thank you. thank you for the clarification. we have a second reading coming. so supervisor kim made a motion to accept an amendment expanded by supervisor peskin. without objection. >> supervisor kim made an amendment to item 15. that amendment triggers another first reading. all the other ordinances are still on second reading. board has a choice on the other central soma items to pass them on second reading today or continue them to line up with item 15 for a second reading. >> supervisor: supervisor kim, i see you shaking your head no. >> thank you, mr. gibner for that clarification. i'd like to pass all other items as a final read and just vote on

item 15 as a first read. >> supervisor: okay. i'd like to make a motion to duplicate the file -- >> no, duplication. >> i'm suggesting item 15 passes on first reading as amended. >> supervisor: let me make a motion to rescind the vote and take item 15 and go 16 through 18. may i have a motion to rescind the vote on items 15 through 18. >> i didn't think we did. >> supervisor: we did vote. may i have a motion to -- >> i don't think we have to do anything. mr. gibner?

>> i would defer to the clerk on what the motion that was adopted. >> it was just the amendment to item 15. >> supervisor: do we need to take another vote? >> you'd need to take a vote to pass items 14 through 18 minus 15. item 15 would be adopted on first reading as amended. >> what about my request to duplicate items 14 through 18 picking out item 15. >> clerk: that would be a different stand alone request on your behalf, madame president. >> supervisor: what is the procedure? is there a seconded needed -- >> clerk: to duplicate the file, no, madame president. have you an independent right to duplicate the fight -- file but you need a motion to amend. >> supervisor: why would we be duplicating the file? >> in my opinion to make sure the amendment we'll be hearing or be in sync with what will be

finally passed. >> so what the city attorney was clarifying is whether we want to hold all the tight -- items to be read and passed next week or pass the others today and item 15 next week as a final read but it doesn't require duplication of the file. >> supervisor: my apologies.

why don't we move forward to the special hearing the 3:00 and i'll come back -- >> then my preference would be we pass 14 through 17 as a first read if it's too complicated for folks to understand. >> supervisor: madame clerk -- >> i'm not sure, i've not made amendments to 14, 16, 17 or 18 so that can pass as a final read now. >> yes. i've only made an amendment to item 15. >> i understand that and i'm not calling the vote for it and we're going to move to the 3:00 p.m. special order. >> i don't think we've rescinded the vote. we haven't taken a motion. >> supervisor: madame clerk --

>> clerk: you've already voted on the items. item 15 has been amended. >> supervisor: what is outstanding is 14, 16, 17 and 18 and i'd like an opportunity to talk about it. >> we voted on them. >> clerk: only item 15 has been amended only. we still have to vote. it appears as though the president would like to have a conversation with you off-line. >> supervisor: madame clerk please read the 3:00 p.m. special order >> clerk: item 29 is a meeting pursuant tie motion m18157 approved november 15, 2018 for african american workforce hiring, retention and data tracking of workplace discrimination complaints at the city and county of san francisco and requesting the department of human resources an public health and city attorneys office and

controllers office and city administrator and other applicable departments to report. >> supervisor: thank you, very much. thank you for the men and women who have taken time off work to be here with us. i'm agreed our colleagues sat as a whole to hear this item. this hearing was originally called at the g.a.o. committee by supervisor kim back in september. supervisor kim noted racial discrimination in the workplace has plagued our country and we in san francisco should be at the forefront of diversity and mayor breed issued an executive directive to quote, ensure a diverse, fair and inclusive workplace, end quote. this directive focussed on four areas, recruitment of a diverse

workforce and better training, centralized data reporting and finally communication. communication and keeping an open dialogue with workers and leaders to create a culture of trust and of course a culture of collaboration. calling the hearing today, it's my hope this body can gain perspectives on four key points. first , the steps the city government and employers have taken to i am moment the steps. second to acknowledge where we have failed our brothers and sisters in the workforce. third is to establish the standards in terms of maintaining a fair and inclusive workplace and four, how to identify systemic racism in our employment practice and keep

ourselves accountable and squelch and push out the systemic racism. in particular, i'd lick -- like to understand how we can, to the greatest extent possible, mitigate what might trigger a conduct review. what happens when workers are disciplined. what prevents african americans, specifically this group of folks, african americans from being promoted? finally, if there's policy directives or create a more economic justice and more fairness in our workforce. this hearing today is a chance for the city and county of san francisco to be forward looking not just acknowledging our short comings but in a position to better understand what we can do

to continue to become the best city and county for all of our residents. those that live and reside here and those that work here. and i want to understand what tools our departments need in order to do that. we're hear from micky callahan from the department of human resource and linda simon the director of equal employment opportunity programs and representatives from various organizations, several other department heads have also been invite and will join us in answering comments from colleagues as they arise. i want to understand a handful of things i'll lay out. i'm hopeful you'll be able to answer the specific question. first, if there is a dedicated person in human resources for dealing with issues of diversity, discrimination and training. what steps the department has

taken since september to address the issues and what's the road map. what's your road map over the next year to improve the hiring, retention and data collection and morale of african american workers in city of san francisco and i want to recognize the reverend doctor amos brown, senior pastor of third baptist church as well as the chrch for the national organization vancement of colored people and the naacp the san francisco chapter and recognize the leadership joseph bryant and david kenam and member leaders that will be here and have been folk val in bringing this matter to us today.

lao colleagues, i'd colleagues, i'd like to first hear from the executive director of human resources, micky cal ahan. >> thank you, madame president. mickey cal ahan -- callahan. i'm focus on initiatives we've adopted pursuant to adopting the executive directives. as president cohen noted we'll hear from other departments an i'll talk about the department-specific initiatives adopted and ongoing. i think you know departments are responsible for hiring and initiativing discipline at the

department level there's an appellate body in investigating and attempting to resolve e.l. complaints an establishing workforce programs to ensure diversity in the city among other and other policies as well. you'll likely hear from some other individuals who spoke at the g.a.o. and i too was disturbing and upset by -- disturbed and upset by some things we heard. some of the cases i and my staff are familiar with and will not be able to share other information about those case for privacy reasons so i want to let you know that. i think it's clear there's a problem and the city can and should do more. the sit -- mayor's executive

direct ef provides a good road map. i want to talk about the workforce. we have the regional labor market incorporating san francisco and the rounding counties has a particular demographic representation of the available workforce and we compare it to our own workforce and find we have a more diverse workforce and there's some social forces and it's only 4.6%. we're pleased we have a good employer for bringing african americans into the workforce. we want to ensure we continue that and improve where we can. we have new technology up on our

website if anyone cares to look which shows the racial and gender breakdown of every department with the extension of the tiniest ones for privacy and you can look at that as a whole or any department. there's a quick picture what that looks like on our website. there's several programs we continue to pursue that go a long way in enforcing the responsibility to create a diverse and fair workforce. the first is vigorous enforcement of the policy and we had 700 preventive or corrective actions issued over the thereafter last-three years. we have merit-based hiring. that's a reason our workforce is as diverse as it is now and we try to enforce hiring based on qualification skill and

attributes unrelated to who a person is. our conviction history program is nationally recognized as a model for ensuring that conviction histories don't unfairly keep persons of color out of the workforce because they're disproportionately affected. we've been recognized for virtually eliminated the barrier to employment. we have launched a significant implicit bias training and have instructor-led modules many have taken care of and we just finished trading the officers in the san francisco police department which is a significant achievement for our staff. we collaborated with the police and we continue to ensure there's no artificial barrier to employment.

the kwault qualification to get -- and to make sure the qualifications to get people to test have not kept out and board members may recall the board voted in favor of and asked h.r. to pursue this in 2016 and 2018 that means in hiring managers, they'll not be able to have access to the names of the individuals and the schools they attended until after they interview. we're going to look forward to see what impact that has on the diversity on who gets interviewed and hired. in recruitment, the city is prohibited from state law in using what we used to call affirmative action, based on race, gender or any other protected category. we have to rely on pipelines an

targeted recruiting to bring people into our workforce. it's a combination of targeted row -- recruiting and removing barriers and the mayor has given is two resource to add to support city recruitment. our goal is to act as a resource to our departments so they can recruit a diverse workforce and so they'll be able to rely on us to develop millions in the city -- pipeline into the city. we had an apprentice ship fair which have not been diverse historically and we had over 300 people attend the apprenticeship fair and over 80% were persons

of color and there's a great way to move people into city employment. i've met with director torres on ways to ensure people who graduate from the tech training programs will qualify for city jobs and we created city jobs at the training level and one is classification 10-10 a basic tech support job with a lot of opportunity for growth and does not require a degree. expanded training is key and we found disparities in discipline, disparities in probationary release. we don't know why that is. one way to reach out is to ensure there's appropriate training and what the expectation to treat people fairly and what fair grounds for discipline are. beginning january fir1st, many l

take training to empower people to stand up and speak out maybe when they themselves are not the subject of discrimination but see it happening and provide resources. that's a significant new initiate. we'll be expanding our implicit bias training and everybody that's a supervisor must take it every two years. in dissatisfaction we have -- in addition we have a new module to incorporate civil service principles of fairness and implicit bias. people tend to want to hire people like themselves and we want to shine the light on that and make sure people making the hiring decisions are aware and you can adjust for it and we have targeted training. we have a cross-cultural communications training that may be useful in areas with high

numbers of complaints whether weather it's discrimination -- weather it's discrimination whether it's discrimination and the goal is to have people treat each other with dignity and respect. with the support of the controller's office, we've been able to expand the functionality of the people soft, human resources management system of the city and we'll now be able to collect data we have not been able to collect before. to this date we were able to mine our data in people soft to find terminations for cause, perma permant employees and we don't know who's being reprimanded or in a performance improvement plan and starting january 1, departments will put that in the record. it will not be open to the

public but we'll be able to mine that data and generate reports and find out if there are particular areas or departmenting whether they need training or intervention or a supplemental review or discipline. we'll be using that functionality starting in january and by july we expect the first reports to be available because weed we'll have six immunization months of data and i want to focus on the communication section. the mayor's asked us to look at equity, diversity and inclusion which is essential to fostering trust. in january, 2019, d.h.r. is convening community partners and we'll look for their best ideas on where the problems are coming from and how we can address them

hopefully come up with recommendations that can be implemented in fairly short order. so that's my general presentation. i can answer questions you have for me now or invite my colleagues from the larger city departments to share their information with you. >> supervisor: thank you, director kalhan, let's take it by each presenter. since you're here i have questions for you. what i have overall is i want to understand what is your probationary release? >> the probation is part of the selection process. a person gets the job and they're on probation for a period of time. >> supervisor: as a point of clarification, i don't know the

answer. you're talking about probation. i'm talking about probationary release. >> yes, i was describing the situation. i understand, thank you. so what triggers a release would typically be a supervisor reporting to their manager or h.r. department the individual on probation is not achieving the standard of performance that's required. it could be a conduct issue, for example, attendance or violence in the workplace in which case a violence incident may be one case or a situation where there's a person is expected by a certain number of months to be at a several level of performance and they're not able to do it. that's their assessment. probation releases are not appealable except if they are done for an illegal reason. an illegal reason is based on age, gender or another protected

characteristic. it's probably the lowest level. it will be the supervisor saying this employee is not performing at the level we need and they'll typically be reviewed and make a decision whether the person should be released. >> supervisor: how would you find out if there was an illegal reason? >> that's a good question. you only know if there's a claim and as the investigated or occasionally there's a whistleblower or other information comes to light where we find race, gender or something like that was used but typically it came up with a claim and say i was released from probation because of the following reason. >> supervisor: everyone has a right to make a claim? >> yes. we're required to act

expeditiously and review them. >> supervisor: how long does it take. >> within six months we should finish the investigating for 70%. last year i think we were at 80%. we had some delays in the last several years because of an up tick of sexual harassment with new staff we anticipate to be back on track. >> supervisor: what's the criteria you use for people making the determinations on the appeals? what qualifies a person to hear an appeal and then offer an opinion on it? >> we hire investigators that go through training. not all are lawyers. they're managed by linda simon and under the law the only people who can investigate are

employees or if there's an outside person, an attorney or licensed investigator. >> supervisor: what leads tie medical separation? >> that's when an employee who is disabled and cannot be accommodated in their current job and the doctor's note says they cannot do the essential functions of the job they have, then we have to attempt to accommodate them with a different job. basically it's an issue. it starts with the employee producing a medical note with medical restrictions saying they condition not perform the essential functions of their job. they may get a temporary job in their department or may take a leave. if they do not recover after a period of time, they, 90 to 100

days, we may place them on leave to recover or go through the reasonable accommodation process. it's first at the department where they say okay, you can't do the job. is there a different job in our department you're qualified for and they'll review the qualifications, etcetera. if the government has no job it goes to a city wide process managed by our e.e.o. unit and if she finds a job the disabled person is qualified for and can do, she grabs that job and holding that and the individual will go over and meet with that department and see if they want to accept that position. the department does not have the ability to say no. they must take the person as part of our process. >> supervisor: i understand. i'm going to cut you off to keep

moving. what leads to discipline action? >> disciplinary action is starting at the department level according to the standards of disciplines of just cause. generally they incorporate fairness and proof and investigations, no disparate treatment and discipline. a manager or supervisor may say i need to discipline this employee and they'll consult with their h.r. and talk about what level of discipline is regulated by the labor agreement. for example, they have to take the action within a certain period of time after the alleged violation. if it is a suspension or termination, they'll have a special hearing required under state law. typically the city attorney or staff will prepare the document

and they have all the documentation and will go before a hearing officer -- >> supervisor: when they have a chance to go before the hearing officer do they bring legal representation or represent themselves? >> they don't always choose to but they can bring a representative. occasionally it's a union rep or lawyer. >> supervisor: where are the hearings held? >> they'll be held usually in the department of the manager and they may go to the different department and it's a private meeting. it will be the maybe a note taker. usually a representative of the department but it's really for the employee to set forth why they should not take the disciplinary action. >> supervisor: it's on the employee to defend the actions the city is taking against them to dismiss them.

>> only at that level. if it goes through and it is appealed to arbitration, it's the city's burden of proof. the process is designed to make sure all the mitigating circumstances and exonerating evidence and someone gets to hear their story and make sure there's no miscarriage of justice. [please stand by] .discipline.

>> we usually believe that after all appeal rights have been exhausted. >> deputy city attorney, is that a universal principle that comes

from the city attorney's office or is that from one attorney's perspective? >> no. >> one attorney's interpretation. >> deputy city attorney john gibbner. >> the advice we give is from our office considered at all levels, but not just one attorney. >> i appreciate that. thank you. >> so just to wrap up the disciplinary process, if the person is disciplined, they get a notice and have a right to appeal the discipline. the discipline goes forward. they have the right to appeal it all the way to the arbitration if the union takes the case. and then a binding determination will be made on whether the decision should be upheld, mod pied, or thrown out. in that case, both reinstatement and backpay and clearing the record happens. >> one of the issues highlighted in the september 19th hearing,

for me there are two particular items that were concerning. first, medical separation, second being disciplinary dismissals. both seems to be disproportionately high for african-americans. how do you reconcile that? >> i think there's unique situations. i think the medical releases are driven by the employee's medical condition and their inability to return to work or for us to find a job they can do in the city, which can ultimately need to a medical separation, but i would say it's from the employee medical condition. there are disparities in health across society, and that may be a factor, but i'm not an especially deemologist. >> you know, what's interesting i'm hearing what went on in the police department. right? we knew that there was -- i

introduced and then we passed legislation several years ago to begin to track the data. who is being stopped, when are they being stopped, where are they being stopped with some frequency to begin to capture a numeric picture to see if there's any bias, explicit racial profiling. it seems that, quite possibly, the department of human resources could also be participating in this so we could better understand the concerns that we hear from the gao hearing so we hear -- please, you're distracting me. >> i apologize. >> for members of the public, if you hear something you like, use your support of fingers, and if you don't like it, thumbs down. that's helpful. it seems like we need to do a

better job of keeping track of the numbers. that way when there are claims that say, hey, listen, black people are being fired at a higher rate, there's a number, there's something that points to say, actually they're not. or, yes, there's a problem. let's go ahead and look into this. it seems ambiguous. my concern is the system seems very objective. one of the things we worked with with law enforcement agencies ensuring that there was a bias -- implicit bias training. we worked together on that. at that time, i was super maniacally focused that every single officer and the sheriff's department, that's a work in progress, but certainly the sf pd, that we get everyone trained. in a hearing during that time several years ago, i think it was 2015, i also advocated that i thought department heads

should be going through training as well as particularly departments like dcyf where there's money being desimilar nated to -- disseminated to different areas. one of the way we can combat bias is educating ourselves. i don't need to educate you. you know about bias. you've gone through the training, but one thing you can consider as director of dhr is we can move it. we go through ethics training, sexual harassment training. that way people can't say, i didn't know. also, while we're going through these trainings, that we're capturing the data. because as of right now, we just don't know. that concerns me. it concerns me with some of the

anecdotal stories that were shared in gao's hearing, the hearing supervisor kim presided over. there were concerns that came out. our job, and the reason we're sitting here as a full body, is to find a way to legislate if there's a way to correct this. now, we've heard at the beginning of the hearing about the executive directive. now, that came before the gao hearing, so perhaps people were unaware of what mayor breed put out, but to members of the public, i'm happy to furnish the mayor's directive on what she has explicitly laid out. if i'm not mistaken, you and the mayor were collectively putting those policy directions moving forward. is that right? >> yes. >> can you do me a favor. can you summarize for me the mayor's directive so those members of the public that haven't had an opportunity to read the letter themselves could get a feel for, i believe it's five --

>> yes, i have them here. >> okay. let's take it from the top. >> okay. i'm assuming we'll start with the directive elements, the five points. >> that's right. >> thank you. recruitment, dhr will hire two full-time staff to focus on diversity recruitment. there will be diverse candidate pipe license. a, it will serve as a centralized department. they will work with departments to work with and ensure that efforts are coordinated. this should occur as quickly as possible and be included in the fy-19/20 budget. training, item two. dhr will significantly expand his harassment prevention and bias and cross cultural communication trainings to more

employees. all hiring managers and supervisors must take the training beginning january 1st, 2019, and biannually there after. all hiring managers, supervisors, and other employees who apartment in hiring panels must take a new in hiring online training beginning january 1st, 2019, and biannually there after. there's some other trainings that i mentioned that are complimentary. all city departments will begin reporting discipline to dhr so problematic areas can be quickly identified and addressed. this reporting also ensures greater transparency and discipline in departments. a, dhr will distribute a

checklist to all departments to ensure greater fairness. all departments will -- >> read that again. >> all departments -- this is what we're putting in our system. >> yes. >> all departments will begin collecting certain employment-related data by january 1st, 2019. >> do you hear that, everyone? data is going to be collected starting january 1st, 2019. mayor breed put this directive forward. it goes across the land and shall be made so. >> and we've lacked visibility because they've been in paper files in hr offices in each department. so this way we'll have access to the information. going on, the first report by july 1st, 2019. the report will include information on discipline, including written warnings, suspensions, and terminations, as well as probationary releases, and improvement plans.

dhr will use this reporting to identify problematic areas and work with departments to correct problems. solutions that may be applied include cross-cultural communications training, targeted supervisor coaching, supplemental review of proposed discipline which was administered to employees. discipline of employees administering discipline. and any additional training or other measures which may be required to ensure fairness in the workplace. dhr should take steps to develop an electronic personnel file and the system to support it in order to ensure consistent and accurate data collection and reporting. item four is communication. on issues of equity and diverse in the workplace is for trust and accountable. dhr will work collaboratively to continue ways the city can improve on diversity and equity in the workplace, and it's in

effect immediately, of course. >> okay. thank you. thank you very much. i appreciate you reading that into the record. my sense is that is not very -- that's not very known publicly. there was no media attention. there was no media coverage on that, but that's why we're here. okay. supervisor brown? >> thank you. thank you, president cohen. i want to thank you for asking a lot of my questions. i did get a lot of them answers, but i have a few others. i want to thank the workers from seiu local 21 -- 1021 and the department heads for coming back today. and everybody that's here, i know you probably take a day off or half a day off from work to come and sit here again. when i first heard this at jao committee, i mean, my first response was that sirens are going off, and there is really

disturbing. we needed to really address the complaints and concerns of the african-american workers in this city. and especially when i read the numbers, the disparities were evident and glaring. you said this today. people keep repeating that the number, the percentages of african-americans that work in the city are so much higher than the percentage of african-americans that live here. there's a thing that makes me really fume. through decades of city practices, we have pushed african-americans out of this city. the thing is this is still their home, and their community is here. so to use these numbers, i think, is really disturbing and disrespectful, and i wish the city would quit using and

saying, we're hiring double or triple the amount of african-americans that actually live in this city. [ applause ] >> i would really ask everyone to stop saying that because i represent a large african-american community -- not as large as it used to be, of course. a more western edition. i can't tell you how many people i see -- i see them in the neighborhood. they say, i can't live here anymore. i can't afford it. i was pushed out, but my mom is still here, my aunt babysits my children. my kids go to school here. this is their community. so let's please stop saying that. it's just not right. [ applause ] >> i have a couple of questions. so when i was looking at over 65% of the african-american workers employed by the city and it's represented by seiu are employed as a low-paid -- the job classification. these make up about 5% of

workers in the highest paid classification. how do you account for that disparity, that we only have about 5% of our african-american workforce in the higher classifications? i know a lot of people that are educated, have been trying to work for the city, and have been applying over and over again and have not been hired. >> audience: that's right. [ applause ] >> i think it's a continual challenge. we're operating in a society that has a history of discrimination, and people also are not sometimes prepared for the jobs that we have. so it's our challenge to create -- [ cheering ] >> -- it's our challenge to prepare them for those jobs by having pipeline programs and bringing them in. it is not okay if people are using non-job-related criteria

the screen people out, and that's why i think there probably is bias in the decision-making, which is why we have to intervene with things like deidentification and ensuring diverse hiring panels and hiring those individuals on those hiring panels and trying to create a culture in which people recognize the value of diversity. it is a problem. you will see, for example, while -- look at the police department. we have the labor market availability for people to be police officers, we're ahead of it, but it's not high enough, and we need to do more. you know, we're working with the department to do more. they have a very aggressive recruiting program for women of color and trying to have a diverse workforce. the people, it is one of the jobs that's predominantly white in the city, and that's one of the higher paid jobs. similarly, registered nurses are

of the five jobs that have white people, it's registered nurse, police sergeant -- it's a problem. i think what we have to do as a city is instead of putting up the job application and waiting for people to apply and selecting from the people who apply, that we go out and bring people along. and it's job development. maybe we need to be looking more toward building our internal capacity in our departments so people can promote. i do think we're a better employer than the private sector and, frankly, most public sectors. it doesn't mean we're great and that we're doing everything right at all, but we can build on the merit system and the principles of non-discrimination and fairness and make sure people have access to those better jobs. >> you're saying you think we could do this, like go out and recruit people. is that part of your plan? >> yes, it is. >> it's in your written plan?

>> yes, in the mayor's written directive, we've met with the workforce development to improve the pipeline, people getting into city technical jobs. we've created a new classification last year for trainees. with the cooperation of local 21, we revised our qualifications for technical jobs. if it doesn't require a college degree, let's take it out of the requirement and come up with the fact that there are many ways to qualify for a job. certain jobs were limited. for example, engineers, register nurses, they need licenses, and we have to deal with the people that have those licenses. maybe we can bring people along and help them obtain a license. i think that's definitely a good direction to explore. >> one more question. how does the eoc track bullying

complaints, and does it look at and consider race, gender, age, when investigating those kinds of claims? >> there's no -- the eeoc does not have a category for bullying. >> they don't? >> no. no. and we have an anti--- well, i would call it an anti-bullying process that's in the handbook. we have a new training module we're also rolling out to try to enforce it. i think a lot of what happens, whether it's related to race or gender or other discrimination, it's just rotten behavior, and it doesn't belong in the workplace. some of the things i heard about at the hearing in september were absolutely extremely disturbing and have no place in any workplace. we don't want our employees subjected to it. >> right. that's what we heard at the jao hearing. a lot of people felt like they were bullied, and then they were bullied to the point where they couldn't take the job anymore. so a lot of them took a medical leave. it was a mental health medical

leave because of the bullying. so this is kind of the stuff that i think maybe that needs to be highlighted, even though you don't have a bullying policy or you do have one, but you don't track it. maybe that's another thing you should track. and then what happens to that employee when they have made those complaints? are they going out on medical leave? i mean, that might be the reason why. i think these are the things we should be tracking also, if it's not already. >> all right. thank you. >> correct me if i'm wrong, you don't track that. >> we don't. reallily anytime someone treats someone badly or in a disrespectful manner -- what will happen is when we're investigating a, let's say, discrimination complaint, we may identify that there was disrespectful conduct, bullying, et cetera, and what we typically do is work with the department

and say you need to issue a respect policy or investigate whether there was workplace, violence, or poor conduct investigation. i think it may be valid to track. we can absolutely look at that. >> thank you. one of the things i wanted to point out is, again, in this directive, the number one point that the mayor points out is about recruitment. recruitment of staff members to focus on

collected on a lot of different levels. when we look at our workforce in san francisco, angitis really important that we are the best employers, and we set an example as a public and city of what the private sector should be doing. so we have a greater responsibility than the private sector to do better and be better, quite frankly, because we could be setting the higher bar and the example. in san francisco, something has happened. as a fourth generation san franciscoen, i was around when our black population was 13%. and when we have a black population in san francisco that's less than 5%, it's overdue that we go beyond this directive and start to collect

data that is pertinent to what is happening to our racial and our ethnic and our racial diversity in san francisco. when we look at what makes our employees feel safer overall, it is also about economic security. it is about housing. it is about all these other opportunities that actually make for viable lives, and therefore healthier lives and therefore healthier employees and also a healthier society for san francisco. i believe this ethnic and racial diversity is something san francisco for decades has prided themselves on and shown the nation that we can lead in this way. however, when we see a black population now of less than 5% in our city, i think that is an indication that data should have been collected years ago when we

first started to see this dramatic migration and pushout of our black community. even though today this hearing is being opened up by our black workers in san francisco, i believe that it is for every -- and i said this earlier. for every one person that share this is story, there's 100 other people who are suffering in their jobs under issues that they feel are not being resolved. and that is not just the black community, but i also want to speak for english language learners, chinese, hispanic, and our lgbt and transgender community. i would like for us to have an office of an equity and racial

equity so we look at our policies, at all of those types of -- how are, for example, black families fairing in san francisco. how is that helping our black population. in san francisco, where we claim -- we're the most self-proclaimed diverse city and to have a black population of less than 5% is embarrassing and not saying who we were as san francisco. i know this hearing is centered around the executive directive. i think it needs to go farther. in order for us to truly get down to what are the issues and what it is -- what is the institutionalized racial system we have in our system but what has been embedded systemically

and sophisticatedly that allows for the racism to continue to erode some of our systems that we have here and what we're trying to do here in san francisco. so i think that i would suggest that we need to have an office of equity and inclusion in san francisco so we can make sure everyone is thriving here, and every family -- [ applause ] >> -- regardless of your race, or if you're an english-language learner, that we can build viable lives. it's not just about the employment. although, i've already said that there's no social justice without economic justice. i think it is really important to look at what people are maki making in relation to other race, and that is really, really important. and the san francisco unified school district, we look at -- it first started at looking at a

graduation rate and the african-americans were not graduating from high school. it made us look at everything else that's happening and the equitiable chances to everyone. there has to be recommendations, not just about our employment and our workers, but really recommendations about what it takes to have a viable life here in san francisco. when you're only less than 5% of the population in the city in which you live, that has an impact on who -- how you feel about who you are and your purpose in life and really how welcoming we are here in san francisco. and it is no surprise that this would bleed over to a