>> thank you so much kim for that amazing poem. thank you for representing san francisco so well over the past few years. we look forward to seeing what comes next for you. now, it is my great honor to announce our eighth poet laureat. i had the privilege of knowing this individual for many years as he worked and volunteered at the african american art and culture complex. he has mentored men young men and women that came through our doors and taught them how to find their own vote and make themselves heard. his poems are just one of the many ways he fights for racial justice, equity, and human rights. he has shown our community what it means to be a successful poet, as a black man from san francisco. we are incredibly proud of the work he has done so far,

especially his commitment to inspiring black men and boys and providing support for young people in our community. he will continue the work that our ancestors did as they fought for their own voices to be heard. i am beyond excited to see what he accomplishes as the san francisco's eighth poet laureate. i am happy to present tongo martin, the eighth poet laureate. >> thank you madam mayor for this incredible, incredible honor. i prepared some words that i hope i make it through. i'm already filled with tears. >> i'm going to let you have the floor, it's so great to have you. thank you for all the magic you

created over the years. as i said earlier, when we work together at the complex, there were a lot of challenges, especially with our boys and we had unfortunately a lot of violence in the community and just seeing you as this literary figure and inspiring these young people to look at other ways besides, you know, being out in the streets and doing stuff that was happening then, focusing on how poetry, how music is poetry, and how they can really shift their voices to tell their own stories. you brought that to their lives and i know they continue to carry it with them today. so, you have been an inspiration for so many years, directed at so many generations of people. i'm so grateful that you accepted this honor so now i

want to turn the floor over to you so that people can know who you are. if they don't know, now they know. we're looking forward to the work that we know you're going to do to make san francisco proud. so the floor is yours tongo. >> thank you. thank you very much. incredibly humbled and honored. also, deep appreciation to the selection committee. i want to send love to my mother and brother as i am only an extension of their love, imagination, and revolutionary commitment, love to my two powerful sisters and the whirlwind that has nothing on us, love to my family above mud and lava, love to my father and

the rest of the village that is not here in the physical form. i would also like to thank kim shuck for being a leader of poets and beautiful force of the people. a poet of any station is secondary to the people. a poet of any use, that belongs to the energy and consciousness of the people, one of arts most important incarnation is that expression of mass resistance but really what art teaches us with its dominantable energy, the indominantable energy of an idea is evident that it is oppressors themselves who are in

the position of resistance. it's bigger than any imperialistic, cognitively reflected in any generation. the power is ours and it is oppressors who are resisting us, resisting humanity, resisting us pretty well. it's resisting our right to determine our reality, resisting a coming epoch of liberation. mass participation in art is what is always created in san francisco, futurism. san francisco has legend too fearless for me to count myself as one of them. i am from this legendary collection of thousands and thousands of participants, revolutionary history and culture. i'm proud to be one of the

anonymous thousands in san francisco who have road these buses all night, who has been raised in marcus's bookstore, who wants justice for mario woods and alex, who wants freedom. what the people taught me is that unity is the only thing and taught me that individualism, as it is practiced and codified, romanticized in this society is not really about your adventure through life but at its core, unfortunately, individualism is about practicing the selective humanization. other people are only human beings when it suits individual interest. civilism of sorts, that is deeply connected to slavery, both from what the society evolved from and process that

addicts you to and power struggle that alienates ourselves, and at no point do we find the dehumanization of other people, the deanimation of people acceptable, are let alone necessary for an individual journey. so as much as i would love to assign the rest of my days to an individual invention, that time is over. history is heightening, showing us more and more everyday that we're part of people, a people beyond systemic description, and we need the entire pallet of protecting human rights and nurture human curiosity. the madness we see today shouldn't be surprising. these apartheid nativity scenes

come home to roast and a capitalism in crisis, what is mixed in with the parole papers and the environmental racism and program deliverables and passivism. we're in a time of epochal shift where this is opening its arms if we don't open the historical process more critically. where do we go from here? what is our revolutionary practice or more conveniently, it begins with cultural work. it transforms the way that we relate to each other, transforms the way we relate to the earth, to a way that is conducive to liberation. a poet belongs to the energy and consciousness of the people,

respecting their spirit. my only aim as poet laureate is to join with that energy, join with that consciousness in order to create vehicles of unity. events, workshops, readings, publications, these are all just vehicles of unity. i will never tire in building as many as the city can handle. so, meet me at the library. [laughter] >> if you can't make it, i will for sure meet you wherever you are. let me now say rest in power to cure junior and diane, and i will conclude with this poem titled faithless.

a tour guide, through the robbery, he also is. cigarette stand, look at what i did. ransom water and box spring gold, this decade is only for accent grooming, i guess. ransom water and box spring gold to corner store, war gangs, all these rummage junk. you know, the start of mass destruction begins and ends in restaurant bathrooms as some people use and other people clean. are you telling me there is a rag in the sky waiting for you? yes. we should have fit in. warehouse jobs are for communists and now the whistling is less playful and if it is not a city, it is a prison. it has a prison. it's a prison, not a city. when a courtyard talks on behalf

of the military issue, all walk takes place outside the body. a medieval painting to your right, none of this makes an impression. you have five minutes to learn. when a man goes sideways barb wire becomes the roof. did you know they killed the world for the sake of giving everyone the same back story? watching indiana, fight yourself into the sky, oh penny for when. it goes up and over your headache, marking all aspirations, the first newspaper i ever read and the storefront, they left us down where the holy spirit favors the bathroom. for those in the situation offer 100 ways to remain a loser. watching those clock, what are we talking about again? the narrater at the graveyard, 10 minute flat. the funeral only took 10 minutes. you're going to pin the 90s on

me, all 30 years of them? why should i know the difference between sleeping and the pyramid of corner stores on our head. we die right away. that building wants to jump off other buildings, those are down tone decisions. what evaporated on earth that we can be sent back down? thank you all again, much love. i want to give the whole roll call right now but that's too many. much love to all my family and thank you again madam mayor. thank you. san francisco for better for worse, which you are raised, you know? >> thank you so much tongo. just so you know, the chat is blowing up. there is so much love and

excitement for what you will bring to san francisco and i just want to thank you so much. thank you for the incredible poem and your inspiration and just everything that you continue to do. i look forward to what you will accomplish as our city's poet laureate. i can't wait. it's going to be exciting, especially when we open up. when you talk about meet me at the library, it's like that's your slogan now. [laughter] >> so we're going to take it to another level. that's your slogan, meet me at the library. hitting all the libraries all over san francisco. >> that's right. >> just inviting the people in and really bringing it back to some of the basics. you know, with the way technology is nowadays, sometimes we get away from just picking up a book or picking out a book or looking through an index card. i guess we don't look through index cards to find books

anymore. sitting there and having discussions, i'm looking forward to what you're going to bring and really excited about that. i really want to thank the people that nominated you. you know, there was a really compelling, you know, letter of support that you know, went into all the details about your work. you have a lot of fans out there. i want to thank the selection committee, the people who served and had to go through all of those applications because i got to tell you, it was a hard decision and i was so excited that so many people in san francisco, you know, really embraced and support poets in such an incredible way. there are so many wonderful nominees. i'm looking forward to you connecting with all of them as well and really the outgoing poet laureate kim shuck, thank you for that poem and your commitment to san francisco and the role you have played over the years. thank you to san francisco public library and the

commissioners who are joining us here today and our librarian, michael lambert. so many amazing people and i think that based on your comments today, meet me at the library, that's going to be a new part of the campaign to really bring people together, to inspire and to really you know, set things off on a whole other level. thank you tongo for your work and commitment. we're so honored that you will be san francisco's eighth poet laureate and if there is anything left to say, you're welcome to have the floor. if not, we can turn it back over to michael lambert. >> i just want to say much love and appreciation. >> great. >> thank you so much madam mayor. my heart is full, #meetmeatthelibrary. congratulations tongoo. i want to thank all of you for

joining us this morning. our public affairs office is happy to help facilitate any interviews with our new poet lawyer -- laureate, thank you all and have a great day. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪]

>> good morning, and welcome to the rules committee of the san francisco board of siewrvesz. supervisions. i am the char, aaron peskin, chained by mandelman and connie chan. our clerk is mr. young. mr. young, could you please make any announcements. >> members will be participating in the meeting remotely. committee members will attend the meeting by video conference, the same as if they were physically present. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda, both on channel 26, and sfgovtv.org.

i.d. 1464694909 you can call 415-655-0001, i.d. 1875186183. you may submit public comments by e-mail to myself, to the rules committee, and if you submit public comment by e-mail, it will be forwarded to the supervisions and it will be included as part of the file. that completes my initial comments. >> chairman: thank you. mr. young. >> item one is appointing

seven members to the guaranteed income advisory group, indefinite terms. >> chairman: thank you, mr. clerk. colleagues, this is an item pursuant to an ordinance passed by the san francisco board of supervisions to make recommendations around a growing movement not only in this city and in this country, but around the world relative to virtual social security, if you will, guaranteed income for people of limited means. this is being done in conjunction with the treasure's office. i am delighted that we have eight remarkably qualifieds individuals. if you read their resumes and applications, as i did this weekend, it is quite an impressive group. eight individuals for eight seats, so not a lot

of tough choices for us to make. i believe all of them are here to briefly testify, except for bena shimerali, who indicated he was unable to attend due to work commitments. three individuals need a residency waiver. and are there any questions or comments from committee members? seeing none, why don't we open this up to the applicants. and i bet if i press a button here -- i cannot, for some reason, i'm note sure why, find my participant button. why don't we just open this up to comments from applicants. first speaker, please. >> i'll call on the first applicant on the list,

which would be shirley yee. >> can you hear me? >> chairman: we can hear you. and i might have to log off and log on because my computer is giving me trouble. but i can hear you now, so why don't we proceed. >> good morning, chair peskin and members of the rule committee. i'm the daughter of immigrant parents. my father was the mayor of detroit's chinatown. i have worked to address systemic inequities my entire adult life, and most of which is here in san francisco, focusing on wealth and inequity. i was with mayor breed's o.m.d. policies. i am an active member of a

statewide group of g.i. pilots, currently diving deep into benefit waivers, and with g.i. policy advocates as well. i'm also here on behalf of norell knolls, for seat mr. five. not only is he proudly born and raised on treasure island, as a 28-year-old black gay man, he knows what it means to live in the city. he shared just before he was born, his mom was coming out of homelessness. because of programs like section 8, they were able to afford to live on treasure island, and now he wants to help shape programs that give back to other san francisco residents. thank you for your time. >> chairman: thank you, shirley, and i did just get a notification that norel, as well as roberto, will be unable to attend.

so thank you for speaking to norel's qualifications. next speaker, please, and i believe that that would be jacob denny, who has applied to seats one, two, or three. >> thank you, chair peskin and supervisions mandelman and chan. throughout my life, i have experienced the ways in which our economy fails working people, and the ways our social safety net fails to meet all of our needs. i know what it is like to have to choice between fixing your car or paying your rent. as far as economic justice policy director, my goal is to identify interventions that make it so all people in san francisco are able to experience economic security and live lives of dignity. the uneven impacts of the

pandemic, coupled with systemic racism and economic exclusion have made this a need more than ever. i want to better help the people who need it most. thank you for your consideration. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. and i believe the next speaker would be james pugh for seats one, two, or three. and a residency waiver would be required for james. >> i would like to thank the committee for considering my application for seats one, two, or three. i'm really excited at the prospect of applying my experience in this space, designing and implementing and guaranteeing programs in san francisco. in my five years working on guaranteed income equity, focused on

understanding how guaranteed income can be structured to have a transformative impact for low-income americans, particularly in communities of color. and ensuring that these programs don't jeopardize other programs, like heat. [inaudible] >> chairman: thank you. next speaker. and i believe that speaker would be gloria barry for seat four. >> can you hear me? >> chairman: yes, we can. >> good morning, chair peskin. i'm running for -- i'm applying for this because seat four must be held by a person who has personally experienced poverty while living in san francisco.

i've lived in and out of poverty in san francisco from 1969 to '75, and periodically from '87 to 2015. right now i only have veteran compensation, which is a third of what is deemed low income. i've worked for a commission which doesn't always yield a living wage. i also have been on welfare and food stamps before. when i was homeless, i was sent to shelters, and i lived in transitional housing on treasure island. i would not be able to live in san francisco now if it were not for the assistance i received from being a veteran. the demographics i reach out to is black, mexican, and white. i am 51 years old, and i'm a female and a disabled veteran. i served 13 years in the military.

while in service, i went six months without being a dependent -- getting dependent benefits because (indiscernable). and at that time, i had to eat rahman every day because that is all i could afford. hopefully i will be recommended for this committee so my experiences realtime can get with people with the economic experience, and together we can crunch some numbers and do something for san francisco that has never been done before. because it is time that we do something about the great disparity in wealth in the city. thank you. >> chairman: thank you, ms. barry. next speaker, please. >> i believe the next speaker would be elaine

chavez -- >> chairman: i'm having crazy problems with my computer. i may have to -- mr. clerk, can we take a one-minute break. i would need to leave this meeting and get back in. this is not -- my computer is not working. so we will recess for one minute. if i can get back on in one minute. >> clerk: we will take a one-minute recess. >> chairman: thank you. >> chairman: thank you. we will reconvene the rules committee meeting for today, february 8th. thank you. my technical difficulties seem to be better on relogging in. and the next applicant would be roberto vargas, who is not here. a residency waiver is required for said seat, and he has applied for seats four, five, six, seven or eight, and norel

knolls was spoken to by ms. yee. and as i said, earlier, that will take us to our last applicant, elena chavez -- >> sorry, supervisor, i am actually here. >> chairman: we're delighted you are here this morning. please proceed. i apologies. >> thank you, supervisions. good morning, committee members. my apologies for being late. i had to rearrange some things. i just wanted to share that, you know, my family has been in san francisco since 1946, moving to hunter's point from nicaragua. and, you know, i'm second-generation graduate of mission high school. and my entire career has been in serving low-income

communities in san francisco, primarily in the non-profit sector, but also in the san francisco unified school district. i currently work at ucsf, leveraging ucsf resources to help get at both health and economic equity leveraging, or economic and science resources to support getting equity in san francisco. that has included work on reducing diabetes and chronic disease disparities. but i've worked as a street outreach worker for the mayor's gang prevention program, at the real alternative's program "rap," and primarily served folks in the commission district and bayview hunter's point my entire life. i lived half of my life in bayview hunter's point before getting displaced there several years ago. so i would need a

residency waiver. and i still have family members living in poverty, still have family members living in homelessness in san francisco, and family members recently out of homelessness by way of support through navigation centers, thankfully. so, you know, i would be happy to serve in any way i could serve san francisco. including in this capacity. to bring to bear evidence, whenever possible, but mostly to bring a voice of advocacy and support for low-income communities in san francisco, poor folks in san francisco, who are the folks i identify with most, who are the folks i will advocate for and stand alongside with most in this role and in any role that i serve san francisco. so thank you for your consideration. >> chairman: thank you, sir. and sorry, i did not realize that you had

joined this meeting. and i think that takes us to our last applicant, who is present this morning, elena chavez casada. >> good morning. i would like to thank supervisions peskin, mandelman,and chan. i'm an s.f. resident with two young kids in this school district, in second and fourth grade, and i'm currently vice president of programs at the san francisco foundation, where we're singularly focused on economic inclusion in the bay area. while the foundation is the first place i've been in my career that explicitly holders racial equity as our north star, my entire career has been in advancing economic student for low income communities of color (indiscernable) and before then, in

programatic work. as often is the case, as my career path is groundedin my personal backgrou, as a latin-american who has grown up in a mexican-american family. i watched my parents struggle so my four siblings could have opportunities that they literally have never dreamed of. and this is what grounds me. equity is such a big concept and can often feel nebulous and elusive, and i think that is okay. it is on each of us to grapple with that elusive elusiveness and make meaning of it. i would argue the power of this guaranteed income strategies and why i'm so excited to be part of this is its explicitity.

"the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly with a governeded income." and finally i want to say that san francisco has a history of innovation and and leadership and a pilot that sets the tone for cities across the city, like the financial justice program and others, and i'm proud to say i've been involved in each of those programs and one way or another ocean over the years. it would be an honor to be part of this group, addressing those questions and informing the way forward. so thank you so much for the opportunity. >> chairman: thank you so much. as i said at the outset, this is the qualifications in any number of ways for

these eight individuals is really remarkable. thank you, ms. casada for your applying and your work. are there any applicants i have missed? seeing none, are there any members of the public who would like to testify on item number one. i have been informed, after my computer glitch, that supervisor haney is also on. so maybe before we go to public comment, supervisor haney, is there anything you would like to say this morning? >> yes, and i'll be very brief. first of all, i wanted to make sure you called on me, chair peskin, because i got my lighting on point this morning for you. and i wanted to thank you for considering these applicants, and thank you to member chan and member mandelman as well. as you said, this is an extraordinary group of folks. i'm really excited to see what they're going to be able to bring forward for our city. we worked very closely

with a number of organizations and departments in making sure that we really did outreach to get these great groups of folks in front of you. so i am fully supportive of all of the applicants. i also want to quickly acknowledge treasurer sincearos to create this advisory group. they will help lead efforts towards a great guaranteed income. and i want to thank you those from the human rights commission, and natalie foster and terry oli from the security project. and, this is part of a larger effort that is happening all over the country. there are dozens of cities, stockton, long beach, los angeles, new orleans, who are developing guaranteed income programs.

so not only do we have these amazing people who will be serving on our advisory group, they will be sharing information with literally dozens of cities all across the country. and i think the outcome of this will be hugely important for our own efforts and our national efforts to attack poverty and economic insecurity. i want to thank you, chair peskin, and all of the committee members, and all of the applicants. we will take what you provide as part of this advisory group, and make sure it is implemented for our residents, who are especially now can benefit from guaranteed income. >> chairman: thank you for your leadership. thank you for your leadership locally. great lightly, and to all of the applicants to whom i assume will be forwarded

to this committee to the full board, good luck on your next nine months of work as december approaches and that report will be forthcoming. and i also note that this group will stay together pursuant to the law that the board passed, until january of 2023. so you'll all be together for the next couple of years, and we look forward to your advice and your recommendations. with that, why don't we open item number one to public comment. >> clerk: yes, members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 415-655-0001, the meeting i.d. 1875186183. and then press pound and pound again. if you haven't already done so, dial star 3, and a system prompt will indicate to you to wave your hand.

mr. coe, do we have any members of the public for public comment today? >> mr. chair, we have no callers in the cue. >> chairman: okay. public comment is closed. colleagues, i would like to make the following recommendation, that shirley yee be appointed to seat one, with a residency waiver. that jacob denny be appointed to seat two. that james pugh be appointed to seat three with a residency waiver. that gloria barry be appointed to seat four. that norel knolls be appointed to seat five. that roberto vargas be appointed to seat six. that vima shiraliz be ap appointed to seat seven, and elena chavez be

appointed to seat eight. seeing nobody on the roster, mr. young, could you call the role on that motion. >> clerk: i believe that mr. vargas also needs a residency waiver. >> chairman: my apologies, mr. roberto needs a residency waiver. soize would like to add that to my previously stated motion. >> clerk: on that motion, supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> i. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> i. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: congratulations. we'll hear that at the next meeting. thank you for your willingness to serve. with that, mr. clerk, could you please read the next item? >> clerk: just to be

absolutely clear, i am getting questions. we have shirley yee who has a residency waiver, james pugh has a residency waiver, and mr. vargas, who has received a residency waiver. i wanted to state that for clarity. would you like to make a motion to excuse? >> chairman: i think -- don't you have to read it before i make that motion. >> clerk: yes. i will read it. item two, motion appointing supervisor connie chan, term ending february 4, 2023, to the san francisco local agency formation commission. >> chairman: thank you, mr. young, and is our practice. we don't vote for ourselves on appointments, with the exception of internal racist present, where you can vote for yourself. with that, i would like to make a motion to excuse supervisor chan, who is

the subject of this matter. can i take that without objection, victor? >> clerk: i will defer to ms. pearson on that. >> department city attorney ann pearson, all votes taken in this remote world need to be done with each member casting a vote. >> yea. >> chairman: on the motion to excuse? >> on the motion to excuse, supervisor mandelman? >> i. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> yea. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> chairman: yea. >> chairman: supervisor chan, you have to leave for about one minute. can you please see if there are any members of the public who would like

to comment, mr. clerk. >> clerk: if you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the cue to speak. if you haven't already done so, a system prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. wait until it says you have been unmuted, and you may begin your comment. mr. coe, do we have any members of the public for public comment? >> mr. chair, we have no callers in the cue. >> chairman: okay. we'll close public comment, and i would like to make a motion to forward this item to the full board with recommendation. >> clerk: yes, on that motion, supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan excused. chair peskin? >> chairman: yea. >> clerk: the motion passes, without objection, with supervisor chan being

excused. >> chairman: okay. why don't we let supervisor chan back into the meeting. that item is passed. and then, mr. clerk, please read the next item. >> clerk: yes. i just want to -- supervisor chan, are you back in the room at this time? >> i am, thank you, victor. >> clerk: thank you. next item is item 3: "motion appointing supervisor hillary ronan, term ending june 30th, 2021, to the alternative member of the bay area executive board." >> chairman: once again, my computer is acting weirdly, but is ms. ronan here? i am not able to access the participant button. i don't see her. is there any public comment on this item? >> clerk: yes. members of the public who

wish to provide public comment should call 415-655-0001, i.d. 1875186183. and press pound and pound again. you may press star 3 to be added to the cue to speak. mr. coe, do we have any members of the public for public comment on item number three? >> mr. chair, we have no callers in the cue. >> chairman: okay. public comment is closed. i would like to make a motion to send item number three to the full board with recommendation on that motion. a role. >> >> clerk: supervisor mandelman? >> i. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> yea. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> chairman: yea. >> next on the agenda is a

(indiscernable). members of the public who wish to comment on this item, please press star 3. please wait until the system in cades you have been unmuted. mr. coe, do we have any members of the public for public comment on this item. >> we have no callers in the cue. >> chairman: i would like to move this item forward on full recommendations. >> supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> yea. >> clerk: chair peskin?

>> chairman: yea. >> clerk: the motion passes without agenda. next on the agenda is item five, motion appointing supervisor safai, term ending january 1, 2024, to the behavioral health commission. >> chairman: my understanding is we need to change it to the correct expiration date, to january 1, 2023. >> clerk: that is correct. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 415-655-0001, i.d. 1875186183, and then press pounds and pound again. if you haven't already done so, please press star 3to line up to three. mr. coe, do we have any members of the public to comment on this item?

>> yes, i have one caller in the cue. >> chairman: first speaker, please. >> thank, mr. chair. in 2019, supervisor safai was appointed to this commission. when she resigned, she never had attended a single one of the meetings of the commission, sending staff to participate in her place. this is not acceptable. and supervisor safai should not continue this. [inaudible] and that resource, paragraph 45: 70, "it is not permitted in ordinary assembly, unless the laws of the state require it or the charter or bylaws of the organization provide for it. it is incompatible with

the characters" (indiscernable). if the law under which the organization is incorporated allows proxy voting, the adoption of this vote as parliamentary authority should be treated as sufficient provision." my research shows that the state and local law and bylaws are silent on the issue. therefore proxy voting is prohibited in meetings of the san francisco behavioral health committee. section 1513d requires removal of commissioner after four unexcused absences in a 12-month period. i will ask for enforcement of this provision if supervisor safai does not attend the meetings of the commission in person. thank you, mr. chair. >> chairman: thank you for that comment and for letting us know.

i will endeavor to reach out to supervisor safai to ensure he will attend personally. are there any any other members of the public for public comment on this item number five? >> mr. chair, that completes the cue. >> chairman: public comment is closed, and i would like to formally offer the amendment to put in the proper ending date of the term of january 1, 2023. on that motion, a roll call, please. >> clerk: on the motion to amendment, supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> yea. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> chairman: yea. >> clerk: the motion to amend passes without objection. >> chairman: and then i would like to make a motion to send the item, as amended, with

recommendation to the full board. on that motion, a roll call please. >> clerk: on that motion, supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> yea. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> chairman: yea. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: mr. clerk, read items six through nine together. >> item six is a motion appointing supervisor morguard, term ending june 30thn alternative to the bay area executive board. item seven is a motion appointing him to a term ending february 1, 2025. item eight is a motion appointing him to january. [inaudible]

p. >> chairman: thank you, mr. young. i thought we should take these all together, because concerns the same supervisor have to augment the goldengate bridge board, and thank you, supervisor melgard for jumping in, into these various important regional rhodes. roles. i don't know if you're there because my computer is giving me a fit. if you are there, supervisor melgard, you are welcome to say a couple of words. >> supervisor melgard is not currently on the call. >> chairman: i can't pull up the button, and

i'll have to take my laptop to my incredible people and figure out what is going on. let's open up items six through nine. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide comment, call 415-655-0001, i.d. 1875186183, and then press pound and pound again. if you haven't already done so, please dial star 3 to line up to speak. mr. coe, do you have any members of the public for comment at this time? >> mr. chair, we have no callers in the cue. >> chairman: okay. public comment is closed. colleagues, if there is no objection, i would like to make a motion to send items six through nine with recommendation to the full board of supervisors. >> clerk: chair peskin, regarding item number eight, i believe i sent a proposal to delete the executive director from the motion, because i believe that the goldengate bridge does not

have such a director. >> chairman: we can do that. the official title is general manager, and his name is dennis mulligan, which is virtually the same as executive director. i served on that body for a period of time. we can find -- if you'd like, i can look up what the exact proper title is. >> clerk: i don't believe we need to name a specific person. it is a direction to send a certified copy. we can send it to the goldengate bridge, and we don't need to address it to a specific person. >> chairman: and they have a clerk on their board as well, so relative to the amendments suggested to item number eight by clerk young, i would like to make a motion to strike the executive director, and we will just send it to the goldengate bridge board. a roll call, please. >> clerk: supervisor

mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> yea. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> chairman: yea. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: and then, mr. clerk, i would like to restate my earlier motion, which is to send items six, seven, and nine to the full board. and item eight, as amended to the full board with positive recommendation on that restated motion. a roll call, please. >> clerk: on that motion, supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> yea. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> chairman: yea. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: thank you. i believe that concludes our business this morning. we are adjourned. [meeting adjourned at

10:43] >> i'm san francisco mayor london breed. i'm so excite the to be here today to swear in the next assessor-recorder for the city and county of san francisco. joaquin torres. i want to say a few things about joaquin. i known him for so many years. we started off many years ago in city government in the mayor's office in neighborhood services, doing work to help support

communities. he has really an incredible personality. he always focused on getting the job done for people who need it the most. it is not a surprise in he's been able to work his way up into numerous positions that has helped steer the city in the right direction. let me just give you an example. when the san francisco housing authority was in trouble, we were having numerous challenges. the federal government threatened to intervene. joaquin torres was appointmented to serve on the commission. at that time, he became the president of the commission and he helped move us in a direction that has allowed for us to get investments to rehab 3400 units to get us off the red with the federal government and to get us back on track to support the families of the san francisco

housing authority. it was very personal for me as someone who lived over 20 years of my life in public housing that we did something that didn't display the resident and that recognized that they needed to make sure that the. conditions of public housing didn't continue down the wrong path. we appreciate his work. which was a volunteer job. not to mention his day job, when i became mayor, i appointed joaquin to be the director of the office of economic workforce development. i did it because my experience as a district supervisor and someone who worked in the community, he would always about the community. he could have sent staff members and his staff members were present and available. he was always on the ground facilitating conversation and making connections between what the community needed and what

city hall needed to do to support them. his leadership style is really what helped to not only look at some of the disparities and issues around equity that we were dealing in covid, he worked tirelessly to make sure that grant moneys were going to small businesses. he helped create the african-american resolving loan fund. he helped address lot of the disparities with the latino community when we saw surges of cases in that community and a need to provide financial support to a number of agencies including those small businesses.

his understanding of finance, his understanding of how economic development works, his work with small businesses, big businesses and all things san francisco, makes him just really the perfect candidate to be the next assessor-recorder for the city and county of san francisco. with that, i like to bring joaquin torres forward so i can swear him in and make it official. are you ready? >> okay. >> i, joaquin torres, do swear that i will support and defend

the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic that i bear true faith and allegiance to the same. that i take this obligation freely. without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties which i'm about to enter and during such time, as i serve as the assessor-recorder for it city and county of san francisco. congratulations. [applause]

>> congratulations. ladies and gentlemen, your

assessor-recorder, joaquin torres, [applause] >> thank you mayor breed. thank you very much. thank you to my family who was here with me today. to my mom, who's listening in from downtown south, to my two dads who i marry in this building to my sister, to my wife. to my aunt and uncle up north, to my friends aall of you who joining us online. the collection of billions of

dollars, property tax dollars is essential to constantly and solvency of this city of san francisco. i'm honored, mayor breed, for the confidence you placed in me as i assume these responsibilities as the assessor-recorder for the city and county of san francisco. all of these depend on the financial foundation built through the hard work of this office and that is a responsibility i take very seriously.

in the western edition. you treated me with grace, with the respect and with bearing that told me you better do right. from my grandfather, who has a butcher rose before work before dawn each day so he can buy a home for his family and help his three children become an artist, bilingual teacher and education leader and an amazing public

servant. to my nana, who taught me the love of caring, that came in a file wrapped package that she packed for my flights back and forth between separated parents. to my grandmother, who has a seamstress steadily towards the purchase of a beautiful home. to my father, who broke barriers for latino politicians at a time when being a mexican-american was a significant hurdle for leadership. to my mom, who after career writer and journalist taught me true courage meaning and strength. i'm very proud of my family my

mexican-american family. a family of teachers, artist, writers, journalist, butchers, caretakers, cooks, seamstresses and soon to be lawyers for what they strive so achieve and what they continue to give back to family and to society. i'm grateful for them raising me defined by resiliency and public service. i'm a very proud husband to an extraordinary artist. my wife, rebo who guide me through stresses of public service who shown what it means to be loved, to love to be wrong, to be compassionate and vulnerable. thank you for seeing me. thank you for seeing supporting my love for this work. i'm so fortunate to have these people in my life. who shaped my approach to public

service, not all of us can be so lucky. not all of us can rest at night knowing that the love and care we hope for is part of successful life will be for us when we need it most. it's that awareness and those values principles and ethics that my family has instilled in me, carried with me the toughest times through the hardest of life challenges. when i called out for help, not knowing if it existed for me, it was my family that heard my call. it's that care and our ethics that i work to infuse in my 11 years of public service to the city. they've given me the confidence and strength to know that every shred of my being that my community need to be listened to and heard. it's those values i will bring to this new role as assessor-recorder. these are the values we need always. but especially today, when

people are hurting so badly, so deeply when they need to know there's a government caring for them with caring and doors open and not shut, a government that's accessible and be accountable to you the people that we are proud to serve. i want to thank city administrator chu for her commitment to the professionals at the assessor-recorder's awesome. thank you for haig this -- makingthis transition a succl one. i joined a team of hard working and professionals that made carmen's vision for fair and efficient government, not only a reality but an envy of offices up and down the state. that's a legacy i'll strive to continue and excited to learn and work with all of you at the office to continue down that path. one of excellence, one of

continuous improvement for the betterment of san francisco. to the team i part with today, the office of economic and workforce development, you have prepared me for this moment. it's been long hard year for so many businesses and workers throughout this pandemic for the barbers, gyms, bars, the fears, the actors, the concessionaries, the tattoo artist and restaurants, hotel workers, janitors and office workers. nonprofits rising up and you all every single one of you rising up to meet these moments. to meet so many entrepreneurs determined to make it through this. for their workers, for themselves and for it city that they love. what you shown me, what all of you have taught me, those were the moral authority, those with

the formal authority. the mayors, the assembly members, senators and controllers and supervisors, which you taught me once again is that there's always hope on the horizon. every storm eventually breaks for the clear sky above. to the diverse communities that i serve with respect to gratitude during these 11 years of service, for the neighborhood leaders, coalitions of parity and equity for the public housing, merchant leaders, thank you for the confidence you placed in me. to serve you for many years more. to find new paths to build a better and more prosperous san francisco for all of us. i thank you mayor breed.

all of you for your leadership and your trust. now i'm ready to go to work. thank you. [applause] >> thank you all so much for joining us today. this concludes our program. stay safe and healthy. let's get our city open. [applause]

>> you may observe through sfgovtv and sfgovtv channel 26. they may offer public comment by calling the public comment phone number. i would like to welcome the members of public and staff watching us live on sfgovtv. the commission thanks you for your patience during these unprecedented times. we ask the public to have patience and expect delays and

gaps during the meeting, particularly during public comment. i want to thank members of the staff and those three people out there in sfgovtv land today helping us behind-the-scenes who make this possible today, especially facilitating public comment. to eliminate background please mute yourself when not speaking. secretary, please take the roll. >> commissioner knutzen. >> present. >> president janet spears. >> present. >> commissioner bittner. >> present. >> commissioner jung. >> she is present. >> commissioner carrington.

>> present. >> commissioner lum. >> present. >> commissioner sklar. >> present. >> i am pleased to note that the executive director is present. we have a quorum. >> thank you. commissioners, the next item 3 is communications. we would like to provide further instructions for the public comment process. it is available on each item on the agenda and during general public comment. channels 26 and sfgovtv are streaming the number on the screen. each speaker is allowed three minutes to speak. comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available via phone call. during each period you will be instructed to call 415-655-0001. access code (146)600-2837-pound

pound. when connected you will hear the meeting discussions you will be in his senning mode only. when your item comes up dial star three to be added to the speaker line. call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly, turndown your television or radio. you have three minutes to speak. you will be informed when you have 30 seconds left. then you will be placed back to listening mode. alternatively public comment can be submitted by e-mail. if you submit public comment via e-mail it will be included as part of the official docket. are there any communications from the staff, commissioners, at this time? >> commissioners next is agenda item 4.

approving the wednesday, januar. any comments or questions from the minutes? we have all reviewed them. >> madam secretary, is there anyone from the public who wishes to comment on this item? >> please open the phone lines for public comment. we will allow time for callers to submit their request. any callers in the queue? >> there are no callers in the queue. >> hearing no further request to speak. is there a motion to approve the january 6, 2021 commission meeting minutes? >> motion to approve the

meeting. >> it is moved by commissioner carrington. i saw commissioner jung for second. can you please take a roll call vote to approve the january 6, 2021 minutes. >> president knutzen. >> yes. >> vice president janet spears. >> yes. >> commissioner bittner. >> yes. >> commissioner carrington. >> yes. >> commissioner jung. >> commissioner jung. >> yes. >> commissioner lum.

>> yes. >> commissioner sklar. >> yes. >> thank you. we have the vote unanimous. >> thank you so much. commissioners, item 5 is executive director's report. please begin your report. welcome. >> thank you. i just want to start off by saying to everyone happy black history month. this is an exciting month. it certainly is a time to celebrate the contributions of black african-americans in the united states, but certainly in san francisco so i hope that everybody is doing something special to honor this month. i am going to start as usual

with my report by talking about the federal level with respect to the populations that we serve. i was remiss last time when i talked about the most recent stimulus package that did come out. i said it didn't have a lot for older adults. it was true. it did have money for food banks and for some programs that do help serve older adults. it didn't have anything specifically for people with disabilities. however, i forgot to say there was money in that stimulus package for elder abuse and justice issues. this is noteworthy. it is the first time there is funding at the federal level to address elder abuse and elder justice. jill reminded me to say something about it. hopefully it is the beginning of

federal investment in this very important area so just wanted to say that. also, i want to say that on january 21st, president biden unveiled in his 23 page plan a list of executive orders a road map with priorities to respond to the current health and economic crisis. within that plan are several opportunities for the aging and disability network and addvo cats to assume leadership roles to ensure needs of older americans and caregivers are addressed. the national association is tracking this closely, and as i hear from them about opportunities that arise for our advocacy, i will let all of you know. i just think that we have opportunities here. i think we are also going to have to make sure our voices are

heard so that in a time of kind of this continuing unfolding crisis we need to make sure that the needs of people with disabilities and older adults are raised up. while i think that we have a lot of opportunities to get some traction in these areas, we can't let our guard down. more immediately, speaker pelosi and new democratic majority are setting up fast track budget process to lay out the legislative foundation for what is to be a nearly 2 trillion-dollar emergency response. i know probably many of you have been following this. advocacy is really needed to ensure that the needs of older people and people with disabilities are met in this plan. whatever channels you have we need to use those to ensure older adults and people with disabilities are not left out

and there are plenty of dollars in the stimulus to ensure that things like food security, thinking about equitable vaccine rollout, all of the things that go along with those happen. anyway, hopefully, we can each do our part on that. at the state level, now that the governor released the master plan for aging, the california department is beginning the aging process. the state is setting up work groups long-term supports for aging and disability, equity and aging and elder abuse and justice. they are creating an implementation committee for policy oversight. right now on the state the california department of aging website they have listed these work groups and they are looking to recruit people for the work

groups. they are looking for professionals in the field in these various areas and looking for people who are consumers of services or people with older adults with disabilities. if you are interested or know people who might be, please look at the website and consider applying. it is hopefully we will have a diverse group of people in each of these work groups, thinking through all of the processes with the state. the plan for aging stakeholder committee continued to meet. our official roleout with the state is done. we have continued to meet to give feedback to the state on the various pieces of the master plan. the committee is consumed with vaccinations. we are concerned about the

governor's age only focus. recent analysis by disability rights education and defence fund shows many people with disabilities are at high risk of consequences and death for covid. it does not allow priority for vaccinations. yesterday the master plan advisory committee sent a strongly worded letter to the state protesting this inequitable policy. at the local level, there is a lot going on with the vaccine right now. we are fortunate to have cindy kaufman participate anything the department of public health senior hub providing advice on our approach with older people and people with disabilities. there are bullet points she sent me to talk about. i heard from a few of you concerned about the rollout and the confusion. our department is continuing to work with the department of

public health and emergency management and the mayor's office on disability to try to work on things like messaging to older adults and people with disabilities about the availability of the vaccine, how people can access it, going through health providers. like many things that happened throughout covid, the beginning of this is a little bumpy. i think it is starting to smooth out, but it may be a little confusing for the next week or two. the vaccine part of what is driving it is the supply is limited. vaccine distribution in san francisco healthcare providers and department of public health is really limited, inconsistent and unpredictable making planning very bumpy. large healthcare providers, va and providers are receive from the state which makes it hard to coordinate with the department

of public health being the lead. it is hard when they don't have all of the data and information they need. people have been instructed they will receive vaccines from healthcare providers, because each provider has received different allocations, it has been confusing. to ensure that critical partners receive the vaccine, all of our cvos are on a big sheet to schedule vaccinations. we have some folks that meet the criteria, department of public health has final say. we have done outreach by phone and e-mail to all of the cvos requesting the staffing, staff members needing vaccinations.

we haven't gotten response. we have done additional outreach and will continue to do so. there are definitely more distributions sites coming online. you probably heard there is a new site in the mission for mission residents, there is one in bayview now for residents, big ones like city college and moscone center and sf market. they are continuing to really think at the policy group how to roll out the vaccines in an equitable way, work like we have done with a lot of other efforts. think about doing mass sites and really thinking about the broader community as well as thinking about the specific needs of communities hardest hit by covid. ihss and contractors are working hard to get providers and

recipients vaccinated. we conducted it vaccination education sessions and those are continuing to be very well attended. we have them in multiple languages. it is nice to see people taking advantage of that. that is where we are with the vaccine. i know i have been on calls multiple calls daily. nicole bond the director of the mayor's office on disabilities is deeply embedded in the conversations and working hard to make sure that we are getting the right messaging to people so people are not confused by the process. again, it is bumpy. we will continue working on this until it is smooth and much more clear for people. one of the things we are doing. the great place program that

supplies restaurant meals to people. we are planning for. we don't know when the program will ramp down, but we are working with the staff to create a ramp down program so that we are ready when that program ramps down. either when fema says we are no longer in the emergency phase where we need to supply the meals and people are free to go out or the city says our costs are too great with this program, let's figure out another way to provide services. we will work closely with nonprofit partners and with the great place partners and working hard to ensure that people who continue to need food will get it. finally, i wanted to say the human services agency submitted

the racial equity plan to the office of racial equity. i am thankful and we are all thankful to the team that put that plan together. it was a lot of work. the racial equity officer for our human services agency, a lot of you worked hard on it as well. we talked a little bit what was in that. the primary focus of this first piece of that plan is really thinking about our internal practices with respect to human resources and things like accessibility for staff and and sessbuilt for -- accessibility for clients. we are thinking about equity,

inclusion, belonging, how we recruit and promote, disciplinary actions and taking a deep look at those to make sure we are equitable. our next phase of that work will include our community partners. one of the things that goes in that first phase is ensuring that we are going through the bias and equity training. as we mentioned when we had the presentation a few months ago, the commissioners will be included in that training as well as our staff. you will be hearing more about that. finally, in the equity area, one of the things we are doing is doing some deeper dives to get a better sense of the community

needs. we will over the next few months we are going to have staff teams. we are going to be working to really understand the needs of certain communities that will be the black african-american community, asian pacific islander communities. we are looking at asian older adults and people with disabilities and also the subgroups there. thinking about south asians and southeast asians, and then, you know, just the whole asian group and subgroups. reaching out to think about the needs of pacific islanders and also latin x populations. lgbq. we have staff groups who are working with the dc leading the work from the planning team and

sheep is phenomenal. we will work to train these teams. we have staff facilitators who are engaged and excited. we will work with the board of supervisors because they know the communities well. we will work to identify people in the communities we should reach out to, hear from, we will have focus groups and listening sessions. the whole idea is to understand from communities what services they are currently using we provide, what they think might be missing, whether there are accessibility issues to our services and things like that. we see there is a precursor to the next big fields assessment. we are getting to the point where we are ready to launch that. that is my report today. i am happy to take any questions you may have. >> thank you. any questions?

>> two questions. the needs assessment. when will that launch? second question is about any idea from cindy leading the dph team if we think the vaccines will start flowing to the communities from the feds and the state to the counties? any insight into it? we have a better plan on the ground, which is wonderful, distribution sites. i am curious if there is any communication coming from the new administration. i am trying to connect the dots between what is happening on the ground. >> i think we don't have a clearance about that.

i have heard a number of things from state partners and from our n4a partners as well as federal level. it is probably going to take another few months before we start to see the volume that we need to see to really make a dent. right now we are, of course, having to prioritize at a high level. we don't have clearances. i think what we are trying to tell people. obviously, well maybe not obvious, but san francisco has laid out a plan to vaccinate the majority of people by the end of june. that will be, of course, really important to have enough vaccine to achieve that. i think there is a lot of hope with the new administration and with the plans that president biden has laid out, and kind of

opened the possibility of really ramping up vaccine production as i am sure you have seen and i know this from the news more than anything, but we don't have a really good answer for that yet. i think we are still telling people to be patient and we will roll it out as we get vaccine in. the other question, the next year starts the process on the next needs assessment. this project that we are doing is launching now. we had two launch sessions with staff last week, and it is community conversations. like i said it includes lbgq older adults. we have focus areas. we have some preliminary information about how people access services. we are really looking at to reach out to communities that we

are not doing quite as good job. we want to hear broadly from communities what works and what could work better. this is starting now. we hope to have answers back from this process and this project late spring and early summer. it really won't inform our budget for the next fiscal year, but it will help inform us if we will allow requests for proposals and all of those things. >> when you say next year for the community needs assessment. that is a calendar year process? i don't recall? >> it is next fiscal year we are going to start. >> one of the things i forgot to mention and i will throw it in right now. next -- just reminder and for those who are new.

for the california department of aging and for the dollars we get we are required to do an area plan every four years. each year we do an update to that plan. the plan gets presented to the commission for approval and presented to the advisory council. that will come before you next month. >> any other commissioner questions? >> i have a couple questions. >> commissioner lum then commissioner bittner. >> commissioner lum. >> thank you. good morning. i realize quite often when we have a big program such as this vaccination of the entire country, it is very difficult to

implement the entire program. locally, it seems so fractured. i have been contacted by the va, my health insurance, contacted by my vision program. what my concern in my case, i am fortunate. i am healthy and holding on until it is my turn, but some people especially the elderly who are frail are afraid to go out. do you have any plans to assist these elderly people to the site to get vaccinated? >> that is a very good question. thank you, commissioner lum. you are right. it is fractured. that is partly what we are working on so that people have the right information.

yes, there are some plans in place for helping with transportation to get people to vaccination sites. there is some conversation about getting vaccination to people at home, particularly in buildings where there are a number of people and it can be done easily in congregate buildings. it is more complicated to think about people living at home alone. that is definitely part of the conversation. you are right. people can't -- we have seen that people can't automatically get out because they don't feel safe. there is a need for transportation help and for all of those things. thank you for bringing that up. >> commissioner bittner. >> i have two questions.

how are you outreaching to minorities to like the latin x and the communities? in terms of getting the vaccine. i was reading a study that said most people who have gotten it have been white. the other question i know inial meda -- alameda county. they have been able to go with their providers to get the vaccine and they were wondering

if there is any discussion of that? i know it is complicated. >> thank you, commissioner bittner. those are good questions. yes, you are absolutely right. it has been disturbing that initially when you look at people who have gotten the vaccine and this is across the bay area, they have attended to be white, more middle class, certainly in san francisco one of the things we have done in the covid command center is to think about equity upfront and the office of racial equity is really involved in all of the decisions made with respect to rollout such as the vaccine rollout. that is why -- it took time. we are starting to see these

pop-up vaccine sites in the mission and bayview-hunters point. the joint information center that is placed at moscone center is thinking about this. how to reach out to people in various languages, how to engage with communities to ensure we are not just doing this in a vanning consuming? we are thinking about the -- vacuum. we are thinking about people who can't get out easily. it is not safe for various reasons. that is what is being taken into consideration. i think part of what happened and it looks inequitable is because it is fractured, to go back to commissioner lum's term. it is fractured. some people hear earlier from health plans than others. it is creating a huge problem.

the covid command center is thinking about these things and working with the community. second question is a good one. we are working on vaccine rollout a number of ihs providers have received vaccine already. we started early with our contract mode providers and with our on call program. through our public authority and we worked hard to ensure all of the workers had access to the vaccine and now we are working through the ip with the providers. it is education about the safety of the vaccine. we have had doctors who did it and were excited about it and

communities naturally reticent and concerned given the history of our country. there is concerns about safety. we are working to figure out the right approach to make sure that people are hearing from community members and health professionals they trust. that is why we set up the vaccine education seminars so people can understand how it works, what the risks are, why it is safe and all of those things. we are working through that. as you probably know, we have over 20,000ihs providers, we have 22000 recipients. it is a big project. we are working through that.

they are very much at the high tier of the priority. >> can i ask a question. commissioner sklar. >> what about the frail elderly homebound and need that shot? they have relatives coming in to take care of them. since we are in home supportive services there are laboratories on wheels. is there anything in the system for covid vaccine? >> we are working that part out. you are absolutely right, that is a big concern for us. we are looking at both transportation and the possibility of roving teams or something on wheels, like you said. i think we are not there yet. that is absolutely true. it is a concern, and if people are at home and not exposed,

they are probably safer than people having to go out. it is thinking about what is the priority there, yes, how to make sure that we can reach those people in some way. some will hear directly from health providers. they have various ways of reaching people at home. we have a number of people who are in the san francisco health network and those are the people we are focused on as a city. >> i am concerned to some extent essential for them but for our workers in and out of the homes and they may have other members coming in and out of their house. >> thank you.

>> commissioner carrington. >> i hear everything and see everything as far as seniors, disabled and aging, and my concern is about our young adults who are disabled. what is going on with them? i am not seeing as many disabled young adults. i have a friend who is wheelchair bound, and she was able, thank god, to go to southeast yesterday to receive her vaccine. i was so happy to see that. i went down there yesterday to look around to see what was going on and how many people were coming because there is two -- there is keith and armstrong is where you can be tested. southeast is giving the vaccine.

it was quite a few people there yesterday, and i was glad to see that. there were more young adults there than there was people of age. like you said, we are working on getting the outreach to get these people be able to get the vaccine and how they get there. i will say overall from what i saw yesterday, the turnout was very good. >> that is good, commissioner carrington. i went by there yesterday and there were quite a few people there. one of the, you know, to go back to what i said earlier. this is a big concern. the governor's policy, state policy, wants to go from age perspective only. that is why i was saying one of the things we were doing with

the master plan for aging group is say to the governor people with different disabilities of all ages are very at risk, not all people with disabilities but certainly subpopulations of people with disabilities. the state needs to consider those people as people who should be prioritized for vaccinations. that hasn't happened. at the local level, we are really trying to think about that and take that into account. we are san francisco and we know we can do better than that. it is hard when that is the state's priority. that is why, you know, i think nicole and others are working so hard with the department of emergency management, dph to ensure that we are really making

access available for people with disabilities, particularly those most at risk. i am glad your friend was able to go get the vaccine yesterday. that is good news. >> thank you very much. any other commissioners? it is such an important topic that i think director, we are concerned in the same ways you and your staff are. we appreciate the fact that they are advocating around the edges and in the nooks and crannies because we are all very concerned about and very aware how privilege works when there is a vacuum.

that is all i have to say about that. whatever we can do to get information to people at this point, i think it is just very, very helpful. thanks for taking the time this morning to explain what we are doing around that. i think it is very, very helpful. we will communicate that to those that we advocate with people and continue to push through that and let people know about that. we will stay patient. that is what we have to do. it is back to next item. >> item 6 is das employee recognition. we will honor susan lee from the das office of in-home support

services. >> is susan here? >> i see here box. >> hi, susan. >> hi. >> how are you doing? >> i am doing good. thank you. >> we are happy you are here and super-excited that you are employee of the month for february. susan, i have heard great things about you and the work you have done in ihss. thank you for your service to das and ihss. we appreciate it. i want to read what your co-workers said about you and how amazing you are. i want to make sure i am reading this but i do want to thank you. deep appreciation for the work you are doing for das.

susan, in september of 2017, susan re-joined the program as junior clerk. in october 2019 she assumed the role of acting principal clerk managing the staff who provide essential support to das and ihss. susan has done a great job supervising staff and overseeing the team to ensure they provide the day-to-day functions of scanning documents, distributing and delivering mail to social workers in addition to other support. susan and her team members are required to do data entries for all new referals in the case management system. she has a significant role in monitoring, processing and as signing. 400 plus new referals per month

to social workers. susan works in collaboration with other programs such as integrated intake as medical eligibility to address the needs of clients. this including her role as liaison between social workers and medical workers to resolve issues and main tan accurate client records. during the beginning of the covid-19 epidemic for two months there was half of staff capacity. she aimed to motivate the two clerical staff. they were able to achieve responsibilities well acceding expectations. in late september 2020, ihss rolled out intake and carrying integration. this involved the redistribution of 10,000 cases to social workers.

susan and her team completessed the task efficiently and timely. susan has never served in supervisory capacity, we are all impressed with her ability to get the work done. the willingness to take on new tasks makes her reliable employee that we can count on. susan's dedication and depend ability make her invaluable to ihss. we are honored to have susan lee as part of the das team and recognize her out standing contributions to das. on behalf of all of us at das and the commission thank you for your service and congratulations on being employee of the month for february 2021. you are welcome to say something if you want. you are not pressured to do so.

>> president knutzen. >> i know about this. go ahead, susan. >> my screen was frozen. i want to thank the ihss management team for the nomination and for the recognition. i also want to thank the rest of the clerical unit for what they are doing and have been doing

with all of the changes. adaptable to everything, to all of the changes that have happened and that are still happening within the program. i also want to thank my immediate supervisor for her guidance this past year. she has actually been herself settling into a new role.

i was glad that she was. [indiscernable] open for givingr questions and anything that i have a problem with. i also wanted to thank her for the report and encouragement i received within the program, not just from management but from the staff as well. also, from the units that are outside ihss that we work with.

thank you. >> thank you. on behalf of the commission, thank you, susan, for everything you do. i do know about the kind of person you are from having worked in city government myself. you are a leader. that is clear. when people are able to do what the director described you doing. thank you for that, especially at this critical time. i think we will move on to. >> the advisory council report presidented by diane lawrence. >> good morning. we had our first meeting of 2021 on january 20th, and we began

with an update. as mentioned in the presentation, it is time for an area plan update, and we have worked with mike and rose, although though beat me to the punch in studying the schedule for this year. we will have the advisory council will have the first update this month at our february meeting. the council will we getting their draft of the update next week. we asked for it an week ahead. what you get on the third, the commission will review the updates. on march 17th, the advisory

council will approve the report so that we can meet the februar. we are excited that we have that all organized for the year. we will be sending demographic information. we fill out a format the meeting. we will be filling that out later. we established a by law committee and we will begin working on those. we will look to see how they meet our needs today. we have discussed before that -- we discussed two things before. the advisory council and then our concern that we need with covid. we haven't been able to make

site visits. we have a team that put together a virtual site visit form that is finalized and submitted to our members to do virtual site visits. we are looking at the website from a client perspective. the possibility of direct contact with an agency, if that is possible, and we have already sent out the fillable form. if you want a copy, let me know and i will have bridgett send that to you. mike is getting us information from the office of disabilities so we can look at what makes the website acceptable. we will include that information in the processes. when we make a recommendation, we use that helps mike's staff

do a sharper focus. we also will be looking at doing some online research of the agencies of the community partners that have contacts with das. we are getting a list of those agencies as well. we are going to do this to look how this goes for six months. then sit down and make modifications as necessary. i will be reporting to you on those as i used to when we did physical site visits. we will look at -- we are not going back to full in person site visits for a while. we thought the way we would do this is look at the site, physically visit it.

that will give us the starting point. we are looking at following up to reinstitute the education committee, looking at possible topics how to help people beat stress, survivors with covid. we mentioned the outreach to communities. there is an lbgq adult service and for 50 years and older. it will include the transcommunity, h.i.v. long-term survivors turning 60. there will be a link for contact to fill out the survey. it is in partnership with das and the bob ross foundation.

the discussion of seniors that don't have access to medical care. we will get an update at the february meeting. we have set up a group, you group to look at the master plan rather than trying to tackle all-in-one big chunk. there are five key goals. three members are taking one of the goals and what we want to focus on or what issues are more important to san francisco as a framework. i will follow up with the department on that. we have two slots open. we will work on that as we move forward. the sad news.

we are losing one of our advisory council members, patty, who is director of community connectors for the community living campaign. she and her husband are moving to north carolina. we wish them well. she will be missed because she is definitely a bright spot. she has done a lot of phenomenal work for seniors and persons with disabilities, especially in district 11 and throughout the city. we will have her for a couple more months. any questions? one other quick thing. the joint committee met for the first time. not much to report because throughout january new billings were introduced and all of those bills had to be introduced by last week.

we will have a meeting again on the 17th. thank you, president knutzen forgiving us the commission members. we look forward to working with them as we move forward. i will provide an update at the march meeting. >> thank you. i think we will have the secretary call the next item. >> sorry. >> i want to make one comment. i am in district 11. patty has done a phenomenal job in our district. she will be definitely missed when she leafs in a couple months. wish her well. >> i will. thank you, commissioner. she is amazing. we will all miss her.

>> any other comments or questions for ms. lawrence? thank you it is a lot of work. next item. >> item 8 is public comment. an opportunity for public to address on matters not on the calendar. moderator please open the phone line for public comment. we will allow time for the request. >> madam secretary, there is no public comment. >> next item is old business. please indicate by racing your hand if there is old business?

>> there is no old business. >> item 10. new business. presentation of the das fiscal year 20-21 schedule for requests for proposals and contract renewals. staff patrick garcia and reanna albert will present. >> let me get the presentation set up.

>> good afternoon. i am patrick garcia from the agency office of contract management. with me is reanna albert. we are here to present the four year fund cycle with the scheduled for fiscal year 20/21 requests for proposals and contract renewals. every year we develop the schedule for an overview what we are working on and what programs we will bring for approval. first rhianna will give an overview of the four year dignity fund cycle. >> i want to make sure. can everybody see the slides? >> it is just black.

it looks like web ex just crashed. i will rejoin the meeting again.

>> do you want to send it to somebody else to share? do you want to continue on with agenda item a? >> yes, that is fine. we can do that. that is fine. commissioner, agenda item a.

review and approval of fiscal year 21-22 and fiscal year 22-23 disability and aging services budget. do we have director mcpad den and dan kaplan ready to present this item? >> commissioners, we are bringing back to you today the description of the budget that we will need to propose by february 22. we will be asking you for your approval to do that. bridgett or alex, do you have the powerpoint ready?

>> this presentation describes differences in the coming year as we go forward. ir will speak to my financial parts of this. shireen will speak to the short presentation. when we get to the presentation our senior budget analysts can answer questions. >> the bottom line here before we get started is there is a big deficit. we talked about this a couple weeks ago. the city forecasts $411 million deficit. that comes down in the second year. it is substantial. that is part of the human services agency and at this

moment in time allocations for human services programs in general have gone up pretty substantially in california in recognition of what a hard time this is in the face of covid-19 and the associated recession. the human services agency as a whole has enough money to handle the reduction target that hsa has been given as part of the budget balancing process on a city-wide level. the agency reduction target was $7.3 million, and our growth in allocations has gone up more substantially than that. that is the good news. in this tough time we basically will not face cuts. the bad news is that we don't

have too much room to move beyond that. i think the city has a big deficit. of course, covid-19 response is huge part of that. we will talk in this presentation about the part of the covid-19 response that is associated with the das budget. the feeding programs. as you can see on this slide, we numrated down to the dollar what our target is. $7.3 million in both years of the biennium. from the state budget substantial increases in allocations this year some increases in the medical

eligibility on top of large increases. from these sources basically we have enough money to cover the reduction. as i said, this is where we are in a good position to maintain benefits to clients, programs, contracts and maintain staff. so if we look at the budget from one year to the next, what you will see is a significant drop in the total amount from $435 million to $407 million. if you look more closely at the two piecharts you will see one significant slice of the 2021 piechart that doesn't appear in 21-22 piechart. that is covid 19 seeding budget

we are still working with the mayor's office on what appropriate amount will be to put into the budget for 21-22 for the feeding program. feeding program was large and very -- it was changing a lot during the course of the fiscal year. as we go into next fiscal year, the expectation of more and more people being vaccinated we are assuming we will continue to need to run the special feeding programs next fiscal year. we assume the need will ramp down over the course of the fiscal year.

we anticipate that it will be a smaller amount next fiscal year than this fiscal year, but it will be there. the other thing that is a big change, as you can see is the aid programs that go from $255 million to $270 million. this is really an artifact of two things. no real change in the structure of the program. the change has to do with the ihss amount going up and the cost of insurance for ihss workers. that explains the difference. the drop in the budget that you are seeing on this slide is the drop in the costs of the feeding program offset by increases in the ih ss program.

we will alternatively at this point add in covid-19 feeding for next year as well. probably not at the same level. we are basically telling the same story over and over again. there is a substantial general fund decline and if we go from one year to the next year and that is really associated with the fact that the feeding budget does not appear in the budget year at this point. there is also something else that i would like to call your attention to. if you look at the slice of the pie that is labeled dignity fund in the two years, dignity fund

goes from $50.1 million to $50.1 million. if you remember under the law the dignity fund grows by $3 million each year. we have split out that $3 million in this piechart for the budget year. the reason we have done that is we think there is a high probability given the situation we are in with regard to the deficit that dignity fund growth will be suspended, that is allowed under the dignity fund law. that is why it is marked separate item. that decision is not made yet.

again, telling the same story the same way on this slide where we describe expenditures by budget category, what you will see is a drop in the cbo grant amount from $104 million to $74 million. the drop in the materials and supply amount from $15.5 million to $5 million. both of those are the difference of the feeding program. we spent money in the feeding program, about $30 million through cbos and $15 million budgettarily in the great plates program. that appeared in the materials and supplies budget.

the rest of the feeding program appeared in the cbo grants budget. as we always do, we include a slide on the ihss program and what we call out here are two things in particular. one is the growth in the ihss moe. that is the local share of the costs of the i hss program. it grows from year to year because it grows by inflation under the state law and it grows as wages go up. the budget staff computed the impact of those two things, and it is $9.6 million in the budget year. in the lower half of the slide we line out the wages for ihss

workers as described in the minimum compensation ordinance and as described in the collective bargaining agreement between the i hss public authority independent providers. that is really the financial piece of this picture. as i said, we have a budget that for the agency where we will be able to continue to deliver services. we have very little room to add, and we are really working with the mayor's budget office on what the description of the covid feeding program will be next fiscal year.

at this point i will turn this over to shireen to talk about covid feeding and we can take questions when we get to the end. >> thank you very much. director mcspadden.

>> her audio is intermittent. if she disconnects and reconnects that might bring it back. maybe the host could try to unmute her. sometimes unplugging the headset. she had a headset. if she unplugs and plugs back in sometimes the computer will reset.

she could leave and come back in. >> do we have another speaker to call on for now and then she can speak when she comes back. >> she is the last speaker. did we have questions for mr. kaplan that can be answered at this point?

>> i had one regarding the dignity fund. thank you very much for the presentation. it looks like we are not anticipating the $3 million. would we still be able to cover the budget? how will we cover the $3 million? assuming that it is unlikely we will be -- given the budget of the city? >> thanks for the question, commissioner. obviously, the $3 million is money to fund new growth. in the dig any fund program. i gave them time if we don't grow in the year.

adding this program. we will still be able to fund this district program, and the issue and this is the onena our budget team and the mayor's office will handle inflationary growth and existing contracts which represents about $1 million. in the scheme of things it is not gigantic but it is something we have to work out. >> thank you. that is very helpful. >> the executive director is back if you want to move on to the presentation. >> thank you. just to go back to the covid-19 food coordination work, we are continuing to serve a high

number of older people and people with disabilities through the newtrician network. we are continuing to operate what we call the iq line, isolation quarantine help line that serves people who have been told by their health professional or contract kaiser they need to quarantine due to exposure or illness. we will continue to deliver meals and groceries. then we have the community focus food support, san francisco food bank is the biggest. two major programs for covid. one is called pop-up pantries which they do throughout the city to support people during this time. people can get groceries. they also have a program called pantry at home for older adults and people with health conditions who really shouldn't be going out to access food.

they deliver it to them. then we have targeted programs in thenition. chinatown particularly we have made the biggest investments. that is in collaboration with the mayor and her administration and those communities. both communities came to the mayor to said we have people at risk. in the case of the mission, it was not just the mission but the latin x community. the equity coalition was concerned that we see such high level of covid in our community, and we are seeing really high numbers of unemployment, and can the city, can you support in a stronger way? we identified dollars to move into that community so food security work in that community

is happening in the mission. it is happening in bayview-hunters point. a couple of organizations we are partnering with. more recently chinatown merchants came do the mayor to say they were concerned. they have best chinatown in the country, a key component is the restaurants, small businesses that keep it alive. is there a way to support those restaurants because they are at risk of closing and we have food insecurity issues in chinatown in the sros so we worked closely to provide support there. then there are other communities that we are supporting directly, somewhat

through dollar in the covid food budget and also in concert with philanthropy. examples would be the people who need food and are food insecure. black african communities in san francisco to give examples. we have been really developing partnerships and having situational awareness where our food insecurity exists. as things happen as they come up because this is a changing situation, we want to bereresponsive to the needs of the communities that are in san francisco. because hsa is responsible for shelter and das took a lead in this work, the food coordination

budget fit with das. that gives you overview of the work and we will continue as long as covid is an issue. one thing danny mentioned is we are planning to ramp this down. we are also planning on and i mentioned earlier in the report that we are planning on the ramp down for great plates and moving people back to the traditional das program as covid allows us to. did somebody have a question? >> not that i am seeing. go ahead.

>> dan talked about the $3 million dignity fund growth. one of the things we do because we didn't get the dignity fund growth. we continue to prioritize needs. while we have allocated the dollars that we have and we do that annually, sometimes it takes a little time for people to spend the dollars or for us to get them out the door. that does allow flexibility to handle some of the issues that come along and the needs the contractors bring to us. we have been able to patch some things together. we are not planning on anything new and dan is right that we will use the dollars that we have to maintain the current services we have, sometimes we allow for a little growth in need if we have unspent dollars

in the current year. we just monitor that and we are fortunate that alex monitors it carefully for us. that is how we manage it when we know we are not getting the growth. if we get it, we would be looking at the cost of doing business increase. contractors are asking about that already as they do every year. that continues to be a reality for them. i mentioned this earlier, in 21-22 we will do the new community needs assessment for the next cycle. 22-23 we will develop the services and al location plan. i want to mention some things we will do that were on our plate before but not rolled out yet. disability cultural center.

we have a work group identifying gaps in needs and what the communities want for successful launch. one of the things we were doing before covid was looking for a physical site for the disability cultural center, and when covid happened we put plans on hold. we can't do this. then revealized there is a role for a virtual center and community groups have come to us and said we would like to see a virtual center. right now we are partnering with surviving in place because we have dollars that das received right before covid. we were going to do a different process altogether. we have city dollars from city bank. we are using those dollars to do

assessment of needs from various disability communities to get an idea what they would need for a virtual community cultural center. we expect to have that needs assessment back later this spring. we will think about how we plan for disability cultural center starting out virtually. in addition, we are working with nonprofit organization that is developing -- planning for and developing property at corner of grove and van ness. we hope that we will be able to put a physical disability cultural center in there in a few years. that is just beginning. it is hopeful that that will materialize. the online resource directory we have been talking about for a number of years.

we are looking -- there are a lot of people interesting in ensuring a number of providers, individual caregivers have access to really comprehensive resource directory that would be a one stop tool for services for older people and people with disabilities. we are continuing to work on that. we have a funder working with us and they are willing to pay for the first few years. then we will figure it out. we hope there will be others in the system to benefit the number of organizations and individuals. that continues to be work that we are focused on. then the third thing is the

aging work. we want to build on the previous campaign, but the focus is to address internal ages. we want to give tools and resources to our community partners to do their own work with their specific communities with specific languages or populations that they serve, and we want to help them develop a coordinating set up so it is not every organization doing their own thing but it goes upon what is there already and builds upon us being a very broad organization. that we will do. just the position changes with five sub institutions.

increasing operational efficiency and effectiveness of services we want rereassigning positions. we are not allowed new positions in the budget. our teams always think we need new positions because we are continuing, the population is growing and we continue to serve more people, but this is one way we are able to really make things work within the staffing that we have. we can change positions around, substitute things. they can see that we have and that is what we are doing. one of the big focus areas this year is to really support the legal unit and just regarding the public administrator programs as a whole. that is one area we neglected

and we are trying to provide infrastructure there. i want to quickly respond. president knutzen and i talked about how she was really impressed by the call volume that has come into integrated intake. we talked in the last meeting about the numbers. i wanted to give you some more context for that. in 2020 they received 45,600 calls. that was 34% increase over the prior year. president knutzen that is what you asked for. it was driven by food requests. in may we received almost 7,000 calls. in comparison the monthly call volume prior to covid was closer

to 3,000. we completed 200 intakes -- 2300 intakes for great plates in that month alone and growth for general information during the early pandemic months. over the last six months it is back to normal level but still elevated. we have averaged close to 3400 calls per month. prior to the pandemic it was 2800. food remains pretty much the most pressing need. calls for general information referral assistance is slightly higher post pandemic. about 100 to 200 per month. we hope that answers your question about that. >> thank you very much. dan, back to you.

>> these are the milestone dates. we are at the finance committee meeting today. your approval we will take this budget along with the department of family support budget and the office of early care and education budget and the hsa administration budget, and we will we getting in the final to submit to the mayor's office on or before february 22nd. the mayor's office will have budget submissions from the city

agencies and it will be working through those over march, april and may and getting the mayor's budget for submission to the board for june 1st. between just first and middle of july we will work in the legislative portion of the process which will involve budget and legislative analyst evaluation of the submission and a lot of discussion and hearings before the board and then a vote by the board on the budget by the middle of july. that is the process this point for ward. we are asking for your approval to move forward at submitting the budget along the lines what we described today.

>> thank you very much, mr. kaplan. i know you worked very hard to put this together. i want to thank you and on behalf of the commission for all of the work that goes into this. thank you director mcspadden for all of the work you have done. i asked you to talk about the increase in call center because it is a simple way of describing all of what happened this year and what the staff had to absorb and expand. i think it is maybe a little bit settled to understand the fact that it is not obvious that we are tasked with doing more for beyond our i believe consit wenes during this time and any extra -- constituencies any

extra will be to the other people that were in need because of the particular aspects of the pandemic which maid us all stay at home. many, many people becoming food insecure. that was a good way to explain what happened. it is a bigger number than i had realized. i am glad you were able to dig that out. that is a very large increase. once people learn about das, what you are saying will be reflected. more people will be calling the help center as we expand. that is a way to illustrate that. thank you for all of that that went into it. any other questions from commissioners? we did hear from vice president spears. anybody else? questions about the budget?

commissioner jung. >> i don't have questions but i do have some comments. i just want to really acknowledge and commend the hard work that both the budget director and director have done to get through the past year that is a tremendously challenging and difficult year for everyone, especially for seniors and people with disabilities. what i always look at is what we have done in terms of accomplishments and be able to move forward. i want to point out some things that basically i was very impressed with. it may not be all of the work that staff has been doing so

well. what impressed me is just overall the response to pandemic and all of the different adjustments that have been made within responsibilities and initiatives to make sure that we are responding to our seniors and people with disability. especially in terms of support of food. i recognize this is a very different year, unique. we have staff working remotely, we have c.e.o.s to adjust to work virtually with their clients. i am impressed the work continues. there we are as much as we can, as well as we can in meeting the needs of our population. couple areas that jumped out at

me in terms of accomplishments in looking at the programming highlights, document that was review. in home support services, very impressed. no negative impact. services have been adjusted and enhanced to meet needs of in home support clients. the project to get everyone on electronic time sheet is not minor task at all. in terms of adult protective services, i was impressed with the collaborations that das is doing with homeless in support of housing as well as the working with the discharges. these are very difficult times for people with medical needs as well as a home safe program where we were able to manage

with the funds. in terms that we are talking about the benefits to increase volumes and how well that has been managed. i am very, very impressed. the fact that also we are working to make that online directory possible with the funding from the state department of aging. i just want to say it is really pleased and when i look at the budget documents, i was very pleased to see that with those piecharts. we have been able to manage. we are able to continue the services that we are providing even with the need to address

the deficit that has been imposed on us. we are not compromising core functions, we are able to minimize service impacts and we are finding creative ways to leverage new funds. in terms of the initiatives that the director has gone over, i am pleased we can continue. we don't need basically compromise or not move forward. these are very impressive in these difficult times where we have less funds to work with and figure out a way to do it. thank you for your hard work. >> thank you, commissioner. >> thank you, commissioner very much for a thorough look at the

budget. rest assured we do look at. all of the hard work needs a great deal to us. thank you for the articulation. commissioner lum, go ahead. >> my only comment is that since we are trying to help the communities especially the restaurants, obviously, they are in trouble. anytime you walk to chinatown you know they are in trouble. it is almost completely empty. are we making sure that the food program that we are responsible for. we have funding. are we making sure different restaurants are receiving the benefits of the das?

whatever funding that we allocate to help with chinatown, are we also making sure that different restaurants by being included rather than just a particular few that were chosen? >> yes, there is a growing list of restaurants that are being used right now. this is like a reup of a program launched in chinatown in april called feed and fuel. it is about getting as many restaurants involved as possible and also like i said earlier addressing food insecurity. the model that is used in chinatown right now is we are working with an organization called san francisco new deal. they in-turn work with a number

of restaurants. they are working closely with dcdc and merchants to identify the restaurants and bring on as many restaurants as possible. the goal is 80 restaurants. yes, they are working through that with the community and listening to the community to work through the barriers that restaurants face when like trying to get business with the city and all of that. there are a lot of restaurants involved at this pint. >> thank you. >> any other comments or questions about the budget, commissioners? okay. do we have anybody from the public wishing to comment on this item?

>> we have a caller in the queue. i am transferring now. >> thank you very much. i am victor and i am the president of the veterans affairs commission in san francisco. thank you for your presentation on the budget. i am particularly interested in learning more about the cvso funding $1.1 million devoted to the office. the commission is interested in knowing how much is state and federal, how much city or other sources? how that budget is broken down for salaries, outreach and line

items. we look forward to collaborating with das with the office of the cvso and commissioner nelson as representing veterans on there. we would love to know more how our veterans office in the county is supported with legislation or outreach through the board of supervisors or mayor. thank you very much. >> of course, this can be an agenda item on the next commission meeting. >> okay. do i go ahead and put that on there for an agenda item? i will request that. >> yes, when we create the agenda i will make sure it is added on the