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tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  November 30, 2019 8:00pm-9:01pm PST

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>> good morning supervisors, my name is nina. this item greatly effects the item i will be speaking about, which is cannabis social equity. from the testimony of a lot of the community organizers in this room, if this planning commissioner is not operating from a framework of racial equity and doesn't have a strict framework they're operating from, i advise they do not enter into the planning commission because we're having problems getting our businesses through and that's not the intent of our forward motion in trying to shift the way that our city operates from the equity lens. if that's the case, then everybody here that would be impacted is saying that she shouldn't be recommended. i will also stand in solidarity with them too. thank you. >> thank you, is there any other member of the public who wishes to speak on this item?
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seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] >> supervisor walton. >> thank you chair ronen. ms. diamond, i do have a couple follow up questions if you don't mind coming back up. >> thank you, what non-profit developers have you previously worked with? >> family house. the jewish community center of san francisco. the san francisco campus for jewish living. temple emmanuel. the blood bank of san francisco. >> and then you heard some testimony about not necessarily having a track record of working in certain impacted communities, what would you do to build a significant rapport with margin
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n -- marginalized community? >> i was listening to all the concerns that were expressed concerning my qualifications on equity, communities of color and how they're affected. i will say two or three things about that. the first is my decision to leave private practice representing for profit developers was a statement about what i thought was important going forward. it's why i, you know, worked with non-profits, where i felt using my particular skills, i could have the biggest impact on helping the tens of thousands of low income people in our city everyday. no, i haven't worked directly with any of the people or the
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organizations who spoke out against me today, but i will be the kind of commissioner who has an open door. not all commissioners take calls. i will be one of those commissioners who wants to hear from all communities ahead of time. i'm particularly concerned as is evident by the work i've done as a volunteer and professional in the last decade, actually since 2003, particularly concerned about those who don't otherwise have a voice. while my particular way of manifesting that has been to use my skills in ways that i can make the biggest difference for those groups. as a commissioner, this is a different role. i believe that i bring a willingness and eagerness to focus on the importance of making sure that our community is accessible for people of all income levels. people who are doing fine, they
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don't need me, it's the other people that spoke today, those are the people who need to make sure they have a commissioner that's open and understanding of and promoting those goals. yes, i'm very attentive to that. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> so, i'm going to make some comments about this appointment. it concerns me that i hear from many of the organizations that i work with everyday that i respect deeply, that have been at the forefront of citing displacement and for low income communities of color and that they're united in opposition of ms. diamond's appointment. that's worrisome. if ms. diamond is appointed, i
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would urge you to have an open door policy and proactively reach out to these community groups. they are extremely knowledgeable and have worked for decades fighting for the city and for their communities. i think you can and should develop those relationships and that it would lead to positive results. i would be frank. if i were the mayor and making this appointment, i would choose one of the community activists that spoke that spent their career looking for creative ways to allow for development, but to allow for development in a way that doesn't further gentrification. i do think that type of experience is what we need more than anything else in the city
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right now. but i'm not the mayor. i didn't make this appointment. what i would ask for an appointment from the mayor is someone who has integrity, who i believe has a mind of their own, and will listen to all sides and look at the issues without political interference. it's not a theoretical issue. i do believe ms. diamond that you are that person, and that you will be unbiased and you will look at the matters before you in an ethical way. i do believe you will reach out to these communities and i do belief you won't be improperly influenced politically. we had those conversations and i was impressed with your answers. i also know that underlying this
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discussion today is a real fear on who will be our next planning director. quite frankly, that is going to make a big impact on which way our city goes. the charter allows the planning commission to forward three names to the mayor and there's a lot of fear that one or more of those names won't be someone who is have this equity lens and this antidisplacement lens at the forefront of his or her mind. that's a concern for me as well, but once again, we have a very strong mayoral city. if the mayor doesn't like the three names sent to her, she can send them back until she gets the name she wants. we can all, you know, pretend that's not the case, but that's the case. that's how these things work.
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so i don't know how much, quite frankly, the person that we appointed the board of supervisors that will impact that. i think its incumbent on the entire community, if you're looking for a planning director that will champion working class communities, communities of color that have been displaced in alarming numbers from this city, that you need to make your voices heard and put that pressure on. i don't know that who we appoint today will radically change that situation. so, you know, i will also close with saying that ms. diamond will replace mr. hillis on the planning commission. he is one of the more moderate
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voices on that commission, so i don't think ms. diamond's appointment will lead us into that direction. i think you will have an open mind and look at the issues based on the facts. i am prepared to support your appointment today and i do really look forward to working with you ms. diamond, but i will be calling you often because the voices that you heard today that are concerned about your appointment are people that you need to get to know very, very well. their deep, deep experience working on these issues in the community, i don't think is often appreciated enough because their experience and their ideas and their willingness to think
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outside the box is the type of thinking that we need to be paying attention to in the city because we're certainly not going in the right direction. with that, i don't know if supervisor walton wants to make comments. >> thank you chair ronen. i want to say appointment decisions are very difficult and sometimes contentious and no one up here takes that lightly. we understand the responsibility that we have. when it comes to making decisions about appointments, i look at the track record, i look at the experience and expertise when reviewing appointments. i also look at the integrity, connection to community, and the purpose of the appointee, what is their purpose and of course i listen to the community supporters and dissenters and other people that do the work. most of you in this room know community voice is major and very important to me. it is very important to me and
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when i listen to my community and their concerns about appointments, naturally my antenna goes up. nothing points to ms. diamond making decisions that have negatively effected our communities. i know how it is to be in the fire and how it is for people to think they know how you would make decisions before you're given an opportunity. in so many cases, i've been misjudged in what decisions i would make if i was given a certain opportunity. i think some of you know that. and you know, i believe ms. diamond is qualified and prepared to serve with dignity due to her work within a non-profit builders and within the community. some of these builders we all support and want to make sure they receive the same, if not more opportunities than a lot of our for profit developers and so with that said, ms. diamond, i hope my gut is right in
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supporting you. i do believe you will be a voice that will listen to all sides as you make decisions and i definitely echo the sentiments of chair ronen and make sure you get a chance to know the community and have conversations because they bring valuable voice to this work and with that said, i definitely will be supporting this appointment and please make us proud. >> supervisor mar. >> thank you chair ronen. i wanted to share my thinking on this and comments and i wanted to make a motion. so, ms. diamond, again, i deeply appreciate your willingness to serve our city and your extent of experience on land use matters because these matters are at the heart of the crises we face as a city. our intertwine crisis of
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affordability, housing, and the role you're considered for is an immensely important one in providing oversight over these core questions. what do we build? where? how? and for whom. recently we released the job housing fit report that showed how grossly imbalanced our growth has been and what kind of housing we biuild with moderate and low wage workers left behind as we construct market rate luxury housing that's unaffordable for the average worker. we've done this for years, as the cost of rent and mortgages sky rocket and we done it without looking at this data. until i commissioned it, this report has never been done before. the fact is that the planning department, over the past decade has promoted market rate growth
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and failed to manager -- manage it properly or think creatively or make tough choices or invest in public housing, infrastructure and transit, that could prevent the displacement of working families and anyone that isn't super wealthy. gridlock streets, a crisis in traffic violence and fatalities and the list goes on. these crises didn't happen in a vacuum. they happened following decisions made in this building on the planning commission and in the department you seek to oversee. this is a critical moment for our city and for the planning commission. this is a chance for us to turn the page on the policies of the past, to think creatively and differently about how we ensure a future for working people and the middle class in san francisco. to move beyond a reliance on the
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market and inadequate community benefits to solve problems that the private market helped to create. for me in this moment, it's essential that planning commissioners bring the perspective of those most harmed by these crises. it's important that we hear new voices, new perspectives, and new experiences. we cannot afford to continue the status quo. working families cannot afford it. the middle class can't afford it. low income communities of color cannot afford it. we need a planning commission that shares the experiences of those being displaced and look like the communities we're losing and most importantly we need a planning commissioner that's accountable to the many, to the hard working people in this city who are barely hanging on. i am concerned about the representation of our neighborhoods, in the front line communities most impacted by the work that -- most impacted by
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what's been playing out in our city in the last decade and frankly i think it's essential that perspective that continues to be overlooked to further the status quo. so ms. diamond, i really appreciate your work, especially over the recent years in the non-profit sector and your willingness to be here. i deeply appreciate the perspective shared with us by the public and community representatives today. given all these factors in front of us, i don't feel this committee should be making a recommendation on the appointment today. i would like to make a motion that we forward this item to the full board without recommendation as a committee report. >> do you have any remarks about that supervisor walton? are you okay with it? okay, sorry, so you would send
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this forward, you just wouldn't make a recommendation either way. okay. that motion has been made. can we have a roll call vote. >> on that motion, vice chair walton. >> no. >> member mar. >> yes. >> chair ronen. >> yes. >> motion passes, the motion is to refer the matter as a committee report to the full board without recommendation. >> yes, and just to be clear what that means to everyone is that there will be a vote tomorrow at the board of supervisors that what the committee is saying that there are so many differences of opinion, that we want to leave it to every board member to make their own choice on whether or not to support your candidacy so we're not giving a recommendation one way or
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another. this is so important that everybody needs to decide for themselves what they're going to do. so that's what just happened. there will be a vote tomorrow at the board of supervisors. so thank you everyone that came out today. appreciate it and we'll see you tomorrow perhaps. >> madam chair, i did note that the title on the agenda did not list the number of years in the terms. if it's possible, i would like to make that amendment to know that it's a four year term. >> okay, sure. >> motion. >> i will make it a motion to make that amendment that's the a four year term and that motion passes. >> and without recommendation to tomorrow's board meeting. >> that's right. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> mr. clerk, can you please
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read item number 4. >> before i continue, i would like to state that we have opened up an overflow room. if you do not have a seat, we ask that you go to the north side court to watch this meeting as we cannot allow people who are not sitting in the seat to remain in this room due to the fire code. thank you. >> i wanted to say a short statement before we leave. i want you to look at the board pictures you have. >> excuse me, sorry. >> we're going to leave now because it's a fire hazard, but we came down to get a little voice on this. >> you will be invited to come back for public comment once we get to that point. >> okay. we'll let you get back to work. we're sorry. >> thank you so much. would you please read item number 4?
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>> number four, the right to affordable housing unit in a revitalized housing development. >> if you are remaining in this room, please have a seat in one of the remaining open chairs. >> thank you for your patience, good morning mr. miller, how are you? >> good morning. >> begin. >> fantastic. it's a tremendous day and i'm honored to be here. i'm here on the backs of dozens, if not generations of residents who are putting this forward on behalf of supervisor walton and mayor breed. i'll be brief because i know
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many of our residents want to speak and have to get back to work. very quickly, before you is an amendment to the right to return legislation for hope f.s. -- s.f., it's the largest public housing and reparation initiative designed to transform our public housing neighborhoods into racial equal communities. we use reparations intentionally to say we as a public private partnership are trying to repair what bad public policy has created in our communities. with hope s.f., we are for incredibly strong communities. this is west point, folks call it hunters view. folks use to call it double rock. you have the multimillion dollars views and down to the
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swamps, so sunnydale. so we have worked hard to repair broken promises across our four communities and all of you have supported the funding to replace the dilapidated housing. we're on the way. before you is historic legislation that positioned san francisco at the forefront of public housing transformation to ensure the three things happen. we are building this housing and in many ways, our families, some families are able to benefit from the housing, but not all families. we have seen over the past several years, 80% return rate at hunters view, but we're concerned about sunnydale. we want to make sure that as we build this housing, as we build this affordable housing in communities that have been left behind for decades, that the
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families that live there, that the families that raise their kids there, that the families that waited and waited, that this is the housing for them. so this legislation does three things. number one, it ensures that current households have a right to return to the brand new public housing in their communities. so whether you move to an off site, you move to an r.a.d. unit or staying at aunty's house, this beautiful housing is for the current families. secondly we want to ensure that all hope s.f. household members have a preference for the affordable. so the tax credit. for our 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds that are making tax credit income, we want them to have the first right. we want them to have the preference for the affordable housing. we're tired of our babies sleeping on couches, on cars, and we want them to have a unit of their own to raise the beautiful children that they're building in their community. then lastly, before you at the
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board is a process of transfo transforming the housing authority. they have tried for years, but they have failed our residents, so many, many former public housing families have been evicted, have left, have vacated, have abandoned less than stellar circumstances. we want to ensure those families who moved, who's been pushed out to pittsburgh and atlanta and baltimore can come back home. as we build these new communities, they know home is waiting for them. these are the three categories that mayor breed and supervisor walton have drafted. i would be remised if i didn't give a shout-out to chair ronen
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as well. i thank you on being here on behalf of the residents of hope s.f. >> thank you so much. supervisor walton. >> thank you, and first of all i definitely want to thank director miller for your work on this. of course all of your work with hope s.f., and you said most of how i feel. this type of legislation is very important and personal to me as many of you in the audience know. i lived on 25th street, at 32 west point road, and lot of my family no longer lives in these communities. there are reasons for that and what we're trying to do now is right some of those wrongs. all of these hope s.f. projects are all marginalized, isolated communities for too many decades. we have work to do to make chose changes. since we know folks have been displaced and we know folks have
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left the city to go to some of those other communities in the bay area, now this work can bring some of those folks back and that's what this legislation does. just a libel to -- little bit to add, this will allow the right for anyone who ever lived in one of our public housing sites. as we continue to create ways to fight displacement, and bring black people back and other displaced people of color back into the city, it's important to allow people who lived in dilapidated, enadequate, inadequate housing, back to the naked they helped build. this is a strategy to bring back communities of people of color. sun sunnydale will be able to return to the neighborhood where they raised children, built
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communities, and were contingent of their families remains. we must ensure that the diversity we celebrate is maintained. this is one step and one legislation that will help us achieve that goal. i want to demonstrate how important this is, thank you for coming up and your voice. i want to thank the mayor and all my colleagues that have signed on and their support, supervisor mar, supervisor ronen, supervisor yee, supervisor peskin, and this is important to the leadership of our city as well. thank you for being here today. chair ronen, those are my comments. >> thank you so much. i just want to thank you supervisor walton for bringing
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this forward. this is long needed, long delayed legislation that finally is coming forward and i couldn't be more excited about it. when we were going through the renovations and the conversions to the r.a.d. program, at holly court, in my district, the initial discussion with residents, there was so much fear that the moment they stepped out of their unit, so it could be rehabilitated, that they would never get back in. that fear was based on decades of displacement from san francisco. it was the rational and smart thing to fear. the city did a great job in trying to sway those fears and promise that everybody would be able to come back to their units.
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promises have rung hollow in the past. it wasn't surprising to me that many residents didn't feel wonderful and really safe based on those promises. now it's going to be the law, the law of the city. that is what it should have always been and that's what it finally will be and i could not be more excited and more proud to be supporting and be a sponsor of this legislation. thank you so much supervisor walton for bringing it forward. if there are no more comments from my colleagues, we will open -- sorry mr. miller. >> i just wanted public comments for our residents. >> that was what i was about to say, we're going to open this item up for public comment. anyone who likes to speak, feel free to line up to this side of the room. every speaker will have 2 minutes to speak. thank you very much. good morning. >> good morning supervisors. i didn't come here today to
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speak on this item, but now that i'm here, i i'm a resident from engleside and i want to know if this legislation has anything or mechanism that brings back the first gentrification of those from engleside. you speak of other areas, hunters point, visitation valley, army street, but you forget engleside, we don't have a bunch of projects, but we do have folks that are using section 8 vouchers, living in these places, these homes and they were gentry fit side first, when there wasn't enough money to allow us to stay in these homes. i hope there is something that bring back focuses -- folks from
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the engleside area. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> hello commissioners. i have -- my name is ashley roads. the thing i wanted to say in regards to this great milestone that's being done for our people. i'm concerned about construction itself. when the construction aspect of this great plan comes to fruition, how are we going to be gaurng -- guaranteed that we can get jobs that will be a livable source by having a real job, a union job that can survive them? i think it's so very much important to also look at the point that even some of these young brothers we're talking about, they had a job and
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opportunity to build their own houses, as well as live in them. it would be a great aspect for our city and for our people, especially in our communities. so whatever you do, that aspect of the process needs to be thoroughly investigated to make sure whatever contractors come out of there, whoever comes out there, that they have to identify what hiring young people in our community so they can have an opportunity. thank you. >> good morning everyone. i would like to say this is a long time coming. this is something really close to my heart. i am a resident of hunters view for the last 54 years. i have watched many people be pushed out and it is imperative we have young people that are still sleeping on the streets, not just cars. they're sleeping at the park
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because they're afraid the police -- they don't have an address, they will be pushed outside. i want to commend everybody on the board and hope s.f. for pushing this to the forefront. i am honored to be a part of this and to be here to see it happen. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> before we continue too much further, i would ask that if anyone in the overflow room that would like to speak on item number 4 under public comment, if you would make your way to the community room. thank you very much. >> hello commissioners. i have the privilege of patrol hill public housing since 2001 and i have a non-profit in public housing as well. this is a long time coming. my mom herself was pushed out where she had to move to chico years ago. she's back now living with my
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sister and she's 80 years old. my mom is. so i just look at our people that have been pushed out and have an opportunity to be able to come back, as well as us parents who still have their children living in their house. they finally can get out. i thank you very much. i am very serious because it's very hard. you want to stay in san francisco, but there's no place for them to move to because the rent is so incredibly high. looking at our young people that are living from place to place or couch surfing, and giving them an opportunity to grow up, not just grow up, but pull themselves up by their boot straps, looking at the construction part and really looking at getting our young people hired on in these jobs where they become successful, as well as having a career. we have some gentlemen that are in here now that they're able to work in their own community. this has to be across the board in all communities of color and
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low income communities where people are able to work in their community, not just during construction, but after construction as well. some of the people should be managers of those buildings, and some of the people should be managers in the shops and i'm going to stop because i actually know when to. [laughter] >> how are you doing commissioners? i am a native of bay view, hunters point. i just want to say thank you. this is the first time i heard of this legislation. my heart is pounding because i'm excited and shamann walton, the supervisor, we have faith in you. i am glad that you and mayor london breed and the rest of your colleagues are looking to bring in african-american backs, but we have to keep in mind that
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we're coming back, but we don't need to be coming back. we need to be coming back and we need to be thriving like everybody else. we need to come back and we need to know what it's like to live amongst our asian community, our latino community, because we're diverse now in bay view. there's no use in bringing people back if we cannot get on the same accord right now and not only saying that our youth and everything. my children are all grown now. i have an 18-year-old and 27-year-old. my 27-year-old is paying over $1,000 to live in the t.l. with a 2-year-old. she's fighting raccoons. my grandson has to go through drugs and all that. we want you to see our people out there that can't afford to live out here and they go shelter to shelter, and place to
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place and make sure you don't forget of those families and get them babies out of there. [applause] >> next speaker please. >> district 10, good morning. basically we feel that it's been due time that something like this gets brought before you because it's just like you know, we just feel that people that grew up and were raised and work in the community have a chance to own something and live in the community at the current rate. you get what i'm saying? basically that's it. >> thank you. >> thank you for hearing us. [applause] >> good morning, my name is
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quanica and i'm the vice president of the public wide tenant association. i think it's imperative we make this prioritization for those families who have been pushed out and the families that have done their best to actually get educated, get work, and plan on staying in san francisco. being born and raised here, even with protections like these, it's still a struggle with the high cost of living, so being able to allow other opportunities, such as employment and seeking home ownership opportunities as well is very key. i want to thank you guys for finally getting this brought in front of the supervisors. >> hello and thank you supervisors for having us today. my name is sophia. i am a first generation american. as the island of american was
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colonized, my family was pushed here to the west coast of the americas and we were placed in public housing. so my grandmother had, i think it was a four bedroom and each family stay in a room on top of each other. so it was kids upon kids in a room. so in north so this legislation, i'm very grateful for the investment to the vulnerable populations that have been pushed out and displaced and really isolated and alienated from each other, that a type of isolation and alienation doesn't give us the capacity to build culturally and grow together. so in gratitude and in support, thank you guys for pushing this along. >> oh my god, i got back in town
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just in time. [laughter] >> no listen, seriously. i thought there were problems here with baltimore, it is ridiculous. so, i'm back here pleading and begging but also stating there must be an update to all these housing situations, all this legislation because it goes back to r.a.d., before it goes back to hope s.f. we've been promised, the housing authority promises year after year with the r.a.d. program first came together under the administration, and the other lee was involved. i was there. i sat down with naomi and gave her my recommendations. my name wasn't mentioned, but that's okay. i got the documents. i got the receipts.
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so what i'm saying now, there must be an all hands on deck meeting about the r.a.d. program. the residents don't have a clue what's being done with public housing. they don't know that these developers are the ones who own these properties now, except for the ground. they don't know that they hired the non-profits to get rid of them and the people that look like me. they don't know that yet. they don't know that there are programs to keep you going on. they don't know that just because their family members have been arrested they're not going to be kicked out. these non-profits that will be coming into these communities owned by these developers. they ain't going to stand what the housing authority did. ace is on the case with the housing authority.
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>> thank you. >> what use to be the housing authority. >> good morning, good afternoon. good morning, my supervisor ronen. i have to realize i don't live in district 10, although i work like a dog there. shamann walton is not our supervisor but we support him wholeheartedly and thank you to all of you for this legislation. my name is joyce armstrong and i'm the president of the public housing tenant association city wide. yes, sir, we do have public housing in westlake. we have what is called the scattered site that is public housing along with the section 8. at the housing authority, if you need to talk to me. >> please address to the committee. >> sorry. a lot of people don't know that we have scattered sites. we have properties all over the city that don't fall directly in
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the name of a project, which i call developments or my home. i live there for the past 17 or 18 years. before that, i came at 1967 to have my first child at 18 and i've been working and supporting them ever since. i want to come along and support hope s.f. and the effort that the mayor and let this legislation go through. if you need me, you know where i am. just reach out. >> is there any other member of the public who wishes to speak on this idtem? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] >> supervisor walton. >> thank you chair ronen. i want to thank everybody for coming out and voicing how important this is to the community. i also hear the voices in terms of the amount of work we still have left to do. this is one step in the right direction and we're going to continue to work hard, continue
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to push policy that will make our communities whole. with that said, i love to move item 4 forward with a positive recommendation to the full board. >> without objection, that motion passes. [gavel] [applause] >> thank you so much. >> thank you supervisors. >> thank you chair. >> thank you so much. >> mr. clerk, would you please read item number 5. >> item 5, the ordinance amending chapter 19b of the administrative code, governing the city's acquisition, retention, and use of surveillance technology to allow the acquisition and retention of face recognition technology. >> anybody in the north light court, we do have open seats in the committee room.
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>> now please come forward. >> thank you chair ronen, committee members for hearing this item this morning. this item is a little piece of clean up legislation following legislation that we passed earlier this year at the board of supervisors to create surveillance use policies, for all surveillance used by city departments and relevant to the department. the amendment before you acknowledges the prospects that we have under taken since passing that legislation in the course of implementing this we learned that various city issued devices actually have -- excuse me, the amendment today essentially provides that the city may retain that use that
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technology, provided they do not use the face recognition function. we see this consistent to the spirit of the regulation passed earlier. it maintains the ban on the use of face recognition technology and i think supervisor peskin in our office wants to work with the city to exercise our purchase power and try to find alternative devices without that embedded feature. for now, it's a stock feature that is impossible to remove, it's necessary to preserve the city's standing. >> great, any questions? thank you so much. we're going to open this item up for public comment. any member of the public wish to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] >> is there a motion? >> excuse me, there are a number of clerical amendments. i apologize. they're throughout and clean up things to make sure what we're talking about here is city
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issued software or devices and essentially to provide that for these software and devices, they would be subject to the rest of the chapter. do i need to be more specific about that? okay. so we would request those amendments to be made. >> and you submitted that paperwork to the clerk? >> i did. well, here's for the clerk. i submitted copies to each of your staff. i do have one copy additionally here and the red line for the clerk. >> wonderful, that's what we needed. the red line. thank you very much. i'm happy to make a motion to adopt the amendment without objection, that motion passes. [gavel] >> i'll make a motion to move this item forward with positive recommendation. without objection, that motion passes. thank you very much. mr. clerk can you please read item number 6.
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>> item number 6 is the ordinance amending the administrative, police, health, planning, business and tax regulations, and campaign and government codes to change the name of the office of cannabis to the office of cannabis regulation. >> thank you. >> good morning chair ronen, supervisors mar and walton. i'm the director of the office of cannabis. before i sfart my remarks about the cannabis clean up today, i want to make all aware of an amendment at the request of the mra mayor's office to split the item. this will allow more time to discuss the proposed name
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change. it is my hope that we can move the rest of the items forward today. >> if you want to briefly go through the summary of the legislation. >> yeah, in my remarks i will go through all of it. do you want to address the split first or do you want me to read everything? >> go ahead and read everything. we'll decide whether or not to do that motion after public comment. >> all right, thank you. first i want to thank everyone for having the office of cannabis to this hearing. this is referred to as cannabis clean up legislation, not to be confused with cannabis 3.0, which is much anticipated this winter. the subject of today's hearing narrowly addresses some administrative technical changes that would clarify provision 16 of the police code and align this code with state legislation. my remarks will list the items
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introduced in my presentation. this ordinance which create as new cannabis business permit type for cannabis nursery, mirroring the license nursery code under state law. the state no longer allows applicants to apply for a cannabis business license as a member of -- to apply under this framework in order to conform a state law. if state law were to change on this topic, we would be happy to revisit this item. for existing operators, this ordinance would further clarify the processing order of permits as outlined in section 1606c of the police code, for temporary permit holders and article xxxiii permit holders,
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m.c.d.s as priority group 4. in addition to further the goal of enhancing public health and safety, state in section 1601 of the san francisco police code, this ordinance would require cannabis distributors to notify the office within 48 hours of learning cannabis products in their possession failed testing standards. as this legal industry matures, enforcement will become a priority and more focused core function of the office of cannabis. this ordinance would further support and encourage the individuals who have elected to transition from the unregulated market to the regulated market by providing a tool to the office of cannabis to thoughtfully address violations associated with equity applicants that have pending permit applications with the office. to conclude this presentation, i like to reiterate that this
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ordinance is being referred to as cannabis clean up legislation, different from cannabis 3.0, which will be a completely different conversation, including a whole host of exciting topics and is anticipated by stakeholders this winter. the purpose of bringing this cannabis clean up operation to you is to refine our regulations to reflect and align with the spirit and intent of our process here in san francisco. while today's presentation is more narrowly focused to the items before you today, i hope you will listen to the broader equity interest that may be shared by members of the community during public comment and i'm happy to answer any questions. thank you so much. >> great, thank you so much. any questions? nope? thank you. we're going to open this item up for public comment. anybody who would like to speak, please go ahead and come forward. you can line up to your right, my left. good morning. >> all right. so good morning supervisors.
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i am speaking in front of you today, representing a diverse collective of cannabis business hopefuls, soon-to-be operators and allies to the equity group s.p.c. we convened a meeting this past saturday to discuss the clean up legislation brought forwath tod with over 25 black and brown cannabis stakeholders and few allies. at the end of the meeting, we asked ourselves a few questions. one of them is why is the city concerned with making minor changes when we have bigger problems? the office of cannabis community re-investment fund has not been funded yet. in order to benefit these minor changes, we need the funds to be funded. according to the re-investment fund, the dollars should be used in order to address racial
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disproportionate arrests, generational poverty, community degradation, loss of education and employment opportunities, and burpdens from the failed wa on drugs. also workforce development, access to commercial real estate and access to investment financing. the access to commercial real estate and investment financing is crucial during this time period where we have our operators draining out their capit capital without being operational. we ask to have more support in getting money into the fund and we can set up our community for success. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good morning again supervisors. i'm from the engleside community and our community has been left out of the equity justice when
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it comes to cannabis. i'm here today speaking in opposition of item 2 of the cannabis regulation, not allowing equity applicants to apply for a permit as a cooperative. forming a cooperative is the only way that the 200-plus equity applicants can own anything in this cannabis industry. they're all monopoetalized by the wealthy investors. 1.3 million was given to the community by the state, and it should not be siphoned off through administrative fees to the city and torattorneys. congress is going to have its first vote to remove cannabis from the controlled substance coming this month and descheduling cannabis as a schedule one substance. i'm hoping that this ordinance
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that you guys are working on will allow cooperatives. thank you. >> hi, just the last note to anybody in the overflow room, there is seating in the committee room and we ask that anyone in the overflow room please come up to the committee room. thank you. >> good morning supervisors. thank you for having us. my name is braham goodwin. i'm one of the founders of the san francisco social club and the democratic club. we've been working to get access for people for medical cannabis and access in general. i just like to speak to something important, which is we worked with the office of cannabis and they done a good job. the resources they have,
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relatively speaking, are limited. there's a queue of about 300 applicants. i would just mention to all three of you that a lot of jobs could get created that aren't getting created. a lot of revenue could come to the city that would help in some of these areas that are not available because of the lack of resources and importantly, there are many storefronts in many communities that live on hate, that could be used as businesses for cannabis and operations like that. i really urge you to look at this because i think the investment that you would make by expanding the resource of the office would come back big time and help you in a lot of these other areas, and lot of the issues that people are talking about. thank you very much for your cooperation and for your look at this. thank you.
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>> thank you, next speaker. >> my name is perry jones, i'm a san francisco native. first of all, i would you tell me like to give thanks to the office of cannabis for allowing the work they're doing and the community group in the audience that's been showing support towards the development of upcoming operators and entrepreneurs such as myself that have been impacted by the w.o.d., the war on drugs. mainly i hope that it doesn't be tok tokenizeked when it comes to those who live in this community, and business owners, being able to contribute to the committee and give back, and some of us who have been taken away from the community to have the opportunity to give back. having a collective with the permitting, we all know that san francisco is expensive to live in and to start a business. when it comes to planning and
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commissioning, it seems that it's red lined. what it takes to get through a conditional hearing, it takes a lot. it makes us investable. who will want to invest when you have to wait a certain amount of time. just as the terms are permitable, i think it would be a good idea to have people in these groups to do business with each other and we nvr had a chance to do that. i think it would be a good thing and way for us to contribute back to our community. there is money that could be made, opportunities that could be made and also showing the different face of business when it comes to cannabis, which use to be a taboo. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hello again. even though everything has already been said, i would like to say and let the record reflect and let the city know that i am also too impacted by
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the war on drugs being born and raised in bay view, hunters point but i'm not necessarily looking to be a dispensary. i'm not looking to be a cultivator, so i'm being left out of the movement because those are the only things lined up. i am an educator. i have spent 30 years of my life going to school trying to be an educator, an activist and voice for the community. the funds released could help me start the california let's talk cannabis movement. i didn't initiate that. that came out of california. that's the movement that california, the public health is using to get the conversations going so that we can educate the youth, so that our youth won't be thinking they can drive around smoking weed. i don't need