>> chair fewer: good morning everyone. this meeting will come to order. this is the july 31, 2020 regular meeting of the san francisco local agency formation commission. i'm sandra lee fewer. i'm joined by gordon mar and matt haney. do we have any announcement. >> clerk: yes, due to the covid-19 health emergency and to protect commissioners city employees and the public city hall is closed. however, members will be participating in the meeting remotely. this precaution is taken pursuant to the various local and state federal orders, declarations and directives. commission members will attend the meeting through video conference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically

present. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. both channel 26 and sfgov tv.com are streaming the number across the screen. each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. comments to speak are available via phone by calling 415-655-0001. then pound and then pound again. when connected you will hear the meet discussion and in listen mode only. when your item come up, dial star three to be added to the speaker line. best practice is speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio.

you may submit public comment in either of the following ways. e-mail to myself the lafco cle clerk, or by u.s. mail at one dr. carlton b. goodlett place, san francisco, california 94102. that concludes my announcements. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. please call the item number two. >> clerk: approval of the lafco minutings from the june 19, 2020 regular meeting. >> chair fewer: any comment or questions. let's open this up for public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public

comment on this item should call 415-655-0001. please dial star three to line up to speak. a system prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. is there anyone on the line? >> there are no callers in the queue. >> chair fewer: public comment is now closed. i want to make a motion to approve the lafco minutes from june 19, 2020. do i need a second for that? >> clerk: yes. >> chair fewer: second please? >> second. >> clerk: motion to approve the

minutes. [roll call vote] you have three ayes. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. do we need to excuse missioner pollock from this meeting? should i make a motion? i like to make pa motion oexcuse commissioner pollock from this meeting. could i have a second please? >> supervisor mar: second. >> chair fewer: roll call vote please. [roll call vote] you have three ayes.

>> chair fewer: thank you very much. please call item number three. [agenda item read] >> chair fewer: thank you very much. we have our executive director presenting on this. >> thank you, good morning commissioners, bryan goebel executive officer. this item will authorize the lafco to enter an construction with banner production to provide renewable energy consulting to the lafco. the lafco is mandated to provide oversight of cleanpowersf in august of last year we issued a request for qualifications for renewable energy expert in three service areas. i outlined all of this in your packets. by the okay deadline, we haved a total of seven responses. they met the minimum

qualifications to work with lafco. there was only one response for service area one, which is to support lafco's oversight of cleanpowersf. we gave all of the respondents a second chance to apply and by the february deadline received a total of four responses. on march 13th, we convened an r.f.q. evaluation panel made up of chelsea from chair fewer's office and a legal counsel. of all four respondents, vanir scored the highest in the supervisor and proposal evaluation. on june 16th of this year, the lafco issued an intent to award a contract to vanir. the panel were impressed with vanir's presentation during the interview and their understanding of the role lafco plays with cleanpowersf. they have done their homework. as well as by the firm's

documented expertise and proven record in the renewable energy field. they are a minority and women owned company. the staff member for the role at vanir will be jenny witson with extensive knowledge of renewable energy issues. the team who will work with lafco, i outlined this in your packet, includes developing the framework for the c.c.a. program in los angeles. they have c.c.a. experience. this would allow us to significantly strength and our oversight role of cleanpowersf by retaining expertise from a firm with experience in this field. i'm very excited to work vanir going forward. my recommendation is that you approve the contract. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. any comments or questions from my colleagues? seeing none, let's open up for public comment please.

>> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 415-655-0001. if you have not already done so, please dial star three to line up to speak. please wait to indicate the system has unmute you. are there any members of the public wish to provide public comment on this item? >> yes, i have one in the queue. >> hello commissioners, eric brooks with californian for energy choice, i worked the last 14 years to get cleanpowersf off the ground.

support of this, the diversity and the expertise that this company and team has is both crucial and impressive. it's great to see this going forward. there's one big caution and hopefully vanir is watching this as well so they get this message to both the commissioners and to vanir, the big caution is that all the expertise looks great but the one thing that i don't see from either of the commission or the contractor is the plan and the ability to integrate all that spirit expero plan a virtual power plant for the san francisco bay area like the sydney, australia renewable plan. that's what the advocates have been watching for 14 years. it's not coming from the sfpoc.

we need this contractor to be expert on power plant and hire contractor to build it. that's absolutely crucial. it's the one thing i would say to step up your game on both the commission and the contractor. thank you. this looks great. it's great to see that we're moving forward and i look forward to communicating with all of you in the future including vanir. >> clerk: thank you for your comment. anyone else on the line? >> that completes the queue. >> chair fewer: public comment is closed. mr. brooks, comments are noted. i think we are now able to make a recommendation to approve the contract with vanir construction management as mr. goebel has recommended to us.

>> supervisor mar: i had a question for mr. goebel. i wanted to clarify is the contract with vanir going to cover all three service areas? i noticed lafco received responses to the r.f.p. from different bidders in the three different service areas. vanir only submitted a response to service area one and service area two but not service area three which identify proposed programs for communities of concerns. i wanted to clarify whether the scope of this contract will cover all three service areas? >> chair fewer: mr. goebel?

>> thank you for that question commissioner mar. i want to add that jenny whitson from vanir johnson us as well. no, this contract only covers service area one, which is supporting lafco's oversight role of cleanpowersf. i think it could maybe be possible that vanir could help us develop scope of work for service area three, which other service they didn't apply for. this is mostly to support service area one. >> chair fewer: commissioner mar, would you like to hear from jenny whitson from vanir. she's available for comment to answer questions. >> supervisor mar: yes, sure. i'm curious how -- whether lafco will be pursuing consultant support for service area two and

three? >> it is my goal that we'll be able to -- based on what i heard from commissioners in the past that service area three is a priority, particularly picking up on winston parson's work that he did with his report with number of power disconnections in san francisco and doing work in this area and other work that the commission deems a priority for communities of concern. i'm not sure if ms. whitson would care to say a few words. >> mr. goebel and commissioners, vanir is excited to support the lafco and service area one oversight of cleanpowersf. in termings of the comments that we heard, we'll work with mr. goebel and commissioners to consider any advocacy comments be and recommendations and

incorporate those accordingly into lafco's recommendations. we're very excited and we look forward to working with lafco and many other stakeholders that are looking at the cleanpowersf implementation plan. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. ms. whitson to reiterate the question from commissioner mar about working in areas two and three. would you be able to lend any expertise. i know that your contract for service area number one. i'm assuming that you have the expertise for two and three should we expand the scope. is that correct? >> yes, we -- we do have the technical support and expertise for service area two. we are willing to help develop

the scope for service area three. we can certainly help with developing that as well. >> chair fewer: commissioner mar, any other questions or comments? >> supervisor mar: no, thank you so much. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. i think that seeing no one else in the queue, i like to make a motion to approve this contract. could i have a second please? >> supervisor mar: second. >> chair fewer: roll call vote please. [roll call vote] you have four ayes. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. please call item number four.

[agenda item read] >> chair fewer: mr. goebel? >> thank you madam chair. commissioners, this item would allow the lafco to extend its contract with the jobs with justice education fund to conduct another survey of on demand workers in san francisco. the focus of this survey would be delivery workers. who are among our front line

workers now. our previous survey, those delivery workers who participated in the survey, mostly in san francisco, more than 60% of them. i gone into detail on this in your packet but the survey would have two part. the team would recruit for a representative survey of workers on four platforms, two grocery and two food with a target of 200 workers on each platform. they would also conduct a survey of delivery workers are unionized. to understand how the work is performed when the workers are employees with union representation. this will then compare the difference and have some analysis on that. the first step of this next phase will be to do a pilot to develop a methodology that prioritizes public health and safety for the team who will be working in the field. a part of that how they will determine whether or not this would be in-person survey using all the safety protocols and or

whether it would be a phone survey. i think that's something they hope to work out with the pilot. we do have funds left over from the previous representative survey since it was cut short. that would cover the pilot phase and then conducting the next survey would actually be dependent on additional funding from private foundations to the tune about $360,000. we've already applied for one big grant and i'm starting to work now with the team on fundraising strategy moving forward. i feel confident that we can raise those funds. i'm looking forward to this next phase of work with the survey team. the contract will be extended for one year and my recommendation is that you approve the contract. with that i'm happy to answer any questions. >> chair fewer: thank you. any comments or questions from my colleagues? seeing none, let's open up for public comment please. >> clerk: operations checking to see if there's callers in the

queue. for members waiting online and wish to speak, please press star three now to be added to the queue. for those on hold, please continue to wait until the similar indicate you have been unmuted. anyone on the line? >> i have one caller in the queue. >> hello general commissioners. eric brooks again. this time representing our city of san francisco, local grassroots group and the san francisco green party. i wanted to really -- you probably already thinking in this direction, it is vital during the virus crises that we get responsive and data on what front line workers need because of the virus crises.

especially with we're just finding out today that congress is totally dropping the ball on support -- unemployment support maybe a lot lower and that essential workers like this, is vital that we're paying them a lot of money. soothe like doing this. we really need to get data and responses specifically on that. not just for this industry but this will cover but if we get the right kind of responses it will apply to uber and lyft and maybe even whole foods workers, grocery store workers, you name it. so we can get some guidance on giving real relief to front line workers and make sure they're paid well enough to justify the hard work that we're having them do. those are my comments. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. anyone else in the queue?

>> clerk: i don't believe there's anyone else in the queue. >> madam chair, that completes the queue. >> chair fewer: thank you. any comments or questions from ? commissioner mar. >> supervisor mar: thank you. i wanted to thank executive officer goebel and my former colleague, the academic partner and others for all your work on this groundbreaking study on workers in san francisco. i fully support extending the contract for jobs for justice, to do a new surveys with the food and grocery delivery workers. i'm very interested in following up on recommendations that came out of first round of survey and

supervisor haney -- particularly the recommendation to explore licensing system for food delivery. i think the second phase of the survey of those workers will align well with us and initiatives that can support these workers better. so thank you. >> chair fewer: thank you commissioner mar. any other comments? i like to add my ditto to and thank mr. goebel especially for staying with it and being able to fund these really important studies. thank you very much. having said that, anyone else in in the queue? i make a motion to approve the reservation authorizing the

second amendment -- no, second amendment to the agreement between lafco and the jobs for justice education fund for on demand delivery workers. can i have a second please? >> second. >> second. >> chair fewer: roll call vote please. [roll call vote] >> you have four ayes. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. can you please call item number five. [agenda item read]

>> chair fewer: i think today we have our counsel inder khalsa to present this item. >> good morning madam chair and members of the commission. it is my pleasure to bring to you today an extension to the contract with bryan goebel your executive officer.

[no audio]

>> chair fewer: i see no one in the queue. we can open this up for public comment. >> clerk: operations is checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. please press star three now to be added to the queue. for those on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. is there anyone on the line? >> i have one caller. >> it's eric brooks again. this time representing all four

of the groups that i mentioned. just to give thumb us up to renewing the executive officer's contract. it's been very refreshing to work with bryan. today's meeting is a clear indication that bryan is getting stuff done and his ability to get the supervisors to realize the importance of this commission has been important as well. i would urge you to approve this. thank you. >> clerk: i believe that is the only caller in the queue. >> that is correct. that completes the queue. >> chair fewer: thank you. public comment on item number five is closed. i would like to make a motion to approve resolution for bryan

goebel executive of office services. second please. >> second. >> chair fewer: thank you commissioner cink. -- singh. [roll call vote]. you have four ayes. >> chair fewer: please call item number six. >> clerk: item number six is public comment. members of the public who wish to provide public comment should call 415-655-0001. if you have not already done so, please dial star three now to line up to speak.

a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicate you have been unmuted. is there anyone in the line to speak? >> yes, i have one caller. >> hello again one last time. commissioners, eric brooks representing all four of the groups that i mentioned before. i can't say this with enough urgency. if you look what's happening in washington d.c. right now, the trump administration's handling of the economic crises that has merged from this virus and other problems with the economy is dismal at best. even the leadership of the democratic party is not stepping up to make sure that things are funded and the people are funded the way they need to be.

housing is producted the way it needs to be. i would urge you to take the public bank off the back burner because we're now facing a situation where san francisco is likely to be under extreme crises, especially for housing even with the protections that we've got in place. it's vital that we make sure and get the public bank on the front burner and moving forward as quickly as possible so we can get people out of harm and get coops funded and things like that. so we can fund things like cleanpowersf that will be much easier to build than saving the planet if we get money from a public bank to build that virtual power plant. sydney, australia power plant that i was talking about before. i don't think that we can leave public bank to decide at this point. thank you.

>> chair fewer: thank you. >> clerk: that is the only caller. >> chair fewer: okay, public comment is now closed. madam clerk, is there any more business today. >> clerk: no further business today. >> chair fewer: thank you very much everyone. we are adjourned.

>> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of san francisco. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> i'm one of three owners here in san francisco and we provide mostly live music entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and it's not a big menu, but we did it with love. like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. for latinos, it brings families together and if we can bring that family to your business,

you're gold. tonight we have russelling for e community. >> we have a ten-person limb elimination match. we have a full-size ring with barside food and drink. we ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. we're hope og get families to join us. we've done a drag queen bingo and we're trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. this is a great part of town and there's a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. there's a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hanhang out at. we have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies.

some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and it's exciting. >> we even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. it's in the san francisco garden district and four beautiful muellermixer ura alsomurals. >> it's important to shop local because it's kind of like a circle of life, if you will. we hire local people. local people spend their money at our businesses and those local mean that wor people willr money as well. i hope people shop locally. [ ♪ ]

[♪] ] >> i am the supervisor of district one. i am sandra lee fewer. [♪] >> i moved to the richmond district in 1950 mine. i was two years old. i moved from chinatown and we were one of the first asian families to move out here.

[♪] >> when my mother decided to buy that house, nobody knew where it was. it seems so far away. for a long time, we were the only chinese family there but we started to see the areas of growth to serve a larger chinese population. the stress was storage of the birthplace of that. my father would have to go to chinatown for dim sum and i remember one day he came home and said, there is one here now. it just started to grow very organically. it is the same thing with the russian population, which is another very large ethnic group in the richmond district. as russia started to move in, we saw more russian stores. so parts of the richmond is very concentrated with the russian community and immigrant russian community, and also a chinese immigrant community. [♪]

>> i think as living here in the richmond, we really appreciate the fact that we are surrounded three natural barriers. they are beautiful barriers. the presidio which gives us so many trails to walk through, ocean beach, for families to just go to the beach and be in the pacific ocean. we also also have a national park service. we boarded the golden gate national recreation area so there is a lot of activity to do in the summer time you see people with bonfires. but really families enjoying the beach and the pacific ocean during the rest of the time of year. [♪] >> and golden gate park where we have so many of our treasures here. we have the tea garden, the museum and the academy of sciences. not to mention the wonderful playgrounds that we have here in richmond. this is why i say the richmond is a great place for families.

the theatre is a treasure in our neighborhood. it has been around for a very long time. is one of our two neighborhood theatres that we have here. i moved here when i was 1959 when i was two years old. we would always go here. i love these neighborhood theatres. it is one of the places that has not only a landmark in the richmond district, but also in san francisco. small theatres showing one or two films. a unique -- they are unique also to the neighborhood and san francisco. >> where we are today is the heart of the richmond district. with what is unique is that it is also small businesses. there is a different retail here it is mom and pop opening up businesses. and providing for the neighborhood. this is what we love about the streets. the cora door starts on clement

street and goes all the way down to the end of clement where you will see small businesses even towards 32nd. at the core of it is right here between here and 20 -- tenth avenue. when we see this variety of stores offered here, it is very unique then of the -- any other part of san francisco. there is traditional irish music which you don't get hardly anywhere in san francisco. some places have this long legacy of serving ice cream and being a hangout for families to have a sunday afternoon ice cream. and then also, we see grocery stores. and also these restaurants that are just new here, but also thriving. [♪] >> we are seeing restaurants being switched over by hand, new owners, but what we are seeing is a vibrancy of clement street

still being recaptured within new businesses that are coming in. that is a really great thing to see. i don't know when i started to shop here, but it was probably a very, very long time ago. i like to cook a lot but i like to cook chinese food. the market is the place i like to come to once a year. once i like about the market as it is very affordable. it has fresh produce and fresh meat. also, seafood. but they also offer a large selection of condiments and sauces and noodles. a variety of rice that they have is tremendous. i don't thank you can find a variety like that anywhere else. >> hi. i am kevin wong. i am the manager. in 1989 we move from chinatown to richmond district. we have opened for a bit, over 29 years.

we carry products from thailand, japan, indonesia, vietnam, singapore and india. we try to keep everything fresh daily. so a customer can get the best out a bit. >> normally during crab season in november, this is the first place i hit. because they have really just really fresh crab. this is something my family really likes for me to make. also, from my traditional chinese food, i love to make a kale soup. they cut it to the size they really want. i am probably here once a week. i'm very familiar with the aisles and they know everyone who is a cashier -- cashier here i know when people come into a market such as this, it looks like an asian supermarkets, which it is and sometimes it can be intimidating. we don't speak the language and many of the labels are in chinese, you may not know what to buy or if it is the proper ingredients for the recipe are trying to make.

i do see a lot of people here with a recipe card or sometimes with a magazine and they are looking for specific items. the staff here is very helpful. i speak very little chinese here myself. thinks that i'm not sure about, i asked the clerk his and i say is this what i need? is this what i should be making? and they actually really helped me. they will bring me to the aisle and say this is battery. they are very knowledgeable. very friendly. i think they are here to serve not only the asian community but to serve all communities in the richmond district and in san francisco. [♪] >> what is wonderful about living here is that even though our july is a very foggy and overcast, best neighborhood, the sleepy part outside on the west side is so rich with history, but also with all the amenities that are offered.

[♪]>> i'm district two supervise leadership of the department of public health flattened the curve in san francisco. the steps we have taken together have saved lives. one of the reasons the city acted so quickly so early was to not overburden our health care systems. as the state of california and bay area counties have begun to

gradually reopen, we are seeing some troubling signs. we have a seven day average of ninety eight new cases per day. our demand for acute care for covid positive patients has goan each week. today dr. and i are announcing the establishment of our first low acuity medical site. located a 163. it will open with twenty

patients. it's not expected to treat covid positive patients. when i starred this i facility i was truly impressed at the first rate medical facility. the city's ability to confront covid 19 depends on our ability to care for those with all manner of conditions. sprained angels to heart attacks. other ailments are not stopping just because of the pandemic.

opening this facility will shore up our ability for the hospitals to treat covid 19. it is not a drop in acute care site testing location or shelter. please do not visit this location if you are seeking any of those services sm as the district two supervisor i would be remiss to not note the response to local emergencies. we're an incredible resource and

i'm grateful for the partnership with press i hapartnershipwith.a >> good mark morning. i'm director of health. thank you for your support during this unprecedented time. today like if everyday, i check the number of patient patients h covid 19.

unfortunately that number is higher than ever before and continues to climb. that number dropped to just 26 patients six weeks ago. today, it's one hundred and seven. of those one quarter are very sick and in intensive care. across the city we have more than six thousand cases of covid 19. and look, it took us thirty eight days to go from two thousand to three thousand cases. of half as long to go from three thousand to four thousand. in just ten days we went from five thousand to six thousand

cases of covid 19. let me be clear, we are in a major surge of covid 19. the virus is moving fast and more people are getting seriously ill. if things continue, we estimate we'll have more than 750 san franciscans in the hospital by october. plausible worst case scenarios put us at twenty four hundred hospitalizations and eighteen hundred deaths. these scenarios unfortunately become more likely as each day goes by with the current trend. today, fortunately all patients

are getting world class treatment from the most caring professionals sm we wisals. we still have capacity to care for patients. it is good news that our health care system has not yet been overwhelmed as we saw in new york. many are contributing to that by staying home, avoiding gathering, covering your faces when go ting out, washing your hands sm you are preventing more illness and spread and keep our health care system functioning.

our city must prepare for this surge. how many people-that puts us in the red zone of one of our key health indicators. we've been there for over a month. it's extremely sobering that we reached this point. it's extremely concerning. our reopening remains on pause. the main reason we joined the watch list was because of our rapidly growing rates. our goal is to keep the increase to less than 10%.

since january the health department has been planning and preparing for covid 19. we built up the capacity of our health care system. we added testing sites a sites. today supervisor stephanie announced, we're creating a care site that we hope we will not need. it's located in the presidio but

will serve all san franciscans. it will serve patients who no longer need acute care but are not ready to go home. they would have medical medical supervision and care from staff. i hope this day won't come. we hope our hospitals will never need to open the relief that this site represents. that depends on you. all of us. please. please wear a mask. it's really not that hard. i want to see san francisco open

schools instead of medical sites. we want to see houses of worship open their doors. sit in their favorite barbers chair. hug our grand children again. we can make that happen. we still have time to turn this around. if we want those things we can't take chances and hope this virus is not as infectious as the data and facts tell us it is. everyone needs to behave as though each of us has covid 19. think about that.

we know half as many doap don'te symptoms at some period. be careful. every time you wear a mask, socially distance. wash your hands. avoid gatherings. you're moving closer to the day we can live more like we did before march. everyday you take a risk you move us farther away from that day. we can prove testimon works aga. covering our faces may be the most important. on friday san francisco updated

the orders. everyone over the age of ten should wear a face covering. if you're alone in a space that people might use later, cover your face. if you're handling food for other face, cover your face. basically, cover your face. if you're passing someone on the sidewalk, your face must be covered. other things we must do. washing our hand hands, stayingx feet apart. if you are meeting. meet out side if you can. of course, please you must stay

home if you can. short of the vaccine or cure of covid 19 these are the most effective interventions that we have available to us. they work if we take them up and practice these behaviors everyday. you can do this. it's up to us to flatten the curve again. thank you. >> thank you doctor and thank you supervisor stephanie for your time. we'll begin the q and a portion of this meeting. we have a variety of questions for dr. co lfax. the first question is from the

associated press. we haven't seen the devastation in the homeless communities. why do you think that is? >> i think it's a number of factors that so far have helped us avoid worse case scenarios with people experiencing homelessness, we took action early on with our partners and support of housing and with our community seven is agency part mere ins. ensuring that best practices were rapidly a applied. people had the materials necessary to reduce the spread. other key interventions that we did is make available hundreds

of hotel rooms so people experiencing c homelessness were able to shelter in place. over thirty five hundred people have been placed in those hotel rooms. we've done a lot of out reach work on the street. providing hygiene. we had an intense clinical team that provided health care for people before the pandemic. this team has been working around the clocke clock to ensue people get the best care. it's a variety of actions that

we've taken to avoid some of the outcomes we've seen in other jurisdictions. >> thank you, doctor. the next set of questions are from ab c seven. face shields should be worn in addition to face masks. do you for se for see this beina requirement. >> the most important thing is that we ensure in public that everyone is wearing a face covering if they are over ten years of age. we've been very clear that protecting our health care workers is key.

>> how close is san francisco to getting off the watch list? >> we continue to see increases above the 50% hospitalization rates. i can't speculate on how soon. we are in a major surge here and anticipating on average seven hundred fifty in the hospital by october. if we're on and off the watch list what is key is we work to flatten the curve and recommit ourselves. we did it before and we can do it again. it's going to take the whole community to make this work. >> are social gatherings the

major reason for the surge. >> it's a major ko contributor. people should not be using testing to determine whether they should gather. if someone is infected, the virus is extremely contagious. they are contributing to this increase. if you go to a gathering and somebody has the virus and is going to transmit it. we have to understand that with

more virus in the community you saw how quickly we went from four thousand to five thousand tcases. please, please don't gather. >> we have a handful of questions about san francisco issuing fines on people who don't wear masks in public. >> we've been emphasizing the needs of these masks and the social distancing as we continue to emif i if emphasize.

we're schorrin exploring how wey increase enforcement particularly in situations where requirements that are very clear are not being followed. this would be enforced following up with businesses an other situations where people gather. we're working with communities for voluntary compliance. we're looking at increasing enforcement. in regards to the press ci the .

who is paying for it and who will staff it? >> the city is funding the site. it will be staff by health departments and u c sf providers. we'll take care of 93 patients. m>> what has it historically ben used for and is it prepared to accept patients. >> it will depend on the

capacity of our hospitalization across the city. if there's a need to move people out of the hospital quickly and make room for covid 19 patients. i can't speculate on the past use of the site. >> thank you for your time today that conclawed concludes the prs conference. for additional questions please e-mail.

>> hi. i'm chris manners, and you're watching coping with covid-19. today, i'm going to be talking about checking with your neighbors. >> start off by giving your neighbor a call to see how they are or if they need help.

if they don't answer, don't get anxious. try again later. check to see if their car is parked nearby. are they lights being turned on and off during normal hours? if you still can't contact them, contact your other neighbors and see if they've had contact with them recently. you can also leave a note in their mailbox, and when you do get in touch with them, ask if they'd like to share their emergency contact information. if you're getting groceries for a neighbor, get a mask and sanitizing wipe. put the groceries by the front door and then move back and call them from the sidewalk. if you need to ring the doorbell, don't use your hand. he wipe or paper towel that you brought. when you call, stay on the sidewalk at least 6 feet away from them. as you're talking to them, ask about any other help they might

need. some might need further assistance with groceries or just need to chat. maybe they might need you to pick up prescriptions from the pharmacy. and as always, as soon as you get home, wash your hands. here's a quick recap. >> well, that's it for this episode. i hope you found it useful. go to sfgov for

>> coping with covid-19. today's special guest. >> i am chris manners, you are watching coping with covid-19. my guest is the director of economic and work force development here to talk about the programs the city has in place during this crisis to help small businesses and vulnerable and disconnected residents. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. it is a pleasure to be here, chris. >> start by talking about gift to sf. it provides many of the resources we are talking about.

could you tell us a little bit about the focus of gift to us. then we will talk about specific programs. >> i very much appreciate the question. for anyone who is watching right now, so much of the work that has been accomplished to serve most vulnerable is because of very generous donations to the give to sf covid-19 response and recovery fund. over $28 million has been fund raised to support areas as important as housing stabilization for vulnerable communities, food security programs which has been a big issue not only in san francisco but up and down california and of course across the nation. very much thinking about workers and family members who may not have been access to state and federal programs the same way that others who are impacted have and do. that was to make sure families

and workers were supported with woulrelief. small business community to make sure they have access to loan was and grants. we are excited how diverse we have been able to do this. we have been able to roll these out to ensure that our communities are supported by our city together with all of us with city funds and philanthropic dollars to help realize them on behalf of the community's needs. >> that is great. now, many of our small businesses don't have large payrolls. they are unable to qualify for the federal ppp loans. does the city have active programs available for small businesses to help with ongoing expenses such as rent while they are still closed? >> certainly. one of the programs we launched in partnership and because of the ability of the give to sf

loan fund presented us with was for loans and grants to do that. we knew in the beginning that it was not easy for smaller businesses not connected or those who were to get an answer around relief provided through ppp. we have seen success of the program. we knew it was important at the time to also have the san francisco hardship mcwas emergency loan program be launched and designed to support businesses who needed resources the most. we have committed $15.5 million in ongoing covid-19 small business financial relief. we have awarded grants and loans to over 400 small businesses thus far. we wanted to make sure that we were equitable about that approach always guidings work through racial equity lens. one of the most important pieces is ensuring every district would be represented and also more

equitable work and places where we were doing that work would be supported through these efforts. in the first phase $1 million to 128 small businesses and 29 different neighborhoods with up to $10,000 in funds to support those who were experiencing loss. we set aside a minimum of $2 million for low and moderate income owners to ensure they were supported with relief efforts. neighborhood goes like lower filmore, bayview, castro and excelsior. long-term businesses have given to the city and we want to give bamto them as well. then because we were looking for additional funding sources, we took dollars that we had with existing partners already with our partners to do small business work and help convert

to support women entrepreneurs around san francisco and very specific neighborhoods for mini grants to serve immediate needs. every little dollar helped. >> one of the programs that just become available. right to recover. >> i am glad you are asking about right to recover. we know that it is extremely valuable right now as we look to incentivize community members disproportionately impacted by covid-19 by economic hardship, spaces to work in because they need to provide for families, having access to the economic relief or wages that you count on to protect yourself, stabilize your families, support your families and children or parents or extended family. that is a huge disincentive if you believe you may not have

access to quarantine to do what we want you to do. if you are sick to get tested. if you test positive to quarantine and stay home. so that you can get better and not infect anyone else. that comes at a cost. you are not going to work, not making wages. for so many low income workers that is not acceptable. this is to provide relief based on the individual to give minimum wage for that period of time. when they walked into the testing site they knew if i test positive is there a program to help me, we could say yes? that was important to mayor breed, extremely important to supervisor ronen and they worked together to make $2 million available to support these individuals. together with the department of public health we have a holistic system to fill the gaps that may

exist to encourage people to get tested to do the right thing. wear a mask, social distancing, not going places when they are sick and doing our part to make sure they were incentivized. >> not having sick pay with the virus would be really stressful. >> iit is important for undocumented. we know the lat inx is more than 50% of the positive cases and may not have access to sick leave or financial hardship to do the right thing and to quarantine with financial reli relief. >> as we start another new releaf program. african-american small business revolving loan fund. how will that fund work? >> well, i am very, very proud.

this fund. i do have to give a shout out to our invest in neighborhoods team who worked day and night with the african-american chamber of commerce and main street launch to support the zero percent interest loan up to 50 thousand dollars. we have been striving to be specific and target communities of color and african-american small business entrepreneur community. it is so much more difficult for this community to access resources and it was important to do something in this moment that is reflective of a movement we know has been emotion for such a long time. for us to do something real, provide financial relief for the community in this ka this way ar them specifically. we are very proud to get this up and running. we look forward to applications

being live so people from the african-american and black business communities to get relief. flexible terms. forgiveness up to $50,000 for those loans which can make a huge difference fought only for relief when you think about rent for a small business but also in terms of long-term recovery and being smart about the moment. there are businesses with the ability to be open, even a little bit. it is a stress on them. there are others that don't have the ability to do this at all. where is their relief? they wait for us to do our collective part to ensure we can re-open. these dollars, very specifically for the black entrepreneur community are important for long-term viability success. that is good for them, the diversity of the city we hold

dear and we need to be proud of. >> do we have active programs for disconnected or underserved communities? >> absolutely. as i was mentioning just simply about the right to recover program. when people go to the mission hub at 701 alabama within the mission district to serve the community, they are providing food security, access to resources. what they have done is extraordinary in terms of partnering with the city with relief efforts to help pay and maintain food distribution for families. thing are important like the latin x to do so many dishes with one item masa. access to rise, cereals, milk, butter, fresh foods and vegetables. that is across the city in the entirety in those areas of need.

to ensure those programs are made available for our most vulnerable communities. seniors or families who desperately need that help. >> finally, is there a website specifically designed to provide access and information about these resources? >> one of the easiest things to do, people have a general question and to want don't have access to the internet call 3-1-1. reach out. we have been working closely to ensure the members and staff have the information they need to get what you need. as you call in. most specifically for workers, employers, nonprofits to go to our website oewd.org and click on covid-19 which is a large button on the site. you will find a full list of information specifically designed for you as employer, as worker and nonprofit so that you know where to go for resources.

also, our phone number 554-6134 for the small acciden small bus. the incredible staff are administering those lines. if they don't answer they will get back to you so you can talk to a real person in multiple languages. also e-mail sfosbasfgov.org. again, visit the website oewd.org and you can find that. in terms of workforce (415)701-4817. someone will get back to you if they don't pick up immediately to answer your questions if you are a worker. then to donate. give to sf.org.

all of that information is to find to the website if you need resources or you need an understanding how we are phasing re-opening or updated information, please visit us. we will get back to you. we look forward to serving you and the community to get through this very, very challenging time. >> that is great information. thank you so much for coming on the show. i really appreciate the time you have given us today. >> it is a pleasure, chris. thank you for helping get information out to our communities. people are aware your government is hard at work on your behalf to get you what you need during a dynamic and challenging time. >> that is it for this episode. we will be back with more information shortly. this is coping with covid-19. i am chris manners, thanks for watching on sfgovtv.

>> the meeting of the san francisco board of appeals and we are now resuming with item

number 7, appeal 20-042, richard versus san francisco public works,>> i'm district two supere leadership of the department of public health flattened the

curve in san francisco. the steps we have taken together have saved lives. one of the reasons the city acted so quickly so early was to not overburden our health care systems. as the state of california and bay area counties have begun to gradually reopen, we are seeing some troubling signs. we have a seven day average of ninety eight new cases per day. our demand for acute care for covid positive patients has goan

each week. today dr. and i are announcing the establishment of our first low acuity medical site. located a 163. it will open with twenty patients. it's not expected to treat covid positive patients. when i starred this i facility i was truly impressed at the first rate medical facility.

the city's ability to confront covid 19 depends on our ability to care for those with all manner of conditions. sprained angels to heart attacks. other ailments are not stopping just because of the pandemic. opening this facility will shore up our ability for the hospitals to treat covid 19. it is not a drop in acute care site testing location or

shelter. please do not visit this location if you are seeking any of those services sm as the district two supervisor i would be remiss to not note the response to local emergencies. we're an incredible resource and i'm grateful for the partnership with press i hapartnershipwith.a

>> good mark morning. i'm director of health. thank you for your support during this unprecedented time. today like if everyday, i check the number of patient patients h covid 19. unfortunately that number is higher than ever before and continues to climb. that number dropped to just 26 patients six weeks ago. today, it's one hundred and seven. of those one quarter are very sick and in intensive care.

across the city we have more than six thousand cases of covid 19. and look, it took us thirty eight days to go from two thousand to three thousand cases. of half as long to go from three thousand to four thousand. in just ten days we went from five thousand to six thousand cases of covid 19. let me be clear, we are in a major surge of covid 19. the virus is moving fast and more people are getting seriously ill. if things continue, we estimate we'll have more than 750 san franciscans in the hospital by

october. plausible worst case scenarios put us at twenty four hundred hospitalizations and eighteen hundred deaths. these scenarios unfortunately become more likely as each day goes by with the current trend. today, fortunately all patients are getting world class treatment from the most caring professionals sm we wisals. we still have capacity to care for patients. it is good news that our health care system has not yet been

overwhelmed as we saw in new york. many are contributing to that by staying home, avoiding gathering, covering your faces when go ting out, washing your hands sm you are preventing more illness and spread and keep our health care system functioning. our city must prepare for this surge. how many people-that puts us in the red zone of one of our key health indicators. we've been there for over a

month. it's extremely sobering that we reached this point. it's extremely concerning. our reopening remains on pause. the main reason we joined the watch list was because of our rapidly growing rates. our goal is to keep the increase to less than 10%. since january the health department has been planning and preparing for covid 19. we built up the capacity of our health care system. we added testing sites a sites.

today supervisor stephanie announced, we're creating a care site that we hope we will not need. it's located in the presidio but will serve all san franciscans. it will serve patients who no longer need acute care but are not ready to go home. they would have medical medical supervision and care from staff.

i hope this day won't come. we hope our hospitals will never need to open the relief that this site represents. that depends on you. all of us. please. please wear a mask. it's really not that hard. i want to see san francisco open schools instead of medical sites. we want to see houses of worship open their doors. sit in their favorite barbers chair. hug our grand children again. we can make that happen. we still have time to turn this around. if we want those things we can't

take chances and hope this virus is not as infectious as the data and facts tell us it is. everyone needs to behave as though each of us has covid 19. think about that. we know half as many doap don'te symptoms at some period. be careful. every time you wear a mask, socially distance. wash your hands. avoid gatherings. you're moving closer to the day we can live more like we did

before march. everyday you take a risk you move us farther away from that day. we can prove testimon works aga. covering our faces may be the most important. on friday san francisco updated the orders. everyone over the age of ten should wear a face covering. if you're alone in a space that people might use later, cover your face. if you're handling food for other face, cover your face.

basically, cover your face. if you're passing someone on the sidewalk, your face must be covered. other things we must do. washing our hand hands, stayingx feet apart. if you are meeting. meet out side if you can. of course, please you must stay home if you can. short of the vaccine or cure of covid 19 these are the most effective interventions that we have available to us. they work if we take them up and practice these behaviors everyday. you can do this. it's up to us to flatten the

curve again. thank you. >> thank you doctor and thank you supervisor stephanie for your time. we'll begin the q and a portion of this meeting. we have a variety of questions for dr. co lfax. the first question is from the associated press. we haven't seen the devastation in the homeless communities. why do you think that is? >> i think it's a number of factors that so far have helped us avoid worse case scenarios with people experiencing

homelessness, we took action early on with our partners and support of housing and with our community seven is agency part mere ins. ensuring that best practices were rapidly a applied. people had the materials necessary to reduce the spread. other key interventions that we did is make available hundreds of hotel rooms so people experiencing c homelessness were able to shelter in place. over thirty five hundred people have been placed in those hotel rooms. we've done a lot of out reach work on the street. providing hygiene.

we had an intense clinical team that provided health care for people before the pandemic. this team has been working around the clocke clock to ensue people get the best care. it's a variety of actions that we've taken to avoid some of the outcomes we've seen in other jurisdictions. >> thank you, doctor. the next set of questions are from ab c seven. face shields should be worn in addition to face masks. do you for se for see this beina

requirement. >> the most important thing is that we ensure in public that everyone is wearing a face covering if they are over ten years of age. we've been very clear that protecting our health care workers is key. >> how close is san francisco to getting off the watch list? >> we continue to see increases above the 50% hospitalization rates. i can't speculate on how soon. we are in a major surge here and anticipating on average seven hundred fifty in the hospital by

october. if we're on and off the watch list what is key is we work to flatten the curve and recommit ourselves. we did it before and we can do it again. it's going to take the whole community to make this work. >> are social gatherings the major reason for the surge. >> it's a major ko contributor. people should not be using testing to determine whether they should gather.

if someone is infected, the virus is extremely contagious. they are contributing to this increase. if you go to a gathering and somebody has the virus and is going to transmit it. we have to understand that with more virus in the community you saw how quickly we went from four thousand to five thousand tcases. please, please don't gather. >> we have a handful of questions about san francisco issuing fines on people who

don't wear masks in public. >> we've been emphasizing the needs of these masks and the social distancing as we continue to emif i if emphasize. we're schorrin exploring how wey increase enforcement particularly in situations where requirements that are very clear are not being followed. this would be enforced following

up with businesses an other situations where people gather. we're working with communities for voluntary compliance. we're looking at increasing enforcement. in regards to the press ci the . who is paying for it and who will staff it? >> the city is funding the site. it will be staff by health departments and u c sf

providers. we'll take care of 93 patients. m>> what has it historically ben used for and is it prepared to accept patients. >> it will depend on the capacity of our hospitalization across the city. if there's a need to move people out of the hospital quickly and make room for covid 19 patients. i can't speculate on the past use of the site.

>> thank you for your time today that conclawed concludes the prs conference. for additional questions please e-mail.

disantsing. the second corner grocery store i went to, tables were set up. this means, you know, we're in the middle of a pandemic, and i think my life is more important than having to pay a quarter for a paper bag. i think this should be suspended for senior citizens or suspended, period, until the mayor says that we're going back to normal and.

[beeping] >> thank you, caller. are there any other callers in the cue operation? >> no more callers in the cue. >> all right. thank you, operations. thank you, charles. >> the next item is item 5, an update on the department's ongoing racial equity hish tive. the speaker is timmy [indiscernible]. this item is for discussion. >> all right. director felled, take it away. >> thank you. and good evening commissioners and everyone who is listening in. this is really exciting and i'm excited about today's agenda. and this particular agenda item is near and dear to by heart. you may remember, commissioners, at our last commission meeting in june, i stressed the importance of our continued work on racial equity in my

director's report, i emphasize the work that all of us in the department are doing, in light of the murder of george floyd as well as our ongoing commitment of equity. and clearly, the need for this work is self-evident. it's all around us, covid-19 is just the most recent example, traumas that are disproportionately impacting black people, indigenous people, and all people of color. so back in march of tween 18 you may remember that the commission passed a resolution to affirm our commitment to racial inequity. and allot over a year later in october of 2019, the city of san francisco opened up an office of racial equity and also the supervisor, mayor, signed legislation that are mandating changes to city department and alaska tifts, in order to refine city

departments, on racial equity in all the things that they do. in january, we welcomed -- that feel like hand years ago now -- but january of this year when, we had our in-person commission meeting, we welcomed our equity committee leadership and they came to the commission and delivered a presentation. that was talking about the work we were doing to develop a racial equity plan. we were vownlded by this critical need right now. and we are committed to examining our role in the department. as staff, and as community members of san francisco so we wanted to bring to you, an update on what we have been doing in the past month and

cindy combford, i've asked her to come and present tonight. she manages our climb 8 criminal justice program. she's going to review with you, some of the work weesk doing on the department, as well as a survey that we have participate in, and qat future of racial equity looks like in the next few months for the department. >> cindy [indiscernible]. i am the climate program manag manager. >> debbie, talk about what i'm going to present today, so i'm going to start off with some

reflection over the last couple of months. reaffirm our commitment to racial equity. talk about some of our immediate commitments. a survey that we participated in with the office of racial equity, and then conclude some next steps. so the san francisco, department of environment, has reflected on current events of covid-19 and its disproportionate impacts on american indian communities, black communities and communities of color. the mores of george floyd, brieona taylor, and countless others, and the under lying government and economic structures that create the platform of these events.

we have a responsibility to do better and continue making progress on this critical racial equity work. we have also seen an extraordinary mobilization across the country. every walk of life, every race and every religion vocalizing that this is our time to do something. we see a legacy of white supremacy. access to nature and other environmental benefits have provided to privileged community bus environmental harms continue to disadvantage neighborhoods of color. the environment isn't really about [indiscernible], it's about water in michigan and about the air in new delhi. while we're not going to solve all of these problems in one day, i'm proud to work for a

department qoz a long history of the environmental justice work and we are continuing to grow together. we have so many other dedicated staff members that are continuing to address race for the environment. so pursuing racial equity say process and it's something that we have all been going through together, as a city, as a department. and as a commission there office was founded under the human race

comig a city wide gap to close the gaps of racial inequities, found in all fangt ors of city work and to look at our policies through a racial len. this is not something new to our department. our cole core values is around equity and we have also had environmental justice program for over two decades the commission has also adopt aid resolution, affirming our commitment to racial equity, and we have been working hard on our racial equity plan after the george floyd traj, our director vocalized her commitment to our core values and [indiscernible] our director also identified three immediate next steps when i'm going to briefly review in the next three slides. next slide.

you may recall from our presentation in january, we provided a summary of our racial equity survey, that we administered about a year and a half ago and one of the findings from the survey was staff did not feel comfortable talking to a supervisor about race. and there were many suggestion that is key leereds have needed white [indiscernible] training. our leadership team, at the department of environment, took a half-day seminar robin deangelo, she offered findings of her work, on analysis of white supremacy, work around whiteness and wight agility. dr. diangelo spoke about racism, and the specific ways racism manifests in ways progressive.

via workshops, offered a leadership team, trying for personal reflection which was really an opportunity to identify our complacency with the system of white supremacy. and why i don't want to speak to everyone on our leadership team, i personally walked away from that training next slide. our next commitment we made was for every staff member to provide mile stoins into their performance plan around [indiscernible]. like many of these other commitments, this is still a work in progress. several weeks ago, my staff and i developed a template and my team has been pilot pressing

work. that may be something within their personal journey or would benefit the department around hiring or recruitment and then also one external goal, that would be about engage wct community or around policies. we plan to share it with the rest of the department so everyone can have racial equity goals as part of their work plan. next slide. our last was training, continuing to make sure that all of our staff is trained on racial equity. we'll be having staff trainings on our raicialg and social

equity school either next pont or in early september. and also, we'll be providing on our equity policy, which i'll get an opportunity to discuss later in our presentation around the instruction. so that was the summary of our immediate commitment and we'll continue to develop more as we go through. >> several weeks ago, the office on racial equity requested all city departments, fill out a comprehensive survey on racial equity leadership and also, our programmatic efforts that support different populations. and also, provide very specific details on these efforts, and thinking was many of our

community stakeholders, as well as city employees believe that san francisco is conflicted in creating personal laws, policies and institution that is perpetuate racial inequities in our city and to address these concerns. the office of racial equity wants the department to supt their engagement and under represented historically, marginalized communities. as the city prepares for its budget hearings in the next couple of weeks and given our mayor and board of supervisorser visoro focus on equity and support for marginalized communities. it also gives our department an opportunity to compile and accept this information. next slide. so this slide shows some very

high-level key take aways from the surveys. i had the fortunate of compiling the survey, and i was really impressed by the diverse engagement that our department has done. there were over 20 different program initiatives that worked with 7 different communities of color and 20 dissent population groups. some examples of new things that i learned about with our work with chinese daycare communities, providing toxic sleeping matts for children, also, our opportunity to expand through recovery and providing healthy [indiscernible] to san francisco, and also work ache can american youth by offering stipe ends to conduct gardening and composting.

when we look at the budget

adopted by our comitionz. if you remember, our presentation from january. we focused on phase 1. which is really looking at our internal actions to address racial equity, such as measures around hiring, training or recruitment and we'll be back to present on phase 2 which looks back internally, towards our engagement strait strategy gees, our poltses and programs poo make sure we are promoting racial equity. that concludes my prohibittation,. >> that was great. thank so much. i really appreciate your time and presentation and all the work the department is doing on behalf of racial equity. commissioners, do you have any questions for cindy?

>> commissioner o. >> i do want to make sure we bring up something brought up in the past, career pathways department, and leadership pathways for particularly, people of color, staff who have started how to improve upon th that. >> that is one of our actions in phase 1 report. we are looking at different ways we can implement your suggestions.

>> [indiscernible]. start figuring out how we can have a better, more diverse [indiscernible]. >> do we have request feedback. is it better now? >> a little better. >> i should have gotten my head set figured out before that. sorry about that. specifically, around the budget item, when we talk about the program amount of work that we

do as a department, we can certainly, it's not easy. but it's possible for us to take the lens of racial equity and apply it to the work that we do and make sure that when we get out there, we are always asking the question, who is this helping, who's this hurting. what's the first step here. how do we make sure we're not accidentally, stepping into institutional [indiscernible] et cetera. we can do that as part of the programmatic work. the work internally of the department, the work on ourselves isn't always funded by our grant funds. it isn't always funded through, you know, the work orders that we have from other departments and so it seems like, you know, i'm sort of struck by the idea that a lot of time when is you're creating women's groups at big companies it's the women themselves who have to do all the extra volunteer labor to make sure the women's group

flourishes and that's unpaid work they are doing above and beyond their own job. it seems like this falls into the same sort of trap of, you know, we need to have some budget, devoted to making sure we can keep this drum beat going and keep the work that we're doing for our own staff going, and i just, i don't know if there are answers any to right now, but i want to throw that out there for something we should be considering, as is there a way for us to allocate something towards a more regular basis so we make sure we're just not asking people for their own volunteer time to keep the work of the department going forward in racial equity. >> so that's an excellent point and your point about metrics and concrete feedback, on how we're doing is heard and taken.

we aren't actually tracking everything from a racial equity lens, even if we're doing work that way. so what gets measured gets managed, if you will, and feedback so what we are really trying to do is figure out how we institutionalize the work such that it gets trapped better. to your point, commissioner stephenson, it's really such a good one. so this training we did with robin di angelo was not free and we had to find departmental funds to pay for it and therefore, it was only offered to senior leadership because it wasn't cheap for us and we didn't feel like we could ask for a scholarship because we were coming from government. thirty two of us took a class oracial oppression, and that was

free, in the sense we didn't have to pay for t but we had to take our own staff time. so i think what we will be looking for are what are opportunities where the training itself is not, doesn't have a cost. the cost is very much the time commitment that we will donate. so it's not volunteer time. when that becomes tricky, is for our staff who are funded by grants, this is where we do need that pot of money to think about how we have among our staff, to get the training so those people do not need to volunteer their time. i of course transformed in the last five week they's never understood was possible because

of the work i was doing and throofs personal. and so i think we have to start there. as well as looking at our own structures and so one of the things we're doing, we're also requiring that every team meeting that's from the different program areas, as equities as a standing agenda item and that the responsibility to fill that agenda item is with the team itself. so that they can ask for speakers. they can ask for article that is they want read and cared about so it's just a way that we're bringing that conversation, and that personal growth into the norm of the way the department operates. so, i guess that's a long-winded answer to something that is really a challenge that you bring up. it would be nice if the city had a way, a scholarship program or

if the unions had ways that they could help support departments for specific trainings or dhr. it would be great if dhr would have sponsored these trainings. and maybe they will. >> thank you. any other commissioner comments seeing none, let's open it to public comment. to make public comment, dial * 3 to be addd to speaker line. >> pleads let us know if there are callers that are ready. press *3 to be added to the queue. those on hold tht queue. please continue to wait until it is your turn to speak. >> we currently have no callers in the queue. >> seeing that there's no public comment and no discussion, public comment is now closed.

next item, pleads. >> item 6. presentation to highlight the green business program support during covid-19 to small businesses, sponsor is debra the direct omplet speaker is kevin green representative. >> the past few months of course incredibly difficult for our small business community. thousands of small businesses, literally, have closed their door for good. thousands are suffering and stugling to keep their doors open or to stay afloat, to be allowed to stay open. just as president stephenson suggested, this slow-down time we should ask ourselves what can we be doing to help our small ms? they have always been an area of

focus for us. how do we need to pivot our work so that it is particularly helpful in this moment? and we also want to look very particularly at our green businesses. that is the cohort of small businesses that we have a direct relationship with and it's also a cohort of business that is we would like to become larger and so perhaps, in fact, the slow-down is a good moment for other businesses to start thinking about how to green their operations as well. so you're going to be hearing today, from kevin kumataka, who is our green business program coordinator and he says been thinking a lot about this and he's going to tell you ways that his program, has pivoted. ways we are supporting and respecting green businesses and ways we are trying to focus our energy on resilience and recovery on the business sector in san francisco. so with that, here's kevin.

>> great. can you see me and hear me? great. and when you have a chance, can you bring up the presentation in. >> i'm bringing it up now. >> great. thank you. great. thank you much, commissioner, for give ming this opportunity to speak. i'm speaking on behalf of my green business team so yeah. this is in the collective work of a team and i'm happy to share this information. howarhow green program has been pivoting to support small businesses for covid-19. go ahead. next slide.

before we talk about the initiatives of how weesk pivoting i'll give a quick overview of our green business program. our program helps businesses achieve a wide range of environmental best practices and are in recognition for their accomplishments. so i see our mitionz as two-fold. we create a high set of environmental standards. and then we do the verifying with the businesses to make sure we have met those standards so that they're certified. but we're also a business assistance program, helping any business in san francisco become more environmentally friend lee. next slide we work with 30 other green business programs across the state and these programs are either ran at the city level or

mostly at the county level. the areas in dark green is where we have existing programs and the areas in white green on the map are where we plan to expand and have green business programs. collectively, we are the green business network and we recognize over 4,000 businesses across the state and our focus is on mostly, small to medium-sized businesses. next slide. our small business community is really struggling. we did see an influx of businesses sign up for the program. largely, this is because businesses weren't able to operate and they have heard about the green business program but after we have had initial

cmpgzs with many of those businesses, it's been difficult for them to follow up because they are facing a number of issues. many of our businesses had to cease operation completely, like a lot of our hotels. many of our businesses have had to lay off esms a lot of them are really struggling to pay bills, and the businesses like, a lot of office firms, they are working remotely so they are really struggling to operate with the same efficiency they were running before shelter in place. so as a response, our programs take in three actions. we then promoting information, e had a social media campaign and we have also instituted a

[indiscernible] program. first, i'll talk about some of the financial resources that weesk sharing on our facebook page. we have been providing updates on programs like the payroll protection program and the city's small business relief fund. as well as small business grants, provided by private companies. next slide. we're also sharing critical information like reopening time line for businesses and what to do if your an employee that tested positive for covid-19 and what are some of the resources that are available. next slide. and our partner, the california green business network put on a webinar series called business recovery and resilience and the webinars of course focused on pivoting your business and loan

options and forgiveness. also, operating beyond crisis management. negotiating rents, lease strategies and insurance optionses. ask we also have another webinar coming up on september 16. and this one will be held in spanish and my supervisor will be talking about green cleaning and disinfecting. all right. next slide. information has come out in our department, around best practices, around greening and disinfecting. we have shared information like the stat sheet on our facebook page, as well as in our green business news letter and during our virtual site individual says. so before we would go into the location of a business to do the voiftionz processes, we're all

doing this most mostly through the team's video conference application. but this information around green cleaning has been really helpful and we have got a lot positive feedback because believeses are really interested on ways they can remain green while making sure that they're following the best practices on disinfecting next slide. ask we have also run a romotional ad campaign for our green businesses, really letting customers know that our green businesses are open and to shop green during shelter in place. 24 businesses participated and it was completely free for all the businesse business the the n

the right is from cold hardware, and the business on the right is from catering in the ad campaign, runs through until the end of august, and already, we have generated 1700 clicks from the campaign and 1,600,000 impressions. and beings submitted their high-end photos and descriptions of their current business services and in the phot oh, we have incredible adventures and one of our green business preschools. next slide.

we have offered a rebate program to, help businesses stay green, and this is basically a $500 rebate or pre-date and other cost of the predate program is to help pay for items that would have qualified them to become a certified green business and we're paying for these items up front, which [indiscernible] ine financial and logistical burden for a business to figure out a qualifying product that's green, that meets our program standards and then, waiting for a rebate we asked bees, and there are 19 businesses that participated, what type of items they would want and they can purchase items like copy paper, bti-certified to go ware.

led lights. cleaning products. there was a course for toilet paper, especially in the beginning and we worked one of our green businesses to purchase and these items were then shipped to those buildingses that participated once we made this announcement, all the funds were in 24 hours and we got wonderful feedback our promotional ad campaign, they actually took advance of the rebate. for the support, during this extremely difficult time of covid-19, business interruption. the $500 rebate program, helped us purchase, recycled paper

towels and dticompliance to-go boxes for our take-out service the past couple of mons. we appreciated the social media on facebook, promote being our takeout program as well we hope we can reopen completely soon. operating the busy green restaurant and brewery, this is from the general manager at thirsty bear brewing company. they are operating just for takeout now and if you haven't tried their palle-- paella, i highly recommend it. next slide. another m we were able to help out, is grace tabernacle community church, located out in hunter's point. i was really excited to work with this business and provide them with some predates. they were part of an existing campaign for our green business program, to work with businesses in districts 10 and 11 which the

corridor, and excel yore corridor. in the future, this is something our program is going to continue working into the next fiscal year. helping businesses with predate and rebates a as well as other owner business owners and people color. next slide. throughout the process, we have been changing our messaging we don't want to be insensitive to the reality of the situation and say something liker no, this is a perfect time to get certified businesses are stugling to stay built. they have a lot going on so we're focusing on how can we

help your business really recover and maintain being a resilient business in san francisco. and also helping buildingses with led's, that will lower their utility bills. and i will close with an inhave itation. the inhave itation is really f you have be that is you know personally, that can use additional assistance at that time. that are looking to green their operations, stay green during this difficult time please send them our way, we're happy to help out. that's it. thank you.

>> thank you for the present aismghtsz commissioners, any comments or questions for kevin. >> commissioner, do you have a hand raise friday before if kevin, i appreciate the fact that the messaging is thoughtful and it's consistent with our values of department. certainly, resilience is the big part of the work we do. i think getting out there, there is this part of me that says, there's all these empty businesses that can be complete clee retrofitted right now. not the time to go out with that kind of a hard-charging insensitive message. i think the way you get it done is fantastic. and the social media took a

double hit of getting to support the m and promote them at the same time you helped them with their splice and stay on the green track. i appreciate all the work that you guys are doing all right. if there's no more commissioner comments -- >> commissioner stephenson. this is for cefng. do we have outside members, that want to say a few word ?'s. >> yes. thank you much for that reminder, charles. >> great. can you all hear me? >> my name is benny, the owner of lamidy tase tran ecialtion. a restaurant here in san francisco on berkeley. i want to just quickly take this opportunity to thank you all and

kevin in particular. to share very briefly, about my experience thus far. it's been a very rewarding experience to work with the green business program and the department of environment. to get our businesses certified. and for us, keeping that momentum through covid-19 is a very challenging one. these are times when it's easy to cut corners. so i really see a great potential for a couple of directions that the the green business program can take.

especially most of the our restaurants are operating to go. it's an opportunity to bring awareness we have a great composting program in san francisco want this is really an opportunity to make best use of it. and tied to that is really, encouraging the green business program to find new ways to promote green business.

ask one thought that came to me is it just came to me while i was linking to kevin. was linking to kevin.

that we are focusing on natural gas in our climate work. it's also important to focus on natural gas for health and safety reasons, and that is a key element of the resolution that is before you tonight because we understand that natural gas in pipelines is very vulnerable. it's vulnerable to earthquakes. it's vulnerable to [indiscernible] the street. when you disturb natural gas, it's incredibly explosive and

has a long history of spires and loss of life. so that's why over the past 12 months we've come before you with this issue on a number of occasions and in fact with your help the city and the mayor eliminated natural gas in new construction in the municipal sector and also incentivized all electric buildings in the private sector as well. and these were signals to the marketplace. these initiatives were ways of the city leading by example and also letting industry know that we're serious and that we want to take more steps in this direction. we are not going to be satisfied with where we are. so we're not stopping here. we're not stopping with those two items. and our next step, as we promised we would, is to take a look at mandates for all electric for new construction. and the ordinance that we are working on under the leadership of supervisor raphael mandelman

speaks to that in a very significant way. so you're going to hear a presentation today from supervisor mandelman's office, from jacob, who is a phenomenal advocate and a wonderful partner to the department of the environment. he will be talking about the ordinance and about the supervisor's commitment. you will then hear again from cyndy comerford, this time with her hat on as our climate program manager, and cyndy is the one leading our efforts on this initiative. she is our point of contact with the supervisor's office, with labor organizations, with the department of building inspection, because in order to get this work done, we needed to do it in a very inclusive manner that brought in as many parties as we could and cyndy will talk about that. and she will end her presentation back where she started tonight, which is talking about equity and how we think about equity when we look

at this particular program. so with that, i will turn it over to jacob. >> thank you so much, debbie. can you all hear me? >> yes, we can. >> great. all right. thank you, charles. thank you so much for that introduction and good evening, commissioners. my name is jacob and i'm supervisor in raphael's office and really pleased to be joining us this evening on his behalf to speak about the ordinance. you know, as director, we know that natural gas is a major source of our carbon emissions in san francisco, not only is it more than 40% of our city-wide emissions coming from natural gas, it's 80% of the emissions that are coming from our buildings in san francisco. i think you all probably know as well that methane, which is the primary component of natural gas, is more than 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. so those are just a few of the reasons why building

electrification as a particular measure is a critical component to achieving the ambitious climate action controls that our city has adopted including the mayor's commitment to zero emissions by 2050 and to all-electric construction by the end of this decade. natural gas is also something that introduces a lot of health and safety risks in our communities, as director raphael mentioned. we are coming up very soon on the 10-year anniversary of the tragic explosion in san bruno in 2010 that leveled an entire neighborhood and actually killed three people. and more recently we've had the gas explosion here in san francisco out on geary last year that burned several buildings as well. we all know that a major earthquake, fires caused by natural gaslines, poses a major hazard, and it's also true that damaged gas lines take longer than electric service to restore in the event of an emergency. so switching over to electric service in our buildings also makes our city more resilient in

the future in the face of future emergencies. that's all in addition to some of the everyday health impacts that cyndy will talk about as well to residents and workers especially, people who are working in commercial kitchens with open flames, those health impacts are associated with increased incidence of asthma and respiratory illness as well as the risk of carbon monoxide exposure and of course fire. all of those reasons are why it has been a priority for the supervisor to work on building electrification. last april, we passed unanimously, the board of supervisors, a resolution to declare a climate emergency in san francisco which committed san francisco to doing our part to limiting global warming emissions to below 1.5 ° celsius, the level we know we have to avoid, we have to keep in order in order to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change. we advanced. we moved on from that to pass an

ordinance last year that requires natural gas buildings to achieve a higher energy efficiency standard and also approve the ordinance that the director mentioned requiring all electric construction in our municipal projects as well earlier this year. today's ordinance is going to take the next step to ban natural gas from all new construction projects starting for those that apply next year. the ordinance does -- cyndy will get into some of the details here, but i want to be clear, this applies to permit applications coming into the building department starting in january 1st of 2021, and there are limited exceptions where all electric construction is not technically feasible. this would cover about 60% of the current development pipeline and also will leave time for applicants who haven't yet filed to plan accordingly but without disrupting projects that are already in our development pipeline. while this is definitely a big change, we are confident, based on the great work of your staff and the months of stakeholder engagement and conversations

with city partners, affordable housing builders, representatives from the labor community, housing and mixed use developers, architects, engineers, advocates and others, we've really become confident that all-electric construction is not only technically achievable but also cost effective and an efficiency step to meeting our climate goals and protecting our city from future hazards. we have to note that this conversation is taking place during the incredible uncertainty posed by covid-19, and while it is certainly difficult to focus on a whole lot else right now, i think one lesson that we've learned from this pandemic is that when a crisis hits, it is the steps that we took or failed to take in advance that determine how well we are able to respond. i think everyone on this commission knows that the climate crisis is not going away, and it will be a bold step to take today. yes? sorry. i thought i heard someone there. so it will be the bold steps we

take today that makes a difference in the future. to wrap up against on behalf of the supervisor, i would like to thank everyone that participated that helped to get us to this point, to the environmental advocates and community organizations who led the call to action and worked for those throughout the entire process, and to all of our city agency partners at dbi, planning, mayor's office of housing and others for their support and technical expertise in developing this ordinance. and of course i have to thank and really commend truly director raphael and your staff here at the department of the environment, cyndy comerford, barry hooper, charles sheehan, and joseph. your work has been excellent and the dedication to convening this engagement process, the ongoing outreach, untangling the many technical considerations that are at play and really shepherding this ordinance through the process every step of the way has just been a tremendous asset to the city. so thank you all so much. i look forward to the discussion

today and want to make sure that you all know this is just one step in the public review process. we went to the building inspection commission earlier this month for an informational presentation, and we had a generally positive discussion with the understanding we needed to finalize some of the provisions around those exceptions that will be provided before we go back to the building inspection commission at their august 19th meeting for recommendation. after that point, we would move on to the land use committee of the board and then hoping to get to the full board of supervisors in september. with that, commissioners, thank you all so much for your time. i will turn it over to cyndy to walk us through the proposal and we'll be here of course for any success and discussion. thank you so much. >> thank you, jacob, for that introduction. that was wonderful.

good evening again, commissioners. my name is cyndy comerford. i'm the climate program manager. diedre, if you could bring up the presentation, please? >> just give me a minute, please? >> sure. >> before i start i just want to again thank all the department staff that has worked on this, specifically barry hooper, charles sheehan, and i also want to thank elizabeth felter for doing the equity analysis on the legislation. next slide. so for today's objectives, i'll just briefly touch on the health, safety, resilience and climate context. we've heard a little bit about that in our introductory presentation, so i won't spend a

lot of time on that. but i will review in detail our stakeholder process and our outreach. i'll go through the key tenets of the legislation. i'll talk a little bit about the impacts, particularly around the cost effectiveness and the impacts to our housing pipeline, and then we'll talk a little bit about the implementation and the equity. next slide. so the context for this legislation is really around health, safety, resilience, and climate. all four of them together. this legislation provides an update to the san francisco building code, which we are able to make amendments under the purview of the health and safety code. and the objective of this proposed legislation is to really recognize these health, safety, resilience and climate impacts of mixed fuel buildings and ensure that new construction does not exacerbate any of these impacts. next slide.

so we've heard a lot in the introductory remarks about these impacts, so i won't spend a lot of time on it. but generally we know natural gas is bad for our health. there's various acute and chronic health impacts around exposure to natural gas. we know that natural gas impacts safety and resilience. we are coming on the anniversary of san bruno. but on average in the united states, gas or oil pipelines catch fire every four days, result in injuries every five days, there's an explosion every 11 days, and leads to a fatality every 26 days. we know that we are in earthquake country here in san francisco, and that the ability to restore our utility service, it's estimated to be about a week after a 7.9 earthquake for electricity, and almost 6 months for natural gas.

and lastly, for low income communities and communities of color who are more likely to suffer some of the health impacts, such as asthma due to poor indoor air quality, zero emission homes are an important opportunity to deliver social equity benefits. next slide. and so we've heard a lot about the climate impacts of natural gas. we know that about 44% of our climate pollution comes from buildings and that's dominated by natural gas. so 82% of building emissions stem from the use of gas, which is mostly from space heating and cooling, hot water, cooking, and other uses. next slide. so i'm going to -- the next section i'm going to discuss our stakeholder outreach process on the development of this ordinance. next slide.

so our mayor has committed to net zero emissions by 2050, and this includes all new buildings being net zero emissions by 2030 and all existing buildings being net zero emissions by 2050. and to accomplish this goal, we embarked on launching the mayor's zero emission building task force. to make sure that we had inclusive and diverse engagement that really helped guide the city on the development of this ordinance. so as you can see from this slide, the zero emission task force had multiple [indiscernible] and today we're only going to focus on the new construction work group and the deliverables from that working group. there are other working groups that looked at existing buildings, but at this point you don't have any policy outcomes around existing buildings and we still have much, much more work to come. there are a lot of challenges around our existing building

infrastructure, and that's something we'll be working on for years to come. so just to reiterate, the ordinance we're talking about today will only focus on newly constructed buildings. it doesn't apply to renovations or major alterations. so this slide kind of shows the structure of the task force, and the new construction working group, which formally met three times, but we also had many sub committee meetings and the working group really brought together participants from key perspectives, and this included community and neighborhood advocacy group, affording housing developers, commercial and residential owners and developers, investors, design professionals, environmental advocates, work force and labor representatives, and also our city departments. we also had an executive steering committee meeting -- committee in which we reported the findings from our work group, which was also a

public-private steering committee. so today i'm going to talk about the deliverables from this work group around the new construction ordinance and the task force report. next slide. so i know this slide might be hard to read but it really is just to exemplify an overview and the breadth of our outreach efforts. our outreach efforts not only centered about getting the ordinance done, but really about establishing expectations for long-term partnerships. we made a really good-faith effort to build trust with our stakeholders and really identify opportunities for the city to be a partner in this process. so we had a partnership agency, dbi has been with us every step of the way and has also spent many hours developing this ordinance. so i want to express my gratitude to both james zahn and

mosan sheikh for all the time they have spent on this work. in addition to our new construction group working, we had various workshops and expos, we have met with affordable housingfá developers, the golden gate restaurant association, and all together we had over 15 convenings and were able to interact with over 750 people on the development of this ordinance. next slide. so this slide just summarizes the new construction work group feedback that we heard, specifically around the ordinance development. so around timing, applicability, implementation, and equity of the ordinance. and so the first thing we heard is that we need to act now. delaying this type of policy would not make the transition earlier. we know that zero emission technologies are available and

cost effective, and when buildings continue to put fossil fuel systems in new construction, it will eventually just become a liability for the owner. we heard over and over again that health and resilience are reallyq/ paramount to equity, d so many concerns about the need for the city to really remove fossil fuels from buildings. we also heard that our stakeholders want help making smart decisions, that our participants would benefit from a clear warning, clear messages, and they wanted the city to be a partner in this work. and lastly that workforce development and stakeholder education are really necessary to the success of this ordinance. zero emission buildings are a significant shift in design and construction, and successful implementation is going to require the city to invest in

resources and outreach and education and to support workforce training. next slide. this slide is just to let you know, although in addition to all the outreach in san francisco around all-electric buildings, this is also a state-wide, if not national-wide movement. one of the top questions we got, you know, is the grid, the grid capacity there? and pg & e was also a stakeholder in this process. they have publicly supported this new ordinance, and they have expressed that they do not want to continue to invest in gas infrastructure. in addition to pg & e, we have probably close to 30 cities around california that have already passed ordinances that either restrict or eliminate the use of natural gas in buildings. and lastly, we have the state as a partner. both the california public utility commission and

california energy commission is starting to plan for a fossil fuel-free future. next slide. so the next portion of this presentation i'm going to dive in to kind of the meat of the actual legislation and the ordinance. next slide. so, again, just to reiterate, this amendment is not an energy code. we have the local authority under the california health and safety code. and so we'll be amending both section 106 a and 202 of the building code. there are key sections to note: one, the project will apply -- the ordinance will apply to projects applying for initial building permits after

january 1st, 2021. and this is to ensure that the building operations, which include heating, cooling, water heating, cooking, clothes drying, must be all electric. once we have all-electric buildings, no permits will be issued to convert all-electric buildings into mixed fuel buildings. so you can't get a permit for natural gas post occupancy. let's go to the next slide. for projects that include a commercial food service establishment, such as a restaurant, mixed fuel building permits may continue to be accepted to january 1st, 2022, provided the gas piping is exclusively for the cooking equipment. we heard earlier in kevin's presentation the impact of covid-19 on the restaurant industry, and as we worked with

them and the golden gate restaurant association, our outreach was really curtailed because of this pandemic, and we want to continue to provide more outreach and education over the next year and a half to make sure we're setting up the restaurant industry for success. so getting into the last two key components of the ordinance, there is an exception process. so in the rare case it's needed, mixed fuel permits may be issued upon findings that all-electric construction is either physically or technically infeasible or a specific area or system of the building. and lastly, if a mixed fuel building permit is issue, that building must be as electric-ready as possible, and make sure that it complies with all other provisions of the building and electrical code.

for those who aren't familiar with the term "electric ready," that means the building would have to be pre-wired to -- can you still hear me? >> yes, we can. we can hear you, cyndy. >> sorry, something happened. i can't see the slides anymore. i think i have them memorized. i can keep going. so just electric ready means that a mixed -- that a building would have to be pre-wired so it can convert from a mixed fuel building to an electric building in the future. so, next slide. >> that's the impact slide? >> yeah. if you can just give me one second. i'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden the web browser closed, but if you can still hear me, maybe if i just pull up a copy of that presentation, i

can see it. okay. i have it on my computer. so let's keep going. apologies. so next let's talk about impact. so i'm going to talk about the cost impacts of this ordinance and then also talk about the impacts to development. so, next slide. so this slide here illustrates data from three different public cost effectiveness studies from the state codes and standards. in it it shows that generally all-electric buildings cost less, and in many scenarios, the construction costs are less, which is depicted on the change in construction cost column and also the negative numbers represent a reduction in costs from the first cost, and the elimination of the natural gas

infrastructure. and then the column on the right, which i believe is labelled "lifetime net present value," kind of shows the cost savings over the last time of the building compared to mixed fuel building. so generally while we see reductions in costs in these studies, we've had an opportunity to review some real life examples, and generally we think that the ordinance is cost neutral and does provide some cost savings. and if we go to the next slide, we can see an example of an actual building that's being built and we can look at some of the cost benefits that have been realized. so this is 100% affordable housing development that's being built on treasure island. it's called the maseo may

apartments. we can see key drivers, there's savings around the elimination of a hot solar water heater and the elimination of natural gas. there are some additions in costs adding a heat pump water heater. overall for this project we saw a net impact of about -- a little less than $250,000 in costs p. so, next slide. and so this slide kind of gives an example of an array of buildings in san francisco that are already being built and that are all-electric. we have some fantastic examples. the first one there, 260 fulsome is one that's under construction. we actually had an opportunity to go to the site with supervisor mandelman and debbie, our director raphael, and this is 127 permanently affordable

housing for low income housing and there will be homeless transition units and parenting units. it's such a fantastic story about all of the community input and the partnerships that went into developing this housing around the social support and just a great story, so if you have the time, i totally recommend checking out that site. next slide. so i think jacob had mentioned earlier about the applicability to our housing pipeline, and i know this slide is a little hard to understand, but the key take-away, if you look at -- the new ordinance will apply to about 65% of our buildings in the housing pipeline. so these are buildings that have not submitted an initial application to dbi. so if we look at that circle, everything in green, the new ordinance will apply to.

next slide. so i have two more things to quickly cover in my presentation. the next part of the presentation i'm going to talk a little bit about the implementation, and the implementation isn't specified in the ordinance, but i think it's really important to kind of understand how we're approaching the implementation, and then lastly i'll talk about the equity. so next slide. so this slide shows an overview of the process. the department of building inspections will be the permitting agency for this ordinance. so starting in january 2021, all new initial applications to dbi, if it's an all-electric building, will just go through the regular building application process. so there's no special documentation needed. in the rare case, a building

needs to apply for an exemption because of physical or technical infeasibility. it will have to go through a waiver process. and so we are -- right now we are working with staff at dbi to develop something called ab112 or administrative bulletin 112, and this will provide guidance to dbi on how to verify these types of exemptions. and so if you submit a waiver for an exemption, you'll also have to submit a verification from a third party reviewer, and this third party review system is known as a special inspection, and it's something that dbi uses for systems and situations that require special analysis or expertise. so dbi has uses, fire, seismic,

and green building code. and so that waiver would be submitted in. again, these exemptions are really limited to technical and physical infeasibility. the circumstances really need to be exceptional or extraordinary. it's on the project sponsor to demonstrate the infeasibility. and then when there is an exemption for mixed fuel, as i stated earlier, the building must be as electric-ready as possible. and once all this documentation is submitted into dbi, there's a plan review meeting and the building official could either approve or reject the waiver. next slide. so as i mentioned earlier, on the last slide, we're in the process of developing guidance for dbi, and really to make sure

that we can provide the best information to make decisions on exemptions. and so what will be in this guidance document is really around code conflicts, and this is specific to electrical transformers. if there's issues around utility infrastructure, energy code conflicts for -- with title 24, or any other exceptional or extraordinary circumstances that we are not able to foresee. next slide. so the last part of this presentation we want to talk about the equity scan, and i had the opportunity to mention this in my first presentation, that this is a process that will be required by the office of equity starting next calendar year. but we at the department have

already developed a tool and have been pilot testing it on legislation. so this is our first piece of public legislation that we have tested it on and it's still a work-in-process, but we thought this would be a great opportunity to present the feedback from that equity scan tool, and we have also shared a draft of the report with the commission. so there were five equity concerns and recommendations that are team identified. and the first one was around energy burdens for tenants, and when we talked about the cost, on the cost effectiveness slide, the cost looks over the lifetime of the building. so over 30 years. >> you may want to move to the next slide, cyndy. >> i'm sorry. >> that's okay. >> can we move to the equity scan assessment and recommendations slide, please? >> they're there. >> sorry. it's a little challenging not

being able to see. so when we look at the operations or the cost effectiveness, it's assessed over the lifetime of the building, and we really want to know better to make sure that there aren't energy impacts for short-term tenants. and so the recommendation is to really work with utility regulators on making sure that we have equitable rate structures, making sure that we're working with tenants around energy costs, and also, if needed, to expand assistance for lower income tenants. the next equity concern was around impacts to affordable housing. we have done significant outreach to affordable housing developers. we've met with almost 40 professionals in the field. affordable housing has been leaders in this field. but we know what san francisco's housing crisis has looked like, and we definitely want to make

sure there's no impact to affordable housing. so we want to make sure, as a recommendation, that we continue to prioritize outreach and technical assistance to affordable housing developers who aren't experienced with electrification, and make sure there's a feedback mechanism to understand any potential unintended consequences around the ordinance. the next equity concern was lack of workforce considerations. the ordinance, as we know, is an update to the building code. and so there is a recommendation to make sure that there's assistance to black, indigenous, and people of color-owned businesses and to make sure that we're targeting training towards these groups and that we're able to provide incentives and hire and direct towards black, indigenous, and people of color-owned businesses. our fourth equity concern was around impacts to restaurants, which i talked about earlier.

the equity recommendation kind of concurred with our exemption for a year, that a longer implementation period is needed. and this will present us an opportunity to better understand burdens and do outreach and education to this hardly hit industry from covid-19. and lastly that, you know, resources are needed to advance racial equity. all the things i mentioned take resources and funding, and so to look to maybe create a fund that uses climate justice principles where maybe largest buildings computers pay for the transition and maybe considering a fee to large existing commercial buildings to assist with this transition. next slide. that concludes my presentation. thank you very much for listening to me talk twice this evening. i know it's a lot. and we're here to answer any

questions you have about the legislation or equity scan or additional work that i presented on. >> that was great and it was masterful at the point where you lost your slides and kept going just off the top of your head. that was great. thank you. commissioners, i look forward to hearing any thoughts and comments that you may have. commissioner chu? >> hi, everyone. thank you so much for speaking about this. this is so exciting. as a former architect, really pushing this forward is really wonderful for the city and i was just wondering, in the context of other cities, is this really pioneering legislation? are we one of the first to do it? are we behind and we need to catch up?

can you help contextualize the magnitude of this ordinance in the context of how everyone else is approaching it? >> that's a great question. thank you. so berkeley, california, was the first city to do a similar ordinance that they proposed last -- i think it was last fall, so last september-october. it's a little different than our ordinance that looks at land use and the entitlement process. so there are some differences, but i think they have somewhat similar outcomes. although, you know, we in san francisco have really been thoughtful about our stakeholder engagement process and feel like the production of housing in san francisco really supersedes what they do in berkeley, so we feel like the ordinance will be

much more impactful in san francisco. but we did learn a lot from working with berkeley. san jose also falls quite -- probably last fall too where they have eliminated the use of natural gas in low-rise buildings, so four units or less. so we do definitely have a pretty expansive ordinance in that it applies to all new residential and commercial buildings in san francisco. >> thank you. >> anyone else? commissioner? >> thank you. what i really want to ask at this point is whether or not it might be possible for us to hear the public comments first and use that perhaps to inform our discussion?

i do have some substantive comments, but if it's okay with people, i would like to know what the public are thinking about this, if there are any. >> oh, we have a few on the phone line. yes, i think that sounds -- i don't think there's any -- i don't think we have any issues with taking it out of order a little bit. great. let's do that. so, charles, why don't we move public comment and reserve some discussion time at the end. a reminder to anyone who would like to speak, please press star 3 in order to be added to the queue. >> thank you, commissioner. i'm told there is now a 45-second delay, and so we may have to wait a second. operations, please let us know if there are callers that are ready. if you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the queue.

for those already on hold in the queue, please continue to wait until it is your turn to speak. operations, do we have 30 more seconds we need to wait, approximately, or do you have some you are ready to go with? >> we have 14 callers currently in the queue. >> can we hear the first caller? go ahead, caller >> (caller): hi, commissioners, and everyone. this is joy, a resident of district 10. first of all, i am thrilled to see this ordinance introduced as the first really major climate policy since the city declared a climate emergency last year. i do support it. but i think it can be stronger. i'm concerned about the complete exemption through 2022 for developers building potential restaurant space in newly constructed buildings. i totally understand that the impact of covid-19 on the restaurant industry has been way

beyond devastating but i think there's been some misunderstanding about what this legislation would do. i want to make clear that it does not affect existing restaurants at all in any way, and so the exemption through 2022 does not help existing restaurants in any way. also, continuing to add gas pipelines to the city's infrastructure would only increase pollution, methane leaks, and danger of explosion, especially in neighbourhoods already disproportionately affected by climate change. i also worry that gas-powered kitchens will continue to expose restaurant workers, many of whom continue to work throughout this pandemic, through excessive heat buildup and bad air. many of these workers are among populations most at risk from respiratory disease, including covid-19. but thanks for considering this aspect. and i'd also like to mention

that i attended the fair on the west side and the cooking demos were great. i now have a portable induction cooktop and we almost never use gas burners anymore. it's really wonderful. if we get out of this pandemic, i recommend you hold a similar fair on the east side and publish it a lot more. actually during the pandemic, it doesn't matter where you live so i'd like to suggest that you introduce a very well-publicized virtual energy fair. thanks. >> okay. next caller? >> (caller): -- district 6 [indiscernible]. i am a renter and someone, my hometown on the east coast in washington county is expected to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. it is important to deal with methane emissions, they're so potent, as the commissioner

says. thanks for your work on this. i believe that the ordinance can be stronger and they make sure in the exemption process that ñ and to make sure that any project that is found to be quote, unquote, infeasible is exempted only for reasons that are in the public interest, so i'm concerned about powerful and connected people being able to get favors and we need sunshine on the exemption process so that the public has insight into how this works. thanks for your time on this important issue and thanks for helping our residents and the climate. >> thank you, caller. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi. my name is stuart collins. i'm a resident of san francisc

san francisco -- district 5. i'm calling in to support this ordinance as well. thank you for the thorough work. i was so impressed with all the work that you put into that, really months since december. so way to go. i'm a parent and i have a 3-year-old and now when i go into my gas kitchen, which i've kind of assumed how gas kitchens are, i look at them, oh, my gosh, what am i doing -- well, not what i'm doing but this might have an impact on my child and i'm considering moving homes and one of the things i'm looking for is electric infrastructure and electric stove in the home i move into. so i really support this in new construction and just as a general thing in san francisco. i also share what joni mentioned

two calls ago, the exemption for kitchens until 2022. the problem seems to -- or the restaurants in trouble today, new construction doesn't really help them, so i don't know how the exemption until 2022 assists that. but you might know more about it than i do. it might really help with getting it passed. if it helps getting it passed, that might be something to consider. but the rationale hasn't been fully landed for me. otherwise, transparency on any exemptions, super important. >> 30 seconds >> (caller): thank you for all your work on this and that's my comment. >> great. thank you, caller. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi. my name is daniel tahara. i'm proud to be a subsequent of supervisor mandelman. i'm joined together with 30

local organizations to support the ordinance and ways in which it can be made stronger. just as a note when i checked the supporting documents for the meeting today, it looks like emails made itñr in but not the attachments. the coalition is excited about the ordinance, a big step in the right direction, applying it to building permit rather than entitlement, like we saw in berkeley, means that it covers a really large swath of the buildings in the pipeline while being fair to the parties who submitted their plans. lastly that it requires specific limited exceptions to only the particular electrical systems that are infeasible rather than the whole building. as i mentioned, i would like to ask the commission to recommend changes to the ordinance as laid out by earth justice, the sierra club and the san francisco climate emergency coalition in their letter. in particular, as other callers have mentioned, eliminating the blanket exemption for commercial

kitchens, delaying compliance until 2022, eliminating the feasibility exemption to the requirement, and making fully electric-ready construction a baseline requirement for new construction. we've seen this in berkeley with their ordinance as well as in i think -- >> 30 seconds >> (caller): -- 20 and 30 municipalities in the bay area, in california, that electric-ready is just a requirement. i also would like to see the ordinance's definition of mixed fuel building expanded to include lab, industrial, and decorative uses of gas, and lastly, amending ordinance section 106 (a) to require sufficient evidence is submitted to substantiate the infeasibility of a building or project -- (inaudible). >> thank you, caller. appreciate that. next caller, please go ahead.

>> (caller): hi. this is [indiscernible]. i live in district 8, supervisor mandelman's district. i'm a home owner in a small condo building. and we are starting to have discussions about retrofitting to all-electric. i'm really proud of that. i strongly support the all-electric new construction. i agree with everything that i read in your emails, comments, and arguments. and i also second what everyone has said on calls to limit exemptions. i'd like to address a decorative gas exemption. i have three friends, at least three, who have those faux fireplaces, they're electric. they use a kind of video technology to mimic a three dimensional fireplace. they're not cheesy. they look great. there's no need for anyone to

have a natural gas fire place when we have the technology to provide decorative fireplaces. and the second thing i'd like to say is i've been following fbi investigation of dpw and other departments in san francisco and i would like to reiterate that there be transparency and strict oversight over any exemption that's granted. thank you very much. last thing i want to say, i'm very jealous that certain people got to take a robin deangelo work shop. i'm reading her book now. thank you. bye. >> thank you, caller, very much for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi there. i'm chris. i'm a resident of san francisco. although the ordinance is a good step in the right direction, we're the city of san francisco

and we hold ourselves to high environmental and equity sense. i want to answer -- to work with supervisor mandelman to make the following changes to the ordinance. one. please make the process more transparent to the public and ensure that any exemptions are exclusively decided on the basis of the public interest. frankly through the ongoing corruption throughout various city departments, san franciscoans have lost faiths in their government. the currently proposed exemption process with further mistrust that can only be mitigated with further transparency. specifically i'm very concerned about the ordinance definition of mixed fuel buildings. it is critical to amend section 106 (a) to ensure it does not include financial infeasibility.

it would fix this loophole and i strongly encourage you to adopt this language. -- shall be determined without regard of square footage area. this will prevent developers from ... house necessary equipment for all electric environment and transformers. this amendment ensures that the focus remains on public health and welfare rather than profit maximization for developers and landlords while giving the building officials proper discretion ... that may serve the purpose of public interest. amend the ordinance to prohibit laboratory and decorative uses of gas in buildings. as written developers a lot of these industrial buildings will be wholly exempt. this is inconsistent with other

jurisdictions -- >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hello. i am a resident of district 10. my name is brioni. i am a parent and i have a lot of family members with asthma. i'm really strongly in support of this legislation and i would like it to move further, if possible. the sooner that we are able to reduce the amount of dependence our society has on fossil fuels, the better we will all be able to breathe. so if you can expand the definition to include laboratory, industrial, and decorative uses of gas, especially decorative uses, we should not be harming our public health for the sake of

[indiscernible]. thank you. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): good evening, folks. my name is matt levine, 35 years living in san francisco and currently in district 2. i think the case is made really spectacularly about obviously the need to address the climate crisis, environmental justice, racial justice, et cetera, and i'm calling tonight as a youth mentor, volunteered about 11 years, and also as someone who is unemployed in the restaurant catering business. i think the first thing has been clearly established, but there are so many of those kids that we work with through an organization called city of dreams out of the oakdale, the

old oakdale housing community center that have asthma, and until i became aware of this issue, it never dawned on me. i always thought it had to do with much more industrial power plant emissions, so clearly that imperative is established. as far as restaurants, again, everyone has stated how it doesn't impact current facilities, but what i will say, even in those, the technology is 60-plus years old. anyone who has worked in a large kitchen comes in after a couple of days dark and those pilot lights are burning non-stop, and furthermore, the industry is committed to innovation, so -- >> 30 seconds >> (caller): that along with a number of franchises that are part of the people protesting this movement, i just hope you look at the justice and sierra club recommendations and include them in this otherwise really strong proposal.

thanks very much. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): good evening. my name is alaina engel, i'm a district 9 resident. i support this ordinance. it is a powerful and a brave stance for the city of san francisco to take this. and it is a necessary and timely measure for both our individual health and for the collective health of all the beings on this planet. we do not have much time left to stop the grave damage that our use of fossil fuels is causing, so i commend the department of the environment and supervisor mandelman for bringing forth this new legislation. my hope is that you will approve it and that you will make sure that there are as few loopholes and exception exceptions writtet

that would potentially allow buildings to continue to pollute with methane/natural gas. allowing new buildings to be built even partially with gas will only cause future problems when these same buildings will have to be retrofitted to strip out the gas infrastructure and replace with electricity. let us remember, should we hear any objections to these measures, that the use of methane in buildings is incompatible with a livable world. thank you. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hello. thank you, commissioners. my name is tara sheer and i'm a resident of san francisco district 12. i'm also a fourth year medical student at ucsf, and i strongly

support requiring new construction to be all-electric. the use of natural gas in buildings poses many risks to health. as a future pediatrician, i want to especially highlight the risks to children. a meta analysis on the association between gas stoves and childhood asthma found that children in homes with gas stoves have a 24% higher risk of ever being diagnosed with asthma than a 42% higher risk of experiencing asthma symptoms. use of natural gas in buildings releases nitrogen dioxide and other air pollutants that are triggers of lung and heart disease. there's no known safe threshold for nitrogen dioxide exposure, and especially when our communities' front line workers including restaurant workers and our health care resources are so strained during this pandemic, it's crucial that we limit

harmful indoor pollution exposure to the people of san francisco. finally, using natural gas in buildings releases potent climate-warming pollutants like methane that are driving climate change. we have a moral obligation to lower our carbon footprint to protect people who are most vulnerable to climate change, including low income communities of color and children born today. >> 30 seconds >> (caller): i urge the commission to support requiring new construction to be all-electric. thank you. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi. thanks for taking my comments. my name is jeff and i live in district 9 in the mission. i live across the street from [indiscernible], and i'm one more voice in strong support of this ordinance to prohibit natural gas in new construction. we've heard plenty today about

the harm that natural gas does to our local and global environment, and i just wanted to make a point that we have heard a little bit less about which is the writing is on the wall, the day will come when the natural gas will be turned off in san francisco and all of california forever, like our governor has committed to it, the mayor has committed to it, and there will be a day when pg & e doesn't want to support it anymore. we are already in a very deep hole of infrastructure that will have to be retrofitted before that day comes, and if the supervisor fails to adopt this ordinance, every new mixed fuel building we build will dig that hole deeper. every new building that has natural gas infrastructure racks up another charge on our energy transition credit card that will have to be paid off in the future with interest. and i'm quite certain that the political constituencies that are rooting for this change to be delayed, to keep building

more mixed fuel buildings in the near future, that they are not the ones that will be paying for those retro fits. that will be the property owners and taxpayers of san francisco. several callers have referenced the letter from the earth justice, sierra club and -- the climate emergency coalition, and i wanted to also voice my support for that letter and the changes it proposes. weissel words like infeasible -- weasel words like infeasible -- channeling toward making more electric buildings. thank you very much. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hello. my name is martin mccarol, long-time resident of san francisco, currently in district 5. i want to say thank you to everybody who is involved in

this. it's really terrific to see this happening, and i think this is a really good step forward. i wanted to look ahead a little bit -- obviously not even long term but the short- to medium-term goal has to be dismantling and removing natural gas infrastructure. for me one of the things that's most worrying is the public safety implications when there are earthquakes. and so to do that, we really need to minimize exceptions as much as possible. so i'm one more person in favor of removing the exception for laboratory and industrial buildings and decorative uses of gas. if there is a building that really needs to use gas, then they will find some other way. the free market will do its magic. perhaps there won't need to be deliveries of propane, whatever it is. when we do that, what we do is we confine the risk to where it

is absolutely needed rather than having a network of pipes underneath our city, you know, ready to cause problems for us all. one other thing that i would point out for work looking forward. when i talk to people i know, home owners, about going all-electric, their one big concern that comes up is, hey, listen, pg & e keeps shutting down electricity -- >> 30 seconds. >> (caller): so one thing as we go to all-electric is thinking about how can we be more resilient in our electric use and finding ways to make sure that within houses and maybe smaller units like blocks, we have resilience in electricity. thank you very much. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi. my name is barry hermanson.

i am the chair of the sierra club conservation committee here of the group of the sierra club in san francisco. but i won't repeat a message that i think has already been communicated to you by the club. i wanted to say that i'm a former small business owner, and past president of my merchant association, one of the largest ones in san francisco. this idea that we will give exemptions is insanity. this is a technology that is obsolete, and as a former business owner, i would be taking a real look today at the

cost of not only installation of this gas infrastructure but what it might cost me down the road, either to replace it or to continue to buy gas. we may decide that we want to tax the hell out of it s until t isn't being used. i can see that in the future. so it's an investment decision. >> 30 seconds. >> (caller): now, i don't think there should be exceptions. thank you. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): good evening, commissioners. my name is paul wormer, and i'd like to start by commending cyndy comerford and her team for all the work they have done and

the outreach they have done on this project. it's been exceptional. it's hard this late in the series of comments to come up with something that's new or different. i do want to echo what the previous callers have said. and what i'd like to do is frame the issue of exception exception environmentally focused way. so let me start by talking about use life of buildings and equipment. there's a lot of stuff out there about how long heating systems work and so on. well, my father, who lives in the northeast, his oil furnace went in in 1968. it's still running. my mother-in-law, when she died, she had the furnace that was in

the house when they bought it in 1945. things have a much longer lifetime than occurs when you're in a city like san francisco where people are remodeling expensive houses on the north side frequently. >> 30 seconds. >> (caller): buildings have a huge footprint and a very long life span. if you're giving an exception for feasibility, what happens when they need to convert in 30 years? have we defined an unfeasible building that needs to be taken down and rebuilt? it's not a good use of environmental resources to have an exception. thank you. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. is there another caller? if so, please go ahead.

>> (caller): hi, yes. hi, commissioners. this is melissa yu. i'm a resident of san francisco in district 3 and i'm also with the sierra club. so i am calling to say our support for the ordinance, as barry mentioned earlier, because it's really important that we stop building further gas development in our buildings, especially as we're approaching wildfire season. right now there are 32 cities in california that have adopted building codes to reduce their reliance on gas, and we're really excited to hear that san francisco is also joining one of these cities. as jacob mentioned, it's technically feasible and economically advantageous, and like the many callers before, i'm also here to urge the commission to recommend changes to the ordinance, so that being eliminate the exemption for commercial kitchens, eliminate the feasibility exception to the

electric-ready requirement, expand the ordinance's definition of mixed fuel buildings, explicit add language to the ordinance that shows there will be further transparency in the case of an exemption, and amend the section 106 (a) 1.17. san francisco has been a leader in many initiatives and it should continue to take the lead and set a precedent, and city leadership is essential not only for local climate action but also to convince the state's energy commission to require or at least support electric new construction in the statewide building code, so title 24, and all of this community and city support for more ambitious building code sends a really strong message to the cdc to align the state-wide building codes with the science and

require the climate science and require all-electric new construction. thank you for the opportunity to speak and i also want to add -- >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hello. my name is [indiscernible]. i am a san francisco resident of district 11, and i support this measure. i'm only 20 years old, and i'm really scared about the future and the climate crisis and switching from natural gas and it's a lot of methane that drives climate change which would be ver a very good idea fr businesses. also the fact that there's

natural gas inside restaurants poses a risk of air pollution to the people inside. so switching away from that helps with both air pollution on a global scale and also[osr9q on a smaller scale. so there better not be any loopholes, and to get loopholes in this plan removed so that we can get everyone on board. >> thank you, caller. is the next caller ready? please go ahead. >> (caller): hello. my name is beverly sarb, i'm a san francisco resident since 1980 in district 9. i strongly support prohibiting gas in new construction and for the simple reason that in an earthquake, the first concern is

a gas line. and of course as people have mentioned, natural gas is an indoor and outdoor pollutant. and by the way, cooking with induction stoves is great, as we found out in a trip to europe where it's used widely. and i wanted to agree with people saying, please change the ordinance as the sierra club, earth justice, and san francisco climate emergency coalition recommended. and thank you so much for working so hard to give us a healthy future. that's all. >> thank you, caller. i did get a note so i'm going to announce the public comment call-in number. if you want to make a comment call in at 415-655-0001. the access code is 146 435 2566. i believe once you're on, you press star 3 to be added to the queue. is there another caller, operations?

if so, go ahead. >> (caller): hello, this is jennifer hagey. i'm a resident of san francisco district 7. like a prior caller, i also attended the electrification fair at the san francisco county fairground, which reinforced my strong support for prohibiting gas in new construction. this ordinance is particularly timely, as our legislators are incenting increased housing construction density and only by achieving all-electric new construction by 2020 can we -- or in 2020 can we realistically avoid an increase in greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and move forward to our path to net zero by 2050. we are fortunate that heat pump technology is available and induction stoves are available and easy to use. i missed part of the equity presentation but hope that city college is a partner in your

education and job training process. all of san francisco needs to support this electric-ready ordinance to meet our state and city climate goals. thank you for the opportunity to comment. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi. thank you very much. my name is ann limbel, and i'm a san francisco resident and home owner in district 5. i want to say thank you for all the work that has been done putting this ordinance together and that i fully support banning gas in new construction. natural gas has no place in our homes and it's important for climate change. i support the ordinance with all the changes outlined in the letter from the san francisco climate emergency and in particular i would like to request that we remove all

exemptions, including ensuring [indiscernible] is not a reason for exemptions. profit can be a reason to push the health and public safety of our families at risk (put). i also like many callers support removing the one-year delay to restaurants [indiscernible] will be for decades to come and there's no reason for this today. as a home owner, i really wish that my home did not have gas, both for the health impact and the reasons already spoken about, in the case of an earthquake. we need to move to a fully electric situation. [indiscernible] taxpayers are going to have to pay for in the future. with those changes, i very much support this ordinance and hope that we'll do the right thing to close these loopholes and close these exemptions that have no place here. thank you very much.

>> thank you, caller. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi. my name is helena bereki and i'm a resident of district 9. i want to thank cyndy comerford and everybody at the department of the environment for all the work they've done on this ordinance and i echo everybody who has called so far in their ask to remove the loopholes from the all-electric new building legislation and then pass it asap. all-electric is doable and it's the easiest necessary step in solving the climate crisis as well as protecting our public health and safety. we cannot allow exemptions. financial infeasibility is a myth. it's been toppled by covid. as have the people need more time to adjust. the danger of not acting on overwhelming scientific evidence, on the other hand, has been demonstrated to be

completely true by covid and applies to other health crises and the climate crisis. in terms of equity, i'm concerned about the possibility of pitting different equity concerns in opposition to each other. it is not equitable to make somebody's utility bill cheaper by, in exchange, sending their child to the emergency room with an asthma attack. this happens. gas stoves in a building make it 42% more likely that a child will have asthma, and even with obama care, emergency room visits are not cheap. so i just want to say that we need, as was spoken about in the equity -- >> 30 seconds. >> (caller): -- presentation as well as the green business' presentation that we need creative solutions which could include, as another caller said, city college being involved in something that was already recommended by the department of

environment, energy efficiency and the electrification task force which is a clean energy buildings hub which would connect workers and contractors, give culturally competent community education and information about self-financing. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hi. good evening, commissioners. thanks for taking my call. i'm calling from district 10. as everyone has said, i just want to reiterate that i fully support this legislation. in fact, in my own home, we have a gas line and we're transitioning off of it. i fully electrifying all our appliances, furnace, et cetera. and i just want to make the point that all these appliances are actually more enjoyable to use than their gas equivalents. they're faster, more efficient,

quieter, and we're actually improving our overall experience by doing this process. i anticipate that bypassing this legislation, you'll be improving everyone's experience overall in the city. further, i agree with everyone that we should eliminate these exceptions. all of the professional chefs i know prefer induction, and this idea that commercial chefs need gas stoves is a myth. thank you very much. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hello, everyone. my name is todd snyder, i'm a resident of district 5, and i wanted to voice my thanks to everyone for bringing up this important matter. i wanted to mention that the scale at which these changes

need to be made in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change is something that i think that everyone needs to be aware of. so the state of california is on board with these changes. many cities around the state have also adopted all-electric building codes, and the forces aligned against these changes, namely southern california gas company, are standing in the way of our future on this planet. so i urge all of you to remove the loopholes from this ordinance and protect our planet. thank you. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> (caller): hello, commission.

my name is josh, i'm calling from district 1 and echoing the many, many prior comments in support of this measure. i'm also calling as a member of sunrise bay area, which signed onto the letter written by earth justice and the climate emergency coalition and i wholeheartedly urge you to take the letter into consideration and add its recommended changes to this ordinance. in particular, i want to echo the concerns about the lack of transparency in the proposed process and that this is an opportunity to build trust not only in dbi but in the city, that it is taking the climate crisis seriously, and that this is not an opportunity to be squandered by pointless overtures to hospital or restaurant developers trying to have exemptions.

this is an opportunity to stand strong and to really commit to yourselves and to me, a young voter in this city, and to all of my peers who are struggling, that you are standing up for climate change action, and i wholeheartedly urge you to support this ordinance. thank you. >> thank you, caller, for your comments. next caller, please go ahead. >> there are no more callers in the queue. >> okay. thank you, operations. commissioner stephenson? >> all right. commissioner wall, did you want to respond to any of the comments from the public since you had the floor before we went to public comment? >> well, thank you. i would like to. but first i wanted to thank supervisor mandelman.

he has been such a great leader on our issues and we are so lucky to have him as a partner in the work that the department camera the commission have been charged with doing, and thank you supervisor mandelman. second, i would like to thank all the people who commented both orally and in writing. i think that what we have read and heard are among the most outstanding comments that have ever been presented to this commission in my many, many years of service on it, and we are in the debt of every person who took the time to come and

speak to us or write to us tonight. i also want to thank everyone at the department and jacob for all their really hard work on this ordinance. it's so exciting to have san francisco finally joining the all-electric bandwagon. i remember actually upsetting barry hooper with my insistence that we should have done this long ago, but he was, as is so often the case, correct that we had to do it the right way at the right time. and i do think the outreach that's been done that was described by you, cyndy, and that was affirmed by one of the speakers tonight, has been truly impressive. i do want us to support this ordinance and to urge the board

to pass it. but like so many other people that we've heard tonight, i would like you to try to strengthen it. i know you're pretty far down the path here in terms of your work on this, but i think that a number of the points that have been made to us both in writing and orally about the need for increased transparency, for example, for a tightening of the exemptions, for a second look at the use of decorative gas fixtures, for example, i think that those points deserve some additional attention, and i

really hope you will give them that attention. i don't at this precise minute know the best way to make that happen, and debbie, if you could give some advice, i'd appreciate it. i mean, on the one hand, we could stick something in the resolution. on the other hand, there's probably other things that we could do. but, again, i would appreciate it if you would pay some more attention to those issues that have been brought before us so powerfully by our constituents. and last but not least, i know this is only about new construction, but particularly in light of the equity issues that we discussed earlier, i want to suggest that this is a perfect opportunity for us to replicate some of the programs that we've been involved in in

the past involving housing projects in san francisco. we have put new, more efficient refrigerators in housing projects. we have put -- we have taken actions to ensure that housing projects are protected from the use of pesticides in order to protect the health and safety of the people who live there. i'd like us to at least begin -- the department to at least begin thinking about a way that we could, when we're ready to address existing construction, that we make a big effort to see if we can address gas fixtures, and particularly stoves and water heaters in our housing

projects. these are the homes of children who are most at risk for all kinds of environmental harms, and this is a harm that we can, i hope, avoid. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner wold. anyone else? all right, commissioner sullivan. you're on mute. >> i'm unmuted. thank you. i want to start off by just reiterating what some of the callers said, which is this is so important and i especially agree with the caller who mentioned the scope of this problem. it's just -- it's so huge that no matter what we do, we aren't going to solve the problem. so i think taking a step like we're taking today is hugely important. i also want to second a couple of things that commissioner wold

said. i want to commend the department for the thoroughness of this effort. when we do something that is really important and going to change san francisco in this way, it's important to reach out to all the stakeholders, including people like beaumont who might have a contrary point of view. so it's really clear that there was a very, very thorough process and i think that's fantastic. i also want to commend and recognize supervisor mandelman who from the very beginning has been a real leader of climate, starting with the climate emergency that he took the lead on i guess more than a year ago. it's so important that there be leadership. i think everybody in this city or almost everyone in this city supports the environment and climate action, but supervisor mandelman has been a leader and i think that's incredibly important. then i just have one question for cyndy: the slide that said

that natural gas represents 30% of our climate emissions, the pie chart, i wonder, does that pick up the contribution to climate that comes from the leakage of methane? as we all know, leaked methane is an incredibly potent climate gas. and i'm just wondering, and you can never have a system that assures no leakage, so i wonder if that goes into that statistic or is it even worse if we pick up the leaked methane problem? >> thank you, commissioner sullivan, for your comments and your questions. to clarify. so 44% of our greenhouse gas emissions come from the building sector, and of that [indiscernible] and that does account for transmission and

leakage of the system. >> thank you, cyndy. no further questions. >> i have a question. it's about the restaurant exemption. so when there was a conversation -- a caller said something about feeling that that was a preferential thing, that chefs like to use gas cookers instead of using induction stoves. my read on it, when i first read it, was an assumption that it had to do with the fact that, as far as i know, there's no solution for wok cooking yet. i thought that that was -- that's how i assumed. so i was just wondering if there can be some clarity on why the year wait was built in and sort of what the thinking is, what happens after that year? >> so that's a great question. so we worked very closely with the golden gate restaurant association and we also continue

to work with chinese community organizations around this ordinance. there were some specific concerns around cultural cooking, specifically around the use of gas for woks, and this year process is really because we need to continue to outreach to these communities. it was really interrupted by covid-19. we had started doing outreach in february, and we just, because of the pandemic, we weren't really able to do this hands-on outreach with these communities, and so to continue the stakeholder outreach and to provide the equity to these restaurants who need to make this transition in new construction, this was something that we had agreed upon. so i understand the caller's concerns, but it is only a year and it's only specific for cooking equipment, so it

wouldn't be for entire building operations. we have seen in other cities who did not work closely with their restaurant association, there was lawsuits, specifically in berkeley, the california restaurant association is suing the implementation of the ordinance. so we wanted to take that partnership very seriously, and we continue to do so. >> that's really helpful. thank you. any other commission comments or questions? debbie, i would love your feedback on -- i mean, i'm personally compelled by a lot of the comments like commissioner wall stated she was too and i'm willing to say, let's send our resolution over with potential amendments. i don't know if that's the best approach to take here, or if there are other ways that we can go about this? >> so, yeah. first of all, thank you all. i really want to thank the 24

people that came out tonight to comment. i'm just deeply grateful. i know many of you. i've been in meetings with some of you. and i really agree with commissioner wold who has expressed her appreciation for the quality of the comments. they are very helpful when they are specific and when they are backed by so many different perspectives on why they're important. so -- and i hope that everyone who is listening in understands that this was a very thoughtful process, and yet it can always be improved. so when we say we're far along, we are not so far along that things can't be amended. we have not gone to committee yet. so this was very intentional, to bring this to the commission before we went to committee so that the commission has a real

and meaningful impact on the development of the ordinance. i also want to make a comment that this is a little tricky for us because normally this conversation would have happened at a policy committee, and we would have had a lot more back-and-forth. we would have been able to amend the resolution before it came to the full commission for a vote. so part of this lengthy commission meeting is a result of the fact that we couldn't do this at a policy committee, and that's just the way it is and we're going to do the best we can. so my recommendation, because wordsmithing on the fly never leads to good policy. so what i would like to recommend is that the commission vote for or against the resolution and with the amendment that there would be a letter that would accompany the

resolution, that would outline the commission's thoughts and recommendations around what it heard. now, the president has the ability to write that letter on behalf of the commission, and we can find out a way of making sure that that letter is crafted appropriately. i don't know what that is right now. but what i would like to ask the commission to perhaps consider right now is to think about what elements of the comments or your own concerns you would like emphasized in that letter. so, for example, commissioner wold brought up three elements that i heard her reference: one was the need for transparency, which to me is a very legitimate concern and it may be fairly easy to put that into legislative language. i don't know at this point. the second is the idea of exemptions around decorative uses. that seems, again, to be

something that is -- you know, we could look into further. i don't know. and then she mentioned the third element, which is tightening of exemptions, and that is more complex and i would like to have cyndy or jacob talk about, if you don't mind, the thinking behind the building types. this was something we heard a lot, why are you just doing this in commercial and residential? why not hospitals, industrial settings? and there may be some reasons for that. i'm sure there are -- not "maybe." you might want to hear them. and then you can decide whether or not that should be in the letter. so that, with the permission of the president, i would like to ask if cyndy could answer those questions about exemptions and then perhaps you could talk about what might go in if the letter is sufficient?

>> sure. i'm happy to answer that, debbie. so i want to make some clarification. so this is for all newly constructed buildings that commit building permits to dbi. so that does include life science buildings, it does include production pdr kind of our version of san francisco industrial buildings. i think when some of the comments had focused on, we are looking at the building operations. so making sure that our heating, cooling, water, cooking, clothes drying, has to be all electric. a life science building might use natural gas for a process load or something that's not specific to the building operations, that's needed for bunsen burner or something like that that's outside our domain. i think that's what they were referring to.

it does apply to all newly constructed buildings. for example, hospitals do not submit permits through dbi. they go through the state because it's a very complex process, so it wouldn't apply to hospitals. but really i think besides hospitals, i mean, municipal buildings that has already had its all-electric ordinance that was passed in january, it will apply to all building typologies. and the exceptions for mixed use are limited to technical and infeasibility. there are no financial exemptions. that language is in the ordinance. the exceptions do have to be exceptional and extraordinary, and as far as transparency, they do have to be verified by a third party to confirm there is no alternative for those exemptions. >> thank you, cyndy. what i'm going to just

paraphrase here, all buildings are covered except hospitals because it's a different process. the exemptions may allow mixed use in some building types because of specialized uses. in terms of transparency, cyndy, i understand that that third party is required, but how would the public be aware of exemptions happening? i'm thinking about the ipm ordinance and how we have a public hearing process for all exemptions in hindsight, so it's a transparency function, not a gateway. so can you talk about transparency? >> sure. so the department of building inspections has been approving or rejecting building permits for years. they do have a process set up that allows for appeal. so any building permit can --

has an appeal process. for dbi, it does go through the board of of examiners, and thent can proceed i believe to the board of appeals. i'm not very familiar with their appeal process, but that is a tool for the public to use if they don't have confidence in a building permit either being issued or rejected. you know, i'm happy to try and provide some additional context on that for the commissioners if it would bring in some dbi staff who could better explain that process and provide a little more guidance on how dbi makes those decisions and how they make them transparent to the public. >> is there a reporting requirement in any way in the ordinance itself, on number of

exemptions or generally -- percentage of buildings that go through without any exemptions? >> there currently isn't a reporting process, but that is something that we have discussed, and unfortunately one of the issues is that the department of building inspections' collection system doesn't always allow to look at that specificity, but i think that's a great recommendation, something that we could work on. i'd be happy to try to accept that amendment, that we either produce an annual report in case there are exceptions, i'm confident that report would be very short. so we'd love to take that consideration into looking at it with this ordinance. i think that's a great idea.

>> maybe another thing you could potentially do would be to add some language about reviewing compliance with the legislation after a certain period of time in order to determine whether or not there were some, you know, unintended consequences, whether or not there have been experiences that suggest that there are changes needed. i think that kind of language potentially would help reassure people that this isn't necessarily the last action that san francisco is going to take on this issue but that there's a mechanism for continuing, you know, to move ahead and push the boundaries to make this ever

better. >> director raphael? >> yes, i think that's an outstanding -- those are both great recommendationst( and i think this is pretty straightforward for us to recommend to mandelman's office, we do this all the time, and the reason i really enjoyed what both president stephenson and commissioner wold are saying is one of our equity concerns in the scan was there might be unintended consequences to low income communities that we just don't even understand. so putting in there a review and a report back to the board of supervisors on these issues -- so i think there are two things here: there's one, how are we going to have more real-time transparency, and we'll look into that with dbi, and the second is how can there be a

look backward to say what did we learn and what are compliance and are there loopholes that really need to be filled? so i think both of those are very good suggestions and i'm hoping charles and cyndy are writing this down. >> commissioner wold? >> well, i don't want to be greedy and i thank you all for being so receptive. but let's not give up on those decorative gas fixtures, okay? and some other things that just -- all i'm asking for really is that you take another look at these things in light of what people have said to you as well as other commissioners and figure out whether or not there's something that you can do about it because i don't, particularly at this hour, don't want you to have to go

through -- one of the potential issues that we could talk about and explain your rationale for them. i'm sure you have a rationale. i just want to urge you to take another look before you push the button. >> i can certainly say we will and, jacob, i don't want to put you on the spot, but i'm going to. what do you think the supervisor would say to that request? >> thank you so much, commissioners, and, no, debbie, we're right in sync. i just raised my little hand here to chime in, and so i am right in the spot where i'm in to be here. this is absolutely the -- not the end of the process, and so this is exactly the kind of conversation we're hoping to hear. the introduction of the ordinance is really the beginning of the phase of this process where we come up with the best information we could from the task force, from the outreach, put that out there, and then we need to keep talking about what changes need to

happen. so we are absolutely pleased to receive any guidance or recommendation from this commission in whatever format is appropriate for you all. but, no, all those things are things that we are certainly looking at. some of the ideas so far that have been discussed, the reporting is absolutely something that we are looking at. the decorative uses, i want to be clear, we did not put in, go out of our way to put in an exception for decorative fireplaces. it was actually a very astute comment that was raised by some of the climate advocates we've been working with who said, you know, the way you've written it, it would allow for that. that's exactly the kind of comments we're already looking at, how we can tighten the language to make sure that we are capturing both systems being just clear enough that we're not allowing for any additional wiggle room but also making sure that we're not getting into areas we haven't looked at yet

to understand what the technology is. finally i just want to also, in the way of transparency, this exceptions process is fairly elaborate, and we are taking the additional effort to get the administrative bulletin in the dbi to be published and finalized in advance of the building inspection commission's action on this, because it's really important people understand what that process looks like and kind of cyndy was alluding to, if what we have learned in this pros i process s correct, we should be seeing a small number of those waivers being issued because it should not be the case, if there is a widespread amount of technical infeasibility out there. we're trying to make sure that is something that actually allows projects only in exceptional circumstances where we've missed something and it's not possible to move forward. that was a very long-winded way to say, please, by all means, put forth any of the recommendations that you all feel that have resonatessed with

you or are your concerns that whatever format is appropriate and we are actual taking all of that into consideration as we move into committee and look to finalize the ordinance. so thank you so much for your attention on this. >> thank you. commissioner ahn? >> so, thanks again, jacob, for all your work, and thanks to supervisor mandelman's leadership on this important item. president stephenson, i'd like to move to approve this resolution and also put forward the letter that -- that ranges from the exceptions to the transparency to the decorative fixtures that were discussed today. as chair of the policy committee too, i'd be more than happy to work with you, of course, on this letter. normally, as director raphael said, but we haven't been able to because of the pandemic. yes, i would like to make that

motion and [indiscernible] into the process. >> there's been a motion. do i hear a second? we have a second. thank you. i want to thank [indiscernible] this has been just an exceptional presentation. it's fantastic to have expertise that sits in this department on this screen here to talk about these things from commissioner wold to cyndy to jacob, it's been really great to have really concise, fantastic answers to all our questions. i appreciate it. all right. so we've had a motion and a second. charles, i think the next thing for us to do is to vote. >> yes, i will call the roll. commissioner stephenson. >> aye. >> commissioner ahn. >> aye. >> commissioner. >> aye. >> commissioner chu. >> aye. >> commissioner sullivan. >> aye. >> commissioner wold. >> aye. >> commissioner wan.

>> aye. >> the ayes have it. >> the motion passes. thank you, everybody. all right, charles. that's the end of that item. thank you to all the callers, if anyone is still on the line, we really appreciate your time and all of your really, really concise and fantastic thoughts. i know two minutes is tough and i appreciate you got it all in there. all right. next item, please? >> next item is item 8, the director's report. an update on operationthis item. >> all right. we are changing gears now. i'm just going to give you a couple sort of fun highlights. the director's report you get in a lot of detail, in writing. it's part of your packet. what i like to do with my five minutes is just pull out some highlights that inspire me and

that i typically want to share with you and then let you know of things that are on the horizon. so what's been interesting is we've been looking at tracking behavior of -- we've been tracking behavior, sorry, that's changed during the pandemic. and one of the things that we've seen that's been interesting is that between staying at home and spring cleaning, people in san francisco have been very aware of what's in their garages and what's under their sinks in a very positive way, and in fact, our household hazards waste collection service has never been this busy. we had 36.5% increase in home collection because we will come to your house and pick it up for no charge. and the permanent facility had a 33% uptick, and this is up over last year. so it's wonderful. we talk a lot about

san francisco's environmental muscle memory, this idea that we are pretty well-trained as environmentalists on lots of our zero waste behaviours and our toxic behaviours, and it's been very wonderful to see that that is something that more and more residents are taking advantage of. the other sort of sf thing to do is reusable bags. it's been quite a journey. i am so pleased to announce that the department of public health has now allowed us to use reusable bags. yay for that. and in the nick of time, because july 1st was when our new bag ordinance went into effect, that made the charge for a bag up to 25 cents from 10 cents, and so the idea that we couldn't use reusable bags and we were having an increase in a bag charge, that was really untenable. so we've been working very, very hard with the department of public health to increase their comfort and it worked. they made the announcement.

and at the same time now the other things that are going into effect as of july 1st are the precheckout bags have to be compostable. so there are other requirements on stores, and our environment now team is working very hard right now to try and figure out how to reach out to businesses, to educate them, and then how to distribute reusable bags to our lower income communities. and one of the things that we're looking at new right now is partnering with the covid response efforts. so the covid response center used to be the emergency operation center. it's still at moscony and they have a lot of work in the community so we are partnering with them to leverage their work to get the message out and bring you reasonable bags and safer cleaning products out into those communities. i want to also just give a special callout to our school ed program who has also been trying to figure out how to pivot when

we haven't had school in session or the ability to do assemblies. one thing that was done, the person who runs the program, she is an active member of the nature collaborative and she brought ideas to them and partnered with them and one of those ideas was a massive project to deliver seedlings to families in vulnerable and low income communities and families of young children who are really struggling the most with distance learning problems. they ended up in two days putting together 3,363 seed planting kits. so these were kits that had activities, they had the actual seeds to plant, they had the soil, the instructions, and then they distributed those throughout the community. so a lot of fun. a lot of heart went into that program. looking ahead, the policy committee is going to be

convening around the integrated pest management, reduced pesticide list. and before then, on august 10th, we will have our public hearing for the reduced risk pesticide list. so we are gearing up for that. the other thing we're gearing up for is budget hearings. you may recall that you heard our budget some time ago, but because of covid, the mayor suspended everyone's budgets and asked everyone to resubmit budgets. those budgets are now going through hearing process in august, next month. and the new budget will go into effect october 1st rather than july 1st. our budget, we have a lot of angst, a lot of worries, a lot of sleepless nights. it looks like we are coming out okay. we're coming out okay in part because we have some staff that reduced hours voluntarily. we're coming out okay because the city departments who we do work orders with found those

work orders to be so valuable that they didn't cut them. and we're coming out okay because our funding sources are not tied to the general fund. so there is the blessing and the curse in that, and right now we certainly -- we are experiencing the same hiring freeze and the same challenges with staffing, disaster service workers and the same challenges around future funding, but this budget i think will be okay for us. the last thing i want to say is we always talk about new people coming in, and i'm going to introduce you to that person in one moment. but i just want to acknowledge publicly that we had a very significant retirement, and that's alex demitri who is in our zero waste program. he's been in that program, i don't know precisely, but i'm going to say around 14 years. and he has been a rock and an inspiration to me. he's a rock because no matter

how crazy things get in the commercial zero waste world, alex is always very calm and very matter-of-fact and can-do. he was instrumental in some of our more recent zero waste policies, our zero waste facilitators are sorting ordinances. he's got such deep on the ground experience that it informs our ordinance development in meaningful ways. he will be tremendously missed. i no he he's super excited about retirement. with that i'd like to end my director's report, switching it over to our new commission affairs officer who is katie chansler, and she is a delight and i am so excited to welcome her. i feel really bad that she is coming on at a moment where she'll never come into our office and work with all of us because we'll be moving before we come back together again, but with that, i would like katie to take a couple minutes to introduce herself to you.

after that, i am done. >> thanks so much. hi, everyone. i'm so excited to be joining the team on my second official day. i'm really looking forward to meeting you all virtually and working with you. i was previously the program associate for the climate and land use strategies at the david and lucille packard association so i was on the palm oil portfolio which was based largely in indonesia and also europe, as well as our bioenergy portfolio, which focused on biomass and biofuels. and before joining the foundation, i was at the california academy of sciences, a member of the development team, and i supported our friends of the academy donors. and before that, i was at the california -- university of california irvine getting my ba degree in environmental science with two minors in political science and sustainability. and i've been a resident of

san francisco for the past 7 years. i live in the inner sunset. and i'm so excited to be joining the department and have the opportunity to really contribute to amazing policies and programs that i've directly benefitted from and i'm just so excited to be here with you all and look forward to working with you. thank you. >> welcome. we're thrilled to have you and we're so excited that we're going to see you at work at the policy committee meeting coming up. any comments or questions for debbie, commissioners? all right. seeing none. public comment on this item. if you are on the line and have any public comment on the director's report, please press star 3. >> operations please let us know if there are any callers that are ready. are there any callers, operations? >> there are no callers on the

line. >> all right. next item, please, charles? >> next item is announcements, items for discussion. >> commissioners, do you have any announcements? seeing no announcements, seeing no hands raised. is there any public comment on announcements? >> operations, are there any public -- are there any callers on the line that are ready to speak? >> there are no callers on the line. >> next item, please. >> next item is item 10, new business, future agenda items. this item is for discussion. commissioners, i'll be brief. you already heard from debbie we are hopefully going to have our

first policy committee meeting since february, i

>> i tried to think about this room as the dream room, where we dream and bring some of those dreams to life. i feel very blessed that i have been able to spend the last 31 years of my life doing it my way, thinking about things better interesting to me, and then pursuing them. there are a lot of different artists that come here to work,

mostly doing aerial work. kindred spirits, so to speak. there is a circus company that i have been fortunate enough to work with the last couple of years. i use elements of dance and choreography and combine that with theater techniques. a lot of the work is content- based, has a strong narrative. the dancers have more of a theatrical feel. i think we are best known for our specific work. in the last 15 years, spending a lot of time focusing on issues that affect us and are related to the african-american experience, here in the united states. i had heard of marcus shelby and had been in join his work but never had the opportunity to

meet him. we were brought together by the equal justice society specifically for this project. we were charged with beginning work. marquez and i spent a lot of time addressing our own position on the death penalty, our experiences with people who had been incarcerated, family members, friends of friends. pulling our information. beyond that, we did our own research. to create a picture that resonated with humanity. it is the shape of a house. in this context, it is also small and acts like a cell. i thought that was an interesting play on how these people make these adjustments,

half to create home. what is home for these people? the home is their cell. people talk a lot about noise -- very noisy in prisons. that is interesting to me. looking at the communication level, the rise of frustration of being caged, wondering, where does redemption fit into the equation here? [singing] i think both of us really believe the death penalty is wrong, and is flawed for many reasons.

the list is as long as my arm -- about several others. we feel this is important for both of us, personally, to participate in the debate of this issue in a way that we can help people frame it for a conversation.

>> clerk: president an lazarus will be the presiding officer tonight. she is joined by commissioner honda, commissioner swig, and commissioner tanner. commissioner santacana will be absent this morning. city county brad russey will providing legal guidance. scott sanchez, joseph duffy, chris