also have to understand that we all have biases. community leaders have biases, police officers have biases, and until we're able to sit down in rooms and bring that to fruition and say there are biases that exist, and until we sit down and have conversations and work through those biases, they continue to exist. we can't just have two hours of training for our officers and put them back out on the streets to patrol. that's not enough. we need to do more and we need to do better. there needs to be more consistency and more follow up. >> supervisor yee: and you

mentioned that it's good for someone to go and understand the needs of the different communities, and there's a lot of focus in our discussions on the board of supervisors about what's happened with the department or individuals within the department in the african american community, which is rightfully so. we need to have a lot of discussion. and many times, other things get ignored. so without taking away from that discussion, i represent the west side, and i mentioned to both candidates that i've never seen a commissioner at any meeting on the west side. so what is your understanding of the concerns of people living in the west side in terms of law enforcement and so

forth? >> i -- so i think that one of the things that we discussed and we talked about supervisor yee is definitely ensuring that we had representation from the commission there, especially in district seven. and i think by seeing the amount of folks that have come out today, i think you can understand that you can see you have two commissioners that kwo be able to sit down and bridge that divide. we should be able to sit down and here the issues and have discussions over on the west side, to hear not only from those officers and in the command stations, but also have the residents around what those issues are to make sure that everybody's heard. that's what this police commission is about, it's about all communities and all of san francisco, understanding that there are areas that have more

issues and more things that we may need to focus on, but we need to be able to do it in parallel. and i think skbrujust seeing t issues of the commissioners last night, and i think with the addition of demali and i, we would have that and have the capacity to do more. >> supervisor yee: i appreciate that because many times when i'm at community meetings within my own district, people always feel like they're not being heard out there also. the issues are different, and i don't want to undermine anything that we're focusing on -- on the southeast sector or anywhere else in san francisco. one of the concerns that i've often had -- i think a few people have alluded to this.

in the old days, i guess, police officers were much more engaged within their communities and there's different ways to be engaged. so many of our officers don't even live in san francisco, and they get recruited from outside san francisco. this is a concern of mine because i feel it's a disconnect, and as i mentioned to maybe both, maybe only you, that when i grew up, you know, i saw that police officers were not only engaged but they were in these centers that were setup for p.a.l., pal, in the

community, and they were actually staffed. somebody actually talked about going on rafting trips, but baseball -- basketball games, but those type of things have completely disappeared. how would you address san francisco residents when they're young to be interested in law enforcement? >> i think you definitely hit the nail on the head. i believe it's 85% of our officers don't live here in the city. i know when i moved into san francisco, people had this look on their face, like, how can you afford to live here in san francisco, let alone be able to work and live here in the city. so i think one of the things that i focused on just being a young community developer, supervisor yee, is intentionality. i think it's working through our hiring practices. when we get young men and women on the force, it's about being

intentional, spending time in our communities. but what we need to do with that intentionality is using the resources that we have in those communities, like community based organizations. our relationship with usd, with community college of san francisco. i athink in conversations with my uncle -- [inaudible] >> you get t get to understand community that you're serving when you provide time. last night, the conversation at the commission was talking about the homeless issue that we currently have right now, and how our officers are being

called, folks are calling 911 when there's homeless encampments. that needs to happen with not only sfpd, but the department of public health. i think as we think about community, and we think about policing, we need to understand that there's wraparound services in a need to be involved in that. i think we need to better he - he --equip officers with that. we need to be intentional about our system that we create in saying that no, you are going to go spend time in these communities that you're servicing and working in and also understanding that you're here to work for the public. >> supervisor yee: thank you. one of the biggest hottest

issues that the board of supervisors has taken up for the last 1.5 years, two years, including at the police commission, they had to take it up also, is the subject of tasers. and it's a discussion that has taken place at different levels, and it was prop h on the last election in june in which the voters pretty much showed strong support to not support tasers. and it's probably going to come up again and again. the commissioners from last year voted to implement a program and use tasers with adequate training, i guess.

and i guess at the board of supervisors budget process, there was a discussion on it again, and there were questions asked, and the questions were not answered to the satisfaction of many of the supervisors. we ended up taking it out of the budget, so in many ways, that's why i anticipate it'll probably come up again, and when we -- even when we were vetting people that were suggested for the commission -- police commission that is, over the last six months, that question came up over and over again. it was a determining factor for some of the board of supervisors members. so what is your stance and how would you handle that? >> well, i definitely think, i know one, just being a collaborator, being able to sit

down and hear from folks on both sides, we also have to sit back and understand that it's been disproportionate, when we look at the use of tasers, black folks that have been killed by the use of tasers. our officers need to have less lethal ways of engaging with folks when issues do arise. now, i know exactly what you're talking about, supervisor, because i think it was passed 4-3 by our commission at the last meeting. but i think what we need to do is sit down and look at what's been put before us and figure out the protocols and systems are properly put in place for implementation. that's how i base my moral values. if things are properly put in place for our officers to be able to go out to have something that's less lethal --

let's not forget, this was a department of justice recommendation. we see it in other departments, whether it's b.a.r.t., whether it's oakland, there's other departments that have it, and this is one of the department of justice's recommendations. we need to make sure that there's proper proet cal systems and impl willment -- protocol systems and implementation if that's the route that we so choose. >> supervisor yee: i think all i can do is ask the question at this point. you have no record of where you stand on that, so it's hard to judge which direction you would go. somebody else might ask how did you vote on prop 8, but i won't. maybe i'll bring up miss taylor. >> supervisor safai:

supervisor, i'm sorry. yeah. i think it would be better to just go through the series of questions. if you want to ask d.j. some questions, yeah, that would be better so we don't jump around. >> supervisor stefani: so thank you for meeting with me. it's one of those meetings that i didn't want to end, both being from the central valley. i was born here in san francisco, but both my parents took me out of here without any consent, and i grew up in merced for a little bit, so we bonded over there. but when you and i were speaking, i was actually impressed with one of the subjects that you brought up, which was mental health for our officers. we know as a local government,

providing public safety to our citizens is one of our core functions and it's one of our most important. unless we have a police force that the community respects, that the community feels comfortable with, we will not be able to fulfill that obligation, and obviously, there are a lot of reasons why the community does not trust the police, and it's something that we've discussed. and i just, in bridging those gaps and really taking into consideration, like you said, the health of our officers and the implicit bias training, just, if you can expand on what you were thinking around the mental health aspect for our officers and maybe around the implicit bias training, i think that's important to me. >> i think one of the community members, as she stated when we had a conversation with the naacp, that was something that definitely came up and came

forward. as we continue to go out, and we think about the job that we're asking these men and women to do on a daily basis, i think sometimes we don't take into consideration the things that they see, the things that they encounter, the things that they hear, the things that they have to do and really taking a step back as we look at our law enforcement members to say we know that you are dealing with traumatic instances and issues on a daily basis, and we want to make sure that we provide you with the services and resources that you need as well so that you can go out and provide the best patrolling that you can do. i think we provide a disserve if we have law enforcement that's out there with trauma, substance abuse issues, drug abuse issues that we may not know about, and we're asking these folk to see go out and police and protect our communities.

that can't happen. so what are we doing to make sure they get the assistance and help that they need while we're also protecting folks in the communities. >> supervisor safai: do you have any additional -- okay. so there's been a lot of conversation regarding the d.o.j.'s report, 272 recommendations. talk about some of the -- or talk about some of the issues from that report that jumped out at you that you think are important, that's something that you might want to focus on as an active member of the commission. >> so really, when i sat down and looked at the department of justice recommendations, some of the ones that stood out to me that i'm currently focused on now, so really looking at 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2 and really looking at the implicit biases,

we look at our community officers and ask, are we doing enough? what are the opportunities that are there for them to be able to spend time outside of work, to spend time within community? because if we are going to bridge the gap between community and our law enforcement, we have to have the time invested. i've sat with all of you, and i've said, so goes the administration, so goes our nation, so goes california. also looking at the d.o.j., i really want to focus on 5.1 through 5.4, looking at our hiring practices. how are we engaging that folks that want to come into the police department? what are we doing with those

individuals? and i really think a lot of it kind of goes hand in hand. if we're spending time in the elementary schools and middle schools and we're getting young people excited about what it actually means to protect and serve their own communities, then it allows us to say we know that young person, they got to spend time with law enforcement. they understand what it means to protect and serve, and those are the individuals that we want in our communities, individuals that live in our communities, to then come work in law enforcement to protect and serve within those communities. and also, within hiring, too, i want to sit back and make sure that we're looking at the processes and evaluations that we have set in place for those individuals who get promoted currently right now there's no evaluation program. there's no metrics set in place to say this individual should be at this range, and i think that needs to change. i think we have a chief of

police that's here now, we have an evaluation process that we can look at the metrics which we hope people to a certain standard? so those are just two, supervisor safai, just definitely looking at our hiring practices -- >> supervisor safai: hold on one second. folks, if you have conversation, you need to go out in the hallway. continue. >> i also want to enhance that the recommendations that we already have in place. >> supervisor safai: got it. so one of the things -- a vast majority -- we haven't really talked about this today. a vast majority of your job will be being involved in disciplinary cases.

it's one of the reasons that we have a disproportionate number of people that are attorneys by training that are involved in or that have been involved in the prosecutorial process. have you been involved in disciplinary cases, and how do you think you'll approach that. we'll talk about that a little bit. >> yeah, no. one, it's actually twofold. in my line of work, i've spent a lot of time in disciplinary hearings as it relates to our department. also as an organization, we spent a lot of time working with young men and women and working to get them into the

trades. [inaudible] >> -- the process, there should be certain portions of recommendations brought to meet and confer because i do think there needs to be room for conversation and negotiation around problems that arise. however sometimes when we take a full recommendation to meet and confer it can kind of hold up the process of things that need to push forward. so i think given my background, working with young community developers as executive director and spending time with our brothers and sisters in some of the unions that we spend time with, really being able to sit down, look at meet and confer, being able to negotiate, i think i do actually have that set of skills that i can bring forward to the commission. >> supervisor safai: and i

think we're at a precipice and a cross roads with this commission. i think the reason there's been so much focus -- one of the reasons there's been a lot of focus and consternation and activism around this commission is because of the conversation around reform, whether it's reform within the department, reform within interacting with immunity and however you define that, community members, how you're interacting with the reform and the process by which you're interacting with communities most impacted by vials and the history of violence. talk about that a little bit, because that is truly in my opinion having sat through milt i am hearings and having gone through multiple applicants for this commission, the real charge is how are you going to approach reform?

>> when i sit down, and i think will reform, i think about some conversations that we had the other day, and i think about this term of safety with respect, safety with respect. so as we sit down -- and we know there's 272 recommendations, we have to actively and aggressively push forward reform, but we only do it working collaboratively. it's conversations with the commission, it's conversations with folks within the department, it's conversations with folks on the p.o.a., it's conversations with folks on the board of supervisors, but it all has to be done in parallel in order for us to move expeditiously, which is one of the charges that we have and one of the charges that i would love to push forward, supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: thank you.

i don't have any additional -- i just want to make a comment. i think, again, having gone through the process with multiple candidates, i will say i think the things that i'm looking for to put forward with new commissioners are the able to see through a conversation. i think there's a different of being firm and engaging with the police department, but at the same time, understanding the need for an aggressive measure to impose public safety because that's quite frankly in terms of the amount of e-mails and outreach we get on a daily basis, there's a lot of concern of public safety, so you're balancing these needs. i will say one other thing that

i would leave you with is from folks at least in my district, i have about 90% of the ingleside police station is in my district. it is one of the police districts that is used for new cadets. we're constantly about 20 to 30 officers under staffed, based on where things are. i know that mayor breed has made a push in her budget this most recent year to increase the number of officers, but every time that's increased, you have atrition and retirement, so how will you approach that while at the same time thinking about community engagement, community balancing and thinking about those desires. >> yeah.

i think you hit the nail on the head. it's being able to juggle and balance all of those insultly. when we understand there's going to be atrition. i think it also has to start, supervisor safai, with officers that we currently have now. how are we building that model system now with some of the officers that we do have around this training with biasies? it's working with individuals that we have now, knowing that we're going to have some atrition, but also knowing that we're going to have 250, over the course of the next four years, coming on-line. >> supervisor safai: okay. great. i don't have any additional questions right now.

we'll give miss taylor the opportunity to come up and be questioned. if we have additional questions, we'll have you come back up. >> thank you. >> supervisor safai: supervisor yee, do you have additional questions? >> supervisor yee: hi, miss taylor. >> good afternoon. i think it's still that. >> i'll just start off with my first general question, which is the role of the police commission in terms of how, you know, did you transform the police department? what is your role in trying to move things? and it's including d.o.j. reform recommendations and forth? thank you, supervisor yee. it's an important question, and i think it goes back to at the end of the day, how are we policing? how we see ourselves at the

department, and that is he everything in my opinion. are we warriors or guardians, and the role of the police in my opinion is to be guardians of the public, including forward gans guardians of the public trust. so that should be the model that guides everything the department does, and it certainly would guide me if i were lucky enough to be appointed to the commission, so that includes more community involvement, more community engagement. we talk about community policing, and there are liaisons that are very good about engaging with the community. but as i'm sure you all know from the folks in your districts, that should go all the way top down, all the way throughout the organization. so we need beat officers who know the citizens in the districts they serve in a way that's personal, in a way that's meaningful, in a way that means you don't just

interact with the cops when something bad happens. you interact with the cops on a daily basis, and that should be a part of the job. i think that will go a long way in regaining public trust. the public in all areas, they should know who their local officers are, and their local officers should know them. that kind of personal interaction, that should be a focus for the department. i think it is in some ways, but we have a long ways to go because the trust has been electriced. in terms of -- fracktured. >> supervisor yee: and then, more specifically, i asked d.j., the question of racism within the police department. how would you push to rectify that situation? >> yeah. there are -- there are a number of things that were very troubling to me about the

d.o.j. report, and -- you know, for example, the idea that african americans are pulled over disproportionately and searched disproportionately, but less contraband is found, that that's a problem. part of solving the problem is recognizing that you have one, so i know we talked about a little bit in terms of bias training and how important it is. i myself had implicit bias training when i was at the u.s. important's office. i think there's kind of an instinct wal reaction because no one believes that they're racism, no one wants to be labeled racist, but i think we need to get comfortable with the idea that everyone has bases. we all have biases, we're all inundated with the same media.

the question is whether or not we have biases, it's what do we do with them? it's kind of the awareness and the department that's leading the charge with that awarsness. that gives us power because once you know what the problem is, you can fix it. it's a complicated and multifacilitied problem, but -- facetted problem, but i think it's that kind of thing that will go a long way i think in restoring the public trust. >> supervisor yee: and it seems like in the past, when specific incidents happened around racist activity with the police department, nothing happens. how would you would you as a commissioner sort of kboimposed say well, shouldn't there be some disciplinary action taken

when we find a particular police officer's indicating that they're doing racist things in. >> it's hard to talk about a specific factual scenario, but that's a problem. and so you know i'm a woman of color myself, and so i certainly -- i take that very seriously. so, you know, depending on the factual scenario, there is no way we should be rubber stamping that. so i would certainly say we should take the issue seriously. i would certainly take it seriously, and a big part of what we need to do to restore a trust is for the police department to be out front, showing this initiative is important to them. >> supervisor yee: well, i think that part of it is also the department of self-help

line clearly what happened -- some of these activities are taking place, and i'm not too sure if we have that. in the last few months, we've had cases at the board of supervisors where one is sexually assaulted or harassed. and many of the victims have testified in our hearings, stated that they felt they were victims a second time and when they go through the process of trying to report. how would you help improve that situation within the police department? >> this is an issue that's near and dear to my heart. as a prosecutor, i tried to

help many victims of sexual assault and violence, and it's -- it's terrible because i think it takes a certain amount of bravery to call the police in the first place, and that's a terrifying thing to do. so what it is that responds and -- who it is that responds and how they respond can make all the difference in the world for the person who's suffered traumatic, traumatic circumstances and also is dealing with, you know, all of the mental toll that that takes. that certainly was one of my priorities as a prosecutor. it's a priority for me as a woman, as someone who handled those cases. the most important thing we can do as -- you know, as a police department is manage and show compassion in the way that we

interact with people across the board. and certainly, certainly, when you talk about people who are victims of sexual violence who often have trouble responding. so who that first responder and how they show compassion is everything, everything. certainly, with respect to a woman who suffers sexual violence, but members of our lgbtq community, members of our transgender community who have such difficulty reporting. how people respond is everything. you could literally change somebody's life in how you support and respond to them when they've suffered that kind of trauma. >> supervisor yee: when we recognize that racism was an issue, we started implementing the training for implicit bias. would you push for training on

sensitivity on how you handle these cases? >> absolutely. >> i don't think it's happening, and that, i think is really necessary, and this has to come from the commission. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> supervisor yee: and the question about how do we get more of our san francisco resident young people to be interested in becoming a police officer and can you sort of -- how would you approach that? >> you know, something else that's dear to my heart. a lot of times when i talk to students, i talk to students about being a prosecutor. if you want to change the criminal system, be a prosecutor. prosecutors should look like members of the community. it should be as diverse as the community standing before you and many people in this room. it breaks my heart when people

don't want to be prosecutors or police officers, so there's no easy answer, and the only way we regain public trust is to be examples and to be models. so we have to make that -- as officers, we have to be people that are admirable, because they'll know cops who are admirable. police officers should be heros for our little boys and girls. so i don't have a quick fail-safe solution, but i think if we model what we want, i think over time, we will have more young people who will want to be officers. >> supervisor yee: i'm just going to say that both of you did not touch upon that one way

is to support police cadet programs, but there's also other pathways, you know, and starting in high school. i remember when it was -- i could barely remember when i was younger, but it was very nondiverse in terms of the police department, and they started implementing the police cadet programs and started recruiting many of the young people in our communities, where they're -- whether they're from the black community or from the asian community or from the latino community, and we saw sort of an uptick. it's something that's disappeared for a while, and i'm hoping and pushing, and i'm hoping as commissioners, we push the same thing because i think that's one of the best ways to get home grown police officers. >> that's a great point.

>> supervis [please stand by]

. >> supervisor yee: the -- the question about tasers, again, i know we've spoken about it, and for the public record, you know, what is your perspective of tasers? >> i mean, of course, it's a complicated and difficult question, and there are no easy answers. you know, the goal of everyone is or certainly should be to reduce the number of children that are killed. no one wants that, and so the question is how do we ensure that officers from the right

training -- have the right training and the right accountabilities to decrease the one of kids on our streets that are killed? so you know, the d.o.j. recommend thad we look into tasers, and there are -- recommended that we look into tasers. there are many officers that look into tasers because tasers are deadly weaponed to make sure that we don't have the fatal, unjustified incidebss o people being really hurt. i trust the analysis is thoughtful. i know that there are people who change their minds over time and that's part of a healthy discussion, healthy debate, healthy consideration, and so, you know, it's not really fair for me to prejudge

or second get any issue without the benefit of that information. i trust their analysis, i rely on it and wouldn't make a second investigation. if i were to be asked to do a similar analysis, i would really get as informed as the commission was when they voted. >> supervisor yee: that's it for now. >> supervisor safai: okay. great. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: thank you so much, supervisor safai. i think what you said, you know, as a prosecutor, you see police officers at their best and at their worst, and you know really interacting with them. we learn a lot about law enforcement and the criminal justice system, and of course that provides a unique perspective. one of the questions that i asked to d.j. was about the mental health officers. and what i wanted to ask you is

obviously we have a situation in san francisco -- not just san francisco, it's automatic over the country of people that are suffering mental illness in our states. it's left to the police officers to be the first responders, and it can be a very dangerous situation for the officers or for the individual that is acting out or for our police officers. and i think it's really important for us to take a hard look at that and ask some really tough questions about how do we want our officers to engage? what can we be doing better? because the problem's not going away tomorrow. i think we really need to be focused on it. i think it's something that we need to look into and work with the police department on. i just want to know your initial thoughts about what can we be doing better or how can we be sure that we're

addressing the problem of the people whose lives may be in kriss and addressing problems of the police officers, as well. >> first of all, i agree with your comments, just living in the city, we've all noticed over time, we've really reached a crisis point when it comes to some of the challenges that people are facing on the streets with -- with mental health problems. and so i think the good news is one of the things that i'm learning is that things are starting to get better, and by that, i mean that, you know, the police department is working harder, not only making sure that offers are trained, so making sure that all officers are trained in that kind of crisis intervention is

very key. i also like the fact the idea that police should be first responders to people with mental health challenges is not really a great fit. so i think the police working collaboratively with subject matter experts so people who know about behavioral health issues. you know, d.p.h. and glide and other nonprofit organizations so that what the police is doing is really facilitating. people getting access to the help and services that they need, which is the role that they should have in that position. i think they're taking the right steps to hopefully get us to where we need to be. >> supervisor stefani: the other thing we talked a lot about community building. i've been supervisor since january , i've had -- public safety is a huge issue in my district. in district two, a lot of people don't feel safe. we have the property crime epidemic. i've had three public safety

forums and two public safety fairs. i think it's been really good because people are interacting with their captains and food beat officers -- foot beat officers, and they get to know them. sz h how do you see getting the flis commission more involved with the community as well? >> i think not only am i open to learning that, i need to learn. it's such an important part of this role, so having -- you know, having police officers out in the community is obviously critical, but as a police commission, we need to know and understand the needs

of the communities that you're serving, so you do that by going out and talking and interacting to folks at events. that's something that i look forward to. >> supervisor safai: great. i just -- we -- a lot of the questions that i wanted to ask have been covered. you've heard a lot of statements that i've said about this being at the precipice. >> supervisor safai: think about how it will play a role in reform, and that's the issue of meet and confer and your experience in that. >> thank you. so san francisco has a long and noble history of being a town that supports the rights of

workers, and as do i. there are lots of good rules here for good reason. i think we need to couple the right to a meet and confer, that that process be important to that process with the need for both clarity and transparency in the community. i think how long things take currently are unacceptable. so taking a hard look at the procedures currently in place and bringing all stakeholders to the table is an important thing for the commission to do to move on. because every day even when the department is advancing reform, the community doesn't feel it because it feels as though things are meyered in bureau -- mired in democracy. you can imagine for community members trying to figure out where we are in terms of

reform, it seems as if something is happening, and it seems as everything is mired and bogged down in democracy. i think one thing to do is bring all stakeholders to the table to clearly define all the issues that get sent to meet and confer. i'm someone with a law degree and it's hard for me to try to figure it out as an outsider. if it's a little sentence in the d.g.o. or a department general order that is, you know, the subject of debate, then let's debate that and not t the entire d.g.o. i think that will be important in helping move things forward.

>> supervisor safai: -- can balance that out with the desires of moving reform forward in a respectful way in listening to all sides and all intended parties. we on the board of supervisors speak a lot about how the impacts of the things that we do in terms of policies that are affecting workers that are on the front lines.

and because there is a lot of issues tied up with regard to the police department, sometimes we want to take a step back from engaging on those issues that pertain to protecting the rights of workers, so it gets very complicated, and admittedly, it is difficult and it's not something easy. so that's why i think having your experience and understanding of that will be very helpful so that people aren't scared to engage on that particular topic. i would say another thick that's important to me is when you're -- thing that's important to me -- [please stand by]

. >> i think the more collaborative we are, the better we are as a city, so i like the fact that sfpd is working more with the department of public health and getting stakeholders really more involved and more at the table in terms of mental health crisis because we are at a crisis point in the city. so i think the more that we collaborate, the better we all are, and the more we serve the public as a city. >> supervisor safai: great. i don't have any additional questions right now. i think a lot were asked by my