>> president yee: good afternoon and welcome to the june 4, 2019 regular meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors. madam clerk, would you please call the roll. >> clerk: thank you, mr. president. [roll call]

>> clerk: mr. president, you have a quorum. >> president yee: thank you. ladies and gentlemen -- give me a second to standup. would you please join me in the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] >> president yee: okay. on behalf of the board, i would like to acknowledge the staff of sfgovtv, colina and leo, who

record the proceedings and maymake the transcripts available on-line. i want to take the privilege before we begin today's meeting to ask everyone to join me in yet another moment of silence to honor the lives of -- to honor the lives of the 12 dedicated municipal workers no different from any of us who were killed by senseless gun violence in virginia beach on

friday. thank you. madam clerk, are there any communications? >> clerk: there are none to report, mr. president. >> president yee: all right. colleagues, today we are approving the minutes from april 23, 2019 board meeting and the april 23, 2019 special meeting at the budget and finance committee meeting which constituted a quorum of the board of supervisors. are there any changes to these meeting minutes? seeing none, can i have a motion to approve the minutes as presented? motion made by supervisor fewer, seconded by supervisor mandelman. those minutes will be approved after public comments today. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk,

can you please read the consent agenda. >> clerk: items 1 through 4 are on consent. these items are considered routine but can are removed and consider separately. >> president yee: colleagues, would you like to move to sever any items? i see supervisor mar on the roster. >> supervisor mar: mr. president, i would like to ask that we sever item 3. >> president yee: okay. we sever item 3. madam clerk, would you please call the roll on items 1, 2, and 4. [roll call]

>> president yee: okay. these ordinances are passed on first reading and the resolution is adopted unanimously. madam clerk, please call item 3. >> clerk: item 3 is a proposal to settle the lawsuit involving a challenge to the environmental impact report prepared in support of and in approval of the 2009 housing element of the san francisco general plan. >> president yee: okay. supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: president yee and colleagues, the president has requested that we send this back to the g.a.o. for a hearing on the advisory committee. >> second. >> president yee: okay. second? without any objection, this motion passes. madam clerk, let's go to the

regular agenda. please call item 5. >> clerk: item 5 is an amendment to the administrative code to the procedure on the bei acquisition of surveillance technology. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call the roll again. [roll call] >> clerk: there are ten ayes, one no, with supervisor stefani in the dissent. >> president yee: okay. this item finally passed with a

10-1 vote. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call the next item. [agenda item read]. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call the roll. >> clerk: on item 6 -- [roll call] >> clerk: there are 11 ayes.

>> president yee: okay. this ordinance finally passed on first reading unanimously. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call the next item. >> clerk: item 7 is an ordinance to amend the housing fund for the purpose of funding land acquisition and production of new 100% affordable housing and acquisition and preservation of existing housing to be permanently affordable. >> president yee: okay. supervisor fewer? >> supervisor fewer: thank you, president yee. colleagues, today i'm proud to be voting on this legislation to create an affordable housing preservation funds from excess eras funds from the state. this board of supervisors understands that producing more affordable housing should be our top priority. in april, all ten of my colleagues signed on as cosponsors of the community

opportunity to purchase act, which will give qualified nonprofits the first right to purchase multifamily apartment buildings on the market in order to preserve them as permanently affordable housing. today, we are putting our money where our mouth is. in addition to funding copa, this will fund tens of millions of dollars every year for new affordable housing with the goal of providing geographic investments across san francisco. we are falling well short of our goals for very low, low, and moderate income housing. he city has already produced 96% of the goal to meet our goff for the above market moderate housing by 2030.

for every two new units of affordable housing the city created in affordable housing, we lost one unit due to ellis act evictions. this illustrates why it is so critical that the city invest more in production and preservation of affordable housing in order to increase our affordable housing stock so we are no longer taking two steps forward and one step back. if we are serious, we cannot continue to rely on market rate developers fees to fund our affordable housing. through this legislation, we are committed to pledging 50% of all eras funds to the affordable housing fund so that

our ability to add to the affordable housing stock is not tied to the volatility of the market. i am also proud of the voters passing a $600 million bond this november, but with only $30 million outlined through the legislation, we all need your support. i would like to acknowledge the hard work of my aides, ian and chelsea for their exceptional work on this legislation. thank you. >> president yee: supervisor brown? >> supervisor brown: yes, thank you. today, i just want to thank supervisor fewer for bringing this forward to us. i feel it's so important. when we talk about the housing and the housing crisis, we also usually focus on new construction, and that's critical, but it's also preservation, and this strikes there balance.

up to 60% of this legislation will be used to acquire land and develop now affordable housing units. we all have sites in our districts that we know would be great for affordable housing, sites that the city should acquire, and sites that we own and want to see develop november you. in my district -- and want to see developed now. in my district, i have 730 stannion and a property on hayes that's waited for years to see affordable housing. but it's important that we don't lose sight of the fact that the majority of san franciscans live in homes that were built decades and decades ago. most of these are rent controlled, and there's a great deal of pressure on this housing. the small sites for rent is one of the best programs we have for preserving this type of housing and helping stablizing

our communities as we continue to build new affordable housing. just last week, with the small site program and the available money through the eraf, we were able to buy a seven unit building in my district. now these residents, many of them seniors will be able to remain in my community. all of them had been ellised act, and they were just waiting for the final blow. and because of this money through the eras act, the city was able to step in and buy that building. and now that building will be part of the city's affordable housing stock. and at least 40% of this fund will be dedicated to the preservation of existing housing just like that one. and i just feel like it's so important we're out there,

buying these kinds of buildings that are getting elity acted to save clients in -- ellis acted to save clients in these types of buildings. it's my belief that the small site also helps build more neighborhood support for affordable housing generally. and i'll just close by saying thank you for all of the hard work and the work from your staff, supervisor fewer. i just really appreciated it. thank you. >> president yee: okay. thank you. colleagues, can we take this same house, same call? okay. without objection, this ordinance is passed on first reading unanimously. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call the next item? >> clerk: item 8 is a resolution to authorize the general manager of the san

francisco public utilities commission to authorize a lease extension for the property located at 651 bryant street for the continued use by the san francisco public utilities commission for a total annual base rent of approximately 578,000. >> president yee: okay. colleagues, can we take this item same house, same call? without objection, this resolution is adopted unanimously. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call the next item. >> clerk: item 9, resolution to approve the grant between the city and wu yee children's services to support the city's implementation of the citywide plan for early care in education to increase the amount for a total amount of $3,840 million july 1, 2017 through june 30, 2020. >> president yee: colleagues, can we take this same house, same call?

without objection, this resolution is adopted unanimously. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call items 10 and 11 together. >> clerk: items 10 and 11 are resolutions that authorize the director of the human services agency to execute two grant agreements between the city and item 10, a grant with the san francisco in home services public authority for the provision of medical, health and dental benefits, the independent provider, july 1, 2019, through june 30, 2020, and for home bridge and provider skill development training and support for a total amount not to exceed $90.7 million for a total agreement april 1, 2019 through april 1, 2020. >> president yee: all right. colleagues, can we take these items same house, same call? [gavel]. >> president yee: without

objection, these resolutions are adopted unanimously. madam clerk, please call the next item. >> clerk: item 12 is a resolution to authorize the director of health to enter into a participation agreement between public health behavioral health services and the california mental health services authority for the development of technology based mental health solutions intended to increase access to mental health support to underserved communities for $1.2 million june 1, 2019 through june 30, 2022. >> president yee: colleagues, can we take this same house, same call? without objection, this resolution is adopted unanimously. [gavel]. >> president yee: let's go to the next item, please. >> clerk: item 13 is a resolution to approve a master lease of a building located at 1601 quesada avenue with a base

rent of approximately $200,000 per year and to adopt the appropriate findings. >> president yee: colleagues, can we take this same house, same call? without objection, this resolution is adopted unanimously. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk, please call item number 14. >> clerk: item 14 is an ordinance to amend the administrative code to require the city to close juvenile hall by december 31, 2021 and to affirm the ceqa determination. >> president yee: okay. supervisor walton? >> supervisor walton: thank you so much, president yee. first, i want to start off by saying thank you to the majority of my colleagues. we actually have nine of my colleagues who have signed on to this for a total of ten who are in support of this much needed and important change in transformation in our juvenile justice system. i also want to say thank you to my dream team in district 10,

especially tracey brown, who has been a leader working closely with supervisor ronen's office and her strong team, as well as supervisor haney's office as we fight to work on this important legislation for our young people. with that said, i just want to go over a few points that i think are important as we get ready to move towards a vote, and then, i have a few amendments that we are adding to the ordinance. but one, i want to be clear that we would never put a system in place that is worse than our current juvenile hall. we are proposing an alternate tiff to juvenile hall that also provides a true opportunity for young people to be rehabilitated. job training, mental health supports, education connections, an exposure with a noninstitutional focus that provides a true pathway to success, even for serious offenders. individualized plans that are focused on the person and not

the infraction. young offenders of serious crimes that may harm themselves in society would have a place that provides all of those opportunities and focus on helping them change versus teaching them how to life institutionalized versus teaching them how to prepare for prison. i want to reiterate the fact is what we're focused on is an expanded array of benefits. all of the changes that people like myself have made in our lives have been a result of mentorship, educational exposure, quality after school programs, but it has never been because of time in juvenile hall. i was incarcerated as a youth

in solano county and contra costa county. i have spoken as log cabin ranch on a weekly basis for a good part of a year, and occasionally at y.g.c., our current juvenile justice center here in san francisco. you still have to sleep in on a concrete slab on a mat. you must walk in line like they do in prison. you must always be accompanied by a counselor, and that's true preparation for the prison pipeline. that's why we've worked closely with mental health experts, regardless of what they may say, and that's why this part is important. and to give you an example of how the system needs to improve, when i was on the board of education, we had to fight with the leadership -- >> president yee: i'm sorry.

if you can't refrain, we're going to have to ask you to leave. >> supervisor walton: i hope you're not having a nervous breakdown, mr. brown. so to give you an example of how the system needs to improve, when i was on the board of education, we had to fight with the leadership of j.p.d. to provide access to internet in juvenile hall. i'm going to repeat that. >> president yee: all right. i gave a warning. >> supervisor walton: i will keep praying for you always. take him out.

>> president yee: so reverend brown, i would like you to just refrain. i've asked you twice now, and we have a meeting now, and i would like to have supervisor walton finish his comments. supervisor? >> supervisor walton: thank you, president yee, and to give you an example of how the system needs to improve, when i was on the board of education, we had to fight with the leadership of j.p.d. to provide internet in juvenile hall. i understand the need for safety, but there are fire walls for this. the lack of internet access leads to the fact that we have not been trying to adequately

educate our youth and have been focused on punitive aspects of incarceration. we can and will do so much better. all of what i've just explained is how to handle incarceration and how to handle punishment. and i was to reiterate this is not a job creator, and i've always been a job creator. this allows for more row bust planning and for our young people to become successful. let me quickly disspell some of the myths quickly. we have met with many experts in the field of juvenile

justice. we have spoke to all experts and in fact, even the chronicle highlighted the failures of the current juvenile justice system. the cause and the lack of positive effect for young people and the reduction of crimes committed by young people. there's a myth that we did not discuss that with the leadership of j.p.d. this is untrue. in fact, after i was elected at the end of last year before taking office, i met with chief nance in december 2018 and told him to his face, we should shutdown juvenile hall and find an alternative. this was said at starbucks on 16th and kansas, and the reality is the leadership of j.p.d. is the reason we're here. the lack of innovation focused on rehabilitation is imperative. furthermore, log cabin ranch was closed last year. where is the focus of an alternative for young people in

its absence. and j.p.d. waited until we announced we were going to close juvenile hall before they took steps to help young people. that's appalling that our young black and brown people should be locked down from things that will lead to success and change. we are pushing to increase opportunities for engagement with young people in a less institutionalized setting, more conducive to learning how to be productive. we've also spoken with mental health providers, including dr.

koufax, because the majority of young people committing juvenile crimes need mental health assessments. this is not a game for us but about the future of our young people here in frisan francisc and we have spoken with all of the experts, not focused on folks spewing hot air without facts. i have personally spent a day in the courtroom and spoken with judges who want us to do a better job. i wish i had time to run around and play make believe, but we have real work to do to improve the lives of our young people here in san francisco. with that, i also want to bring your attention to some amendments that reflect our commitment to work with city labor and with our colleagues. i'd like to bring this to a vote today to make history, but i also have a few amendments to go over.

i also want to thank supervisor yee and supervisor mandelman for their support and work in these amendments and help make their work in this ordinance a little bit stronger. so first amendment is on page 5, lines 7 through 12, and this is about a meet and confer. prior to the closure of juvenile hall, under this section, 119.3, the department of human resources shall provide notice to unions representing affected employees and conduct and conclude any necessary meet and confer under state and local law. notwithstanding the deadline imposed by this section, the city may close juvenile hall only after d.h.r. submits a written certification to the clerk of the board of supervisors and the mayor that the city has satisfied applicable meet and confer obligations. on page 13, lines 3 and 4, working groups shall develop a plan to transition staff to

jobs. page 14, line 5, add language to request that the director retain subject matter experts as needed. page 14, line 13 to 18, the amendment is that the final plan will be approved by the board of supervisors no later than june 1, 2021. this gives the opportunity for the final plan to be reviewed and voted on. page 15, line 13, the leets fee money and add funding for community-based alternatives. and page 16, lines 1 through 5 states that the undertaking is for the general welfare. so i ask for those acceptance to the general ordinance. i have given everyone a copy. i just want to reiterate that the purpose of this is to make

sure our young people have an opportunity even in an in-custody experience. i'm really proud of us that we have worked so hard on an opportunity that is going to influence our young people. >> president yee: supervisor ronen? >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much, and i want to thank supervisor walton for all his leadership on this legislation. i want to start out with a couple more thank yous because this truly was a community labor of love. i want to thank the key organizations who have fought for this and who have worked with my office and supervisor walton and haney's offices to work with various organizations, and many members of the juvenile justice providers association. and i want to give a shout out

to a core group of individuals who give an incredible amount of time to making sure this legislation was written the right way, who poured over numerous drafts and gave important insights to our office every step of the way. jessica, meredith, katey, dan, james, and a huge thank you. i just want to echo supervisor walton to our staffers, carolyn who came first to supervisor campos' office with this dream 8 years ago, and finally seeing it true. thank you, carolyn, and i also want to give a shout out and a thank you to jill and joaquin from the san francisco chronicle who did an incredible

investigative series and background reporting that really backed up what the community had been fighting for for over a decade, to shutdown juvenile hall. but what i really want to share with you, today, colleagues, and with the public is a -- a bunch of points that were written by public defender robert dunlap, because when i read it, i found it to be one of the most powerful reasons why we're doing what we're doing. many people throughout this debate has been trying to make a claim that juvenile hall is not a prison, it's not a jail. it doesn't have a feel of what adults go through when they are in jail, and that's just simply not true. and robert dunlap, who is in juvenile hall every single day had the following points to make. one rule is silence while

eating. during meal time, the kids sit at tables hudled around their trays, fore bidden to speak to one another. when i asked why, i was told that was the policy. the real reason i suspect is to further the convenience of the guards. number two, on the topic of food, parents are allowed to bring snacks on saturdays. nothing healthy or homemade, only soda and prepackaged junk food. point number three, which brings us to visiting. no grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, or ministers of the family unless they're parents. many parents are strapped with

watching the younger children, thus, the grandparents come. the position of j.p.d.? how do we know they're the grandparents? 50 minute time slots on saturdays and sundays in the m.p.r. with dozens of other people around, and during the week, you can only have an afternoon pass before dinner, or an evening pass after dinner. a parent cannot visit children two times in one day, and you only get one time of pass. number five, passes are generally issues in 30-day increments, so if your kid -- if it is -- is in longer, and you don't notice the expiration date, you can come home from work, feed the kids, and come here, and be turned way.

number six, after visit with the parents, the children are taken to a shower and strip searched by a guard. often, a guard will be sitting alone watching a football game on a sunday with every kid locked up in his room. number eight, in spite of recent antishackling laws, kids are vastly overrestrained. this in a place where every entrance is locked and controlled with multiple steel doors. this further imprints on the kids the notion they are criminals. as if the whole juvenile hall aspect were not enough, complete with sleeping on concrete with mats, and using

steel toilets, we recognize this has the reverse impact. number nine, kids are not allowed to sleep in the dark. a light is kept on, and if the kids put a piece of paper on it in order to darken the room in order to sleep, more room time. kids are categorized one through four based on time. transgressions such as having too many books in your room results in a level reduction. doing something well on the other hand, like getting straight a's does not yield promotion. this is a microcosm of the system. people and kids in general respond much better to positive reinforcement.

when a juvenile is injured and needs to go to the hospital, the parents are not notified until well after the fact, usually after the child is returned to custody. children are largely isolated from the outside world. they are not allowed to watch news or read the newspaper, yet they are allowed to watch movies and listen to music. number 13, because the children are not serving sentences, per se, they have no release date. from day-to-day, week to week, they never know what day they will be released from custody, nor do they know what time it is on any given day as there are no clocks in any of the housing units, ostensibly so the kids cannot coordinate an escape plan. this is what the kids that we

detain in juvenile hall deal with, so no wonder that study after study after study shows that when kids leave juvenile hall, they come out worse than when they went in. no wonder that the biggest indicator of whether a kid is going to spend time in prison when he or she is an adult is whether or not he or she spent time in juvenile hall when he or she was a kid. we have to change this. we spend $13 million on a jail like any other that is three-fourths empty all the time while kids come out worse than when they went in. with close to $300,000 a kid, we could be giving them a market rate apartment in a great neighborhood, and a private school education. >> president yee: excuse me. go ahead, supervisor ronen.

sheriff, please escort the public that's making the noise out of here. please escort them out. i wasn't too sure who was making the noise. supervisor ronen? >> supervisor ronen: thank you, president yee? we can do better. we can do better by our kids here in san francisco, and it makes me very proud to be part of a board of supervisors where the vast majority of my colleagues agree, aren't afraid

to have a vision, and have innovation and think big and bold, that we can serve kids in our cities better, and we're not afraid to be the first city in america to do so. >> president yee: okay. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: thank you, president yee. thank you, supervisor walton and supervisor ronen for your leadership. i think this is a powerful place to have at least 10 members of the board of supervisors to be prepared to make this statement and this commitment. i want to thank our staff who have worked incredibly hard on this, and the organizations, the young women's freedom center, the staff of juvenile hall who have also provided input. you know, for years, the community, and particularly those who have been closest to this system, the people who have been inside of it, the

family members, have shared with city hall, their stories, their dreams, and their hopes for a change. today, we will hopefully take a historic step in acknowledging those experiences and those truths by committing as a city to close down juvenile hall. the harsh truth is that the incarceration of children in jail-like environments behind steel doors in concrete rooms does not work. that's something that i hope we all can agree to. in fact, very often, it makes things much worse. incarceration adds trauma and pain to the lives of children who have already experienced an unimaginable amount of trauma and pain. in many ways, this was what the system was designed to do. juvenile hall is rooted in decades old flawed thinking about psychology and criminal justice, about building for punishment, who people we wanted to separate from society

because we viewed them as dangerous. the y.j.c., youth justice center was built in a different time and does not reflect the views of san francisco. we also know this is not the right facility for our needs because it sits today at 25% of capacity with many of those children there on misdemeanors or awaiting trial. it is a facility that overwhelmingly incarcerates black and latino youth. we could make changes around the edges, we could make small changes and small improvements, but if we did that, we would only be delaying the inevitable, and doing too often what we do in government, trying to make something work despite the fact we all know better. i want to be clear that this is not an attack on the staff at

y.j.c. or the organizations who work there. i've had the opportunity to meet with many of the staff who care deeply about these kids and had the opportunity to work with young people. they will remind us that they did not build this facility. this is not a facility they designed, and in fact, they're clear that the city built this facility, and for that reason, it's our responsibility to deal with it. we must partner with the staff as well as the many organizations, leaders, and mentors that work at the hall and recognize their work, their leadership, and their knowledge as we move forward. there's still a lot to figure out, and we should be committed to taking those next steps collaboratively. but what we do know is kids need treatment, they need support, they need education, they need community based nonincarceration solutions, and

they need opportunity, better than what we're doing here now. we need to take steps to break the cycle of youth incarceration in our city. it is not something we measure in dollars, it is a commitment we make to all of our residents and especially to our children. environments matter, facilities matter, and san francisco value matters, as well. i'm proud that our board and our city stand poised to make this commitment today. >> president yee: okay. supervisor fewer? >> supervisor fewer: thank you, president yee. i also want to thank my colleague, supervisor walton, for having the vision to bring this forward. but supervisor, i also want to say thank you so much for these amendments. i think these amendments are evidence of your ability to work with other colleagues, also, to work with labor, and also bringing groups together,

which is actually something that as we have seen on this board actually has better outcomes. i just want to say these amendments are fabulous, and thank you for bringing these amendments forward. as you know, our work on the school board, we often went out to log cabin, and we also went out to y.g.c., and i think the opportunity with only 30 young folks at y.g.c., that we can actually do better, that this is a time for opportunity. you're absolutely right, that we can absolutely do better. thank you. >> president yee: okay. there's a few more on the roster, but i'm going to make my statement. i just -- colleagues, i want to let you know all along that i supported community based alternatives to detention for our youth. my entire career has been about

building and improve a system of care and education for our next generation. based on the hearings, n newspaper articles on juvenile hall, i'm believing that this facility must be closed for social justice reasons and financial reasons, but there must be alternatives created before closing juvenile hall, and that has been my promise to support this. for a facility to be budgeted at over $13 million to serve less than 50 youth is outrageous when the means used are not effective and is not working. it's even more concerning that the budget increases to $20 million when you include the money that the department of public health uses from its own budget, not juvenile probation's budget, to be spent on these youth.

we are spending a large amount on these youth when we could be investing these resources in much more effective strategies that actually stop youth from ending up in the adult criminal's justice system. i will never -- i will never believe that any human being growing up is dreaming about being behind bars. we are all safer and better as a community when we help our youth pursue lives that cannot -- cannot involve and do not involve criminal justice systems. the initial -- my initial reservation about voting yes in supporting this legislation, however, was the fact that i did not see a concrete plan of action being mandatory before the deadline to close the juvenile hall. i want to ensure that we have

no gap between closure of the hall and implementation of the alternatives because i do not want to be in the situation where we are at the jail at 850 bryant, not to put resources into rebuilding the facility, but we are holding people in the most humane conditions, and we still have no certainty about when we're going to be able to get them out. i think we must have a concrete plan of action and in place first with actionable steps that we can strike -- start taking right away, not two years from now to avoid another situation like the one we have right now at our county jail. with these amendments that require that the concrete action plan be submitted to the board of supervisors at least six months before the deadline to set -- deadline set to close the juvenile hall, in addition

to mandatory progress reports every six months, i feel that my concern for the most part has been addressed. but i do not want to say on record right now that i think we should and can take action to ensure that whatever plan is developed, that we start the process, and we really want to start the process of moving resources from the juvenile probation to community-based services alternatives that's already used for detention. so finally, i want to make known my deep respect for the community of advocates, many of them are youth and women of color who have been working for years before this legislation was ever introduced. thank you for putting this forward and being the change that you have wanted to see for a long time. so again, supervisor walton and

cosponsors, in particular, supervisors ronen and haney for pushing us through this legislative process and these amendments that you have spoken about. supervisor mandelman? >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, supervisor yee. i want to thank supervisors walton and ronen for bringing these forward and for your bravery in bringing this forward. i think supervisor fewer has been working on this. i remember one of the first meetings of public safety and neighborhood services committee when i became chair was the closure of log cabin ranch and the implication for youth. i want to say that this ordinance has already generated positive outcomes. i think the mayor's blue ribbon

commission is a good thing that is looking at the broad range of challenges for these youth. the building is only one of them. for challenged youth, this is only one of the things that we need to address as a city, and i want to thank the mayor for convening that commission. for me, like president yee, the concern had been that i felt like we were moving towards an outcome without clarity on the path, and i do believe this board will need to grapple with the full situations that come afford with the closure of this -- that come with the closure of this building.

thank you for your modest changes, and with that, i'm happy to support this. >> president yee: supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: thank you, supervisor yee. first, i want to thank supervisors walton, ronen, and haney for starting this discussion on juvenile reform. i know this is borne out of wanting better for our youth, and i admire this passion, as i said to you, supervisor walton. i care deeply about this issue, as well, and i'm pleased to be working on the mayor's justice division blue ribbon panel where we heard from experts and community members with experience in the juvenile justice system. as far as i'm concerned, i've thought a lot about this. i know we're all on the same page when it comes to improving outcomes for our youth, and it's great that we're

challenging and bringing everyone to the table so we can be absolutely sure we're making the right choices. i know we all know things need to change and we need to put our youth first. i do have some questions for chief probation officer alan nance, if i may, president yee? >> president yee: you may ask your questions through me. >> supervisor stefani: thank you. through you, president yee. >> president yee: chief nance, please identify yourself. >> he lan nance, chief probation officer for the city of san francisco. madam supervisor, there are currently 33 youth in juvenile hall. last year, the average stay in

juvenile hall was 23 days. >> supervisor stefani: reading thr through the legislation, i was concerned to read that the majority of youth were not charged with serious offenses. that concerns me. i'm wondering if you can comment on that and also what charges result in youth detentions? >> that data is inaccurate, and in a letter that i penned to the board of supervisors on may 14 of this year, i included a summary of 3 distinct dates, a month apart, looking at the population of young people in our juvenile hall, the maximum number of young people on misdemeanor charges on any one of those days was 4%. by and large, the vast majority of young people detained on san francisco's juvenile hall are there on violent felonies, and more often than not, it was a

robbery or an aggravated assault. so the rumor that we're detaining low risk young people is not accurate. by the way, even when a young people is detained in juvenile hall, it is not based solely on that offense, it is based on a multitude of other factors, and it also includes a judicial decision. >> supervisor stefani: through the chair, i'm wondering if there's anything that makes san francisco's youth different from other municipalities. i know there are some worse, i know there are some that are far better. when i first met with you, after becoming a supervisor, i remember beingen kush encourag we had had such a drop in the number of youth in the juvenile hall. i wonder if you could talk about that in terms of how that

would make san francisco unique in a way or different from others? >> thank you for the question. first and foremost, i think when you look at the staffing of our juvenile hall counselors -- and yes, they are counselors, not guards. the counselors are highly trained, they're well supervised. they're not carrying weapons. if you go to contra costa event, alameda county, a young people might be subject to a counselor using pepper spray. that is not the case at san francisco juvenile hall. the law requires a minimum of one hour per week for visitation. most counties ahave limited to that. in san francisco, families are allowed to visit five days a week. we've created a merit system in

that environment, instead of punishing young people for doing the wrong thing, we're incentivizing positive behavior. the agree to which we have public services embedded in juvenile hall is stronger than most other places in the state. the san francisco unified school district provides a very well and structured academic setting for young people, so our juvenile hall is not just a place where young people is in secure custody, it is also a place where they are assessed, where they receive treatment, where they are connected to community agencies and where these young people are thriving academically for the period of time that they are there. >> supervisor stefani: and through the chair, who determines what a suitable juvenile facility is for youth in san francisco? who has that decision? >> the board of state and community corrections is the

board that has the ability to govern juvenile hall, the staffing levels, the training for the staff. all of those requirements are governed by the california state board of government and community corrections. >> supervisor stefani: and through the chair, one of the concerns that i have in coming to this vote and thinking about what happens is what if we come up with something that's not approved. so i'm wondering if the superior court does not approve the alternative to juvenile hall, what is the county's mandate to provide a place of detention? >> by state law, if the presiding judge of the superior court does not determine that the juvenile hall facility is a suitable place to detain young people, they can order the county to place those young people in other juvenile halls in other parts of the state. >> supervisor stefani: and through the chair, you had

mentioned reasons why people -- why youth were detained, and i'm wondering what other factors influence the judicial decision. i understand it's a judicial decision, obviously, to detain a minor. is that made solely on the basis of the offense, the law that's been violated or is there other factors taken into consideration? >> so there are certain provisions of state law that require that a youth who is at least 14 years of age and commits a violent offense in this state must be detained until they appear in front of a judge, so that is not optional. that is mandatory, embedded in state law. in addition, we often have young people that have committed domestic violence against a parent or sibling. those are young people who are not immediately going back home based on that offense. and the other challenge that we face in our juvenile justice system -- and this is a statewide challenge, that many y