informative, miss dorsey smith. thank you for your time. >> thank you so much for having me. >> for more on the learning hubs, visit dcyf.org or dial 311 and speak to an operator. and that's it for this show. we'll be watching with more covid related information shortly. you've been watching coping with covid-19. for sfgovtv, i'm chris manners. thanks for watching. [♪♪resident honda, joined by vice president santacana and commissioner chang, commissioner lazarus and commissioner swig. at the control of the legal clerk and i'm the executive director of the board. we'll be joined by representatives from the city departments presenting before the board this meeting, scott sanchez with the planning

department. joseph duffy with san francisco department of building inspection. carla short, san francisco public of department works. the board meeting guidelines requests that you turnoff our silence all phones so they don't disturb the proceedings. apelants, permit holders and department respondents are given seven minutes to present and three minutes to rebuttal. members of the public not affiliated with the parties have up to three minutes to address the board and no rebuttal. two minutes if there's a large number of speakers. the parties are given three minutes each with no rebuttal. our legal clerk will give you a verbal warning 30 seconds before time is up. four votes are needed. if you have a question about

requesting a rehearing, please e-mail board staff. public access and participation are of paramount importance to the board. to enable participation, sfgov will have the ability to receive public comment for each agenda item and providing closed captioning for the meeting. it will be rebroadcast on friday at 4:00 p.m. on channel 26. a link of the livestream is found on our website. public comment can be provided by joining the zoom meeting by computer, go to our website and click on the zoom link or call in by phone.

669-900-6833. and enter the id 858 5644 1212. now, sfgov is broadcasting and streaming the phone number and access instructions across the extreme. to block your phone number when you call in, dial star 67 first. listen for the item you want to speak on and star 9. you will have up to three minutes to speak. our legal clerk will provide you with a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up. there's a delay between the live proceedings and live streamed and on tv and the internet. it is very important that people reduce or turnoff the volume on tvs or computers otherwise there's interference with the meeting. if any of the participants or

attendees need disability assistance, you can make a chat function. it cannot be used for public comment. we will swear in or affirm those who wish to testify. if you intend to testify and have the board give your testimony evidencery weight, please raise your right hand. put your speaker on mute. we are moving on to item one which is general public comment. this is an opportunity for anyone who wants to speak on a matter within the board's jurisdiction but not on tonight's calendar. is there any member of the

public here for general public comment, please raise your hand. i don't see any hands raised. any callers press star 9 if you want to speak. we will move on to item two. commissioner comments and questions. okay. moving right along. item number three, commissioners before you for discussion possible, adoption of the minutes march 3rd 2021 meeting. >> president honda: if anyone has changes or additions or motion to move forward. >> motion to adopt the minutes. >> clerk: public comment? i don't see public comment. so commissioner swig's motion to adopt. (roll call)

thank you, the minutes are adopted 5-0. we will move on to item number four. this is special item, discussion and possible action for illegal tree removal. it included the legal authority in the amount of fines, process for imposing fines once made aware of the illegal tree removal. urban forestry discussed other legal remedies available. not on september 2nd, 2020, the board voted 5-0 to continue to december 16th, 2020, with the expectation that the board would report back to feasibility of bonds and opposed amendments

shared with board supervisors. three, a review of the fine structure in general with the basis for increasing the amounts and four, the legal limitations on imposing punitive fines. the matter was then rescheduled to january 6th and upon a motion by president lazarus, voting 5-0 to continue the matter to march 10th to allow time for the executive letter on topic of illegal tree cutting. the board would review the letter and consider sending it to the board of supervisors. commissioners, i did work with carla short, deputy director of san francisco public works and we have provided you with a draft letter. i would like to give ms. short an opportunity to address the board if she would like.

>> good evening. first i would like to wish you all a happy california arbour week, this week, march 7th through 14th and to thank you for the opportunity to work with your executive director on a letter that you might consider sending to the board of supervisors. i think it's clear from the number of cases that have come before you where before the case reached your board, trees were removed illegally, we recognize there's a challenge and so we appreciate the board taking this interest and we know there's some interest from some members of the board of supervisors and hope this might be a way to advance a more robust penalty system to try to deter this type of behavior in the future. i'm available for questions.

>> clerk: thank you. i don't see -- we do have a question from president honda. you're muted. >> president honda: hi carla, how are you? after reviewing it and seeing that potentially raising the fines, i thought would be a nice caveat, it's kind of unfair if small tree, large tree that potentially in lieu of the fine or including the fine we include that all their permits would be suspended for a period of time. i think that would be much more effective than just a dollar amount. we had a large tree taken out recently and i'm sure they would have no problem paying $10,000 to speed up their project. so having their permits might be

more of -- what is your opinion? >> i don't disagree. you know, having the permit be suspended would likely act as a deterrent. i do worry about as you noted, i think some cases are not all -- we had a case before you where we find -- we treated it as illegal removal and it was because the stump sprouts had reached where we posted them for removal but in a case like that, i worry if there's affordable

housing project and something like that, which was -- i think not a deliberate act. these were stump sprouts. it was easily understandable that they may not have fully understood that a permit was required and to hold up affordable housing -- >> president honda: the two instances i can recall offhand, we had a project on van ness, where they said all of a sudden they could no longer get the equipment in and took the tree down. we had an affordable housing project i believe off van ness that had the same situation where they decided they would take the tree down knowing it was not permitted. so i think that would change dramatically if they knew their permits would be frozen for x amount of time, they would deal with whatever department, particularly your department in

making the correction prior to the illegal removal of the trees. >> yeah, i certainly don't disagree with you. i think -- i'm not sure the appetite will be there for that level of enforcement at the board -- perhaps it will. personally i think include that recommendation in the letter if that's the direction there the board would like us to. >> president honda: it's just kind of tough, the 10,000 one fee fits all is kind of difficult to wrap around and that's the concern i have looking at the letter of recommendation that we were going to set forward. >> sure. we did also include a possibility of a penalty four times the value of the tree if

it was development related and where we had some larger trees, that would be significantly more than $10,000 in most cases. that was an attempt to try to get a little bit higher penalty when it was clearly development related. >> commissioner lazarus? >> commissioner lararus: two comments, one, i think raising this in whatever fashion we do if we go forward and it is well received at city hall will start to send a message out there that people are paying attention. secondly, with respect to your suggestion president honda, what would then unfreeze the rest of the permits. >> president honda: okay. so just looking at it, i think we have legislation in the books for people who do bad things and to answer your question, they go

through the process which even if they're not granted the removal, they go through the process prior to the illegal removal and i think by having that in place, they're going think twice about going ahead and taking the tree out and say hey, we'll just pay the penalty. >> commissioner lararus: so my question is, if somebody removes the tree and we freeze the permits, then what. how does it get unfrozen. what are we saying they need to do to move forward? >> president honda: they have to go through the process of bureau of urban forest and boa, which i believe is 3-6 months, their project is frozen. >> commissioner lararus: i have to say i have a bit of a difficulty with that.

commissioner chang i think you have a question. were you finished commissioner lazarus? >> commissioner chang: i think this board generally agrees that more penalties should be enacted on illegal tree removal but i think the city in general has a lot of competing interests that need to be balanced and i agree with ms. short that not all tree removals are created equal. i think it makes sense to have some sort of penalty that is short with the deed and i guess the four times the cost of the tree is dependent on the type of tree. not all trees are created equal. it would be a case by case basis and cover the cost of replacing

the tree. i'm just recalling the case downtown, i think that would have a negative impact for the city and project in general for delivering affordable and supportive housing to the city. i think it's a little extreme to freeball permits if trees are illegally removed. >> president honda: thank you. sorry, i had to move from the rain. >> clerk: commissioner swig? >> commissioner swig: i would like to send the letter as is, i think the goal of this letter is to catch the attention of the board of supervisors. we will not be determining what

the ultimate adjustment to the legislation or to the fines or whatever will be. i think the letter is clear in its intent, which is to raise the punitive bar on those who choose to abuse the city by tearing down trees illegally. i have faith that by sending this to the board of supervisors and especially since ms. short has attention there already and some support, that it will be greeted with the message that is being sent and then adjudicated appropriately. that's just my thoughts.

>> clerk: if there's public comment on the item, please raise your hand. mr. clip you have three minutes. >> can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. >> thank you. this is an awesome night and i was a little surprised i'm here making public comment. i want to encourage the board not to shy away from extremely prohibited measures. until we do that, we're going to keep having the same problems and i personally think i have something to do with the fact that i'm on the agenda and i want to thank the board of appeals for taking this step. i know there's a lot of things this board cannot do because of jurisdiction. i applaud you for not seeing the limitations as the extent of what you may do any way. it's the example of what any

city entity can do when they see a problem and especially able to fix them where it needs to be done. a lot of hearings i attend and i feel like city officials say that's not our job. what you're doing tonight commissioners is an example of how you as thoughtful caring commissioners can do when you think outside that box and take action to make a meaningful contribution to change. personally i hope it's the first step in a larger more comprehensive change in how we approach san francisco's critical campaign management. >> clerk: thank you mr. clip. mr. noelty. >> good evening. i want to applaud the board of

appeals for taking up this matter and i think this is like the third hearing on the letter and taking my comments the last hearing on this and putting it into the letter. i also want to say i think this is a start and we'll see where it goes. we don't have control over what the board of supervisors may do but i think this is a good first step and i want to applaud the members of the board of appeals and staff for putting this -- putting their effort into the letter and hopefully board of supervisors will listen and something will be drawn up to please everybody at the table.

thank you very much. >> clerk: next caller. >> good evening. i apologize, i would like to speak on a different matter and i was testing the features of this meeting. >> clerk: no problem. we will now hear from ms. buller. go ahead. >> i just want to speak in favor of the motion. >> clerk: okay. thank you. is there any other public -- i see one more -- nope. any other public comment on this item? okay. one moment. >> thank you for having this on the agenda this evening -- >> did you want to go on video?

>> i'm okay. i'm really pleased you're taking this up, it's a frequent problem, people bring these issues to your board. rather than just have them come up repeatedly and have it be a problem, you're being proactive sending it to the legislative body of the city. i think they'll do a good job with your assistance and with ms. short's assistance and other people who know about construction and trees. so thank you for taking this up. >> clerk: thank you. is there any other public comment on this item? please raise your hand or press star 9 if you have called in? i do not see any other public comment. commissioners -- this is

submitted to you. we could have a motion to adopt the letter and direct me to send it to the board -- >> president honda: do we have a motion -- commissioner lazarus has her hand up. >> commissioner lararus: i was going to make the motion but that's fine. >> clerk: we have a motion from commissioner swig to adopt the letter and direct the executive director to send it to the board of supervisupervisors. on that motion... (roll call). that motion carriers 5-0. thank you. we are moving on to item number 5. this is jurisdiction request subject property at 4840 mission

street. letter from vivian padua and ivonne vasquez that the board take site permit over issued on june 10th, 2020. the appeal period ended on june 25th, 2020, and the request was filed on february 22nd, 2021. the permit holder is bridge housing corporation. the description is 100% affordable housing, one basement type b-a. 137 residential units and clinic buildings. we'll hear first from the requesters. you have three minutes total. >> good afternoon president honda and commissioners. my parents and i immigrated from the philippines in 1965. my mom bought our home after being divorced and raising three kids on her own as a registered

nurse working double shifts. we did not submit the jurisdiction request as a stall tactic as stated in the brief submitted to the board. it felt like a smear job of our characters and who we are. i submitted it to exercise my right to protect our home and its foundation. we ask that you grant the request because we did not know how the process worked and had never gone through anything like this in our neighborhood and in 2020 dealing with the covid-19, our health and shelter in place orders. at the previous meetings it was not stated that the project received sb-35 approval and no notifications were required to neighbors. it was only until i received an e-mail response to the planning

department that i knew what it meant. last year we didn't know anything about the stages of applications and approvals. we don't know we didn't have to be notified. how could we appeal something without being informed that we could appeal. my main concern is my home and foundation are protected. as ms. white stated in her brief, we are a handful of neighbors, we're exercising our rights to protect our homes and foundations against a multi billion dollars real estate company. thank you for allowing me to speak. >> clerk: thank you. we'll hear from bridge housing now. ms. white are you speaking? >> hi everyone. yes, i'll be speaking and steven is here as well this evening. thank you for the opportunity to speak and represent the project this evening.

i'm sarah white, a director on the northern california team with bridge housing and project manager for the mission project. this project was granted approval in 2019 under sb-35. the site permit was approved and pulled in 2020, the appeal period has long expired and we followed all notification. and even after the approval was received in summer of 2019, we continued doing outreach through the remainder of the year to share project information about the approved project and i have provided some materials dissimilar nated throughout the community. because it was granted approval, under sb-35 and pursuant to california government code, the

board of appeals has no authority to deny or modify the projector site permit, doing so would inhibit or preclude the development, prohibited by the state law. we believe the appellant's request must be denied. i wanted to speak about the concerns, i understand the concerns about what the impact of the construction could have on their homes. in my view, we're just at the beginning point of having the conversations and there's plenty of time to have them. the appellants have claimed it could undermine their foundations and i have researched and evaluated this and i want to correct that misconception. the nearest structure on the south property line is 25 feet from our foundation etch for a

new building. on the north property line it's 10 feet from the nearest structure. given that we're only going three feet below the elevation, there's no plausible argument that it will undermine the foundations of their homes and i have confirmed with design team and structural engineer. the -- >> 30 seconds. >> our demo activities entail no soil disturbing activities that would impact any of the foundations or homes along the road. and even though it is not required, as a courtesy, we are doing a pre-and post assessment of structures adjacent to the property line. they're a third party firm. >> that's time. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. president honda has a question.

>> president honda: my question is that going forward, i believe we're going to hear more in regards to projects that have sb-35 approval. so can you explain in regards the sb-35 what you're subject to and not to. you gave in your oral, you gave some description, so does that mean you're not subject to any of the permitting or process in san francisco? >> steve, do you want to speak to the specifics of that? >> sure. the project is still subject to all objective requirements of the building code, planning code and other codes.

what it's not subject to is discretionary actions which would foreclose construction of the project once the planning director determines that the project does qualify for sb-35 approval. and that determination was made in the summer of 2019. subsequent to that, other permitting agencies such as dbi, must issue permits that further the construction of the approved project. so that's what happens here. the site permit was issued last summer and even though it is subject to the appeal as board of appeals, the board really doesn't have an ability to make a decision that would prevent the project that was approved, the sb-35 from going forward.

>> president honda: thank you. second question. is that generally on large projects where properties are near and as the appellant has said they're concerned about the foundation. are you opposed to putting site markers and having those monitored? >> what we have talked about doing is having -- we shared the neighbors concern with our general contractor and they have advised that when we -- >> president honda: that wasn't the question. would you generally on larger projects like this that require -- it's a pretty fairly large building, would you be opposed to putting site markers and having them monitored. >> you mean survey points on the elevations? >> president honda: correct. >> immediate adjacent homes that join the property lines.

the appellant vivian padua lives quite a bit farther down. she would not be in the survey point. >> president honda: but you're saying yes, you would be willing to do that? >> as long as we can enter into a licence agreement and we would like them to drop the demo appeal request as well -- >> president honda: that's -- she evidently is further down, that would not affect her property but the immediate adjoining properties, are you willing -- >> yeah, we could do the survey point, absolutely. >> clerk: we will now hear from the planning department. >> thank you. the jurisdiction request of a permit for new construction at

4840 mission street, a small portion i believe -- the project was approved under sb-35. this is a state law starting january 1st, 2018, directing local agencies and san francisco is one subject to the requirements to create a streamline approval process to give non discretion approval and would require 90 diary view for a project of this size. once the planning department determines it is eligible for review under sb-35, we have to do our review within 90 days. in terms of stream lining it, there's no notice, so that allows us to make that 90 day period and given it is non discretionary, there's no need for notice or hearing before the

planning commission and no need for the environmental review. it does meet the requirements, this is the first sb-35 project i believe that has been before the board, even though it's just a jurisdiction request and we have the appeal of the demolition permit coming up i believe at the next hearing. it is a new process, we will have more of these applications coming through. we've outlined the standards for the department's review in bulletin number 5 that we can provide for board of appeals for reference and see if some of the housing staff could come to the board and describe what sb-35 is and i defer to your deputy city attorney for legal advice as for what your rights are under sb-35 but we could provide an overview in the planning process if the board would like that. just note that a jurisdiction

request is not required to protect the requesters property in this case. that's something that would be taken care of through the normal process to ensure that no permit, whether it is a permit issue under sb-35 or ordinary permit to remodel a house, in many cases would have more than three feet excavation. none of those permits can damage neighboring properties. if there is damage, the department is quick to respond and remediate the issues. i don't think a jurisdiction request is necessary to protect the property and i'm available for questions the board may have. >> clerk: president honda. >> president honda: my question is more for the deputy city attorney. as the zone administrator mentioned, this is the first sb-35 that has come before our

body and regarding this appeal as well as potential appeals, if we don't -- if we are not able to do anything about it, why is the appeal coming to the body? >> good evening commissioners. under the charter, all permits are appealable to the board of appeals. you would be in the same position as the planning department and dbi are in how their review is constrained. you wouldn't be reviewing this under the same standard that would normally apply to a permit under section 26 of the business and tax code but you would review with the compliance of the sb-35 requirements. i would remind you, this is not before you at this point on the actual appeal. this is only on jurisdiction

request in which case you are only looking at if the city intentionally caused it to be late in filing the appeal. >> president honda: thank you brad. >> clerk: thank you. does the department of building inspection want to add anything? >> what i heard was the project is going to comply with the building code and it will need to comply with the california state code for anything that happens at the property line, it doesn't matter if it's affordable or not. i did hear a lot of good comments about survey monitoring

and that type of thing. that's all good. we have a building code sanction, as i said and that will be applied here. and i heard the attorney saying the project does need to comply. in our books, it's a regular construction project that will have to be inspected and probably geotechnical engineers involved and any of the excavation close to property line will need to be carefully planned, monitored and inspected and all the above and the survey points are a really good idea. i don't have issues with it. the permit was filed in march 2019. i'm available for any questions. >> clerk: thank you. we will -- no questions, we will move on to public comment. anyone here to provide public comment? okay. we have cindy.

one moment. >> i'm here. >> clerk: we can hear you. go ahead. welcome. >> okay. hi. cindy heavens, i'm senior project manager with the mayor's office of housing and community development, i have been working on this project since awarded through our department and that's since 2017. for us, this project, there's no grounds for this appeal. the community has been thoroughly notified throughout the project from the initial design and two different designs, one is the current one the project is under. when it was approved for sb-35,

the community was notified and got to see the final design and comment on it. the permit was issued in accordance with sb-35. the city has put a lot of effort to receiving critical financing for this project from the state and the financing has construction start deadlines in order to ensure affordable housing will be provided, therefore this delay makes the housing crisis worse and is costly. we urge the board of appeals to deny the appeal so we can provide without further delay. thank you. >> clerk: we'll hear from the caller whose number ends in 6187. >> good evening commissioners. i live a couple of miles from this project and would like to speak in opposition to the

appeal. i have read the bridge faq and i'm aware of the community input outreach that the project went through a series of community meetings dating back to 2017. in 2019 there were two large community meetings to review the project and according to bridge, the meetings were well attended and the project was well received. additionally, a smaller meeting was held in december 2019 with surrounding neighbors and the district supervisor. i just listened to the project sponsor's attorney and i'm somewhat familiar with california senate bill 35, stream lining housing construction in california counties and cities that fail to build enough affordable housing to meet requirements. i feel that on the whole as a matter of urgency, the benefits of constructing this for people

who need homes immediately far outweigh the risks of not constructing the building. i ask the commission to think about the impact of sb-35 and the needs of those who may qualify for the housing who may not have the privilege to attend the meeting tonight when making your decision. i encourage you to reject this appeal and appreciate that this opportunity to speak and the possibility of this project moving forward with. thank you. >> clerk: now we'll hear from johanna. please go ahead. are you there?

>> thank you. i am one of the houses between 1991 and 1997. the home was purchased by my parents in 1972 as vivian, my parents came from italy as immigrants. they worked very, very hard, very long hours to afford that house. and i understand what's being said here, i understand that this sb whatever we're calling it gives people the right to do whatever they want at this point but there's a number of homes

that are being heavily affected by what is happening. i understand that people are saying we were notified and notified. i went to every single one of the meetings but i can tell you in my mailbox, we did not get every notification or every notice or any of that that was discussed here. i can tell you that the opposite side of the street received certain letters that the four houses the most affected did not during this process. the four houses being the most heavily affected, i should say the five and six houses being most heavily affected all came together and had separate meetings as well. none of what has been discussed with us has been taken into

consideration for the most part. but we're all homeowners that have been homeowners since the late 60s and early 70s for the most part in those homes. and we're now looking at the fact that our homes could possibly be affected not just by what's coming, including things that don't need to be brought up in this meeting because they don't affect it. but the fact that structurally our homes could be affected is pretty insane. i don't have anything written, i'm speaking from the heart. as someone who watched the parents go through cancer, heart surgery, this that and the other and fought to have those homes. fought with previous senators,

mayors, for things in that neighborhood, it's a lot of what is being said is just outrageous. we were not all informed. i contended all the meetings at balboa -- >> that's time. >> clerk: thank you. we'll hear from theo. go ahead. >> hello. i'm a resident a little less than a mile away from the site. i don't think you should take up the appeal. i attended meetings at the balboa high school and i liked the project as presented. and also, the sb-35 approval is a legal recognition of how dire

the need for affordable housing is in this neighborhood and in the city in general. this is a good project. it's -- i think it would be a good addition to the neighborhood and good pedestrian connection between mission, that would be very useful right there. i think let it proceed as quickly and cost effectively as possible. >> clerk: thank you. now hear from johanna.

did you want to provide public comment? i see you're present in the meeting and previously raiseyour hand. >> she said in chat her audio is out. >> clerk: can she call in? if you can call in and then press star 9 once you call in. >> can you hear me? i'm sorry, i'm not aware of what was just said. >> clerk: okay, the last caller

was in favor of the project. >> i'm calling to represent myself and my sister at 1993, one house over adjacent to where the walk through is going to be. i'm against it. i think the appeal should be taking place. we were not notified. we received information here and there. when we do receive information, it's not factual. we were notified there were going to be condos and now we're hearing it's 100% affordable housing. i'm not against affordable housing but we have been made to feel as homeowners. my mother was born in san francisco and worked for the unified school district in the cafeterias and my father was an immigrant. we understand what it is like to struggle. my father had open heart surgery at 42 and they never got government assistance but managed to pay property taxes and pay their home.

we take great pride in our homes and hearing the work is going to be done and the stuff we're hearing is not factual. we're told the walkway is just a thorough fair and then it is saying things about festivals and fairs. we are dealing with a homeless issue and we understand that. we had to put up cameras for safety of our homes. we've had people taking baths in our front planter box and urinating and using it as a toilet. on top of that now, we're worried about the structural damage that could take place to our homes. we're just asking the city of san francisco to not just look at when bridge housing says 60% of households reported living in the same city. we have been residents there our entire lives. that home has been ours for 48 years. we just need you to show there's some appreciation for us as homeowners who have paid our taxes and i think that can be accomplished for those coming

into the sb-35 as well as us. we need to know there's going to be some sort of security for our homes and that's why i'm in favor of the request. >> clerk: thank you. >> i'm calling to strongly support the affordable homes that are going to be built. i am a little disappointed to hear arguments that are tilting into outrate nativism and opposition to the housing and the idea if you moved into san francisco 40 years ago or something that makes you entitled to preserve the city and stop anybody else from moving in. it is pretty clear we're in a

housing crisis and homelessness crisis and polling has shown that the overwhelming majority of the public supports building 100% affordable housing and as a result, i hope that the board will focus on in this case, the largely silent majority that i'm speaking for that support this project rather than listening to a very small minority of wealthy homeowners who live in the area who are trying to oppose it. it's disappointing to hear stuff like that in a city like this, but at the end of the day, i think the board's duty is to weigh the good and the bad with the project like this. and the fact that we're going to be able to put a roof over people's homes with affordable housing who need it is incredibly important and is something that should be placed above complaints from homeowners

who live in the area and are upset to see change. cities change and we need cities to change and we need housing to be built so people can live in our amazing city. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. commissioners, this matter is submitted. >> president honda: what's before us is probably one of many projects that are under the umbrella of sb-35. as our deputy city attorney has mentioned as well as the deputy zone administrator, our ability to change this project is very

limited. they come with limitations of when you can and cannot build and that's the reason why we've had these limitations of how long or how much of a process we can halter. commissioner swig? >> commissioner swig: although i'm sympathetic to the appellant and other commenters, i find that this project passed muster in the proper fashion and there are no grounds to support an

appeal at this time. i'll letter other commissioners comment. >> commissioner lararus: i'm prepared to make a motion so i will defer to commissioner chang. >> commissioner chang: thank you. i agree with commissioner swig. i don't think there are grounds for the appeal but i want to express empathy for the homeowners. i think just putting this out there, sb-35 is relatively new for san francisco and there is a large body of individuals and folks who are familiar with the legislation and there are a number who aren't. and mr. sanchez, mentioned a lot of resources that are available on the planning department

website and i would urge the homeowners to review those materials but i'm wondering if there might be, you know, a public forum to better educate -- i know a lot of this has happened but maybe there's regular public information campaigns to better educate the public on this in light of the reality that the projects will continue to move forward. and as commissioner -- president honda mentioned, we would likely potentially seeing more of these requests. again, i don't think there are grounds for the request and i am foreshadowing that i'm supportive of the motion that commissioner lazarus is going to make, but i think it might be helpful to just better educate

folks so that everyone can have a better and clearer and shared understanding of what is happening. >> clerk: thank you. commissioner lazarus. >> commissioner lararus: are there other comments? >> president honda: prior to commissioner lazarus making the motion, i want to remind the project sponsor they agreed they would put monitoring markers. >> clerk: i want to clarify, we don't have jurisdiction over the permit, we can't impose conditions and separately, we will be hearing the appeal on the demolition permit in a couple of weeks. right now we can't impose conditions on them. we're just deciding -- you're making a decision if the city intentionally caused the requesters to be late in filing the appeal. >> if i could --

>> clerk: there's no further discussion unless allowed by the president. i think we lost president honda. i was just here to say -- >> president honda: yeah, i was just reminding the project sponsor what they had mentioned. >> clerk: okay. so do we have a motion then? >> commissioner lararus: i move to deny the request on the basis that the city didn't

intentionally cause the requester to be late. >> clerk: on the motion? (roll call)

>> clerk: we have president honda on the line now. to refresh everyone's memory, we had a motion from commissioner lazarus to deny the request on the basis that the city did not cause the requesters to be late in filing the appeal. vice president santacana voted aye and president honda, it was your --

>> president honda: aye. >> clerk: okay. and commissioner chang? >> commissioner chang: aye. >> clerk: and commissioner swig? >> commissioner swig: aye. >> clerk: i have been informed by president honda that he has lost connectivity and won't be able to attend the rest of the meeting. moving on. edmund louie and mary parks appealing issuance on december 9th of a variance decision to legalize the decision of a rear deck and stairs. the demolition of the deck was approved by the planning department in may 2012 but to be larger than previously existed and the stairs were shifted to

the northern property line. both the deck and stairs require legalization. there is a required rear yard of 39 feet and deck and stairs are entirely located within the required rear yard.

the board voted to continue the item to march 10th to come to an agreement on the materials to be used for the proposed riser. and vice president santacana, did you have an opportunity to view the videos and material for the hearings which took place on january 27th and march 3rd? >> vice president santacana: i did. >> clerk: each party has three minutes and we'll start with the appellant ms. parks.

>> today we want to discuss the incomplete construction, the cost was too vague. we did have questions about the drawings that we wanted to ask about and sent it to mr. sanchez and we talked with the neighbor

about the screen replacement but particulars were not worked out. it puts in place construction that never should have been built, never been inspected and we don't know if it can be rehabilitated or how frequently it will need to be aside from other problems we have talked about. we have been concerned since it was constructed. we would like the variant revoked because we don't think it's fair to us, future owners of the neighborhood, we didn't do anything the things they have done and we don't know anybody who has, enlarging the stairs without permit and violation of abatement issued against us. we have never falsified a permit application. we have never demolished a pop-out that needed a variance submitted and we haven't left work incomplete or used the

wrong building material. we have learned they use this thing called dense shield, the yellow stuff here and according to the manufacturers, we found out it is not intended for exterior installations, it will deteriorate and it should be removed and not be covered with other material. we have let dpi know about this. the cost of moving the staircase, we felt the cost was vague. the construction in 2012 according too what they submitted to the city was around 200,000. how does it relate to that. this is just a screen shot from that. and then of the drawings, we found them inconsistent and they had questions and we let them know about other inconsistencies they included but we still have questions because they're not the same. the different depictions. regarding the wooden screen,

they have expressed openness to replace it, but we prefer glass but they haven't shown a specific project yet. >> 30 seconds. >> in review, we would like it to be revoked and it's not -- it doesn't make sense to continue. >> clerk: thank you ms. parks. we'll hear from the determination holder now. >> i live here with my husband mark. i'm here tonight and i want to share my screen here. i'm here to update on the progress of discussions. we heard the board's direction to reach a compromise. we have given our best effort and proposed a design solution that we believe meets their goals and your direction.

their goals for privacy. we tried to do this by zoom but they insisted that e-mail was the only method we could communicate. we tried to e-mail every single time since january. the access to remove the existing privacy screen and replace with translucent material. we have agreed to do that. replace the screen and install one foot riser above it to address their light and privacy concerns. they have asked for glass, we have concerns about the weight, safety and durability of the material but discussed other options widely used in exterior applications and have a range of venders and can meet their

concerns of privacy and light. we showed them websites and examples and asked for their input. we only had a week for this. giving them the exact materials and designs is probably not practical. there's a lot of history between the parties here. they're likely to be unsatisfied by the riser but it does address the privacy and light concerns. i really hope we can get past this with our neighbors and each continue to enjoy our properties. this is -- i'm really nervous and this is very upsetting. based on our conversations and this depiction here, we have offered up privacy, we extended it, we upgraded to translucent material and agreed to replace

the entire item. so we ask that you hold the variants properly issued by the zoning administrator and condition it on the replacement of the existing privacy screen with translucent materials and one foot riser as we have proposed to increase privacy and give them the light. we'll happily take your questions. >> clerk: we have a question from commissioner swig. we can't hear you. we still -- here we go. >> commissioner swig: so, your final offer basically -- i don't have the -- what you just

showed, it would be the one on the lower right-hand side? >> correct. >> commissioner swig: and translucent material is to be determined and maybe we should ask what might be their suggestion for a material that is both legal and appropriate for that space. so the one on the lower right-hand side is the one, correct? >> correct. >> commissioner swig: thank you. >> clerk: we will now hear from the planning department. >> thank you. scott sanchez planning department. this is the third hearing on the variants to legalize the deck and stair structure in the rear yard and it goes back to 2016. through the course of the process, work was done without proper permits and that's why

we're in this situation but the property owner has attempted to go through the proper process to legalize seeking this variance, which we do believe was properly issued. through the course of the appeals, the appellants pointed out there was some inaccuracy with the plans and the property owner addressed those issues -- i believe completely. those were submitted to the board more than a month ago and yesterday morning i received an e-mail from the appellant there were additional inaccuracies. i asked to see them and i received them a little after 3:00 this afternoon which is not really sufficient time to review but i took a look through the issues and what i noticed was relatively minor. i think overall, the broad

strokes of the project are clear and easy to understand. there were some dimension string issues but overall, the issues identified appeared to be correctable. and it could be done through the process. the building permit will give them more refined details as a separate document. so i think we are supportive of any alternative that can be proposed and fine with the original proposal. and happy to answer your questions. i think there were two corrections that should be made, one which was pointed out to me yesterday and i'm probably going to run out of time, but if the board would allow me to state what the corrections are. the first is a correction to the second sentence of the first

paragraph of the project description which inaccurately represented the permit history. so the sentence should be changed to the demolition and reconstruction of the previously existing deck was performed without benefit of permit. i did provide some of the language to the executive director yesterday and i'm happy to provide it again by e-mail. lastly, we have discussed before, including finding that the rear horizontal pop out must be legalized under a separate variance. >> commissioner swig: just confirm,ing, you are comfortable and would support the plan as submitted yesterday in consideration of the minor changes to verbiage. >> yes, minor corrections that could be made.

we can work with the variant holder on making any of the changes needed. there's been sufficient time to comment on the plan, it's unfortunate we received comments only hours before the hearing. they said they discussed it with the variance holder and forwarded the e-mail communication and it wasn't quite the same comments i received and in the response that the variant holder provided, they said they were willing to work with the appellant but the appellant represented they're not willing to work. i don't quite understand. there's issues between the parties but --

>> commissioner swig: they had their chances certainly. where we are is this set of plans with your recommendations with a few clerical changes and if you are happy with that as the building administrator -- you're happy with that? >> yes, if you allow the department, deputy administrator -- >> commissioner swig: i always think of you as the big cheese. >> we will make any needed corrections and final details. >> commissioner swig: thank you. >> clerk: thank you. now we will hear from the department of building inspection. deputy director duffy? >> good evening commissioners. i just don't have much thought

apart from i had a couple of e-mails with the appellant regarding the material on the fire wall facing their property and i do agree with them, it does need to be replaced and properly -- we need to get proper materials installed but that will come later when the building permit is issued we do have an order of abatement posted as well. we really encourage the process to keep moving forward in order to get a permit issued and this work completed and the abatement cleared and everyone then can move on with their lives. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. commissioner swig?

we can't hear you. >> commissioner swig: as the plans put forth and the final offer from the permit holder or the variance holder showed the wall, at this point, it doesn't matter whether we designate it as glass, plastic or anything other than translucent. but the material will be determined later on? but do you have -- is that correct? >> yes, the pearl -- the

material facing the neighbor's wall will have to be figured out later. >> clerk: which slide do you want? >> commissioner swig: the slide offered with the new plans. the lower slide is what they are proposing and proposing it is translucent material. so other than designating that as translucent material, we don't have to go any farther as designating as glass, plastic or anything else, that will be determined later? >> that would be my understanding commissioner swig, yes.

the material that you're talking about, that -- it's on top of the required firewall. that's in addition to any building code requirements. the translucent and privacy screen. the firewall i'm talking about wouldn't go that high. there was a photograph that showed a yellow material on the rear side of that wall, that is going to have to be addressed. we can do that under the building permit. that is something that can be addressed here. >> commissioner swig: so we don't have to talk about that tonight. and on the translucent material, just allow potential dramatic foreshadowing, is there a preference from dbi of what the material should be, should it be glass, plastic or can you just simply say you would recommend you not use a certain material

as a translucent material when they might come back and propose? >> that's a really good question. if it is going to be glass, it would have to be safety glazing in that location. it could be plastic. it's just a privacy screen. it's really not that important. if they wanted to use glass, it would have to comply with the california building requirements. it's high up and in that location, we would require it to be safety glazing but that would be spelled out on the drawings and reviewed at later stages. >> commissioner swig: thank you for the input. >> clerk: thank you. is there any public comment on the item? please raise your hand. okay. i don't see any public comment. commissioners, this matter is submitted and vice president santacana you are the acting

president. vice president santacana? >> vice president santacana: commissioner lazarus? >> commissioner lararus: i am prepared to make a motion. happy to listen to comment but it would be along the lines of what i think our deputy zoning administrator suggested. i'm not totally clear on the wording but i think we need a minor change to the variance. but that's the way i want to go. i want to bring this matter to a close, although i have this lingering feeling it may be back at some point.

>> clerk: i could get the language from the deputy zoning administrator, for the purposes of the motion, we can elude to what he said. secondly, he did i believe want to impose the condition that the property owner get a variance for the illegal pop-out. that would be the second condition and i'm understanding that you want to adopt revised plans but i'm a little unclear which plans we're going to be adopting. they previously submitted a set of plans dated january 30th, 2021, which did have a one foot riser. i'm assuming those are the plans but the determination holder just showed schematics but i don't think attached with a plan set. >> i was making my comment -- i

don't know the reference but my assumption was the latest plans that were received yesterday. commissioner chang? >> commissioner chang: thank you. i agree with my -- i wish there was a general term to say all of my commissioners that we want to bring the matter to a close. i think the permit holder, decision holder presented good options. i agree that there's a potential for this matter to be before the board again but it seems like the proposal with the translucent privacy screen, the bottom right image would present

the highest chance that it wouldn't come before us again. yes. that one, exactly. remove and replace the entire existing privacy screen. i would urge for that to be incorporated into the final set and hopefully address the concerns to the best of our collective ability at this point to bring the matter to a close. >> clerk: can i ask the determination holder then, is the schematic on the lower right-hand side, is that part of the revised plans you submitted or dated january 30th? (please stand by...)

>> clerk: corrected language, additionally, the owner get a variance for the illegal pop out? >> commissioner lazarus: yes. >> clerk: okay. and on what basis are you making this motion?

>> commissioner lazarus: that it will correct potential mistakes. >> clerk: you might also mention that it meets the five findings. >> commissioner lazarus: yes. >> clerk: okay. we have a motion to grant the variance on the condition that it be revised to grant the language in the second sentence as well as on the condition that the determination holder submit revised plans, correct the errors, and the schematic that was approved by the commissioners at the hearing this evening, and furthermore, that the property owner get a variance for the legal pop out on the basis that this addresses the appellant's privacy concern to some extent, makes it code compliant, and it meets the five findings under

planning code 305-c. on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: okay. that motion passes, 4-0, so i will touch base with the determination holder after -- following this hearing, and we can work out the process. so we are now moving onto item number 7. this is peal 21-007, 501 columbus, l.l.c., versus the planning department. subject property is 507 columbus avenue, appealing the disapproval on february 1, 2021 of, a building permit. permit was for change of use from limited use restaurant to restaurant, no work. permit was cancelled by the planning department because the existing business on-site is a specialty grocer, and is not eligible for a change of use to

restaurant per planning code section 780.3 and board of supervisors action 200673/182-20. this is permit 2020/12/22/1551, and we will hear from the appellant first. his attorney is here first. mr. pela? >> yes. i think a little background is needed into what this -- what the planning code defines as a restaurant. there is, first of all, a restaurant designation, and then the planning code defines a restaurant and a limited use restaurants. there is no difference between a restaurant and a limited use restaurant other than if you are unfortunate enough to be in

a limited use zone for a restaurant, then you are unable to apply for a liquor license type 41 or a full food and liquor type 47. supervisor peskin decided to allow our proposed legislation to allow a one-time fix. if you were a limited use restaurant in the special use district, you would be eligible to convert to a full restaurant, which you were ineligible to do before. he exempted everyone from going through conditional use requirements that was eligible for this. businesses could go directly to a.b.c., apply for a beer and wine license, and start generating more income so they

could stay afloat during the pandemic. community groups also went to do community outreach, letting them know, hey, you're eligible. you should apply. looking at the permit history, and you'll see in respondent's brief, they're not a limited use restaurant. they're actually a specialty grocery store, but they have food that they prepare on-site, and they have special food seating. people go into the grocery store, they buy a little hot plate, sandwich, and they go outside and sit in the shared spaces seating program that they had during the pandemic. going back to 2015, they did apply to become a limited use restaurant, and under the predecessor in ownership, but that required conditional use at the time. they abandoned that because it

made no sense whatsoever to go through the really expensive and burdensome process of going through conditional use just to change to something that is ineligible for beer and wine at the time. they had no way to know six years later, they'd be facing a pandemic, and want to get a limited use permit. they were a limited use restaurant at the time. i know this says that technically, they're not eligible to qualify for this peskin limited use. we think they're a de facto limited use. all they're trying to do is be eligible so they can have a change in planning code and apply for a.b.c. the first thing they'll do is

send a letter to the planning department and say, is this location eligible to host a beer and wine license? we think, given the pandemic, everything that's a small burden for businesses here in town, this would be a real boone for everything in this business, which has been a limited use restaurant, and at this time, we're hopeful that under business and tax section 26-a, you'll say they should be eligible for this and they should at least have the opportunity to go to a.b.c. and apply for a beer and wine license so that their patrons can eat their hot plate or sandwich on their shared spaces

area and have a glass of beer or wine. thank you. >> clerk: okay. thank you. we will know hear from the planning department. >> thank you. scott sanchez, planning department. so the property is located within the north beach commercial district and the north beach limited use district. this has been properly permitted by the department of public health, by the planning department as a specialty grocery with accessory food takeout. this is a distinct land use category under the planning code. it has a separate definition, separate controls from other uses, including the limited restaurant category and the restaurant category. as noted by the appellant, last year, supervisor peskin authored legislation that became ordinance 182-20 that allows limited restaurant conversion in certain circumstances. that is the title of the

ordinance, and it is allowed limited restaurants to convert to restaurants. the planning department, in reviewing this permit, looked at the permitting history, noted that it was never authorized as a limited restaurant use. there was an earlier health permit referral where they did initially indicate that. we responded that with a notice of planning department requirements that that's not the existing use, and if they needed to do that, they need today go through a process, and certainly, you know, when they were doing that. they didn't know what the future -- no one knew what the future would be, but they chose not to go through that process and operated as a specialty grocery with a specialty food takeout. there's nothing in the planning code that would be a de facto limited restaurant. you're either a restaurant, limited restaurant, specialty grocery, specialty grocery with

limited take out. their permit was specialty grocery with limited takeout. the existing legislation is very specific, limited restaurants allowing to convert to restaurant. we appreciate the authority, but section 26-a, the business and tax planning code, the authority that the planning commission exerts on permits, but still, this project must be code compliant. it's clear from the record that it does not comply. i don't know if the appel artery has reached out to the district supervisor who sponsored the legislation to see if they would be amenable to amendments that would apply it to other uses such as specialty groceries, but that legislative path is the appropriate path to pursue in this case.

there was this ordinance kind of acknowledging the times that we're going through, tried to give a little bit of flexibility. perhaps there's room for more flexibility, but we can't rewrite them. we can't determine this to be something that the board thought it isn't. i'm happy to answer any questions. thank you. >> clerk: we have a question from commissioner swig. >> commissioner swig: in effect, this appellant is asking us to drop the line, and we saw an opportunity. >> yes, they're not eligible for this. >> commissioner swig: and then secondly, what you heard me say

a million times, should i be worried or should we be worried if we do what the appellant was saying, we would then open up a pandora's box and then have every other specialty restaurant who feels the same as these guys do, and i'm sympathetic to them. but other specialty restaurants who feel the same as the appellant does, gee, whiz, if you do it for him, you have got to do it for us, and by abusing the protection that the appellant is using would really make our life difficult. >> yeah. i think in their brief, the appellant had argued that this

was maybe invertent error on the supervisor's part in not including specialty groceries, but having known supervisor peskin for sometime, especially on land use matters, i don't know of any inadvertent inadveg that you didn't take, and that would change the meaning of 182-20. >> commissioner swig: yes, thank you. that's all. >> thank you. >> clerk: thank you. we are now moving onto public comment. if there's anyone here for public comment, please raise your hand if you called in. okay. we don't have any public comment, so we'll move onto rebuttal. mr. pela?

>> yeah. this is limited to the north beach specialty district. there's only two other specialty groceries, and i believe they already have limited use included in their authorized use. this isn't going to be supreme court precedent. this is only going to be one place only. when we actually got the permit denied over at building, you know, everyone was very sympathetic and threw their hands up and said there's nothing we can really do here. we had -- we shot ideas back and forth at one another as to how we could try to remedy this situation. i've even had discussions with supervisor peskin's office, and i don't necessarily want to speak on this behalf, but they did voice support for this and say there could potentially be a legislative fix. supervisor peskin did research on this legislation all the way back in april. it didn't get heard until

september, and it didn't get signed until november. how much is it going to go back and get a fix on this? planning and d.b.i. said hey, they have to follow the black letter of the law, and they have to do it. is this jumping the lines? sure, but these are unprecedented times, and this precedent isn't going to be impacting city lines. it's three restaurants in north beach, if any. we're here, asking you to use your discretion to go against the planning code on this one and only occasion, and, you know, you can take into account the effect of the proposed business or the surrounding community. as you can see by the letters of support, we're only talking

about the ability to have a glass of beer or glass of wine outside when you eat a sandwich. and the rest of the neighborhood, all of their establishments are doing this. for what it's worth, this business owner also had to go through all sorts of legislative requests for when his liquor store burned down, 585 columbus. it was a regulatory nightmare to get his location temporarily moved and approved over there. that's all. thank you. >> clerk: okay. thank you. we will now hear from the planning department. >> thank you. scott sanchez, planning department. i think we're sympathetic to the arguments raised by the appellant, however, we do have enforce the laws as written.

this would take place anywhere within the north beach limited use district, which itself has some decent size to it, so i will be concerned still about the potential precedence here, and we see the board of appeals as the supreme court for all planning and land use matters in san francisco, at least the planning matters. thank you. and i'm available for

questions. >> clerk: thank you. i just see that inspector duffy is here. do you want to add anything to this item? i'm sorry i didn't ask before. it appears to be a planning department issue. >> thank you. well, i'm fine. i don't have anything to add. >> clerk: okay. thank you. okay. so commissioners, this matter is submitted. commissioner swig? i'm sorry. just helping you. >> commissioner swig: this is his first time. it's okay. i still can't make out a proper

motion and it's been five years. i do sympathize with the appellant. i do look at it as unprecedented times, but i do look at it as jumping the line. i do look at north beach, even though the appellant's view, it's only one restaurant, but we have a broader view of this board to a larger constituency, which is the city, and if something comes up in our future which has to do with another restaurant in our district, a skilled lawyer is going to say well, on march 10, 2021, you made an exception, and i want the same one.

i would be in a position not to support the appeal, but i will let somebody else talk about it and make a motion. >> clerk: commissioner lazarus? >> commissioner lazarus: so i just wanted to say, the work we do is precedent, and the work we do takes into consideration the planning code. i'm very sympathetic. i understand why this business wants to have access. i believe it's worth it going the legislative route because it's the only one, but it may work out, so i could not support any -- this appeal, and i'm happy to make a motion

unless somebody else -- >> vice president santacana: go ahead. >> commissioner lazarus: i would move to deny the appeal on the basis that the properly denied. is that the -- >> clerk: okay. the denial of the permit -- you would uphold the denial of the permit as you could say the property is a specialty grocery and is not eligible for change of use under planning code section 780.3? >> commissioner lazarus: exactly. >> clerk: okay. i'm prepared in advance for this. >> commissioner lazarus: oh, now we find out you're not winging it? >> clerk: on that motion -- [roll call]

>> commissioner chan: it is with a heavy heart that i must deny this. i agree with commissioner lazarus and commissioner swig that this is a slippery slope, so for that reason, i support the motion. >> clerk: commissioner swig? >> commissioner swig: thank you, commissioner chan. i spoke your comments, but unfortunately, i have to vote aye. >> clerk: okay. that motion carries, 4-0, and that appeal is denied. we are now moving onto item number 8-a. 8-a and b shall be heard together. rehearing request for appeal, number 20-072.

subject property at 524 and 5030 third street. lady benjamin p.d. cannon, appellant, is requesting a rehearing of appeal number 20-072. the determination holder is charles jadallah, property owner, and the determination description is subject lot is improved with a building containing ground floor and basement commercial space and four dwelling units, 5030 third street that fronts on third street, and a detached three-car garage that fronts revere avenue, it also contains a one-story, detached 700 square foot structure, 5024 third street located at its

interior corner. subject property is in violation of the planning code for throne compliance with section 171, including the establishment of an unpermitted internet service exchange within the basement and ground floor of 5030 third street, and section 317 for having an unauthorized dwelling unit within 5024 third street. the appropriate path moving forward would be to grant the rehearing request and subsequently grant the appeal as part of 8-b. the planning department would thereafter issue the correct documentation. the parties agreed to this course of action. the requester indicated that she is not attending the hearing, however, the property owner wants to testify, and we -- so we from the property

owner and then the planning department. >> operator: commissioner swig has a question. >> clerk: yeah? >> commissioner swig: are we also going to hear from somebody as to what happened now that we go through this recommended action? >> clerk: well, i think we should hear -- >> commissioner swig: are we going to hear -- are we to anticipate a conditional use hearing? >> clerk: well, we don't hear permits issued pursuant to conditional use, but basically, the -- the planning department is in the best position to explain what they want to do. >> commissioner swig: okay. so we wouldn't hear -- >> clerk: i think we should hear from them. >> commissioner swig: that's what i'm asking. we will hear what will happen next if we take this step from the planning department. >> clerk: correct. >> commissioner swig: okay. that's fine. >> clerk: so we'll hear from the planning department first. >> thank you.

scott sanchez, planning department. so unfortunately, after the hearing we had previously on the notice of violation, the violation penalty decision that is when the rehearing request was filed. it was brought to my attention that there was a technical oversight in the decision, and through the enforcement process, the parties had been given incorrect information, stating that the internet service exchange, which we've determined to exist on the property cannot be legalized, when in fact there is a path to legal aye due to the conditional use authorization process, which would require owner application and submittal of an application and then a hearing before the planning commission. so we are, with the board's action here, seeking to basically reset the violation on the property. what is changing is we need to

reset the process as to how to give them the proper direction as to legalize. whether we are before the board is entirely up to the parties, and whether there is an application to legalize approved. if the application is denied then we would be back before the board on potentially a notice of violation. there are a lot of ifs, and actions would be need to -- would need to be taken by parties or other parties, but that's where we are. we regret that this was not discovered sooner. it's not fair to any of the parties, the property owner, or the tenant. we should have identified this early on, but we're grateful to at least at this point in the process to catch it and to go through the appropriate process. as stated at the previous hearing, we'll continue to work

with the parties on compliance, and with that, i'm available for questions. >> clerk: okay. commissioner swig? >> commissioner swig: so what you're asking us to do, i'm thinking of the character emily latella on saturday night live, where she's going through a diatribe as we've just gone through a hearing, and gotten all excited about something, and then, what's happening here is you're asking us to take an action which would take an eraser, erase what we did, and say never mind. is that kind of what's going to happen? >> you know, i would characterize it not quite as much never mind because tomorrow and next week, we will be issuing new enforcement notices, so it's more of a groundhog day. we're going back to begin the enforcement process. it's the reset button that we're hitting here.

>> commissioner swig: groundhog day? it sounds like my life. every day is the same day, sitting at home. any way, i'm sorry for the sidebar. thank you very much for your comment. i understand. >> clerk: okay. thank you. we will now hear from the property owner, mr. jadallah. >> yeah, thank you. i do want to point out that the retail space is not part of the lease for this internet service exchange, that the tenant only has the basement, which is a low ceiling basement, and the back storage room, for this internet service. so the retail part, which you mentioned earlier, was part of the application, is not part of the application, and he -- or ben has filed fraudulently without me as the owner. i'm entitled to review any changes to the property.

this is a change of use. it doesn't conform -- or i'm sorry. i really need to see an electrical approval process of the electrical requirements for this data center that's going in there. this is not just a telecom connection to a center, this is racks and racks in a 4500 square foot basement that's going to install this. i need to know what kind of electrical work is done, what kind of construction work is done, and to see exactly what is being done in the basement. he's applied for this permit in the retail space and the basement, but the retail space is not part of the lease, so that is completely separate, and there's a completely separate dispute in the courts on that. i also want to note that the lease expires -- there was a three-year lease, and it expires in may, so there's

literally a couple of months left on this. i just want to reiterate that the retail space is not part of the lease. this should be denied or delayed again until these other items are clarified. per the lease that he has, i have to approve any kind of changes for something like this. now, for telecom stuff, it's understood that they can go ahead and use whoever they want, that they can install whoever they want, even though that comcast is in the building and at&t is already in the building. this is a big data center. it's a big project. there's a lot more here to it than just an approval of an internet service exchange, so i

respectfully request that this be denied or delayed at a minimum. >> clerk: thank you. we will now move onto public comment. is there anyone here to provide public comment, please raise your hand. okay. so i do not see any public comment, so commissioners, this matter's submitted, and just as a reminder, this is a rehearing request. if there's new evidence that would warrant that the hearing be reheard, that's what the parties would like. >> right, so the retail space is not part of the request. >> clerk: yes, thank you. if you would please -- >> vice president santacana: commissioner swig, you have your hand raised. you're on mute. >> commissioner swig: i want to ask mr. sanchez what happens if

they don't follow through with his recommendation? i want to know -- yes, i want to know what happens if we don't follow through with his recommendation? does it become significantly more problematic if we do? is that a more advisable situation for all parties? thirdly, as an option, if we -- if we don't hear this, and we kick the can and move for -- move to hear this item later, let's say in june, does it

become a moot point because the lease is up? where -- you know, what is -- what is the best advice here given the hearing that occurred here and that which was already discussed? >> i think the best advice is the direction we're going tonight, which is granting the rehearing and overturning the n.o.v. so we can reset. i don't know if there's a misunderstanding on the part of the property owner because the appeal tonight does not relate to any permits. there are no permitted to legalize the internet exchange. it's a conditional use or a permit, which is required. none have been filed, and it's not before the board. what's before the board is the notice of violation which we know contains an error because it doesn't legalize the

appropriate path, which is the conditional use authorization. depending on what the board did, it could create real problems because if the board didn't take action on it and continued it, we would have this enforcement process, which is flawed, which has no resolution. everything would hold, and there would be no enforcement. >> commissioner swig: right. so if we take the action, which is to uphold the appeal and rehear this, then basically everything we do in the last hearing goes away, correct, and at that time, you're going to reset everything, and there's the potential we can hear this or not hear this in the future, but one certainty is that there's no permit involved

here. nothing is going to move forward as a result of our action tonight other than the potential for a rehearing. >> this is purely an enforcement, and we have the executive director has crafted this to the board can deal with this all in one night, as i understand it, so you can grant the rehearing, and then subsequently grant the appeal and overturn the n.o.v., which would allow us to reissue, to go through the appropriate process. so you're allowing us -- since we can't rescind it at this point, it's frozen, and if the board takes action, it's unfrozen. technically, you could deny the appeal and just reissue the n.o.v. tomorrow, but that's not what we had discussed with the appellant, and so yeah, i think the thing is what's been discussed with the appellant, which is to grant the rehearing, to grant the appeal, to deny the violation and

penalty decision which will allow us to reset, because we can restart enforcement tomorrow. >> commissioner swig: and if we knowingly don't do what you're suggesting, then we are really upholding [inaudible] and everything like that because we knowingly upheld something that we knew was -- we knowingly uphold something that was disclosed to us as improper? >> i'm not an important, and i don't play one at the board of appeals, so -- >> commissioner swig: can anyone answer that question? >> clerk: commissioner swig, i think we don't want to uphold a decision that we know has an error in it, so the way to correct it would be to grant

the hearing request and grant the appeal. if we did not take action, i think we would need to continue this rehearing request because we told the requesting party that this was the course we were going to take, and he should have an opportunity to be here if that's not what's going to happen. >> commissioner swig: i'm respectfully asking these questions just for the benefit of the property owner, who maybe said a lease is about to occur, no action on the building will take place, which he seems to be concerned with. >> clerk: as scott sanchez said, it would just be resetting the process tomorrow, basically, so -- >> commissioner swig: i would move it forward and as acting

zoning administrator [inaudible]. >> clerk: okay. so do you want to make a motion? >> commissioner swig: will you help me phrase that motion? >> clerk: okay. so you want to grant the request on the basis that the zoning administrator erred because the n.o.v. did not indicate that there's a potential path to legalizing the internet exchange through the natural appeal process? >> commissioner lazarus: may i, don't we just need to say that we're granting the rehearing request on the basis that we have information that may have affected our decision earlier? >> commissioner swig: yeah, that's advisable. >> clerk: yeah, new information that would have exchanged the outcome of the hearing. >> commissioner swig: no, that's good information. thank you, commissioner. >> commissioner lazarus: well, i didn't mean to overrule our

executive director. >> clerk: okay. new information, we can use that for the next -- for 8-b, because we will be hearing the appeal. so we have a motion from commissioner swig on the basis that there's new information that would have changed the outcome of the hearing. on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: so that motion carries, 4-0, so we are now moving onto 8-b, which is the appeal for this case, and i already described, this is lady benjamin cannon versus zoning administrator, 5024 and 5030 third street, appealing the issuance on september 30, 2020, to charles jadallah, of a

notice of violation and penalty decision. i already described it. this is complaint 2018-016696, so we will technically be having an appeal hearing on this. the appellant indicated he would not be attending, so we can hear from the planning department again. mr. sanchez, did you want to add anything? >> scott sanchez, planning department. i'll just refer to my statement on 8-a? >> clerk: mr. jadallah, did you want to testify further? >> like i said, it's just what i said before, but this internet exchange is for the basement, not for the retail space, so it should be denied because there's no room in there for internet services. >> clerk: okay. thank you. is there any public comment on this item? please raise your hand. i don't see any public comment,

and i'm assuming that, mr. sanchez, you do not want to provide any statement for rebuttal? >> no, thank you. >> clerk: and mr. jadallah, you do not want to provide any rebuttal statements? >> no, i'm good. thanks. >> clerk: all right. commissioners, this matter is submitted. >> vice president santacana: anyone have a motion? >> commissioner swig: ann, i like your advice. >> commissioner lazarus: so yeah, i'm confused. we want to grant the appeal. >> clerk: and indicate it's on the basis that the zoning administrator erred because

there's no path to legalization. >> commissioner lazarus: i'm happy to associate myself with that. >> commissioner swig: i'll say i'm happy to support commissioner lazarus and that motion. >> clerk: okay. that language, would you like me to repeat it? okay. so on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: okay. so that motion carries, 4-0, and the appeal is granted, and i do not believe we have any other items. >> commissioner swig: see you in two weeks, correct? >> commissioner lazarus: happy st. patrick's day next wednesday. everybody, don't go wild. >> clerk: vice president santacana, would you like to adjourn the meeting, your presidential duties?

>> vice president santacana: sure. the meeting is adjourned. >> commissioner lazarus: excellent. >> president cohen: okay. good evening, ladies and gentlemen. i want to welcome you back to the regularly scheduled police commission meeting. today is wednesday, march 17th. it is 5:39 and i'd like the meeting to beginment sergeant

young blood, could you please call the roll? >> clerk: yes, ma'am. [roll call] >> clerk: president cohen, you have a quorum. we have the chief of staff sarah hawkins from it the police accountability. >> president cohen: excellent. ladies and gentlemen, would you join me in saying the pledge of allegiance. please put your right hand over your heart. stand up and pledge. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under

god, indivisible with liberty and just for all. thank you very much. before we begin, i just wanted to acknowledge the eight souls that were lost yesterday in atlanta and i just want to publicly affirm that we as members of the police commission stand firmly with all members of the community, but in this particular instance, in this particular evening, we're standing with our community members asian and a.p.i. community members that are feeling victimized and maybe feeling alone. so i just wanted to open up our police commission meeting with those remarks and acknowledgement. is there anyone else that would like to acknowledge? >> commissioner: yeah. i want to thank you for doing that. especially given the riots and attacks on the asian american community.

>> president cohen: thank you. absolutely. i think it's appropriate as we fight for justice for everyone. all right. with that said, let's go ahead. sergeant, please call the first item. >> clerk: line item one. general public comment. the public is now welcome to address the commission regarding items that do not appear on tonight's agenda. and the police commission rules of order neither police nor commissioners are required to respond to questions by the public, but may provide a brief response. comments or opportunities to speak during public comment period are available via phone by calling (41) 565-5001. access code 1870423486. press star 3. e-mail the secretary of the police commission at

sfpd.commission@sfgov.org. at this time, if you would like to make public comment, please press star 3. president cohen, we have a number of callers. >> president cohen: thank you. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hello. my name is david aaronson. i'm a resident of district 1. i'm also with the team of wealth and disparity in the black community led by felicia jones. last week on violence in san francisco which disproportionately affects black citizens. i quote, sf has already achieved significant reductions in violence. we will seek to understand why

and continue to make progress. yet the systemic issues and gentrification around the black san franciscan community contradict this claim. a whopping 54% of the homicide victims since 2017 have been black. on a per capita basis, racial and this is based on the sfpd's own data. also heavily focused on gang related violence. sfpd and sf officials criminalizing people based on where they live. cpsc also characterizes on gang affiliation. the neglect san francisco community has had to endure and the basic lack of quality of life for services. sfpd recently district 10 service gaps include a lack of

educational advancement, lack of training and employment abilities, lack in housing. these gaps and services are contributing factors to the violence experienced by d10 residents. as felicia jones says black san franciscans have been studied for 55 years. the cpsc report seems to be another report merely studying the black community. especially when the sfpd is under the racial reform. >> clerk: thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hello, my name is kit hodge and i also volunteer at fe licia jones black disparity

service. several areas are in need of reform including a lack of community policing. say sfpd does not conduct community policing. for example, the sfpd recently [inaudible] as if sfpd occupied the community. this approach is [inaudible] of the community in the police approach. we thank those of you who came to our event last friday in the bayview. even in the terms of the very definition that sfpd seems to be having a community policing versus what the community itself is community policing is and should be. the high level sfpd officers at the event stated strongly that community policing was a state of mind achievable by any officer. community members on the other hand were adamant that the community policing must be

structural. good vibes are not enough. community members want officers to know and understand the people they're serving and that level of understanding can only come from living side by side with people. anti-violence training is simply not enough. so what is the sfpd doing for this definition of community policing and make community policing come true in these neighborhoods. thank you. >> thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hello, my name is susan buffman and i live in district 5 and i am also with the corps team of wealth and disparity in the black community led by

felicia jones consistent hooe since two thousand eighteen, black residents are over six times more likely to be stopped than white residents. since 2016, black residents have arranged between sixteen and 12 times more likely to have force used upon them by police. black residents were ten times more likely to be arrested than white residents. in two thousand twenty, that has increased to twelve times more likely. between 2016 and 2020, black residents have averaged around eleven times more likely to be searched than white residents. these are appalling statistics on sfpd's ongoing racial disparity in policing. a recent national news story using mappingpolice.org data calls out san francisco as the

third worst u.s. cities for anti-blackness and arrests. at the same time, the real needs of the community are not being met including real community policing. workforce development and investment in black businesses. black san franciscans experience dot rates of unemployment. there are also unmet needs around mental health, education and homelessness. black san franciscans are underserved and overpoliced. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> good evening police commissioners. i'm deputy public defender brian cox. as you may recall in 2016, a federal judge determined that sfpd officer in a federal gun case was entirely contradicted by surveillance video. the judge stated that the worst thing is the conviction of an

innocent person based on testimony. the charges were dismissed based on the fourth amendment violation result. despite this dismissal and the settlement the victim paid, sfpd has no records of this sustained finding against officer buckly. that's based on a recent response to our 1422 request. that's more honesty claim than sworn testimony contradicted by video evidence. the public has known about buckly as well. buckly is back on sfpatrol. seeing this play out as it happens with little transparency or apparent accountability further erodes the public's confidence to hold off who's accountable. if there's a gap in the system, we need to fix it. the policies created will fix it. and the public's fear as much as possible in closed session

and otherwise. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is paul. i'm a district 10 resident and i'm calling today to ask my commissioners to please allow music in my city. i'm frustrated by the reality that we dispatch armed militarized thugs to disburse the communities of color and the communities that aren't efficiently well off as to be able to bribe the local commissioners to be able to get permits to exist. and in so doing, we've exterminated and eliminated the culture for all but the most wealthy to be honest and to me, that's on the police as they've continued to disburse and abuse

these communities. and so i'm calling for a change in that and i'm calling for a reduction in the response that our police do today. we should defund the police and fund other services in our city that are relevant especially in this time where we're seeing covid and there's so little budget to be spent. that's what i have to say. >> clerk: thank you, caller. good evening, ms. brown. you have two minutes. >> yes. hi, good evening. i'm calling concerning my son who was murdered august 14th, 2006. to this day, his case is still a cold case and the people that murdered my son are alleged murdered my son, six of them. thomas hannibal, paris moppet, jason thomas, anthony hunter and marcus carter.

these are names down at homicide in the folder of the perpetrators that were going to shoot someone else and shot my son. and, i'm also calling because they're alleging after ten years my son has been gone for 15 years going on now or maybe more that they recently found out allegedly he was a gang member. how would you do that when he was murdered? there was none of that. so i was wondering, why is this going on? what can we do about this historical bias and stereotyping of african american men and young people of color? what do we do about that? i need them to recant what they said about my child because it isn't true and they're saying the police said it but i'm talking to the police and they all say he wasn't. so who's fighting against each other the feds and the police? it's not fair to me as a

mother. i'm still suffering from my son being murdered shot 30 times and i'm still suffering and mothers like myself are suffering. we talk about gun violence. we talk about gang violence. because my son lived in a good neighborhood, a pretty good neighborhood. they want to accuse my son of being a gang member. how is that? my son went to school st. dominic's. he had a mother and father. two parents. how is that. i'm a no nonsense mom and i didn't allow my son to stand on the corner. >> clerk: thank you, ms. brown. memberses of the public that have information regarding the murder, you can call the anonymous tip line. you have two minutes. >> yes. this is yolanda williams,

president of the offices for justice. i am a native san franciscan. a resident of d10 for over 60 years. i'm speaking from a level of cultural competency. i've been a police officer for over thirty years and i was one of the first officers trained in community policing. what d10 needs right now is what d10 has at that time. we need to have [inaudible] working on the 3rd street corridor monday through friday and, of course, on the weekends. and, i think if we do that and get to know the young people and other people who are out in the area, we can make the change. i don't think that defunding the police is going to be the answer and the end-all. what we need to do is start trying to work hand-in-hand together and stop placing blame on one another. if we work together, we can be

successful. thank you. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> good evening. [inaudible] >> clerk: caller, are you there? >> yes. good evening. my name is cheryl barton and i'm a community member of san francisco and what i would like to say is i want to echo what captain williams said about community policing and that she was one of the first officers. i think after the dissent decree they hired officers in san francisco from the community such as captain williams, such as melvin thornton who worked in the community. and, the community actually can wekt with these officers.

the officers that are serving today in district 10 are not connected to our community and they don't [inaudible] like our community and they don't even have our experienced institutional racism, systemic racism, trauma. i agree, we need officers that are from these communities like jimmy lewis, melvin thornton, yolanda williams. these are the people we need working in district 10. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. and, president cohen, that is the end of public comment. >> president cohen: thank you, very much. i appreciate that. thank you to the members of the public that called in and that are actively participating in this public discussion. sergeant youngblood, could you please call item two. >> clerk: line item two, consent calendar. receive and file action.

sfpd/dpa protocol report. sfpd monthly sb1421 report. dpa monthly sb1421 report. and cri monthly update. if any commissioners would like to discuss any of the items under the consent calendar, please advise president cohen that you would like to place the item on a future agenda. tonight, there will be no discussion or presentation on these items. >> president cohen: thank you. colleagues, i think this is pretty clear and self-explanatory. if i can have a motion for the item. excuse me. i'm sorry. sergeant youngblood, i believe we need to take public comment on the calendar. >> clerk: yes, ma'am. >> president cohen: all right. we'll take public comment and if there are members, i think commissioner elias has

something to say, we'll circle back. >> clerk: members of the public that would like to make a comment, please press star 3 now to comment on item 3. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hi, yes. i called earlier. [inaudible] i'm looking at this and surprised to see that the d.o.j. monthly report is on the consent calendar. it's not the final month of the effort should we understand [inaudible] all 72 items, recommendations in the report. that's all i have to say. thank you. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> good evening, again. commissioners, chief scott, and director henderson. this is brian cox from the public defender's office.

sb1421 became law 896 days ago. we weren't anywhere near full compliance. 10% to 15% by last estimates. as the public waits for years in the last decades, knew more about the officers who policed them. it's also fair to wonder if the current pace can keep up with the pace in which new records are created. so we're not working to the presentation tonight, which is fine and sort of separately an issue, but looking at the presentation and what they have to say, i'd like to ask the commission if it believes the pace of records production is acceptable? if it's not, then the commission to mandate compliance this year. this is year it's been in effect. we can't wait 10 years and whether this is a priority for dpa or sfpd. and the public defender's office has made its voice heard on this office again and again.

i'm asking you to put a plan in place to comply with the law by the end of the year. i asked the commission to acquire the authority and the sfpd to follow the law. thank you. >> clerk: and, president cohen, that is the end of public comment. >> president cohen: all right. thank you, very much. commissioner elias, was there something that you wanted to comment on the consent agenda? >> i wanted to make the motion, but i also wanted to thank the officers for justice for sending us a mask. i think it's beautiful and i really appreciate it. so thank you. >> president cohen: so, commissioner elias has made a motion to accept the consent calendar. do i have a second? was that you commissioner lee? >> oh, no. that was d.j..

>> president cohen: got it. sorry d.j. >> all right. that seconded was made by commissioner brookter. i think we need to no major

injuries and that was just the force and that was really the highlight of the that particular protest. as far as strategies, i would go back to the bayview.

the strategies we have been discussing are ongoing in the bayview and one of them was mentioned with one of the callers. it is a strategy that we have employed. so we do have foot beat patrols on 3rd street between mckinnen and oakvale. on 3rd street between mckinnen and revere. those will be in place until further notice. those officers are posted on those corridors and they are there until relieved by the event commander. so they are in place. we have found that to be at this point a successful strategy. at least we believe it's successful. those officers are given specific instructions to engage with the community. this is not about enforcement, this is about community engagement and letting the

community know that we're out there, willing to work with them. at the same time, we do have a job. when people do shoot to investigate and hold them to account and that is happening as well. i mentioned in terms of the robberies, the strategies are increased in those corridors. we also have increased our visibility in china town and some of our areas of town where we have i.a.a.p.i. populations as we have seen with news across the country with these horrific crimes that have happened to our a.a.p.i. community and thank you president cohen for the opening gesture to the a.a.p.i. community and we'll do everything we can to prevent these crimes from it happening to them. and, the last thing i'll report, we have conducted with that our community walks and our community liaison officers,

we conduct walks in the bayview and ingleside. there were about 50 to 60 people that participated. we handed out informational pamphlets, crime prevention information as well as stressing the importance to report crimes if they do occur. it's really important that the public reports them when they do occur. thank you, commissioner yeah for participating in that. several commissioners voiced that they wanted to get out with me and our officers. so we are in the process of scheduling those walks with you, president cohen, as well as commissioner hamasaki and others. as of today 442 officers responded to the survey. out of those 442 officers, 336

have received their first vaccine and most of the others who have not received a vaccine reported that they do plan to be vaccinated. we asked if anybody was having issues whether they signed up and couldn't get the vaccination. out of those surveys, there were 23 that said they had issues, the reasons were not out of the 400 individuals who responded to that particular question, 377 reported that they had no issues and were able to get signed up. so that concludes my report for this week and thank you. >> president cohen: thank you, very much. if i can just say a couple comments. i really want to thank you for hearing my concerns about the bayview strategy. i think we've been consistently talking about this strategy for almost four weeks straight now.

we had a phenomenal rally last week. thank you to felicia jones and the wealth of organizing. specifically, i wanted to call out acknowledging your detailing where the foot beats are in the bayview. that actually means a lot to me. i made some notes. so when people ask me, where are they? i can respond. >> thank you. >> president cohen: yes. anything else for the chief? none. we can continue with the presentations. or with the reports. go ahead, stacy. >> clerk: continuing with line item 3. dpa director's report. d.p.a.'s report will be limited to a brief description of d.p.a. activities and announcements. determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for a future commission meeting.

january 2021. >> i'm unmuted. okay. thank you. good evening thank you all. i'm going to run through our statistics. we are at 165 cases that had been opened so far this year and that's compared to 181 that had been opened at the same time last year. we've closed 145 this time last year we closed 254. in terms of cases pending, we're at about the same number where we have 334 cases that are open and pending. this time last year, we were at 389. some of the differences that you're seeing in these numbers in terms of cases closed and pending are the volume from last year of cases that are being closed out now. it's 334 cases remaining. so far, this year, we sustained 12 cases. this time last year we sustained 11.

and cases whose investigations have gone beyond the 9-month mark, there were 37 last year. this year there's 29. this is just an indicator of cases that have taken longer than nine months to close . we have not had any of the cases lose or miss their deadlines for a 33.04 compliance. i will continue to watch those numbers. of those 37 cases, 19 of those cases are cold meaning they have criminal or civil charges that are ongoing related to those cases. so far this year, we've mediated nine cases. the volume of the cases we have pending with the commission itself is thirteen, and there are currently 33 cases that are pending with the chief. our complaints, the monthly

statistic report is already in the reports that we've just acknowledged as well as the 1421 records. those are all on the consent calendar. in terms of outreach over the past week, again, as a reminder, all of these events can be found on the community calendar and on the website. on march 10th, our outreach team finished our design and worked with the know your rights trifold youth yellow card and that's a card we've been working on for awhile to develop and familiarize campaigns. the cards will now be available for youth online with availability to print after the know your rights presentations and workshops that we do and that's in a lot of the school districts here in the city. on march 11th, we participated, d.p.a. participated in the megablack overall presentation.

that was actually also with police commissioner brookter. on march 15th, the d.p.a. hosted a access panel. to increase the language access of services and the panelists were different leaders providing services to bay area community members specifically immigrant community agencies and immigrant communities. language line director sal shulman was there as well as director adrian pawn. the other activity that we participated in was the wealth and disparities community meeting and representative from d.p.a. was there and felicia

jones was also there and several commissioners were there again. thank you for joining us and inviting us president malia. >> president cohen: and vice president cindy elias. i invite one of the senior investigators to end the police commission every single week in case callers call in with specific needs that need to be addressed on this evening. if people don't feel comfortable either reaching out to the website or contacting our office directly at 24 hours phone conversation. 415271-7711. there was a number of things coming on the rest of the calendar including our report from local progress and there are two cases i believe that

are on the closed sessions calendar as well this evening as well. but i will be available for all of that moving forward as well. that concludes my presentation. >> president cohen: thank you for that presentation. i believe commissioner elias has something for you, a question, is that right. >> vice president elias: thank you, president cohen. director henderson and i want to make sure i got it right, the know your rights, you said card that you had or the flyer, that's the juvenile one that sam or marion had worked on. >> that's exactly it. we're trying to repackage it and present it so that more people can use it for readily and easily and one of the suggestions that we came up with in working with the youth commission was to provide folks instead of having the foldover

binder, a smaller card that they can put in their pocket or in a purse or something like that. it was a good idea. they wanted it to be yellow. we did it as collaboratively as we could. that is just now finished and so now along with the presentations that we regularly make into the community, people can go online and just download it, cut it out themselves and carry it in addition to making the regular packets available. so we didn't replace it, we just expanded it. >> vice president elias: great. can you also provide a copy to the commission office so we can provide it on our correspondence as well? >> absolutely. i want to make sure it's available on our website as well. i will do both. >> vice president elias: great. thank you. >> president cohen: commissioner brookter? >> commissioner brookter: yes. thank you president cohen. and i really wanted to thank paul and his office for

ensuring we get the stats. in the past we get them on the day of the meetings. thank you for that and i really want to thank paul, the commission staff. i think sergeant renolds. sergeant youngblood. sergeant killshaw. just the amount of communication and the e-mails that we receive whether it be the documents or the e-mails coming to us in person and ensuring that we get this documentation so we're prepared. i definitely want to make sure that never gets lost because these folks are corresponding with us on a daily basis and i just want to say thank you to folks for that. >> commissioner: thank you. >> president cohen: i just want to acknowledge something that the chief said in his report. pardon me, paul, for just a second, that, chief, one of the things that's always been important to me was the vaccination rates for your officers. and it looks like it's about

75% of the officer that is responded to the survey have had their first dose. so that is wonderful and promising and my comments to you, director henderson, good job untackling those cases. fantastic work. your numbers look good. i know it's not easy, but kudos to your entire team for stepping up and in quite honestly what has been a difficult year. you guys have done an excellent job. >> thank you. it really is my staff. we have similar challenges as every other department with the pandemic. my staff has really buckled down to try and make sure they stay on top of their numbers especially knowing that every week i have to report when the numbers start drifting towards large numbers for cases that haven't been completed and investigations because behind those investigations are real people making real complaints and need to be addressed. so it really is my staff.

but they are working very hard and diligently. >> president cohen: well, please send my compliments to your staff. with that said, is there anything else that the commission can do to help you? access to information in a more timely fashion? i understand sometimes there may be some obstruction and let me know if there's something you need us to take care of or bolster in your behalf. >> yeah. there's always little things that need to be tweaked. i'm trying to institutionalize solutions so we can just fix it rather than create it i mean, turn it into a problem. i raise those issues as they come up. i'll take you up on that invitation and make fuller or broader invitations about what those are so we can solve it

more collaboratively. >> president cohen: of course. let's keep moving on the agenda. sergeant youngblood, could you call the next item. >> clerk: yes, ma'am. >> president cohen: thank you. >> clerk: continuing on with line item three. reports to the commission. commission reports. xhis igs reports will be limited to a brief description of activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining if it will lead to any future meeting. commissioner announcements and scheduling of items identified for a consideration of a future commission meetings. action. >> president cohen: let's see, i would like to acknowledge commissioner elias at this time. >> vice president elias: thank you, president cohen. my issues are request to

agendize items. i've asked in the past and i was hoping, chief, to get an e.t.a. on when that is. i think that there's so many times that myself and i believe other commissioners and we see it on the callers that call in regarding their understanding of how the discipline process works with internal affairs and d.p.a. and the conversations that occur between the chief and director henderson when cases are filed or charges are brought. so i was hoping that we could in addition to having the i.a. presentation before the commission also have d.p.a. present as well with respect to the process that happens when d.p.a. files charges with the commission or what type of conversations or communications are happening between him and the chief.

i'm sorry. chief, go ahead. >> i was going to -- april 7th is the i.a. presentation. i think it's already scheduled for the april 7th agenda. >> vice president elias: okay. great. i'm hopeful that director henderson, you can also provide information to the public, a brief synopsis of how charges come about. there is a conversation or meeting that happens between you and the chief to see whether or not the department would like to join in on these charges or disagrees or what exactly happened. i think the public really needs to know the process and there's a lot of misinformation out there. so i think if we can dedicate april 7th to understanding and really having a very clear presentation of how the discipline process works because i've even had questions from officers on how it works.

you know, i think we all could benefit from that. >> i'd be happy to. and, a lot of that stuff is what we talked about with the data sharing was the d.p.a. focus in terms of how the efficiencies internalize about how we share our information about developing information from the public and translating that into open investigations and sharing information for the police department. so this presentation is super timely and will shine a light on the entirety of the process on how the information is shared back and forth between the agencies and what's still left for us to focus on in terms of data sharing. >> vice president elias: exactly. and it also coincides with the fact we just passed the discipline matrix. >> exactly. right. >> vice president elias: and, i also wanted to apologize that i wasn't able to attend friday's wealth and disparities event. i saw and heard amazing things.

i really wish i could have been there, but congratulations on the event and the turn-out and the messaging that came from it. >> president cohen: i couldn't agree more with you. i want to recognize commissioner hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: thank you, president cohen. i just wanted to follow up on president cohen's opening remarks and thank her for a strong statement of support for the asian american community and also from the department and the chief i saw some comments during the week. i think this has been, you know, especially the last 24 hours have been really, you know, hopefully a wake-up call about the level of bias and hatred that's directed towards

asian americans in this country. you know, i think that was probably one of the reasons i moved here was to get away from that and, you know, when we're seeing it's kind of spread throughout the country and the increasing violence involved, you know, i think it calls out for all of us to be involved and speak out and i'm grateful for all of the leaders that have done so in the city and the department and the commission. and, i do know and also to commissioner yeah for being upfront and present with the community, but i do think that to some degree that we can, i know we received an e-mail at the commission this last week from an asian american community member asking us to be more visible on these issues. so i would like to find a way for us to do that. i'm going to coordinate with

commissioner yeah and president cohen about the best ways and the department about the best ways to do that. you know, i think a lot of people are feeling very vulnerable right now. so anything that we can do to help, we should. >> president cohen: absolutely. commissioner yee. >> commissioner yee: thank you madam president. i want to thank you for inviting me to friday's event. the wealth and disparity event in the bayview. it's like welcome back home. i started my first, you know, my career there in the bayview area and it felt like home. great crowd, great people. hope to see more of that and also thank the team for and the staff for sending me the invite

to i guess on the zoom call for the station. i was able to join ingleside, captain, i think nelson on there. so, going forward tomorrow, we're having a little public safety meeting in chinatown. we're having commander fong and also sf safe [inaudible] and also the new captain julian ing. so, at that time, i'd just like to say to the commissioner john hamasaki or whoever wants to join. we're going to be talking about the new strategies and sharing with the community leaders, i

guess, public strategies that won't be coming out of the police department. so i just want to share that and let you know it's 11:00 a.m. at the chinese company. so we're looking forward to working with everybody in the police department and, you know, just let me know ahead of time because we're in covid-19, it's limited. send me a text. i'll send you my phone number. you can call me if you wish to do so. thank you, madam president. >> president cohen: great. thank you for that announcement. 11:00 a.m. in chinatown. do you have the physical address? >> commissioner yee: the address is 843 stockton street. so, you know, it's going to be hearing what people feel and then just hear the heart beat of what they're saying.

there's probably other strategies that i probably in the future will be working with the chief and everybody else. we can make it safe for everybody and i believe in the next few months as that american relief plan comes about, help is on the way for all of us. so i'm looking forward to that. >> president cohen: good. thank you. that's good stuff. i appreciate hearing that. pretty robust report back from commissioners. i myself have just had a series of meetings. i too attended the rally, had an opportunity to speak. want to note that mayor breed was present as well as supervisors safai, melgar, a whole host of community members. a small nonprofit workers.

also, all present to denounce crime and i am proud that we came together and rallied. i am hopeful that wealth and disparities and the folks that organized last week's event will be able to rally and provide support and alliship for the asian american community in san francisco that is suffering. one thing that is very clear is that we all suffer under white ishpemingist rule and that we should be working collectively to denounce hatred, crime, violence, particularly the violence that we are seeing now. i just wanted the record to reflect that as of this year, there's been 3,800 crimes against asian americans this year alone. and as we begin to wrap up women's history month, i want

to call out the intersectionality of the asian women specifically being targeted. we've just got to be better, folks. as far as i'm concerned any violence against any woman should not be tolerated and i'm just here to publicly denounce the hate. period. the hate within i guess the anti-asian hate we're seeing. the hate in the lgbtq community. the african american community. this really needs to serve as a wake-up call and that we are all vulnerable if we do not stand united together. with that, i'll close out my comments and, sergeant youngblood, could you please call the next item. >> clerk: yes, ma'am. at this time, the public is allowed to make public comment. if you would like to make public comment please press

star 3 now. and, president cohen, it does not appear we have any public comment. >> president cohen: that's a surprise. no problem. let's continue moving forward. what's the next item. >> clerk: line item four. presentation of the department of police accountability local progress reform transform results and civilian oversight updates. discussion. >> sorry. i was muted. >> sergeant youngblood, will you be pulling up the presentation? >> clerk: yes. >> clerk: sorry.

that is not the right one. >> great. thank you. good evening president cohen, vice president elias, chief scott, members of the public. tonight's presentation is an overview of local progress and an update on what steps other jurisdictions are taking to strengthen civilian oversight systems. next slide, please. a quick overview, the local project is a center. the mission of progress is to learn from experiences, share policy ideas and model legislation. local progress evaluated twelve jurisdictions based on a set of policy criteria developed in their reform/transform tool

kit. local progress evaluated jurisdictions based on how successfully the authorizing legislation and other written policies governing the oversight review boards to fill these criteria. local progress evaluation began in august 2018 and results were released in december 2019. d.p.a. was not aware of the involvement but assessed in 2020. to ensure that d.p.a. was identifying and adopting best practices as part of our continuous improvement efforts. local progress vaulted san francisco and found that san francisco was one of two jurisdictions that were on track to a strong, independent, oversight policy. the study found one area, transparency where improvement was needed. there were two areas funding and community connection where local progress found there was significant room for improvement. tonight's presentation will

focus on transparency and funding and what dpa is doing to address the findings. the community connection criteria asserts commission membership and will not be part of the next presentation. next slide, please. so this slide provides an overview of areas where local progress found that san francisco is on track to a strong policy. to be placed in this category, a jurisdiction must conduct investigations independently of the police department, have independent disciplinary authority, offer public access and allows individuals to file complaints through a variety of methods and multiple languages during nonbusiness hours and have investigations police policies and practices and issue or recommend policy changes. next slide, please. so in the context of this evaluation, transparency speaks to how san francisco reports to the public. local progress base their evaluation on three sub questions which are listed above.

the evaluation noted that san francisco charter requires that d.p.a. publish public reports but note that the charter does not require the d.p.a. include demographics in these reports. we evaluated our practice against the local progress criteria. and makes weekly presentations on investigative activities and department operations at police commission meetings. d.p.a. does note that our public reporting during the assessment period complainant outcomes were included starting in the 2018 annual report and the demographic was included in the annual reports starting in 2019. next slide, please. the transform reform tool kit recognizes that sufficient resources are needed to be able to complete timely investigations of complainant allegations. the benchmarks for specific oversight funding, staffing, and investigative timeline.

being cognizant of the city's budget d.p.a. will provide this for future budget discussions. regarding the investigation closure time lines, the investigation of complaints to the police department within nine months of receipt by d.p.a.. d.p.a. recognizes that long closure times believe that their issues have not been taken seriously. to keep the public comprised, director henderson in his 270 days of the weekly update as well as the causes for these complaints aging greater than 9 months. i met with log progress in october 2020 to review the evaluation results and see if they can incorporate d.p.a. into this operation.

with that, i will hand the presentation over to paul who will update you on oversight changes occurring on some other jurisdictions. next slide, please. >> is this me? >> if you want. >> yeah. okay. so here is some of the stuff just to follow up on some of the things that have been happening since then. these are some of the legislation that had been patting. some of the things that we do at d.p.a. is try and watch and monitor to see what's happening in other jurisdictions especially as it relates to civilian oversight. and so as glorious as it was and reaffirming as it was to have this recognition from an independent agency recognizing us at a high level of transparency for the work that d.p.a. does, obviously, there's still more work to do and we also want to make sure that

d.p.a. doesn't fall behind any of the advances that are being made in other counties and states for folks concerned about civilian oversight as well. what i wanted to present here was some of the things that we saw in the last legislative -- in the last election cycle where jurisdictions have put civilian oversight on their ballot and some of what those initiatives are so that we know what's going on. so here we have just across the bay in oakland where they have staffing that was increased. in portland, they have advances related to funding where they've tied their civilian oversight to represent 5% of what the police budget is. and investigation power, they've had expansion. in california, sonoma. it's all listed here. i won't read from the chart because you see it in front of

you. but these have added subpoena power to their investigations and specifically in oakland, they have finally opened up direct access to internal affairs -- eternal affairs files to make sure that investigations are concurrent and timely as well as independent without having the lag from having top request delay or not have access to information for investigations related to internal affairs. so the other thing that i think is a big deal and certainly i've edited just to pull out the low hanging fruit of things that are big events the access to independent legal council which is now going to take place in oakland and san diego and in philadelphia. i will point out that much of the leadership taking place in oakland that we're seeing is coming from john aldon who was

with d.p.a. for many years and is now at the forefront of many of these progressive decisions and solutions that are expanding civilian oversight. so i just wanted folks to have that and to remind everyone in case people missed some of the slides that it will be posted on the d.p.a. website as well as well as the commissions website in terms of the documents that have already been presented in preparation for tonight's meeting. so this is just a big deal for d.p.a. and we're actually because of we've been working so hard to make sure we do as much as this transparency work as possible, it's reaffirming to see that independent agencies are recognizing the work that we're doing and certainly there's more work to be done, but it's affirming to know that an independent agency has recognized that d.p.a. is

at the top of their evaluation for their transparency work and the things that we do in terms of civilian oversight and police accountability. so, thank you, very much. i really appreciate the hard work that went into this from our audit team and i appreciate everyone's attention and paying attention to this. i also didn't put in here that miami as well. i don't see it on the list, but i know that miami has independent legal counsel as well. and so these are all ideas and seeds and inspiration for us all to continue doing the work that we do and i believe this is an opportunity for the community groups that support this work as well as our local leaders to be inspired by other work that can be done to supplement and expand the work that's being done at d.p.a.. so thank you all so much for your time and attention and both steve and myself are happy

to answer any questions that any of you may have. >> president cohen: thank you very much and bravo to the audit team for bringing this to us . you guys have come a long way in a short period of time. i'm very pleased that the audit demonstrates that overall that we're making significant progress towards reform and sometimes it seems slow and what's most important is that it is deliberate and that is exactly the sense that i'm getting as a result of this audit. i do want to highlight i have a concern in two areas of the audit. funding. right. and, community connections. now, the audit found that there was significant room for improvement in this area and we understand that the funding for

the department of police accountability is determined on an annual basis and the level of funding is not provided. so director henderson, i am hopeful that as you go through these budgeting discussions that you take this audit and bring it to the members of the board of supervisors and you bring it to your budget department representatives and you start just having these really serious conversations that you make the case to increase the budget. and, we understand -- you know, i just want to say given that we understand that funding of department of police accountability is coming from the general fund, understanding that we are in the midst of a pandemic. i understand that part. i also would like to drill down on one of the audit conclusions. it's found on slide 2 that it

highlights that there is significant need for improvement in the area of community connection and i think in your presentation you mentioned that that's more in the area for the police department if i heard that correctly. >> it's not the police department. it's the commission, the police commission itself. so in the civilian agent -- civilian oversight agencies, it's their considered best practices that that agency play a role in who sits on the police commission, what we call a police commission. since that is the role of both the board of supervisors in san francisco and for the mayor's office in san francisco, that's one of their -- that's what their -- that's their criticism. i believe they made that process because they wanted there to be an informed body that makes those nominations and approvals for sitting on

the police commission. but that's what they were referencing. >> president cohen: okay. with that said, just i want to remind the commission that last week we received presentations regarding how increasing community outreach can be a major factor in reducing violence and building trust between officers and residents. and, for me, that kind of shifts the narrative. we are always hearing connections on the police side. foot patrol is that we're always here. and we heard the chief and now it looks like it's almost an intro specktive meaning that we have a mission to build that community trust and community outreach is a vital tool for any agency such as d.p.a. such

as the police commission such as the police department to help foster confidence from community members. confidence in knowing that their voices have been heard in particular. and in this case with d.p.a., their voice has been heard when they wish to file a complaint and i certainly believe that building trust could be one of the positive by-products of community policing. and that's critical. i want to make sure that d.p.a. is not -- i'm not suggesting that there is a perception but i want to ensure that that never happens. i think you guys are hands-on and on the ground and present. so, with that in mind, i'd like to continue to explore the audit meaning that more community connection is needed and i want to see if the chief

has anything that he'd like to weigh in on this part of the discussion? if not, chief, no pressure. but if you have some thoughts, i would like to hear them. >>. >> president cohen: >> president cohen, before the chief speaks, it was inferred. part of the transparency analysis included the review and i think part of why we were selected was because of the deeper dive and the more complete dive that the agency now plays in terms of officer involved shootings. that's typically at the forefront of the analysis in these things and so what was referenced was the post charter amendment was the period that they reviewed and the reason that i bring that up is because before the charter amendment that you directly play a role in d.p.a. only reviewed 25% of

officer-involved shootings and 25% independent review is not transparency. so since the amendment that you had worked on is involved in 100% of the officer-involved shootings. i think those numbers are really important and critical in terms of reviewing or evaluating civilian oversight agency and because you played a direct role in it, i didn't want it lost in the slides that were being presented. that it's almost full circle to have you back at the table in recognition of the work from the seeds that you planted years ago both when you made the charter amendment and when i came to the agency. so that was part of what the review was and i just wanted to acknowledge that and to thank you for that and then to proceed. >> president cohen: all right. let me take a stab at a few more questions. did the analysis that you're presenting focus on just d.p.a.

capabilities or the department of police accountability and the commission? >> steve, you can take that one. >> yeah. both. >> president cohen: okay. thank you. so, in other words, it did drill down and begin to examine the components, different components, the parts of the system? >> yeah. the primary basis for the analysis was the language in the charter regarding civilian oversight in san francisco to the extent it is applied to the police commission and in that community connection piece. i would say the rest of the evaluation focused on the department of police accountability. >> president cohen: all right. so based on the analysis, how do we get better? how do we better our best? i mean, you know. i just want to make sure i'm clear on it. transparency seems like -- you know, it seems like d.p.a. meets the local progress

standards so i'm wondering why -- >> it does. i think that's a big deal and i think the fact that we're meeting it because so often times in a lot of these meetings, we focus how we can do better and we can. but we also have to recognize in some areas we are doing a good job. and in terms of civilian oversight agencies that are providing transparency, to have this recognition that that evaluation is for at the very top for d.p.a. is a big deal, but to answer your question that i think you're asking is what are the next steps and specifically, how can we do better? the recommendations from this report were in those two areas. were increasing the community involvement in the ways that we talked about and i believe that that was just a misunderstanding of how we do the community involvement regarding that police commission reflecting the community and in the funding

issues in terms of their recommendation in terms about what funding they believe is necessary for civilian oversight agency to be the most effective and certainly, we will take your comments into consideration and they are part of the ongoing conversations that we are already having with the budget office, the budget team, and the board of supervisors. i will point out that i think that i think are the long standing commitments that we have with 1421 and the evolving commitments related to 1421 that are somewhat independent but also related to defining transparency. >> president cohen: towards the end of your presentation, you mentioned that miami, i think it was miami, you said they had their own independent legal counsel. do you have a suggestion or a strategy or a suggested pathway

to move forward to have access to independent legal counsel? >> it's funny you should mention that. the national organization of civilian oversight does. civilian oversight agencies have independent counsel siding a conflict an inherent conflict of interest with local supervision or input and it's similar to the input the bar association has taken. in similar presentations and i know presentations we have scheduled for the future as well. i think it's interesting now in watching the legislative evolution in oversight and see the number of jurisdictions that are following that recommendation in particular as they evolve their civilian oversight agencies especially as it's starting to happen right across the bay here in oakland because it just happened and so that's the direction that they are taking

their civilian oversight agency as well. >> president cohen: i know. i kind of feel like john aldon is stealing some of our ideas and implementing them over in oakland. john aldon, we see what you're doing. >> we don't want to get too far behind. and, again, a lot of these suggestions for us and some of the bigger problems that we've all dealt with in the past like access to information on the computers, these are things that are charter amendments, but some of them can be local amendments as well. so there are opportunities not just for d.p.a., not just for the police commission, but for the board of supervisors, the mayor's office and the governor's office to lean into some of this work to create efficiency for us to continue growing and doing a better job on behalf of the community we're trying to serve. >> president cohen: all right. i don't want to dominate the conversation anymore. but i'm going to see if there's anyone in the chat.

let's see. is that you, commissioner hamasaki? i think you're next. >> commissioner hamasaki: yeah. thank you, president cohen, for leading that off. you touched into some of the areas that i found were interesting. you know, at the outset i think that it raises -- and i didn't realize that was directed at the commission regarding our community role and i think that's something that, you know, we can always do better on. what i would suggest and like to see is if the commission office could maintain a calendar and coordinate with d.p.a. if there's community events or opportunities where we might have the chance to attend and actually get out and meet the community, i think that would be great. i know a lot of us like to, you

know, when we have the time and now that it looks like things are getting better with covid and, you know, some of us are vaccinated, it seems like it's a time where we can actually begin to do that beyond zoom which i think we all know has its limitations. so we can really coordinate that better, like the invitation from commissioner yeah tonight, i think we want to all try to make those appearances whenever possible. the other question i have and that was just a follow-up on president cohen's last point was so right now, d.p.a. is -- has the same basic access of shared legal counsel with the police department. and, to me, that strikes me as

an inherent conflict because you are a civilian complaint agency and so you represent or mediate or prosecute against the department. it would seem, you know, just from a basic law school 101 conflict perspective that having the same legal advice as the person you're prosecuting is a clear conflict.

i've seen legislation from the national organization addressing this issue. it is all related. >> will this be a legislation by the board of supervisors and who would be the independent council? where would that -- how does that come into play? >> by both. i think it is different, every jurisdiction does it how they do it depending on the charter

limitations of the individual agency and or in addition to state restrictions about what that looks like. every city manages and handles it differently. san francisco would have to look at and evaluate its own specific pathway and i think there's folks who have identified this as an issue that have been volunteering and trying to work on it on their own independently of the commission, independently of dpa identifying this is a problem that needs to be solved and not reflective of best practices and those models and their suggestions are a good starting point to evaluate so you don't have to reinvent the wheel and that's before you even start looking at what other cities have done. they have done a deep dive in evaluations based on other concerns that they've had and not in small part, part of the evaluation from the civil tracks from ongoing lawsuits related to

civil rights violations and so that has been a lot of the motivation about the conversation. >> so who becomes the independent council then? >> i think someone -- the short answer is i'm not sure. the longer answer is -- the longer -- i don't have anyone to identify a name. i think the bigger issue is if the city attorney is not the counsel for either the police commission or dpa or just one of the two agencies, then who it is, i don't know. i'm not sure how it works. i would imagine another agency that does -- maybe even the ag's office. i'm just making it up. don't quote me on that.

>> since i came on the commission, i have heard and i know it has been raised by previous commissions and commission presidents and so we've been talking about it for three years. it would be great to see something change on this. >> i would imagine the question might have been answered in some of the memos but i don't recall right now or have the suggestion. >> please keep us updated from your end. i think it's an important issue. >> absolutely and we'll be able to watch it closely as oakland evolves -- they have to follow the steps now. >> oakland beating us, not a good look for us. thank you. >> i just received information that i believe other cities in california get to pick from a list that are approved from agencies that are from law firms

approved to represent city agencies. i don't know if that's the answer but it's an answer. >> the answers will come to us. >> president cohen: if only the money would come to us the way the answers come. sounds like we'll have to circle back to explore it. i don't want anybody getting nervous. commissioner elias you're next. >> vice president elias: so this presentation, i apologize, i think i misunderstood it. this is recognition of how your agency compared to other agencies throughout the country when it comes to independent oversight, is that -- >> that is correct.

>> vice president elias: and is there a full report aside from the slides that perhaps we could look at? i think it's important to see how we compare against the other -- how many other cities were there? >> 12. >> vice president elias: to see how we compare. i assume we're at the top of the list. >> yes. >> vice president elias: and it would be interesting to see if other cities are also having issues that we have as well and -- >> that's exactly why we closed with the leap other cities are making in terms of what they are that meet or exceed some of the oversight for police accountability measures we have in san francisco. that's why i ended with that to see what the other cities were doing. >> vice president elias: the other thing i was looking at in your presentation, something about subpoena powers that

enable unfetterred access. i assume you have subpoena powers or administrate powers to obtain information that you need. is that -- true or not true. >> it is correct but they're not direct. many agencies didn't have that. it's a big deal for a lot of the other agencies and part of why i included some of the aspects to show san francisco all of our audiences what some of the tools we have that other agencies are catching up with that they did not have. >> vice president elias: when you use your powers, is it through the agency or city attorney? >> we have to go through an outside agency to exercise the powers and authorities. >> vice president elias: that seems a little cumbersome. >> i don't disagree, but that doesn't mean that we don't have it. but it's one of the areas where

we could make an improvement or change if it was more direct and we had less hoops to jump through. >> vice president elias: i think it would be beneficial to eliminate the barriers and hoops you have to jump through in order to utilize this tool. >> vice president elias: you mentioned something about files and maybe you can supplement my

understanding, the reason your agency would need access to the files would be to comply with the discipline matrix which talks about factors in aggravation and mitigation that we as a disciplinary body have to make determinations on discipline. why is it important for your agency to have access to this information? >> like you said, that is not a small reason having access to understand issues and aggravation or mitigation. it absolutely affects our deadlines as well. part of my calling out every

week on the deadlines is a flag for everyone to know down to the specific numbers how many cases where i have investigations that are going beyond nine months and even though i haven't missed any of my deadlines, part of the challenges related to delays are having to go through the hoops that we were referencing back and forth for me to make a request to whomever and wait for them to get back to us, if they do, about information we're requesting from internal affairs. the fact that other agencies have unfetterred and direct access to that information is an efficiency that san francisco should have as well. that is why it's on the list in terms of solutions i think we should have. the first step will be broader data sharing but the next step and best practices is to have unfetterred and direct access. absolutely. >> vice president elias: what are things that may be helpful

director henderson and maybe you could tell us at the next meeting, perhaps you could delineate which ones are being held up because of the lack of information that you're not receiving or maybe give more analysis or reasons or details as to why there are 37 cases that you have that are at the nine month. i know that -- >> i can do that but it might be an off line conversation, but just so you know, those cases are enumerated by case with a summary of exactly that every week. even though behind the scenes with the specific cases and the case numbers, i'm meeting and talking to those investigators and having them summarize what the problem is now. a lot of times, if some of the stuff you are referencing but sometimes it is information that needs to be obtained because

they're juvenile records or records from an outside agency that is taking longer or witnesses have been unavailable or on vacation for periods of time. there's any number of reasons and i'm happy to go over them with you as well. it would be difficult to make a public presentation about them. >> vice president elias: i'm just saying when you present the 37 it would be helpful to say out of the 37, commission, 10 are being held up because we don't have records from sfpd, 10 are held up because of witness availability or what have you. >> and the only reason i don't do that now is that sometimes those reasons are so -- it doesn't bear mentioning the person is on vacation or has been moved from the police department and we haven't figured out who the person is now assigned that is supposed to get us the information and going

back and forth causing the delay. there's a lot of stuff that is like that. but, again, to your first point, if we had direct access to records, it would solve a lot of these problems, even though they are understandable delays, they add a block to the efficiency and timeliness but it also raises the issue of having access that is an ongoing problem. having access to internal affairs records is also part of the problem that has a role to play in our agency or dpa being more efficient. >> vice president elias: and mou presented a few weeks ago, is that something that can be -- i thought it was included but if it isn't, can it be so we can get rid of some of the hurdles and barricades. >> probably. i think some of it is access.

people move around so frequently, that is always a big deal. who is it being sent to this week. who is responsible for it now. how did it change? every time something comes up, are they aware there's outstanding requests being made and if not, how do we reengage. it is a big ship to turn. but i think those conversations are taking place now, and literally every week it becomes more efficient. so, you know, if we really want to address it and make it be most complete and follow the best practices, these are some of the conversations that we're having right now about the efficiencies are the biggest and broadest solutions that would make the biggest change, access to files and body worn cameras, those are three of the top things that influence the majority of the delays that go on in our investigations.

>> vice president elias: and then chief i wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to president cohen's invitation to speak and also too, chief, i'm hoping i can get your assurances that you or the staff will have conversations with dpa so we can do away with any barriers in the exchange of information so both agencies can become efficient and a well-oiled machine. >> thank you commissioner. you do have my assurances on that and those conversations as director henderson said is happening and gets better as he described by the week. my comment on that, i think one of the reasons for that is the structure director henderson has put in place with dpa and it

speaks to the founding issues. this work is expensive and often times when particularly budgets get tight, we tend to start throwing things overboard. i would say this, i can say during my time here, the structure in place now has really contributed to forward progress at quicker pace than it ever has in my time here. i would just say, by way of support, dpa's effectiveness impacts the legitimacy of policing in the city and the more effective they are, i think people are seeing policing. and so my hats off to director henderson and his team. that structure has led to the executive level at each of the departments to working together more efficiently and i know funding was one of the issues

weren't probably where they need to be in terms of the funding and i think some of that speaks to dpa's ability to keep in place a structure they have created and really support that and help nurture that. >> vice president elias: i also think it is going to be helpful to have consistency when it comes to discipline. i think by having the exchange of information between you and dpa really does provide that level of consistency that i think is needed. and also, the whole point of the matrix was to get officers information as to what to expect if these kind of violations occur. i think it also benefits the officer by providing consistency amongst both agencies. i'm very happy to hear that and again, director henderson, congratulations to you and your

team. >> thank you so much. >> president cohen: i'm going to keep the conversation moving forward. director henderson, thank you for your presentation. sergeant youngblood? >> clerk: yes, ma'am. members of the public who would like to make public comment regarding line item 4, please press star 3 now. i see no public comment. >> president cohen: please call the next item.

>> clerk: line item 5, intervention and resource program. meet and confer draft approved january 6th, 2021. discussion and possible action. >> reviewed and approve this meet and confer, unless there's discussion, i would make a motion to approve it now. >> president cohen: motion made by commissioner hamasaki is there a second? >> second. >> president cohen: okay, i have to get used to your voice. second motion made by commissioner yee. and we'll take a roll call vote on that. sorry, do we need public comment? >> clerk: yes, ma'am. for members of the public who

would like to make public comment for the general order 11-11 press star 3 now. >> president cohen: let's do a roll call vote. >> clerk: (roll call) you have six yes's. >> president cohen: motion

passes. next item, please. >> clerk: line item 6, public comment related to closed session including item 7, whether to hold item 8 in closed session. for members of the public who would like to make public comment online item 6, press star 3. looks like we have one public comment. you have two minutes. >> i'm paying careful attention to the remarks made after each item. public comment is -- i have noticed in the past that after somebody makes a public comment,

people make remarks. and we can make remarks, too. but we have to maintain some decency. not all the issues that you all discuss are important to us. it doesn't take a lot of back and forth detailed questioning off line. the argument of two minutes or three minutes to speak, you all should limit your comments to maybe a minute. you all make it boring in the middle of this pandemic. so, often times i'm just listening to you all and i'm monitoring you all.

you all make these meetings boring. thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you caller. president cohen, that's the end of public comment. >> president cohen: thank you. let's keep moving forward. next item? >> clerk: line item 7, vote on whether to hold item 8 in closed section, 67.10 action. >> so moved. >> president cohen: second? >> commissioner brookter, he's always our second. >> i have to unmute myself. >> president cohen: okay. motion made by hamasaki and seconded by brookter. roll call vote?

>> clerk: (roll call). you have six yes's. >> president cohen: we're going to go into closed session at this time. thank you very much. stacy youngblood, are we dismissing any commissioners? >> clerk: we're in closed . >> president cohen: sergeant youngblood, could you call the next item. i think it's item eight. >> clerk: yam. we have -- i'm sorry. line item nine open session. vote to disclose whether any