this item is for discussion and action. >> commissioners is there any discussion? can i hear a motion to approve the draft minutes please? [ roll call. >> any discussion or changes from the other commissioners? >> discussion for the approval of minutes back up on the screen. press * 3 to be added to the queue you will have three minutes to make your comment on the item. we'll take another brief pause.

>> bees public comments are closed. >> we have to vote. >> all right. >> all right then. let's come back to the roll call vote please. >> president stevenson. >> aye. >> vice president ahn. [ roll call ] >> our next item is item 4.

>> i will put the instructions back up on the screen. i have just mutt the instructions up on the screen. press * 3 in order to be added to the queue you will have three minutes to make your comment. we don't see currently any callers in the queue, but we'll take another moment for anyone to comment on general comments. i'm seeing no-callers in the

queue. >> all right thanks katy next item please. >> all right. moving onto item 5, presentation of the commission on the environmental service award and this item is for discussion. >> all right. commissioner take it away. >> thank you very much. i'm delighted to present our environmental service award who recently left san francisco city attorney's office after serving as the department's counsel for four years. countless legal questions, document reviews and guidance in all of her help contributed to meaningful environmental and community impact. she was instrumental in helping toxics, plastics and litter reduction ordinances. she also worked with us on the antibiotic use in food animals

ordinance, and flame retardant chemicals in furniture and products ordinance. her expertise and dedication to helping us through numerous process questions and projects allowed us to ensure that we were following the proper protocols and doing our due diligence. i'm pleased to congratulate her for tackling key environmental issues and presenting her with this award and on behalf of all of us i wish you great success and lots of fun in washington, d.c. would you like to say a few words? >> i would love to thank you commissioner wald. when we finally get to the hard copy you will be able to see the

california plot and know what you have left behind. you have left behind not only the beauty of california, but the loving admiration of colleagues i was thinking when we worked together and working with unhappy stakeholders an how you helped us navigate to find good solutions to challenging problems in the service of environment. you with your grace and intellectual brilliance and your ability to listen and your forth

rightness in delivering information that maybe we didn't want to hear, but it's you know, the reality of what the law will allow us to do, is is a phenomenal skill set. i'm not at all surprised that the biden administration snagged you. know what a difference you have made and how much we're pleased that if we can't have you at least the biden administration gets you because you're request going to make a difference wherever you go. thanks commissioner wald. >> thank you director raphael. now i would like to invite john the deputy city attorney to say a few words. >> thank you i have worked with

her for four years and had the pleasure of being her immediate supervisor for the last year in the office. i have been working with her issues related to the environment, but also i want to note she has done an extraordinary amount of other work for the city while serving as your general counsel. defending, health warnings, and handling litigation involving the reform of the cash bail systems.

she's brilliant. she's thoughtful she really was complicated issues and thoroughly get to the bottom of them and that's especially useful for a commission and department like yours which has a lot of really complex legal issues in question. she's always professional and just nice and, everyone loves working with her for all of those reasons. her departure is your loss, my personal loss and the city's loss, but i really think that.

>> thank you so much for this recognition and even more for your kind words. today i'm taking aback and a little bit speechless. and i want to take this opportunity to really express my gratitude. this could not have been a more inspiring environment to work in to work with the department was such an honor. the work that the entire department and commission was always pursuing was for the betterment of our city and it just felt great to come into city hall and get to be a small part of that and to be a partner in all of the solutions that you have been driving your creativity, your rigger and the joy and zeal with which you all approach the work which is a true uphit battle. was just immensely inspiring the

pleasure was mine and i'm the one that should be saying thankful. i his words were so kind and so unexpected i really appreciate it. to work in our office was the highest honor. this has given in he great nostalgia and i wish i could be back there with you in person and i hope that everyone will be back in city hall in person soon. really thank you and i will take away all of the great lessons i have learned from all of you i think of them everyday and they continue to drive me in the work i do now. i very much appreciate it. >> thank you for those words. everyone can see why you're such a pleasure to work with.

back to you. >> good lick we all wish you the best and we miss you terribly. commissioners would anyone else like to say any words before we open up to public comment? commissioner ahn? >> i would like to say this is easily the moment where we go down and take our photo with you, but obviously we can't do that now, but please come back to city hall and we'd love to just have you experience the department once again as well. once actually when we're moved into our new offices as well, but appreciate all the work you have done for us so thank you. >> i very much intend to visit so thank you for that. >> is there any public comment on this item?

i do see we have some callers in the queue. just a reminder to hit star 3 to be added to the queue. one second while i put on my timer. >> i'm going to go ahead and unmute our first caller. now.

hi it's lowell from the public department. the comment i want to make is a thank you and quick story. i just want to thank you for assisting the department and the energy team. quick story is that back in 2019, we were awarded with a grant, but of course like it was only 30 days. so i was stressing i thought i was going to get fired for sure, but i contacted you and your unstoppable professionalism was clearly evident. you brought the calvary you helped us get into contract in no time. and you saved me from being fired so, i really enjoy working with you and every time we chat uhcvn5■i6w)ù k learned something new from you and it's been a honor working with you and on behalf of everyone on the energy team we thank you and wish you

the best. thanks. >> all right thank you for your comment. okay i see that we have another caller i'm going to unmute our next caller now. >> hi this is jen. i'm happy and sad so excited for you, but so sad for us. you have been an amazing partner to our department and specifically to my team. when you first started working with us we had recently passed requirement for manufacturers to take back.

you were right there you hit the ground running as we were in the middle of all of that. meanwhile we also had just gun drafting a new ordinance the use of flame retardant chemicals and furniture and juvenile products you helped us work with stakeholders and i think with both of those situations, you were both considering how we protect the city. i appreciate you finding that balance and helping us strike that balance. you also helped us draft past our requirements for our series to record on antibiotic use in food animals. i would say this is probably the most challenging of all of the ordinances and again, you were right there with us helping us understand what we can do and

what we couldn't do at the city. so i just want to thank you for being right there with us trying to strike that balance, but also helping us be leaders. with out us i know our leaders wouldn't have benefited as they have been. thank you. >> katy are there any other callers in the queue? >> i'm sorry i was on mute. [laughter] >> go ahead and make your public comment. >> yes. hi. it's great to see you. i want to say that i really had the honor and pleasure and benefit of having worked with you since 2017. as i count it we worked on six

different ordinances and i think five of them you were crafts language and one of them you were helping respond to legal challenges, but i think it wasn't really legal challenge legal questions and we got a great result. this was span from expanding our ban on polystyrene foam to reducing single use or non-reusable foodware there were a couple ordinances on that that you worked on to precheck out bags, to our separation ordinance and to our cnd ordinance that we have on the agenda today. i so appreciate your willingness and ability to dive into the details and just you're such a sharp mind and helping us figure out all of those nuances and being so diligent and it just was such a pleasure to work with you and helping make these ordinances as strong as effective as they could be.

and you're certainly really skilled and patient and i say that we it's really our loss and we miss you. and you know, but it's clearly i know the biden administration is going to benefit and the country will benefit and i'm just really excited for you. i only knew recently where you ended up. so that's just really exciting and i look forward to hearing the impact that you make. i wish you best of luck and thanks so much. >> thanks for your comment. seeing no additional callers in the queue. >> can i just say something? >> go for it. >> maybe i should ask if i can talk. i just want to respond to the kind comments. it's so wonderful to hear from you and to remember the really great work that we did together. lowell you taught me so much and

pretty much everything about programs and jen it was such a pleasure to work with you on all of that legislation and also ask you for hiking recommendations pretty much anything to do outdoors you're my go to resource. and jack i really enjoyed working with you on implementing all of those programs really tough initiatives, but it's problems to solve and it could not have been a more fun thing to come to work and do everyday. so i missed working with all of you very much and so appreciate your kind words and you taking the time to come and share them is really, just just such a joy and just i can't say thank you enough to all of you and the commission. >> i wish you the best and we're so glad you can join us tonight. >> all right katy let's move to the next item please. >> all right our next item is item 6 presentation on brightline defense air quality

monitoring program. daniela cortes, brightline defense, haley o'brien, and the community youth center youth leaders and this is up for discussion. >> commissioner ahn go for it. >> even before starting the presentation maybe it's good to tell a little story to get our minds wrapped around the environmental justice implications of this program. and august 2020, i was doing a lot of the surveying for sliding the air quality sensors myself and just going really walking along the street and trying to find good light poles to place these smaller sensors on. a stranger came up to me and used antiasian slur and also tried to slap me in the moment. so taken aback i wasn't quite

sure how to grapple with it, but there wasn't a lot of time to reflect on it unfortunately because just two weeks later, the fires started and that's where the program coordinator for brightline daniela cortes and i continued to then quickly fight these sensors in order to make even the data available for the communities we were reporting to serve. so as frustrated now a days as i am, you know currently with the news of course we've seen about antiasian violence occurring from coast to coast, i'm heartened by this program. particularly by the participation of our community partners, the cyc youth leaders that you will hear from today as well as the attendant leader reggie who is here as well. daniela cortes, the brightline program coordinator will of course introduce each community stakeholder and really try to uplift their voices and ultimately despite the stress that i have been over the last

year in trying to get this program up and running it's been really an honor to work alongside all of the folks who are involved in this program and maybe i will just pause for a moment too and also recognize my fellow colleague commissioner sarah ching ting wan who is also very heavily involved in this program too. >> can we move onto the next presentation? katy do you have it to pull? >> thank you katy. good evening commissioners i'm daniela the program coordinator for brightline. i will be copresenting today on this budget. and also our stanford partners who have been helping us with our data analysis.

really happy to be here to share with we have done in the last year. just quickly, i want to mention how air quality is currently monitored and why we begin budgets in the first place. this shows you the reference stations in currently # 50. 250.in san francisco there is oy one. you can imagine there are significant blind spots and that's where we saw the need and why we started this project in the first place. we installed low centers in local san francisco neighborhoods that are uniquely burdened by air pollution. and it's data that these monitors just don't catch. so that is what we hope to do. that is what we hope to serve and educate our communities with. next slide please.

i mentioned before, we have reggie reed here and our community youth center youth leaders who are high school youth who have also been helping us throughout the whole year with a sensor network design with community outreach and surveying. and then in addition to the community partners we have our technical partner clarity and we also began a partnership with stanford last year in the fall and that has continued into this year as well. next slide please. so yeah this project began january of 2020 before all of our lives changed in march. we started meeting with our community partners. we took this great picture.

we have representatives from the air district, cyc, these were really the preliminary discussions as to how we were going to conduct our community outreach. where we were going to place our sensors and this all got pushed back because of the pandemic. so we actually weren't able to start installations until august very much in response to the wildfires as eddie mentioned. but in october we were able to finalize and this is one of the last sensors that we did at the cyc main office alongside commissioner wan. next slide please. so a quick overview of the program. the planning meetings took up the bulk of the year. last year we spoke with leaders, a variety of community members, stakeholders, altogether inside in input up to how we were going

to design this network and where we should place our sensors and we moved into phase 2 once we were able to cite all of our sensors. initially we were going to do 15 sensors, but because of increased community awareness and need, we are now up to 19 sensors as of today. we are now currently in phase 3 which is our data analysis where we are just analyzing and collecting all of the data from those 19 sensors. next slide please. so this is the actual device. this is a clarity sensor. it is powered by this solar panel which is the black slide you see there. it also has a cellular antenna that's how it translates into a open map made publicly available. they are very much weather resistant. very low maintenance and we chose clarity as our partner because they are very technically proficient. they are deployed all over the

country. all over the world really. so yeah. that's why we chose them and they have been a truly great partner in this project as well. next slide please. so the environmental policies katy next slide please sorry. as we are in the intersection of public health, environmental justice and environmental education we have very specific air quality issues that we wanted to identify and monitor through our sensor network. so it's very much congestion proximity to highways, diesel emergency generators, construction impacts and of course major air pollution events which in california usually translates into fire smoke. so that is what we had in mind when we put the network up. that is what we hoped our sensors will catch, but of course, there's a lot of factors that impact the air quality and the air quality issues.

but that is what we're monitoring. next slide please. and through it all why we're here ultimately we hope this project will help shape environment policy, help education the communities that we are serving and ultimately just improve our air and our cities. so whether that's through clean infrastructure or green energy, green buses there's a lot of factors that go into it. there's a lot of ideas, but ultimately that's what we hope to shape. next slide please. so the community in the process i mentioned that there was a lot of community outreach that went into our phase one. and given that this is an 8617 program the boundary of the network were is the by the consideration of sb35

disadvantage communities and low income communities. so you can see on the map it's mostly that horizontal striped area. translated that map into the map you see on the right just to make the intersection the roads and the local landmarks a little bit clearer because ultimately we put this map on our surveys ant the community members, the stakeholders will just mark up the map and let us know whatintersections they thought e should be monitoring and that's what we used to set up the network design. with that i'm going to pass it off to reggie reed so is he can talk a little more about the survey and his experience. katy he might be an attendee if you could make him a panelist please. >> okay give me one second. >> yeah thank you.

>> so while katy is doing that most of the community outreach that reggie did was in its tender loin and selma areas. and we also have our yc youth leaders that did a lot of surveying in chinatown and different san francisco neighborhoods so reggie will be sharing his experience in the tenderloin and selma neighborhood. >> okay reggie are you there? >> yes can you hear me? >> yes you're very quiet. but we can hear you. hello? >> you're a little quiet. can you hear me now? >> we can still a little quiet

if you can turn up the volume now? [ inaudible ] >> is that better? >> a little bit. let me daniela did you get the phone number? oh, wait we could just give you the phone number now to call in and just do it over the phone would that work? (415)655-0001. and then there's an access code. are you ready for the access code? >> yes. >> access code is (187)492-0475.

>> if you have it open on another device just make sure to -- >> all right. go ahead.

>> i'm going to go ahead and get started. hello. >> all right reggie go ahead. >> go ahead. >> okay well, first of all, before i get started i would like to honor, you forgiving me the opportunity to represent. i also would like to take this effort to shout out to kelly for all of the work she does in the office to help us get our jobs done. i also would like to give a shoutout to my partner jason who i worked with while we were doing our surveys and brightline work together. he's not able to be here today, but i like to take a second to shout out to jason. the first thing i learned is how

many people have breathing problems. a lot of times you're not aware of that because nobody pays attention. you realize that's like five people that i missed that have copd. then i go out next week and run into another ten people that have copd. then it is like let me dig a little deeper and find out about this copd and so many breathing problems. it is a reduced air flow that makes it hard to breathe in the lung. one in 17 american adults have copd. i also found out that 15.5 million are diagnosed with copd, but millions more may have it. so what does this have to do with brightline and air quality? if you have a breathing problem it's very important that you have quality air. that's a given. i also found out that we need to give more attention to people

that have these breathing problems like asthma and copd. they really need quality air. it was really bad when we first started doing our brightline because we were having those wildfires? i was surprised how many people once they found out what we were doing they stopped and they were waiting in line so they could come and tell us about some of their experiences and air quality. one of the things i found out is a lot of people that have breathing problems i think they are contributing to the breathing problems is our environment. meaning the forest fires, cars, construction works. even cigarette smoke.

a lot of the people that i talked to i asked them about the air filter and normally when you're in the tenderloin, people want something free. you start talking to it. a lot of people when you tell them and they see you're generally concerned about their opinions on the air quality and their lung problems, a lot of them they really are concerned and interested in having air filter and things like that available to them. they were wondering if we could help them get an air filter. in fact i think i mentioned that

at one of the meetings we should somehow supply these people with some sort of air filter and their units especially people that stay in these older units where they don't have a lot of ventilation and i think that's something that we should really look into supplying these people with air filter. thank you for your time. >> thank you so much reggie. next slide please katy. and for anyone not knowing it's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 75% believe that air quality has negatively impacted their health. whether that's through copd, asthma there is a lot of factors, but there is consensus that air quality is not great. and it has a huge impact. next slide please. >> so i just want to pass it off

to our yc youth leaders who will also be sharing their work on the brightline program. >> hello everyone. can you hear me well? all right. okay. so, let me introduce myself first. i'm ken. it stands for community youth center youth leaders. today each of us will be taking parts of the presentation and briefly what is our role in the community and what do we exactly do? first of all, let me introduce the nine of us. first we have hellen. team from george washington high school, and we have blanka and me from [indiscernible].

mission high and sfi. marshall, michelle from burton and edwin. next slide. so what does yc do? first we do outreach for the community and our major targeted group is seniors since we are bilingual or multibilingual. we have informations about disaster preparedness and teach first aid and cpr with multiple languages. we also participate in health fairs and festivals. bottom right you can see there's a photo of everyone in the program during the autumn festival of chinatown. to keep us connected, we also conduct school fairs like officer meetings and president meetings every month. next slide.

so we're here to work on outreach through people in the community and so more people will beware of how important air quality is. and how does it affect our daily life. for example, we have spread information on this project to other community programs about informations of what that air quality can do to people. and then a goal of crc and brightline is to graduate annual cohort of youth leaders with an increased community engagement, air quality data and environmental leadership. next please. >> we would participate in collecting data from surveys and discuss the solutions to what is effecting the air. our goal is to reach at least 500 households throughout the

youth leadership program. next. why is air quality important? air quality education can prevent respiratory illnesses for example like allergies and asthma. we can let people know what is wrong with the air pollution and what we can do to improve our air quality. next. we're trying to reach out to the audience by using images on media. so for example, we would post flyers so people can take a survey and learn what we're doing. we are also hosting workshops to talk about air quality and distribute flyers around the neighborhood and our community to educate people.

>> and over the past few months we have successfully outreached to over 550 residents in san francisco through senior buildings, neighborhood festivals and youth programs in our community. with he promoted air quality education and how it affects our environment and health. we also talked about listening to this issue and we have collected data. next please. our team have created two flyers with both chinese and english version to promote this project and encourage our community members to fill out the survey. the link will be sent or posted shortly. we also like to collect your opinion if you can help. next please.

so what data that we're hoping to collect from the survey. first of all we would like to know what is your opinion of the air pollution in your area. secondly the type of reaction due to the air quality people might have. and last, but not least, we'll also like to know what do you think of the reason might be of increasing air quality in your area? we highly recommend you filling out the survey because your voice values a lot to us. >> next please. [indiscernible] >> we were able to get 360 response. [indiscernible] next please.

>> i'm going to talk about a report summary from the report responder that people say last year the air quality. the air quality of tenderloin and selma neighborhoods are severer than other neighborhoods in san francisco. people agree that san francisco air pollution was affected their health condition. the main impacts are wheezing, coughing and dry throat. over 60% believe that [indiscernible] is one of the main resources that contributes to the air pollution. and emissions and wildfires. next please. >> [indiscernible] next slide

please. thank you so much leaders. so just a quick recap of how we got into our phase 2 and our sensor installation. next slide please katy. i did previously mention it was very much in response to the lightning storm that set off a series of wildfires on august 19th governor newsom declared we were in a state of emergency. so next slide please katy. we started going out and deployed the first seven sensors across tenderloin, selma and richmond district. we were asked to add another sensor as the control sensor in richmond. so we started getting a lot of

community interest. and basically how we present our data is through the air quality index so just it's a pretty simple color code. green is healthy moderate not so great and if any of you are familiar with this during the wildfire season we were getting up to the orange, red, sometimes purple category. next slide please. so as of today, we have deployed 19 sensors across five different neighborhoods. chinatown, selma, tenderloin, richmond. and then this is just a quick link so this is the open map. this is where our center data is compiled it is publicly available and updated hourly. and this specific screen shot was during the wildfires. almost all of the sensors were red. next slide please.

they are in soma and the tenderloin and fall into the area of pm25 levels and it's

usually ex aspirated during of cease on the we can go to the next slide. this is how bad the air was during the peek of wild fire season but higher aqi levels in a neighborhood such as soma is cause for concern because of factors that may cause the residents to dis purport atly feel air qualityfor article 38 n francisco health code and soma was identified as one of the five most health vulnerable neighborhoods in the city, based on criteria including increased risks of for tal tee and morbidity such as asthma known to be worsened by poor air quality and it was a neighborhood with one of the fie lowest average median household income in the city. likely decreasing many residents' adaptive ability to reduce environmental stressors like poor air quality because of the lack of financial resources

high-quality masks and things like that. these are just some other important factors to consider alongside with the aqi data, when allocating resource and creating air quality-specific policies for the city and jocelyn is now going to speak to the air quality in normal air times. thank you. >> hi, i'm jocelyn i'm a data annalist and engineer. we have about seven months of data for many of the senors in the network and we've gotten access to a couple other -- some other sensors from places in the

rest of the bay area. so we have access to data from a couple sensors in downtown redwood city and berkeley so we can do comparisons both between neighborhoods and san francisco and also neighborhoods in san francisco with neighborhoods elsewhere in the bay area. so, one pattern is when air quality is bad, it tends to be similarly bad across the bay area. not identical but the bad days are more less than everywhere. we have seen differences is in the baseline behavior of air quality. these graphs are looking at pm-10 data and what we found is that you know, the redwood city and berkeley sensors are these blue and green lines towards the

bottom of the graph. this is the medium air quality. air quality is better outside of san francisco on a average day. you can see that this bottom graph represents the good days. so the 10%, those kind of best 10% of days and you can see air quality tends to be better outside of san francisco and those days. well. this is less traffic and less activity due to covid right now. even with that, san francisco neighborhoods have a higher baseline for air quality than other places in the bay area. so without meaningful policy changes, we'll really risking the reassumption, of pre covid levels of activities adding additional air pollution on to neighborhoods that are already experiencing higher base lines. so, helping transition to clean energy and cleaner forms of transportation, will be

important for both a sustainable recovery and air quality in san francisco and these neighborhoods in particular. >> thank you so much haley and jocelyn. next slide, please, katie. so just to wrap-up this up, i wanted to leave everyone with the thought that air quality matters a lot. not only for a specific health disparities, health impacts, but because we all deserve clean air and san francisco will be better for it. we couldn't do this without our community partners and the community members that have taken the time to share their own experiences with air pollution, with health impacts and of course, our stand ford partners who came on board at the beginning of the year as a volunteer, for her data knowledge and analysis.

so this is a big project. it's bigger than us and bigger than bright line but we hope that a lot of good comes out of it. stay informed. monitor your air. you can use brightline's link. we have 19 sensors up in different san francisco neighborhoods to make sure that as represented, as possible. and if you are interested in following us along in our project and our air quality journey you can find us in a variety of social media platforms. thank you so much. >> thank you, that was excellent. that was fantastic. thank you all for coming and for hanging in so long to get to have your turn in the presentation.

>> what's the next phase? >> we'll be in phase 3 and making sure that throughout the whole time that we are collecting data, and analyzing the data we gather community input, continue doing our surveying and publishing those results that the community is aware. i think of big part of phase 3, apart from the data analysis is continuing our environmental education efforts. basically, as we collected data, we'll publish quarterly policy reports, which is where haley and jocelyn and a bunch of other volunteers come into make sure, as we continue to gather this data, we're making cohesive summaries on better accessibility to a variety of stakeholders and accessible to our community so people understand what we're seeing with the data and that they can make actionable change based on that. >> great. thank you.

commissioners, any questions or comments? >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> i just wanted to take this opportunity to thank -- let me take off my commissioner hat and put on my director hat. i want to thank the collaborative for this wonderful opportunity to come work together. our young people have a great, meaningful experience, not only learning and knowledge and practicing for their presentations and thinking about how to raise awareness about this important issues. last year, it just happened because of the wildfires, everybody jumped on this topic and everybody asked for workshops and i hope that people will continue rather than when something happens. again, this has been a great opportunity and i personally learned a lot. even though i have this presentation twice already, i have new things to learn. i have my open map on my phone everyday i can check on the map what is the quality you are asking and i can't, i will never forget how i see commissioner

climb up to the sensor and climb to (inaudible) together. it's been a great collaboration. thank you. and i can't say that enough. i always am really proud of the young people. >> any other questions or comments? director rafael. >> thank you. that was an amazing presentation. i first just have to react to how well corigraphed it was. one question sue mentioned at the beginning that the state has one sensor in san francisco and now we have 19. i'm just curious how different or similar is that one sensor -- i don't know where the sensor is in san francisco. is it underestimating what your

data is finding? how are you informing the state with our 19 sensors? >> thank you for that question. the one reference is from the air district and our own 19 sensors, one of the 19 is co-located with that air district monitoring station to ensure the data that the other sensors is collecting is accurate and reliable and that co-location happened in january of this year so it's a little bit behind the other sensors that we put up between august and october so far what we're seeing is that, it is very much, it's similar but there are definitely local neighborhoods trends that the -- in for taro potrerohills. we did not co locate until january of this year and we'll

have another year of data with that sensor co located now with the air district so hopefully, in a year, i can better answer that question as to how we've seen the differences. >> well, look, yes, so you answered two ways my question could be interpreted and i get how you answered it which is good and scientific one how, if they're in the same place how accurate are our sensors. i was just wondering, those charts the folks from stanford were showing comparing us to other cities were dramatic. san francisco, which is famous for its wind and therefore concept of good air quality, clearly, isn't in the neighborhoods and i'm just curious, how chinatown and south of market looks compared to potrero hills where that state-sensor is located. because that state sensor could be really drastically under

reporting what kind of air quality our communities are feeling. and if that's the case -- >> ok, jocelyn, do you want to take the first part of the question? >> sure. so, i think you know, similar to answering this we really only have a couple months of data from pro trer owe sensor so we have not done a retrospective looking at the sensor and comparing it to the network sensors, although that would be interesting to do, we haven't done it yet. looking at january and february it's on the lower end of what we're seeing in san francisco and so i do think we'll be getting some interesting data from the sensor in network there and also we can bring that other data and see what that is as well. >> circling back on whether it's underestimating it or not, we didn't have the potrero hill

sensor up during wildfire season but we had the richmond one. the assumption was the western side of the city has better air quality because of wind patterns and in the end we didn't see a huge variety, a variability amongst the different sensors but we have seen soma and chinatown at higher levels of air quality of aqi so there's some variability but again, now that we have the potrero hills sensor and we can compare it to the reference monitoring station, i think we'll be seeing some interesting trends coming out of that. i hope that answers your question. >> great. thank you. any other -- >> hi, everyone. i just want to say it was a joy to watch this collaboration

happen. from afar. it's very cool to see all the different pieces and skill sets to came together to bring together this project. my question is around the slides that have the pi charts on how 60% of the survey respondents agreed that the particular congestion exhausted one of the major sources in the air pollution, that was clear that idling and single vehicles are major contributors to this problem and what often happens in the transportation space is a lot of really, i think, progressive projects, such as protected bike lanes and no electric charging are often seen as a controversial to the community because they takeaway parking or they don't want it,

for example, the polk street bike lane project was halted or it was kind of watered down because the local businesses were not excited about the implementation. my point is, i think it would be really powerful from a stakeholder engagement standpoint to pair this rich data of air quality with the sfmta outreach and engagement work that they're doing on the day-to-day basis to really show the negative impacts of the ve heck you lar congestion and exhaust and it's not like a natural extension and i don't think there's an air quality data analysis team at the mta pairing their engagement work with -- the marrying of those two problems are not isolated. cannot be isolated and we node

to come together in order for us to move our environmental forward. >> if could i just chime in on that, i think this is mr. sullivan, it's exactly right. i'm looking at the slide with the aqi index of the city with the entire city with different sort of darker colors towards the aqi is bad. when you look at that map, you can see that the transportation patterns, i can see 280, i can see 19th avenue, i can see 101, i can see doyle drive and it just really brings home how we have to solve the problem of exhaust from fossil fuel cars and vehicles around the city if we're going to solve the air quality problems of our city. >> thank you for those comments. i echo that and it's a big takeaway from what we've seen so far and i think a large part of

what jocelyn was saying is that right now, it's safe to assume that when we start going back to normal levels of activity, we have the tenderloin, chinatown, soma, they're the hardest hit in terms of congestion and usually they're seeing a lot of traffic. it's important that we enable those policy changes and rather than wait for it to get worse again. >> thank you. >> any other comments or questions? >> good evening and thank you for the presentation. i was thinking about how often we think of air quality and we think about the poor air quality in the central valley and we never really -- it was an

eye-opener to think in san francisco these things exit and why we have to continue to monitor this and i only hope that in the future, you will come back and do another presentation about what that means when we not that we go back to normal but so many folks are worried about taking public transportation right now because of the effects of covid and they include spaces, et cetera, so i would like to see and moving forward a presentation. when come back and do a presentation about some of the other findings as we ease back into more activity. thank you. what a great, great team you have. highlighting and it just gives me such hope to see such talent and enthusiasm for this. thank you.

>> it's time to open up to public comment. >> i will share the instructions to call in and make a public comment on this agenda item. anyone who would like to make a comment should dial the phone number on the screen and press star 3 in order to be added to the queue. you have throw minutes to make a comment. i don't see any callers in the queue but we'll take a pause in case anyone would like to call in. if there's no public comment, may i conclude with one last thought. >> of course, commissioner haun. >> i'm not seeing any public

comment. >> great. so, essentially, it's just making sure enough people are recognized behind this program. i think two years ago, if you told me i would climb up a ladder trying to tie these sensors on to a pole i would have told you you are crazy. back drop by the way, a sky coded in cash too. it was a crazy last year. just to even do this program. i want to thank danielle a cortez for her hard work and cory you can see so many different stakeholders to make this happen and the volunteers of course, jocelyn and haley for their amazing work and helping us even get at the data like, you know, you can collect all the data in the world, but, if you don't know how to parse it it's a challenge unto itself. just thinking about like the next generation of leadership and seeing cuc youth interact the way they've done. thank you for all your work and

making sure that the community itself is empowered too gives me a lot of heart at the end of the day. i'm glad that this is all been brought up today and thank you again for all your efforts. >> thank you, commissioner. to all the presenters, thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to having you back many times in the future, i'm sure. all right. next item, please. >> clerk: we'll move on to item 7, review and vote on whether to accept the policy committee recommendation to approve resolution filed 2020-04-coe urging the board of supervisors to support proposed ordinance board of supervisors file number 201151. the sponsor is debra rafael and the speakers are jeff spacey and it's 2020-04-coe regarding ordinance and board of supervisors file number 201151

and board of supervisors file number 201151 and environment public works code construction and demolition debris recovery construction and demolition debris recovery legislative digest and this item is for discussion and possible action. >> all right. director rafael. do you want to introduce the item. so today we're going to have back at the helm, jack and james to give you an update on this construction and demolition ordinance known as c and d. this is not new to you. you heard this back in november, november 2nd, specifically at the policy committee and then it came to the full commission on december 8th of last year. there was a decision made not to vote on the resolution though the policy committee did recommend adoption of a resolution in support. the decision was made just because there was a delay in

hearing this item in committee at the board and we wanted to be flesh and we want it your vote to be relevant and recent and so now that we have a recalenderring of this item, we want to bring this back before you and have you consider the full resolution, the last time we talked about this supervisor safai came himself and talked about his own personal commitment to this issue and his excitement about moving forward on this board and so i'm going to lead it to jack and james to just refresh your memory. it's not going to be a deep dive. they will let you know if there's been any changes and what the resolution says before you. so with that, i turn it over to my colleagues. >> thank you, debbie. good evening, commissioners, it's my pleasure to join you tonight and i appreciate your consideration of this. i'm going to be passing it on to james. i just want to say that, since we presented to you last

december 8th, james, who has been focused on cnd for several years, has been promoted to a new position, which is our cnd zero waste coordinator position. congratulations to james. it really reflects many years of great work he has done and this ordinance is kind of a representation of a part of that effort. you know, so james is just going to give you a very brief reminder of why we need this ordinance and what it's doing and some additional changes that have come up. i hand it off to you, james. >> thank you, jack. thank you dr. (inaudible) and good evening commissioners. thank you again for the opportunity. as mentioned, this is part 3 of a three-part installment. going back as far as august of 2019. i spoke before the policy committee. now, that was really an

opportunity to go broad and deep into all things cnd and we've been narrowing down the focus towards this resolution that is tethered to a policy solution that is being proposed at the board. i'm going to have to continue my camera off, it's giving me some bandwidth issues and i don't want to crash in the middle of presentation. if you can go to the next slide, please. that would be great. as mentioned, again, james, i work on the zero waste team and i've been with the department the last nine and a half years. it's demolition debris recovery efforts. you know, when we first had this conversation, back in august of 2019, we jumped in and maybe this is a good opportunity to start with a refresh of what this ecosystem entails and some of the challenges that are inherent to it and why this particular policy proposal is the appropriate solution at this

time. it is a huge challenge for us. cnd or i'll use c and d, and the ability to recovery sources from that debris stream impacts both our zero waste goals and our climate action initiative. to give you a sense of how that is possible in the scope of impact we're talking about, every year, we're averaging about a million and a half tons of construction and demolition discard and debris that are being generated. a million and a half tons of unwanted building material have to find their way and be collected, transported to processers who are going to in turn sort through it and row direct these valuable resources to reuse, recycle and composting markets. is it's the result of tens of thousands of permitted building activities. we had been averaging anywhere between 50 and 60,000 building permits annually for a number of

years. 30,000 of those activities each year produces a significant amount of debris. it's not just a quick plumbing or electrical rewiring. there are truckloads of debris leading those job sites. there are hundreds of halling companies moving this material along. it's not a single-collector system that most are familiar with when they think of curbside collection. we have hundreds of companies, thousands of trucks, are in play each day. they're moving to dozens of facilities that are scattered throughout the region. we're not limited to facilities here in san francisco proper. we're going miles out into the region to deliver some of these materials. and you can imagine then, how that effects the climate action is because there is a lot of embodied carbon and embedded carbon in these resources and our ability to recover them helps us reduce the amount of embedded carbon that we're generating. so, for example, the epa gives a

stat if you recycle one ton of demolition debris you can save one ton of co2 emissions. and so, from these challenges, well, it's important to knows these challenges are not unique and unknown to us. we've been working at this since 2006 when we essentially banned the direct hall of c and d deb debris to any land hall. we are updating and we're talking about updating at the board is the 2006 construction demolition debris ordinance. it bans or prohibits direct all to landfill but it give them the report to regulate certain construction and demolition projects. certain aspects of the transportation and halling of the debris and facilities who received that materials. [please stand by]

>> i can assure you, if it arrived at a landfill illegally 60 miles away or arrived in one of our parks 2 miles away, it got their own a truck. it is the transportation of the discard that is the most vulnerable point in our system. we have done a lot of work in the last couple of years to tighten our oversight of the construction projects the have to account for the discards they are generating, how they plan to reuse them, recycle them, compost them. we have tightened up oversight in partnership with d.b.i. we have also tightened oversight in our facility and we are being recognized for pioneering efforts to drive greater recovery results at these facilities. what we haven't done is address what is happening in the transportation mode of the system there.

so, that sort of speaks to the essence of the solution we are proposing. if we can prevent construction projects from going forward unpermitted, then the next best option is to intersect as it is happening illegally. this model is pretty common with health inspectors get building inspectors, you the ploy a fleet of inspectors to intersubjectivity in realtime and correct. that is true. if materials will be hauled away 60 miles to atlanta or 2 miles and dumped in one of the city's parks, if we can intercept that activity before it happens, it is more advantageous than trying to catch up to the fact afterwards. intercepting in realtime is the best way to prevent these violations from occurring. next slide, please. so the solution we are proposing, it is not one that we are just kicking out off the top of our head. we have been engaged deeply with

our stakeholders. is what we do routinely because we are already implementing an existing ordinance that has far-reaching impacts and such a diverse group of stakeholders from building owners, architects, contractors, haulers, facility operators. we are routinely engaged with them. we specifically went to our stakeholders over the course of january 2019 to november 2020, did multilingual engagement around the issue of how to resolve for our legally disposed funds and they are in massive quantities of a landfill or into communities and parks. we engaged a diverse group of companies. small, large, medium, contractors, haulers, facility authorizers and there is a consensus that one way we can level the playing field right now, because what we have, in addition to all of these adverse impacts of material going to

landfill, co2 emissions, impacts of illegal dumping in the community, by not properly monitoring the field of play, there is no referee in the field right now. and so what you allow to happen are some outfits who are willing to violate these rules and regulations. it gives them a tremendous competitive advantage in the bidding process on construction projects. they can discount their bid by not going to the proper recycling facility. by dumping material illegally so the consensus from the community was, yes, this would be a good way to level the playing field because you can root out the noncompliant actors who are under bidding the compliant ones. you could then chip away at those issues of illegally disposing antidumping. the easiest way to do this is be -- the expansion of an existing permit system that is in the

department of public works. they permit debris boxes. we are proposing to expand that in recognition that the degree that is finding its way to illegal disposing and dumping is not arriving in a debris box. it sometimes is just happening in trucks in a variety of sizes. what we are proposing is a system that builds on what is applied to the debris boxes, but recognizes there other vessels in play that have led to these impacts. next slide, please. here is where you get a sense of the progressive tier based permit system. it is a wonky cable -- table, but what we want to pull out of here is the issue of equity was addressed in an equity scan and one of the findings that are produced are we need to tether the fee so it is scaled progressively to the side of the operator. so if you have a vehicle that can move 80,000 pounds of debris, you your permit should cost more than the permit of a

vehicle can only move 5,000 tonnes of debris. this is a way to level the playing field, would also generate the resources that we need to properly enforce our rules and regulations. next slide, please. and again, coming back to the weak link in the system being the transporters. this is to give you a sense of what those progressive tears will look and feel like. this is the smallest one, tier one. we are proposing that it be phased in a year later than the other larger ones to give these smaller contractors time to adjust to the new regulations and give us time to do multilingual outreach to the community, preparing them, but a tier one vehicle here, you can see is one of the smaller trucks you will find, but they can make multiple trips in a given day to

discard material. when you go to the next slide, we get into the lightweight and medium weight dump trucks. that would be the tier two permit. next light gives you a sense of tier three. there is an expansion of what dump trucks -- dump trucks can do. they jump in their capacity in tier three. and tier four is the largest outfit with the transfer trailers and the super dump trucks. the fees will be generated to bring on resources that will be deposed in a multiagency effort. the multiagency effort that will be coordinated by the department of environment will leverage staff at the department of public works and the sheriff's department so that we can begin to properly be in the field and intercepting activity as it happens. it will be a comprehensive way

to bring these things in. we can intercept haulers in realtime and we have the ability to visit multiple counties now where the discards do arrive. it is important to note there has been a couple of amendments proposed since this was last heard at the commission. and just to briefly give you a sense of what those amendments entail, the big one here is the operative date. we pushed the date up to january 1st 2022. the smallest vessels will be pushed to july 1st 2022. an important amendment is the language -- the dedicated fund will allow us to allocate work orders and distribute funds to get the departments and coordinate their efforts and allow us to make independence from the general fund by having that fund dedicated to be managed by the department of environment. we took the three things out.

facilities, projects, and haulers. the guts of it and the heart of it deal with transporters and there are some aspects that fit -- >> vice chair tang: the facilities. it has to do with hauling. the facilities now have to verify that the hauler showing up has the proper permit. if they don't, they can accept the load of the material, but they have to notify the department of environment within 30 days and the hauler has 30 days to be able to collect that violation of not having the proper permit. it is a way to ensure that they will not illegally dumped the material but they got turned away. we want them to accept the material and correct the issue. the final one is, an amendment that is evolving and speaks to the ongoing effort that we are engaged into synergize a complementary regulatory authority that lie with the department of public health and the department of the environment with regards to facilities.

we are working to tighten any cracks in the regulatory overlap that might allow noncompliance to slip through. last slide, katy is just offering of contract info. it is a good time to field any questions of concern. the ask tonight is to support the resolution and that this proposal will be voted on. hopefully this will be at the land use committee before going to the full board. thank you, commissioners, for your time. >> thank you. i appreciate the presentation on the update. commissioners, any discussion or questions for james or jack? i see your hand raised, but i don't know if that was for before. >> that was from before. no questions. >> commissioner to -- commission chiu, same thing?

do you want to speak? sorry. anyone? i have to say that since we heard these, then it is all you ever see. i have been walking around the city and it seems like all icr containers with stickers on the back of them. it has been very top of mind all right, then. there is no discussion. do i hear a motion to move the resolution forward? >> i will move it. >> commissioner sullivan moved it. do i hear a second? >> i second. >> commissioner wallace, second. let's open it up to public comment. all right. i will put the instructions for public comment back on the screen. if you would like to make a public comment on this item, please dial the number on the screen and remember to press

start three in order to be added to the queue. you will have three minutes to make your comments. i not currently seeing any callers in the queue, but we will take another caller -- a pause for anyone would like to call in. i not seeing any callers. thank you. katy, let's close public comment and move to a roll call vote to approve the resolution. >> great. [roll call]

>> the motion passes. well done, everybody. that was a lot of work and i appreciate your diligence in coming back and sticking to it. let's move to the next item. all right. the next item is item eight. discussion and vote on whether wishes send the letter to support them -- support a long-term funding plan. >> commissioner wallace? >> thank you. i know you will all remember at our last commission meeting during the budget discussion we talked about the possibility of president stevenson sending a letter on behalf of the commission to the board of

supervisors to address some of our concerns about long-term funding for the department. i really appreciate the responsiveness of the department on this issue, and as a result of that response, katy and i worked together to draft a letter for your consideration, and we would like to have a discussion about the draw. oh, the bus, and probably director repel as well, are looking forward to hear your thoughts on the draft and hopefully moving forward to send this to the board of supervisors as our next step in addressing this urgent issue.

i do want to say i hope that this is the word. this is the first step and i hope you have all had a chance to read our draft and we look forward to hearing any questions or suggestions you have during the conversation. thank you. does anyone have any comments? >> it looks like commissioner sullivan raised his hand. >> good b on purpose, this time. [laughter] >> you are up. >> i wanted to say, i emphatically in favor of sending

the letter. the last time we discuss this topic at a commission, public comment was emphatic, loud, and i think they were exactly right. we have a climate emergency in the city. we have to have a department of the environment that has reliable funding. i very much in favor of this and appreciate commissioner wall and staff for putting this together. >> great. any other thoughts, commissioners? >> i want to say that i love the letter. i appreciate your remarks, commissioner wallace, about the fact that this isn't the endpoint. this is a starting point. there is still a lot of work to be done to make sure we get the funding we need to. i do think this is an important first step. we should push this forward.

>> i just wanted to add my 2 cents. it is a great letter. i think it is a starting point for a conversation and possible education for people who hear the great word of the commission, but i often think, where does the funding come from and where are they able to do this? we could also use it to our advantage. >> excellent point. [indiscernible]

are there any more discussions? >> thank you for writing the letter. it is a great introduction. i just wondering, what is the ask? do we have any figure in mind? >> do you want to take that? >> thank you, commissioner one. we thought a lot about -- there was a discussion -- [indiscernible] there is the what do we have now, what do we want to expand, and then there is that how do we raise millions of dollars so we can actually do point of action? so there's different -- we call them the three buckets of funding. after talking with the various

parties, our strategy is to fix the hold, that is our number one. we do not want to lay off two staffed people. we want to be able to do the minimum work. then we are asking for someone time funding to do the analysis of what it would take to actually implement the plan -- the point of action plan. the problem we had is we have a climate action plan that is going to have an economic analysis, a general one that will tell us where we need to focus, but that plan, this is not the year we thought to do that bigger. even that medium asked because we can't be specific enough. the point you gave last time was so true where you said, look, if you don't give them a number, then it is as if you aren't asking for anything. because we didn't have a defensible number for that medium ask, we are asking i hold

and we are asking for the resources to come up with that number of what the city needs and the department of the environment and what the city needs as a whole in terms of capital budget and equity asks to actually implement the climate action plan. for this particular ask, we are focusing on the $346,000 to make our goal and a smaller at a one-time ask of some funding. we are actually doing that a little bit adjacent to some of the board number members to try and get that one time funding to do the analysis. the focus right now is this. the stimulus money is an. let's do a full-court press and say, okay, everyone, 346,000 can become budget dust compared to

the bigger hold. does that make sense? do you have any other suggestions or thoughts on that? >> it is a good thing. it is good information. [indiscernible] they have to be providing their own grants. it is pretty amazing. [indiscernible] >> that is a great point and we can look at rewriting the letter. if i may, i want to say that i, i think it was a different commissioner who said that this is an education document as well and it is an education document on what we do and our value, and as commissioner wall said, an education about the way we are funded and the limitations of that. it is a very important tool when

we go to have meetings with the board of supervisors, which we will, that they have this level already in their hand. plus, your resolution so they understand why. >> commissioner wall? >> i just want to follow up on what was said earlier in light of what you just said. i want to suggest that you at least consider learning one or more -- bringing one or more members of the commission when you go to have these meetings and if you could spare some of us with some of our specific supervisors, that might be helpful as well so that, you know, we have a whole

thought-out, strategic package that contemplates the meeting in a way to sort of acknowledge that it is one of many steps that we are going to be taking to get the results that we want. it is the first, and arguably, most critical step because the way we start off is the way we have to end. >> that is an outstanding question. that is perfect. i would love that kind of backup and support. >> i assume you are doing it on video anyway, right? >> indeed, we are. [laughter] >> did i hear a request to amend

any of the language to add a number in the letter? [indiscernible] >> my understanding is we know the number two we aid whole and it sounds like we know what we need to make it work. >> there is a number i have calculated that we need to do the bigger work of analysis with financial people, people who understand how to get ballot initiatives on, and that is a number that -- i'm not sure it needs to go in the letter, but

the letter intimates that that is an important thing. we all need to be armed with that when we walk and so it is very clear. i not diagnostic as to whether it goes in the letter or not. >> this particular discussion has raised an issue in my mind again. you have heard me on this many times. i just want to make sure that the letter is very clear about what it is talking about. we have a short-term problem, we have a midterm problem and we have a long-term problem. if everybody could take a look at it and make sure that those problems are not conflated, i would feel better.

we have to make it clear that while we are very concerned about the hold, and we are very concerned about the hold, and we are very concerned about our ability to develop a plan, not only to fill the whole and not have it anymore, the bigger issue is what are we going to do in the long term, and we want them to think about all three of those things at the same time. so the letter has to be crystal clear on that. and because my departmental computer isn't working, i can't look at the letter now. just make sure it is clear. >> i can look at the letter now.

>> if we wanted to add a line somewhere in there, i think it would be completely fine, as far as i'm concerned. if everyone agrees. if that is what needs to get done. [please stand by]

-- so this letter was written thinking that we have to fall for it, so i don't think that it takes away from it to put in those other things, i would just not emphasize zone as much. because i don't want to take away from the inspirational, powerful point. is that okay that we'll add a sentence but not more than that that gets to the concrete piece of the other steps? >> and do bee need a motion to do that or can we all nod as i see us doing? because i think that the letter

should be self-explanatory. and it should stand on its own and it doesn't need anyone there to interpret it for people. so i would be perfectly fine with that as well. and, again, do we need a motion? >> i don't know if we need a motion because it's not a resolution or an ordinance. i think that it's a direction to send a letter. but i'm not the lawyer. >> president stephenson: he has probably gone. >> clerk: public affairs for the department. >> because it is -- because it is a document that we posted for consideration at a public meeting, i am -- i would want to take a motion to do an amendment, because that does open up that process that we're looking to have live candidates

so we can go down that route. it did take a lot of time last time. i do want to point to debbie's comments earlier that, you know, because we've been talking about this, the commission has been talking about this and our environmental people have been talking about this for three or four weeks and the board and the mayor, they know that this issue is out there and we met with the mayor's office and we'll meet with the members of the board. and we're going to kind of come in with a couple things. one, i think we heard a suggestion that we have to actually come in with certain commissioners, especially with their supervisors. we sent the resolution last time and we'll have presumably the letter if it passes this time. and we'll also have specifics on

what the short-term funding gap, that is, that they need to fund to make us whole. and then what we're looking at for the medium term and the long term. so i feel that kind of like the specifics that we walk into, the people power, whether it's debbie or a commissioner, someone from our budget team, and then as well as the resolution, the letter, i do feel that we've got the ammunition to kind of to communicate clearly short term and medium and long-term problems. so that's my counsel on that. >> commissioner wald: so can i respond to that president stephenson? >> president stephenson: yep. >> commissioner wald: so, number one, i think that as we have in the past, i think that we could give -- i would like you to consider us giving just -- not

editing now, but giving general direction about adding a brief reference for the resolution and, you know, the need for funds that would allow us to develop a plan. alternatively, maybe and -- again, this assumes that we can have some direction. we could make it more even clearer that this letter is intended to address the long-term issue. we could do that with one or two clauses that are added to the sentences that are already included in it. >> i do feel, commissioner wald, that the letter addresses the long-term issue. i feel that the wording as it is right now is very clear that's what we're talking about. i think that from what i can see

in it it's the middle point. and the resolution about plugging the hole we're talking about that middle point, i'm with you that i think that we can entertain a motion to amend the language to talk about the need for this interim funding to get to the point where we understand what the long-term need is in terms of how we're going to finance the department and then send a letter forward with the idea that there is an amended line in there. but i don't think -- i really do think that the language is quite strong and excellent about the need for long-term funding. i don't know if everyone else agrees. >> president stephenson: i would like to ask for a motion to amend the letter as a line that commissioner wald just referenced and a second, and then we can take a vote on that and go from there. do i hear a motion? >> commissioner wald: okay, i

move that we amend the letter to include a sentence, you want -- a sentence that refers to the short-term and the medium-term needs. the medium term to find the funding to develop the answers to the questions about, you know, how much money do we need to implement the plan. that is my motion. and that, you know, we could -- this would be drafted beforeand included before the letter is sent. >> president stephenson: do i hear a second? >> i will second. >> president stephenson: is that commissioner sullivan? >> commissioner sullivan: it

was. >> president stephenson: we have a motion by commissioner wald and a second by commissioner sullivan. >> if i may interject and listening very carefully to commissioner wald and what she just said and i took notes. if i were to make a recommendation i'd like to -- if we go to public comment, i will -- then when we come back i should have the extra sentence at the end based on what i heard from commissioner wald and it can be shared and i think that i'd be more comfortable if everyone could look at that and say that is what we want and let's vote on it and move the letter. that's what i think that the process should be if i may suggest that. >> president stephenson: that is fine and we'd have to take a long pause for public comment. but it's fine to me. and let's move to public comment, katie. >> clerk: all right, i will put the instructions for making public comment on the screen. and press star 3 to be added to the queue to make a comment and you will have three minutes to

make your comment. and i'm not currently seeing any callers in the queue but we'll take a little bit longer pause in case anyone would like to call in. >> kate i'm wondering if we want more time we could put a pin in this and move to a different

agenda item and delay the vote on this until after we have had the chance to come up with the language. i don't know if that is a possibility. >> i am not sure if that is a possibility either. charles, i'll default to you. >> i think that i'm mostly done here. so i think if we want to just close public comment and, katie, you can pull up the shared document. >> clerk: let's close public comment, please. all right, okay, i'm going to pull up the letter. all right. >> maybe i will highlight it in yellow at the end there.

okay -- >> commissioner wald: it's the last clause. or two clauses. >> yeah, i can see that now. >> clerk: on behalf of the department the commission would like to discuss making the department whole in the next two fiscal years to study how we implement the climate action plan and ensure that the program has long-term funding to execute its mission. commissioner wald, does that fulfill the motion that you just put forward? >> commissioner wald: mostly. we've split it, but that would be okay.

but the real issue for me -- and i'm sorry to be kind of nitpicky, is whether we're talking about funding for the department as a whole, which is what i interpret is the meaning of long term funding to execute its mission, or whether we're talking about funding, stable and secure funding only for the climate part of the department mission. which is something that katie and i wrestled with and i thought that it was only about climate. >> so -- >> president stephenson: director? >> i would like to end that letter but to ensure to have the mission. and we want to ensure that the

city has long-term funding to execute, you know, its climate commitment, execute on its climate commitment and take it out of the department. because this is what this long-range funding is, is that we -- you know, this is a climate emergency. so to execute on its climate commitment. that to me -- i don't know, commissioner wald -- >> commissioner wald: yes. >> clerk: so now it says -- >> vice-president collins: so this is my motion -- >> commissioner wald: this is my motion to amend the letter to include the words that are highlighted in yellow. >> clerk: commissioner sullivan, do you reiterate your second? >> commissioner sullivan: i do. >> clerk: great. so let's take a roll call vote on the amendment, or can we vote -- we have to vote on the amendment first, let's do it.

sorry, i was muted again. [roll call vote] commissioner wald, moverred? do i hear a second? >> second. commissioner wan second. do we have to open up public comment again? let's move to a roll call vote. great [roll call vote] all

right, the motion passes, excellent nimble work, everyone all right, and the next item, katie. >> clerk:item 9, deborah ravel is the speaker and this item is for discussion. >> hello everyone, again. so i would like to take the time that i have in my director's report to comment on what has been in the news lately with respect to myself and our department. so to summarize on march 4th, the city attorney's office announced a negotiated settlement with recology because it turns out that in 2017, there was an error in the rate process that was not discovered in the moment of the rate adoption.

and that rate error resulted in significant overcharging of customers. the settlement that was reached between the city attorney and recology is going to result in a refund of $95.4 million to ratepayers with a $7 million settlement payment to the city as well as interest rate -- interest on the money. this will result in lower rates to residents going forward, and refund checks that will start to go out towards the end of this year. and so in that process of uncovering the error and uncovering the fact that it took so long to do something about the error, questions were raised about our department. and about my own personal knowledge of the error. and i just wanted to set the record straight with all of you,

and in public, that the first time that i became aware of this error was on february 9th, 2021 so this was about four weeks before the city attorney made the settlement. as soon as i found out on february 9th, 2021, that this error was likely, i didn't know about details about it but i was made aware that there was an error that it had been going on for a couple years now, i reached out to the department of public works, i reached out to the city administrator's office that same day and i was told that the city attorney's office, it was already handling it. there was nothing that i could do, nor was there any information that anyone would give me because it was all confidential. so when i, like everyone else, is asking well, should we have

known -- is there a role for us in here in knowing about this error, and i just want to remind you and anyone who is listening that the department of the environment has a very particular role in the rate process. we answer technical questions. we assist with the public. we assist with the department's oversight. and that department is public works. because they are the ones who have the role of oversight for the rate process. we are certainly involved in the process, but we do not have the decision-making authority nor do we have oversight responsibility. if that is, in fact, something that we need to have then it's one of those discussions that i look forward to having as we design a new process moving forward. but the process as it stands now has very clear roles and responsibilities. so there is a committee that's going to be formed to look at

what needs to change, to put up guardrails, to restore public trust, to make sure that errors are caught, that responses are made in a timely manner, that the process is transparent. and from our perspective, that it promotes the amazing zero waste efforts that we have done and are so proud of in our city we have been invited to participate in that committee, and i will be happy to report back to you as the committee is meeting and any discussions that are had and any discussions or recommendations, it's not a decision-making body -- any recommendations that might come out of that -- that committee. as always, i take my integrity incredibly -- it's incredibly important to me as well as the integrity and the performance of our department. and i stand ready to roll up my

sleeves to figure out what that new process or amended process, or totally different process needs to look like. this is something that we truly believe in the department of the environment, in good government and the protection of the environment. so i am ready to roll up my sleeves and i'm excited to report back to you as more information comes available. so with that, i also want to say that i have been truly humbled by the amount of outpouring of support that i have received personally and that the department has received. we have worked very hard as a department to demonstrate our integrity and i expect the highest from my staff and the highest from myself. on the budget front, i had updates but we really already covered them when we talked about the letter. just to let you know that we are in constant contact with both the mayor's office and the budget analyst office about our

current budget situation. i have no guarantees, but i have a lot of people aware and in large part that is because it is not my voice alone that is contacting them. it is the emails that you have sent. thank you for ccing me. it is the resolutions that you have given. it is the public participating to get the word out that this is a worthy department and even more importantly a critical cause that we all need to make sure that is funded. so with that, i want to switch gears and to do something that we haven't done in a while. that is one of my favorite things to do. which is to introduce you to some of our newest staff members. i love welcoming people to the department and i hate saying goodbye to people. but usually we say see you later, rather than goodbye, because so many of the people come back, myself included.

so today there are three people that i wanted to introduce to you. they will quickly introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about themselves. so first i would like to introduce trinity vang who is working in our public affairs team. trinity? >> hi, everyone. yes, i am trinity vang and i'm a mccarthy fellow and working on the public affairs team where i'm assisting on executing the mobile cycling project. and i'm also helping to shape electric vehicles and planning codes for the city. i'm a senior at the university of san francisco and i am really excited to learn more about environmental policy. and how local governments can work with constituents to protect our people and our planet. especially in this department, which has always been leading the way in our nation with environmental protection. so thank for having me. >> thank you, trinity. we love our mccarthy fellows from u.s.f. and they're always

so bright and wonderful. i would like to introduce you to jeff joslin, joining our green building team. >> good evening. so i'm jeff joslin and a building coordinator with the climate team. and i started about the new year. my work is focusing on public outreach and training tools, contributing to the deployment of the all-electric ordinance and other work for accessing energy data to inform future policy efforts and lately to provide ancillary policy support to the team. a little background, i have 40 years or so of various sustainability related projects and positions behind me. most recently i was for eight years the director of planning for the san francisco planning department. in that role i had a number of satisfying and successful collaborations with s.f.e., including serving on the

municipal building task force and partnering on the development of the better roofs ordinance. for those of you that were on the commission then you might recall my showing up here not so long ago to present barry hooper and director raphael and the commission with the national sustainable planning award that that project received. so as such i'm truly grateful to not only be enthusiastically working with s.f.e. and contributing to our essential work, but to do so within and alongside my esteemed and inspirational colleagues. >> yeah, we really scored when jeff said that he would work with us for a while and bring his tremendous knowledge and experience and insider look at how different parts of the city operate. we are -- oh, i can't tell you how happy i am that jeff is with us. and this other person that i feel the same way about, i am so

just pinching myself that he said that he'd come work for us and that is dave kushane on our admin team. >> hello, department commissioners, i'm david kashati the coordinator for the department. my primary duties for the department is around issuing solicitations like requests for proposals and funding opportunities for varying grant programs and contracts for the department. i have been working with s.f. partners and suppliers and assisting and creating grant agreements and contract packages for certification and execution prior to coming to the department of the environment i was doing similar role with the human services agency. and i was really excited to take the opportunity to join the department of environment because during my career i actually had worked at an e.p.a. detection program, a chemical plant in the southern united

states. and so i saw an opportunity to come to environment, i was eager to jump on it so that i could expand my journey with environmental work. and so thank you for extending and for letting me accept the offer. >> trinity, david, jeff, these are the best and the brightest and for us to have them on our team is phenomenal. and every single person in the department is thrilled that they are -- they are part of this team. and that concludes my director's report. >> president stephenson: welcome, everybody. you will have to come back when we can actually meet in person so we can applaud you appropriately in real life. commissioners, any questions or comments? all right. let's open it up to public comment, katie. >> clerk: all right. i'll put the instructions for making a public comment back up on the screen for anyone who

would like to call in to comment on the director's report. please remember to press star, 3, to be added to the queue and you will have three minutes to make your comments. and i'm not currently seeing any callers in the queue but we'll take another quick pause. i'm seeing no callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: next item, please. >> clerk: all right. we'll move to item 10, committee reports and this item is for discussion. >> president stephenson: commissioner sullivan, can you give us a policy update, please >> commissioner sullivan: sure. so the policy committee met on march 8th. we started out with a very

informative presentation on the e.v. program from noel chu and from the program manager. we then had a presentation on the department's legislative priorities at the state level for 2021 from katie and from charles. and we finished with commissioner ahn leading a discussion on an adaptive land acknowledgement. we decided on a shorter but i think that a still meaningful version of the acknowledgement which is reviewed by the american indian cultural. and that wraps up my report. >> president stephenson: all right, commissioner ahn, did the operation committee meet? >> vice-president ahn: we don't have any meetings recently so there's no updates at this point. >> president stephenson: then let's open up public comment unless there's discussion or questions from commissioners. let's open up public comment. >> clerk: i'll put the

instructions on the screen for anyone to call in to comment on the committee reports. please remember to press star, 3, and you will be added to the queue and you will have 3 minutes to make your comment. and we don't see anyone in the queue but we'll take another quick pause for anyone who would like to call in. i think that i'm not seeing any callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: next item be please. >> clerk: moving to the next item, item 11 announcements. an item for discussion. >> president stephenson: commissioners, any announcements to share with the group? my only announcement is that my

parents, who i haven't seen in more than a year, are here fully vaccinated from montana. so i am looking forward to that being after the meeting. all right, public comment, please. open it up. >> clerk: okay. i'll put the instructions on the screen for anyone who would like to call in. not seeing anyone in the queue but we'll take another quick pause. all right, i'm not seeing anyone in the queue. >> president stephenson: next item, please. all right, our next item is item 12, new business/future agenda items. the speaker is charles sheehan and he's the chief policy and

public affairs officer and this is up for discussion. >> thank you, katie and thank you, commissioner stephenson. for new business, i do have important new business update and i want to make sure that everyone gets around to form 700. it's that time of the year and it's new until april 1st, when the deadline is, and at that point it becomes old business. so it's just a reminder form 70s are due april 1st, that's an important new business item. and turning to future commission meetings, the next policy meeting is april 12th. and the next operations meeting is april 21st. and the next commission meeting is may 25. and potentially and coming up for that commission and maybe other commission meetings as well, we definitely wanted to provide a larger update on the climate action plan that is currently making its way through the city processes. and we may also have zero-waste

grants for your approval as well and we will at some point talk about our mobile e.v. program that we're putting together as well. and this concludes my new business update. i think that commissioner stephenson, i think you are on mute. >> president stephenson: getting lazy. any comments or questions commissioners? thank you. all right, let's open it up to public comment, please. >> clerk: all right, the instructions are on the screen. please remember to press star, 3, to be added to the queue and you will have three minutes to make your comments. i'm not seeing any callers but we'll take one more pause for anyone who would like to call

in. not seeing any callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: public comment is closed. next item. >> clerk: and moving to adjournment and the time is 7:30 p.m. thank you for joining us. >> president stephenson: thanks, everybody. >> thank you, bye-bye. >> thank you.

>> good morning. this meet willing come to order. welcome to the thursday, march 18, 2021 meeting of the government audit and oversight committee. i'm supervisor dean preston t chair of this committee and i am joined by vice chair connie chan and committee member supervisor rafael mandelman. thank you to the committee's clerk, john carroll and to sfgov tv for staffing this meeting. do you have any announcements? >> yes, thank you, mr. chair. in order to protect the public and board members and city

employees during the covid-19 emergency, the board of chambers and committee room are closed. this is taken pursuant to all various local, state and federal orders, declarations and directives. committee members are attending this meeting through video conference and will participate in the meetings to the same extent as if they're physically present. public comment will be available for each item on this agenda. both san francisco cable channel 26 and sfgov tv.org. your opportunity to speak and provide your public comment during the public comment periods will be available to you via phone by calling 415-565-0001. once you've kexed and prompted, enter the meeting i.d. for today's meeting, which is 1873339471. then press pound twice to be connected to the meeting. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussions but will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star followed by 3 to be added to the speaker

line. a system prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you are unmuted. best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down your radio, television or streaming advice. everyone must account for time delays and speaking discrepancies that we may encounter. alternative maw you may submit your public comment in -- >> [inaudible]. >> i'm john carroll, my e-mail address is john.carroll@sfgov.org. please submit your public comment via e-mail. it will be included in the legislative file as part of the matter. your written comments can be sent to our office in city hall by u.s. postal service. our address is 1 dr. carlton goodlett place room 244, san francisco, california, 49102.

one additional issue, mr. chair, we have today interpreter assistance provided from ocea for public comment line in spanish -- in chinese. we have guests who are here to provide assistance with that participation. ar turo, could you provide some introductory comments in spanish? >> sure, john. [speaking in spanish] [speaking in spanish]

[speaking in spanish] gracias. thank you. >> thank you, arturo. i'm going to once real quick

mention the meeting i.d. number one more time. could you interpret after i provided it. the meeting i.d. is 187-333-9471. could you repeat that? >> sure. hold on a second. let me write that down. what did you say? 187-333-9471. >> sorry. i had the wrong number. >> thank you. >> [speaking in spanish] gracias. >> thank you very much, arturo.

agnes, can you provide introduction assistance in chinese? >> yes. [speaking mandarin]

thank you. >> thank you both very much. and finally, mr. chair, the last of my announcements. item on today's agenda are expected to be acted upon by the board of supervisors at their april 6, 2021 meeting. >> thank you, mr. clerk. and a couple of things before we get started. first, just want to thank our translators for their interpretation services and it's really absolutely essential to providing access to so many to these hearings and appreciate all your work throughout the pandemic and particularly today as we get

into maeser where is i'm sure will have folks that avail themselves of your transportation services. thank you very much. secondly, i want to take a moment to acknowledge and briefly comment on, i think, what is on a lot of our minds in city hall and around the city right now. which is the really disturbing surge in attacks and violence on members of asian-american community in san francisco, in the bay area and crass the country. and i think it is a time for us to just make very clear our solidarity, the fact that we are grieving with the community, with this rise in hate crimes and also as government audited oversight committee that we remind the people in the city who are so many daily interacting with folks in our asian-american

community in san francisco that this is a time for compassion, for patients, for extending an extra hand whenever possible and we as a city stablds united against this kind of hate and all of these attacks. go ahead, supervisor chan. >> thank you, chair peskin. i'm so grateful to you for your remark today and standing with -- in solidarity with the asian-american community and reminding our city government and, you know, to have that compassion and to have the patience with our community. and so i just want to thank you for that remark and really it is great to be a vice chair of the government audit and oversight committee that really allow me to represent my

constituents in the region and also my other hat as, you know, a chinese-american woman who elected on the board of supervisors and a member of this committee and to hold our city departments accountable and to make sure that, as a city, we provide equitable services serving all of our community, asian-american, a.p.i. communities and communities of colour and immigrant communities. we have contributed to the diversity and the greatness of san francisco. and that it is time for us to make sure that we do care for those who have contributed for generations to san francisco. so, thank you. >> thank you. supervisor mandelman? >> thank you, chair preston. thank yous for your comments and associate myself with them.

>> thank you. mr. clerk, we're going to take the a agenda today a little out of order. if you could call the item 2 through 4, the litigation items first, please. >> agenda items 2 through 4 are the litigation agenda for today. they are two ordnances settling lawsuits and a resolution settling an unlitigated claim against the city and county. members of the public wish to provide public comment should call the public comment number. it is 415-655-0001 and then meeting i.d., and then press the star key followed by the number 3. there may be some folks who have already raised their hands in order to provide public comment on agenda item number 1. if that is the case, you can put your hand back down by

repeating star 3 into your number pad and that will help us stay organized. mr. chair? >> thank you, mr. carroll. and thank you to the public for your patience as we move through these first items 2 through 4 and thank you to the city attorney for the request that we hear these initially. colleagues, i -- barring a request from supervisor mandelman or supervisor chan, do not believe -- and again subject to public comment -- that we will need to go into closed session on these items. the city attorney has fully briefed us on these items. i only had one comment that i wanted to make on item 2, which i am fully comfortable making in open session, which is just that that case raises, i think, some very significant issues around folkwh