tv Government Access Programming SFGTV October 19, 2019 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT
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opportunities for new restroom facilities at these costs at least. >> president buell: thank you. >> commissioner mcdonnell: i'm not flabbergasted by the cost. because i keep it in context. right? that context is if we looked at any of our construction projects, just three, four, five years ago, these costs would not be the same. not just for bathrooms, but for all other elements of a construction project. so is it a big number? yes. do i wish it were smaller? yes. we're getting ready to go, as we all know for the voters for another bond measure. and an unfortunate reality, no matter how large we're able to get that bond to become, it will be woefully insufficient because of the enormity of costs doing these projects and doing them well. i mean i'm not flabbergasted. it's the cost of doing business. and it's unfortunate, but it is
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what it is. thank you. >> president buell: general manager ginsburg. >> general mgr. ginsburg: a couple of interesting facts. actually, this is not close to the most expensive restroom. >> we know. >> general mgr. ginsburg: that was in district 4, where we did one from the ground up. what is interesting about the project worth note, is where a lot of the costs, is all the trenching, the facility itself is actually not expensive. it is all of the trenching and undergrounding that needs to happen to correct the restroom it our plumbing and electrical lines outside the park. >> president buell: thank you very much. the chair would entertain a motion. >> move for approval. >> president buell: moved and seconded. we may want to call the roll on this one.
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good afternoon, commissioners. taylor emerson. manager of strategic planning under the finance administration here for the fourth year in a row to present the equity analysis and the set of metrics with fy19 data. i think all of you have heard it before, but i find it important to return to the charter why we're here, what the direction is from proposition b, which became part of the charter in june 2016. i really like this one. i'm going to read the first paragraph. the department embraces socioeconomic and geographic equity as a guiding principle. and commits to expending funds across its open space and recreational program to provide park and recreational access to all of san francisco's diverse neighborhoods and communities.
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it sets forth then that we should develop a set of metrics and method for comparing low-income neighborhoods and the resources they have compared to the city as a whole. and then directs us to include the equity analysis in the strategic plan, the capital expenditure plan and the operational plan. all of which are coming to you in sequence. as you may recall, the method we've adopted starts with data in the screen, which is a tool developed by cal epa as part of our state's cap-and-trade program that had to define disadvantaged. the data is open source. and it's currently used by many jurisdictions across the state to inform resource allocation decisions. the state has collected data on lots of population characteristics, by census, including data that their own methodology does not use. and provided it all for everyone
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to use. two of the characteristics that we've adopted that the state does not use in defining disadvantage in san francisco with regard to park and recreation access, are age. since youth and seniors are some of our biggest customers. and we've added a factor for nonwhite residents in recognition of the long-term and systemic disadvantage suffered by nonwhite people. this data on these 10 characteristics are equally rated. and in our methodology they -- the rate or the frequency of these characteristics is accumulated and additive. and we extract all of the census tracked information in san francisco only, with i allow -- which allows a comparison of disadvantaged communities compared to the city as a whole. when we do that, this is how the
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map of san francisco looks. the threshold is set at the highest 20%. meaning the highest frequency of the combined disadvantaged characteristics. and in total, these are designated as equity zones. with this myalgic encephalomyelitis snoosh /* dsh -- with this imaginary line, we're able to compare the services there compared to the city as a whole. that's our methodology. it hasn't changed. although it has evolved. and this is a set of metrics. it's impossible to read on the screen. so i did -- >> president buell: we have it on our screen. >> does anybody want a -- okay,
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you have it. and this set of metrics is a tool for measuring ourselves, for measuring how we've allocated our resources in the past year. in the past, i've read every number, but i think that we're getting used to seeing this. i did want to start with just park access, with the growing population, our acquisitions, just about you know try to keep up. and those numbers are probably stagnate for a good long time. but with every other metric, every other metric has moved to the good. each one has improved in the four years that we've been doing this. which is partly the effect of measuring, because when you measure, you communicate what is important. and this is important to us. and staff and our -- with the leadership of our general manager and extensive training
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and effort by many individuals across the department, we have truly, sincerely made this kind of thinking part of what we do. it's part of our day-to-day. i want to look at volunteer resources, which has crept up just a little bit each year, because they have intentionally, with attention and focus, you know, each of them has a list of the equity zone parks at their desk. i've been there out by the new office by the windmill. and when there is discretion about where to send a volunteer group, they choose someplace from the list. and it shows. it started off at 22 and has now moved to 28%. so just a little bit, but every little bit helps. my prior presentations have ended here mostly. but this year i want to go a little farther even though i'm the last item on a long day i
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know you've had, because sometimes there is perception this is all we do. that the measuring is all we do. and that is not at all the case. so i want to just take you through a little more about the work across the department that we're doing to move toward more equity. in your packets, i attached what a call an inventory. i can tell you already, it's not complete. it's an idea of some of the other programs we're doing. i'm going to highlight some of them here. we're increasingly using a paradigm of internal and external equity. internal is the way we are with each other, the hiring, the recruiting. we moved to de -- identification where not only the name and the address is removed, but where they went to school, to try to reduce opportunities for the implicit biases to play into a
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decision. we have dramatically expanded access to professional development, learning opportunities, through our new r.p.d. portal, which is a learning portal that highlights all of the opportunities for learning not only more about your classification, or your live work, but others. in order to. because when one person -- when each of us is stronger, the organization is stronger and we encourage learning more and more in our culture. we go so far beyond the charter mandate in lots of ways. and externally, it would be hard to even list it. going back to our mission statement, which doesn't use the word equity but does say, you know, we do all of this for the well-being of everyone in our diverse community and those values are held deeply by our
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staff. another hard chart to read, but i'm harkening the concept here. our h.r. department has developed h.r. dash boards, which are -- which this particular one shows racial demographics of our labor market in purple, with the racial demographics of our staff shown in green. we have this is the department-wide graphic. but we can also do this by division. and so you know, if there is an opening in capital, you know, we can show folks, here's what you have right now and this is where you may -- you'll want to consider increasing your diversity. we also have this for age, gender, and geographic distribution. so this new tool really allows
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us to quickly and easily see where we are with regard to the market. we've done lots of other great things internally. dice which is our own internal staff. it's pay time, but people who volunteer to participate and they produced eight equity workshops last year. which were attended by more than 200 unique staff members. and it was a great success. we were going to start up the next one in fy20 in november. we're going to start inviting the commission, by the way [laughter]. yes. oh, h.r. in response to some of the things, part of the equity learning for me has been listening. one of the ways we've increased listening with staff is to we
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have an annual employee survey about training and tools and one of the requests was to learn more basics about civil service. training open to entry-level custodians about how to take a civil service test. they offered it once. 40 people showed up. there was a wait list and they offered it again. this is about equity of opportunity within our staff. and i'm really proud of what they've done. we began to use the equity tool kit to evaluate budget decisions, which it's a practice, way of thinking about, all right, there is a proposal, who will this benefit? who will be hurt by the proposal? are there mitigations for that form of hurt? and it's a complex tool and we just started to united statse ir
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and we look forward to embracing it in the coming budget. these are just a few examples. externally, i love this photo of the new basketball courts. and resurfacing basketball courts across equity zones has been a priority over the last few years. and not always bringing paint and regular lines. we've also changed our scholarship outreach -- >> this basketball court, the mural was actually designed by western edition muralist. >> another example, yeah. i just love it. i put this as my screen safer on my computer. we're changing -- we're adding focus to our scholarship outreach. i know you've heard us say before, we prioritized deferred
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maintenance. all the t.m.a. in the work order system, all equity zone parks are coded, so that the supervisors and managers who are assigned in the queues for the workload that day can give priority to equity zone parks. and i want to stop right there and say, part of equity work for me, i was raised in a budget world, where we're taught to think if we take money away from one thing, we give it to somebody else and there is a winner and a loser. what i learned is that is not necessarily true. i think the evidence for that is that our overall park scores have continued to go up. and we've brought the bottom up. so these things can be true at the same time, that we are prioritizing equity, but not sacrificing serving everyone. we have a strategic plan commitment to improve and activate one mini park within an equity zone each year.
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by the yard, their own skills and inventiveness have done this. i hope you drive by blue phelps and see the simple, yet profound transformation. i don't know if i'm breaking the big news, but we got $2 million in the budget this year to develop a program called rec spark which will bring free, dynamic and culturally recreation to youth in public housing. we're going to bring recreation to them with the hopes of kind of getting them to come to maybe a drop-in program at the nearest rec center and then participate in structured recreation with a scholarship. one more. i don't usually include pictures
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of our general manager in the presentation, but that is so cute. and this is an awesome program. i appreciate the time that he gives to coaching it, and to fundraising. bayview united soccer team, which is an example of a personal effort to bring more equity to our world. and this is the kind of thing that we're trying to encourage across the department. >> president buell: is he really cute? [laughter] >> smiling anyway. finally, i know you've heard about the india basin project. and the equitable development plan that is part and parcel of this very important project. and i think the heart of it is thinking about how to make this
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significant investment and improvement for the benefit of current residents and future residents. that's some of the things we're doing. but there is lots of work across the city. i attached in your packet, the legislation authorizing a new office of racial equity. which will be housed within the human rights commission. which will take city-wide leadership on these complex issues. and we look forward to getting their examples of a racial equity action plan and then submitting our own by december 21, 2020, which we'll bring to you before that. i'm going to close with this. which is another example of an individual in the recreation staff who was running summer camps and who found this graphic
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and laminated signs and put them up at all the single-stall bathrooms in rec centers across the system. and you know, to try to bring a little bit more equity to, you know, for most people, is not a big deal, the bathroom, but for some kids it can be a really charged environment. this was a moment of trying to make those kids feel more welcome in our facility. thank you so much. >> president buell: good presentation, thank you. >> commissioner harrison: thank you for your work. this is great. if we could go back to the equity metrics for the fiscal year, that schedule, and go down to kids in nature. at the end, for city-wide, that 3100, is that 3100 kids under 18 signed up for the various programs? >> yes. >> commissioner harrison: does that mean there is that many
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kids or they signed up for two different things? more than one program? >> actually, good question. you caught me there. that is not unique registrations, that's just all registrations. so it could be somebody took kayaking, thought it was awesome and decided do the fishing trip, too. >> commissioner harrison: there is not 3100 kids in san francisco under 18. >> oh, there are, but not in our programs. >> under 18, significantly more. >> really? i'd like this know -- >> there are 57,000 kids in the san francisco unified school district. >> thank you. i've had this argument with my son. >> still too few. if the number is direct, you -- i think 84,000 to school aged kids living in the city, but it's still less than 10%. >> still have a lot of work to do to get the rest of them in.
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>> commissioner mcdonnell: i always appreciate when you come. >> thank you. >> commissioner mcdonnell: i just want to say thank you for leading the work. i particularly appreciate your transparency around your own evolution in this space. and certainly appreciate the department's commitment to this kind of focus and rigor and prioritization of this, thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. i'm a humble student. thank you. >> president buell: this information only? this is an action item. sorry. >> there are no members of the public. >> commissioner bonilla: when we first established these metrics, many years ago, about how many years ago was that? >> about four years ago. >> commissioner bonilla: four
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years ago. i really -- i was doubtful. i had some doubt as to looking at the resources we had in the city, and how diverse the population is and looking at all the due diligence that would be required to really uphold the standards that we were setting. i really was doubtful as to how far we would come to really addressing some of the issues in terms of how accessibility to all our venues and so on by all the diverse communities. i just want to say, i think
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we've in such a short time, i think we've just gone -- we've made quantum leaps as far as i'm concerned in the work that has been done. and i think what this stems from is that since we established the metrics. every action item we've taken on new projects, the venues, anything to do with work being done at the department level, it seems to me that you have always framed our discussion around this whole notion of metrics. and i think that is -- i think it's been critical that you've
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done this at every turn. i mean, everything we've done. and i think -- i think that speaks to your -- to the department's commitment to really -- i mean, when we establish these metrics, to really work within that framework and to do all the hard work, you know, that needed to get done. and i think you -- the department has to be absolutely commended for doing this due diligence. and the reason this is -- this has made such an impression on me is because i'm involved in other departments, the work that i do, such as the department on aging, and i have seen how they have dealt with establishing their metrics and following
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them. and i really -- i don't want to be critical, but i really have to say that they have -- i mean, they are so far behind in terms of realizing any of the goals that were established for some of these departments. so i think we're all to be commended for giving all of this work done and i'm so appreciative. thank you. >> president buell: thank you. >> general mgr. ginsburg: i wanted to thank taylor. this has truly -- as she has said, it's become embedded in the organization and a lot of that is because of the values that this commission expressions day in and day out. but operationalizing this, measuring it, tracking it, you know, doing the reminders, and,
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commissioner, it seems like you're talking about not just our equity metrics, but our strategic planning and equity is embedded in the strategic planning. for every initiative we mark or highlight the initiative so that the entire organization knows -- and the public knows the specific ways the things that we are doing that are focused on equity. but there is a saying in parks that is very apt. the saying is, if you don't count, you don't count. and so that's why the measurement piece of this is actually -- that's not the thing. the thing is the work. but the measurement is important and taylor really is our quarterback and chief administrative officer and whatever title -- the best title for her, she's our heart, head and soul on this endeavor and i'm grateful for her work on this. >> president buell: thank you.
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seeing no public comment, chair would entertain a motion to approve the equity metrics. moved and seconded. all those in favor? so moved. thank you very much. >> item 10, general public comment. any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. item 11, commission matters. >> commissions don't matter. >> clerk: any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. item 12, new business, agenda setting. >> can we give richard a category of his own? >> okay. we're on item 13, communications any public comment, seeing none, public comment is closed. item 14, adjournment. >> moved and seconded. so moved. thank you very much.
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parks as we can, you have a value garden and not too many can claim that and you have an historic building that has been redone in a beautiful fashion and you have that beautiful outdoor ping-pong table and you have got the art commission involved and if you look at them, and we can particularly the gate as you came in, and that is extraordinary. and so these tiles, i am going to recommend that every park come and look at this park, because i think that the way that you have acknowledged donor iss really first class. >> it is nice to come and play and we have been driving by for literally a year.
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>> it is kind of nice. >> all of the people that are here. >> good morning. welcome to thursday, october 17th meeting of the government audit and oversight committee. i am joined by supervisor brown, supervisor peskin is running late this morning. thank you to the committee clerk. i would like to thank sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. we are joined by supervisors
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ronen and mandelman. we are grateful to our colleagues for joining us today. however, this meeting will be conducted in all respects as a regular audit and oversight committee meeting. any substantive decision will constitute a recommendation of the committee rather than action by the whole board. mr. carroll will make a note. >> at the present moment we don't have a quorum. this committee is operating as the normal committee with a few extra guests. >> do you have any announcements. >> plea silence cell phones. speaker cards and documents should be submitted to the clerk. items today will appear on the october 29, 2019 board of supervisors agenda unless
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otherwise stated. >> thank you. do we have a motion to excuse supervisor peskin? can we take that without objection? >> who was the mover on that. >> roger brown. >> please call items one, two, three, four together. one hearing to discuss the removal of 41 out of 55 long-term beddings from the adult residential facility. >> agenda item two is an ordinance -- excuse me. agenda item two is a resolution urging the department of public health to rescind. item three is submitting the health code to require 55 bed residential facility. four is ordinance to require department of public health to
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maintain and operate at full capacity 55 bed facility as soon as possible but not later than july 1, 2021. before that 41 of the 55 beds may be used as emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness. >> i would like to turn it to supervisor ronen for remarks. >> thank you. good morning i am happy to be here to announce that we have reached a resolution to this crisis that was before us. after months of disagreement on the issue, this past friday afternoon my office, together with worker leaders from the adult residential facility, local 21 and the representatives, dph leaders and mayor's office and supervisor
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haney's office worked out an agreement related to the future of the adult residential facility. i am happy to report this will protect is health and stability of the 32 residents who live at the adult residential facility. it is the only boarding care facility for severely mentality ill. no resident will be forcibly removed from their home and the city's long-term beds will be protected. we have incorporated the key aspects into my ordinance. the adult residential facility in committee. there are a few more small details we are currently working on with the city attorney and those changes will be worked out between now and when it is heard at the full board on october 29th. the amendments we have incorporated in my legislation have been distributed they are
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as follows. for the next five missouri month -- five months 28 adult residential long-term treatment beds and 27 emergency shelter beds known as hum igbird beds. in april 2020 they will be required to operate an adult residential facility with no fewer than 41 deads. for the five residents who will be offered placements they will we having the opportunity to discuss options with the person before accepting a volunteer transfer. dph shall provide trauma care training to all adult residential facility staff provided by experts that do not work at the center. there shall employee a working group for management and staff where they come together and discuss issues related to
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resident care, workplace conditions and other issues. dph shall insure an objective analysis and review is connected where the residential facility is located no later than march 31st. they shall submit the report to the board of supervisors providing updates with the objective analysis. in addition there is a small typo in the draft i passed out to you. there are two small changes on page 2. online 18, it should read at this from 55 to 14 not to 11. scratch out 11 and put 14. then online 19, it should read ccl approval extends through july 30, 2020, not 2021. please cross out 2021 and add
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2020. i just want to give a huge thank you to a huge list of people because this really was an effort that started from the staff at the arf and the patients and came to my office and supervisor haney's office from the front line workers. please give me a minute to say a bunch of thank u.s. first, i have to thank supervisor haney, who has partnered with my office on this from day one, both you and your staff abigail are extraordinary and it is a pleasure to partner with you. caroline gooslin, my chief of staff, has been living and breathing this issue and the mental health system in san francisco. we are going to return to being
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parents as soon as this is over because our kids have suffered by not having us present. thank you so much, caroline, your work is extraordinary. i appreciate you every day so much. i want to thank the workers at the adult residential facility and the behavioral health center starting with jennifer who despite being extremely sick is here today because she cares so much for these patients she doesn't let anything stop her. jennifer, we would not have known about this situation if it wasn't for you. this was kept secret from us, disclosure of the beds was never told the board of supervisors. we would have opposed it. we didn't know. you had the bravery to come forward and blow the whistle what was happening on the arf.
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you put everything on the line for that. i don't know that there is heroism greater than that. i appreciate you and admire from you the bottom of my heart. thank you for caring so much about your patients. then i also want to thank amy wong, sarah larson and jennifer and the many others who spent every single day of their life doing this heart-loving incredibly difficult work who care so much about these patients, who are their family and who haven't let them down for a moment. you are extra human beings. getting to know you has made this job worth it for me. thank you so much for being the extraordinary people that you are and for caring and loving these patients with the dedication that you do. you really inspire me so much.
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thank you. i also want to thank the emergency room nurses who joined with the arf patients. heather, julie and the conservators who take care of the sickest individuals and and advocate on their baffin behalf. michelle and victor. you have just wowed us all. we are so lucky to have the quality of care that we have that you provide every day in this city. i want to thank the arf residents, many are here and families for fighting with us and being courageous and telling their stories, marcus and donna.
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you have really been the most incredible self-advocates. the family members and especially parents like judith who will never let their loved ones down. i also want to thank the amazing leaders and staff at local 21 and especially vivian. we see you and love you and admire you. deana and jason and kim from the san francisco labor council for being there from the beginning. it is the unions that provide the safety for workers to be able to feel comfortable coming forward collectively and taking action on their behalf and behalf of their patients. without unions workers wouldn't have that safety.
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we just appreciate organized labor as always. finally, i really want to thank the mayor and her staff, and particularly doctor grant colfax and rhonda simons for sitting down and really, really coming to the table and negotiating on the issues. we appreciate you for taking the time and energy and for listening and for changing your minds. that takes a lot of courage and wwe commend you for that. with that we are probably going to hear from some other colleagues. i wanted to ask supervisor mar after they speak if you can move this forward with recommendation as amended. if you can a it and then move it forward and please file the informational hearing and table supervisor mandelman's resolution and soup -- sorry the
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resolution. i didn't realize they are here but they both agreed. they can tell you themselves. with that, thank you so much, everyone. >> thank you. supervisor mandelman. >> thank you, chair mar. yes, going back to when i first heard people telling me that the city was closing or downsizing the arf, i couldn't believe that was true. my initial reaction was there is no way we would do that right now in this time when there is such a scarcity of beds. i was familiar with the work that the arf does and the importance of it. as i began digging, the picture became more complicated and more troubling as we learned that in many ways i think the proposal
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that came forward a couple months ago was a well-intentioned effort by dph management to fill empty beds. and learning we had for many years had empty beds, not just at the a rf but in the locked facility on the third floor was in a lot of ways even more troubling to me. i thought it was important to make clear that everyone on this board and also to get the mayor's concurrence believes we need the arf, a publicly operated long-term care facility for people who cannot and will not be effectively serve would by nonprofits or private operators in the community. i think that for a couple of months at least there has been broad agreement in city hall
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about that. it is himself important to -- also important to me as we move to that goal as quickly as possible we fill every bed, which we have not been doing for several years. i am very pleased and grateful for the compromise that labor, workers, colleagues, mayor and department of health have struck. i think it achieves all of the goals that i would have for that arf facility. it makes sense. it is a great compromise. i am happy to echo the request to have item 4 tabled. i would like to be a co-sponsor to the amended ordinance. >> thank you. supervisor haney. >> thank you, chair mar. i want to echo the long list of thank u.s. both supervisor ronen and mandelman have put out
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there. i want to thank you, supervisor ronen for your incredible leadership and advocacy on this. i want to underscore the gratitude for the workers at the arf for the patients and families for raising the alarm on this and not backing down. there was, as we are all aware, many weeks of organizing and direct action and meeting with the supervisors, and i want to thank you on top of everything you do every day for advocating for your patients. i also want to say i am sorry. i think this is something that on top of the incredibly difficult jobs the trauma you experience yourself, hard work and long hours for you and for the people that you serve to then have to have the additional
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trauma and anxiety and uncertainty that came with this announcement, one which you were not consulted around, i think is especially unfair, and this should be the compromise itself is a lesson in how we should work with each other and whether it is with the dph or mayor's office or supervisors but it should be a warning this is not the way decisions should be made moving forward. we should be consulting the most important folks, most impacted individuals, residents, workers, unions, and working could lab boratively to lead to outcomes like the compromise if we had done it that way to begin with. i am grateful, and i am also sorry thi this is the way it cae about. i hope we learned a lesson about how we should listen and who we
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should listen to and how we should work together. i am very thankful we were able to come together to work out the agreement to support the health of the residents and protect the long-term care beds that we need and address the crisis on the streets as boarding care homes close it is essential to protect the long-term beds that we center, and as we seek to expand more, this is exactly the sort of facility that we need to be supporting fully staffing, protecting, and growing. i am thankful for the solid compromise and thankful for the leadership of supervisor ronen and mandelman and the workers and patients who rogue rose them
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and got us where we have a solid compromise and lesson how to do this better in the future. thank you. >> did you have additional comments? >> there are a lot of thank u.s. i made a glaring admission. city attorney ann pearson who has not only been the city attorney on these ordinances but also on mental health sf and those ordinances. as city attorney when there are different parties at the board of supervisors you have to draft all versions of the same thing. that gets hard and overwhelming. i found it strange because normally that would be a conflict of interest. in government, it is not.
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i have always found it strange as an attorney myself you have to represent th the dualing sids with confidentiality in a timely manner. i hope you are watching, ann, you have done an incredible job. i know you worked weekends and i wanted to also acknowledge your extraordinary work and thank you so much. >> i want to thank supervisors haney and reaso ronan and manden and i want to thank the staff at the arf unit and the families and advocates for raising your voice to find the best solution. it has been really a great
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learning experience for me inning our complicated mental health and behavioral health system, and just learning from all of you and just yesterday i had a chance to visit a wonderful mental health facility or behavioral health facility in the sun set district to learn about the important services they have been providing for decades and to learn a number of their clients are residents in the arf unit and hear from the staff about the importance of the long-term care beds being maintained. i am really glad that all parties have been able to come to agreement on a good plan to teen the unit own and address the issues highlighted that need addressed with the arf unit.
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i think we will move. supervisor brown, do you have any comments? >> i am happy that we have finally worked together and found solutions because as, you know, we know when we are talking to everybody on the streets, our constituents this is a top priority. in my district, i used to have the most board and cares in the city. now half of them have been lost in the last five or six years, which is actually scary. there is one that is up right now we are trying to buy so we can keep everyone there. these are so important we need to make sure that we have places people can go when they need that. i am happy now we are at this
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place. this is moving forward. it is going to be realty. thank you. >> we are going to go to public comment now. i have speaker cards. i will read the names. if you can -- if your name is called please line up on the right side of the room and step up to the microphone. vivian, jennifer, marcus, connie, jennifer and denise louise. >> please state your first and last name. >> good morning. my name is vivian. i am president of the board of mental health association of san francisco. i have been a mental health advocate for over 40 years, including 20 years in the field.
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one of the important projects i worked on decades ago was about measure to build what is called the adult residential facility. the need was so obvious and pressing. never could we have imagined that a time would come when the city would decrease the number of beds and would leave the beds empty while people languished at inappropriate levels of care. we are talking about far more than a physical bed. we are talking about a trained staff to guide people on the path, meals and access to medical care. we are talking about a safe place to sleep under the same roof with peers who can bond over the struggles and grow by sharing concerns and insights. the need for those beds was great when the facility was
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built. it is even greater now. >> thank you. next speaker. >> i am jennifer esteem. i want to say thank you to supervisor mandelman and ronen and haney. the need for these beds are incredible. it is real. there are so many people on the street we cannot narrow our scope to serving those only in crisis. we have to understand that suffering with a severe and persistent mental illness is a lifelong need and to take people from crisis to quality of life that is lasting means you can't just focus on crisis and homelessness as one piece. temporary solutions taking them
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off the street for one day is not enough. i want you to consider as the vote comes soon, as decisions are made here in city hall room 250 and 200 to decide the next step with our mental health system. what are the next steps? collaboration is paramount as we figure out what to do. will we be focused on policing and putting people in inappropriate settings or will we recognize that prevention and care are most important? when we are talking about regular people like ourselves, we must recognize that they have to be treated with the most concern, care and human treatment possible. that does not mean in jail or forced treatment. it means having treatment options credible and humane. i implore you all to consider
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wisely. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is. [ inaudible ] i am a worker at the behavior health center. i am thankful to work with our clients for the last 14 years. this is not just a job. i love what i do. i am so grateful to be working there. the last two months felt much longer than the last 14 years. i am hoping and praying that our arf residents do not have to go through this again. i am happy and relieved to hear that they will not be forced to leave their homes. i hope that the arf program and the staff will continue to provide great support and care to our sf mental health
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population. we feel we have heard by the supervisors and dph. i am so grateful the staff members, union, management came together to work and a solution to save the arf and our residents' homes. i am looking forward to working with my peers to come up with a plan to make the arf a better home for our residents and to create a better working environment for the staff. on behalf of the members and residents i give a great big thank you to everyone and especially jennifer and the supervisors and others who worked so diligently for the last few months to save the arf. also supervisor mandelman, thank you for your support and visiting the arf. i really appreciate it.
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thank you so much. >> next speaker, please. >> i am jennifer. i am a social worker working as a behavioral health clinician on the third floor. the clients i work with are san francisco residents who need the beds like the beds at the arf, residential beds to be able to get out of locked treatment. first of all, i want to really thank supervisor haney, supervisor ronen and supervisor mandelman. i know this took a lot of work and i really appreciate you coming out to visit and seeing the place that everyone is considering and your personal consideration in this matter. i also really wanted to thank jennifer esteen who led this and helped this happen. really grateful to dph to
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hearing the front line workers, hearing the clients, hearing the people with feet on the ground. it is very, very powerful. this just offerings a lot of hope that both sides are able to come to this agreement. it gives us a lot of hope. allowing these beds to reopen allows people, for people to maintain their homes, allows people to not just get homes then need but to receive care throughout the city and flow throughout the city. this is beyond be the arf. thank you very much for all of your work on this. >> thank you. >> good morning. i am connie. i work at the behavioral health center for 20 years. i also come down to the arf to help when n
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