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tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  November 18, 2018 11:00am-12:01pm PST

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the amendments but i'm not 100% positive. >> are you finished? thank you. thank you, appreciate that. >> through the chair, for clarification i have the amendments in front of you. we got those finished at the end of the day yesterday but we worked with amy chan and kate hartley and the city attorney to draft the amendments and amy could not be here today. i appreciate the mayor's office of housing actually sending a representative, so, but yes, we did work in conjunction with them on this, and there's another -- there's a slight subset of that as well, which has to do with nonprofits that serve indigent, food serving to the indigent, like st. anthonys, or glide, or food bank, and five of those covered.
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would you like, madam chair, like me to talk about the amendments right now? >> yes, please, and after that, public comment, ladies and gentlemen. >> essentially just in kind ever broad strokes, any affordable housing or apartment, 100% of the units subsidized, not including the manager's units or someone living there in a subsidized unit, either serve families or homeless or otherwise, and non-profit food provider, someone like a food hall or a food bank or food pantry, primary purpose is to serve meals or food for indigent persons at no costs, a two-year delay on the implementation date. instead of july 1, 2019, it would go to july 1, 2021, and that would allow for time for the department of environment and recology to work with those to find, we are prepared to work
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either through the grant process, or through the addback process to get some start-up money for the few organizations to help. but as was demonstrated in the slide, the non-profit affordable housing developments that have invested in the 0 waste facilitator saw a decrease on the bill dramatically, not only pay for itself but saved them money at the end of the day. so we are confident that would be the same thing. even then we allow for additional year discretion on the audit, so, it would be up to 2 to 3 years in these instances to allow for the appropriate time. so, those are the two -- those are the amendments that we have today. the other one that, and i know the -- we have been working with the port extensively on public trash cans and other community benefits districts, any area or
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any entity that's working with removing waste from a public trash can we are building in an exemption for that. that's separate from, it's hard -- a lot of contamination there, it's hard to deal with that. so, we have an amendment today that we will have an amendment drafted for the next hearing, hopefully, at the board, none substantive that we can make that would deal with the trash res receptacles. so some back and forth between the port's attorney and city attorney. so today in front of you is the affordable housing food halls and subsidized housing. >> great, thank you very much. open up to public comment. any member of the public, you are more than welcome to come down, you have heard a lot today and this is an important piece of legislation i want to make sure we receive feedback on.
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please have some cards, we'll start with you, i want to recognize drew meyershack from biocome, and mark from the teamsters joint council seven. >> thank you kindly, president trump. and thank you for your leadership on this, supervisor safai. the m.t.a. considers itself a good actor and a leader in compliance with the intentions of the ordinance, and as operating five properties, we just had some slight concerns that we had sent along previously before this was heard last time, and getting texts and emails from the finance department, sinoli, we all respect so much, she wanted to make sure that there was some -- >> could you make sure my office gets a cop of the language. >> basically an amendment of section 1906, h, and what you would like, to see the sentence
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is the director may impose an administrative penalty up to $1,000 for each violation, and adding a sentence stating city departments shall be exempt from this fee but the director will require a letter from the department head explaining the lack of compliance and the measures to be taken to address the noncompliance. i'll get that to you all again to make sure that you have it. but the concern is of course one city agency finding another. so -- that would be it. but we appreciate the spirit, and we are happy to support it as best as possible, in any way that we can. >> awesome. thank you very much. thank you for being here. next speaker. >> good afternoon, judy workman, representing the san francisco chamber of commerce. first of all, thank you supervisor safai for continuing to amend this legislation. we feel some degree it's going in the right direction but have serious concerns about certain aspects of it. i keep hearing small businesses will not have to comply because
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the definition is from 30 yards to 40, my understanding it's not true in all cases. many concerns of many restaurants having to comply with that ordinance and so i -- i just caution you not to just assume that small businesses won't have to comply, i think some still will. we have concerns about the requirement to hire 0 waste facilitators, does not sound like it has changed at all. i'm confused about the motion of discretion, i don't know what that means. because the legislation is still, the way it's written it's very clear. if you fail an audit, you hire a waste facilitator for 24 months. that has not changed. and i think there are going to be small businesses and nonprofits simply not able to hire, to hire somebody exclusively to do that. and i think that word exclusive is really the key. because if you have a part-time person and you want to give them
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additional hours to do some waste facilitation, the way it is written and the way, you know, things go, i don't think you would be able to do that, because that person would not be exclusively a waste facilitator. we have some problems with is that. i also think that there's no reason to wait 12 months to prove that you've come into compliance, if the goal is to come into compliance, which it is, you should be able to show that right away. there's nothing to say that if you wait 12 months you wopt get a 0 positive. you still might. so, i think if the goal is to achieve compliance, and 0 waste goals, if you can show it at any time you should be able to do that and not have to wait 12 months. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> had he low, bright line defense, dedicated to environmental issues and local hire. we were not here at the last hearing and i appreciate
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president cohen's comments of public housing and making sure that residents as well as the housing authority, their bottom line was protected. so we support the extended timeline for the housing, and food pantries, some flexibility to adopt the mandates of this legislation is really important. and so emphasize, we do support the goals of the legislation as well, that good paying jobs are a good end goal of itself and a means to persuade more people to join the environmental movement, and because there is undeniable problem. large apartments of contamination that exist, and that some 0 waste facilitation can be helpful. it's been proven in the past. thank you. >> next speaker. >> representing biocom. life sciences trade association, 1100 members statewide.
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we support the spirit of the goal, 0 waste is a noble goal, just some implementation. life sciences industry has very strict waste recycling and hauling practices, we think we should be an example to strive for rather than a target. additionally, most of us have an i.d. number, waste is tracked from cradle to grave. and comments of supervisor cohen, more of a sports style regulation with three strikes you are out or four downs until you have to turn it over. we think we should be given more opportunities to become compliant before being subject to audits. lastly, we appreciate the level of discretion offered to the department of the environment, as well as the auditors. we feel that despite that, there could still be some good actors that are caught up in the
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regulation as well. thank you supervisor safai. and hope to work with these issues. >> next speaker. >> good morning, juan, with teamsters local 350. a business agent representing some -- the majority of recology employees, some work at pier 96 and collections here in the city. i'm here to reiterate a strong support for the legislation since we will leave that in order to be able to reach the 0 waste goals. it requires the help of everyone. we believe that making amendments to the legislation is actually going to help, hold accountable some of the owners of these buildings and not necessarily the tenants. in addition, this would also
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create a new job opportunity for our members from teamsters local 350 and local 87. thank you, sciu local 87. >> good afternoon, teamsters joint council seven. back up the affiliate local 350, the workers that do all of this work. this is a piece of legislation that i was made aware of that has got a history of going on almost ten years, my predecessor was very supportive of it. we continue to be. i would hope whoever my successor is would not have to continue the legislation but look for improvements upon it. say that in a bit of a selfish way. but i think it's legislation that is very important, not just for the workers that we represent, but also for our partners in the other parts of the service industries that are cleaning the buildings and cleaning the various facilities
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that we are talking about here today. and if we are sincere about 0 waste, i think we should really put one foot in front, as supervisor safai has presented it, and accept this, and find improvements in the coming years where they need to be, but i think everybody in san francisco needs to get on board the policy of 0 waste. and i think this legislation as it's presented is going to go very far and getting that accomplished and we really hope you can see to it to move this to the full board. >> i would argue the process started more than ten years ago. i'm looking at the budget and legislative analyst report and what it said basically, in 2002,
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your predecessors on the board wanted to drive the city towards 0 waste. and so they start the a commission on the environment. and in 2002, what the commission on the environment found was that they should direct for policies and programs to achieve 0 waste, including increasing producer and consumer responsibility. it seems that supervisor safai and supervisor, or director rafael agree because the department of the environment has said we needed to get people on the ground to comply. and supervisor safai has said we will try to change the culture around recycling. however, the ordinance before you doesn't acknowledge the consumer at all. it doesn't deal with the consumer at all. the ordinance only deals with, and deals with them in a series of six, not carrots and sticks, but sticks and sticks, the rate payer, the bill holder, and i --
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i gave you guys some feedback in an email yesterday, don't want to rehash those points. what we are advocating for is a pass threw, and it's a pass through for the consumer, user, the person who is not separating the waste, to change their behavior. this is what was found in 2002, it was said today, everybody agrees you can serve more and you waste less when you pay for it. and this is not about money, it's about conservation, and i understand the politics of a pass through for tenants, but we are talking about conservation policy. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello, good afternoon supervisors. representing high rise building owners, mostly office and retail. i want to thank supervisor safai again for meeting with the business community over many months.
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the issue that we have with this legislation is that, and again i want to see some of the amendments you have introduced, supervisor, so i will look at this again and we have not taken a formal position on the measure at this time, we are hopeful some of our suggested amendments might get in. in a high rise building, we have entire refuse cycle, and when that, when all three streams go into a compactor or two, that doesn't take into consideration what tenants do, and the way we look at tenants, the reallyship we have with them, is that they are all, their employee, 0 waste facilitator. why not start at the beginning and consider every aspect of it. we want to work with you, supervisor, we appreciate again that you met with us, but we are very concerned about the legislation and we are hopeful that we can meet in the middle at some point. so, thank you very much for your time.
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>> happy holidays coming up, hospital counsel of northern and central, the san francisco office. articulated concerns in a letter to each one of you, and echo the same concerns that many of you have already heard, we seek a graduated process in which there are multiple points to come into compliance. we don't think it's there yet. and hope that it can get to that place. thank you for your time. >> welcome, next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you president cohen, mandelman, stefani and safai for working on this legislation and giving us the grace of your time and ears to be able to pay attention to something that has affected us for ten years. our members are split here and
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we are doing food distribution for strikers that have been on strike for the last six weeks. so, please don't consider this as weakness, it's just strength we have had to divide ourselves. i want to be able to just make reference, you were trying to figure out a sport reference, i would say hockey. you can pick hockey as the game that you can make this legislation into. ten years has gone by and a lot of the building owners, a lot of clients and mixed use, what they have done, passed on the bill. there's been a lot of arrogance, a lot of people will say in the month of april we should award each other, pat ourselves on the back. the people that have always been left out of the conversation have been the invisible folks. the folks doing the sorting and the building, day in and day out. the last gentleman spoke, complying with all the tenants and every person behind me has gone to every client and tenant and the said you have contaminated the trash.
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what they have gotten is warning, suspension, how dare the janitor tell me what i did wrong. i am asking every one of you to understand that 1390 market, two blocks up from us, one of the spots that has the facilitator. at twitter you don't have the same results. up the blocks, square and uber, they are not compliant as well. and i just want to be able to say that for bowma to get up here and say we are in support of the legislation but not necessarily in support of your legislation. we want more time. and that type, they have had ten years to do something about it. besides giving themselves nice lunches. i want to tell the board we need -- >> thank you, your time is up. thank you.
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[microphone was cut off] >> we need to be fair, your time is up. >> as reminder to be fair to everyone, everyone has two minutes. is there any other member of the public that would like to speak? all right, seeing non, public comment is closed. supervisor safai. >> thank you. clarify one point, i know -- amendments talked about were actually covered and we have already dealt with in the legislation. the director and the department have the discretion to work with city departments. so, that has already been covered. city attorney givener, is that the case, with regard to passing on fines, the budgeting process and so on, we have a lot more flexibility as it pertains to
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city departments. >> yeah, last week the committee amended in a provision that excludes city departments. >> say that again. >> excludes. >> city departments from the administrative fines provision in the ordinance. >> okay. thank you. >> i just wanted to clarify that. the other thing, the waste stream for hospitals that are not normal, you know, composting a recycling, that is a very separate category, dealt with completely differently and outside of the purview of this legislation. so, hospital contaminated, or contaminants is not dealt with in any way, very specific subset. the other thing i wanted to point out is that we have had discussions with, as the amendment that was made today, when we are dealing with affordable housing, dealing with the food pantries, we are giving them much more additional time,
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so really when you really whittle this down, and i heard concerns from the chamber and others about small businesses, very few, if any, small businesses here. and the restaurants here are large restaurants who i have spoken with. lou girrado, and epic, they have someone doing sorting. mcdonald's on the account, large, you know, pier -- and these are entities that need to be, and they have made, mcdonald's has made a stated i guess aspiration to be much more environmentally conscious, so a strong step in the right direction for them. i am less concerned. we have done significant work to reduce any and all so-called small businesses on this list. so, i just wanted to overemphasize that. and then the last point that i didn't really get to jump in,
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and wanted to allow the person from recology, speaking to that clear and concise, you know, your analogy of hockey or football, these audits are already happening. work is already going on. there is nothing that stops any entity that would be on this list to say a couple hundred dollars, they have it as part of their account process, we heard that last time from recology. they can ask for an audit, and they can see where they are. they can see where they are in advance of this legislation, and many of them already know where they are. their diversion rate is put on their bill. so, i just want to overemphasize that, it's not a one strike and you are out. many of the account holders know how well they are performing, they have the ability to work with the d.o.e. and recology, and more precise information, and so this is the final step in a process that has been going on, you know, 16 years, ten years, to your point.
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this is -- this has been a long time in the making, and we feel like it's the appropriate step. so, if i could -- if we could at least, someone on the board could potentially accept the amendments that we have made for the affordable housing and the food pantry, i would -- i would like that to happen. >> sure. happy to, a motion to accept the amendments before us. seem to be adequate and take that without objection, without objection, we accept these amendments, thank you. supervisor mandelman. i think i saw your name -- no, ok. all right, so, a couple things here. as i started the conversation earlier, i said there are some amendments that i would like to see that we reached out to the deputy city, to the city attorney's office and have not had enough time to finish drafting them. i would like to see those, i would like to get those amendments, bring them back into committee, and further our discussion which would require this item stay in committee. i hope i'll have my committee person's spo are on this.
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i particularly am interested in -- seems to me that i want to talk a little bit about, and push for the baseline audit and giving maybe a six-month period for businesses to come into compliance or, or if this compliance, if this legislation has been around for ten years, maybe what we do, we look at the ten-year span of time and see who the most agregious offenders, looking at a longer horizon, five years, break it up into -- into a halfway point. i will work with you deputy city attorney john givener on the exact language, but i just want to give some indication on where i'm leaning and what i would like to see. i also want to make sure that i would like to see bcdc and the port, and the community benefit district trash cans be treated like public trash cans.
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i don't believe that those amendments were reflected in what you presented today. >> they were not, and we actually have, got the final draft this morning and we will propose those, and those are nonsubstantive. so, we can make those, if this were to get out of committee today, we can make those at the full board, that's not going to slow the process down at all. >> in terms of process, a stickler to process. i believe work needs to be done in the committee and not the chamber. i'm the chair of the committee and around eight years and seen how processes work and don't work, and as president of the board of supervisors i see what happens when we sit as a committee as a hole and bring apartments on the floor and work them on the fly. this legislation is so critical, i think it's deserves our attention, undivided attention, continued work here in committee. i'm not in support of sending this item yet. madam clerk, our next meeting?
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>> november 29th. >> i would like to continue this item to the next meeting of november 28th. and schedule it as a report and come out and stick with the makers timeline. supervisor mandelman. i know, you are a member of this committee. >> i just -- i want to, you know, since as i said, parachuted in for this hearing and i am new to this committee. i want to press a little bit so i understand continuing rather than forwarding to the full board. it sounds to me like there are sort of two issues still outstanding. one is the port cbd set of amendments not minor but there seems to be probably agreement around that, and seems like not agreement, but understand the two bites at the apple. so, again, i -- wanting to
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understand more about what would get done between now and the 29th if it stayed in committee. >> the -- the language, we would have language that we would be able to discuss, it would be coming to the record. and also like i said, fundamental principal of a committee is do the work, that means when legislation comes from this committee, goes to the full board, then if there's other committee persons who are, or people not on the committee that have not opined, and you know, i've seen it happen both ways. it will come to the full board, discuss it, but most likely if we do our work correctly, limited amount of discussion at the full board, and this is just sticking with the integrity of the process. so, that's why i would like to continue to do the work here in committee so we can continue to work on it. supervisor stefani. >> thank you. supervisor cohen. i, so -- we were in committee last week, and we continued it this time. i'm, you know, i found director
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rafael's remarks persuasive and i believe the legislation is well intentioned and we have been doing some work on it. wondering what you would think about taking it, or sending it to the full board without recommendation. so we have two weeks to work on it then and at least get it out of committee, and work on it at that time. >> i don't understand the urgency to move something out of committee. the purpose of committee is work on it. so, why would we move something out of committee to work on it someplace else? >> i'm waiting to be called on. >> talking to the committee person. >> i feel this legislation, we have been working on it for, well, very long time, and i just -- posing that as possibility, so that we can, you know, move the legislation along out of committee, and you know, work on it for the next two weeks, on a timeline and if we are not ready at the board, with he can continue it there. >> so often times i want to respectfully push back to my newer colleagues.
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the purpose of the committee is do the work. purpose of the full board t review the work that the committee has done, not to continue to work on it. if it needs work on it, this is the appropriate venue to work on it. so, i've made a motion to continue this item to november 29th, is there a second? >> can i just say something on that point? part of the reason why i would like the process to go forward, i feel like we are 99% of the way there, i think we are going to continue the conversation around -- there could be some fundamental disagreement. we have been working with the mayor's office, different departments. we are coming on a deadline on this board and the holiday and it would be, i know there is a
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lot of pieces of legislation, i know you are leaving the board, i know there is legislation that you have and others have that are working our way through other committees. facilitating. we want to allow those to go forward. [please stand by]
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. (roll call). >> thank you very much. this item will be continued to november 29th. thank you. any other business? >> no further business. >> all right. thank you.adult services in our
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little theater. services in our would you please take the roll? [roll call] pappas is excused. please note that executive director shireen mcspadden is present. >> president serina: can i have a motion to approve the agenda. >> second. >> president serina: all in favor. any opposed? thank you. motion carries. and i would like to point out a couple of things regarding the agenda. the -- there's been a slight change in that we will take public comment -- general public comment at the end after all of the other motions have been voted on and all of the