been there three years. when i first came to work, in the first week i was told to report to the nursing station every time i left the nursing station. other two unit clerks on the same classification of me asian, were not told the same thing. i was told not to speak with case managers from outside hospitals, did so one time, was reprimanded for it, my other unit clerk, same classification as me, did the same thing two days later, no reprimand. so, since then when i complained i have been the target of discrimination, retaliation, a hostile working environment. they also did the same thing to the other two unit clerks before i started, one was of african american descent, the other hispanic. they left. i said i'm not going to leave.

look at my face every single day until i'm ready to go somewhere. i reported to e.e.o.c. last year, nothing has been done about it. so i have a daughter who is 27 and 3 grandchildren. that i have to stay for. because if i leave, they lose. and the perpetrators win, so i'm not going anywhere, i'm going to stay there and i'm going to fight you until it stops. >> supervisor kim: thank you miss brown. >> i want to thank you you -- >> i can't let you speak again, public comment -- >> i can't say nothing again, i wasn't aware of that. even if it's one minute? >> no. >> why not? >> we have to afford each speaker the same amount of time, if the -- if you would like to speak, i'll start a time. >> read that right there. >> speak up.

>> i filed an e.e.o.c. complaint after 180, after 180 days. i followed up weekly after three weeks. they administratively closed my claim without further investigation. the department stated earlier that -- earlier they have dismissed, 5% of black workers for cause and he is right. the cause is because -- the cause is because we are black and we are black and that is unacceptable. i understand here -- i stand here with my head held high to

ask you, the board of supervisors, please don't turn a blind eye. it is time to take action. thank you. >> supervisor kim: thank you very much. [applause] you can also submit for mr. bryant all the letters. thank you. >> hi, tandra, very short. i just wanted to say houston, we have a problem in san francisco. i'm tired of getting look at a research and experiment as a project. i was the one that left that miss brown was talking about, been trying to get a job with the city and county since 2012. got an opportunity for a year and a half, left my kaiser job to come, got dismissed. after that, try to pull boots with the straps, applied for welfare, they knew me so well, they would not give me that. i had a strategy to get into the

p.s.p. program. out of the four interviews, three tried to hire me, they would not hire me, somebody sid said -- i don't know what they said. i'm ok now but discriminated against the city and county. went to make a complaint, went to brandon lamb, he did not see nothing. hally albert, she didn't see nothing. went down to do a complaint last august, august 2016, just got reply from michael brown signed by mickey callahan saying they did not see a problem, but i believe we have a problem and i'm here to fight. >> supervisor kim: thank you. >> hi, my name is cindy wong. i did not come prepared but as i watch, i want to bring up my case. something about bullying at the workplace. so, i work at a health center in

the department of department health, and the nurse manager, you know, very subtly does things to bully me. and highly value assistant, she can look at the situation and become a poor employee. so, i went through the chain of command, i went to medical director and also i call the d.p.h. -- d.p.h. director and then we have conversation and said you know, talk to the union. but the problem is, i did not have any union representation. so, my case started 2016. and because of all this bullying and, so i came down with a very serious illness. and i just returned to work back in june, and the manager throw

me, you know, first remove me from my position, from working with medical director, and from the patient, going on serving them over five years and after removal of the fourth day i've been trying to work, she just like gave me assignment and said everybody does five clinics so you have to do five clinic. although the doctor said you know, it would be advisable to work in a less stressful environment. anyway, i just want to conclude that you know, this situation has not been resolved. and i got a letter from mickey callahan, and saying that you know, my case is not grounded, but there was never a meeting, you know, for me to -- [microphone cut off]>> supervisor kim: thank you for speaking. next speaker.

mr. wright, i'm -- i'm so sorry, but i have to go to the next speaker who has not spoken yet. >> mallory branch, i want to say i think it was wrong for the city of san francisco to fire her, she got injured on the job and it was not her fault. so, there. thank you. >> mr. wright, i can't -- you already spoke. i understand. are there any other members of the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. i -- i understand, mr. brown, i wanted -- i -- so, we have 15 minutes remaining for the hearing, and i did want to give supervisors the opportunity to actually ask some of these questions that's come up.

unfortunately, only 15 minutes, i will lose -- i have to adjourn the meeting after that. we did extend and i got them to stay additional hour and a half than we had slated for the hearing, thank my colleagues for staying for that. i just want to first of all start off by saying that yes, we will have staff come up. that this hearing was incredibly disturbing and deeply painful. and to hear that so many members of our -- of our city and county and our employees have similar stories to share, i just think speaks to a deeper trend and pattern here at the city and county than honestly i had even anticipated today. i do want to thank seiu 1021 for asking me to call this hearing in june, it's been a pleasure to work over the last two months. and for u just the beginning, and it was incredibly important to get all the stories and i

know two minutes was incredibly short for the years of experience people have been encountering. i do want to give -- i had a very long list of questions being that we only have 15 minutes remaining. i wanted to give supervisor brown and fewer an opportunity to ask questions but i have to limit the time. so begin with supervisor brown. >> i just want to say that an hour and a half -- hour and a half -- >> supervisor kim: i only have 15 minutes. >> nothing compared to years of racism and discrimination that we have -- >> supervisor kim: you could not be more correct. i completely agree. >> supervisor brown: thank you, chair kim. i'm kind of overwhelmed by all of the different testimony here today. and i just want to let you know that i hear you. i feel that we really, it's kind of the tip of the iceberg. and i think we need to open this up more.

i think we also need to open up how people are being trained to deal with disputes, how people are really looking at them and looking at them fair. i also agree everyone can go to a bias training, but does not mean that changes them a lot of times. and so we -- i just feel like we really need to open up how things are working and really what's not working. i think that's the big thing. what's not working. and that's it. so, i think this definitely needs to go forward. >> supervisor fewer: so, thank you chair kim. and thank you everyone who came out and gave testimony. yeah. so, this is pretty disturbing. i just think that you know, it's -- a lot of questions, actually.

and i don't think there's enough time to really address them and actually i think it's going to require sort of a really a lot of data. so, but what is disturbing, i want to say off the bat, is that it is not an isolated incident what we are hearing from a single department. it is -- the district attorney, d.p.a., general hospital, laguna honda, sheriff's department, police department, medical examiners, m.t.a., rec and park, we are hearing it throughout all of our departments in the city and county of san francisco and i have to say it's extremely disturbing, when i hear of an isolated incident i see that sometimes as an isolated incident and i get it. but when i hear repeatedly about the lack of investigation on some of these complaints, that they have no merit, that people are being harassed to the point of physical deterioration, when i hear it's not possible to go

back into the workplace because of the hostility in the workplace, i agree with some of the speakers that this is, these are issues that actually people marched and lost their lives over in the 1960s and so it is -- it is concerning. i also think that it's probably time that we actually looked at, you know, i guess i want to say the solution isn't just that we hire more african americans because clearly we are hearing here from people who have already been hired by us. so, i think it goes back to some of the questions i had about retention. i -- i have a list of data points that i think that would be important for me to really understand the full context of it and the city. i also want to talk about the salary discrepancy. and when we talk about race and talk about racism, then we must

definitely have the data that shows disparities between racial groups, and i have, i think i would like to see that type of information around promotionales again when we look at who is being dismissed, do you do an exit interview, is there any information that you can give us when people are actually severing their ties with the city employment with the city and county of san francisco. are we capturing that information. and where is a safe place for folks, we are hearing about retaliation, retaliation quite frankly is a very real thing and i think some of the stuff that we are talking about is subtle. and also to address the issue that san francisco claims to be the most progressive city in the united states, racism here is very systemic. but it is very sophisticated. and so because it is so, and so well designed, that it takes actually i think a lot of

looking at the root causes of it, and also dismantling some of of the policies that we have that are racist and inequitable, and how do we know that, because the out comes are racist and inequitable. i will be sending a list i think to, around some data points and it's unfair to put that on you today. i think in order for us to tackle this problem, and i do believe the city and county of san francisco, that there is the desire to eliminate this type of racial bias and discrimination within our departments, i think is really about do we have the moral fortitude to do it. it may mean breaking down some systems that we have used and rework them in a way that weeds out inequity and the loopholes in a system such as ours.

as serving the city and county of san francisco you are right to bring this to the attention of the elected officials to the city and county of san francisco, but be sure, these are systems that have been in place for decades here and i know and supervisor kim knows from the school district, that undo them, we wrote the resolution to restorative practices after looking at the disproportionate amount of african americans students disciplined for things like disobedience or not jumping to a command, and so we recognize that, i think the city and county has a desire to be a better employer for everyone, but particularly for a group that is much more vulnerable because the population in san francisco is already diminishing and there isn't a cohort i think of support that is political but also that has power in the city. so, i will be sending a list of

data, i am asking the chair to continue this item to the call of the chair so that maybe we can continue this conversation once we submit hard data and i'll call it out that it could be time that the city of and county of san francisco actually has an office of racial equity that we can actually have data that is collected and is held in-house. so, anyway, thank you very much for coming out, thank you to city departments for coming out also and thank you for supervisor kim for chairing this. >> thank you, supervisor fewer and we look forward to getting the questions and happy to respond. we heard our citizens, heard our employees, and their concerns, it's loud and clear and evident we need to do more. we are committed to it and meeting with the labor partners, and also meeting with community members and other stakeholders. thank you.

>> supervisor kim: so, unfortunately, the supervisors on committee were not able to ask all the questions that we wanted today, so clearly we have to continue this hearing and hear it again. it's more than a three-hour hearing. as supervisor fewer said, we are talking about decades of systematic discrimination and racism and i'm concerned around what we heard today around gender and other categories that i see through our settlements and closed session. i'm glad to see that mayor breed has issued her executive order. there's clearly a lot of work to do beyond the executive order but i would like to work very closely with seiu 1021 to come up with a portfolio of proposals of what we can do to change the systematically, and i know many members of the public could not stay and took time off from their own work schedule to be

here because it was so important to shed light on the experiences of what our employees are facing. so, thank you for coming and spending that time on educating the elected officials on what is going on here through our employment practices. i agree that videos are not enough, as a supervisor, that's required to watch some of these videos. i don't think that they really actually change behavior or practices, and so we have to do a lot more than that, and there has to be a 0 tolerance policy and i have not seen that. and certainly have not seen that in our settlements that we get here. when mayor breed was supervisor and supervisor peskin sat on committee with me, i can't tell you how frustrated we were at every single settlement we read about and the facts of what many of our employees were undergoing, and there are some here today at committee that are deeply, deeply disturbing. and so we have to change, you

know, we have to be a role model employer for the private sector here in the city and county, and we know that government jobs frequently are better at hiring a more diverse work force and this is true throughout the country, in fact. african american middle class jobs throughout the country have been government jobs and so if we can't figure out how to create an environment that is welcoming to all members of our community, then we are really failing and the city is really one of the last vestiges in the city of middle class jobs for any group, and one of the last institutions that support organized labor, so ensure we are taking on the issue. thank all the departments that came here today, and i want to thank you for listening. i think that's incredibly important that you all were here to listen to the public

comments. so, i will continue this to the call of the chair. i know that supervisor brown and fewer want to be actively engaged with our union and our departments on actually moving forward with some action. so, seeing no other closing comments, there was a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair and we can do that without objection. again, want to thank all the members of the public for coming out today. [applause] >> mr. clerk, can you please call item 7-14. >> clerk: agenda item 7-14, 8 ordinances settling, authorizing the settlement of lawsuits against the city and county. >> supervisor kim: for the sake of time and i just talked with supervisor brown, we will not take a motion to convene to closed session, neither of -- well -- why don't i say this. i think we can pass items 7-14.

>> clerk: madam chair, we should take public comment on the closed session deliberation. >> supervisor kim: we will take public comment on these items. if any members of the public would like to speak on item 7-14, please do speak now. seeing none, public comment -- oh, ok. >> i want to speak on this closed session that you got with the city attorney. and while you are back there, executive director of the department of public health, barbara garcia, embezzle one had you been $100,000 a year and not reporting the income from her female married companion, and by the same response, she get caught, you let her retire and keep her benefits. she should be fired, and should not get not one penny of benefits from the city and county of san francisco. that's called tax evasion, and

money laundering, and fraud. by the same response, all the blacks that's complained about complaints in the health department, to the union, that was up here today, all of them, 98% are black. you hear me, all black people complaining about barbara garcia in the health department. had me fooled thinking she was doing a good job, and she get caught embezzling $100,000 a year for the past several years, you let her retire and act like she did a damn good job. that's not cool. so, ain't no way in the world she should be allowed to retire and get benefits and you treating her like she did a good job. is that clear? and then another thing about your discrimination. disgusting that you let rules and regulations of mission where you are supposed to have 15% of those 1,500 units for low income and very low income people, who

you campaigned about. when you get hired, people you say you are going to help you refuse to help. sit up there and say they are supposed to be for low income by the people, and said the requirement about their income. so, in violation of your own rule and regulation, and it's going to come back to haunt you. [please stand by] >> thank you, mr. clerk and mr. gibner, our city attorney will read out the outcome. >> deputy city attorney john

gibner. during the closed session, the committee voted 3-0 to continue item eight to the call of the chair and to forward items seven through 14 to the full board with positive recommendation. >> thank you. and we will take -- we will take that motion and pass that and colleagues can we take a motion to not disclose our closed session? we can do that without objection. mr. clerk, are there any other items before this committee? >> there is no further business. >> meeting is adjourned. >> there is no further business. >> meeting is adjourned. [gavel sounds]

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>> welcome to the september 19, 2018 meeting of the rules committee. our clerk today is victor young. i'd also like to thank sfgov tv, leo and jim. mr. clerk, please call item number one. and before that, do you have any announcements?

>> clerk: yes. please silence all cell phones and electronic devices. complet completed speaker cards and any documents to be included in the presentation should be submitted to the clerk. item one is a motion urging kaiser permane kaiser permanente -- [inaudible] >> supervisor safai: great. thank you, mr. young. i'd like to hang this over to our vice chair, mr. norman yee, who is the sponsor of this. >> supervisor yee: thank you, chair safai. colleagues, i introduced this last week to stand in solidarity to stand with seiu

worker sites based in kaiser. and as of october 5, which is coming up really quickly, 2018, 16 messenger drivers, parking attendants, licensed vocational nurse and department secretary at kaiser san francisco will find their benefited positions eliminated. kaiser intends to contract out the parking and scheduled services and replace them with ride share services. these services will be outsources to companies that pay less and offer fewer benefits. this decision comes as kaiser reported $29 billion in reserves in 2018 and $3.8 billion in profits during the first three quarters of

2017. unions and good paying middle class or middle-income jobs are increasingly under attack. middle-income workers are working harder than ever to make ends meet to support their families as economic inequity continues to increase, especially in the bay area and in our city. the -- we should not stand by in good conscience as hard working staff are laid off in the interests of increasing corporate profit. in november 2017, kaiser announced its intention to outsource and layoff over 900 seiu good paying jobs, 34 carriers at a laboratory in north hollywood, and so on and

so on, and you can see this is not just impacting the bay area but throughout california, and we need to make a stand in this city to say stop this, this is not acceptable. earlier this year, the oakland city council, alameda county board of supervisors, los angeles city councils all unanimously passed resolutions opposing kaiser's plans to outsource jobs and urge kaiser to discuss in good faith with the union how to retain and grow good paying health care jobs at their facilities. on labor day, over 1,000 kaiser workers and their supporters marched over support of these massive layoffs. colleagues i urge you to join me in protecting these 16 positions in san francisco and the over 800 positions statewide. and i want to thank chair safai for scheduling this item today due to the time sensitive

nature of the workers that's going to be terminated october 5. and i want to thank my cosponsors for standing with me and with our union workers. i hope we can stand united with our oakland, alameda and l.a. colleagues and hope that we can passion this resolution with positive recommendations today so the full board can vote on the resolution next tuesday before the october 5 date comes to us. we must, as a city, send a strong message to kaiser permane permanente that san francisco on the records strong with its brothers and sisters of the

seiu, and all brothers and sisters. that's all i have to say. i think i talked about it before, and i see that there's many members of seiu that are here. and i don't know that we need a lot of testimony, but if we could take public comments or if we have questions right now? >> supervisor safai: yeah no. i think we'll move to public comment. we heard a long list of folks that were impacted by this, a lot of testimony. we appreciate you coming out again. speakers will have two minutes. please clearly state your name. if you have any information you'd like to give to the clerk, please hand it over. >> clerk: if you'd like to speak, please lineup on the window side of the window. thank you. >> i'm with seiu united health care workers. we're here today because kaiser is planning to outsource our

jobs. recently, that number that you last heard, 900 jobs being outsources to now 1,000 jobs across the state. in san francisco kaiser has informed us that she plan to outsource 16 parking and shuttle services jobs. in bargaining, we're told they plan to contract out and also use ride share services. on monday, clifford, who's a gardener, he's standing right there. gardeners were told they would be outsourced, as well. kaiser's eliminating quality jobs, retirement, quality health care and wages and replacing them with work that makes them money. this is about greed. this is about while they're earning $2 billion in profit. that's while they have more than $28 billion in reserves. that's more than california, and that's nothing but greed.

we urge you to support supervisor norman yee's resolution to protect kaiser workers from outsourcing. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> how you doing. good morning. i'm here to speak on behalf of the gardeners for san francisco kaiser. my name is clifford pheifer. i'm been with kaiser five years. i was just informed monday that my job would be outsourced. there was no reason given, it was just that it was there are intent to outsource gardener's jobs, and my responsibility there is to keep the outside of the hospital clean, keep the garages clean, picking up drug needles and cleaning feces and other things and planting flowers and things of that nature. so we play a vital, you know, important part to kaiser, but it seems like that doesn't matter. now our jobs -- and it greatly affects me because i have a

family, and my kids depend on me. they look to me, and i have two sons in college, and they look for my support. and for kaiser just to all of a sudden one day, and tell us we're going to outsource your jobs, i think it's wrong, and it has a great impact on me and my family. so i do urge you to support norman yee's resolution to stop the outsourcing, and thank you very much. >> supervisor safai: thank you. >> hi. my name is erica bodi, and i am a shop steward for seiu, but i am also a 37 year employee of kaiser permanente. so i think it's important that you guys know a little bit of history to know how kaiser got to where it is. seiu, i was original member of local 250. of course i started, when i was

two years old. but i'm just going to talk to you, and tell you our union makes up the majority of kaiser workers, almost two thirds from the day i started, since i was 19 years old. we've been every rock and boulder that's built kaiser's quality care. every service that it has is from the work of labor workers. not only our union, but it's labor workers. it's unbelievable in this time that i see such a sudden change. we helped build the labor management partnership. we had a 70 year beautiful relationship with kaiser. we've helped kaiser grow to be able to make $4 billion in profits a year, to be able to have $29 billion in their back pocket. this impacts the community, when jobs are outsourced. it's like the spark, the flame

that starts the wildfire. this is real. it impacts the gardeners, the shuttle drivers, the parking attendants. they're real-life people, and what we want you to do is to support norman yee and the resolution to have kaiser not outsource jobs and to respect its workers, and so i ask for your support today. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you so much. next speaker. >> good morning. i'm crystal prior, and i came about a week ago, as well. it's unfortunate, monday, last, we received that 60 people would be impacted, and that would across the northern california area. for 1,000 people to be impacted, it's not going to tap until we have people like you to hold them accountable for the action as that you're providing. like i said, i have six childrens. i had to move to discovery bay

to be able to afford a house to live in. kaiser, two years ago, got me to a position where i didn't have to have financial aid to government assistance to be able to provide a place for my kids, and that being in jeopardy where i had to make a choice where i was going to work for the union full-time or being outsource now because i'm a driver. i've been a driver for 20 something years, and kaiser for two years now. when you look at my face, you look at what outsources is, and you look at clifford's face, and there are several other people that really depend on those jobs for their livelihood. i was fortunate to be in oakland when they made the decision to make the resolution. i was in alameda when they made the decision to support the resolution. i deal with the pharmacy in oakland, and livermore. these people's lives are going to be greatly impacted, and i

want to thank you for hearing us and help us. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. are there any other members of the public that wish to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment's closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor safai: i know that supervisor stefani would like to say something, as would i. and then, i have a few questions. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: thank you, supervisor safai. i just want to say thank you to supervisor yee for bringing this resolution forward, and thank you to those who came out today and who came out to the board of supervisors meeting last week. i am not comfortable with kaiser's plans to make sure that these employees are taken care of. i did reach out to kaiser. i think income security for a year is not enough, and i don't think the new vendor will offer

the same pay and benefits. i'm greatly concerned with the stories that i heard and the outsources that would take place. i will be supporting this resolution today and would like to be added as a cosponsor. >> supervisor safai: thank you. supervisor yee, so this is a pretty straightforward resolution in my mind. i'm someone that came from the labor movement. i'm very fortunate to be here, having worked with brothers and sisters like yourself. i think it is unconscionable in this economy with this amount of wealth, with this amount of transfer of wealth into a few hands that we would be in a discussion about outsourcing and trying to save pennies and not thinking about the human impact. when you give someone a job, you're not just feeding them, you're feeding their families and supporting their families. this is about families, this is about working people, this is about allowing working middle

class families to allow to live and remain in the bay area. we talk about it but don't do much about it. so i'd like to really appreciate and respect supervisor yee for bringing this forward. i'm hopeful that this will get the attention of kaiser. this is a statewide issue. this is happening all over the state of california because kaiser's making decision to outsource. we have these fight does all the time. suck -- figh su -- we have these fights all the time, but san francisco works very hard to make sure that outsourcing is not a practice that we support here at the board of supervisors. so anything that we can do, i believe this will be supported unanimously at the board of supervisors, and i'm really, really sorry that you all are having to go through this. the idea that jobs will be

given temporary -- that that sounds good when people are reading it on the surface, oh, transitional job pay, but they don't think about the benefits, the retirement, and the job security that you all have developed and what it means to have someone like clifford who's out there in the fillmore, western addition, people know him, he has a relationship. it's more than just that, it's about also building community. so thank you supervisor yee. i'm in full support of this measure, and i appreciate you bringing it forward. >> supervisor yee: thank you very much, and thanks for coming out again. and the only thing i wish i could have done better is actually have sponsored this much earlier so the impact would be greater. nevertheless, we're going to move forward with this. i've -- my office has spoken to kaiser also, and we have expressed our disappointment with them.

it's really disappointing with the profit they're making that they're picking these types of positions to be outsources. there's no rhyme nor reason for them to be able to do this, and i just don't understand the rationale in this at all. so i have a question to mr. clerk. did we pass this out as a -- to -- as a committee report? >> clerk: there's no need to send it out as a committee report. this will be on next week's board of supervisors agenda. it just needs one vote. >> supervisor yee: okay. i'd like to go ahead and make a motion to pass this out of committee with a positive recommendation to the full board. >> supervisor safai: can we do that without objection? in full support. thank you. thank you all for coming out

today. [ gavel ]. >> clerk: next on the agenda is item number two is a motion approving, rejecting the mayor's no, ma'am nation is lieutenant david falzon to the entertainment commission, term ending july 1, 2022. >> supervisor safai: thank you. is mr. falzon here. oh, hey, there you go. >> good morning. good morning, chair safai and vice chair yee and supervisor stefani, good morning. my name is dave falzon. i first would like to start off by thanking the mayor for the nomination. i take that with great pride and honor. further i'd like to extend now to the board my sincere interest and hoping that we can get through today and next week and that i'll actually be appointed and sworn in as an entertainment commissioner. a little bit about me. i am a lieutenant in san francisco police department. i've been in the department for upwards to 26 years, and i am a

san francisco native. i chose to raise any family here in -- my family here in distric district three. they went to school in district three. we were surrounded by high-rises, a little house surrounded by high-rises. for the past 16 years, i have been involved with night live with a.b.c. licensing with the whole entertainment community. my history goes back to actually the formation of the entertainment commission, going back when then-supervisor mark leno created it. i was part of the transition team when the authority left the department and went over to the commission. i think that kind of lends me a lot of historical perspective that i hope to bring to the commission and bring value. i know, in short, i think i've

spent the last two decades trying to promote a safe, healthy, robust night life environment and really worked hard to find that middle ground. what i've found to be successful is it all comes down to communication. individuals get alarmed when they see a posting from the entertainment commission or the a.b.c., thinking it's going to bring blight to their community, but in good communication and bringing stakeholders together time and time again, we were able to find middle ground and allow businesses to succeed and allow businesses to be successful and assets to the community. again, i just want to thank you very much for your time today and optimistically well come any questions you have of me. >> supervisor safai: lieutenant, you forgot to say what section of the city you have roots in? >> your part of the city,

excelsior. we came from europe to your district. >> supervisor safai: that's right, that's right, and stayed there for many, many decades. [please stand by]

. >> -- because there's a history of -- i've lived with federal agents in the city here, and there's this habit of -- there's a -- there's a -- an association there. you get to flash and pass, you get to go in, you get treated with great deference, and you have to be mindful of these things. and not to say that you're biased per se in that fashion, but you have to be aware of this. and then, even though maybe the commission -- you know, the member of the board wouldn't participate in this, but he's a part of a community that does. when responding to a call that -- a license holder, i feel that there's a natural

inclination to have assumptions in that fashion, and i would note that bartenders and proprietors in that fashion, they often consume alcohol, and they often -- they can often behave poorly, and i feel like this isn't something that would generally be acknowledged in the same fashion. lastly, i do recognize the mayor's right to appoint this person. i think it's important to be mindful of all these things. and lastly nau [inaudible] >> supervisor safai: thank you. thank you, sir. thank you. next speaker. >> good morning.

my name is dr. tomas aragon. today, i'm not representing the department of public health where i work as a health officer, i'm here as a private citizen. and i want to support the appointment of lieutenant dave falzon. since i've been a health officer since 2011, i've had the opportunity to work with him through our alcohol policy working group which includes ucsf researchers, community residents, as well as activists, and we found him to be conscientious, thorough, and very patient. the words that come to mind when it comes to lieutenant falzon, he's compassionate, honest, he has integrity. he's fair. he treats everybody with dignity and respect. and he's a consensus builder. and as already mentioned, he's a native san franciscan, continues to live here, and so

i continue to support his appointment. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> hello. my name's benjamin bleiman and i'm currently president of the entertainment commission in san francisco but i'm here today as a private citizen and a business owner to speak on behalf of lieutenant falzon. i had the pleasure of brokering a liquor license conditions deal with lieutenant falzon about nine years ago, and i found him to be extraordinarily fair and extraordinarily receptive but also focused on public safety. i don't think there's anybody in the entire city who has a better handle of the rules and regulations around night life establishments and police -- and how the police affect them and need to -- and the thing that comes to mind to me is if you -- if you ask a number of night life owners in san

francisco who the most fair but tough police officer or lieutenant has been, it's always falzon, and he has a huge breath of respect both from the night life community and also from the -- from the powers that be on the police. so i literally don't think there's anybody better for this seat, and i very much encourage you to approve him. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors. i am currently the chair of the cannabis legalization task force. when the task force was formed, i thought of what would be necessary to bring for our representative from the police department, what would be the necessary characteristics, and history, perspective, and integration were the words that popped into my mind, and dave

falzon. you heard dave talk about the formation of the entertainment commission. well, i was there in '95, and i was there as the board of supervisors, then mark leno decided that it was time to remake the permitting system, and i was there on the transition team, serving with dave falzon, and i was there as the founding president of the entertainment commission. dave was tough, dave was always honest, but when dave would come down and make a decision, he would listen to all sides. when i had him on the cannabis task force, he provided a unique perspective and view into the department. you are going to be faced with a similar transition, both for cannabis and a.m. alcohol. you need people with history, you need people with integration, you need people

that understand the perspective of why we are here, why we have the institutions that we have, and why we have the successes that we have, and it's people that create those successes. good policy, but also really good people. thank you all. >> supervisor safai: thank you so much. next speaker. >> good morning. my name is kathleen daily, and i'm here as a private citizen. wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of my good neighborhood and district three resident, david falzon. my perspective, dave's initiative, leadership, and dedication with and for the san francisco police department are beyond compare. leaving you in a higher paying position in the private sector.

[please stand by]

>> he is fair, open-minded, appropriately humorous and compassionate as he is firm. he encourages conversation and finds common ground. his attention to the topic at hand is obvious as he's quick to assess the situation. thank you for your consideration. >> thank you, any other members of the public wish to comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. there is one of the things that i really wanted to get on the record in morning. that is a problem that has been vexing the residents of district 11 for some time. you and i discussed it, it's not directly, but indirectly related to the entertainment commission. actually two issues. one is we have a significantly high rate of empty store fronts and vacancies. i know you kno