>> chairwoman: good morning. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the thursday, february 18th meeting of the government audits and oversight committee. i am supervisor dean preston, the chair of this committee. i'm joined by vice chair connie chan and committee member rafael mandelman. thank you to the clerk, john carroll. mr. clerk, do we have any

announcements? >> clerk: yes, we have. in order to protect the public, board members, and city employees during the covid-19 emergency. the committee room and chambers are closed. it is pursuant to all various local state and federal orders and directives. the committee members will attend the meeting through video conference, and participate to the same extent as if they were physically present. public comment will be available on cable channel 26 and sftv.org. you can call 415-655-0001, once connected and prompted enter 1871594674. following that, press ##.

when you're connected, you will hear the meeting discussion, but your line will be muted and in listens mode only. when your item of interest comes up, hit *3. please wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted, and that is your opportunity then to begin your comments. best practices are to call from a quiet location, to speak clearly and slowly, and to turn down your television, radio, or your streaming device. everyone must account for potential time delays that we may encounter between the live coverage and streaming. alternatively, you may submit your public comments by e-mailing me, john carroll and i'm the clerk of the government audits and oversight committee committee. john.carroll@sfgof tv.

and you can send it by u.s. postal service, which is in room 244, 1 d goodlit place, san francisco, california, 94012. and items acted upon here today will appear on the board of supervisors agenda march 2nd, 2021, unless other why stated. >> chairman: thank you. mr. clerk. call the first item. >> an ordinance amending the administrative code to establish protections for occupants of residential hotels during the covid-19 pandemic by, among other things, making it city policy to place in solitary hotel rooms for residents who meet the criteria for quarantine established by the county health officer and requiring the department of public health to post a notice in the common area when an s.r. resident has tested positive for covid.

establish a telephone hot line for residents to respond to questions about accessing covid-19 health screenings, testings, and solitary hotel rooms, and provide face coverings to residents and workers in the hotels, and provide data concerning the incident covid-19 among the residents, and the number of such residents who have died due to complications from covid-19. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this ordinance should call the public comment number, 415-655-0001. enter today's meeting i.d. of 187591874, and hit ## and then *3. mr. chair? >> chairman: thank you, mr. clerk. in a moment, we'll turn the floor over to my

colleague, supervisor peskin. i did want to say, and neglected to do so when you were here briefly, asking for the continuance last week, to recognize, mr. peskin, your past service on the g.a.o.committee. and i will now turn it over to you on this item. >> thank you, chair preston, it was fun creating that committee years ago, and serving on it off and on, including my last little stint. so thank you for those words and thank you for the continuance at your last meeting relative to this item, which i think you're all familiar with in so far as it has been the subject of some emergency ordinances that we have all voted on. i wanted to start by putting it into a little context that goes pack backover a year, actually before the first shelter-in-place orders

were issued last march. the community, our public health officials, my office had already identified the potential for great spread in these congregate settings that our s.r. hotels that span from the mission to the tenderloin to chinatown into north beach -- these are reservoirs of very affordable housing in san francisco. obviously s.r.o.s have been the subject of a lot of legislation around their protection, and in the phase of the pandemic, we were making sure that cleanliness standards and educational standards were there at the outset. and i'm very pleased to report, a year later, as set forth in the budget and legislative analyst reports, that the rate of transmission in these very dense congregate sites, where there are shared

bathrooms and shared kitchens, is no greater than the rest of the population. so hats off to the department of public health and to the individuals who live in those buildings, and to the s.r.o. collaboratives that have gotten the word out, and to the department of building inspection that has been, even in the earliest days of the pandemic, knocking on those doors and going into those buildings and educating folks. and, when necessary, citing them. as of today, on the covid tractor, where the s.r.o.s actually have their own data set, there have been just a hair over a thousand cases of covid in s.r.o.s, 246, with 11 deaths, 11 obviously too many, but pretty amazing given how dense and potentially trans misive

those deaths are. i want to graduate everybody who worked hard over the last year. this has not been easy. i know it is difficult when non-health professionals, like myself, and all 10 of my colleagues, none of whom are doctors or come from the world of public health, start legislating standards for isolation and quarantine and testing and notification. so i really want to thank the community and the s.r.o. collaboratives for working with d.b.h. that comes from that collaborative. aerial fleischer from d.p.h. is here, as is the

budget analyst, who set forth the report -- actually, two reports -- the last report had nine deaths, and now we're up to 11. but i'm happy to offer those amendments, whenever you think the time is right, mr. chair. they've all been forwarded to you, and i'm happy to speak to them. but with that, maybe we should turn it over to the budget analyst and to ms. fleischer. >> chairman: it sounds good. let's hear from b.l.a. and d.p.h., and then you can describe the amendments after. >> good morning, chair preston, supervisor pes ken, as mr. peskin noted, this ordinance would place in the administrative code prior emergency ordinances for residents of the

s.r.o.s. on page six of the report, we estimate the cause of this ordinance if it was enacted and implemented during the six-month period between join and november of last year. the increased cost were ranged about 3 to 3.8 million, based on 50% reimbursement from femo. based on a january 2021 2021memorandum, we believe that the reimbursement will be up to 100%. and i'm available for any questions you may have. >> chairman: thank you. and just to clarify, those are retroactive -- the increase from 50% to 100% will be retroactive in the state? >> i believe they may be retroactive to january of last year. i'd have to check on that. >> chairman: thank you.

and, mr. chairman, i neglected to say that although she just referenced the fact that this chapter of the administrative code would automatically sunset 60 days after the emergency is over by operation of law set forth in the law that is before us. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor peskin. and do we have a representative from the department of public health to speak as well? >> hi. yeah, this is deb warren. good morning, everyone. thank you, supervisor peskin, for all of those great words. and i do think that this has been an incredible collaboration in the large picture of things. as i said to many of you before, i'm glad that we're talking about the health and wellness, and that people living in s.r.o.s are a vulnerable community and pandemic, and as we've seen,

intervention can have a big difference. we're worked really hard with s.r.o. and d.p.h. to make recommendations. we discussed it with this office. we monitor and track all cases in the s.r.o., and we focus still on prevention, education, outreach, and now outreach and linkage to vaccines. we're working with a collaborative right now to determine the notification that we are bound by hipa -- it's one of the things we're actively looking at to be able to address. when there is an outbreak in the building, the amendment clarifies that we notify people in the building of any kind of possible exposure. we do this in person. and we refer them to testing. and when there is an outbreak, we do test on-site, and we follow the guidance. we notify the owner and operator of the s.r.o. that there is a case of covid-19 in the building, and we share resource and guidance on how they need

to prevent any spread of covid in their building. i want to acknowledge all of the pieces of legislation we have enacted, and why we've done so well. establishing the s.r.o. hot line has made a very big difference. and we launched a dash forward, which we didn't have before. posting info about any s.r.o., and the hot line has been manifested because of the legislation, and offer a thorough residents the i.n.q. hotels. and we have also approached the office and helped connect all of our partners in chinatown and the collaborative with mikkos, and it has been a huge success and has enabled us to extend our reach into the neighborhood. we'll be using the recently funded community

wellness health response teams in the tenderloin and the mission to facilitate the same thing with s.r.o.s, and hoping to see more success as we move into vaccines. >> chairman: thank you. supervisor peskin? >> yes. i want to thank them for their incredible work. there has been a dynamic tension around issues that are implicated by hipa and privacy, and what can be told and to whom. and i want to respect that. and i know the community wants to respect that. and it has been a dynamic tension around what type of notification is appropriate and consistent with hipa. that is continuing to evolve between the s.r.o. collaboratives and the

department of public health. it is entirely possible with the amendments that i'm offering today, that there may be additional amendments at the full board of supervisors on march 2nd, when this hits the full board of supervisors around the notification issue. >> chairman: thank you. supervisor peskin, do you -- can you take this time to describe the amendments. we can entertain a motion after public comment. but i think my preference is to have them out on the table so the public can comment on them. >> absolutely. let me just pull up the subject ordinance. i think -- >> chairman: and thank you for distributing these. >> yes. so they, as i said, are deminimous. you will see the strike through of section two. so that has been stricken.

and you will see on -- i guess it now falls on to page seven, the new subsection two has additional language at the end "provide a list of city approved cleaning services." on the same page, page seven, at lines 21and 22, it strikes the provision that the city shall provide face coverings. on page eight, in k2, that zip code has been changed to census stract -- and thank you, city attorney for your quick work, the line that says "governing

confidentiality of medical information" -- what we just talked about. that paragraph that says d.p.h. will work as quickly as feasible to notify s.r.o. residents of exposure as quickly as possible. those are the amendments. i think i've covered them all. ms. pearson, have i missed anything? >> you have not. you covered them all. >> yay! >> chairman: thank you, supervisor peskin. and before any comments from other colleagues, let me just say -- i just want to thank you for all your work since early in the pandemic, with folks in s.r.o.s. i would particularly say for folks who are unfamiliar with s.r.o.s, the fact that we have rates of covid in s.r.o.s that are not

disproportionately high is a remarkable accomplishment. i think it is an example of where are, frankly, the legislative branch has played this role. as you say, we're not public health officials. but in pushing the department of public health in executing to get us to this point. i spent, as you know, many years representing residents of residential hotels, and i'm very familiar with how life in an s.r.o. looks, and it looks like a place with very, very high risks of covid spreading. and we're very, very fortunate through very hard work on your leadership to be where we are today. i would like to be added as a co-sponsor, and supervisor mandelman or vice chair, if you would

like to make any comments before we move on. >> chairman: supervisor mandelman. >> thank you, chair and supervisor peskin, for all of your work on this, and the department of public health and the s.r.o.collaborative. i want to understand where we are with this ordinance, because one of the things that has been a little concerning to me -- and i recognize this is part of the dynamic tension, as supervisor peskin was describing it earlier, but part of the b.l.a. report describes what would have happened if d.p.h. had actually complied with the legislation as it has been written. and it makes me a little nervous for us to have legislation out there that departments are not complying with. and i would love to hear from d.p.h., whether you're going to be able to comply with this legislation. >> um, i thank you.

i will answer that. again, this is dr. deb born. and i'm the operations deputy over prevention for covid. so, i think -- i want to take one step back and go back to what supervisor peskin said. health care does not understand, and many people don't understand, how people live in san francisco. i think one of the things that covid has really showed us is that we have to understand how people live in order to keep them healthy. and we need to deal with the equity and structural issues that have faced our communities. that has been one of -- i hate to say, but it has been a gift of the pandemic. so for the work that many of us have done for all of our lives, it is really brought to the forefront. one of the great things about this legislation, supervisor mandelman, is