>> i'm joined today by the director of the department of public health, the department of emergency management, and the police chief, and the director of the human service's agency, trent roher and the director of homelessness and supportive housing. thank you all for joining us here today. as of today, may 4th, we have 1,624 cases of the coronavirus here in san francisco and sadly, we have lost 29 people to the virus here in our city.

and if you want more information, you can please visit datasf.org/covid-19. it's or tracker with detailed information around testing and other helpful information by zip code that people may be interested in seeing. and today, i had a couple of things to talk about specifically, the new health order issued on friday by our county health officers and i really mention this on friday, but i think this is really exciting, that even though we still have challenges that exist, the ability to allow people to get back to work is so important. and construction in our city will be allowed, as well as outdoor businesses and today, i just want to express, again, my appreciation of the outdoor activities, outdoor businesses

and how important it is to make sure that we start to gradually get back to business. we know our governor announced a plan that he will release on guidelines, as well as timing of when some of our small businesses, our book stores, small retailers can get back to work and i think it's important that we provide some guidance. to be clear, the whole point of the health directive has everything to do with limiting our ability to be in contact with people so that we can avoid not only transmitting the virus or contracting it ourselves in the first place. and the ability to do that is critical, but we also realize there are a number of people out there that are struggling financially and if there is a way to accomplish the public health goal of keeping people safe with also allowing

businesses to operate but to operate differently with certain guidelines, i think that we can definitely work together to achieve that goal and get to a better place. in fact, this weekend, i spent a lot of time in a lot of neighborhoods, all throughout the city, and actually, there was a flower shop on chestmut thachestnutopen and and availabe it's considered an essential business. i don't remember being happy when i stood in line at a six-feet distance and i didn't even care. i purchased flowers and i was so happy to purchase these flowers that in my house, i take them with whatever room i decide i'm going be in and that's the room that the flowers will travel in and it's just, you appreciate

things a lot more, but, also, i was so happy for the business that was able to open and when i looked around the area, i thought, with some of the retail businesses, why can't they do the same thing. they weren't allowing any customers to come within their -- inside within their shop area. it's an outdoor flower shop and there was a divider up and a gate. and there was no way anyone was entering the business but the ability for people to stand in line and to purchase and get flowers was absolutely incredible. and the good news is, in in health order that was just issued, a florists are able to deliver flowers for mother's day and i hope many of will take this opportunity to either go

online or call your local florist or put in an order for flowers, not just through this weekend for mother's day, but just in general because we want to continue to support that industry. we know flee market flea markete open again and you'll see food trucks. oftentimes, it's one or two people working in these food trucks and they don't have the ability to manage a line and so, again, this goes into, you know, asking everyone to be supportive of maintaining your distance, wearing your mask and being respectful of one another so three cannot only continue to allow street vendors and all of these other great things, florists and gardeners, we want them to stay open and the only way tie lo we allow them to stan

is when people follow the rules. as we look at other opportunities to allow nonessential businesses like our book stores and our retail stores where you can buy clothing or toys for kids or things of that nature, as we start to look at those opportunities, we're going to be paying close attention to what we've already allowed. and if we're not able to manage and maintain those wit with the distancing requirements, it will be difficult to start to get back to business. and so i just want to express my appreciation to all of the small businesses out there and, also, understanding that we know you're struggling and it's going to be important for us to look at and implement new guidelines, but to also make sure that you're able to get back to business without compromising the incredible gains we've already made as it relates to flattening the curve, not reducing the curve.

we still see the number of deaths go up and we still see the number of cases go up and we are by no means out of the woods on this, but we also recognise this there is a possibility to provide opportunities for small businesses to open safely with certain guidelines and we will continue to work with the governor and work with our public health officials to try and do it in a responsible way and we appreciate your patience and your cooperation. and, you know, again, as i spend a lot time in a lot of different neighborhoods all over the city just to get a feel for what was happening in the castro is by the beach and in other places, i did notice something really upsetting, and that is the number of people who were not socially distancing themselves at the deloris park.

deloris park continues to be a challenge because we know on nice days that is the place to be for so many folks. it's a great place, good energy, good weather and, unfortunately, again, we had a real challenge with people who were coming together in groups and not socially distancing themselves from one another and the work, the folks, our park rangers and other security, they had their work cut out. we're all adults here and there's no reason to send in any of our law enforcement or anyone to tell people what they should be already doing. and so, i bring up deloris park, because today is a nice day in san francisco and our goal is to monitor deloris park within the next couple of days. and if we see that that behaviour has not changed, we will close of park and i want to be clear. this is the last thing i want do

and we know that people need fresh air. they want to be out but if we continue to see that behaviour become problematic at deloris park, it will no longer be available. so i'm asking everyone to be cooperative and to make sure that they're following social distancing. people are wearing their masks when appropriate do so so that we are able to continue to enjoy this incredible open space and, again, making sure that we do our best to enjoy open space within our own neighborhoods. and the other thing i want to talk about that i think is important is the fact that street cleaning has been a problem. and people are not moving their cars and what we've tried to do with the public, because there are certain people that may have contracted the virus and can't leave their homes, certain

ederly people who, for whatever reason, can't move their cars and we were sensitive to that. but there are a lot abled-body people who are able to get up and move your car. and the problem that we're having right now, a lot folks are not doing that, and at a time where we need to clean our streets the most, we don't environment luxury to allow this to continue. so, again, here is another warning. not only will we start to implement ticketing around street cleaning, we will look at other ways in which we can address this particular issue if we don't see a change. so for those of you who are abled body and are not economic casick andget up and move your r street cleaning, i'm asking you do this. or we will have no other choice

to reimplement or ticketing procedures around street cleaning before this expires. i'm counting on you to cooperate and to understand that there is a need to make sure that we keep or streets clean. and the fact is, we have people who are out there cleaning the streets, but passing blocks at a time because people are not moving their cars. and this is a real problem and it's one that we can't continue to tolerate and so, we're going to monitor the situation very closely around street cleaning this week and we'll have an announcement. if we think that nothing has changed to provide a plan of when we will be going back to ticketing. let's involve making suri also t

about our testing expansion for essential workers. as you know, what we are doing as we get the materials that we need and the testing capacity, we know that based on the tests that we do, whether or not we can expand those opportunities to more and more people, the ability to expand testing capacities is so important as we start to look at opening more businesses and reopening our city and having the ability to get people tested is so critical to that success. and today, we just want to announce that we are able to test all essential workers whether they exhibit symptoms or not. and this is definitely significant. this is a game changer here. the ability to allow grocery store clerks, our muni-drivers and other people who are on the

frontlines, our firefighters, police officers and nonprofit workers who were working with our homeless population in the shelters and if you are an essential worker and you exhibit symptoms or you don't significant symptoms, you still arexhibitsymptoms, you still ge. we want to encourage those who would like to be tested if you think you've been exposed or if you think you exhibit symptoms or not, please go to sf.gov slash citytestsf and we have several locations we're doing testing, including zuckerburg, san francisco general, the castro mission health center, the southeast health center and maxine hall in the western addition. we don't want you to just show up but sign up and you'll be directed to a specific location

to be tested and this is going to make a world of difference in ensuring that we are aware and we keep the public safe, but i just want to remind people that just because you get tested, it doesn't mean that you're out of the woods. we still need you to socially distance yourself from folks. we still need to follow the order because you could be tested negative today and two days later come in contact with someone and later on be tested positive. so it doesn't mean that you're completely clear if you test negative on these tests. and this is a no means substitution for wearing your mask and socially distancing yourself from other people. the other thing this doesn't do is tell you whether you have the virus. if you think you have the virus and you've been in contact with people that might have or you

exhibit symptoms, reach out and call 3-1-1 or check on the website i mentioned earlier. i also want to talk a little bit about our new testing policy at our skilled nursing facilities which you have probably all heard about already. our goal is to try to focus on many of those congregate living settings where we know are the most vulnerable populations and starting this week, we will begin a new program to test all residents and staff at la goo la hospital and we'll be issuing a health order requiring yourself testing at the 21 private skilled-nursing facilities in san francisco. so we are taking the lessons that we learned and responding to laguna honda and how we address that outbreak to make sure that we are supporting other nursing facilities in our city, whether we are directly responsible for it or not.

it's important that everyone ensures the safety of not just the workers who work at these skilled nursing facilities but the patients, as well, who are amongst what we know are some of the most vulnerable when it comes to covid-19 and this is really an incredible step forward. as i said, as our capacity increases for testing, we are going to continue to make sure that we're focusing on areas where we know need it the most and prioritizing those areas. and i also want to be clear that any member of the public, whether you have insurance or not, whether you're documented or not, you can also get tested if you exhibit symptoms. so please don't let that be a barrier to your concern about your health. we are here to identify anyone who is covid positive so that we can proceed with either making sure that they are quarantined

and protecting other members their families and that they have a place to actually quarantine. this is our priority, insurance or not, for anyone in san francisco who exhibits symptoms. again, you can visit our website or call 3-1-1. ithe last thing i want to mentin is something that i am very concerned about and that is people, again, who i've mentioned before, people not law enforcement treating other members of the public like they are law enforcement. and we do not need people to get into alte altercations because y don't believe they're following the direction of the health orders. so, for example, i've seen a lot of notices and a lot of concern that people have expressed about

runners who are not wearing masks and the fact that that if you are running outdoors, you're not required to wear a mask. and i know that everyone thinks that run irs who are outdoors running should wear masks, but our guidance for who should and shouldn't be wearing a mask is coming from our health department is i'm asking you all to follow the guidance and, again, worry -- focus or yourself and what you're doing and make sure that you're wearing a mask, you're keeping your distanc distance and proteg yourself and families and please do your best to not try to inflict or police other people, especially when you are communicating the wrong message about what the order is or is not. that creates a lot of tension. that creates a lot of negativity is we're all struggling with this and we're all in the house

and we don't want to be there. i'm sure many of you have kids and you're children are driving you crazy right now and everyone is having a tough time. the last thing we need is people who think they are the coronavirus police and are here to tell everyone what to do. because when you do that, it creates drama and it creates tension and we know that not everyone is following the rules. we understand that it has been challenging in some neighborhoods more so than others and that probably frustrates us all to no end. but i ask that you, again, focus on yourself and let us do our job to do us address the other challenges that exist, especially because in some instances, inaccurate information is provided as it relates to face covering. i want to focus on the fact that you can wear a mask or something that covers your nose and your

mouth as a face covering. it doesn't have to be a mask. and you don't have to wear it when you're outdoors unless you're in line for an essential business. and so i just wanted to remind the public that i get that these are challenging times and all of us want to get out of this, you know, stay-at-home order as quickly as possible. we get through it by staying focused and following the health orders ourselves and second of all, we get through it by making sure that we are not engaging in really devicive and negative behaviour that can make this order prolonged or worse. and we are really in this together and what impacts one community impacts us all and we know that as great as san francisco is doing, else those following the health directives, we know that not everyone is doing it, right. we know that there are some

people who, for various reasons, are not following the health directive. and i know that in some cases, we've had businesses that the police department have shut down and they've tried to implement social distancing in various neighborhoods, where we know we have problems and as we see the problems persist, we'll make adjustments. so i ask, again, for your patience, your cooperation, and i want to thank you all of you for continuing to support these health orders and just know that we are in a better place and we want to stay there and we are mindful of the need for so many people to get back to work because their livelilihood and the city is counting on it. we hopefully will have some better news after the guidelineses are issued to announce to get our city back

even though it might be different when we open distances and restaurants and other places, we have to start somewhere. so thank you again for all of your cooperation. i would like to now introduce dr. kolfax.

thank you, mayor breed. i'm director for the city is county of san francisco. sadly, 29 people in san francisco have died and i send condolences to their loved ones. 25,165 people as of today have been tested and an average of 9% have tested positive for covid-19. we have made significant progress toward our goal of universal access to testing for all people in sanfrancisco and that is what i would like to focus on today.

but first, i want to acknowledge that today is the first day of our new regional stay-at-home order for bay area residents. as we embark on the month of may, for some of us, it is with mixed feelings. while the data show that most people support ongoing and aggressive efforts to slow the virus, it is not easy for so many of us to do so. believe me, i know. not only because of how i feel at times, but because of the phone calls, the zoom meetings and emails and other communications that i get everyday. i share the frustration. i share the concern. and we are restless. it has been six weeks staying mostly indoors and as the weather grows nicer and summer becbeckons, people want to get

outside and rejoin society. we miss our friends and family. , or coworkers and our normal live. we are anxious. for many people in san francisco, the emotional and economic stress of the situation is continuing to build. for parents who are home schooling and workers with no paychecks, there are serious consequences to the shutdown. yet, i feel and we also feel pride. san francisco has done a tremendous job and it is thanks to all of you that this crisis is not worse. we have built an impressive response infrastructure that was not there before and now we are

using it everyday to continue to fight the spread of the virus and to protect our families, our community and our most vulnerable populations. and this could not have happened without each and everyone of you doing your part. and at the same time, we feel cautious. even though we have made real progress as a community to slow the spread of the coronavirus, it is still here. it can still spread easily as it did a month ago and it will thrive as we let it. so despite our frustration, our concern, our anxiety, we must lead with firm determination. san francisco and the bay area, let's use the month of may to solidify or gains as much as possible. and we have saved lives, reduced

harm and we must keep up the good work. let me assure you there is reason for hope. as this new health order takes effect, i would like to point out some ways that life will get a bit better right away. basically, we are opening the outdoors as long we can do it safely. and believe me, i find this personally welcomed news. food trucks, flea markets, construction are back. we can send flowers to our mothers on mother's day because florists can deliver again. i highly recommend sending flowers to your mother. speaking of flowers, plant nurseries, gardening and landscape businesses can reopen. those are just a few things i am

looking forward to with social distancing and face covering, of course. and as the mayor said, we are working very hard to find ways to continue to open more businesses and activities safely while sustaining the progress we have made. with guidance from the cdc, the state, and local health and business leaders, i am confident we will determine how and when opening responsibly and safely and as quickly can be done. now i would like to talk about testing and reinforce the mayor's remarks. indeed, we have exciting news on this front. as san francisco has announced, our vision, our goal is

universal access to testing for all. to achieve this, we've continually expanded testing based on where the need is greatest and the availability of resources. first, we focused on testing people with symptoms, among travelers and outbreaks, vulnerable populations, case contact investigations and among essential workers. and we reached the point where we can test everyone with symptoms and respond to the testing needs of outbreaks. this was significant progress. so now, we continue to expand as the circl.as the circle keeps we can test people without symptoms. we added close contact without symptoms and then as the mayor

said, last week we announced that all residents and staff of skilled nursing facilities would be tested, as well. pout this ithis is a key vulnere population and it was key that we expand testing there as quickly as possible. today, the mayor has announced that all essential workers in san francisco are eligible for free tests, regardless of symptoms or exposure. the message is, if you're going to work during this stay-at-home order because you're an essential worker, you can get tested regardless of symptoms. essential workers have been showing up everyday and they are healthcare workers, first responders, grocery clerks, construction workers, drivers, childcare workers and others who continue to leave their homes to serve our city during this

challenging time. these essential workers interact daily with other people and cannot always easily maintain social distance by staying home. for these workers, they can decide when they want to test, but it is important for them to test immediately when they feel ill or have symptoms consistent with covid-19. or if they believe that they have been exposed to covid-19 or if they are otherwise concerned and wish tested. no doctor's note, no healthcare provider's note will be required and the test is free. i encourage social workers who want testing to start with their own healthcare provider. we are recommending all private providers make universal testing available to essential workers. and this will be the best way

for people to stay connected to care. and, also, starting today, essential workers can get tested for free at one of the two city test sf sites at the embarcadaro in soma. these two sites alone have the capacity to test 1500 people per day. the department's community test sites are also providing free tests at southeast health center, in the bayview, castro mission health center, mac c.nmaxinehealth center and the . appointments for these tests are still necessary in order to ensure social distancing and reduce lines. if you want to schedule a test,

you can call 3-1-1 or visit sf.do vgettestedsf for more information. it's good to now announce todayt all essential workers can be tested. testing is a key component of our overall recovery. and i am grateful to the team ot the health department including the teams of dr. susan philip and amy lockwood for expanding our testing capacity in an unprecedented, rapid fashion, to the port, especially port director elaine forbes and her

team and the university of california san francisco and our many other partners in the private healthcare system and the community for pulling together to make testing more possible for people in san francisco everyday. we will continue to build our testing program. we plan to expand testing to shelters and other congregate settings and expand testing options in communities that are most impacted by health despairties, inequality and discrimination. but remember, a negative test is just an assessment of your status at that time. , at that moment in time and it does not mean that you are immune. and it does not mean that you are protected. testing is important. but it is just as important not to get sick or exposed to the

virus in the first place. so please, continue to take precautions. we must all continue staying home, continuing to cover our faces whenever possible when we go out and continue to keep six feet away from people outside of our house holds.holds. if we do that, when we do that, we are in for better times. thank you. and it is my pleasure to introduce chief bill scott, a key partner in our covid-19 response.

>> thank you, i'll begin with thanking our mayor ron don breed and dr. grant kolfax for their continued leadership during this challenging time. i would like to start with what happened over the weekend and i'll start with, basically, reiterating some of mayor breed's points. although we're generally pleased with what we're seeing as our city and people if sa in san fro continue to shelter in lace pla,

we've seen issuing worth repeating and i'll start with deloris park. we anticipated we would have more people out this weekend with good weather and we've had reef learelief and we put out me officers and more volunteers and work with other city entities. but deloris park and other popular parks in the city, we cannot let up. now, it is ok to go to the park and be with members of your own family, make sure that you have your face coverings with you as the health order calls for. what's not ok is to be in large gatherings or groups with people outside of your household and that is still not ok. and we are asking that you continue to social distance but what we're seeing in deloris park and other parks is that people are having picnics in large groups and some of those groups go outside of the

household. we're not at a point where we're relaxed to that level yet. so i want to remind everyone of the mayor's words, of dr. kolfax's words. we need to stay the course. if you're with members of your household, that's fine, but now is not the time to have large picnics or gatherings and even though the weather is congratulate and i know everyone have to stay the course and we have to do what's being asked of us by the medical professionals and what the data is telling us. and the data is telling us that social distancing works and face coverings will help to prevent the spread of this virus and we have to continue to do that. so please, we're asking and again, i want to reemphasize, we had a team of officers that weekend dedicated just to address the issues at the parks. and we will continue to do that

and we'll add officers as we need to to make surneed to makee course but we have challenges and we have to get through those challenges to stay safe and healthy. i think people in san francisco take enormous pride to this point, but we have a long way to go and as dr. kolfax and the mayor said, please, please follow the public health orders. now, i want to again explain the san francisco police department's posture on enforcement and what you've heard me say, the progressive compliance pathway and that begins with education and next, we ask for voluntary compliance and next we warn didn't if that doesn't work, we cite. and we have begun to cite individuals and that is an option of last resort and it's

not something that we want to do, but if we have to, we will. i think we've shown that, but please, again, we're asking for voluntary compliance. this pandemic has been tough enough on us all to this point already and we don't want to make the situation worse is don't make it worse for yourself by not following public health orders. we know this is new for people and we also know in many ways that as we reopen and slowly and first of alllget back to normall be many questions. we expect questions and we're happy to answer those questions and that's why we have disaster service workers out, assisting us and we give everybody a chance to understand a we knee to before going to a level of more aggressive enforcement. we would like to follow that model.

we want people to get exercise and get some air and enjoy these great places in our city, but we have to do the right thing in order to be able to continue to do that. as far as our enforcement enfore up to 21 citations with 11 businesses and ten individuals. we've also admonished 57 businesses and 45 individuals and as i said, there have been hundreds upon hundreds of informal warnings and education provided to members of the public and that will continue. as far as our crime this week, another week of reductio reductn property crime, down 24% and violent crime was up slightly and that includes several shootings at the end of last

wednesday's press conference and we did have another shooting in the mission district, that,ism,, unfortunately was hit and struck and was said to be a bystander. san francisco was working hard to do everything we can to solve that particular crime and bring that to a successful resolution, but we need your help. we need your help to report crime when you see it. we need your help if you see people that are out doing that type of violence in our community, call 9-1-1, please. we'll be there to assist and to take action. if it's a nonemergency or crime that's occurred, particularly a property crime that's already occurred, you can call our report number or our nonemergency at (415)553-0321 or you can call 311 or use our website is make those reports online. we do have a call center set up

to take reports which is allowing us to be more efficient in our use of resources. so please call us and report these occurrences as you see them. with that, i will end my comments and thank you for your cooperation and let's stay the course. >> first questions for you, chief scott. chief scott, this is from dominick vacasa, san francisco chronicle. >> question: has sf tv rendered any uptick in individuals or groups defying the stay-at-home orders? >> well, what i just mentioned, dominick, is what we're seeing and by and large, people are compliant. when i got the feedback from our officers, we had a detailed set-up, just to work on this issue over the weekend and the feedback i received from the officers is that when they

engage by and large, people became compliant they weren't and so, we're happy to see those results and that's why we're out there. we expected to see more people out this weekend than we did. and that's why we stepped up our deployment. but people are compliant and there are some that aren't and those, in the worst case scenarios, we've issued sky issd citations and we will continue to do that. if they're not compliant, they immediate fall into compliance and that is what we're seeing. >> thank you, chief scott. the next questions are for mayor london breed.

this question is from nbc. governodoes san francisco plan o follow to reopen on friday? >> i want to be clear, we are definitely going to be working with the governor on phase two of looking at what retailers can be open, but we well do that in collaboration with our county health officers so that we can ensure public health and public safety as we begin to implement opening procedures for various retailers. we're really excited about it and we want to see people get back to work, especially, but we want to do so responsibly.

>> and the governor also said for places less heavily impacted by covid-19, phase two would include reopening of restaurants with social distancing measures and other safety practises in place. will san francisco be able to reopen some restaurantses i rese city as early as friday? if not, has the city been able to renegotiate with landlords? >> just to be clear, i would love nothing more than to open restaurants and to go to a restaurant myself right now. [ laughter ] >> more than anything. and i look forward to the day when we're able to do that. but i want to be clear that whatever is decided as it retes relates to reopening efforts, we have to do so responsibly. so, for example, we're talking about new guidelines for restaurants now. we're talking about new guidelines for gyms and other places.

but can we say definitively that those businesses will be open this friday? no, we can't. but it is important that we rely on the facts. we rely on the data. we rely on the advice of our county health officers so that as we push to do these things, we do so responsibly? and we want to also give these businesses time to know exactly what is expected and, also, to know what are the things that they need to prepare for as they begin to reopen? because one of the conversations was centered around whether or not they can have the capacity they once had? what does that mean for their workforce and getting people back to work? it's a little bit more complicated and the goal is to do it and do it responsibly whenever the opportunity presentresponsibly.whenever thee the first one to make sure it is announced and what we need to do

to ensure public health because of the last thing we want to see is the last time we've spent on this lockdown, we don't want to see the city go backwards in terms of numbers and things get worse. so i want to make sure that we are striking that balance. >> madam mayor, the next is from joyce cutler, bloomburg law. how much will san francisco seek from the state to back their lost revenues? >> well, to be clear, we are going to do everything we can to get as much state and federal money as we can get. because right now, what we're doing in redirecting our existing resources to help manage and pay for this is very costly to our city. it is going to be a correctin ag factor and we'll do everything we can to get as much money as we possibly can from the state and from the federal government. we have received a payment so

far that is just a fraction of the cost of what we've already spent, but we're going to do everything we can to get every single dollar. >> the next question is from the associated press. we're entering the eighth week of the regional stay-at-home order and the tenderloin is crowded with tense people. what is your reaction to the lawsuit filed by hastings law to enforce social distancing in the tenderloin and how quickly do you plan on addressing the issue there? >> let's just be clear. the challenges that people are experiencing in the tenderloin, the challenges with people who suffer in some instances from substance abuse disorder and mental illness, they don't just go away because there's a pandemic and i don't think it's helpful that we have people who, unfortunately, are taking this route rather than trying to work with the city to resolve these issues.

they are so coml complicated and frustrating. when you think about the history of homelessness, think about it, every mayor has tried to solve homelessness. and the fact it's not as simple as providing housing. housing is a critical part but there are so many people with complicated issues and law enforcement alone, social work alone, all of this which we invest money in supporting a lot of our homeless population, those things are a collaboration, a way in which we try to propose solutions and how we work together to do it. easier said than done, but the good news is, this week, i think the end of this week, we expect to release block-by-block plans, specifically targeted at the tenderloin and it looks at what

we need to do to push for the social distancing, the pit stops and the wash stations and the hand-out amount. i mean, we've done these things over the course of the past couple of weeks consistently, but sadly, there's a real challenge in trying to force people who are exhibiting what is not appropriate behaviour during a social distancing period when we're trying to keep everyone healthy. a law enforcement component is not the only thing that will work in this case. and so this detailed plan and what we're trying to do in order to address the challenge of the tenderloin, i'm hopeful that it will work, because it is a challenge and it will continue to be a challenge but we're doing everything we can and we have to make sure that the workforce of our city, that we're asking to go out there, including our paramedics, our police officers and our nonprofit service providers and

our homeless outreach time and our social workers, our healthcare professionals, all of these people on the frontline every single day, it's important to mak make sure they are safe d protected. because when they're out there, you think it's as easy as saying, here is a mask, can you please put this mask on. there's a whole argument that occurs and a request, wait a minute, sir, can you keep your six-feet distance. just imagine being out there, trying to help someone who's, you know, lunging at you or who tries to spit on you or who's not following the order and all you're doing is try to help that person. so there's more to this than we're going to be able to open up all of these hotel rooms and we'll able to clean up every block. the department. public works, different folks who work for that department and clean the streets everyday, they're out there everyday, especially in the tenderloin and people who are specifically picking up needles and cleaning

up after grown-up, grown people. people who are adults who should be cleaning up after themselves. so i get that everyone wants to see something different. i want to see something different, but we're not housekeepers, we're not baby-sitters. and we're being treated that way. by people who have some challenges in some cases and some difficulties and some who are just down-right defiant. so let's give the people out there who are putting their lives on the line some credit for the work that they have done and continue to do despite the disrespect that they get when they're out there everyday. >> thank you, madam mayor. the next questions are for dr. grant kolfax. >> thank you.

>> it was mentioned last week that after the testing in the mission, random testing in the bay area would be done, as well. can you provide more details? are there any planned big testingests beintesting plannedn the mission. >> as we move through universal access, any essential worker in the city can get tested regardless of.

symptoms and for free is broadening of our testing. with regard to the mission study, it's important to emphasize that this is a research project and that has been lead by ucsf in collaboration with community stakeholders in the mission as well as with the health department. that important work and the results of that work will help to inform the program, the discoveries of that research and will help inform our ability to strengthen our testing both in the mission, as well as in other communities at risk in san francisco. and in conversations with the ucsf investigators, there are lots of ideas about how the work of that study could be done elsewhere in san francisco and i know they are talking with a number of key community leaders and stakeholders about where that type of research could be

done next, to again, help better inform the health department's testing strategies, as well as other provider strategies across the city. and so certainly we're looking at that work and then we're collaborating with ucsf researchers and other institutions across the bay area where research is being done in communities and extensive testing is done and how does that help better invest inform our programs moving forward to develop our culture of testing and to ensure there's universal accessing for testing for all in san francisco. thank you. >> the next question is for abigail kahn, homelessness and supportive housing.

mayor breed has said the homeless who come to san francisco from other countries are not eligible in they are infected and the chronicle has reported there are people who have come to the stay hoping to be housed in hotels. how many people does the city believe come here for that reason? how will the city determine when a housed person is eligible? >> thanks for the opportunity to clarify. i know there's been a lot of

coverage around this. so generally speaking before covid-19, we know that approximately 30% of individuals experiencing homelessness in san francisco comes from not from san francisco or where they became homeless was not san francisco, which means 70%, which is the vast, vast majority are from here originally and became homelessnesbecame homele. homeless folks are from here, or they've been here a long time. what we know antidotally, we are hearing from people unsheltered on our streets right now is that they are not from here. so what is very important to me is that those individuals who tell our system of care, they were told to come here and get a hotel room, that they hear the

message in a very clean way because i think it's very important for us to be honest with our homeless neighbors, which is that if you were not known to our system before covid, meaning ar meaning you an our databases, then you are not first on the list for the unsheltered hotel rooms and this is not because we don't care about you. this is because there have been people who have been waiting here in san francisco, known to our system of care for a long time and we are rapidly expanding our hotels and, in fact, we've opened more though s and we need to figure out where to start and the city has chosen to start with the people who have been here before the pandemic and waiting for ten, 20 years to receive support of this kind. thank you. >> thank you. the final question is for mary

ellen carol with emergency management. >> your question is from san francisco examiner. >> question: which school facilities are safe for unhoused

residents as urged by the board othe boardof supervisors? we have elemented mitigations to address this crisis. these include establishing 120 shelter-in-place rv trailers for people experiencing homeless in district 10 and we have ongoing program of shelter-in-place hotels for our unsheltered vulnerable populations and we've expanded our meal program for those living on the streets and we've also expanded restroom and handwashing stations throughout the city. what we're doing now through the emergency operation center and in partnership with the department of public health, the

human service's agency and housing support homeless, we're connecting individuals with the most appropriate solution. we are finalizing the evaluation of safe sleeping sites and plan to announce those sites and when they will be ready in the near future. >> thank you, director. this concludes today's press conference.

>> hi, you're watching "coping with covid-19." today i'm going to the pharmacy. [music playing] now i'm not a medical professional or a doctor of any kind. sorry, mom. i'm a video guy. and this is my personal story. i have a family member who's in the at-risk group so i'm the one going to the pharmacy. to get the most detailed and up-to-date information about the virus, go to sfgov.org. there's a really good f.a.q. there. i've been taking a plastic bag from the house and putting a sanitizing wipe and for this trip, i feel safer wearing latex gloves. i'm taking the smallest number of items with me. my debit card, i.d., the gloves and the wipes. and that means there'll be fewer items to wipe down later if they come into contact with shared services. when i get to the pharmacy, i put on my gloves.

my goal while i'm inside is to not touch any common surfaces and try to keep at least six feet away from anybody else. this is my second visit of the day. the first time i came, there was a huge line so i just left. this time there is no line-up. i'm very careful after i use the p.i.n. pad to pay for my purchases. this is a point of contact that many people have touched, which is why i'm wearing the gloves today. i thank the pharmacist for her important work and leave. on my short walk home from the pharmacy, i'm careful not to touch my face. i keep the gloves on and until i get to my recycling and trash containers, where i remove the packaging from the medicines and i put them in the recycling. now we don't need the instruction for these particular insulin medications because we're already very familiar. as soon as i get through the door, i wash my hands for at least 20 seconds. then i'll wipe down my debit card and i.d. and, as an extra

precaution, i wipe down the medicine's packaging and anywhere where they have touched indoors. then i wipe down the front doorknob and, finally, i wash my hands again. that is it for this episode. i hope you enjoyed my story. >> i want to thank all of you for joining us here today. we know that this is a very challenging time during this pandemic, especially for many people who have not only lost their income, but have had their hours reduced at their various employment sites and also lost their jobs completely. as of today we've had over 83,000 people in san francisco apply for unemployment. what that says is that even though we locally are doing everything that we can to provide resources to the public, we know that there's so much

more that needs to be done. we can't wait for a federal stimulus check in many cases, people who are living paycheck to paycheck and need money to pay their bills. and we know, especially our hairdressers and our nail salons, our barbershops, they're probably suffering the most. because if they don't work they don't have any income. so this is a very challenging time for all of us. and as we deal with the protecting of public health, we need to always protect the financial health of our families and communities. after we're able to reopen what is that going to look like? and how will we be able to continue to make sure that everyone has a decent paying job with benefits? that's the foundation of our city and it's necessary for us to figure out ways in which we can help to support one another and uplift one another. just a few things that we have been doing here in san francisco include providing additional

sick leave for private sector employees and also making available funding that employers have paid into our fund that establishes the support for health care benefits and we're able to give that back to the employees to use for important things like rent or food, finding creative solutions to give to s.f., where we're using those resources to help to pay for food for low-income families and undocumented families. we know that may not qualify for other benefits that are available. making sure that people who are very concerned and will not be able to generate revenues that they're able to get some resources and some relief to help to pay rent. for their ability to stay housed, our small business community is the foundation of our city and we know that, sadly, what's happening now is that people are impacted

financially, but we know that there's going to be a real challenge in the future. and it's important that we make smart decisions, that we make investment in the people who work so hard for our city so that they are able to get over the very challenging time and are able to emerge from this in a way that moves our city forward. so today what we wanted to do was to take this opportunity to have a webinar specifically for workers. because even though we have made a lot of announcements here in san francisco about various programs that are available, it can get quite confusing because there are local programs, there are state programs, there are challenges with unemployment and other things. and we wanted to provide this as an opportunity to reach directly out to workers. and to talk to the community about ways in which we want to be as helpful as we possibly

can. and also to solicit feedback because we may not have all of the answers, we may not know exactly what's going on in every sector of every part of this city, and we want to be a resource to make sure that we're investing the dollars in the right programs that are going to directly impact people's lives. so today i'm joined by a number of folks here who are here to serve employees of san francisco. the workforce director josh arce works for our office of workforce and economic development. and for more information about what we're doing and if you have any other questions or concerns, not only can you call josh directly and he'll answer your call. but go to oewd.org or call 311, and he is available. he is very dedicated to helping workers and to helping people find job opportunities. so that's one of his roles here with the city. and we're so grateful for his

commitment and service to the city. we are also joined by rudy gonzalez, the executive director for the san francisco labor council. and as you know the san francisco labor council represents all organized labor here in san francisco, but they don't just fight for the groups that are part of their collaborative. they fight for better wages, they fight for better benefits so that people have -- can live with dignity and can take tear of their family take care of their family. i have a uni union family that m blessed to be part of and we know that organized labor in san francisco is critical to the safety net of many of our low-wage workers and people who make san francisco strong. and i want to thank you, michelle, who -- michelle lenard-bell who is agreeing to moderate this conversation. and they have been my go-to for

employment opportunities since -- i mean, it's been -- they've been around longer than this, but it's been over 20 years. when i have someone who is struggling and needs an employment opportunity, and they provide the wrap around supportive services and the training necessary to get people on their feet and back to work. so we're glad to have an incredible network of people who are here to help to guide this conversation, help us to answer some questions, and the goal is to make sure that we are connecting our resources to the people that we know that need it the most. that is why we're here. and we want to thank you all for joining us. at this time i want to join it over to josh arce, with oewd. >> thank you, mayor breed and thank you for convening us here and for everything that you're doing for workers. i want to say at our department under our director, we are a team of 54 men and women who are

committed working with at this point 48 community-based organizations to support workers out there at this time and to prepare for our recovery. so as you said, so we can emerge from this even stronger. thank you. >> mayor london breed: so, thank you, josh. and rudy gonzalez, the executive director of the san francisco labor council here in the city. and also i want to mention our economic recovery task force, because not only do we need to help workers now, and what happens in future when we start to re-open the city, he's a co-chair leading that charge on the san francisco economic recovery. so, ladies and gentlemen, rudy gonzalez. >> thank you, mayor breed and director arce, and michelle, it's great to be in your community. we're grateful for the opportunity to be part of this discussion and bringing together not only organized laborer but as you said, mayor, ways to lift up all people. so we're happy to get to work on

our recovery right now. >> mayor london breed: all right, michelle, we can turn it over to you so we can get started. we probably have a lot of folks on the line who have a number of questions and that's what we're here to do, to answer the questions. and also to take feedback on just suggestions that people who are in the middle of these experiences might have. so i'll turn it over to you. thank you so much again. >> thank you, mayor breed, thank you. i'm michelle leonard-bell and i'm the general manager of mission hiring call. we have been putting people in san francisco to work with quality employment since 1971. so we're going to get started here. mayor, thank you so much for everything that you're doing. we believe that lives here in the city and the region around the city have been saved because of your decisive action and your administration's work. thank you to all of the participants who sent in questions. we received many, many questions

around workforce. what we're going to try to do is to select the questions that were asked more than once. and also to request the diversity of the things that you would like to know. our first question was one that was very common. and i'll share this one with mayor breed and then with josh. so many people are frustrated with the challenges of applying for unemployment. what is the latest status on the state and federal unemployment resources? mayor breed? >> mayor london breed: well, i'll turn this over to josh because he has a lot more detail. but, you know, again, we've had 83,000 people in san francisco alone and over 2.5 million in state of california, of people who applied for unemployment. i know that the governor's office is working to increase the capacity in order to try and be as responsive as possible to people because we know that people need their money now.

we don't have direct local control over unemployment insurance in general but we're definitely partnering and working with the states to be as aggressive as we can to get unemployment in the hands of people right away. it has definitely been a challenge. and i'll turn it over to josh. >> yes, thank you, mayor breed. and we work very closely with the state employment development department, or e.e.d. and they have an unpri unpreceds only 50,000 who had applied for employment and three million ever since. and so as the governor and the labor secretary julie siu increased staffing to the unemployment phone lines and emails, what we've been doing is running a hotline. we have been working closely with the human service agency, community partners including self-help for the elderly, and the mission economic development agency. and a whole lot of the staff to

answer phones. our team takes calls seven days a week in multiple languages. and it's really around whatever supports that we need during covid-19 and, of course, most of the calls around unemployment. many of our community partners are doing the same. so in nearly 2,000 calls that have been received to date since march 16th shelter-in-place order, and independent contractor questions, and what we do is that we gather information from those callers and the staff works directly with us. we're grateful for that to get the answers and to call folks back and email them with those updates. we do twice-a-week rapid response virtual online webinars to get a group of folks and workers laid off in a room to share those resources with the state, with the labor council, with cover california. and that's about an hour-long process that we do twice a week. as the mayor said, we're just here for you and we want to stay connected. our website is www.oewd.org.

and the phone number is 415-70 415-701-4817. and go to our website www.oewd.org and that's a great way to get the number and all of the resources that we'll talk about today. thank you again, mayor breed. >> thank you, mayor and josh. of the nearly 350 calls they recently provided services to, unemployment questions were the main questions. so thank you again for this. oewd.org and you can get assistance around unemployment. and the next question here is for rudy. rudy, before people go back to work, they are understandably concerned about the safety and ensuring safety for themselves and their families. will the city be providing guidelines and giving back to the office -- back to the office to ensure that people are safe when they return to work? >> thank you for that question,

michelle. the short answer is -- yes. the department of public health, the county health officer have been working diligently to provide clarification and guidance where we've needed it. i think that a good example of this came to the city administrator's office and the mayor's administration with respect to industries and the construction sector. so, yes, the city is providing that guidance. it's something that is a top priority for the economic recovery task force in our effort to support not only jobs and jobs and businesses and small businesses, but we also want to support workers by collaborating around what those safety protocols are. they're going to look and feel a little different in various industries. but we trust that the department of public health is going to provide us, you know, timely guidance on those things. and i think that it's also important to recognize that the situation is fluid. and so we have to be dynamic in how we respond to these concerns.

this is an area that i'm particularly interested in developing feedback through the recovery task force, their community engagement team. i'm very interested in what some of the specific needs will be from some of our small and medium-sized businesses along these lines. but, yes, we'll continue to work with the city partners and the industry partners to develop clear guidance that allows people to get back to regular work, to continue the essential work, and to do so in a way that promotes public health. >> thank you for that, rudy. our next question is for mayor breed. will more people be eligible for testing as more people return to work, mayor breed? >> mayor london breed: oh, definitely. the only way that we're going to be able to get back to life as we knew it in some capacity is to ensure that testing is available to people. and the good news is that we announced that all essential workers for the city or even in the private sector, you are

considered an essential worker, whether you exhibit symptoms or not, you can be tested. so, please, reach out to us. you can go on to sf.org/citytestssf. or call 311 if you would like to be tested and you're an essential worker. but the other thing is that we will test anyone who exhibits symptoms, whether you have insurance or not. i think that is important. because we never want testing to be a barrier. if you are not an essential worker or just a san franciscoian or anyone, you know, from our immigrant community or anyone -- you don't have to have insurance to get tested. if you are exhibiting at least one symptom, we will test you. so you can go online or call 311 and we will get you tested. so i think that the good news is that we expanded our testing casity. scapacity. so we're able to provide the

opportunities more than we ever had before. so there's no reason for anyone in san francisco to not get tested right now if they need to, if they exhibit at least one symptom of covid-19. and i also want to be clear that our essential workers can get tested in general. so what we want to be able to do is that we want to expand that even further. because ultimately the goal is to make sure that as people get back to work that we have testing capacity to get people tested. in general. because even if i get tested today, it's negative. well, i'm around people tomorrow, and the possibility of me getting the virus is possible still. so it doesn't just go away because of a test. so we have to make sure that testing is readily available at any given time for anyone. so i'm really excited about our testing capacity. so, again, no reason that anyone can't get tested who exhibits symptoms or our essential workers for any of these

reasons. >> thank you so much for that, mayor. one more follow-up question as well -- with schools remaining closed through the rest of this academic year, will more child care services be available as more people return to work? >> mayor london breed: yeah, and i believe so for sure. the good news is that we're offering child care for essential workers right now in our health care industry and our public safety industry. and our goal is not only to expand that as we have space available, but it also is to expand it as we have more testing. and so right now we're having conversations with our public health department about what does it mean for summer camp. what does this mean for things that we want to be available to kids but we also want to not only protect the children that we want to have these opportunities, we want to make sure that the workforce and their parents and others have access to this testing. testing, contact tracing, those sorts of things are going to be

key when we start to allow various industries to reopen in san francisco, along with the guidelines, just like what we're doing with construction, just like what we're doing right now with outdoor services like a number of flower shops and nurseries and kiosks and outdoor businesses, setting guidelines in place and allowing those industries to open. we want to do that with more industries. but that happens as we have also more testing capacities which we are seeing occur. and i'm really excited about that for the future. >> thank you, mayor breed. director josh arce, would you like to add anything? >> you know, i thought that, mayor breed, this might be a good place to say to any students or parents that might be watching that you can apply for the mayor's opportunity for all summer internship program which is preparing to launch again in june and taking applications for online internship through the human rights commission. should we share that link with everybody?

>> mayor london breed: i hope that you know the link. [laughter]. >> and from director davis it's www.opps4allsf.org. and we'll have these links posted at the end of the video feed. >> mayor london breed: and then also i think that, you know, if you have questions and there's a lot of information overload, you can always call 311. >> thank you, mayor breed. we have had several questions around skills and training programs which are going to be essential to getting folks back to work who have lost positions in this crisis. let's start with this question with rudy and then josh. how are we preparing people who have lost their jobs for employment opportunities when the city reopens? and it's going to be such a tight market. >> thank you for that question. the first thing we're doing is identifying where the greatest

needs are. and in some industries the road will be longer to recovery. so it's important that we get into those workplaces and identify who needs re-skilling or up-skilling and different forms of training. and i think that it's important to note that some of the existing models that the city has worked very closely with organized labor and our public education institutions like city college and departments like josh's and city build, provide a good framework for us to start modeling this. in fact, just recently director arce and i were part of a collaboration and the city was able to directly address some workers at munch sconi center that will have a longer road to recovery in the trade and show sector. they accessed funds through the state of california and set up a collaborative model where we'll be partnering with a high road

union apprenticeship training to help hundreds of workers at musconi to transition into viable career paths in the construction industry. so i think that unique to this recession is that we are going to have certain sectors of the economy continue. some will even thrive. and it's going to be up to us to collaborate to make sure that we deliver those training programs directly to the workers who need it. i'm particularly excited about this opportunity of musconi, because i think that it shows a great partnership not only the city and organized labor who have these training programs already set up, but it also highlights the importance of san francisco's role with respect to the governor's administration and the e.d.d. without those partnerships, these kind of models wouldn't be possible. so we're really excited to think through how do we provide some of those skills in a new virtual setting and how do we model then so they can be rolled out at

scale. while some workers are just kind of waiting for the next round of orders to come out, we know that others will face a much tougher road and will have a longer ways to go. so we want to get into that segment of the workforce and many industries so that we can provide not just new skills or certifications, but real career paths. so that people can recover, you know, in their own family life. >> and, thank you, michelle. this example that rudy mentions, because mayor breed has in so many ways primed the workforce for this moment. and i think back to not much more than a year ago when the chariot drivers lost their drivers and mayor breed convened our office and m.t.a., teamsters union and mission to meet these workers who had been driving private shuttles and to train them through a new program, city drive, to become muni bus

operators and commercial drivers. when we got the call from rudy it's a logical next step to have that coordination and to connect with the workforce development board and e.d.d. and to really think of options here. it's only at the end of last week that we -- i think that 10 days ago is when we started this conversation and just at the end of last week, as rudy said, the state e.d.d. announced they're awarding one million dollars to train several hundred of those men and women to become union construction apprentices through city build. so that kind of work with labor, community partners, to think of new training programs is something that i know that we're focused on every day, non-profit service provider partners are out there. and most community partners that we support are still operating virtually. neighborhood job centers, i have mentioned some already, as well as success center and the young developers, and hospitality house in the tenderloin, and the

inner city youth, you can connect to these great organizations through oewd.org. and they're working through the service agencies right now to hire on-sight monitors at $24-an-hour each which is a great opportunity and our hospitality is working with one fair wage and the state of california to support high roads to kitchens and working to support restaurant workers in partnership with our human services agency. the cannabis industry is hiring and they really need our help, but, again, it's just about most importantly that we're connected and that our website is oewd.org, as mayor breed said, you can call me, call any of us, we're just here to support you and stay connected as we have been charged by our mayor. >> yes, thank you so much. another thing that i'd like to add is that during this time is that you felt that you were underemployed or just existing in employment, this could be a perfect storm for you. and when we say underemployed we

mean if you were working full-time and partners in your household were working full-time and you were not making ends meet with the employment that you were in, this could be a great time to go to oewd.org and check out the training. most of these trainings are not over 18 weeks and it will land you into quality employment. next question i'll ask of josh. given the changing landscape of work, what sort of re-training and re-educating programs is the city developing to equip people for jobs? >> thanks, michelle. mayor breed has spoken of the need for us to adapt our workforce to the new normal. and the fact is that we get notices from employers laying off workers. and since march 1, we have received nearly 300 of such notices of companies laying off employees in san francisco and that impacts more than 33,000 workers out there. nearly half of these companies

are in the accomodation and food service industry. so we know that these are areas where we need to focus and we have talked about some of those ideas and we'll look forward to connecting with our partners to do even more of that. health care and tech are still hiring and we think that those are going to be key industries that we'll hear through the economic recovery task force where we will see opportunities. and health care academy partners are signing up and there's tech s.f., and it's still taking applications to train in the tech industry. and there's free training thanks to linkedin learning and zen desk where you can certify for free and their platform, which opens up more opportunities for you in recovery. and opportunities for all that we mentioned is a really important way as mayor breed has said to plant seeds for our young people. both in an ordinary economy, and certainly post-covid. and apprenticeship, not just in construction but tech and health care and commercial driving, we expect to be a key to our workforce strategy during

recovery. and, again, our community partners are out there doing the work to support you. we have received an additional $675,000 from the state e.d.d. for general supportive services to support workers that are laid off to be able to do these kind of trainings and that's something that you can learn more about, again, to up-skill or re-skill and to really prepare for this through our website oewd.org. >> thank you, josh, for that. and also if you go to mission missionhiringcall.org you can apply for city build at that website. and you can apply for the construction administration and training and professional services academy. this is an answer for folks who do not wish to put on a tool belt. you can work inside construction companies. and the training is just 18 weeks. and we also security guard training free of charge. and we also offer placement into hospitality positions. this question, the next question that we have here is about the impact to our most vulnerable

workers. i'll ask this one of everyone. starting with mayor breed and then josh and then rudy. how is the city helping workers in sectors like arts, non-profits and other fields where the workers may have already been struggling before the coronavirus pandemic? >> mayor london breed: i'll tell you the one thing that we've been able to do, fortunately, with not just our city workers, but with many of the non-profit workers that the city has contracts with, we have been able to honor our commitment to those contracts which have allowed us to continue to pay many of our non-profit providers. and so that has been incredible. we have not had to stop funding even though our city faces a $1.1 billion to $1.7 billion budget deficit. we actually repurposed -- i think that i can't remember the exact amount -- but i think that it was around $2 million or so for art support to give to arts

organizations and to give to artists. because, you know, these musicians and people who this is their livelihood and they don't have the ability to get by. if you, for example, play live music once a week and that's how you make ends meet, and now you're not playing live music anywhere anymore, these artists are suffering. there's a number of arts organizations that are suffering. so we have re-purposed some of our dollars and grant money that were not directly committed and we are digging deep to find more to support artists and people in our arts community. and, in fact, give to s.f., they may qualify for, give to s.f., we started to partner with both -- to partner with the private dollars and the public dollars for food security, for housing, and for small businesses.

and we work with many non-profits to try to distribute the resources available to get the money in the hands of people right away through some of these particular programs. but it continues to be a challenge because we have had money that we put into these pots and it runs out quickly. and we have, of course, wait lists of people who need resources, which is why i'm constantly not only raising money, but trying to scrap up city money in order to combine those resources to provide that to people that we know that are already struggling. so we'll continue to do that. >> thank you so much, mayor breed. these are all great resources. keep in mind that the small -- the community-based organizations all over the city are working hard and they're ready to go to work as soon as we unshelter to help to you access every one of these services and trainings that we talked about here today. >> mayor london breed: well, a lot of the non-profits, just so

you know, are still working. they're still helping us in various xa capacities. definitely those managing our shelters and those working with the homeless population, they have not stopped working. they are putting themselves in harm's way in order to take care of people on a regular basis. so there are some organizations, even before the pandemic really hit our city and they were out doing the work around outreach and educating people about what is -- what the coronavirus is and some of the recommendations and things to do or not to do and who to call for resources. so our relationships with our non-profits is really important in not only communicating but distributing the resources that we have through give to s.f. we're working with organizations to identify the people who are most in need and who to contribute those resources to. so we appreciate that. and we're hopeful that we can maintain it. but we are looking at a very challenging future for this city with our anticipated budget

deficits. >> thank you, mayor breed. we have time for one last question and it's about economic recovery. i'd like to go,a round to al, af the panelists, starting with mayor breed. how can we ensure as the city begins its recovery that every san franciscoians has a chance to succeed in this new normal. >> mayor london breed: i'm sorry? >> how can we ensure that every san franciscoian has a chance to succeed in this new normal? >> mayor london breed: well, unfortunately, that's going to be very challenging. it's going to be challenging, sadly, because of our deficit. because of what's happening with our economy, and it doesn't mean that we don't try to come together to figure out ways in which we can really focus on, you know, making sure that

exactly what josh and what rudy talked about is looking at people in various industries and making sure that if their industry is going under or those job opportunities are no longer available, and then how do we help them to shift what they're doing. and that's going to be really important. that's how we're going to be able to ensure support for our city workforce. it's going to be tough. there are no plans in the near future. tourism is going to continue to be very challenging. so when you think about it, the people who work at the convention centers and the people who work at the hotels and the folks who work at restaurants where we'll need to make changes to the restaurant industry. a lot of folks are going to suffer. what we have to be prepared to do, exactly what josh talked about, when the chariot drivers lost their jobs, well, they

could drive one of those big vans for chariot, they can drive muni. so what a great -- and they get paid more. so i think that that's a lot of what we're going to be doing is helping to make it easier for people to shift whatever industry they might be working in and making sure that the programs match what is available. so, for example, we're not going to be out of the woods on the coronavirus for some time until there's a vaccine. and contact tracing along with testing will be a critical part in trying to help to keep people safe. well, we need thousands of people to do contact tracing. so training people and getting them equipped with what that entails could be a stepping stone to another opportunity. but it's the kinds of things that we'll need to do in order to try to support everyone. it will be challenging, but we are committed to this, and that's why i'm -- i have a lot

of confidence in the economic recovery task force with a number of people from labor, people from academic world, folks with the city departments, folks from non-profits and from the communities and from the arts communities. like, the goal is to come up with the right plan of action for people in various industries so that we make it less challenging on people than i'm sure that it already is. and that's what we're committed to. >> thank you, mayor. josh, would you like to chime in? >> yeah, thank you again, thank you again, mayor breed and to the panel because a few of the ideas that we talked about here and then we have heard in the questions are some cues for what we can think about in recovery. 10 years ago we had federal stimulus dollars and economic stimulus resources that we may see again, i know that we're all advocating under the mayor's leadership and to our speaker and governor to make the case

for any resources that we can. the mayor's example of sick leave fund was a partnership between our office and human services agency. and with the $10 million fund we saw applications to support nearly 21,000 different workers giving us a framework to think about. if we could have those stimulus dollars again to implement those programs, and it could be built out again. supporting our immigrant workers, and families that give to s.f. dollars that mayor breed has helped to secure that will soon deploy to those workers who may not be eligible for any other form of relief because of immigration status, working with partners such as the human rights commission and latino task force and the labor council and others wh that are some of e ways to do what mayor breed charged with us each before this started -- to leave no one behind. we were just starting a collaborative right before this started under the coordination of hospitality house and joe

wilson, his team and tiffany jackson with the homeless advocates and workers -- advocates of formerly homeless job seekers to really create a new system, a multi-departmental system working with the community that we've got to return to that too. and it was also policies and our local hiring policy for construction started 10 years ago. and ideas that we can obviously catalyze a return to the economic prosperity that we had, and we will have once again. but using these policies to truly make sure that no one is left behind because by the end of that moment of prosperity we saw disparities such as unemployment within the african american community disproportionately low compared to everyone else in this city. and many of our women of color, and public housing residents who are not able to share in that income and that wealth as we rebuild. and it's going to be tough as

the mayor said. but as we rebuild we've got all of the right partners from community, labor and businesses and mayor, and the supervisors and the agencies and everyone coming together to do this through the task force to do these kind of policies, to come together and we'll look forward to that hard work to get us back. >> thank you so much for that, josh. rudy, would you like to chime in with a closing statement on recovery? >> sure, thanks, michelle. in terms of the economic recovery task force, i think that the frame here is that we have to be deliberate. so if we're going to talk about a recovery that serves everybody and provides opportunity, you know, we're going to have to focus energy on that question. and the recovery task force framework, there's sort of three areas or three work areas around job and business and a work group dedicated to that, and economic development and a work group dedicated to that. and i'm proud that there's a vulnerable populations work group to think about these questions and these issues, through an equity lens, right

and to think about how do we lift people up. i don't think that it will happen on accident or by chance. it's going to happen because of political leaders, of community leaders and overall a level of engagement that brings everybody into the conversation. i want to say that i think that it also counts on some of the outcomes that we're seeing at the federal level. i'm very proud that our national aflcio is mobilizing our 12.5 million members to lobby and to push to make sure that local government gets taken care of in the next stimulus package. all of the extraordinary efforts from p.p.e. to testing, to making sure that non-profits and vulnerable community groups are being taken care of at the city level requires that the federal level of our government recognize that and then to provide resources, funding, money. so we're fighting for that very hard as an organized movement. and i also want to say they

think that our local government will play a key role in defining what recovery feels like for all people. our local government really has an opportunity, not only as the representatives of the people, but as the largest employer in san francisco, we'll have an opportunity to speak our values in this recovery. and i think that it starts with health care. i know that the city has been a leader on that. the mayor has been working diligently as she said with the ahcao and money and there are policies that we can look to really make sure that everybody recovers in san francisco. so we're excited and we're ready to get to work on the economic recovery task force and thank you again for the opportunity to participate in this panel. >> thank you, rudy. and thank you all who have participated in this today. mayor breed, thank you for having us. and one last thought on recovery. as we go back to work and everyone else joins the others now working, let's keep in mind our safety.

this isn't the kind of skim over emails from our employer and advising us of policy and procedures. we've got to keep safety as paramount and at the utmost top of our minds while we go back to work. because we've got to keep families safe. as the mayor said we're not through this yet but we've got to keep working together. thank you, mayor breed and i turn this back over to you. >> mayor london breed: thank you. and let me say, michelle, i know that you have a lot of questions and i want to make sure that we're able to answer them. so feel free to turn them over to josh. and he'll follow-up. we want to be a resource for people and so if there's any questions, please reach out to us. the website is oewd.org. call 311, and we understand that it is probably frustrating to go through this process of applying for unemployment on your own and needing documents and not getting a response. though we don't have direct control over this particular

state agency, we want to be helpful. for example, if you're struggling for unemployment and you're waiting for a check and if we have a resource to provide support or food or something of that nature, we don't want you to have to wait for unemployment to get help. if there's something available in our city we want to help as much as we can. and so we appreciate the opportunity to be here. we'll continue to do everything that we can to support our workforce. as we go through the challenges of our budget, keeping people employed and making sure that people have employment options is really so important to taking care of the people of this city and also our economic recovery health. that is so desperately needed. so we're counting on all of us to do our part in providing information as well as getting information and making the decisions based on what's best for the people that we're here to serve. so i really appreciate all of

you and all of the work that you're all doing on the frontlines. we really are in this together. and i want to see us emerge as a stronger, better city for our workforce more than ever as a result of this unexpected pandemic. and i think that by working together we will. so thank you all so much. >> thank you. >> thank you, mayor. >> thank you.

good morning, everyone. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the april 27th, 2020 meeting of the rules committee. i'm supervisor hillary ronen, chair of the committee. with me on the video conference is rules committee vice chair catherine stefani. i'd like to thank sfgov for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. due to the covid-19 health emergency and protocols, board members, city employees and the public, the board room is closed. however, members will be

participating remotely. this caution is taken pursuant to the statewide stay-at-home order and proceeding local, state and federal orders, and directives. sorry, guys. >> supervisor ronen: sorry, i thought you were done. >> clerk: committee members will be attending through video conference and participating in the meeting in the same extent that they were physically present. public comment will be available on each item on the agenda, both channel 26, sfgov.org are streaming the number up. at the top of the screen. each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. comment or opportunity to speak during the public comment period are available via phone call by calling (888)204-5984. again (888)204-5984. access code 350-1008.

again 350-1008. when connected, dial 10 to be added hot queue alternatively, you may submit public comment in either of the following ways, email myself, the rules committee clerk at cictor.oyung cictor.oyung@sf.gov.org. written comments may be sent by u.s. postal service to city hall, 1 dr. carlton b., good let place, room 244, san francisco, california, 9410 #. finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of may 5th, unless otherwise stated. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful.

can you please read item number 1. >> clerk: item number 1 -- my apologies. switching papers. item number 1 the motion approving rejecting the mayor's nomination for the reappointment of crstina rubke to municipal transportation agency board of directors, term ending march 1, 2024. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. and i understand that ms. rubke is on the line and ready to join us. >> clerk: go ahead. >> yeah. she is -- go ahead. >> clerk: hello, ms. rubke. >> hello. i had you bleeped out for a moment. so i couldn't hear anything. now i can hear you.

>> supervisor ronen: thank you so much for joining us in this remote way. we really appreciate it. we would love to hear any remarks you have on your nomination and then we'll turn it over to the supervisors to ask questions. >> thank you. thank you so much for taking the time today to hear my nomination to serve on the sfmta board. for the last eight year, i have had the privilege of serving i'm willing to serve a third and final term, should the board of supervisors confirm the mayor's nomination. you have my rezmy and i understand that we're focused on many other important needs. i'll keep my remarks short. but, of course, i'm here to answer any questions you have. very briefly about me. i'm a trademark lawyer, an avid sailor and a huge fan of public transit. i have a disability and used a wheelchair to get around. as a result, i rely on accessible public transportation

to live an active life. one of the main reasons i moved to san francisco and since moving here in 2005, i have regularly been on muni. my main lines are the t, the n, the 47, the 10 and the 82. as an sfmta board member, i have focused on the overall accessibility of our transportation system, including physical, economic, and programmatic accessible. very quickly highlight a few of the things i have worked on, let me know if you want more details. in the last six months, i have attended several san francisco human rights commission meetings that address transit equity. i hope to continue to work with the human rights commission, and the willingness to partner with sfmta on the critically important access issues. currently serve as the chair of the sfmta board's policy and governance committee, that meets monthly to look at the strategic plan goals and how the agency is meeting or missing key performance metrics. i hope that we can take this

unique opportunity and time to examine our expectation work as a whole and come out of this with a better, more equitable system. and to me that would be better prioritizing our transit, pedestrians and cyclists. i look forward to working with the other directors. another thing i have advocated for is expanding the accessibility of emergeing mobility like car share. to me the mode shift goals we need the options to be accessible to as many people as possible, including populations that have historically been excluded from such options. one initiative is the bike share pilot that sfmta ran last fall in golden gate park. finally and probably most important to me over the last eight years, i have focused on pedestrian safety. i'm a huge advocate of automatic speed enforcement, as well as other data-proven tools. additionally, i have focused specifically on pedestrian safety for people with disabilities and seniors, who as

you know are statistically more likely to be victims of traffic violence. and i hope this continue this important work. if there were public comment, i would already have been cut off. so i will stop there. i'm happy to answer any questions you have. >> supervisor ronen: okay. thank you very much. appreciate you joining us today. and your service thus far and your willingness to serve into the future. and i'm sorry i didn't have a chance to speak with you prior to today. but i know that you spoke to my staff and i really appreciate that as well. i'm just going to start it off with one question. i was very concerned that the m.t.a. board, including you, voted to increase fares on clipper card users during this period, when so many san franciscans have lost their

jobs, are struggling to put food on the table, when service cuts on m.t.a. have been extensive. i'm sure that you know that the board of supervisors voted 10-1 urging you not to increase fares. and it's -- it's really concerning to me. and i wanted to hear more of an explanation on why you chose to vote to increase fares during this time. >> absolutely. thank you for that question. i voted without -- you know, there was much hesitation and thought and consideration that we -- that myself and i know all of us gave to both the board of supervisors' perspective on this and frankly just a lot of compelling public comment. so i voted for the budget because i really do think it balanced the needs of the agency to move forward in a sustain -- financially sustainable way to

be able to provide transportation service as we come out of this. so to be clear, the increases that were -- that are part of our budget will go into effect at the earliest in november of 2020. they aren't going into effect now. one of the reasons that we chose to reduce the discount on clipper, which has the effect of raising the fare on clipper, is because when we did an analysis of the populations that use clipper, versus cash fare, the data though that more -- with this budget we were able to maintain fee cash fare at $3 for the next two budget cycles, the for the next two fiscal years. and so we -- in doing all of those things, in fact, we deviated from the board policy, that's a fair indexing policy that i very much believe in.

financial sustainability for the agency, as well as transparent and, you know, public transparency for what fares are going to look like as we move forward. the fare policy basically increases fares on an incremental basis over time, to match the cost of providing transportation services. as you probably know about 20% of our operating budget comes from transit fares. that's not an insignificant amount of money. we as board members have a responsibility to make sure that sfmta is in a position to continue providing service into the future.

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the exact circumstances you're pointing to. we do have various -- we have -- in addition to the muni use program, we have free muni for low and moderate-income senior and people with disabilities. we do have a lifeline pass for lower-income folks. and we do have other discounted programs. so i think the direction that our staff -- they were already working on this. but i think we're always looking for more options to better serve lower-income folks who may be in the middle zone, where basically they may not qualify for the low-income discount. so i think our focus moving forward should be trying to capture folks who may not qualify for the low-income discount programs we have in existence. i would look forward to input on

those issues. because i think that's really important. >> supervisor ronen: so i serve on the m.t.c. and we recently were successful in getting 100 -- i believe it's $197 million from the care act in congress for the m.t.a., which almost covers the cost of the losses during the shelter-in-place and covid crisis. was that considered when making this choice to raise the clipper card fares? >> it was. and i think an important thing to note that we entered this budget cycle with already basically, as i think the citywide is experiencing, a structural deficit that we needed to close the gap on. that was before coronavirus and covid, you know, that we're seeing now.

so we are very grateful for the federal funding. it's allowing us to move forward and not have to make drastic service cuts in the future, when we're not social distancing. we also have, as you know, a backlog of funding that we need to address, to ensure liability of our transportation system. so we did consider all of that when we approved the budget. >> supervisor ronen: okay. okay. thank you. do my colleagues have any questions? >> supervisor mar: yeah. thanks, chair ronen. first of all, thank you, ms. rubke, for your service to the m.t.a. board and for your willingness to continue to serve. it's critically important role in our city and for our communities. i just had some follow-up questions, sort of i'm drawing on chair ronen's questions around how you would approach

the difficult and challenging decisions that the m.t.a. board is going to have to make in light of the significant increased budget deficit. so, yeah, thank you for sharing your sort of general priorities around equity and expanding access, particularly for the disability -- disabled community and pedestrian safety. but i was just wanting to hear a little bit more about how you're going to approach making these really difficult budget decisions, particularly to ensure equity in our transit service and transit system in our city. yeah, i guess. i'm sorry. just a little more. i'd appreciate it. >> go ahead. >> supervisor mar: a little more elaboration on how you approach

these difficult decisions. >> right. sees as a we move forward in just the financial situation, that we all are facing. is that right? >> supervisor mar: yeah. >> right. i think this goes back to one of the reasons i approved the budget, which included fare increases to make sure that we are appropriately or as appropriately as we can, under the circumstances, funding our agency, so that we're not making painful cuts to service. because we already know that in communities of concern and there's certain parts of our city that are, you know, still would benefit from more reliable transit service. and so i think, as you know, the m.t.a. has an equity strategy. i think that strategy is something that i'm really proud that our agency does. and i think that would be kind of my first starting point as

far as, you know, when we're having to make difficult decisions. you know, using that as a guide to making sure that we're providing service where it's needed most, in communities that are historically, you know, left out or not, you know, have been -- have not had the service that the financial district has, for example. so i would start there. so, you know, transit improvements to the 3rd, for example. i mean that's just one obvious line that needs a lot of attention. but i would, you know, try to make sure that we are funding those -- that service appropriately, as we move forward, before cutting anything, you know, improving service all together i guess. that would be kind of where i would start. >> supervisor mar: yeah. thank you. just on that, you know, as we

look at restoring service, you know, that has been so drastically cut down to the bone right now, besides you mentioned prioritizing the t-line, can you mention how you would approach prioritying -- prioritizing which service lines to restore and if there's any other specific priorities -- specific priorities in terms of service restoration. >> yes. i mean, i think -- as you said, the equity strategy has a really good menu of the things we know we need to do. and so i would, you know, i would want to look at those particular line and get those up and running, you know, as we restore service. and as things go back to normal. we also want to -- and i know the agency is very committed to doing this, -- as we ratchet

back up as a society in general, see where the riders need the service. see where people are traveling and because i would imagine that in the transition back to -- transitioning out of shelter-in-place, i would imagine transit trends would be slightly different than what we would expect before covid. i would be kind of -- looking at those two things. and i would also be -- i think it's really important that we look at non-transit options as well. so i think some of the initiatives that we have in place right now are really exciting to me. and i hope that we can use them as a way to transition back. so, for example, making safer streets for people who are cycling and walking. those are the streets initiative that's been really successful. i'd be interested in hearing the supervisors' perspectives on that. but i think enabling those types

of modes to really -- to flourish as we transition back. i think it's really important, because i don't think it's appropriate to go back to businesses a usual with traffic congestion every -- business as usual with traffic congestion everywhere. >> supervisor mar: thank you. i don't have any other questions. thank you so much. >> supervisor ronen: supervisor stefani, do you have any questions? >> supervisor stefani: yes, thank you, chair ronen. i thank you for meeting with me last week over zoom. thank you for your eight years of service thus far. i do have one question that came up subsequent to our meeting. and one of the issues that i have had and ongoing problem with with the sfmta is communication. and it seems like at least, as far as i'm concerned, i feel like i'm always the last person to find out what's happening in my district and what the sfmta is doing in my district. for example, the most recent announcement of street closures, the streets program during the

shelter-in-place was announced as we all know, without any input whatsoever from the supervisors. there were no streets that were considered in district 2 at all. and i think it's absolutely vital that when the sfmta is doing things that affect our constituents in our districts, that we be involved. and, first of all, i want to know your opinion on -- i don't think it's just anecdotal. i think it does happen. i don't know if the other supervisors feel the same way. i know supervisor peskin made the comment about it. why does that continue to happen? it seems to be a culture of lack of communication. and whether or not you see it as an issue at all. do people really think the supervisors need to be involved in these types of decisions? and also will you commit to making sure that we are involved going forward, because i think when issues are affecting our constituents, we should not be the last to find out. so physical you can just opine on that a little bit.

yes. that's pretty much it. >> okay. no, thank you for that question. you're certainly not the first supervisor i've heard that from. i think the sfmta has an amazing, talented, skilled staff. and i know that they're committed to communicating with you. i know that me as a board member, i very much value, you know, partnerships with the board of supervisors, because i think our projects are more successful when the supervisor in the district, is not only in support, but just engaged. because you are talking to your constituents and you're able to get a fuller discussion of the issues. and i think we end up with better projects that way. so i'm personally very, very supportive and very, you know, i think it's very critical that you all are involved in what's happening in your districts. and i -- you know, like i said,

this is not the first time i heard a supervisor complain about this. i know that our staff is working amazingly difficult during this time. i know that the safe streets issue -- i do think that this was -- the closed streets, sorry. the initiative i know that came out very quickly. and i did hear that from other supervisors as well that they didn't get advanced warning. i would -- i hope to look at this as a like an emergency precaution that, you know, rolled out very quickly. and so that is why that was -- that was the case. and i hope that that is not seen as a, you know, ongoing practice and certainly i hope that you all feel free to reach out to me if you feel this is a continuing issue moving forward. >> supervisor stefani: thank you for that. i just want to make sure that --

when items become -- when we have items that are before the board of supervisors, just to take note of that and make sure that that's a question. and that's something that you ask about to make sure that we're involved. because a lot of times what happens is that we react. and then we're pegged as is not being supportive of the sfmta or the underlying project, when we haven't even had a chance to evaluate it. so in that -- that's unfortunate as well. that we're pegged as not liking bicycles or not liking this or that, when all we're doing is actually reacting to the fact that things are rolling out without our input, without us being able to even have a conversation with our community. and so i just really think that that needs to be a priority going forward. and it sounds to me that you're committed to that. so i appreciate your answer. that's all i have. thanks, supervisor ronen. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. i just want to echo everything

supervisor stefani just said. the rollout of the slow streets was pretty disastrous. and it was -- it was really shocking to all of us that the m.t.a. didn't consult with us on the streets, that it chose which were -- very strange choices. and certainly didn't have to do with anything that anyone wanted in my district. so i couldn't agree more with supervisor stefani on that. and we would ask you, if you are reappointed, to please make sure that the staff is communicating with supervisors in a much more direct and consistent way. >> supervisor mar: chair ronen. can i just -- yeah. just wanted to add on to this. and also say that thanks to supervisor stefani for raising this issue around the sfmta's

practice of moving ahead with significant decisions without adequate input from the supervisors or in other cases from neighborhood residents or businesses. and and i think for the slow streets initiative, i think that's a good example. that i totally agree with both of you on that it was very problematic how that went forward. although i do want to add that i'm very supportive of the slow streets initiative and the fact that it was something that i had already been in conversations with sfmta staff about. and in looking at how we could implement slow streets strategy in district 4. and specifically we had already spoken earlier with the sfmta staff about 41st avenue being a good candidate for traffic calming and slow streets.

and so i was happy to see that 41st avenue, you know, was one of the first two streets to be implemented, you know, as a slow street on friday. and i was actually out there this weekend on 41st avenue with my daughter bicycling on it. and it was wonderful. you know, enough space for walking and bicycling. but i think, ms. rubke, your sort of explanation about the problematic process with slow streets and the lack of engagement with the supervisor offices around, your explanation that was mostly due to an emergency -- the need to sort of act quickly during the emergency situation, that we're facing in a city, you know, really doesn't -- you know, that's not a question adequate or even reasonable explanation, because the slow streets, you know, initiative is something that clearly, you know, wasn't an

urgent emergency action that had to be taken. and could have and should have been done in more collaborative way with the district supervisor offices in our communities. thanks. i just wanted to say that. >> supervisor ronen: yeah. >> understood. i appreciate that feedback. i guess maybe -- i just think that our staff is working so incredibly hard, kind of around the clock at the ever-changing needs of the transit system. so i just think that this is a very unique time. i just hope that the inadequate communication that you all very well articulated isn't seen as kind of that's business as usual and that's our trend. that is not what we're aiming for obviously. >> supervisor ronen: okay. if there's no more comments from my colleagues, questions, we'll open this item up for public comment. mr. clerk, are there any members of the public who would like to

speak on this item? >> clerk: madam chair, operations is -- actually sfgov is checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. >> mr. chair, there are no callers waiting to speak. >> supervisor ronen: okay. there are no callers, that what i heard? >> clerk: yeah. just to say, if you were on the line and wish to speak, please press 10 to be added to the uaw. -- to the queue. give them a few moments if they decide to speak. >> supervisor ronen: sure. >> clerk: it appears -- just checking in with sfgov, it appears there are no speakers for this item. if you could confirm that, please. >> i can confirm there are no speakers. >> supervisor ronen: okay. thank you very much. public comment is closed.

colleagues, do either of you have a motion on this item? >> clerk: please note an amendment is required on this item. >> supervisor ronen: right. >> supervisor mar: chair ronen, i'd be happy to move that we amend the motion to remove "reject." >> supervisor ronen: send this forward to a committee report? >> supervisor mar: yeah. so the motion states that we approve -- the mayoral appointment of crstina rubke to m.t.a. board of supervisors, recommendation to the bull forward. >> supervisor ronen: great.

can we have a roll call vote. >> clerk: yes. on that motion. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: aye. >> clerk: supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: aye. >> clerk: chair ronen? >> supervisor ronen: aye. >> clerk: this matter will be recommended as a committee report, as amended to remove the word rejecting throughout the motion. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much, ms. rubke. congratulations. and hope to talk to you again soon. >> thank you so much for your time. take care you guys. >> supervisor ronen: bye. mr. clerk, can you please read item number 2. >> clerk: item number 2 is a hearing to consider appointing one member term ending august 1st, 2022 and two members, term ending august 1st, 2023 to the south of market community planning advisory committee. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on the item should call (888)204-5984,

access code 32501008. i believe at this time we have two members -- two applicants on hold. i believe that mr. elberling has not called in. >> supervisor ronen: okay. before we call the applicants, i was wondering if abigail from supervisor haney's office wanted to make any comments? >> clerk: give us a moment while we unmute her line. >> supervisor ronen: okay. >> good morning, chair mar, stefani and ronen. this is abigail from supervisor haney's office. today for your consideration, is the south of market community planning advisory committee nominations. supervisor haney is unable to join us this morning. but would like me to convey that our office has nominated three

people for those seats. seat 4 is john elberling, seat 5 is heather phillips, seat 6 is jane weil. before we hear from the applicant, we have jessica look, a representative from the planning department here today, to briefly give some background about this c.a.c. and what the body hopes to achieve during its time. miss look are you there? >> good morning. can you guys hear me? >> supervisor ronen: we can. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is jessica look. and i'm a series planner with the planning department. a product of the central soma plan, which was adopted in 2018.

the c.a.c. was created in response to both community and planning commission desires and introduced into a legislation in 2019 by supervisor matt haney. the soma c.a.c. will be comprised of 11 members, seven appointed by the board, and four appointed by the mayor. there are also 11 alternates, which are appointed in a same manner and these board appointees will be before this committee. the c.a.c. is charged with providing advice on not just the implementation of the central soma plan, but also the east soma area plan and the western area plan. the c.a.c. is responsible to help prioritize projects funded by the eastern neighborhood area plan impact fees, that are collected in soma, along with projects funded by new central soma funding sources. in addition, the c.a.c. is able to provide input on proposed revisions to documents, that implement the respective plans.

and the c.a.c. can also provide input on individual development proposals, comprised by individual development projects and the design and programming of open spaces, including -- so once the soma c.a.c. is seated, he'll be working with the committee members to finalize the bylaws and develop a calendar of agenda items for a monthly meeting. this concludes a really brief overview of what the soma c.a.c. is. but i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. is there any questions from my colleagues? i don't think we have any questions. but thank you so much for joining us and for that presentation. appreciate it. so now we will hear from the applicants. why don't we start with

ms. phillips for seat 5. are you on the line, ms. phillips? >> good morning supervisors. >> supervisor ronen: good morning. >> yes, i'm here. >> supervisor ronen: please. >> good morning, supervisors. thank you so much. i am heather phillips and i just want to say thank you so much to supervisor haney's office for nominating me for this opportunity to apply to serve on the south of market community planning advisory committee. a little about me, for the last 14 years i've lived and worked in the south of market. and i've had the privilege to work with many different community groups, collaboratives, neighborhood projects. currently i work full time as the director of programs at united players, where i have the opportunity to work directly with young people and their

families, as well as supervise a program staff of 14 amazing people. i am also one of the founding members of the friends of jean and victoria park, a group which advocates for the only full-service public park and rec center in south of market. as well as activate these spaces. most recently i was appointed to serve on the eastern neighborhood c.a.c. and that experience has helped me understand how community members, like myself, can influence the long-range planning that they're preparing for. ultimately the community's voice in this process is vital to understanding how to prioritize the needs of residents, stakeholders and most importantly our vulnerable populations, who often don't have the access or the resources to influence these huge systems. i do have a master's degree in urban studies and i feel that this gives me some insight. however, i think what makes me most qualified to serve on this

committee is the experience that i share as a district 6 resident, a former service provider and a person committed to justice and equity. i would be proud to serve as a member of this committee and i'm happy to answer any questions that you have for me today. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. is there any questions? i don't think we have any questions. so thank you so much for your willingness to serve in another capacity. we really appreciate it very much. >> thank you all so much for the opportunity. >> supervisor ronen: of course. next we would love to hear from jane weil, if you are available. >> hello. can you hear me? >> supervisor ronen: yes, we can. >> okay. well, hello, supervisors. my name is jane weil. and i appreciate speaking to you today to seek your approval for

my appointment to the new soma community planning c.a.c. i live in mid-market on mission, between 7th and 8th. the densest, most quickly developing part of the city. and it's essential that we try to balance the positive aspects of progress with the needs of the people who already live here. i represent several constituencies, homeowner, seniors, spanish speaker and grandparent of public school students. and i have worked closely with members of the filipino community, who have made soma their home for decades. and are trying to preserve the family neighborhood that exists today. gentrification and the lack of open space are a real problem here. as is the concentration of supportive housing, navigation centers and poverty. making mid-market a containment zone is not healthy for anyone. it's fair that the impact fees from the rapid development in soma be plowed back into the community, to stabilize it and enhance services to the low-income family and seniors

live here. the fees generated by the central soma plan are used to benefit everyone. i have worked with the other nominees on earlier c.a.c.s and we're all committed to balance the needs of soma residents and work with planning and all city departments as the construct impacts us all. i have lived around the country and committed to making my home in the heart of san francisco. but i want our central city to be the best it can be. and i want to leave with one sentiment, housing without green space is unhealthy. we can't continue to build high-rise buildings with thousands of new units, including many for families of all incomes, and not include more green space that's open to all. we can't rely on developers to provide open spaces. they'll put it where they want on shady back corners and ask to buy it back later as the public won't use it in the case of being a continental hotel. i represent district 6 to the

park and rec open space, advisory committee. and i also look forward to serving on this new c.a.c. to help manage the development of soma. thank you so much. and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. is there any questions? i don't think there's any questions. thank you so much for serving on yet another body to make soma even better. appreciate it. and then i just wanted to check -- thank you. with the clerk to make sure mr. elberling hasn't joined us? >> clerk: i believe that mr. elberling has not called in. can you please confirm? >> that is correct. mr. elberling has not called in. >> supervisor ronen: okay. well, i am very familiar with mr. elberling's work in soma. and it's been topnotch.

so i am happy to endorse his appointment to seat 4. can we now open this up to public comment. is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on this item? >> clerk: madam chair, we're checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. sfgov, please let us know if you're ready. for those already on hold, please continue to wait until you're prompted to speak. >> okay, mr. chair, i see one right now. if you want to please wait a moment to allow them to call in. otherwise there are none in the queue. >> supervisor ronen: great. we'll wait a moment.

>> okay. there is one call in the queue. >> supervisor ronen: fantastic. caller -- >> announcer: you have one question remaining. >> supervisor ronen: good morning. if the public comment is on the line, feel free to begin. has anyone called in for item number 2 to speak in public comment on the appointment of the soma community planning advisory committee? >> announcer: you have zero questions remaining. >> okay. it appears that caller has dropped the line. >> supervisor ronen: okay.

so i think -- is it appropriate now to close public comment, mr. clerk? >> clerk: yes, it is. i am happy to make a motion to move these nominees forward. john elberling for seat 4. c. heather phillips for seat 5 and jane weil for seat 6, with positive recommendation. can you please take a roll call vote. >> clerk: on that motion, supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: aye. >> clerk: supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: aye. >> clerk: chair ronen? >> supervisor ronen: aye. >> clerk: the motion passes. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. congratulations. thanks again for your service. mr. clerk, can you please read item number 3. >> clerk: item number 3 is a hearing to consider appointing nine members term ending

december 1st, 2023 to the soma community stabilization fund community advisory committee. members of the public who wish to provide public comment, should call (888)204-5984, access code 3501008 and press 10 to line up to speak. for this item, we have two members who are not able to call in, as of this time. shannon amitin and conny ford. >> supervisor ronen: okay. i wanted to see if abby wanted to speak before we opened the floor to the applicants? is abby from supervisor haney's office still on the line with us? >> clerk: yes, she is.

>> chair ronen, thank you so much. i'm here. can you folks hear me? >> supervisor ronen: yes. now we can. >> wonderful. thank you, chair ronen, and supervisors mar and stefani. i'm here again on behalf of supervisor haney. thank you for all of our applicants that have applied previously. i know that this matter has been heard by the rules committee at a prior hearing. today, for your consideration, are two remaining members of -- two remaining applicants for the permanent seated numbers, as well as alternate seats. just a brief background and a continuation of supervisor haney's remarks from the first meeting, the soma community stabilization fund was created in 2005. the mission of this soma community stabilization fund is to stabilize the community and promote equity through funding recommendations and priorities that mitigate the impact of development. throughout the fund's history,

the board of supervisors has always honored the recommendations of this e.a.c. so it has very much had a very real influence on shaping the neighborhood and prioritizing investments to stabilize residents and businesses and their expertise, history and relationships within soma, who will be critical in making impactful decisions in allocating the public dollars. the c.a.c. will work in partnership with the soma planning c.a.c. to ensure that its investments are aligned, cohesive and strategic. i would like to thank rosario from o.c.d. for all of her hard work with the c.a.c. throughout the years. we appreciate you calling in and thank you for your dedication to the c.a.c. chair ronen, we do have some recommendations following the applicants' comments. so i would like to turn it over to you to call the applicants for seats 6 and 7.

>> supervisor ronen: sure. so if we can hear from christian martin first. that would be great. is christian martin on the line? >> yes, i am. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. good morning. >> good morning. good morning, chair, good morning supervisors. my name is christian martin. i'm the founding executive director of the newly formed soma west benefit district. the not-for-profit entity, our mission is to improve the quality of life for all of the residents, businesses and visitors to the western part of soma, through a variety of programs. the boundaries range from mina in the north to thompson in the south and 5th in the west.

all 107 blocks, this will touch the lives of many diverse constituencies and people from many walks of life. our 20-member board of supervisors has broad representation of the western soma community. and we are continuing to develop and expand our diversity and representation currently. we launched services in march and we provide daily cleaning and maintenance to this large and diverse neighborhood. we sweep trash, remove hazardous materials from sidewalks, remove graffiti, on public and private property and work to improve the conditions in the public realm. we ploy predominantly low-income residents dad this work and -- to do this work and we engage others through programs that bring clean, green and active public spaces to our neighborhoods. we will prioritize routes to school and transit stops, which

disproportionately affect low-income residents. we prioritize bike safety policies and work to bring more green, open spaces to the public realm for the benefit of all living, working and visiting the neighborhood. once the stay-at-home order is lifted and he can be with each other again, we will activate the victoria park with free books, games and activities for all. we will sponsor and support local arts and cultural groups, highlighting our historic and vibrant filipino culture. we will also activate the newly created eagle program, help ensure the park remains clean and a neighborhood asset that celebrates our community. and all of its beauty and diversity. so all of these programs will be free of charge and designed to make -- designed to be accessible and welcoming to low-income residents. in addition, we have hired

personnel to conduct outreach to our unhoused persons and link them to services, de-escalate conflicts on the street and protect the health and safety of the vulnerable population. in addition, our outreach personnel will be responsible for responding to the unique and immediate needs of very low-income people who are at risk of becoming homeless and currently homeless as they're transitioning into housing. this is a role that i'm familiar with, since i've served in similar roles in the past, most recently at the lower pope community benefit district, where we developed a tenant landlord clinic that aims to prevent homelessness through displacement. and throughout my career, i have aimed to give employment opportunities to individuals experiencing homelessness, formerly incarcerated, folks with mental and physical disabilities. and i have aimed to empower them to participate in the community-building process.

i take pride in developing people, helping them advance in life and overcoming obstacles and setbacks along the way, as i have. cleaning and outreach jobs, offering outreach, an opportunity to provide stable jobs for very low-income residents and their families. almost all of san francisco residents and representatives offer diversity of the soma neighborhood. i thank you for the opportunity to serve this population. and i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. do any of my colleagues have any questions? seeing none, we will move on to the next applicant. is janetta johnson available?

>> good morning. this is janetta johnson. good morning, board of supervisors. >> supervisor ronen: good morning, janetta. >> i've been -- an organization that serves community members that are currently in the janetta district. we have lived and worked in district 6 in the janetta area for over 20 years, providing district services, supporting members of the community and particularly working with members of the community that have been kicked out of various organizations. and have had many discipline problems, to help them stabilize and get back into access for services.

supporting them to get to their next steps. and we're an organization that is very diverse in our staff. i feel like every race and culture is represented in our -- well not every but primarily. we have a diverse group of staff, not just gender orientation and sexuality, but also various cultures that represent the city and county of san francisco. and i would like to emphasize on that we have been housing and supporting people in getting into -- we've been housing and supporting people in getting into stable, affordable housing opportunities and structures and a large part of that is through

a grassroots plan. and really like using private foundation money and supporting people into getting into affordable housing opportunities and structures, that could be a little bit more sustainable for various individuals, based on their income. or lack of income. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. >> that's it. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much, janetta. is there any questions? thank you so much for your willingness to serve and your presentation. next if we can hear from shanon amitin. >> clerk: i believe that miss amitin was not able to call in. >> supervisor ronen: okay.

>> that is correct. miss amitin has not called in. >> supervisor ronen: and then carolyn caldwell. >> hi. good morning, supervisors. this is carolyn caldwell. can you hear me? >> supervisor ronen: yes. we can hear you. >> okay. haney, good morning. thank you so much for this opportunity to speak and thank you to supervisor haney's office for the recommendation to be an alternate on this board. i am the director of operations at united players. and a co-founder along with rudy and alisha. the organization united players has the same timeline, trajectory as the fund. we incorporated in 2005. and we are a direct beneficiary

of the fund. and a really great example of the impact the fund has had in stabilizing the community, by looking at the growth of our organization. and what we have been able to accomplish through the support of the fund. i do all of the grant writing for united players. so i'm deeply experienced with the fund. and understand what it is set out to accomplish in the community, as well as all of the back end, you know, process and procedure and familiarity with how the fund operates. and so would just be so very grateful to be able to serve in -- as an alternate in helping the fund reach a greater impact across soma. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. thank you so much. any questions? seeing none, we will move on to

another applicant. christian martin on the line? wait, we heard from christian. is kris romasanta on the line? >> hi, i'm here on the line. >> supervisor ronen: good morning. >> good morning. good morning, supervisors. thank you so much for this opportunity. i'm here to be considered for reappointment to the soma stabilization community advisory committee. i've served on the fund for about seven years. i was the vice chair occupying the housing seat. and i previously served as a co-chair of the soma fund for the previous four years. in addition, i served as a member of the eastern

neighborhoods for five years. i lived in the south of market for six years. i'm very familiar with the neighborhood. i have also volunteered my time and have been active with many of the soma groups, the non-profits, all that are related to land use, the filipino cultural district and the affordable housing issues. my professional background is in land use and community development. as an urban planner and a community development practitioner for various local governments, including aba, city of oakland and south san francisco. i currently work for the city of south san francisco and management the kdbg program. a program geared towards serving low-income families. in addition, i work on regional and local housing policies that directly affect low-income residents. so more specific to the fund, over the last four to five years

the funds made great strides beyond the original intent, investing in small sites, non-profit ownership and programming for access to affordable housing. our early purpose of the fund wasn't really to purchase property, but in 2014, me and along with others soma fund members, thought it was time to step in and invest in the first small sites property on natoma street. and this is where we were able to stabilize five very low-income residents, some making less than $20,000 a year. and a couple of them were seniors. this first site jump started the mayor's office of housing small sites program. and we've subsequently invested in additional sites in the neighborhood. as a member of the fund, i've introduced proposals of financial empowerment, cultural public events, programming for eviction defense. and have been an advocate for

non-profits to purchase their own buildings. in addition, the fund has invested in areas of the city that the city has not made a priority, such as pedestrian improvements near bessie, carmichael and acquisition -- non-profit acquisitions, mainly for united players. the fund has a finite amount of money. and soma continues to develop, the fund will need to see more proposals for the potential acquisitions. and we definitely need this more creative financing. and i want to be able to make sure that we adapt to these needs and changes especially now, since we're in this bit of a crisis. and now with the emergence of the planning committee, there needs to be more coordination between the two bodies, since i was a member of the eastern neighborhoods.

and it was a very more -- it was a more technical body. and having coordination will have more seamless dialogue if we understand the social and the technical aspects, that will -- that will be on the ground in soma. so thank you again so much for your consideration. >> supervisor ronen: sorry, i was on mute. thank you so much. is there any questions? seeing none, thank you again for your presentation and willingness to serve. and i wanted to see if gina rosales is on the line? >> i'm here. can you hear me? >> supervisor ronen: we can hear you. thank you, gina. >> awesome. hi.

thanks so much for having me speak today. my name is gina rosales. i'm an s.f. resident and a former business owner. some of you may know me as the cofounder of undiscovered s.f. creative night market, also run an event planning committee. prior to starting my company, i was also director of a non-profit dance organization in soma, where organized dance workshops and classes at city dance, as well as annual shows at the regency ballroom. i'm also a dancer myself. i've been dancing since my high school days at shcp. of course, i'm heavily involved with soma programming. in addition to undiscovered, i also run a non-profit, which is dedicated to building strong and empowered filipino community in the bay area. i'm also a recent partner in the new creative project, which is working on building programming to build the future filipino-american arts and

cultural center in soma. and through my work, i've been really excited about this important work we've been doing around trauma-informed systems. and how to address community trauma by creating organizations and programs. so i now apply the t.i.f. work into all of our events in soma. and all of our events. dishly, we've been doing a lot of cross-cultural and collaborative work over the years. i'm an active supporter of the trevor project, fundraising for lgbtq youth work. i was a former crisis counselor for them. and i'm also the event planner for a large tech. and prior to covid happening, i was suppose to be the planner of -- building strong partnerships with cultural district. during these times of crisis, i know that ours are typically the first things to get cut. it's my strong belief that arts and culture is exactly what we need during this time, to

provide hope and life. and i'm committed to doing this collaborative work in soma and throughout san francisco. and i'm sure that t.i.f. is being kept centered for all of our arts and culture work, to keep it thriving and inclusive in soma. and also to work on getting more young people to be active and involved in this work. so thank you so much for the opportunity. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much for your willingness to serve. any questions? seeing none, i just wanted to check to see if conny ford had called in or if she had not? mr. clerk. >> clerk: i believe miss amitin has called in. >> supervisor ronen: okay. i had asked about conny ford. go ahead, shanon amitin?

>> clerk: miss amitin, are you on the line? >> give me one second. please. i believe she is. she is unmuted. is available to speak. >> supervisor ronen: shanon, are you there? >> hello, miss amitin? can you hear us?

hello, ms. amitin, can you hear us? >> supervisor ronen: i believe it's mr. amitin? >> clerk: hello, caller? >> can you hear me? >> supervisor ronen: thank you. we can hear you. >> all right. excellent. i just want to give a shout-out to jonah. we've had a chance to work together on lesbian 2 tech. and i'm a huge fan. my name is shanon amitin. i'm currently on staff with san francisco pride. and i am also a representative today for the cultural district. i am a huge fan of the cultural district being a part of both the community and working side-by-side with our city

government to preserve arts, culture, small business and especially lgbtq culture. do you guys have questions for me? do you want to hear a little bit more about me? >> supervisor ronen: any questions? >> i don't have any questions. i'm just excited to be here. >> supervisor ronen: okay. thank you so much. then last but certainly not least just checking to see if conny ford had called in. >> miss ford has not called in. >> supervisor ronen: okay. we will now open this item up for public comment. if there's any member of the public who wishes to speak, now is the time. >> madam chair, we are checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. please let us know if they are

ready. if you have not already done so, please press 10 to be added to the queue. this those on hold, please wait to be prompted to begin at the beep. >> madam, there appears to be three callers on the line. >> announcer: you have three questions remaining. >> hi. my name is kevin. i'm a resident of the castro. undeafed -- ph.d. candidate. and i just wanted to speak on behalf of shanon. shanon is a well-known advocate for the lgbtq plus community, both from the side of private enterprise and a long history of public service, too. the lgbtq community and with

s.f. pride and the castro hopeful, the castro cultural association. i just wanted to say that -- to speak on his behalf that he plays -- a lot of involvement in the lgbtq community. fully endorse shanon for this position. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. >> announcer: you have two questions remaining. >> hi. i am beth hunt. and i'm the cultural district manager for the lgbtq cultural district here inssoma. i'm a resident of 12 years of soma and active participant and community organizer of the lgbtq community. i am calling in favor of two candidates today. first would be shanon amitin,

who is a wonderful advocate for the lgbtq community, as well as rather active in a lot of our local business in soma and castro. also i would like to support christian martin from the soma west. i have worked with both of these individuals on various projects and it has been a wonderful and delightful experience. great response and they really know how to activate constituents. thank you. >> operator: you have one question remaining. >> hello. my name is bob goldfarb. i'm president of the lgbtq cultural district in soma. and i would like to speak in favor of two candidates, both christian martin, who i have worked with in my capacity with

the leather district and i have found him to be well reasoned and insightful and i think he would be an excellent addition to the c.a.c. and i would also like to speak in favor of shanon amitin, who has strong community involvement as an activist, a community leader and an entrepreneur. he has involved -- excuse me, has volunteered with the compton transgender district, the castro lgbtq cultural district, has served on the planning committee for the trans march. and done a lot of fundraising in the bay area. in soma there's lots of placement going on. i think the c.a.c. is a vital element in preventing that. and keeping san francisco unique. and a wonderful place that i think we all enjoy to live.

and i think that both shanon and christian would be excellent additions to the c.a.c. to help further those goals. thank you very much. >> operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> no more calls, madam. >> supervisor ronen: i'm sorry, i was on mute. and with that i will close public comment. and we'll invite abigail from supervisor haney's office back to express supervisor haney's recommendations for this body. >> thank you, chair ronen. this is abby, supervisor haney's recommendations for the following seats are as follows. for seat 6, christian martin.

for seat 7, janetta johnson. for seat 9, which is the alternate to seat 2, carolyn caldwell. seat 10, which is the alternate to seat 3, gina rosales. seat 11, which is the alternate to seat 4, conny ford. seat 13 -- excuse me, seat 14, which is the alternate to seat 7, is kris romasanta. supervisor haney would also like to express that there are still some remaining seats open. unfortunately our office hasn't -- wasn't able to connect with everyone. if there are still some remaining applicants, that were not seated, we will connect with you at a future meeting, since there are still some open seats. and we thank everyone that has applied. and we appreciate all of your support and hard work to make

soma a thriving community. >> supervisor ronen: okay. thank you so much. do any of my colleagues have any questions or comments? >> supervisor mar: chair ronen, i would like to -- well, i just want to thank all of the applicants. you're an amazingly talented and diverse and committed group of activists and leaders working to support the soma community, which has been ground zero of the sort of tech-driven development, despite the boom. so thank you all for all that you do. and, yeah, i'm inclined to support supervisor haney's recommendations for the appointments today. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. supervisor stefani, do you have

any comments before -- i'm happy to make the motion. >> supervisor stefani: yeah, i'm supportive of supervisor haney's recommendations as well. and thank you everyone for coming out. or for being on the line. >> supervisor ronen: yes. thank you. i think it's appropriate given that this community advisory committee is in supervisor haney's district, that we follow his recommendations. so with that i will make a motion to move to the full board, with recommendation for seat 6, christian martin, with a residency waiver. seat 7, janetta johnson. seat 9, carolyn caldwell. seat 10, gina rosales. seat 11 conny ford. and seat 14, kris romasanta. mr. clerk, can you please take a roll call vote on that motion. >> clerk: on that motion,

supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: aye. >> clerk: supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: aye. >> clerk: chair ronen? >> supervisor ronen: aye. >> clerk: the motion passes. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much to all of those who applied and were here today. mr. clerk, is there any other items? >> clerk: that completes the agenda for today. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. the meeting is adjourned.

>> how i really started my advocacy was through my own personal experiences with discrimination as a trans person. and when i came out as trans, you know, i experienced discrimination in the workplace. they refused to let me use the women's bathroom and fired me. there were so many barriers that other trans folks had in the workplace. and so when i finished college, i moved out to san francisco in the hopes of finding a safer community. >> and also, i want to recognize our amazing trans advisory committee who advises our office as well as the mayor, so our transadvisory

community members, if they could raise their hands and you could give a little love to them. [applause] >> thank you so much for your help. my leadership here at the office is engaging the mayor and leadership with our lgbt community. we also get to support, like, local policy and make sure that that is implemented, from all-gender bathrooms to making sure that there's lgbt data collection across the city. get to do a lot of great events in trans awareness month. >> transgender people really need representation in politics of all kinds, and i'm so grateful for clair farley

because she represents us so intelligently. >> i would like to take a moment of silence to honor all those folks that nicky mentioned that we've lost this year. >> i came out when i was 18 as trans and grew up as gay in missoula, montana. so as you can imagine, it wasn't the safest environment for lgbt folks. i had a pretty supportive family. i have an identical twin, and so we really were able to support each other. once i moved away from home and started college, i was really able to recognize my own value and what i had to offer, and i think that for me was one of the biggest challenges is kind of facing so many barriers, even with all the privilege and access that i had. it was how can i make sure that i transform those challenges

into really helping other people. we're celebrating transgender awareness month, and within that, we recognize transgender day of remembrance, which is a memorial of those that we have lost due to transgender violence, which within the last year, 2019, we've lost 22 transgender folks. think all but one are transgender women of color who have been murdered across the country. i think it's important because we get to lift up their stories, and bring attention to the attacks and violence that are still taking place. we push back against washington. that kind of impact is starting to impact trans black folks, so

it's important for our office to advocate and recognize, and come together and really remember our strength and resilience. as the only acting director of a city department in the country, i feel like there's a lot of pressure, but working through my own challenges and barriers and even my own self-doubt, i think i've been try to remember that the action is about helping our community, whether that's making sure the community is housed, making sure they have access to health care, and using kind of my access and privilege to make change. >> i would like to say something about clair farley. she has really inspired me. i was a nurse and became disabled. before i transitioned and after i transitioned, i didn't know what i wanted to do. i'm back at college, and clair

farley has really impressed on me to have a voice and to have agency, you have to have an education. >> mayor breed has led this effort. she made a $2.3 million investment into trans homes, and she spear headed this effort in partnership with my office and tony, and we're so proud to have a mayor who continues to commit and really make sure that everyone in this city can thrive. >> our community has the most resources, and i'm very happy to be here and to have a place finally to call home. thank you. [applause] >> one, two, three. [applause] >> even in those moments when i do feel kind of alone or unseen or doubt myself, i take a look at the community and the power of the supportive allies that are at the table that really

help me to push past that. being yourself, it's the word of wisdom i would give anyone. surely be patient with yourself and your dream. knowing that love, you may not always feel that from your family around you, but you can >> my name is alan schumer. i am a fourth generation san franciscan. in december, this building will be 103 years of age. it is an incredibly rich, rich

history. [♪] >> my core responsibility as city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. i am also the tour program manager, and i chair the city advisory commission. i have two ways of looking at my life. i want it to be -- i wanted to be a fashion designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it was a constant battle between both.

i ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn, big changes, and now i am here. the work that i do at city hall makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the garment industry. i had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents. it is almost like an extended family. i have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. she was a dressmaker of the first order.

i would go visit her, and it was a special treat. i was a tiny little girl. i would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time, girls did not wear pants. the garment industry had the -- at the time that i was in it and i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. you will see the predominant designers, owners of huge complexes are huge stores were all male. women were sort of relegated to a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. there was a woman by the name of diana. she was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she

was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. she classified it as a third i. will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of san francisco, and was the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. i believe he has not a third eye , but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. >> the board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. jeffrey heller, the city and

county of san francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. >> to impart to the history of this building is remarkable. to see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you start talking about this building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face. with children, and i do mainly all of the children's tours, that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can start talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of san

francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor. >> at times, my clothes make me feel powerful. powerful in a different sense. i am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me. usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the look, or sometimes the complication of the look. i have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit? retirement to me is a very strange words. i don't really ever want to retire because i would like to

be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing honor of working in the people's palace. you want a long-term career, and you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving to someone or something you're then yourself. follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way.

>> i view san francisco almost as a sibling or a parent or something. i just love the city. i love everything about it. when i'm away from it, i miss it like a person. i grew up in san francisco kind of all over the city. we had pretty much the run of the city 'cause we lived pretty close to polk street, and so we would -- in the summer, we'd all all the way down to aquatic park, and we'd walk down to the library, to the kids' center. in those days, the city was safe and nobody worried about us running around. i went to high school in spring valley. it was over the hill from chinatown. it was kind of fun to experience being in a minority, which most white people don't get to experience that often. everything was just really within walking distance, so it

make it really fun. when i was a teenager, we didn't have a lot of money. we could go to sam wong's and get super -- soup for $1. my parents came here and were drawn to the beatnik culture. they wanted to meet all of the writers who were so famous at the time, but my mother had some serious mental illness issues, and i don't think my father were really aware of that, and those didn't really become evident until i was about five, i guess, and my marriage blew up, and my mother took me all over the world. most of those ad ventures ended up bad because they would end up hospitalized. when i was about six i guess, my mother took me to japan, and that was a very interesting trip where we went over with a

boyfriend of hers, and he was working there. i remember the open sewers and gigantic frogs that lived in the sewers and things like that. mostly i remember the smells very intensely, but i loved japan. it was wonderful. toward the end. my mother had a breakdown, and that was the cycle. we would go somewhere, stay for a certain amount of months, a year, period of time, and she would inevitably have a breakdown. we always came back to san francisco which i guess came me some sense of continuity and that was what kept me sort of stable. my mother hated to fly, so she would always make us take ships places, so on this particular occasion when i was, i think, 12, we were on this ship getting ready to go through the panama canal, and she had a breakdown on the ship. so she was put in the brig, and i was left to wander the ship until we got to fluorfluora few

days later, where we had a distant -- florida a few days later, where we had a distant cousin who came and got us. i think i always knew i was a writer on some level, but i kind of stopped when i became a cop. i used to write short stories, and i thought someday i'm going to write a book about all these ad ventures that my mother took me on. when i became a cop, i found i turned off parts of my brain. i found i had to learn to conform, which was not anything i'd really been taught but felt very safe to me. i think i was drawn to police work because after coming from such chaos, it seemed like a very organized, but stable environment. and even though things happening, it felt like putting

order on chaos and that felt very safe to me. my girlfriend and i were sitting in ve 150d uvio's bar, and i looked out the window and i saw a police car, and there was a woman who looked like me driving the car. for a moment, i thought i was me. and i turned to my friend and i said, i think i'm supposed to do this. i saw myself driving in this car. as a child, we never thought of police work as a possibility for women because there weren't any until the mid70's, so i had only even begun to notice there were women doing this job. when i saw here, it seemed like this is what i was meant to do. one of my bosses as ben johnson's had been a cop, and he -- i said, i have this weird idea that i should do this. he said, i think you'd be good. the department was forced to hire us, and because of all of

the posters, and the big recruitment drive, we were under the impression that they were glad to have us, but in reality, most of the men did not want the women there. so the big challenge was constantly feeling like you had to prove yourself and feeling like if you did not do a good job, you were letting down your entire gender. finally took an inspector's test and passed that and then went down to the hall of justice and worked different investigations for the rest of my career, which was fun. i just felt sort of buried alive in all of these cases, these unsolved mysteries that there were just so many of them, and some of them, i didn't know if we'd ever be able to solve, so my boss was able to get me out of the unit. he transferred me out, and a couple of weeks later, i found out i had breast cancer. my intuition that the job was killing me. i ended up leaving, and by

then, i had 28 years or the years in, i think. the writing thing really became intense when i was going through treatment for cancer because i felt like there were so many parts that my kids didn't know. they didn't know my story, they didn't know why i had a relationship with my mother, why we had no family to speak of. it just poured out of me. i gave it to a friend who is an editor, and she said i think this would be publishable and i think people would be interested in this. i am so lucky to live here. i am so grateful to my parents who decided to move to the city. i am so grateful they did. that it neverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>> my background is in engineering. i am a civil engineer by training. my career has really been around government service.

when the opportunity came up to serve the city of san francisco, that was just an opportunity i really needed to explore. [♪] [♪] i think it was in junior high and really started to do well in math but i faced some really interesting challenges. many young ladies were not in math and i was the only one in some of these classes. it was tough, it was difficult to succeed when a teacher didn't have confidence in you, but i was determined and i realized that engineering really is what i was interested in. as i moved into college and took engineering, preengineering classes, once again i hit some of those same stereotypes that

women are not in this field. that just challenged me more. because i was enjoying it, i was determined to be successful. now i took that drive that i have and a couple it with public service. often we are the unsung heroes of technology in the city whether it is delivering network services internally, or for our broadband services to low income housing. >> free wi-fi for all of the residents here so that folks have access to do job searches, housing searches, or anything else that anyone else could do in our great city. >> we are putting the plant in the ground to make all of the city services available to our residents. it is difficult work, but it is also very exciting and rewarding our team is exceptional. they are very talented engineers and analysts who work to deliver

the data and the services and the technology every day. >> i love working with linda because she is fun. you can tell her anything under the sun and she will listen and give you solutions or advice. she is very generous and thoughtful and remembers all the special days that you are celebrating. >> i have seen recent employee safety and cyber security. it is always a top priority. i am always feeling proud working with her. >> what is interesting about my work and my family is my experience is not unique, but it is different. i am a single parent. so having a career that is demanding and also having a child to raise has been a challenge. i think for parents that are working and trying to balance a career that takes a lot of time,

we may have some interruptions. if there is an emergency or that sort of thing then you have to be able to still take care of your family and then also do your service to your job. that is probably my take away and a lot of lessons learned. a lot of parents have the concern of how to do the balance i like to think i did a good job for me, watching my son go through school and now enter the job market, and he is in the medical field and starting his career, he was always an intern. one of the things that we try to do here and one of my takeaways from raising him is how important internships are. and here in the department of technology, we pride ourselves on our interns. we have 20 to 25 each year. they do a terrific job contributing to our outside plant five or work or our network engineering or our finance team.

this last time they took to programming our reception robot, pepper, and they added videos to it and all of these sort of things. it was fun to see their creativity and their innovation come out. >> amazing. >> intriguing. >> the way i unwind is with my photography and taking pictures around the city. when i drive around california, i enjoy taking a lot of landscapes. the weather here changes very often, so you get a beautiful sunset or you get a big bunch of clouds. especially along the waterfront. it is spectacular. i just took some photos of big server and had a wonderful time, not only with the water photos, but also the rocks and the bushes and the landscapes. they are phenomenal.

[♪] my advice to young ladies and women who would like to move into stem fields is to really look at why you are there. if you are -- if you are a problem solver, if you like to analyse information, if you like to discover new things, if you like to come up with alternatives and invent new practice, it is such a fabulous opportunity. whether it is computer science or engineering or biology or medicine, oh, my goodness, there are so many opportunities. if you have that kind of mindset i have enjoyed working in san francisco so much because of the diversity. the diversity of the people, of this city, of the values, of the talent that is here in the city. it is stimulating and motivating and inspiring and i cannot imagine working anywhere else but in san

>> roughly five years, i was working as a high school teacher, and i decided to take my students on a surfing field trip. the light bulb went off in my head, and i realized i could do much more for my students taking them surfing than i could as their classroom teacher, and that is when the idea for the city surf project was born. >> working with kids in the ocean that aren't familiar with this space is really special because you're dealing with a lot of fear and apprehension but at the same time, a lot of

excitement. >> when i first did it, i was, like, really scared, but then, i did it again, and i liked it. >> we'll get a group of kids who have just never been to the beach, are terrified of the idea, who don't like the beach. it's too cold out, and it's those kid that are impossible to get back out of the water at the end of the day. >> over the last few years, i think we've had at least 40 of our students participate in the city surf project. >> surfing helped me with, like, how to swim. >> we've start off with about two to four sessions in the pool before actually going out and surfing. >> swimming at the pool just helps us with, like, being, like, comfortable in the water and being calm and not being all -- not being anxious. >> so when we started the city

surf project, one of the things we did was to say hey, this is the way to earn your p.e. credits. just getting kids to go try it was one of our initial challenges for the first year or two. but now that we've been doing it three or four years, we have a group of kids that's consistent, and the word has spread, that it's super fun, that you learn about the ocean. >> starting in the morning, you know, i get the vehicles ready, and then, i get all the gear together, and then, i drive and go get the kids, and we take them to a local beach. >> we usually go to linda mar, and then occasionally ocean beach. we once did a special trip. we were in capitola last year, and it was really fun. >> we get in a circle and group stretch, and we talk about

specific safety for the day, and then, we go down to the water. >> once we go to the beach, i don't want to go home. i can't change my circumstances at home, but i can change the way i approach them. >> our program has definitely been a way for our students to find community and build friends. >> i don't really talk to friends, so i guess when i started doing city surf, i started to, like, get to know people more than i did before, and people that i didn't think i'd like, like, ended up being my best friends. >> it's a group sport the way we do it, and with, like, close camaraderie, but everybody's doing it for themselves. >> it's great, surfing around, finding new people and making new friendships with people throughout surfing. >> it can be highly developmental for students to have this time where they can learn a lot about themselves

while negotiating the waves. >> i feel significantly, like, calmer. it definitely helps if i'm, like, feeling really stressed or, like, feeling really anxious about surfing, and i go surfing, and then, i just feel, like, i'm going to be okay. >> it gives them resiliency skills and helps them build self-confidence. and with that, they can use that in other parts of their lives. >> i went to bring amy family o the beach and tell them what i did. >> i saw kids open up in the ocean, and i got to see them connect with other students, and i got to see them fail, you know, and get up and get back on the board and experience success, and really enjoy themselves and make a connection to nature at the same time. >> for some kids that are,

like, resistant to, like, being in a mentorship program like this, it's they want to surf, and then later, they'll find out that they've, like, made this community connection. >> i think they provided level playing fields for kids to be themselves in an open environment. >> for kids to feel like i can go for it and take a chance that i might not have been willing to do on my own is really special. >> we go on 150 surf outings a year. that's year-round programming. we've seen a tremendous amount of youth face their fears through surfing, and that has translated to growth in other facets of their lives. >> i just think the biggest thing is, like, that they feel like that they have something that is really cool, that they're engaged in, and that we, like, care about them and how they're doing, like, in

general. >> what i like best is they really care about me, like, i'm not alone, and i have a group of people that i can go to, and, also, surfing is fun. >> we're creating surfers, and we're changing the face of surfing. >> the feeling is definitely akin to being on a roller coaster. it's definitely faster than i think you expect it to be, but it's definitely fun. >> it leaves you feeling really, really positive about what that kid's going to go out and do. >> i think it's really magical almost. at least it was for me. >> it was really exciting when i caught my first wave. >> i felt like i was, like -- it was, like, magical, really. >> when they catch that first wave, and their first lights up, you know -- their face

lights up, you know you have them hooked. >> i was on top of the world. it's amazing. i felt like i was on top of the world even though i was probably going two miles an hour. it was, like, the scariest thing i'd ever done, and i think it was when i got hooked on surfing after at 62942 work together we can support your children. it's been my dream to start is a valley school since i was a little girl. i'm having a lot of fun with it (clapping)

the biggest thing we really want the kids to have fun. a lot of times parents say that valley schools have a lot of problems but we want them to follow directions but we want them to have a wonderful time and be an affordable time so the kids will go to school here. we hold the classes to no longer 12 and there's 23 teachers. i go around and i watch each class and there's certain children i watched from babies and it's exciting to see them after today. the children learn how to follow

directions and it ends up helping them in their regular schooling. they get self-confidents and today, we had a residual and a lot of time go on stage and i hope they get the bug and want

>> and welcome to the regular hearing for thursday, april 30th, 2020. before i begin, as has been the case for our remote hearings, i'd like to enter the following announcement into the record that on february 25th, 2020, the mayor declared a local state of emergency related to covid-19. furthermore, the mayor and governor have suspended -- suspending select laws applicable to commissions and making it possible to hold commission hearings remotely. and on april 3rd, there was authorization from the mayor's office to reconvene remotely through the end of the shelter-in-place. recognizing that the commission's consideration of certain projects is an essential government operation. and it directs the commission to prioritize the action items