you walk around and look at gardens. you meet people that love gardens. it's fantastic. >> the portola garden tour is the last saturday in september every year. mark your calendars every year. you can see us on the website good afternoon. and welcome to the land use and transportation committee of the san francisco board of supervisors for today, august 31st, 2020. i am the chair of the committee aaron peskin, joined by committee member supervisor dean preston and i think to be joined momentarily by vice chair supervisor ahsha safai. our clerk is miss erica major. ms. major, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. due to the covid-19 health emergency, and to protect board

members and employees in the public. the committee room are closed. however, members will be participating in the meeting remotely. all local, state and federal orders, declarations and directives. committee members will attend the meeting through video conference, participating as if physically present. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda both channel 26, 78 or 99 depending on your provider. and sfgovtv.org are streaming the number across the screen. each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. comments are opportunities to speak. during the public comment period, are available by phone by calling (415)665-0001. again the number is (415)665-0001. the meeting i.d. is 146 466 4627.

again that's 146 466 4627. press pound and pound again. when connected you'll hearing the meeting discussion and be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, please press star 3 to be added to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. alternatively you may submit public comment in either of the ways, to myself at erica.ma erica.major@sfgov.org. you submit public comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and it will be included as part of the official file. finally items acted upon today will appear on the agenda on september 15th, unless otherwise stated.

>> supervisor peskin: thank you, madam clerk. can you please read the first item. >> clerk: yes. item number 1, is the re-enactment of emergency for protections of occupants of residential hotels or s.r.o. residence during the covid-19 pandemic. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, madam clerk. colleagues, i want to thank my co-sponsors for the original ordinance. supervisors mainy , ronen, safai, fewer, preston, walton and yee. that emergency ordinance, that as the clerk said, established protections for occupants of s.r.o. hotels in san francisco that include some 18,000 to 19,000 individuals in congregate settings, passed by the board of supervisors as an emergency matter and lasts for 80 days.

that required the department of public health to offer a number of provisions, including testing and i.n.q. provisions, isolation and quarantine for individuals that had tested positive, as well as implicit notice for residents of those s.r.o.s. these are individuals who live in congregate settings, where they share bathrooms and they share kitchens, a highly transmissive environment. and i want to thank the department of public health for not only taking that ordinance seriously, but already having done that job before we massed the emergency ordinance. and during the interim for starting to establish a dialogue with the residents of those

communities that span the mission, into the tenderloin into chinatown into north beach, were the best of the rest of once were 40,000 or more s.r.o. hotels once existed. so i want to thank and acknowledge d.p.h. for that. this has been really an admonition to d.p.h. and the community to step up the game. i want to thank and acknowledge the department of public health that on friday at approximately 518 in the afternoon, actually put up a web tool that shows the number of cases in s.r.o.s and the numbers of deaths, which thankfully -- tragically four deaths over 500 cases. so those buildings have been

handed superbly, some less so. and i really want to thank d.p.h., but more importantly the community for holding our feet to the fire as decision manned legislators and d.p.h.'s feet to the fire, as the front-line implementers under the pandemic. and with that i believe that we have dr. stephanie cohen. colleagues, if you have no comments, i would like to hand this over to the department of public health and dr. cohen. thank you, supervisor safai, for joining to really present what's happened and fundamental, as i said in the newspaper the other way, i want to create the space for the department of public health to build trust amongst the s.r.o. population in those communities that are very, very different communities. some of them latinx communities,

some of them chinese communities and predominantly cantonese amongo linguaamong -- mono lingl individuals. and those who reside in the arc that has s.r.o.s. with that i'll turn it over to dr. cohen. >> thank you very much. i'm going to share my screen and give a short update to what we discussed a couple of weeks ago. are you able to see the presentation? >> supervisor peskin: yes, we are. >> okay. supervisor peskin, preston and safai, thank you for the opportunity to come back and speak to you again and update the committee on our ongoing work to prevent covid-19 in s.r.o.s and to protect the residents who reside in these buildings. we met a couple of weeks. my name is stephanie cohen. i'm an infectious disease

physician and serving as the lead for the sscta covid-19 s.r.o. seeing none team since -- response team since april. as we discussed at the committee meeting on august 17th, we are committed to this population and we have a robust and proactive approach to prevention in these congregate settings. our robust approach has produced results preponderates of covid-19 testing among s.r.o. residents are actually higher than the rate of testing in san franciscans overall. the proportion of s.r.o. residents who test positive for covid-19 is similar to that of non-s.r.o. residents who live in the same neighborhood. so a lot of what we're seeing in s.r.o.s reflects the community prevalence in the communities where the s.r.o.s are. and lastly the case fatality rate among s.r.o. residents is comparable to the overall case

fatality rate at approximately .8%. and this is one of the lowest covid case fatality rates nationwide. as supervisor peskin mentioned, one of the provisions in the ordinance was to launch a publicly available data tracker. and after much hard and diligent work on the part of our advanced planning, data s.f. and surveillance groups, that dashboard went live on august 28th. it's available -- it's a u.r.l. that you see on the slide. this is just a snapshot from the data tracker to show you what it looks like, as required by the ordinance. it shows the number of residents who tested positive, the number of buildings that have had a case, numbers of deaths and number of residents who have gone to an isolation and quarantine hotel. it also shows these figures here which show over time the total number of cases and the total

number of deaths, as well as the daily new cases and the sffd rolling average, which gives us a sense of where we are on some of our important surge metrics. we also, since our last meeting, are working on community engagement. since the last meeting, we met with chinatown community leaders. we also have met with chinese hospital leadership and are excited to really move forward in a collaborative response with chinese hospitals to covid-19 cases in s.r.o.s in chinatown. and we're working on setting up recurring meetings with the s.r.o. collaboratives. and we want to hear their concerns. we also want to provide them information and updates and we want to strategize together how we can optimize covid-19

prevention for s.r.o.s residents and other disproportionately impacted by covid-19. we have an amazing team in our group of social workers, nurse practitioners, nurses, health workers who have been in the field in s.r.o.s every day since really the pandemic started, talking to residents. and we want to share the stories that we have heard, bus we know there are a lot of up stream factors and social determinants of health that are affecting these communities and we can only figure out how to address them if we work together. we do want to continue to request that the committee reevaluate the provision in the legislation, that requires sfdph to test all residents in an s.r.o. within 48 hours of a single case. i would like to be clear that we are not asking to water-down the legislation or relax rules for

s.r.o.s. our team, who exists to advocate and protect these residents, will continue to deploy on-site testing to a building, when there is concern for interbuilding transmission. and we do a lot of on-site testing in s.r.o.s. at the same time i want to try to explain again why this particular provision is just not an effective strategy. i know that testing is a hot-button topic. it's a politicized topic, unfortunately, at the national level. and i really want to reiterate if we thought this particular testing strategy, testing all residents in a building after a single case, if we thought that would be effective at preventing outbreaks, we would be all for it. we are aligned in prioritizing and working to protect s.r.o. residents. the challenge, though, is that s.r.o.s are not closed settings, like a skilled nursing

facility. in a closed environment, like a smith, you can implement -- we can implement routine surveillance testing of staff and identify staff cases before residents become infected. and, of course, this is especially critical in the smith context, because the case fatality rate is so high among those living in those conditions. but s.r.o.s, as you know are not like smith. they're open. residents come and go every day. they go to work, they go to the store, they go to visit their friends and family. and so a single case in a building, in a residence doesn't mean that there's an outbreak in the building. we do test and quarantine close contacts of all cases, including cases among s.r.o. residents. then if their contacts, including their household members, then their next-door neighbor, whoever they hang out with in the building, if they test positive, we continue to test and expanding circles.

in the worst-case scenario, and this has happened, an s.r.o. resident has covid, hasn't been tested and is symptomatic and has not been ice slating in the building. they think they have aler gees o-- allergies. by the time they get tested they may have exposed others in the building. at that point, though, testing is not prevention. testing doesn't prevent anyone from getting infected. they've already been exposed. but what it does do it allows to us find cases. and we want to find those cases, because then we have the opportunity to intervene on those who are already infected. and so that's why we do deploy testing when we see multiple cases in a short period of time in a building. and so, you know, really i think to summarize here, what i'm trying to explain is that testing is important. it enables us to identify

individuals who have covid when they're still in thin infectious period, then we can support them in isolating. we identify their close contacts and support those close contacts with testing and quarantine. but mass testing at a single point in time, triggered by a single case, does not in and of itself prevent covid-19. so in conclusion, building mas g is not a strategy in line with our citywide testing strategy or with -- >> supervisor peskin: miss major, i think you may doctor orb someone may have hit a button that they shouldn't have hit? >> clerk: thank you, mr. chair. i'm checking with operations.

it might be the bridge line. we will -- >> supervisor peskin: the bridge line has become the bain of our existence. go ahead. thank you, dr. cohen. my apologies. >> no problem. so really in summary, i think what i'm trying to make clear this particular strategy is not in line with cdph or c.d.c. guidance. it's not the best use of our testing resources. and our investigative tools can really help us predict when and where to test. we really have to continue to push primary prevention approaches, the best way to protect everyone from covid. and that's, as you know, things like masking, social distancing and hand washing. those are the critical things for mitigating spread in all settings. thank you for giving me another opportunity to speak to you and for all of your work to protect these communities. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, dr. cohen.

and when that -- when you release your screen, we'll all be able to look at each other over our respective computers. and, dr. cohen, i really want to thank you for your candor. and, indeed, this is an evolving situation. and i think collectively we are trying to, as nondoctors, address what we believe are the most vulnerable populations in the most transmissive settings. and i know that you and your colleagues are committed to that as well. and as i said earlier, we know that you're resource-constrained, as we all are economically, human resource wise and relative to actual physical things that are reagents and swabs that are moving to hot spots in the

united states of america, be it texas or florida. and, yes, this is an ordinance. and, yes, it is a law. but fundamentally and i have tried to communicate this to you and to the advocacy community. this is an admonition. and it is a short-termed a mow s going to last for another two months. and i for one, unless you make -- not you personally, but the department is malfeasant and not going to go after you, so to speak, on. i think this is really trying to hold you to the highest standards for our most vulnerable populations. and this, too, shall evolve.

ultimately i hope this becomes a permanent ordinance, which doesn't mean that we can't tweak it going forward. but i think the most important thing, and i've been very clear with you and the community and my former colleague, who has become a liaison between the board and your department, former supervisor katie tang, that i really want to create the space to build trust between the department of public health and the community. and the community has been abundantly clear in the last several days and while i think -- i don't want to put words in their mouth, that they're thankful for the transparency that now comes with the additional tool on the tracker site. that trust is earned through hard work and relationships. and you are working now to build them. these were relationships that didn't exist before the

pandemic, that have to be built very, very quickly. and i hope over the weeks and a couple months ahead, before this becomes a permanent, albeit flexible piece of legislation, that those relationships and that trust will start to be built. so i just wanted to share those thoughts some that you know where i'm coming from. as you know and as said in the paper 48 hours ago, i actually originally didn't want to have this debate. but i fundamentally have to honor the community that is -- are in these s.r.o.s. and i think we all collectively, the people, the decision-makers and the department of public health really also have to delve down into and make very transparent what is confidential and why and what is not confidential and to whom and why

or why not. and i think h hippa which is a huge privacy law, needs to be weighed and balanced for public health. i think we have to delve down into that, maybe in closed session, subject to attorney-client privilege advice. but ultimately in open session, where we can all ask those questions and understand where we balance privacy. as i have said to the deputy city attorney, that is on this -- in this meeting and to counsel for d.p.h., it strikes me as odd that we can be transparent with a building owner or a building manager, that there's a covid case in a particular building with a particular address, but we cannot tell the rest of the tenants that one of their neighbors, that they share a

kitchen or a bathroom with,s that covid. and i don't want to freak people out. i just want to make sure that they have the opportunities to be tested, to be isolated, to be quarantined, to be given a meal in a comfortable, confident way. that's what's driving this. this is not a, you know, board, you know, being you know demeaning to d.p.h. it's not at all. it's an evolving conversation. i know you understand that. so i appreciate that. are there -- and dr. cohen, if you have anything you want to add or subtract from that, you're welcome to do so. >> no. thank you very much for your comments. and just for the opportunity to continue to have a dialogue. the science is evolving and the diagnostics are evolving. i know we'll continue to work to figure out the best way to do this. and really appreciate that we've gotten the chance over these months to try to think about

that together. thank you. >> supervisor peskin: i really appreciate that you're taking this legislation seriously and that you are spending moments of your precious time, as you're triaging and stratifying, to actually engage with the board seriously. it would be easy enough for you to say, that's the thing, we're going to blow it off, because we're resource-constrained. so thank you for that. with that to my colleagues, hold on, let me press a button. either one of you have any questions or comments? >> i did, chair peskin. thank you. and just concur with your -- the remarks you just made. i did have just a question from the d.p.h. perspective what does trigger, under the current understanding of the mass testing, in a particular building. i understand what you're saying,

dr. cohen, about the difference between the setting and the s.r.o. congregate living situation. i'm curious. i understand from the perspective of the department at this point in time, some disagreement around whether one case should trigger that or not. and this legislation addresses that. but what is -- two cases in the site, what are the set of circumstances from your perspective? and i think to chair peskin's point, to me it's less relevant for what the community wants is clear. but as chair peskin notes, i think we'll 30, 60, however many days be out once again looking at this issue. and it will be helpful from my perspective just to know from d.p.h.'s perspective what does, from your perspective, trigger mass testing in an s.r.o. context. >> well, the california department of public health definition of an outbreak in a congregate community setting is

three cases in three separate households within 14 days. so we would always define that as an outbreak and report that as an outbreak in terms of not the specific address, not the privacy thing nourishments terms of how many outbreaks we have in s.r.o.s and we would test. the threshold is lower than that. our threshold is two cases in two separate households within 14 days. and some risk criteria for interbuilding transmission. when we have two cases in two separate households, we either go on site. we may have already gone on site previously, which may give us a sense of what the building is like and whether there's risk. we haven't gone on site, we would go on site and there are things that contribute to that risk stratification. things like crowded households. is this a building with a lot of family or a lot of -- we see a lot of buildings ra there's multiple young men sharing one room, who are all front-line

workers. we know in shows settings covid starts very quickly. did we learn that the case was actually infectious on site for more than seven days total, between the two cases. maybe one person was three days, one person was four days. that's concerning. that's a lot of days of potential spread. we know that there's certain communities that are disproportionately impacted in san francisco. are those folks highly represented in the building. and we also look at the risk of morbidity. are there a lot of elders in the building, people over the age of 60, a lot of co-morbidities. so those are some of the criteria we do have the matrix that we use. but basically has to be two cases in two separate households in 14 days and at least two of those several criteria that i mentioned. supervisor preston, i really appreciate that comment. i think what dr. cohen just told us is that we, in this case d.p.h., can actually have higher

standards than the state does, which say lute -- i salute and appreciate. everything that dr. cohen just said, relative to assessing risk is absolutely right. do you have higher co-morbidity factors. do you have, you know, folks who are living 10 to a room instead of two to a room. are they more likely to have to go to work than be retired or on a fixed income. all of those things could lead to a spread. but i think where the rubber hits the road is, and i mean no professional offense to d.p.h. is how well do they know the residents in that building. how do they know what i have come to learn or have knowledge access to on and off in my 20

years, as to who lives in that building or what community members know then. i don't think that d.p.h. can figure that out in 24 hours, unless they start working with the community to quickly under then do triage. because you can't triage unless you know what the -- whether the victim is about to be in deep trouble or not. but this is very helpful conversation to me at least. supervisor preston, do you have any more comments? >> supervisor preston: i don't. thank you, dr. cohen. i just want to echo really the point you made, chair peskin, really thank you for your leadership on this. proud to be co-sponsoring this this time, as well as last time. and i think that, you know, where we have really proactive and engaged communities

representing and community groups representing some of the most vulnerable people in the city, i see this kind of legislation as really honoring their expertise around the community their serving. but also as you say, but facilitating and trying to deepen the conversation between d.p.h. and those community groups, so that as we -- sort of in some ways the beauty of having these emergency ordinances as ways to sort of temporarily deal with things, but not cement them permanently and look forward to it sounds like ongoing discussions happening to arrive at whatever makes sense on a more permanent basis. it certainly resonates with me that where there's doubt, being more careful, preventative and, you know, we have for whatever reasons avoided certainly outbreaks that would have otherwise occurred through

taking proactive steps. so certainly i appreciate that this, you know, we continue i hope to err on the side of over testing and overly taking precautions, rather than the opposite. but understanding that there's further conversation to figure out what that, you know, what should be in place on the longer-term basis. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, supervisor preston. supervisor safai, anything to add? >> supervisor safai: something who is a city planner by training, you know, not many cities have this type of housing that remains. it is one of the things that makes san francisco unique, to have a single room occupancy hotel and being used obviously in a different way than they were originally built. you know, we have multiple families, multiple generations, many members of the same family sharing space. and some for me it makes sense,

under these circumstances, that we would want to err on the side of extreme caution. because as we know and as we learn from the assisted living facilities, that was where this virus really began in the united states, in multiple cities. in new york, and in washington and all over. i don't want the same to happen. and i know supervisor peskin has been out in front of this. we had conversations in the very beginning of this pandemic about individuals and their patterns of travel and their patterns of obtaining medicine and going actually in many ways to the heart of where this pandemic began in the world, into wuhan, china. and so that is no longer a risk. but the risk is this massive amount of people in these buildings living in very close

settings. and so i'm proud to be a co-sponsor of this legislation. i think if it pushes sfdph to work aggressively with advocate communities, that is on the ground working with individuals in these settings, i think it's a positive thing. and in the end if we don't have an outbreak, good. and we put the resources in the right place. so i appreciate your leadership on this and being a part of this conversation, supervisor peskin, along with the advocates from the community. and thank you, ms. cohen, as well. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, colleagues and co-sponsors. before we open this up to public comment, while this is a re-enactment of the emergency ordinance, i do have a couple of non-substantive tweaks perform before i open it up to public comment, i want colleagues to go through that. you're both in receipt of those, as is the clerk of this committee ms. major. on page 2, section 2, at line 22

insert and amend section 3 of such emergency ordinance to read as follows, even though both ordinance no. 84-20 and this re-enactment emergency ordinance are uncodified, for purposes of clarity, the respective fontses for additions and deletions of the municipal code as stated in the note that appears at the beginning of this ordinance are used to show the amendments to section 3 of ordinance number 84-20. that's the original source ordinance. in the tweaks to the original ordinance, in section 3, would be in subsection g to insert a new subsection 5. and that -- so let me just take you to the top of that subsection g, which is already in the existing law that we are re-enacting, upon confirming

that an s.r.o. resident has tested positive for covid-19, d.p.h. shall to the extent consistent with state and federal laws governing the confidentiality of medical information and here's the new subsection 5. as soon as feasible, but not more than 12 hours after receiving such confirmation, promptly post in common areas of the residential hotel, where fire safety information is required to be posted, a notice to advise s.r.o. residents of their rights under this emergency ordinance to access i/q, isolation/quarantine hotel rooms and face coverings. such notice shall include, but not be limited to, the number of the language accessible hotline for s.r.o. residents, that residents may call to access those resources. this is making the implicit notice requirements explicit. that was my insertion.

and in sub l, under sub 2, the total number of confirmed positive covid-19 cases, this is under what data d.p.h. shall produce, the total number of confirmed positive covid-19 cases in san francisco insert residential hotels, delete at the rate of cases by population size in san francisco. so that the sentence now reads, the total number of confirmed positive covid-19 cases in san francisco residential hotels, organized by zip code. so those are the amendments that i would like to make, subject to public comment. and with that, are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item number 1? madam clerk. >> clerk: thank you. thank you, mr. chair. operations is checking to see if there are any callers in queue. noting that we have nine listeners. arthur, please let us know how

many we have in queue. >> there are currently five callers in the queue. >> supervisor peskin: first speaker, please. >> caller: thank you so much to d.p.h. and the board for giving time and attention to this ordinance. my name is tria. i'm a tenant organizer with the mission s.r.o. collaborative of the dolores street. we want to address the land-use committee to shed light on the practices of d.p.h., in accordance with the emergency ordinance that was adopted on may 19th. i'm here to ask that the land use and transportation committee renew the s.r.o. emergency ordinance and not dilute any of the protections. in san francisco, s.r.o.s provide homes for over 18,000 extremely low-income seniors and families, people of color, people with disabilities and formerly homeless people. many of the people we serve are also immigrants and some identify as undocumented.

we believe that the impact of covid-19 should not only be measured in terms of the number of deaths, but the impacts that the virus has on income and mental health. from the time the emergency ordinance was enacted, d.p.h. has only implemented a portion of the elements and we call on them to recognize that the tenants have a right to receive a notice if there's a confirmed covid-19 case in their building, the right to full and accurate information about the rights to recovery program, that -- for tenants that test positive and the general location of i.n.q. housing available to them. we have worked directly with tenants, for example, from tenants in the grand southern that in the last 50 days the legislation has been active, that health and sanitary measures have not been implemented, despite tenants contacting d.p.h. and she's been struggling with test problems and rats and cockroaches and ticks on top of the pandemic for the past 50 days, to the point to which she had to replace her own sink becausest inaction and

unresponsiveness. and in another case, an s.r.o. tenant at the albert struggled with the affordability of the living situation, as he's unable to pay rent month-to-month. 23 latinx have tested positive for covid-19, including the grand southern -- >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: hello. >> clerk: hi. you're on the line. yes. you may speak. you have two minutes. >> caller: okay. my name is eric markoo. i'm a member of senior disability action in soma neighborhood residence council. i'm just saying that testing s.r.o.s should be made for the entire building in a place that's been infected. i heard other speakers in other

days say that some of these rooms have, you know, self-containing bathrooms and kitchens. but the vast majority of them don't. and when -- if someone gets infected in these places, it could spread like wildfire, especially in crowded communities like the mission and tenderloin and chinatown. it just seems -- i mean, unimaginable to me that when we consider scaling this back at this time, when we have such an epidemic. i mean, we need people that are infected or exposed to be put into hotel rooms, self-contained hotel rooms, not in a congregate area. thank you kindly. >> clerk: again you'll be notified if you have been unmuted and you can begin your comments.

>> hi, my name is dana foot. i'm with the mission s.r.o. collaborative program for lotus community services. i wanted to first say that there's currently a demand for testing in san francisco. and through our outreach and education work, the need for the continuation of the s.r.o. emergency ordinance. testing allowing us to connect with services and to the programs that we have also asked. our main concerns is that currently we're assessing the impact of this pandemic in the number of cumulative deaths. and that's not an accurate number of what we're hearing, tests in high levels of stress, depression, and general anxiety. we know that currently there's a timeline and challenges to the turnaround to access programs such as -- [indiscernible] we also know the importance of having transparent information

about what are the services connections, community organizations on the ground can link people to. we know that there's a flu season approaching us and we cannot actually afford to water down any of the provisions of the legislation. we are committed, however, to continue to figure out how we support proactively testing communities and accurately investigate those possible thinks to spread. and understand the use of i.n.q. thank you again for the time you've given this morning. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. this is anna stage. a member of san francisco tenants' union, an anti-displacement coalition. i really appreciate this conversation the supervisors had today, with d.p.h. and

dr. cohen. i am encouraged with the doctor and the d.p.h. staff are going to kind of make some overtures and steps to work with the s.r.o. collaborative communities, that are in there doing the work with the tenants. it's the only way this program will work. and as previous speakers have said and supervisor peskin has said, not knowing that your fellow residents have -- someone has a case of covid is really scary. so if there could be some information that tenants could have of where to go to get tested, and then what to do once they test positive, so that they're not afraid to go to the

d.p.h. staff or to do what they have to do or to tell their worker that,. >> commissioner haney:, i -- hey, i got tested and i have covid. if dr. cohen can't do it or they don't have the resources to do it, these people need to be tested. thank you. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: supervisors, director of policy at the community development center. i want to thank you for working on behalf of s.r.o. residents, not only in chinatown and district 3, but citywide. this is really important legislation. and while we are reassured by dr. cohen's words to reflect that they don't support a warting-down of the legislation,

we do continue to insist on testing being a critical need. we have seen that testing, when it's done at the building, is effective. we have also seen in many neighborhoods when testing is offered off-site, it is less effective and people are less interested in being tested. we really want to frame this as a tenants' righ right-to-know perspective. this ordinance is about what the tenant needs to know in terms of the city's covid response. and what the city -- and what the tenants, you know, has a right to know in terms of what is going on in their buildings. we have testimony a little bit later, that's going to show you that, of course, when d.p.h. comes around and does outreef and says that, you know, there's covid-wide testing, kind of sounds stupid. they know that that means that

there's an outbreak or there are cases. so we hope that we can get behind, get beyond the concerns and really look at what is best to protect those communities and our s.r.o. residents. i look forward to working with d.p.h. in the coming weeks and months, you know, relationship that builds decades back when the s.r.o. collaborative was first funded by the department of public health. so we're looking forward to working together and continue to strength our defense of our s.r.o. residents. thank you very much. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, mattias. any other members of the public who would like to testify on item number 1? >> yes. two additional callers. i'll unmute the next caller.

>> supervisor peskin: next speaker, please. >> caller: hello. can you hear me? >> supervisor peskin: yes, i can. please proceed. >> oh. this is trudy. i'm calling from center city collaborative, part of the housing clinic. thank you, supervisor peskin, to extend this legislation for another 90 days or more. one thing i do agree with all the speakers who spoke in front of me -- before me about the emphasis of testing and the outreach. one thing that i definitely felt that is terribly lacking and i'm hoping and willing to work with d.p.h. on it is like the reaching out to the community-based organizations that's already working with tenants in various buildings. because we bring the relationship, we bring the approach. so i'm hopingle this legislation

will push d.p.h. to partner with many of us, so that we can make this legislation effective. thank you very much. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. next speaker. yes, please go ahead. >> hi. madam clerk, i'm a staff person with chinatown c.d.c. i have a recorded testimony by a witness speaking in cantonese and i will be playing ard roing and then translating. this is a tenant who lives in the chinatown s.r.o. with the present outbreak. [speaking cantonese]

[caller speaking cantonese]

>> hello, i'm a chinatown s.r.o. tenant. we are among the affected

families in the pandemic. recently my husband got the virus. at that time he developed a fever in the evening, after taking the pills and sweating all over his body. the fever got lowered. it was later that we found out that someone had been infected in our building. people in the building were not notified of this virus infection. everyone was kept in the dark and so the virus spread to others. this was frightening because our household included grandparents and children. thank you. madam clerk, i'll be submitting the written translated version of the entire statement for the record. thank you. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. any other members of the public who would like to testify on this item? caller: i would like to thank the last speaker for providing that testimony. and i find it unfortunate that

we seem to have so few actual s.r.o. residents speaking today. it seems very paternalistic to have these decisions made by people who, you know, don't actually live in s.r.o.s and, you know, some input from the people who are on various boards and stuff. so i'm wondering like, you know, was -- were s.r.o. residents notified that this meeting was being held? and there aren't any interpreters at the meeting, as far as i can tell. so the residents of s.r.o.s are very linguistically diverse. there should have been more outreach to s.r.o. residents to get their input on these decisions, instead of the top-down manner.

>> supervisor peskin: are there any other members of the public who would like to testify under public comment? >> yes, hello. this is theresa with senior disability action. i so appreciate all of your work on this, supervisor peskin. i also hope it will not be diluted. i am also thinking of a resident in an s.r.o. that i visited and the issuing about that he had only recently come home from the hospital, is having an occupational therapist go in to visit him. and so when d.p.h. talks about, you know, people, indeed, do come and go out of s.r.o.s, that may be the difference. however, it is the difference that makes it even more important for people to be tested. people are going out and working and getting their groceries, et

cetera. so they may not know that they have been exposed and they need to know that. they need to protect themselves. and protect the people outside that they may encounter. so i just want to support this. again he is a resident who could not speak today. and so i am speaking for him. thank you very much. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. are there any other members of the public who want to ite itemr 1? >> hi, yes. my name is freddie. i'm with senior disability action as a housing organizer. and -- since covid broke out, i have been doing a lot of work with tenants that live in s.r.o.s and participating and facilitating several tenant groups and meetings within the

community, within s.r.o. working groups and collaboratives. and there is a fear of the emergency protections being through the somehow and i appreciate and i'm glad of the fact that that doesn't appear to be happening. and supportive of these protections that are in place will be re-enacted fully. there is a fear amongst people that live in the s.r.o.s, that i have spoken with, that if they don't know that someone is infected, that they wouldn't be able to adequately protect themselves. so just one person getting it has the potential to affect so many people. just, for example in the building i'm living in, it's not an s.r.o. building. it is partially subsidized. there was one tenant that was -- that came up positive and the entire building received notices

on their doors. and for those that were nervous about being in just the hallways or the elevators, because we don't share public areas, other than the hallways and the lobby, there was several people that were able to get tested, because of that. had they not known and been exposed, there potentially could have been many more cases. so it is important to fully re-enact this and thank you for your support. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. next speaker, please. are there any more speakers? >> mr. chair, that completes the queue. >> supervisor peskin: all right. public comment is closed. and to the speaker -- three speakers ago, let me say there's definitely a difference between dilution and delusion. every once in a while we get speakers on the land use committee meetings that don't identify themselves and they don't have to.

[ please stand by ]

[roll call] . >> you have three ayes. >> commissioner: i'd like to make a motion to send the item as amended with recommendation as a committee report for a meeting with the bull board of supervisors tomorrow september 1. on that motion, madame clerk, roll call, please. [roll call] . >> commissioner: the motion is auto -- approved. madame clerk call the next item. >> clerk: [reading item] members of the

public who wish to comment call 1-415-655-0001 the meeting i.d. is 146 466 4627 and press #, #and then a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. when we get to public comment the system will indicate you have been unmuted. >> commissioner: i'd like to make a motion to continue this to september 14, 2020. is there any public comment on that continuance? >> clerk: thank you, mr. chair. we're check forg callers in the -- checking for callers in the queue. >> there are no callers in the queue. >> commissioner: public comment is closed and on that motion, madame clerk, a roll call, please. >> clerk: the motion as state. [roll call] .d. [roll call] .

>> commissioner: the item is continued to september 14. next item, please. >> clerk: the next is a conversion of certain limited restaurants to restaurants north beach neighborhood amending the planning code. for those wishing to provide public comment call 1-415-655-0001 and meeting i.d. 146 466 4627 and press pouve po pound to line up to speak. >> commissioner: this is a carefully crafted piece of legislation that will help up to a dozen defined in the code as limited restaurants in the corner of the city i represent

that really in every way behave like full service restaurants but due to changes in the code that precede me that happened when i was off the board prohibited from applying for beer and wine licenses. and in short, it rendered uncompetitive before the pandemic and now is an imperative for them and these small businesses include outfits like family cafe, which is a chance cafe and the portofino, not the old one the fbi raid 20 years ago but a new one which is a new one on grand avenue.

masala which was originally i think in your district, supervisor peskin and may be the only west african restaurant in district 3. essentially, we are addressing a glitch in the code that evolved from complications from not when i was on this board which in fact made small business regulations in some cases murkier and more complicated and in this particular instance pretty goofy. so i really want to thank the planning department staff and the planning commission for their unanimous recommendation of this ordinance and with that, i do have a series of, i believe, non-substantive

amendments. first as to the short and long titles an amendment to clarify we are amending the special use district and on pages 4 and 5, i'm expanding eligibility by reducing the number of months a business must have been in operation from four to three months and page 5, lines 3 and 4 including businesses in operation in the eligibility window that have been in business a longer period of time, between november 1 and september and moving the conditional using requirement for liquor licenses and page 5 lines 11 and 14 moving the section 3 and removing the line that made supervisor safai happy that is over the counter relief for eligible businesses.

this has streamline the process and my thanks to the city attorney and my staff for the work on this and in fact, colleagues, if you have questions or comments i'd be attempt to answer them and if not we can go to public comment. >> it does make me happy and we did something very similar as you know in my district where the change of use was facilitated quickly. the times necessitated this and an appreciate your hard work on this. >> supervisor safai and supervisor preston is nodding his head. madame clerk do we have members of public who wish to comment on item 3. >> i'll check if there's callers in the queue. arthur, let us know if there are

callers ready. if you have not done so press 3 to line up to speak. you only need to do this one. >> commissioner: we'll go to public comment and then aaron starr in planning. >> mr. chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> commissioner: public comment is closed. mr. star. >> planning commission heard this item last thursday and voted unanimously to approve it with modifications those applying and describe a prohibition on [indiscernible] in section of the ordnance do not place it in a codified ordinance language and the prohibition unlimited restaurants looking at former restaurant spaces and the north

beach and north beach sud to allow the conversion of certain number of restaurants and increase the time from three months to six months and the application must be submitted to the planning department by the deadline and do not delete the provision from the code until at least one year after the effective date and to encourage the board to expand this program city wide through an amendment to the legislation ordinance. thank you, supervisor peskin for considering these amendments. i'm also available for questions. >> thank you, mr. starr. >> commissioner: this is an appropriate comment i want to make for myself and you that starting tomorrow we can get our haircut on the sidewalk. >> you don't think i should keep it?

looks great. >> i appreciate that. colleagues, i'd like to move the amendment on that item. madame clerk, roll call, please. [roll call] . >> clerk: you have three ayes. >> commissioner: i'd like to send this item to the full board with recommendation on that motion a roll call -- >> excuse me, if i may. i'm sorry but the amendment is substantive. >> commissioner: never mind. madame clerk, i'll resend -- rescind that and continue it to the meeting september 14. on that motion roll call please.

>> clerk: we don't need to rescind but i will take the roll call. [roll call] . >> commissioner: the motion has passed. we are adjourned.