>> chair ronen: good morning, everyone. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the february 11, 2019 meeting of the rules committee. i am chair hillary ronen. to my right is supervisor shama shamann walton, and seated to my left is supervisor gordon mar. our clerk is victim young. mr. clerk, do we have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. [agenda item read]. >> chair ronen: thank you. mr. clerk, can you please read item number one. [agenda item read]. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. and this is legislation that i'm sponsoring that i'm very, very excited about, and i'm proud to be introducing today -- or hearing today. it's a critical step in our efforts to reform and reimagine our juvenile justice system, and to improve interactions between police and young people in this city. i want to start off by thanking my colleagues on this committee, supervisors mar and walton, for having signed up as cosponsors, even though their name is not on the legislation, victor, thank you so much. and then supervisors peskin and brown are cosponsors. this mandates all youth under 18 consult with legal representation before they can be interrogated by police or before they can waive their miranda rights. it also requires that a responsible family member or in some cases a responsible adult be allowed to be present when a young person is in police custody and being questioned by the police. i have distributed a few

amendments to my colleagues and the clerk which are aimed at clarifying the concept of a responsible adult. i made these amendments after getting feedback. this will take into consideration the needs of young people in the foster care system. they make it clear that adult that a juvenile may rely on would be their responsible adult. these amendments, together with the full legislation strengthen the rights of all children and youth in san francisco. i realized we needed a change to our laws this past fall after hearing from parents whose children were arrested and later let go without cause following the balboa gun incident last year. through these parents, i learned about how we treat 15 and 16-year-olds differently in san francisco. thanks to state law passed last year, young people 15 and under must have their miranda rights explained to them by a juvenile public defender before they can waive those rights. if they were 16 or 17, they were not aafforded that extra layer of protection. most 16 and 17-year-olds are in tenth and 11th grade, and many lack this level of understanding. in one study that looked at wrongfully convicted minors who had been exonerated, a shocking 42% of their had falsely confessed. this is why i'm mandating all minor children and youth in san francisco be given access to legal council before they can waive their miranda rights. i also learned from these parents how terrifying when a minor is sent to a room full of police to await questioning and their parents or guardians are not permitted to be with them. we have the chance today to improve our system and to move forward what would be the strongest law in the country protecting the rights of children and juveniles in police custody. i want to thank a group of extraordinary individuals and organizations who helped us craft this law, starting with the san francisco youth commission, who were here during a hearing i held a few months back about the need -- or what happened at the balboa high school incident where this legislation came out from. i also want to thank coleman advocates, the national youth law center, the young woman's

freedom center, the mission peace collaborative, and i see tracy brown who helped us from that collaborative -- cjcj and the public defender's office juvenile division. and in particular i wanted to give a huge thanks to patty lee from the public defender's office who does the work of providing miranda consultations for young people in san francisco over the past years and from whom we've learn so much through the process, so thank you, patty for all your work. finally, i want to thank all the parents who have spoken to me about all the difficult situations that your family has faced, and thank you for sharing -- sharing your stories

during one of the most difficult times of your life. finally, i wanted to give a very special thanks to my chief of staff, carolyn gusen, who put her whole heart and soul in this legislation. prior to me, she did work in juvenile hall with young people to help tell their stories. this type of work is her passion, and i want to thank her for everything she has taught me in this area. with that, i wanted to see if my colleagues had any questions or thoughts that they wanted to share before opening this up for public comment. >> supervisor walton: good morning, everyone. i wanted to thank supervisor ronen for bringing this up. i'm very familiar with the incident that led to this. but the reality of this is as supervisor ronen stated in her statement, our young people don't really necessarily have

the ability to truly understand their miranda rights. we don't even take government until senior year in this city and across the state of california, and even then, there's no real preparation in constitutional law or what that means. so what this mean social security when young people have interaction with police officers don't understand what their rights are under miranda. i'm glad this is coming up. it's also prevalent to me because of the incident that happened at balboa, and it's good to see that we're working together to do something better because of an incident like that, and i know we'll hear more about that in the hearing. and as we talk forward, my son is at balboa. not only am i familiar with the incident as a parent, but also working closely with the mission peace collaborative and on the other side, on the board

of education. it's good to see we're making sure that this will never happen again to our young people. so thank you supervisor ronen. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: yes. i wanted to thank supervisor ronen and all the community advocates for working on this really important legislation. also as a parent of a teenager, you know, i very much understand, you know, the -- yeah, all of the rationale behind this, and the parns impe of it, so thanks for all the hard work, and i look forward to the discussion about it. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. i just wanted to give the chance for patty lee from the public defender's office to come up and provide any testimony or comments.

>> this is julie tran, as well. >> i'm the director of the court programs. >> and they represent a good one-third of the youth in the juvenile justice system in san francisco. but good morning, supervisors. thank you so much for sponsoring this legislation, pushing the lejts lation. it is long needed, and i want to assure you that this is going to be a very strong program that we will continue in our office. so i had the opportunity of meeting supervisor mar a week ago and really explained a little bit about the legislation, but i wanted to explain the history, as well. so our office has conducted detention intake interviews for the past -- more than 15 years. and we go up and see newly

detained youth in juvenile hall and inform them of their miranda rights, but we also explain what the process is when they're in custody and when they're in juvenile hall and they're -- what will proceed in court. and what we found is that it's had a very calming influence over the youth. and they also know that we contact the family members, as well. we do not discuss their cases because this could pose a legal conflict. so we've had a track repocord working with youth and advising them of their miranda rights. i think all of the organizations that have been involved in sponsoring and passing sb-395, which in its original iteration, was supposed to apply to all youth under 18, but in the past year, since january 2018, it applies,

as supervisor ronen mentioned, only to youth 15 and younger. and so we have fielded over 100 calls now, and i have to say it has been a very positive experience for everyone involved. for the youth, for the families, for the officers that call our line, and i'm hoping that we have some officers here. they have been very collaborative, they've given us space when we've asked for space so we can have a confidential conversation with the youth. we have spent sometimes over half an hour, 40 minutes on a call. i just handled a call with a 12-year-old girl 1.5 weeks ago. she did not know what a lawyer was, she did not know what a prosecutor was, so we have to gauge whether the child understands what you're talking about. best practice, if we had the

opportunity to, we would go there face-to-face and meet the child and meet the officer, as well. i have done custodial interrogation when called by the police at juvenile hall, and it has been extremely beneficial not only to the youth but to the process, and we're ensuring due process for all youth. and i've always stated that the supervisors, police officers, ourselves, anybody that knows would have an attorney to represent their child. and so i think that we're evening the playing field, we are ensuring that all youth are protected of their rights, that they understand what these rights mean, that they have

incredible legal consequences that can follow them for life, and i think that we are definitely ensuring that all children, all children of color have that right to council, which is fundamental to our constitution. they don't know what constitution means, you go explaining that, as well, but i will assure you that our office is ready, willing, and able to increase our capacity, and my lawyers are expecting to receive many calls, and i'm hoping we will continue this collaborative process with the police and with the families and with the communities. frankly, i think with the incident at balboa, which i was somewhat involved in indirectly through the wisdom and smarts

of tracy brown, i was contacting them and advising the parents and advising them they should seek counsel. i really feel if we have this ordinance in place, we could have prevented what happened at balboa. so not only are we representing constitutional rights of the child, we are also improving the relationships between the police and the families. the police are so comforted by the fact -- when we tell them we're going to contact the family, we're going to contact the parents or responsible adult, we explain what the process will be if the case is filed on or if the child's released, and it has really helped improve the relationships between the police and the community and the perceptions of the community with the police. so i -- i thank you for

sponsoring this and supporting this. frankly, i think it's a no-brainer. every child should be represented, and we look forward to a very, very strong program that i think will reflect the wisdom of this board. and we are going to be leaders not only in california but in the nation. so julie? >> thank you. and i'm a giant fan of patty lee, and we have been working on this with her office since the new legislation in 2017. we even took the phone -- one of our attorneys, casey lee, who is an administrator and the juvenile panel, and this work resides best with the public defender's office. it means literally carrying the phone around with you 24-7. i did speak with patty this

morning, and i don't know if you have the latest issue. one, i think which is section # 6-c-2, provision of counsel, you may want to include some additional lack in there regarding public defenders office. patty and i have worked together collaboratively very carefully to make sure we don't have a conflict with the public defender's office. these kids -- they'll ask questions, sometimes, who is going to be my lawyer. she doesn't know, but there's cards that get handed out with our names and the miranda warnings on the back, as well. you may want to include something to the effect of the public defender's office shall provide legal advice limited in scope, rather than -- >> chair ronen: what page are you looking at? >> well, see, i'm not sure i'm

looking at the same page you are. i'm looking at section 96-c-2. >> mr. givner: it's page five, line one. ro >> chair ronen: got it. that makes total sense. and the language that you would use, say that again? >> shall provide legal advice, limited in scope. >> chair ronen: that makes sense. >> and then, the last sentence, where it said -- i'm sorry, the youth may instead retain private counsel but not at the expense of the city, you might want to just add absent appointment by the court. because some of our clients are represented by court-appointed counsel, and if a youth currently represented by court-appointed counsel was brought into custody and that court-appointed counsel came in, i'm pretty sure that the court would issue reimbursement for that time. so you just -- you might want

to just say absent appointment by the court. >> chair ronen: got it. okay. >> the second thing i wanted to say, and this is not in my capacity as the director of court programs in pardon nership with the public defender providing these services, but i speak as the parent of a child now 29 years old with a learning disability. and i was a founder of the -- cofounder of the parents education network. my daughter in high school found a network called student youth advisors for education. these are all students with disabilities in a variety of schools, and they met in my kitchen every week for five months. these kids are overrepresented in our juvenile system. my daughter developed a pilot program that she taught at the san bruno jail about having a learning disability and how to be empowered, but to bring a

child with a learning disability in police interrogation in the absence of having this additional protection, and the kids that met in my kitchen were well into 18, 19 years old is a serious problem. i as a parent and someone who worked with these youth, i am very grateful for this additional protection for this unique population that really needs it. thank you very much. >> chair ronen: thank you so much and thank you for catching those drafting additions. i think they're needed. and i just want to note that we received a letter from our public defender, jeff adaci, just saying that his office is fully prepared, as patty explained, to provide these services. so i just wanted to thank that public defender for that letter and his support, as well. i wanted to open this item up now for public comment. if there's any member of the public who would like to speak on this item, feel free to come

up. you can lineup on this side of the room. and come -- go ahead and come forward. you'll have two minutes to speak, and thanks for being here. >> supervisors, i'm the executive director for center for juvenile justice. thank you for taking this up. this is an issue that has come up over and over again. many of our clients, even though we often extend rights to youth in the juvenile justice system, and the expectation that those rights are being enforced, they're often not. and the reality is sometimes what happens is the system takes a more lax attitude, particularly with kids, and so when you take a child who's accused of something or suspected of something, take them in the back room and questioning them, and telling them that you want to help them and this is on their behalf, they often say things, and they often say things in some cases

that extends their level of involvement in an incident that may not be accurate, and it's later used against them. it's absolutely crucial that we extend the same rights that we extend to adults to children and make sure it's enforced. it's not enough that we have on the books, we have to make sure it's enforced. so thank you, all of you, and i hope this becomes a national model. thank you. >> hi. good morning. maureen wash buburn, also withe center for juvenile justice here in san francisco. we are in strong support obviously of this legislation and thank you for your leadership on it. we see this as a really ground breaking precedent setting opportunity for the rest of the city, for the country, and it provides vital constitutional rights for our youth, so thank you so much for taking this up. >> good morning, supervisors. i didn't think i was going to be able to speak today 'cause this legislation is helping because of what happened to my

son. so even though time is passing, it doesn't get easier to talk about it, so thank you. i just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a part of this, for introducing this. had this been available when -- when everything happened at bal, maybe the experience would have been very, very different. i know he definitely asked for his dad, and that wasn't allowed, so incorporating that piece of allowing a responsible adult or representative is crucial. and i also think it's a huge assistance for the overcriminalization of our children, because this did not only happen to three kids who had nothing to do with it, i'm sure this could also protect the child who did feel compelled to bring a gun to school that day for whatever reason. hearing what the charges were against him were and how excessive i felt they were, you know, is incredible. so you know, i just really truly want to take this

opportunity to thank you for coming up with something long lasting that will help the children, especially our communities of brown and black children, and thank you will never be enough for you, for patty lee, for the mission peace collaborative, tracy lee, everyone who helped my family. because if my family had not had the situation and love 1k3 support that was showed to us, our situation could have been different. so putting these supports in place is something that's incredible to me, so thank you very much. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. >> good morning, supervisors. i'm here to speak in support of the ordinance. my name's kevin. i work at coleman advocates for children-youth. we work with students and high schools and elementary schools throughout san francisco. we're also a part of national organizations, and nationally there's been a movement to

criminalize young people and to view them as the enemy even inside their schools. we've had lots of incidents of young people be harassed by the police or assaulted by the police and not feeling anyone is there to do anything about it. knowing the situation's different here in san francisco, but this is really a step forward in really protecting young people, letting them know that there's people in positions of power who care about them and who are going to look at for their best interests, we're looking at a way to try to extend this right to all the students in the sfusd system that are arrested in schools. i'm hoping this can be a model national of how young people are respected and treated -- put first. so i'm hoping we can really see this pass. >> hi, supervisors. my name is caroline trung. i am the staff at the youth commission, and we have been working forward in favor of

this legislation coming forward, because this legislation actually allows for interruption of the power dynamics of the things that kpum into play when you see a person in uniform. so interrupting that trauma and coming forward with this legislation is a community-oriented solution that works tirelessly to make it as inclusive and accessible to all youth, not just youth in family units but foster youth, unhoused youth, and we are in strongly, like, supportive of this moving forward, so thank you so much. >> good morning. my name is roberto pena, and i want to thank the board of supervisors, choen, shamann walton, the mission peace collaborative. i just want to say this legislation will create change. we will save kids' lives

hopefully with this because they'll know their rights. this is something that kbaked my son a lot, impacted other kids. i heard the other lady say something about kids with special needs. there was a kid that was detained and the family wasn't even notified. it came out of the meetings that we had. so when things like this happen happened -- this happen, i'm trying to teach my son that something goodwill come out of something bad. thank you guys. working for the school district for 20 years and helping kids and seeing kids criminalized, this will really help us. i have police officers in my family, and i think this will also help them create some change, finding out from the police officers that we have less than 100 officers trained to work with kids, i think that's something we could learn to support, especially for kids of color. so thank you for all your

support. >> chair ronen: thank you. and thanks so much for your bravery thousand a bravery throughout all of this. >> thank you so much for this city ordinance resolution. we are in support. national center for youth actually cosponsored sb-395 at the state level, and the intent was for it to be for all youth, so thank you for extending it to all youth in san francisco with your proposal. the legislation for this is now embedded in the united states supreme court and the california supreme court. and as mentioned in other speakers' testimonies today, it's very well backed. in fact, the association of child psychiatrists has shown exactly what other members have said here today, that youth are not as aware of what that

process is, what miranda rights are, and so this counsel is so appropriate and needed for that due process to happen for all of our youth? and to also make sure that all of our youth who are in the foster care system and also in shelters, those youth who have developmental disabilities are not more negatively impact than other youth who are -- have more supports connected to them, so i also like that equity aspect, so we are in support, and i'll have my colleague say a little bit more. thank you. >> good morning. my name is dax, and i'm also from the national center for youth law. we wanted to also say how much we appreciate this incorporation of the definition of a youth, and responsible adult. sometimes it's a grandmother or auntie or someone who's going

to be able to support them in the time of crisis. we also appreciate the amendments that include this concept of empowering our youth. this is an opportunity for our youth to gain knowledge, to understand what due process is, to understand what their rights are, and to be able to pick the person that's going to support them in this moment. so we very much appreciate all your efforts and thank you for your support. >> chair ronen: thank you so much for your role in drafting this support. [inaudible] >> wanted to thank you all for your sponsorship of this legislation. obviously, my boss, jeff adaci, is strongly in support of this. i'm seeing it's wonderful that we all have three members with children in san francisco public schools. i just want to make a point that about a third of false confessions are from children under the age of 18, and i want to think about what that means

to those child, those false confessions coming from those children, what kind of fear, misunderstanding and confusion. i hope this will make a major change to that situation, and i also hope this'll be a model for california and for the -- for the nation, so thank you so much for doing this. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. so i wanted to take amendments on this legislation in two parts, if that's okay. so the first part is what i've passed out on page three, line 19 through page four, line 14. we've made the amendments that i explained earlier, explaining that a responsible adult doesn't necessarily need to be a blood relative, but it goes

into detail about who that responsible adult can be. if we can take those amendments without objection? without objection, those amendments pass. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: and then, on page five, line two, i'm going to read in the amendment. so it would read, the public defender's office shall provide -- striking the word counsel, and adding instead legal advise limited in scope for the youth during the consultation and custodial interrogation references in subsection a of section 96-c.1. the youth may retain private counsel, but not at the expense of the city, and then adding the words absent appointment by the court. so i wanted to thank the bar association representative for catching those -- those amendments. if we could take those

amendments -- sure. >> supervisor walton: just a quick question. is the legal advice limited in scope or permanent in scope? >> chair ronen: patty, i think, would you mind coming up to answer that question? >> could you repeat the question. >> supervisor walton: so on page five frks 96-24d-2, is it the public defender's office shall provide advice limited in scope? >> limited in scope. as i mentioned, we contact the family members afterward and explain to them what might proceed. so we do offer other type of advice. it's not legal advice. we also make referrals to

community-based agencies where there is a need, so we do a lot more than just legal advice, and that's where we've really made the connections with the community, as well, so thank you. >> chair ronen: thank you. >> and we're not going to limit that work. >> chair ronen: absolutely. and just to clarify, the reason why this is important is because at this stage where there's questioning, the point of this legislation is to make sure the youth understand his or her rights to -- to silence and -- basically, the miranda rights and to have an attorney present. and that stage of the investigation, it's important that a youth has extra counseling about that right? if the youth is charged with a crime later, they will have an attorney to provide the actual representation, but that doesn't happen at this stage, which is why i think this was an important clarification in the legislation. okay. great. so if -- can we take those

amendments without objection? without objection, those amendments pass. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: we're doing everything okay, city attorney? okay. great. so with that, does someone want to make a motion about the amended legislation? >> supervisor walton: i move to accept the amendments to the legislation and make a positive recommendation to move forward. >> chair ronen: without objection, this item moved forward to the full board with a positive recommendation as amended. thank you so much, everyone, for attending. [applause]

s. >> chair ronen: mr. clerk, would you call the next item, please. [agenda item read]. >> -- as i'm sure the supervisors are aware, there

are significance concerns from the change of what is current a seven-day rule, not a 32-day rule as indicated in your digest. in my submission, i explained that. the change from 32 days will not accomplish the solution that's intended, and we again thank the committee for taking this a little more slowly than it was originally proposed, and we hope that you will work with our clients to arrive at a solution that will work for everyone. thank you very much. >> chair ronen: thank you. any other member of the public like to speak on this item? >> commissioners, tony robles, senior and disability action. thank you for bringing this to the rules committee. there has been an issue of illegal conversions. there is, you know, precious housing stock that happens to be in s.r.o. hotels.

again, we've seen people lose their housing, and you know, my organization is s.d.a. we advocate for people with -- seniors and disabilities, so we thank you for taking this up, and hopefully we'll be able to come to a workable policy. thank you. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. any other member of the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: there's been a motion to continue this item toe the call of the chair. without objection, that motion passes. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: thank you. mr. clerk, can you please read item numbercally. >> clerk: an ordinary requiring department heads and members of the city boards and commissions to complete implicit bias training by june 30, 2019, to require newly appointed department heads and city commissions to complete implicit bias training within 60 days of assuming office. >> chair ronen: thank you so much.

this is supervisor stefani's legislation, and we have wyatt from her office to speak. >> thank you so much for having me, supervisors. this requires department heads and commissioners to complete an on-line implicit bias training within 60 days of appointment, and all existing heads and supervisors have until june 30 of this year. supervisor had kind of experienced this as county clerk. she took the two-day in-person training and really found it eye opening, a lot of great information how to deal with these, hiring, and policy ma making, and that is the purpose and make them aware of this. this training is on-line? this is also an in-person training and that would be optional. d.h.r., susan guard, is the representative here today, can

speak more about those items, as well? so really, this is part of an ongoing effort. obviously, san francisco prides itself on being a diverse, inclusive city, and we called for this in december after a hearing about some issues that we had with hiring, and this is an ongoing process, and we see this as part of that process. so i'll be here to answer any questions you have, and i'll introduce aun guard from d.h.r. to talk more about their initiatives in line with this. >> chair ronen: excellent. any questions for wyatt? >> supervisor walton: thank you so much. i think this is definitely a great step forward and appreciate the intent. i just -- i do have a question just in terms of why the on-line version versus trying to push our department heads and commissioners to take the two day in-person course? >> yeah.

i understand that. we view the two-day as a step forward? obviously, when you come on-line as a department head or commissioner, you have a lot of priorities? we would actually encourage everyone to take that two-day course but it's a big lift, so we want to encourage you to take the on-line and then continue to move forward with that. >> chair ronen: i would -- sorry. are you done? i was thinking the same thing as supervisor walton. is -- would you be open to amending the legislation to require -- i mean, if your department had your -- [inaudible] >> yeah, absolutely. >> chair ronen: and given the type of disturbing statistics that we've seen between native american and african american workers and others in our city, it seems it should be taken very seriously with the in-person course. you just never know. it's so easy to get distracted

when you're taking an on-line course in that your full attention isn't there in the room, so i'm wondering if maybe susan wants to talk about this. i didn't have a chance to talk with the sponsor of the legislation before, but my gut is this should be taken extremely seriously. >> yeah. i think we could have a few conversations with d.h.r. also probably amend the dates to open up more time i think if we're going to require a two-day training? i don't think 60 days is y enough, but i'm open to requiring continuing conversations on it. >> supervisor walton: i definitely think as we talk about continuing training going forward, it may be more complicated to ask current department heads to satisfy by the date. but if you're a new department

head coming on board, 60 days in my opinion is enough time if we set a policy in place with d.h.r. to make that a board of on-boarding that they would take a two-day training. we're talking about a department head, someone who's really committed to the department they're spearheading and the highest level in a department. i'm not sure if i definitely agree that 60 days is a short time period when you're coming in on that aspect, but definitely looking forward to having more conversation about that. >> yeah. we're definitely open to that. we want to have those kind of conversations? i don't think it prevents that two-day in-person training? but we're again more open to continuing those conversations with your offices. i think i'll let susan step up here now.

thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is susan guard. i am the chief of policy with the department of human resources? i want to say thank you for the opportunity to come speak about this this morning, and i also want to thank supervisor stefani for bringing this up and also for the vote of confidence she's given to the department of human resources to put this training on for department heads and for commissioners. and so i'm going to just sort of jump into the conversation we were having instead of going through, you know, what i was going to talk about. as wyatt said, we're open to it being more than the on-line training? initially, when we started this a couple of years ago, we started with a contractor name kimberly papillon, and at that time, we did two days of

training for department heads, and like you talked about, so many of the department heads who are currently within the city have done two days of training, and so i think if we change this, we should talk about a way to finally tune it so that people aren't -- what i don't want is people to come to the training feeling like it's wasting their time or it's something they've already done. and so we want people to come to the training with their minds open and ready to talk about and here about the principles that we teach but also ready to change, right? because that's what it's about. and i believe that's what happened for supervisor stefani, and certainly, that's what happened to me when i went to the training. so we started out with a one-day training, and it has become two days over time. so what we were thinking when we talked about this in the

department is we would condense it for department heads and commissioners so that it's not two days, but pack it into one day, so making it palatable and something that people would want to come to is the direction that we were heading. the other is we would want them to do it together in a group with their peers. so one thing we've experienced with managers sometimes being in class with people who they supervise makes it difficult for them to get honest, and they're reserved, and they hold back. so having a day with your peers is much more likely -- it's much more conducive to getting to the gut level and talk about the issues that come up, so we would want to do it that way, as well. i think as wyatt mentioned, a little bit of fine-tuning and

expanding it beyond the on-line training. pardon me. i woke up with a cold that won't go away, along with others in the city. >> chair ronen: quick question. with department heads, it feels much easier for them to take the training because they're paid employees with the city, whereas with commissioners, they're volunteers. so i'm wondering if there could be more flexibility when it comes to commissioners but less so when it comes to department heads, making it logistically easier to implement. >> right. and we have these conversations. there are some trainings that we do require commissioners to do, like antiharassment training, but we always have that discussion about whether they're an employee or not an employee, and it always comes

up, supervisor ronen. i think instead of painting this with a broad brush, if we change it, we need to use our fine brushes a little bit more. >> chair ronen: so given that it's seeming that you're open to the changes and at least two of the committee members would love to see this be a little bit more prescriptive, maybe if i could ask wyatt to come up again. how would you like us to proceed? would you like us to continue --? >> yeah. i think we can continue this and figure out which of the nuances is the best way to move forward, whether it's two-day training or one-day training, commissioners or department heads, the timing, and then, we

can figure this out next week. >> chair ronen: supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: yeah. i just wanted to say i support the ways we could discuss to strengthen this. i do have a question for miss guard. i'm wondering if you could describe the actual training, like, what sort of the top level goals or outcomes are, and then, i'm curious if you consulted with outside resources. you mentioned a consultant. >> yeah. so we have a workforce development division within our department that provides training and development opportunities for all city employees. and we are very proud of the legal of expertise we have within our department. so while we do go out to external vendors, if we don't have the expertise or we're

unable to complete something within a certain time frame, then we do go out and seek external input or hire a contractor. in this case, we did start out with a contractor, but after two days of training with the contractor, we -- you know, we learned a lot about brain science, and it was really worthwhile, but we felt like there was really more that we wanted to explore that the contractor wasn't touching on. and so we hired an expert specifically for this training to develop it and train our other trainers on how to put it on. and so that's how we came to where we are today. and the training really -- the goal of the training really is to change perspective, to open minds, and to also give people tools they leave with on how to do things differently, right? so it's great to just have someone come in with a closed mind and leave with an open mind, but if you don't know

what to do differently, it's really difficult to make that transition. so there's a big focus on when this happens, what do you do? and there's a lot of conversation and discussion about that and that's what expanded into the two days. so we did talk about brain science. it's really published from a nonjudgmental space and the hippocampus and where things come through, and the media's role in stereotypes and how we grow up and develop these types of ideas about certain people that are automatic, right? that our brain responds in a certain way. and then, we learn about how our brain functions, and we learned about the effect of i am will i sit bias on people. we learn some examples -- there's some really great examples about implicit bias in action. really briefly, there's a guy who's chasing a woman who has a

purse. he's a man of color, and then, we stop the video, and say, what do you think here? and as it turns out, there's a bus coming, and he's saving her from getting run over from the bus. so there's a lot of ways in the classroom that we show how implicit bias affects other people. we talk about debiasing techniques and other ways that we can make changes in ourselves and in our surroundings. does that answer? >> supervisor mar: yeah, thank you so much. >> so i just wanted to also mention that between implicit bias and harassment prevention, we've trained almost 20,000 people in 51 departments so far, so we're really making great inroads in this. and some of our other trainings that are coming up are cross cultural communications. we've also developed recently

an antibullying module in reliance with seiu, there's certain areas where it comes into play more than other areas, so we wants to make sure that people know the difference between bullying and hey, get to work. additionally, additional trainings are coming on board. and the way we're attempting to address this is from the very beginning at recruitment. we all know that it's illegal to hire based on race or gender in california. so what we really have to do is focus on targeted recruitment, which works, right? so we need people that represent our city to get in -- come and apply with the city, and then, we need to have a diverse group who takes the exam, make sure the exam doesn't have any adverse impacts on any groups, and then get people on the eligible list. and once they're on the eligibility list, they need to be reachable. so those are all areas at the very beginning.

and while people are on board at the city, we need to get them trained and make sure they know what their obligations are, and especially the leadership and writing the policy. and really, we want people to be treated with respect and dignity from the moment they come on board to the day they retire and beyond that, so that's really our goal. >> chair ronen: any other questions? supervisor walton? >> supervisor walton: no questions, but just wanted to comment the issues that we're having across different departments, when we're talking about hiring, discipline, and promotions, and the difficulties that some departments have with people of color. i think this is the right time to be addressing this, and making sure that it's more in depth. it's seriously enough because the reality of it is as we look to the future, we want to make sure we create a climate, to

your point, that treats everybody with the same respect and dignity and the leadership is going to be important into making sure that happens. so if this is the time, i would like to move to continue to the call of the chair so we can take the time to talk to supervisor stefani and have some more conversations what we can do to make it a little bit stronger. >> chair ronen: that's fine. oh, and -- >> thank you. we saw this as a starting point and more than happy to have this conversation and talk about this more next week. >> chair ronen: right, thank you so much. >> right. even if you passed this today, it wouldn't prevent us from going forward with a full day's training. we do make people train the on-line training before they come to the full-on training. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. appreciate it. okay. >> chair ronen: i'll now open this up for public comment. is there any member of the

public that would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: okay. so we have a motion to continue this to the call of the chair. [gavel]. >> chair ronen: mr. clerk, can you call item number four. >> clerk: item four is a report from the shelter monitoring committee, and requesting the shelter monitoring committee to report. >> chair ronen: we have howard chen, the chair of the shelter monitoring committee, who's going to present. >> good afternoon, supervisors. today. myself and committee member jonathan adler will be presenting our 2017-2018 annual report. if i could have a quick second, we're going to get the presentation setup. >> chair ronen: sure. thank you so much.

>> once again, good morning, members of the rules committee. today, we are here to present the 2017-2018 shelter monitoring committee annual report. i'd like to begin by quickly introduce you all to the

shelter monitoring committee and the purpose of the committee. the committee consists of 13 appointed volunteers, half of whom must be homeless or formerly homeless. there are also four seats on the committee who are filled with individuals who have experienced providing services to homeless individuals as well as two representatives from city departments. the department of homelessness and supportive housing and the department of public health. there are two purposes for the committee, the first is to provide this body, the board of supervisors as well as the mayor's office and other agencies with information about shelter conditions, operations, any other city shelter policies that can impact shelter clients, as well as monitoring the city funded shelter programs for compliance with the 32 standards of care. the standards of care are city requirements for city shelters and cover broad categories: staff, health, facility and compliance with the americans

with disabilities act. to meet those responsibilities, the committee conducts shelter site visits and investigates client complaints. so the committee is required by legislation to conduct site visits as every one of the sites that are monitoring by committee. four of these are unannounced, and the committee will come in and inspect facilities, as well as question shelter staff about their knowledge of policies and procedures. the staff also makes two announced visits to every site every year, skb these announced visits, the committee notifies the shelter ahead of time that we will be coming in and asks that they post signage so that people will be aware that we're coming in at a certain date and time and talk to clients about what their concerns may be. lastly, client complains, client can follow complaints of any standard violations, and they can file them