>> hello. can you hear me? >> yes. >> this is diane gray. >> go ahead. >> good afternoon, commissioners and board president and director. this is diane gray. i'm a native sfrin and a bayview resident. i've worked on a number of initiatives here in our city and also been a former commissioner of the southeast community associate commission. i would like to recommend and highly hold up gwendolyn brown for seat 10, laticia erving for

seat 14 or 15. they are hard-working. i've worked with them on a number of issues and community projects. i want to hold them up and please consider these young women as they work on reparations and work on our community benefits. thank you so much. >> chair peskin, i would like to note that merchandise gray was an applicant. >> i did note that and she was an applicant for seat 5. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i was born and raised in san francisco, a black african-american. housing rights activist. a human rights activist. i want to thank you for putting together this committee.

we need to do more in-depth exploration on how this money is going to be allocated. being on the committee, my major concern is the mental health and well-being of our city and how we're going to turn it around and get folks prepared to be homeowners and business owners and property owners. so i applaud your efforts. i too have applied for a seat on this committee. i thank you thank you guys. have a good day. also i want to applaud toni and freddy martin to put forth efforts to be on this committee. they are a valuable asset and i think you will be doing good business whether i'm going to be

on that committee or not. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> clerk: we are circling back to one speaker who had an issue. >> okay. >> hello. you've been unmuted. >> [indiscernible] -- >> okay. thank you to all the members of the public who commented in public comment as well as the additional applicants who commented during public comment and public comment is now closed. president walton. >> thank you so much, chair. >> i think on behalf of this panel, we look to you for some

advice. >> clerk: chair peskin, i don't know if toni hines has spoken. >> no. why don't we go to that applicant. >> can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> my name is toni hines. i appreciate this time. i am applying for the reparations committee because i feel like i would instrumental to help [indiscernible] -- i moved to san francisco in my [indiscernible] social justice. even if it's not [indiscernible] i would like to help because since we've come here we've been

suppressed. i would [indiscernible] -- any way i can and also ms. laticia, freddy, others already working on this. again, i would appreciate it. thank you so much and y'all have a great day. >> thank you. all right. with that, we've heard from the applicants and the members of the public. president walton, we look to you for a little bit of advice in this matter. >> thank you so much, for applying. obviously we have a hard decision to make. to have about 40 people show up, not just apply, but to represent how much we understand the importance of reparations in san francisco and what we need to do for back people in the city.

we did have to look at everyone's expertise while making this decision. we have to look at the diversity of applicants to make sure we can reach all opportunities of applicants as well as looking at the presentation period today, the strength of applications of all candidates, and looking at specific seats everyone applied from. all of you wonderful candidates did not make this job easy. nevertheless, we have to do the work to get a reparations plan in place so we have something to move forward for the benefit of our committee. chair peskin, i know i'm not on this committee, but i would love to recommend the committee move forward with the following names with the following seats. for seat one, james lance

taylor. seat 2 tinisch hollins. seat 3 reverend brown. seat 5 rico hamlynnson. and seat 7 gloria berry. seat 8 daniel landry. seat 9 tiffany walker-carter. seat 10 gwen brown. seat 11 anietie ekanem.

seat 12 starr williams and this was a difficult decision. seat 13 shakeyla o'cain. seat 14 laticia erving. and seat 15 yolanda harris. >> okay. why don't i now go to committee members. thank you, president walton, for that advice. very helpful. vice-chair or members, any comments? i can certainly restate what president walton said as a motion, but i'll turn it over to you. >> chair peskin, thank you. i just want to thank president walton for this work for him to

make his recommendation today. i know there was a lot of hard work behind that. one of the first legislations that i worked on, in fact, you voted in support of was slavery era suppression. that was me learning about reparations and having mr. williams just school me all about it and start to recognize the fact that reparation has a much deeper meaning than simply money. it is the systemic racism that is deeply rooted in this country and how it was founded.

reparation requires all sorts of expertise, diverse perspective to really, truly make this work happen and make meaningful progress. thank you, president walton, for putting this together. it does amazing to see your vision of this coming together, this vision of what reparation means and to make it meaningful, frankly for the black community in san francisco has been suffering way too long and to see how you brought all these people together from all walks of life, black community members, just really passionate about this. from the older generation to the younger generation and different kind of expertise and i find it amazing to see this. thank you so much. >> thank you, supervisor chan. i don't see supervisor

mandelman's name on the list. >> i want to thank president walton and all of the applicants. i'm looking forward to receiving their work back and this is an important conversation for san francisco to be having and i hope we can come up with models that are along overdue national models for the country. it is going on 200 years late, but hoping that our reparations advisory committee can help us get to the right place. thank you, everyone. >> if you for those comments. i concur with everything said and i want to thank all of the

applicants. i really appreciate president walton's advice here which i will now turn to move james lance taylor for seat 1, inisch hollins, eric mcdonnell and tiffany carter for seat 9, gwen brown for seat 10, starr williams for seat 12, yolanda harris for seat 15. on that motion which would be with recommendation to the full board of supervisors, mr. young, a roll call, please. [ roll call ]

we are off to land use and we are adjourned.

>> chair melgar: good afternoon. this meeting will come to orde . welcome to the april 26 regular meeting of the land he was and transportation committee of the san francisco boardof supervisors . i am supervisor melgar, chairman of the committee joined by supervisor dean preston and erin peskin. the clerk is eric, major. i'd like to acknowledge jason for staffing this meeting and we are right now also joined by supervisor rafaela mandelman madam clerk, do you have any announcements ? >> erica major: due to the health emergency and toprotect board members the board of supervisorslegislative chamber and committee room are closed .

members will be participating remotely . this precaution is taken pursuant with stay-at-home orders and directives. committee members will attend the meeting through videoconference and participate to the extent on each item on . either channel 2699 and sfgov tv are streaming the callin number across the screen. each speaker will be about two minutes .comments or opportunity to see are available by calling the number 415-655-0001. again, that number is 415-655-0001. the meeting id is187 724 4053 . again, that number is 187 724 4053. then press pound, pound. when connected you will hear the meeting discussion but you will be muted in listening mode only . when your item of interest

comes dial star 3 to added to the speaker line. call from a quiet location, speak clearly and so turned on your television or radio. submit public comment by emailing myself the transportation clerk at the scene. if you submit public comment it will be made part of the official file . written comments may be sent by us postal service to city hall, room 244, san francisco california 94102. items: today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of may 4 unless otherwise stated. madam chair. >> chair melgar: thank you madam clerk. would you please call item number one.

>> erica major: item 1 is an ordinance omitting the fire code and existing buildingcode to extend the deadline for building owners to upgrade existing fire alarms . systems from july 1, 2021 to july 1, 2023 are making appropriate findings. members who wish to provide public comment should call the number 415-655-0001 . meeting id is 187 724 4053. then press pound, pound. if you have not done so already please dial star 3 to lineup to speak . thesystem will indicate you have raised your hand . madam chair. >> chair melgar: thank you madam clerk. we are joined by andy mullen from supervisor stephanie's office who is the sponsor of this legislation and later we will hear from lieutenant richard brown from the san

francisco fire department so highandy, well . >> andy mullen: highchair melgar, supervisors preston and peskin . the legislation before you updates the current fire code requirement which for buildings thatare required to upgrade their fire alarm systems , by july 1, 2021, this would push up due date to july 1, 2023 so it is a two-year extension of this requirement. the reason to do that was because in certain circumstances it would require construction crews to enter dwelling units and during the past year a lot of people have felt uncomfortable from the constructionside and resident side to adding crews, and participate in this work . it's also my understanding that

scheduling and accommodating this work can take up to a year just in terms of booking your team and having them in and giving your tenants proper notice about the destruction they face which is why we opted for a two-year extensioninstead of a one-year extension.i'm here and available to answer any other questions which you may have . i also understand that supervisor peskin will be introducing three minor amendments which we are in support of. >> chair melgar: thank you mister mullan we will now you're from lieutenant richard brown from the sanfrancisco firedepartment . welcome lieutenant . >> richard brown: good afternoon chair melgar, thank you for having me today. assisted fire marshal rich brown,. plan reviews the and pretty

muchmister mullan as explained it quite well . it's just an administrative change to the code anytime using codes is to go through the process of legislating and again, this is just an administrative code to extend the deadline to upgrade certain fire alarm systems in residentialapartment buildings . if you need will more information i'm here for you and any questions i can answer. >> chair melgar:thank you very much lieutenant brown . colleagues, if there's no other questions or comments let's go the public comment where supervisor peskin, would you like to make your own now or after a moment ? >> supervisor peskin: i would like to them and the public could them as they desire.

you're all in receipt of those minor amendments although they would not require referral to the building, especially commission would require a one-week continuance and then perhaps we could send it as a committee report but those changes are on page 5, lines 5 through seven wherein that paragraph would read upon either a, completion of work under a building permit with a cost of construction of 99,000 or more or be, july 1, 2023 which ever occurs first. we would remove the provision that subsection c of that clause that is for building september 1, 2017 and make the whole thing about july 1, 2023 with a $99,000 trickle in cost

which given the cost of construction seems to be appropriate, particularly when we don't want displacement. so those would be the amendments which we can voteon after public comment . >> chair melgar: thank you so muchsupervisor . madam clerk, can we go to public commentsplease ? >> erica major: just checking to see the callers in queue. if you've not done so press star 3 to be added to the q4 item 1. you will onlyneed to press once . for those already on hold please wait until the system indicates you havebeen on muted . we have 11 listeners with seven inch you. if you can unmute the first caller please. >> no problem. >> caller: my name is michelle

churchy and i want to thank the city for extending the deadline toupgrade the fire alarm panel . this has been a big worry for our family as owners of small residential apartment building . primarily because our tenants are currently reluctant to allow any workers into their units for repairs and maintenance and any work that interferes with their work-at-home schedule is not what they want to have at this time and are asking us to minimize all disruptions. extending the deadline for two years will help us plan and complete the work without disrupting our tenants now. and also, from the contexts that i've had with the fire alarm panel, they are pretty overwhelmed and unable to

schedule in a timely fashion so that wouldreally help us plan this . also, my building has experienced high turnover and revolving vacancies and this extension would allow us more time to budget for this very expensive and very important work. it would be much appreciated if there were two small changes to bemade to the amendment . i believe it's supervisor peskin who referredto these as well . as far as the threshold for permanence, the $99,000 for the trigger mandated upgrade. we recently had a through line backup and the ensuing damage required us to do a renovation and i saw just howquickly these costs can rise . we're also asking at the deadline be realigned to july 2023 for any building that were

sold after 2017. so i want to thank the land use committee for taking this important issue into account and for listeningto our point of view. thank you . >> chair melgar:next speaker please . >> good afternoonto the land use committee and all those on this call . my name is jean novak and i'm an owner of an apartment building in san francisco and i appreciate it ifthe city would extend the deadline to upgrade the fire alarm system . i've been working hard with my renters to address all the covid rules and regulations and as a result have had to postpone various projects to ensure the safety and protection of my renters as well as to minimally disrupt

their personal lives due to covid.some of my renters fall into the category of elderly and fragile with severe medical conditions whereas others have had to work from home during the past year. many voiced their about having strangers come into their unit due to the fear of covid while others as they were havingto work at home did not want disruptions in their apartment during the daytime . taking into consideration my renters i decided to postpone the alarm upgrade. i would like to appeal to the land use committee to extend the deadline for at least two years so this requirement can be completed without major disruption to the tenants who still are saying to me they do not want contractors in their apartment even though they may be wearing masks or ppe. the cdc and fda are reporting data even though individuals have had vaccines are not safe andcould be infected with the virus and spread the virus to

others . therefore my tenants are even more concerned about having strangers in their units . i know my apartment owner colleagues and i are concerned about our tenants and we want to be in compliance with city requirements. yet none of us could have foreseen a pandemic that hit us over a year ago and we would appreciate your consideration and extension of the fire alarm in addition to other upgrade requirements for buildings sold after december 2017 and in conclusion i'd like to thank the land use committee members for giving me thistime to access my concerns and taking this importanmatter into consideration on behalf of all the residents . thank you . >> chair melgar: next speaker please . speak. >> caller: my name is brenda and i'm an owner of a few buildings in san francisco and as the others have spoken about the amendment to the current fire alarm upgrade, we are

definitely in support of it. we too as the previous public speaker mentioned several senior citizens as well as a few tenants with young children or compromised immune systems who have been extremely hesitant to have anybody come into units to do any type of work unless it's an absolute emergency such as a flooding toilet or in need of replacement of anappliance . there's also been forced as have been hit by so many property owners andexcessive amount of turnover , renegotiating our rent for much lower rents and i'm glad that's also taking quite a financial hit as well as maintaining other capital improvements on our buildings in order to provide a safe and well accommodatedbuilding for our tenants to live in and reside . we do also have some tenants who been concerned saying it's

great vaccine is out and so many people are being vaccinated but of course the fact that there's still a concern that covid could be contracted by various workers coming in twoapartment buildings . additionally although it may not sound so intense of a reason there are with these seniors in particular having additional people, not just workers but someone come in and help them and our company who was going to do this work to empty out closets and create a large space for the work to be completed over a day or two in each unit and that would require more workers to come in toindividual units where a tenant may need help in doing that clearing of their closets . we are in support of the increasingthreshold to 99,000. >> chair melgar: thank you so much .next speakerplease .

>> caller: good afternoon, my nameis megan bierman . and i also am an owner and manager of some smallapartment buildings here in san francisco . i really appreciate everything the other speakers have said and very much appreciate you considering this extension of this deadline. because shelter in place is just proving to be extremely burdensome and stressful for tenants, we're having a tough time. we really are between the economic streams and job losses and theworries of health and safety . the less we candisrupt them the better off there going to be . so that's my concern. it's just i don't want to disrupt the tenants to have this work completed which needs again on twoof my buildings . i did also send into the

department association meeting a tenant lawyer panel and they also expressed that tenants who are coming to them, many of the complaints have to do with this exact issue where they are having difficulty having contractors come into their apartments and the noiseissues and it's just really tough being at home . all the time andtrying to carry on in a reasonable fashion . so thanks for looking at this and i to agree with the amendment proposals taking it up from 50,000 to 99,000 four figure in the mandatory work. if we have projectsthey have to get done . be it electrical or sewer, what have you.

it can easily run over 50,000 and there you will be with major heavy work so that would be a great help as well as for the apartment buildings and have been purchases since 2017. it would just be great if all the buildings were inline . thank you. >> chair melgar: next speaker please. >> caller: hello, my name is catherine snyder. my husband and i own a small apartment building in the richmond district and i'm speaking to ask you to extend the deadline for the fire alarm systems through their restrictions affecting my tenants. i postponedprojects over the past year due to the shelter in place regulations .i do not want to add any more disruption to the lives of my tenants.

they do not want strangers coming into their apartment at thistime to do extensive work . i have several law students movingthere would have to have their classes online at home and they can't go to campus to study either . the other tenants are working at home and they're not happy about having a major construction intheir home at this time but we don't like having strangers come in . please extend the deadline so we can be safe and sure when we finally areable to do these upgrades . i'd also like you if possible to increase that 50,000 to 99,000 when it comes to renovations and causing a trigger. that's my comments and i appreciate you listening to me and my other landlords.thank you.

>> chair melgar: thank you so much,next speaker please . >> caller: my name is keira rob and we have a 27 unit apartment building here in san francisco. we actually went ahead and completed this work last week and the reason why we had done is because the deadline was approaching and we were watching to see if they were going to extend this deadline was only a couple of months left. we were worried if we didn't have it done it would be difficult to do itcause the companies that would be able to do it would be booked . and we were also worried if we didn't meet the deadline thatwe would have trouble maintaining our fire insurance policy . so we had done and it was very disruptive. we had nine workers in the building.

two were workingin different units at a time . we did our best to follow the workers around to make sure that they were following correct, safe protocols. it was very hard for us to be able to keepan eye on all the workers all the time . we had kids that were doing school online that had to get off their computers because the workers were going in their rooms to work in the closet. we had tenants that were working from home and that was disruptive. he also had some elderly tenants so it was pretty tough. we've also had some vacancies this year. and several of our markets great renters requested rent decreases which we agreed to sell our tenants have been hit as well.

estimates we gotranged from 125,000 to 40,000 . so it's a big job and i think it would definitely make sense for this deadline to be extended. so anyways, ... >> chair melgar: thank you for your time. we have 10 listeners, i apologize for cutting you off but we are at two minutes for your time. if we can takethe next speaker, we have 2 left into . >> caller: my name is karen o'neill. [inaudible] thank you for extending our need. most work has been delayed due to covid and in addition ...

[inaudible] either us for outside contractors. it was a disruptive project in the best oftimes , tying it to the end of covid creates chaos for residents . the backlog caused by covid means the subcontractors we are working with our already telling us are booked 6 to 8 months that and in that light it would be near impossible to get all theresidential's taken care of within theone year has been discussed . please do the 2 your window for the upgrade . inaddition leased to the threshold 99,000 for the work to be triggered . as you know, both supplies and labor peace exponentially over the last year and that is showing no signs of slowing down . we've received one year ago and in addition please do all

deadlines with every other building in the city and bring them all to july 2023 four implicitly andto be able to enforce . thank you very much for your time. we appreciate that you're looking at this and let usknow if you have questions . >>. >> chair melgar: next speaker, this will be the last into. >> caller: this is anastasia, i'm a tenant and a member of the san francisco tenants union nine only one of all the commenters who's going to talk about what tenants think about the two-year extension. i question why sit it be justa one-year extension ? i mean, this is my safety. i think if people get their

permits or whatever to start the work, in a year and complete it by the end of the year, that's sufficient. we lost so many buildings to fires, we wouldn't want any of these homeowners, apartment owners to lose their buildings andpeople to lose their lives . i would consider a shorter time limit for that extension if possible. thank you. >> chair melgar: that concludes the public comment period. >> erica major: with that publiccomment is now closed . supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you madam chair and thank you to deputy city attorney pearson

who actedout as to the amendments i mentioned prior to public comment , the corresponding same amendment should be made in section 110 3.7.6.1 on page 4. so i'd like to move to do that in both aces on pages fourand five . that language has been circulated to all of the memberssince i last spoke . i also want to say a few things. number one, i have received during the pandemic quite a number of calls and emails from tenants and have been driving rich brown and ddi crazy over what you actually heard from representatives of the property owning community. i've certainly heard a lot of itfrom tenants . as a matter of fact i haven't

gotten complaints about compliance from property owners . i've gotten complaints from people who are sheltering in placehaving to deal with this during the pandemic and look , we are ... our emergencyorder and original lockdown is over a-year-old . no disrespect to the governor of the great state of california, but i don't think we're going to be out of the woods on june 15. rather than extending it one year and extending it another year, with all due respect to my friend anastasia, i think two years is right. it gives everybody a predictable, stable date that they have to supplyby . so i would like to move those amendments and i really want t thank chief sponsor , supervisor stefani for this and her staff, andy mullan.

i would like to formally move those amendments on pages four and five. >> chair melgar: madam clerk, can you please call the role on the motion to adopt these amendments. >> erica major: on the motion as stated bysupervisor peskin, supervisor peskin .[roll call vote] you have 30 aye's. >> chair melgar: thank you. >> supervisor peskin: i like to make a motion to continue this itemone as amended >> chair melgar: do we have to vote on that motion ? i didn't hear you madam clerk. >> erica major: youare good madam chair . on the motion as stated by supervisor peskinto continue

the item as amended, supervisor peskin .[roll call vote] you have 3 aye's. >> chair melgar: the motion passes. madam clerk, would youplease call item number two . >> erica major: item 2 is a move to amend the housing code and affirm appropriatefinding. members of the public whowish to provide public comment on item number two should call th item on the screen . extra 18 . the meeting id is 187 724 4053 . then press pound, pound. if you have not done so, please dial star 3 to lineup to speak for item number two. lookclosely for the seven system prop .when we get to public comment list and listen for the system to indicate tha you have been on muted and you maybe get thank you madam .

thank you supervisor peskin for introducing this item. we are joined by john murray from the department of building inspection and also chief housing inspector. supervisor peskin, would you share your remarks ? >> supervisor peskin: this as the legislative digest is straightforwardand simple, this is legislation that would prohibit the removal of existing community kitchens in group housing but would allow replacement or remodeling of existing community kitchens within those facilities . i want to thank thebuilding inspection can committee for their support ofthis legislation and as you said mister murray is able to answer any questions . i wantto thank my chief of staff who did all the heavy lifting . >> chair melgar: thank you

supervisor and thank you . mister murray, would you please speak up. >> john murray: to be honest with you supervisor peskin coveredeverything i was going to say . we are amending this section of the code for the removal of humidity kitchens in group housing and it would permit such kitchens to be replaced or renovated currently in the housing code. there's a minimum size for kitchens but there's not any requirement that they actually be kept in place so this was just a bit of a loophole in the housing code. withthat , i am happy to answer any questions and as mentioned before i am joined by chief archie housing inspector. >> chair melgar: thank you

mister murray and i understand she's not presenting, just available for ourcomments and questions so thank you for that . colleagues, do we have any questions or comments for the ddi staff? with that then let's go to public comment. madam clerk please. >> erica major: thank you madam chair. we have dph checking on the callers. if you'd like to speak for item number two rest star 3 to be added to the speaker line. for those already in q continue to wait and we have 1 color. we have 4 listeners with one speaker. ifyou could unmute the speaker please . >> caller: anastasia again from san franciscotenants union . i support supervisor peskin's

ordinance to prohibit the removal ofcommunity kitchens from group housing facilities . people are living in tiny room . they have barely enough food, heat, water and maybe a microwave in the room so these kitchens are really important especially when you're looking at the new design at 468 turkey street and 470 farrow street. the planning department last week, even the commissioner sue diamond was calling for those communitykitchens so they are really important . thank you supervisorpeskin . >> chair melgar: thank you for your comments. dd has confirmedthat was the last caller into . >>chair melgar: you madam . public comment on thisitem is closed .

i want to again thank supervisor peskin for his legislation, it's super important as somebody who thought a lot of work on tenants rights for preserving affordable housing so thank you somuch supervisor for always watching out for that supervisor preston, do you have any comments ? >> supervisor stefani: >> supervisor preston: no comment. >> chair melgar: do we have a motionto pass this with unanimous decision ? >> supervisor preston: so move . >> chair melgar:let's callable please . [roll call vote] >> erica major: you have 3 aye's. >> chair melgar:the motion passes unanimously . would you pleasecall item

number three ? >> erica major: -threeis an ordinance amending line 1 651 duncan street as a landmark consistent with standards and affirm appropriate findings. members of the public who wish to provide public, item number on the screen, thatanything . meeting id is 187 724 4053. then press pound, pound. listen closely for the system prompt after you dial so you can addyourself to the speaker line . >> chair melgar: we are now joined by the sponsor, improviser mandelman. thank you for introducingthis item . would you please share your remarks? >> supervisor mandelman: iq chair melgar. thank you chair melgar and

happy invisibility day to all. this is an ordinance to designate a longtime hold of the slider: secure one duncan street san francisco historic landmark and i want to begin my thinking supervisor peskin for your cosponsorship. phyllis passed away over a year ago in april were giants of the early lgbtq rights movement. they were the first same-sex couple legally wed in san francisco. the home they live together and worthless the end of her life, 651 duncan is a 751 square-foot college times with stunning views of the city inside of community gatherings, private

parties where lesbians could gather really to dance and be themselves and worthless and countless other activists and historical figuresover half a century organizers and community leaders .home is a site of historic value san francisco and the lgbtq movement across the world and it should be recognized and preserved. in february the historic preservation commission recommended moving forward to make 651 duncan first landmark associated with the history of the lesbian community in san francisco today lesbian disability and lesbian visibility week i can think of no better time than to take this long overdue step. while it's been my honor to sponsor this designation is community led effort from the beginning i want to thank the preservation advocates been leading the effort including the lgbtq historical society, friends of the lyon-martin house and a group organized by

shane watson who cowrote the lgbtq historic context statement as well as as heritage, the national trust for historicpreservation the preservation foundation . property owners who understand and engage in constructive dialogue to explore a variety of ways that sites can play a role in honoring phyllis legacy for future generations. i also want to thank pilar love ali from the planning department and jacob from my office for alltheir work on this project . and withthat , i believe we have pilar here to present the committee's recommendations after which we will hear from shane watson and terry of the lgbtq historical society and meredith jones, property owner to briefly speak to this landmark he as well so if it's all right with you madam chair

i'd like to invite pilar lavalle to come speak. >> chair melgar: since we do have a number of speakers i will ask the clerk please keep time. we will have five minutes for miss pilar lavalle and three minutes forthe rest of the center . thank you so much . welcome. >> pilar lavalle: good afternoon commissioners, pilar lavalle, planning department staff. hold on while i pull up some slides. sorry, we will wait forthat to load . i apologize because supervisor mandelman has covered some of my remarks so hopefullythere's

not too much. that afternoon . pilar lavalle, planning department staff. before you is the ordinance recommending approval of landmark designation of the lyon-martin house, home of the pioneering lesbian home . on 2020 supervisor mandelman introduced designation in the land use committee and fall voted unanimously torecommend and approve this resolution which became effective and october 2020 . it was then transmitted to planning for review and recommendation by the historic preservation commission. in the hpc's review commission determined that the house was significant as a home of the pioneering lesbian rights activists, they were the first same-sex couple to be married twice in san francisco, once in 2004 and once in 2008 and over the course of 65 years togethe

, they worked individually and together to be a cofounders, board members or chairs of many local date and national lesbian rights organizations and institutions. a period of significance for the property was identified in 1965 to 2020 which represents the period in whichthey owned and occupied and worked from the property .the house is also significant towards it designation with the development of the first lesbian rights organization in the united states which also had a nationallyknown newsletter called the latter . del martin served as the first president of the organization as and was nationalpresident and a longtime editor of the latter . phyllis lyon was secretary and also a longtime editorof the latter . during the early years of the organization when secrecy was important, was paramount actually, they used their home to host parties and fundraising

events for the daughters of elitists. the boards resolution to initiate landmark designation for the lyon-martin house was designated for two parcels, because those were the properties owned by phyllis lyon and martin. the boards designation was heard by the historic preservation committee commissioned in 2021. the historic preservation commission finding the lyon-martin house significantly historical voted 6 to 1 to recommend approval of landmark designation of the property 51 duncan street only excluding 649duncan street from the recommendation as shown shaded in the slide . in their deliberations commissioners noted parcels in the house appeared to be the propertymost representative of margin and lyon's significance

. on a somewhat related aside, the lyon-martin health services which was named in honor of phyllis lyon and doris martin and was founded to provide lesbians access to nonjudgmental affordable healthcare has been added to the cities legacy bracket registry so just to put that information out there so that's mypresentation . thank you and on to your questions . >> thank you miss lavalle and we will now hear from shane watson of the lyon-martin hous and committee sponsor for the landmark and . >> can you hear me?my hearing was going to go first,is that okay ? >> chair melgar: sure. >> are you ready?

>>. [inaudible] >> i am here, can you hear me? >> chair melgar: welcome. >> my name is jerry beswick and i'm director of the lgbtq historical society and i'd like to thank supervisor trent for hisleadership advocating for the land marking of the lyon-martin house and inviting me to testify today . founded in 1985 , the historical society maintains one of the largest archives of lgbt q historical midget museums and is one of the few museums dedicated to that history so we're proud to hold extensions of civil rights fired pioneers in our collection. they are among our most frequently sourced and will continue to yield works for

many years to come. we cannot overstate the cultural and historic significance of thehouse where lyon and martin made their home . it will forever remain internationally recognized heroes for their leadership in the lgbtq rights, women's rights and other civil rights issues and for 65 years their work was centered atthis house . this journey to a land marking proposal reported by all the major stakeholders has not always been easy i'm please we were able to reach a resolution that sparks significance and honors their family as the new property owners who wish to build their new home on the adjoining property . today is as l mentioned lesbian visibility today and i wish to thank my colleagues shane watson and greta miller for their leadership and our partners in this effort. also the san francisco heritage and the national trust for

historicpreservation . with assistance from supervisor mandelman staff we were able to work with the new owners to achieve a land marking solution we hope will preservethe home for future generations . we were delighted to work with the property owner and her archetype on the land marking and grateful for their commitment to continue working with us on efforts to preserve the house and commemorate its internationally significant district. thank you madam chairman . >> chair melgar: thank you mister beswick. mister watson are you availabl to present ? >> i'm ready. good afternoon, thank you chair melgar, supervisor peskin and preston and supervisor mandelman. it's an honor to testify on their behalf today, especially

lesbian visibility today. my name is shane watson representing the lyon-martin housewhich includes 227 people from around the world who have signed on in support of this land marking . the lyon-martin landmark would be the first landmark in the western united states to recognize and affirm the significance of simply put, lesbian love. yes, this house was the headquarters of intense activism for all people under the queer rainbow but it was also chris's house in the morning but also the truly extraordinary thing for me is this really proud and out lesbian couple was able to legally purchase these two lots in1965 with no trouble . it's such a simple thing but in

honestly consequential when you think about how 651 duncan was arefuge for so many people . especially offering a safe haven or alternative to the bars in the 1950s and 60s and so many of our lgbtq landmarks are gay bars and gay bars are important to our movement as well but the pre-1965 gay bar experience is a sad and dark story where 651 duncan is about love and progress which we could all usemore of right now. let's start focusing on more of that and thank you to everyone . have a good day. >> chair melgar: thankyou very much miss watson . we will lastly hear from meredith jones mcewan, the current property owner and her architect. >> i am meredith jones mckinnon, the current property

owner and i think my architect is here to answer questions and i don't need to take my full three minutes. i'll just say we didn't know about phyllis and del martin when we bought the house and we had a lot of opportunity to learn about them through kerry andthe friends of the house and about their remarkable lives . we hope that this will be an opportunity for many more people to learn about the important work they did and we dosupport the land marking of 651 duncan . that's it. >> chair melgar: thank you so much. well, are there any further remarks or comments from supervisor mandelman or any of my committeecolleagues ? okay. supervisor peskin, were you going tosay something ?

>> supervisor peskin: did you saypreston or peskin ?i knew them both and adored them. i went to the house many times. thank you to everyoneinvolved in landmarking it, supervisor mandelman . it's awesome . >> chair melgar: thank you supervisor. i haveto say this makes me very happy . if there's no further comments or questions let's take public comment. >> erica major: bt is checking tosee the status of callers into . press dark read to be added to speak for those already on hold please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been on muted to begin your comments . dt has confirmedthere are seven listeners with three in q and if you could unmute the first caller .

>> caller: good afternoon supervisors and thank you to supervisor mandelman for his leadership . my name is christina morris and i'm joining you as a member of the historic preservation and our campaign to elevate places around the country where women made history . we are supportive of the designation of the lyon-martin house as a local landmark to recognize the life and work of ellis lyon and del martin and their home as a site of women's history and lesbian activism, civil rights lgbtq rights and while lyon and martens activism as for ben accolades, the house that facilitated their lifetime work means largely unrecognized and unprotected and lyon observed she and martin would never have been able to achieve the organizing baby hadthey not purchased that home .

sadly, sites of women's history and lgbtq history are woefully underrepresented in official designations across the country and this is a disparity that should be confronted and corrected so i willyes . >> chair melgar: next speaker please. >> caller: hello, this is anastasia, adh resident and i thank supervisor mandelman for achieving thislandmark status for the lyon-martin house . this has so much importance and significance to the movement and i'm so grateful that the property owners are in support of the status being landmarked, even though the ashes of the two women are scattered on the adjacent lot. anyhow, thank you so much.

goodbye. >> chair melgar: thank you, next speaker. >> caller: good afternoon supervisors, this is woody from san francisco heritage, heritage mission is to preserve san francisco's unique architecture and cultural identity and we strongly support this landmark designation of 651 duncan. it is a potential civil-rights monument for its association with the couple. landmark designation is an important step in recognizing and preserving that potential and like supervisor melgar, this action makes me personall very happy so thanks again . >> chair melgar:thank you, next

speaker please . 's. >> there are no more colors in thequeue . >> chair melgar: thank you, that makes thepublic comment on this item close . do we have a motion to pass this out ofcommittee with a positive recommendation ? >> so moved. >> chair melgar: will you please call the ball. >> erica major: on the motion as stated by supervisor preston, supervisor peskin. [roll call vote] you have 3 aye's. >> chair melgar:the motion passes .madam clerk, will you please call item 4.

>> chair melgar: due to the initial shelter in place ordinance , policies that promote workingfrom home and safety measures put in place to promote a return to in person business . members of the public who wish to provide public comment on item number four should call the item on the screen , that's 415-655-0001. . the meeting id is 187 724 4053 then press pound, pound. please dial star 3 to line up to speak. listen closely and you'll hear a prompt indicating you have raisedyour hand . please listen for a system prompt indicating you have been on muted tobegin your comment . >> chair melgar: before we go

into this hearing i need to note that supervisor peskin has asked to be excused for the remainder of the meeting and supervisor safai will be substituting for him. where now joined by supervisor safai, can i have amotion to excuse supervisor peskin ?>> supervisor safai: so moved. >> chair melgar:madam clerk, can you call the roll on that motion ? [roll call vote] >> erica major: you have 3 aye's. >> chair melgar: that motion passes and goodbye supervisor peskin, thank you.

provides safai, will you please proceed with your opening comments on this item and you will call the presenter. i want to note tonight's last item because there are many presenters i will ask madam clerk to please track the time for the presenters for five minutes for eachpresentation . i'll come. >> supervisor safai: chair melgar. i think we have five official presenters and then if we could go through each of the presentations and ask questions at the end of the presentation, not the entire five but at the end of each one if that's okay with the chair. colleagues, for listening today and participating, global pandemic has had a significant impact on our local economy.

in particular our tourist industry, nightlife downtown office work environment and so we wanted to have a conversation today and we called for this hearing to talk about the status of our commercial vacancies. are they rolling, are they leveling off in 2020? the question for us as legislators is what are we doing here in san francisco? how the facility for how his san francisco when to reopen it and particularly its downtown core? is it the health guidelines that are prohibiting these from sending employees back? is it the current health orders themselves? or isit a shift in the work environment ? as covid-19 shifted our office and work culture completely and how we are going to do busines ? this is an important question or the land use committee.

as a former vice chair we authorized one of the largest land use authorizations and i know chair melgar also a former president of the planning commission dealt the central soma plan. millions of square feet of office space were entitled during the process and is it time to have a look at that? is it something we would go back to? i know, do we still need that office space? do we need to be thinking about something slightlydifferent though although it was years in the making , this has had a dramatic impact as we all know on the way we are approaching reopening . so since the start of the pandemic office has followed a number of articles that have been written, talked to employers and employees. we had a previous hearing from

our economistsand others to talk about the state of the recovery . then back in the early part of april already, most recently they said maybe a third of bay area residents and those who are looking at communing less often into the office and what does that meanfor us here in san francisco ? is it time to getcreated? is it time to really look at that . this is to provide guidance that we need to properly potentially legislate ways to reactivate our commercial real estate and local downtown economy. do everything we can to get into pre-pandemic levels and what are wedoing in the meantime ? we invited the department of public works and calls talking about the amount of construction going on and is that going to be an impediment to opening things backup?

we've gotten calls from small business owners want to know when the office environment is going to be similar to the way it was were beginning to start the look the way it was so we can plan to reopen our businesses so we have several city departments and business leaders and commercial office managers to provide us with insight today on how we should potentially move over and i look also to you colleagues for your experience and the work you've done. with a number of tech companies allowingtheir staff regularly , potentially either forever or partially, what does thatmean for our small business economy ? to produce the demand for their goods and services. in addition as we infuse money into our city's recovery should we be preparing to adapt for a different type of work and what will our economy look like if companies are allowingpartial,

remote or permanent remote work in the months and years to come .we're hearing transit companies allowing their employees to work three days in office in threedays remotely . all that will then begin to shape our conversation . and then as i said, the central soma plan in some areas as to the way theydevelop . two decades ago the city of los angeles to get a conversation about adaptive reuse in their downtown core where they converted manyunused office buildings into houses . i'm not saying we need to go that route right now but i just think that it's worthwhile to begin a conversation and to look at where we are todayand where we might be heading going into the future . so you know, i had a small conversation with supervisor haney in his district but i also look you chair melgar for your time on the planning commission as chair of this committee to see if it's worthwhile to begin a

conversation. so we will be calling five presenters to review the economic impact of our vacant office buildings. my first presenter will be the acting health officer, doctor susan phillips. i know we nominated her, i don't know if it's permanent yet but soon to be permanent health officer for the department of public health . our city's chief economist ted begin and we will hear from our small business commissioner regina from the san francisco chamber of commerce and from the building and managers association , and their team. office of economic and workforce development will be there to update us on how cities have been working on these issues and provide more context they will also aid in assisting reactivation and the

department ofpublic works , planning department and department of emergency management will be here if we have anyquestions . if we could begin chair i like to start with the head of the department or are acting health officer doctor susan phillips and what we need and what path we need to be taking a week and get back to 100 percent reopening of our office buildings and if there are things we should bethinking about as legislators after phillips . >> dr. susanphillips: thank you so much for the opportunity to joinyou today . i don't have a presentation . i want to be brief and give a general framing for the use of offices and other space for employees ofpublic and private entities across the city . first and foremost, the factor that is going to enable offices to come back is vaccination and

san francisco has done a very good job of working collaboratively with the communities and our academic partners and many others to increase activation ahead of the proportion of our vaccine the statelevel or national level . currently we have 67 percent of adults 16 or older who are activated with at least one shot, 43 percent fully vaccinated it is that vaccination status that needs to increase. that will enable people to be able to be inproximity together without all the controls we had . our current status is that in san francisco we enable offices to be open at 25 percent capacity. we're anticipating that as we move to yellow tear which we are awaiting to see if we qualify with our lowercase numbers that we've seen lately we will be able to go to 50

percent capacity ultimately as vaccination goes up that level of percent capacitywill go away . we will still likely be left with the need for spacing, for distancing. currently six feet between people who are working in an office. that may also change depending on cdc recommendations, california department of public health recommendations and again based on vaccination status but from what we understand as the way the virus transmits for people who are unvaccinated really is, we do need to make six feet and keep masking in place. but with those parameters it is possible to ramp up in person work and be able to do that. the state recommendation does say to encourage telework as much as possible but again, that consideration is in place right now is the state of the

city and council are ramping up our vaccination so that's the overall piece i want to get context of in the current pandemic and how the health considerations playinto returning to in person work . >> supervisor safai: our jump in because you said a bunch of stuff that melded together but thank you for all your tremendous work. are you still acting or did they finalize you or are you permanent? >> dr. susan phillips: i believe the item is coming back to you as a fold board nextweek . >>supervisor safai: we look forward to voting on that . when we moved to yellow, do you anticipate is going to 50 percent capacity, allowing up to 50 percent capacity and then youmentioned spacing .and vaccination and so on.

can you talk alittle bit more about that because if we are at 50 percent capacity , but people are fully vaccinated in the office environment you still need that station and do you still need mask wearing because those are some of the questions that we get no businesses obviously will look to our guidance in the city and youdidn't mention anything about ventilation standards . we passed our healthy building ordinance but can you talk about ventilation as well? i know that's something we are potentially going to vote on tomorrow and then there's also conversations about other things that could be done to make office environments feel safer for workers to return . if you could speak a little bit about that. >> dr. susan phillips: there's several important points that you raise there. ventilation is an important factor in making sure indoor

environments are as safe as possible and i want to contrast ventilation with our services and cleaning early on in the pandemic were space focused and we understand and objects that have a virus on them are not a big route for transmitting . there should be less emphasis on cleaning every hour. it should just be routine cleaning and the cdc recommends that as well but yes, maximizing ventilation, exchange of air ideally through fresh air outside is really ideal. your second point that you made is also really important around how it's different for vaccinated people and vaccinated staff. i think there's increasing work going into how an employer would be able to know and get vaccination status from their employee and your correct that a fully vaccinated staff would not necessarily have to have the same requirements from a transmission standpoint for virus transmission.

however there are as of yet not such differentiations either at the national level from the cdc or from the california department of public health and because we have such an interconnected region we would ideally want to follow state guidance around this because so many people live and work in different counties in the area and certainly to have a regional approach. but i think there will be additional authority and guidance coming from the state level or from the regional level about how to proceed with that as people are all vaccinated. rightnow we are still in a phase in san francisco where we are doing well . we had a good portion of our population that's not fully vaccinated yet so i think it's good to anticipate what that would look like right now the

most likely will have more spaceswhere some people are vaccinated and others are not . so we are trying to find out from the cdc and the california department of public health what is the best practice, there are a lot of things that have to happen for you can make decisions including knowing which of your staff are not vaccinated and right now one of our main focuses is trying to ensure that as many people who live and work in san francisco can get vaccinated as possible and that's going to be our path back into more in person work and in person engagements with each other . >> supervisor safai: we don't have guidance as to say if everyone was vaccinated on this floor and voluntarily showing they are vaccinated for their position or depending onwhen they receive their vaccination .right now we don't have any difference differentiation and

guidance in terms of spacing and mask wearing and other things. >> dr. susan phillips: not in terms of the workplace. one of the first places that has come out our in large events, outdoor events, and the state has said in those situations there can be actions that are vaccinated, vaccination only sections where masking must occur but spacing doesn'thave to occur . dissipating in that guidance will extend into other settings in the workplace. >> supervisor safai: so we can anticipate an environment where people have masks and spacing is no longer an issue. >> dr. susan phillips: that is potentially what we will see that we haven't seen guidance yet but that is what would make logical sense based on what they've already released. >> supervisor safai: okay and i have one last question and if my colleagues have any other

questions. the governor made the announcement about reopening june 15 in terms of a larger reopening date, how does that play into the overall conversation about the workplace? >> dr. susan phillips: i think what that's dependent on again is continuing our trajectory of vaccinating people cause again, it really depends on how well protected we are. people are against this virus. rather than any particular date but if we're able to keep on this trajectory we believe we will have the vast majority of people in san francisco vaccinated by that time . so we can move forward with thinking about what would it look like to have a workplace and again, we are anticipating more of this guidance will come in about what we can do people who arevaccinated in terms of how close they can be .

do we need to continue wearing masks indoors, all that guidance is forthcoming so we can anticipate we will be seeing more guidance will be days in which people can be closer proximity together in workplaces or otherwise . wejust don't have all that in hand currently . >> supervisor safai: i guess i have one last question. i know they anticipate doing away with the pierce system in terms of the color system is that something that would happen , is it something we are thinking might happen before june 15 or right around that time and then at that point we would , everything would change depending on vaccination level statewide . >> i think for the state i think that they are anticipating and signaling to us at the local health department level that it will be on june 15 but we are preparing to do as much as we can before that date, understanding after that date we will want to retain all

those pieces of the health order that are absolutely necessary depending on where we are with ourvaccination status . >> supervisor safai: what level of vaccination do we, are we on thecurrent trajectory ? where do we anticipate we will be june 15 ? >> dr. susan phillips: the current trajectory says we should beabout 80 percent by that date . >> supervisor safai: fully vaccinated? >> dr. susan phillips: fully vaccinated. the challenge is going to be are we going to continue to get doses at the levelat which we need ? we would like to be putting close to 20,000 doses into people's arms per day and the second piece of that which is equally as important and more challenging to figure out is will people continue to want to get vaccinated?

will we see the same level of vaccine confidence in people and will we be able to implement new strategies to make sure we are making vaccines accessible and acceptable to all our communitiesbecause that is the only way we will be able to move forward as a city and as the region .>> supervisor safai: colleagues,do you have any more questions before we go on to the next presenter ? we're going to do questions in between so please ask your questionsto the presenters as each one dishes presenting . great. well, thank you doctor phillip . maybe you can hang around just a little bit in case anything comes backup but i appreciate everything you're doing . >> dr. susan phillips:thank you very much. >> supervisor safai: thank you for keeping us updated and safe . okay, our next presenter is our city economist mister soma

mister ted egan. >> ted egan: i have a presentationand i'm going to share my screen now . coming through. i'm going to be talking about the current stateof the city office market . what are the key indicators around they can see and read, particularly in the areas of downtown that supervisor safai mentioned but before i talk about that state i want to talk about historical perspective to help people think about changes in the office market and this is a chart showing 30 years of data on the office print in san francisco and the office vacancy rate. i should say building on the

previous discussion with doctor phillips, when i'm talking aboutoffice vacancy it for the amount of space that's least . i'm not talking about how many people are working at the offices because of the public health controls. but there are going to be changes in san francisco's office market and after the pandemic, after the public health or as the public health restrictions are lifted that are going to be featured in the city's economy in the medium-term andthat's where i want to focus my remarks in this presentation . for this chart i really just want to make a couple of things clear. this is showing the relationship between office vacancies and recession areas are the gray areas and generally what happens is employment goes down and businesses produce this amount

of space and office vacancy rate rises and in orderto maintain income from properties , property managerswill reduce the rent . it's almost always you will see this inverse relationship when vacancy spikes, rents fall afterwards . after the recession you saw big rent collection and the boom of the late 90s there was a smaller collection of rents and during the late recession, this chart goes to the end of 2020. it's beginning to show the spike in vacancy we areseeing now . some drops in rent but i think that the implication of that is the drop in rent is to come and we will speakmore about that in a moment . one of the things that different course about this recession compared to the three previous ones is this one is not related to office tenants

shedding employment. the office industries have generally not lost very many jobs in san francisco and some are currently employing more people than they were before the pandemic started but what we are seeing is many businesses reconsidering the role of office work in their strategies for getting work done and we're seeing businesses are now expanding the amount of work from home, and took over after it was safe to come back to these offices along with colleagues incontrol of his . we looked at the statements of the largest taxpayers in san francisco and only about halfof them , 12 out of 25 they either have done nothing publicly are basically saying employees could expect to go back to the

office the way they were before. seven of them are allowing at least some employees to work from home permanently and another five announcing and role of work from home along with the requirement that two days a week. that is a major shift in at least how the large businesses currently downtown or in downtown before the pandemic areviewing the role of downtown office in their plans going forward . that is, these decisions and these plans are already showing up in the measures of the office markets that i will share in a moment. i want to share what we know so far about rent at least through february in the north financial district and in soma which in office market lingo west of the financial district. these are the five major office

some market districts and their showing fairly modest rents in the order of two or three percent from the prerecession peak. this is data from moody's analytics . but moody's is not accepting things to be that high. this is what moody's is stating they're expecting april 20, 2021, only about 1 and a half percent decline in thefourth quarter of last year . however, there was a drop of 15 percent in office rent and another 1.8 percent in 2022. so given we are seeing businesses rethink their need for office space after the pandemic, we're seeing this spike. what moody's is saying is forecasting for 2021 the decline in rent that we virtually always see as part of

the office market adjustment and recession. >> chair melgar: mister egan, your time has allotted. >> ted egan: i will briefly ... >> supervisor safai: kenny just do his slides? >> chair melgar: it's okay, of course. we just do want to keep an order here at the hearing . five minutes, thank you. >> ted egan: this is data provided on the amount of square footage of office space that is on the sublease market. the sublease market is when businesses potentially that half lease basedecide they no longer needed and put it back on the market . currently there's about 8.4 million square feet of office space available in sanfrancisco

on the sublease market, more than there was@theendofthe.com movement . at the current levels of vacancy that are driving the expected drop in rent that the citywas talking about that i referred to on the previous slide . jl l is also showing the current drop in rent of $12 a square foot, generally more volatile than the direct space that's on the normal office market but jl l is showing by the end of theyear a similar drop of about $10 per square foot . there are some bright spots for san francisco. at least along the lines of the vacancy and expected drop in rent is leading to increases in people looking for office spac . i apologize for the quality of the graphic but this is data from a company called dbs that

tracks the number of office broker tours in different cities and their showing san francisco has had the strongest downturn in terms of viewing office space of any of the major cities they track. and that really now san francisco is back to where it was in 2019 beforethe pandemic . another bright spot or at least a sign of an adjustment taking place, this is data from a few days ago from cbr e showing a big spike in 2021 and the number of potential tenants. that's the green on this chart. the ratio of the amount of space available to the amount of spacecustomers are looking for is the orange line . when that number starts going down aroundtwo , that's where the normal rate is issued so

the number is elevated . it is starting to move in the direction towards every and that is a sign normal market aggression. let me conclude and i'll be happy to take any. it's clear from the cbpr report that many businesses are rethinking their work from home policy and in some cases that's leading them to reduce the amount of office space . it seems this is happening more in san francisco than in other cities. it will probably lead to a higher office vacancy rate in fewer employees returning after the pandemic and it could also lead to a slower economic recovery for the city because much of the economic activity in the city's downtown and indirectly connected to offices. i do think however it's

unlikely this will be a permanent change and the office vacancies will stay elevated forever based on the past experience, offers rents go lower in order to secure new tenants. this adjustment is not always fast.it took several years after the.com boom but it is likely to occur . some of the signs we're seeing in rising tenant interests are partof that . the result of this maybe san francisco becoming affordable for office tenants that might have been priced out of the city in the past . the other thing i think is favorable to san francisco is there strong macroeconomic factors . low interest rates, and increasingly optimistic economic support for the us economy, stable environment or venture capital funding and other early-stage financing for the type of companies that have to additionally then located in san francisco.

stop there and take now. >> supervisor safai: one thing i want to conclude and make clear on the conclusion. it sounds like even though vacancies might be on increase. rex might be coming down because of showing demand for people that might have previously been placed out of the market we might then recover quicker and vacancies might go away quicker with just the lower rent for a different type of tenant or not a different type but a different price range of tenant that might have been out so we might not be in for a long economic recovery or harder one. is that what i got from your presentation ? >> ted egan: i think that's an important part, yes. the following office rent will help recoveries because it wil lead to those vacancies going down . someone will be in those offices going outto lunch,

shopping in downtown . those buildings will be able to support and the downtown economy will recover faster. having said that, i'm not saying this adjustment and the vacancy will happen quickly. it's too soon to forecast that. vacancyrates are quite high and there's never been as much public space on the market but at least we're seeing the wheels turn . [please stand by]

know what to do and what it's going to look like for their workers. folks are trying to navigate whether or not the telework works for their business, just their business assumptions, it may or may not. for some types of businesses it may work more easily than others. i think people are just kind of trying to -- you know, so the

thing is to not break a lease but make available to someone else while they're trying to figure that out. to me, it opens up a bunch of other questions. to make conclusions about whether or not we need any of the stuff, would seem to be premature. we don't know how space is going to be used and we don't know how businesses will sort of see how all of this will affect their bottom line and how the work force will react. there's too many questions in the air for me, i think. >> i agree with a lot of what you just said supervisor. i certainly don't see any evidence for example for some of the notions that the tech industry is moving out of the bay area. or we're going to see the end of san francisco, the fact that

we're seeing more companies with hybrid offices recently and less permanent work from home suggests that they still see value in at least the san francisco labor or market and working together in san francisco. however, if for example companies in general went from just four days a week in the office, let's say before the pandemic to just three days a week after the pandemic, that is still like a 25% reduction in the amount of office space being used on a given day. companies are eventually not going to just leave that vacant. they're going to shed that space and reconsolidate in ways that will allow them to reduce that footprint. i think what we're going to see is essentially less use of office space by companies that still value being in san francisco and aren't going

anywhere. and so that's why i think i share your optimism about the long-term future for the city. but i wouldn't minimize the kind of medium term challenges of working through the vacancies. as for the question of central soma, you know, that plan was developed with certain ideas in mind about what rents would be. the only rents that have gone down more than office is housing rents. you can't push on two strings if you know what i'm saying. it's not -- until the economy recovers, we can't treat it like something we can make happen by

changing it. so i would suggest we need to wait and see more about the kinds of how businesses are reacting to reopening and get the pandemic behind us. we need to sort of separate people's psychology about am i safe working in the office from the other sort of benefits of working from home and then we can have a clearer sense of what the recovery market looks like. >> were you done with the question chair? so what i got from your slide about the 25 largest companies, taxpayers, i find it very, very telling, 28% out of that group said they have already made the decision they're ready to remain permanent. and one of the things we know about the industries and businesses is that they can change. i was talking with someone over

the weekend who said their employer has told people -- employees that anyone who wants to work out of state, go ahead, you can work wherever you want to work from for tax benefits, blah, blah, blah, but as soon as they make the decisions, they can make the decisions and reverse the decisions. and i'm sure it's not every employee, i'm sure it's a certain level of management and certain type of industry. but what it does say to me is that there's definitely going to be a permanent culture shift in many of the businesses. that's fine because as chair melgar said, it is going to be then more about sub-leasing and right sizing the amount of footprint you need for the office space. i too am of the belief because of some of our unique benefits, our environment will still be

super attractive -- that's why i like what you put down in your summary about how as rent comes down, there will be tenants that might have been priced out of the city in the past may be able to fill the void. and i believe that certainly will happen. i don't think we have hit rock bottom in anyway in terms of demand. but it says something about where we are in the interim, in the transition period. as you said, the amount of sublease is in a significant low. can you talk more about the sublease market for a moment just to underscore that point for us? >> well, as i understand the

market, leases hit the market, supply hits the market in one of two ways. either a lease ends and the tenant decides not to renew or there's new construction or sublease method. someone is permitted to the estate and decide we don't need as much space, let's find another tenant to take on the space. i think the sublease market is important as kind of a more shock absorber in the market. it's not -- the other types of vacancies kind of occur on a regular basis but when you have news or rapid economic changes, it tends to be the sublease market that steals them first. and it's reason the sublease market in terms of rent tends to be more volatile because businesses are reacting and they

just want the space off their books. so when you see a large spike in the sublease space, it is concerning because that's a bunch of tenants who had decided they wanted to grow that much or thought they would need that much space and now deciding they don't. at least that's one interpretation that seems to be what people are saying about it now. there's -- many firms were foolish about how much space they needed and now it's less so. i think that's as much an indicator as it is a driver of the rent changes we expect to see. >> are you talking about the separation between the direct rents and sublease asking rents, that difference in price? i don't see anything on here in terms of demand on your chart. i just see the difference between the two, the direct price and sublease price.

>> yeah, i just wanted to show that the sublease market tends to be more volatile. and the rents currently are lower in the sublease market than the standard. >> and they're significantly, the distance between the lease and sublease is significantly -- looks like one of the widest spreads in the last 30 years. >> that's right. >> that probably, the sublease number will probably keep going down until they hit demand. right now there's not enough demand hitting that price right now. >> that's right. that's probably -- we'll be where the new tenants we're talking about will go. it will be when the sublease rents drop to that level that it is sufficient to the transaction to move forward. yeah. >> got it.

this was really helpful. any other questions? >> i'm here on the roster. let me just jump in with that. >> i didn't see the roster. good, i'm glad you're here. >> so, thank you for the presentation, just one question as we were going through this. obviously we've had for years struggles for nonprofit organizations being able to afford office space and a lot of them displaced to the east bay. i'm just curious whether for the data points you are tracker, the rents, are you also tracking that by sector and in a way that would actually isolate nonprofits, either in terms of the data you looked at so far or

going forward, i would love to keep an eye on that. >> it's definitely something we're looking at going forward. we don't have any -- all of the data we have about demand in the market is third party data from the office tracking industry. we'll look for the data from the federal government. i'm definitely interested in looking at that through 2021 and which industries may not have been growing fast are start together grow again in san francisco. particularly nonprofits. >> thank you. >> okay, great. thank you. really appreciate that. thank you supervisor preston, i think that was an important point. i think definitely those who have been pushed out, not even

just priced out, but those pushed out are an important part of the conversation. that's particularly nonprofit providers. i would say lastly, i know there was a tremendous amount of time, effort and energy put into the central plan. i appreciate you highlighting that a lot of the plan was based on certain rents and rent levels and we're far below that. it might be worthwhile to have a conversation with the major developers that put those proposals forward to see where they are and as you stated, nothing has dropped farther than commercial rents than residential rents but those seem to have stabilized over the last couple of months and seem to be rising again. so it would be worthwhile to potentially have that conversation and even in the

larger context of how much affordable, we have a new tool to create more affordable housing. i bet we didn't have it before, a financing tool in prop i. and so it might be worthwhile to talk to those folks about the plan and see if there's any room. but that's a discussion for another day. thank you so much for your presentation today. next up we have from our small business commission. regina? >> thank you. and good afternoon chair melgar and supervisor preston and thank you supervisor safai for the opportunity to present. i do have a presentation. >> great.

>> i have been asked to provide information for clients served during covid related to zip codes is the best way we can sort our data for the demographic section of the city that this hearing is taking a look at. so to date we have serviced 7,150 businesses. there are six different zip codes.

we have serviced 1024 clients in that particular area, about 15% of total clients served. i have some detailed data by each zip code but because of time, i'll just quickly go through some of them. so except for -- and maybe i will go back, except for 94104 and 94105, the predominate number of businesses that reached out to seek our assistance was in the food-related business sector. and a good portion of it was dealing with financial assistance and of course we track by were they looking for reopening guidance, financial assistance, general guidance, real estate assistance, lease assistance, information about the commercial eviction

moratorium, work force guidance, things of that sort. so you'll get the power point and you can take a look at the data in greater detail. so the important thing that i want to highlight in 94104 and 94105, the top business sector seeking assistance from our office was in the professional scientific and technical services sector and by this code, which is legal services, accounting services and we track kind of specified, these are highlights of types of businesses that contacted our office. engineering services, landscape services, consulting and photography and so these are small firms that are occupying office space in the 94104 and

94105 zip codes. the majority are not seeing rent relief that did contact our office. that's not to say that's the majority but those who contacted our office. so, again, them having to consider closing or the consideration of down sizing their office space and have employees rotate coming into the office just because i think as

what ted has described is that those rents are not coming down. and so with having to pay the full rent, employees can't be there, our small firms have left the ability to pay the full rent amount. we are hearing from small firms who have been priced out of downtown prior to -- priced out of downtown prior to -- i'm going to -- prior to covid, are interested in moving back into the downtown area and again, the rents have not dropped enough.

but also because as ted has described, a fair amount of sublease space available, they are small firms, so they don't have the capability of being able to sublease the spaces that are available for subleasing. so i think as you begin to explore this and to your question supervisor preston, about nonprofits, these are businesses that are interested and could have the ability to help fill the vacant office spaces, bring back business. because they don't do it in such large chunks are not getting maybe quite the attention they get with the larger businesses.

>> excuse me, your five minute timer has elapsed. >> i'm done and i'm happy to take questions. >> great, thank you. one of the things i wanted to see if you can expand on and i appreciate you talking about many of the businesses that can't access the sublease market yet are interested in returning to the downtown. some of the things i wanted to hear about, you show the zip codes, but there are a number of businesses that rely on or looking forward to foot traffic and people returning to the downtown core. can you talk about that.

>> at this point, i think as we're beginning to hear and i think there's been a couple of articles, do we have the work force -- not so much the office space businesses, but let's say our food-based businesses. those normally serving lunch to the office workers and that we're going to need to sort of keep track of the ability to hire. so as business comes back, these

businesses were having a hard time hiring people prepandemic and so, again, we don't know exactly how many of our service sector employees are still here. >> that's an important aspect. >> one last component is monitoring out our businesses' ability to get the ppp and other

financial relief programs and funding and the timing of them receiving that in relationship to the timing of when they need to pay the back rent. making sure we're kind of staying abreast but as that ends and expires, the timing of that and funding coming from the relief program. i think it will be another -- >> right. we just approved another package in the budget committee to help with low interest loans but we

have also asked that the funds be monitored strictly to see if the demand is there for loans because what i have heard and i know a lot of my colleagues have heard the same thing, there's more demand for grants than loans. a lot of small businesses, particularly the ones you are referring to in the service industry, lunch, restaurant have taken on a lot of debt already and don't want to take on more debt or don't have the ability to take on more debt. can you talk about that for a second? i know we have recovery packages and we just approved some money that the budget committee that will help with low interest loans. in terms of to help businesses in the form of grants, what's the size of the money and i'm sure there's significant demand for that. >> i'm sure there will be

significant demand and i think -- what the city is providing is -- will be a benefit to businesses, the percentage of businesses that we'll be able to serve is still going to be relatively small. i think what i think is more of the focus is the federal relief program. as -- for example, the restaurant relief program at the federal level, the application just opened today. so for all of our restaurants who are able to apply for that relief program, you know, it's still going to be a while before they see that funding, right? to get through the application process. so i think, you know, more for these large amounts of debt relief, it is the federal packages and the timing of the federal grant programs coming in. they have the ability to serve a larger number of our businesses

at a higher dollar amount. >> great. are there other targeted industries impacted aside from restaurants? >> there's save our stages in addition to the package relief that the city has provided for live entertainment venues. >> are limited restaurants included? >> i believe they do. >> okay. that will be something for us to follow up with you on. a lot of the downtown businesses are not full registered restaurants. they're limited restaurants

under our zoning and planning, but i'm just curious under the federal restaurant relief program if they also qualify. any questions colleagues? >> i do. i have some questions. it's nice to see you. thank you for being here. my question was about childcare and schools. so much of the work force is women and women overwhelmingly have that burden in terms of childcare. and you know, we have lots of parents in the work force. i'm wondering about timing of reopening since our schools are for the little ones now open just a couple days a week for most. and there have been a loss of

slots around the city and we already were under what we needed. how do you see this playing out? what are we doing to support small businesses who were already having a hard time hiring as you said to bring back workers and attract new workers they would need. and the timing of it. i know we're getting lots of federal relief for childcare as well, which is great. it's the first time being treated as the infrastructure it is. but the timing, i'm wondering if it can support us. it all sort of is an eco system. >> thank you supervisor melgar. i do think it is something for both of our office and oawd and all of the departments that intersect with childcare should be working together to take a look and monitor.

will we have enough childcare and spread out throughout the city? i think that's something as a sector that supports not only business owners, it supports employees and business owners as well and their ability to be able to get back to business as well. that's something that we can take -- needs to be taken a look at. i don't have a definitive answer for you. but it is an important intersection to the success of us getting back to full operation. >> thank you. >> great question.

thank you. supervisor preston, do you have any questions? no? okay. thank you. that's absolutely right on. okay. thank you, really appreciate that. we'll follow up with you regarding the restaurant relief program just to get clarity if it helps cafes and limited restaurants, but thank you for your hard work during this time and obviously we need to keep working together to make sure our small businesses are supported and we'll look forward to how things go forward in the downtown. okay. our next presenter is from the san francisco chamber of commerce. >> great. nice to see everybody. can't wait to see you all in person. hopefully soon. this has been a great presentation from everybody.

i think what you're start together see, there are bits and pieces of data here coming in. we are adjusting and moving as this city has many times over and over. it is a great reset for the city and another opportunity of turnover, whether it is residential, commercial, nonprofit turn over. many things are non traditional and i think our recovery will be non traditional unlike any other type of city. i will start with a couple of high level things. i think big picture long-term, it's a little premature to pull the trigger on something massive. there are many factors that haven't played out yet. there are short term and medium term things that can play out. i wouldn't make a full recommendation until we see certain things happening.

i want to share a couple of slides and wrap up in five minutes if i can. let's see if i can do this. okay. so chamber of commerce, one slide i wanted to enter in here. our membership. the chamber of commerce is sometimes misunderstood that we represent only big businesses.

80% are big businesses. you see in the pink session, we have a large nonprofit membership. the data dashboard was launched during covid. you start to see here compared to new york, we are still significantly down. 51% of small businesses have shuttered, whether that is temporary or permanent it is unknown but we are start together see movement which is great. this slide shows seated dining and that is good. i think if i may, the economic recovery task force called out the need for shared streets and spaces. this has been a god send for many businesses and restaurants in san francisco. we're starting to see this come back. speaking of confidence, we are looking at consumer spending and that confidence start together climb back up. we obviously want to see the

downtown vibrant, i think it's important to point out though that there are 25.8 million tourists that come to san francisco per year. that is gigantic and partly why we see what we feel the downtown being empty and so when we get the tourism back, all of the big hotels are downtown and museums are downtown. the neighborhoods are doing very well. for me that's great to see places back in business. we need to create the downtown, something that all of us want to

go on the weekend. we need to have reason to do that. whether it is theater, arts, music, etc cetera. all of the pieces need to go. i would like to put emphasis on the arts and culture of san francisco. this is what makes us different and this is why people come and stay. whatever we can do and i have appreciated all your work supervisors in working on getting the arts back. finding business relief for them and opportunities for grants. but we need to get the stages back open and get them playing again. i would love to meet back with you in a short period. i believe we're going to be up

and back quickly. i'll stop there and entertain any questions. any questions? great. okay. i appreciate your admiration -- i hear you loud and clear, it is a little too early to tell how things are going to shake out. until school s are open and we have the full force of the economy to open back up, particularly tourism. let's see how things happen. this conversation in particular was also about office buildings, work force in the office environment downtown.

other than activating -- you mentioned activating and i know you were moving quickly, are there other things you have thought about in preparation to reopening the downtown core that we as legislators could help facilitate? >> yeah. thank you for asking the question. i think there's a real necessity at this particular time to look at ground floor resale that we deemed as retail for additional

spaces. nonprofits generally take up small office space. and continue to look at maybe converting some of the commercial vacancies in retail to nonprofit spaces. nonprofits that have activation and have meetings or do training sessions, start to see that activity is important. you don't want to have boarded up commercial storefront. i would suggest looking at that some of the vacant commercial spaces, allowing office or nonprofit use for those. i think that activity is important. i do believe honestly that if we set ourselves up right, we are set up for small business where the rent has come down and allow some people to open businesses they dreamed of but had obstacles. i appreciate you all voting for and supporting prop h.

the mayor has a small business recovery act in front of us now and we think that's a great opportunity. 20-30 small things add up to opportunity for people to expand business or open for the first time and san francisco is based on creativity. we can get out of the way and let that flow we'll come back strong. >> okay. i like that on the ground floor. i know you and chair melgar had conversations on the planning commission about that. i think that's something we have grappled with a lot in my district. there's been a lot of desire for more neighborhood commercial versus nonprofit. we were the other way. i think at the end of the day, not having vacancies is a top

priority for everyone. but then your point to arts and culture and having certain nonprofits in proximity or access to the downtown core, that might be something to rethink. that's a good point. and then obviously the small business recovery act is going to be coming our way soon. we're going to take a deep dive and i'm sure it will be coming to this committee as a landing point before the board. thank you. >> thank you for the opportunity. >> i have a question. good to see you. we share this love for arts and culture. it is what makes san francisco unique. and you know, we fund arts and culture through the hotel tax and that has dwindled down and we just appropriated some funds

the make folks as whole as we could for this fiscal year but we don't know about next year. so i'm wondering what ideas you have had along those lines. and also, if there's a similar effort with the entertainment commission, you know, as there has been with planning and businesses to allow for outdoor entertainment and performances without so much of the having to jump through hoops and allowing for pop-ups or flexibility or any number of ways that people can sing and do stuff outside that they are not permitted to do on the inside. and that will also bring people out.

>> yeah. let the music guide us. that is so often -- people are attracted to fun and arts and music. and we have to cultivate that level. it is indoor, outdoor. the point about the hotel tracks and how it is a huge part of the arts and culture budget, another reason i believe we have to do everything we can to bring tourism back to san francisco. part of that is the confidence we give to tourists, business traveler or leisure traveler to san francisco. one that they're going to be safe in our city. two that they feel comfortable walking in a great walking city and that comfort level and quality of life and streets is really what the largest obstacle in front of us. i do believe the streets of san francisco need to be clean, safe and we can walk down them.

>> thank you. supervisor preston. do you have any questions? >> since we have -- i think we have josh from the planning department, i didn't know if he wanted to weigh in on the conversation just briefly on the ground floor retail and activation. >> the planning code and planning policy over the last couple of decades has stressed the need to have active engaging ground floors both to serve the neighborhood and everyone's needs and provide a positive and engaging pedestrian environment so people want to be out and walking and not driving.

zoning is pretty flexible. the one thing we tend not to allow on ground floor is office uses because they're not particularly that engaging, they may have windows and so forth. once people are in the space they want to maybe close the window blinds. people don't necessarily like working in a fish bowl with people looking in on them but it is certainly something to consider. particularly if there's significant vacancy and short term users that could come in and use the spaces. probably want to think strategically, maybe the heart of union square, we don't want offices on the ground floor, maybe other areas that might be

something certainly worth considering. retail in general, even before the pandemic, there's been seismic changes in the retail economy nationally occurring as a result of online shopping and so forth and shake out, so retail in general and how much and where to support that amount of activity is something that the department is looking at and engaging in these conversations and certainly looking at the trends and would be happy to engage in that conversation. >> great. thank you josh. appreciate you being here today. thank you. i don't think we have other questions at this moment. i think what we got from what you had to say was kind of to be determined. let's give it a little more time

and see how things start to recover. when our schools open, how much tourism comes back. we can make a stronger determination and then i appreciate the comments between you and chair melgar regarding arts and culture and how we can advance that. i think as josh said and you said, maybe looking at some of the areas where we do prohibit office use on ground floor and providing additional space for those pushed out of the city in the nonprofit sector might be a good conversation to have at this point. thank you. >> thank you. >> we will go to the next

presenter. >> thank you members of the committee. i'm john bryant and just stopped sharing my screen unfortunately. can you see that? >> we can. >> great. i'd like to spend a quick minute on who our association is. throughout the city of san francisco, we represent 225 buildings. we're a building based model representing about 68 million square feet. we contribute a lot to the economy and collectively, about $22 million to the state gdp. san francisco has a unique place in the pie where we contribute almost a third of the state gdp

through commercial real estate supporting almost 41,000 jobs. in terms of the ownership class in san francisco, i think it's a little unique. we're 80% of the ownership for commercial buildings owned by pension funds with the remaining 20% by corporate ownership. we picked a couple data points here. when the vacancy rates were hovering around 3.7%. the last two quarters we've had, concluding in 20, we raced up to 16.7% in vacancy and the most recent data from the end of quarter one in 2021, almost 20% of office vacancy. as we have heard from previous

presenters, the sublease market has surpassed all levels previously, including what we have seen during the dot com bust. we believe there's a potential for a plateau. some of the conversations on the silver lining side, some of the tenants are starting to rethink some of the sublease market but none of that has shaped out so we're just dealing with the numbers now. another interesting statistic is in contrast to just vacancy rates, we looked at the occupancy rates and for us, it's not just how many people are paying rent in the offices but how many people are coming to the city. so under the current tier, occupancy rates are permitted up to 25%. we haven't seen anything above the 10-15% of people coming back into the office. i think there's a lot of factors impacting the recovery.

we did a quick list of pros and cons, on the pros side, increased vaccinations really is what is going to drive the recovery and give people that sense of urgency and get back in the office in a safe way. school reopenings and childcare is going to be a deciding factor as people can leave home and come back into the office. we've talked to a lot of tenants not only looking at a state but other areas of the east bay. one statistic we have heard and found, as people leave san

francisco and eye cities such as oakland, they're looking at 20-30% reductions in rent. there's a lot of uncertainty in covid-19 and future impact. there's a lot of talk about the vaccines but also increased talks about variants. i think it's very incumbent upon us to realize we don't have all of the answers right now. and then finally, we have reached out to our members and tenants and asked them what are the concerns they have and the quality of life outside of the pandemic and crime and safety, transportation, housing, all of those need to be addressed or considered as we look to what does tomorrow look like for commercial real estate. in terms of office safety, partnering on a bunch of areas, i think the most important is we have been putting out guidance for office professionals going back to january of 2020.

before covid-19 was considered a pandemic. we feel our job obligation is to make sure we work with our members so they have the most relevant data, best practices and guidance. some of our guides have been actually cited by the cdc. we worked with all of the relevant healthcare facilities and organizations the make sure members have the most up to date information. we tried to coordinate with city leaders early on and a lot of what we have seen in terms of health orders or reentree procedures are based on documents we have put out. i'll conclude by looking at the future of office space in the downtown environment. we're seeing a bunch of trends. healthy building certifications, probably shouldn't be a surprise but a lot more people are looking at those and asking about the requirements to reach those. flexible work spaces and hybrid work schedules are things people are considering in an increased

capacity. for the future of downtown, the biggest concern is retail and restaurant side. and i know there's a lot of varying statistics but we have heard up to 80% of retail and restaurants have shut down at least at one point or another. and although this may be a worse case scenario, we have read up to 50% may not reopen. >> mr. bryant -- >> i appreciate the opportunity to speak and look forward to questions you may have. >> great. thank you mr. bryant. good to have these presentations consecutively. we see some differing opinions in terms of where things are. it's good to get different perspectives. one thing we've heard, rents

will come down, have you seen a stronger trend in sublease markets coming down or are people trying to hope there will be more demand at a higher level. >> i think we're seeing all of that. one of the things the economist spoke to, how volatile it is. we would agree with that. i think the sublease market right now, there's a lot of space out there. i think that is going to drive prices down. i think it's going to depend on kind of the needs of different businesses looking at san francisco. i think a lot of it is going to depend on what the prices are when they're looking to come into the city. in our crystal ball, it says we're not sure how it's going to play out. >> of course. >> we had the department of emergency management here, unless my colleagues have additional questions, we can

come back in a moment, i did want to have department of emergency management talk about some of the 911 calls and information they have there. i don't have any additional questions right now for you mr. bryant. we can come back in a moment. do you supervisor preston or melgar? so i think we have -- from the department of emergency management, robert, are you here? i know we asked you to talk -- there's conversations about 911 calls and the types of calls that have happened in the downtown core. can you talk about that? >> yes, i have one slide if i can figure out how to share

that. (please stand by...) the person who does that for we

was on vacation on thursday. and so i tried to give a sense of the area. the areas that i looked at were the southern district, central district, tenderloin district. and i tried to just give a comparison to the two months that were prepandemic with the two most apples to apples. so january and february 2020 and january and february 2021 and look at the difference and calls for service. and you can see that pretty much across the board in all three districts, there's been a significant drop off in calls for service and then the right table breaks that down but there were a couple of areas where there was an alarms and

things related to like burglaries on stolen vehicles, prowler, person breaking in there's definitely a trend going through that. pretty much everything else was down and in many cases down significantly and i think that that mirrors just a reduction in foot traffic in a lot of these areas whether from reduced number of people coming in to the office, certainly reduced tourists the significant decreases that we saw in many of these areas. >> chair melgar: okay. great. i'm looking at the trend right

now. that's one of the things we hear often from a lot of people about the state of quality of life and encampments and homelessness and safety and crime and based on the calls that you have there, everything is down in the double if not triple digits in terms of calls for service and in the need for responding in those areas. >> question. in those categories. there is a slightly different story in the city as a whole. a lot of the other police districts have different patterns. >> supervisor safai: right. this was about the downtown discord. >> yeah. but just speaking in terms of

peoples' perceived feeling about public safety in the city, i think it's important to make the distinction that you just made, supervisor that the concord does have a different experience going on in the city right now. >> great. mr. bryant, are you still there? >> yes i am. >> so it was good to see those statistics up there. i'm sure that's good for your membership to understand, but also i wanted to go back to the sublease market because that was one of the most important aspects of what our city's economist was saying in terms of the, you know, the baseline negotiated rent versus the sublease and this is one of the

largest preparations between the two, but what are you hearing more specifically from your members in terms of when and how they're approaching that and when they anticipate bringing those rents down or what is the approach in terms of where they are with getting office space rented? you know, there's been some larger tenants that have said they've leased larger space and now they're going to pull back and lease that space in the sublease market, but i think that's also a pretty big indicator in terms of how we approach recovery. >> yeah. i think from what we've seen and the statistics show is there are more sublease markets out there than ever before. our hope is that there is some rethinking of what their individual space needs might be. so i'll put that in context.

a lot of people have talked about less people coming in to the office. a lot of people have talked about kind of a reduced work schedule. one of the things we also need to consider is people are trying to figure out how do we space out all of the employees that they currently. have while you may be spacing people out in terms of when they come in the office, once they're there, they're probably going to require more space than they did before. i i don't know that that is reflected kind of in the sublease space. i think people are starting to have those conversations about what are our occurring needs and they realize they're going to need that additional space to kind of move people around to keep those 6' buffers. >> supervisor safai: that's interesting. i hadn't thought about it that way. although, we did just hear that that also might be adjusted based on vaccination levels. so that's also something to keep an eye on. i also think when i see your

commercial real estate trends and your vacancy rates are higher, i think that also directly ties to this sublease conversation and the demand for that and the amount of rents where they are in terms of asking. that's something we need to pay close attention to. but appreciate that. any additional questions for mr. bryant, colleagues? nope. okay. great. thank you. >> thank you for the opportunity. i appreciate it. >> supervisor safai: yes. thank you. i wanted to call the last person up, i wanted to ask a couple questions to, chair, if that's okay is ms. topea. specifically to talk a little bit more about this conversation around central soma and construction and construction of downtown area and office building construction if she's still

here. >> i'm here, supervisor, thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you for joining us director topea. i know we talked a little bit about this the other day i wanted to see where things were in construction and specifically office space and how some of these larger plans that we've entitled. not many of them are moving forward based on financing and the economy but just wanted to get your insight on that. >> thank you for inviting us to the hearing this afternoon. you know, what i will say is with the central soma plan first of all was designed to be built out over a 25 to 30 year period. so we weren't expecting to see all of the office residential and commercial district come out of the ground at once. so it's not surprising to us that we're not seeing activation of construction

right now. and i will also say about the central soma plan that i think is particularly elegant is that it is designed to be more of a mixed use business district you know, it's not the traditional or historical city but, in fact, it's integrated both our residential, our large office, our small office, our pdr sector, our restaurants and small businesses and all of that activation which i think, you know, the pandemic has also shown is going to be really critical going forward, that we have a downtown or a central business district that has all of those integrated uses so that the restaurants and the small businesses aren't just reliant on those office workers.

and so, i also will say that when we were approving central soma, we knew we were sort of on that kind of ark of that sort of expanded growth and that we expected there's always ups and downs and and heading into that recovery we will see the developments will be looking towards the future. i think if the rents are continued to be have tenants in place and so they will have to take a look at what those costs are for building out their offices and making sure they can achieve the i will also say

there is a very robust community benefits package that was meticulously negotiated with the neighbors about what they want to see in that program and what delivers the fees and the benefits of building out central soma will deliver all over the parks and the open space and opportunities for affordable housing that the jobs housing linkage fees will also pay which, of course, as you all know, the board approved increases in those jobs having linkage fees so that we could deliver more affordable housing once the construction starts in central soma. so i think, you know, it's not surprising we're not seeing a lot of construction starting right now, but i do have every expectation in the next year or two, we will start to see those permits getting pulled. they will want to get moving on

their construction as soon as they think the market will allow it. and there's a couple other things i did want to just point out to you. i think the flexibility is key and i think sort of the mix of uses is key. i think creating more flexibility and those opportunity of mixed uses in our square and downtown will also help with that recovery. so the more we can get, you know, people in to the neighborhood who are -- there not just to go to their office, but also live there, work there, play there, do everything they can, everything we can to encourage more activation, more flexibility, more people on the street, more eyes on the street, all of that will be helpful in our recovery and i think in addition to tourism which is so critical to supporting our arts and return

of conventions as well. and i think that what we are hearing, we are doing a lot of outreach to all of the different sectors, the hospitality sector, the business sector and we do think that once school is back in the fall is when we will see that kind of uptick in people returning to the downtown and i think we need to be ready for it. and i think activation is exactly right. supervisor, you mentioned creating a great environment for people to come back to. so having music on the streets, having arts on the streets, opening up our restaurants, having food trucks. anything we can do to get people back in our downtown and our business districts and so that they can really enjoy that experience so they keep coming back is going to be critical. >> supervisor safai: i just wanted to ask one specific question. i appreciate that. i understand that central soma was designed to be thought

about over a 25 year period, but if the entire direction in thinking of office space has been adjusted or if it were to be adjusted hypothetically, does the plan have to be amended in the future? >> i think i would ask josh about the actual zoning if josh is still available. i think he's better prepared to understand that question. >> hello supervisors. planning staff. i don't think the plan would necessarily have to be amended. the plan zoning was quite flexible. the zoning is very flexible. it allows both office and residential and other uses of pdr and industrial uses as well. the sites might have to be

retitled. but the plan was approved and several sites that could of had more housing weren't necessarily entitled with the full compliment that they were entitled to. so depending on how long the current uncertainty and economy lasts, it's an open question. we see sponsors coming back in and see changing the profile of the projects and we see maybe not. it's not necessarily the zoning that's holding them back and i would expand that saying that zoning's not necessarily holding any builder back in the downtown. if they felt that was the best future for their building, the downtown zoning is the most flexible zoning in the entire city. it basically allows almost anything. >> supervisor safai: i thought there was a cap on the amount of housing in the overall plan? >> in central soma?

>> supervisor safai: yeah. no there's a certain amount, but it would take quite a lot to get there. i don't think, you know, it's quite high that was studied and there was a certain amount that was analyzed that we projected based on our best guess of based on the current economic conditions and the current demands and what the zoning allows and just looking at the sites available which were more likely to go towards the office versus housing based on the size of the site and other characteristics. certainly, the larger sites were more likely to be proposed as office because it doesn't make sense very often to build a small office building so we tend to see some of the smaller sites and medium sites go towards housing. >> supervisor safai: they're losing the entitlement and they believe they have enough flexibility in the plan to provide for that. >> generally, yeah. i would say yeah.

>> supervisor safai: okay. great. i just wanted to get that out there on the record. i know supervisor melgar is like what are you talking about? [ laughter ] trying to create more work for this committee, supervisor preston. >> supervisor melgar: i'm not. >> supervisor safai: sometimes i'm the canary in the coal mind. you're right. this would have to be driven by the project sponsors and on their economic analysis and i just wanted to have the conversation. obviously there was a lot of thought and effort put into this. i know you put a lot of time and the planning department did as well. i'm glad josh is here and director taupier.

the important thing is no one is pulling their permit. no one is going forward yet right now, but that doesn't mean as we get into the fall and schools re-open and economy re-opens and tourism and conventions return and things come back with a little more certainty, people will be making final determinations and i think that's important. but i just wanted to put it out there we're going to continue to monitor that. any of you have any questions for director taupier? looks like supervisor preston does. >> supervisor preston: sorry. i was muted there. you know, maybe more of just a short comment. i don't know that it needs response. i just want to say i agree with the sentiment around what director taupier said about

getting people back into downtown and our businesses. i am disappointed despite the many presentations we've heard around economic recovery and our office space to not have heard about any presenters talk about our presentation and just want them to say that part of that return to downtown is full service from the npa and also and that will be the subject of a future hearing, but, you know, our proposal for [inaudible] from july through september which i think is also something will promote that. i think we talked about a lot of the other issues around the recovery in downtown and i think transportation needs to be more front and center in that discussion. >> supervisor safai: thank you, supervisor preston, we didn't want to steal your thunder for your up coming

hearing. >> supervisor preston: people have got to get there. >> supervisor safai: you've got it. people have definitely put it on their slides. but we knew that you were going to have an in-depth conversation about this overall and, absolutely, you can't re-open without getting people there and getting them from their homes. so it certainly is a worthy part of the conversation for sure. thank you. how i'd like to end, i just wanted to ask public works just to say really quickly, we did get a number of calls over the course of the time from when we called this hearing from some of the people that were in preparation to open their offices. there's a lot of construction happening or planned construction happening in the downtown core. i just wanted to see if public works was here. they did send us some information about that. if you just wanted to -- is

josh -- excuse me jeremy [inaudible] >> hey, supervisors. i'm here. yes. >> supervisor safai: did you want to tell us a little bit about that because we've turned the question over to you. construction and then there's proposed construction. just real briefly and then we'll wrap up this hearing. >> yeah. absolutely. i can share my screen to show the maps that we sent. so as you know, supervisor of public works doesn't manage all the construction in the city. we primarily manage paving projects and then we also do some sewer projects for the puc as well as some transportation streets get projects for the mta, as far as major capital projects. we don't have -- we've pulled projects for districts 3 and

district 6. we don't have anything too big happening currently which are the green locations. our major projects in the near term would more affect soma which we have a pretty big soma street scape project that we're working on with the sfmta that i believe we're scheduled to start construction in 2022. and better market street from 4th to 8th which we're hoping to advertise later this year. so those are the big ones. there's a couple of other minor various locations, projects, but, of course, we tried and minimized the projects and work with to accommodate any small businesses or major businesses in the downtown to make sure that people can get to their working environments and also, i would just add that functional infrastructure is

important for our economic recovery as well and it's important to turn on the taps. >> supervisor safai: okay. we'll continue to monitor that as soon as we get into full opening for our schools and more of the office workers beginning to come back into town and as our buses move towards full service, it's going to be really important to ensure that our construction is timed appropriately. i know a lot of the construction design to be done as trees were not occupied

could be an impediment to re-open. >> we are having conversations ongoing especially to the f line into the castro. we're having conversations about that later this week, but as far as stopping any projects or postponing them, full postponements that i'm aware of. a lot of these are contingent on federal or state grants that we need to act on to get the funding. >> supervisor safai: okay. colleagues, do you have any questions for mr. spitz? great thank you. well, thank you, chair melgar. i would just say i appreciate the space to have the opportunity to talk about this.

as you all know, we're working on some of the standards or have worked on some of the standards for safety in the work place or office workers. both of you have been super supportive in your own way. all of us collectively have heard from our workers in their discussions about returning to the workplace. we've all worked tirelessly over the last year within our department of public health to do that in the healthiest way possible. but this conversation and this shifting culture in the office environment i think was one that was important to have. i think maybe what we'll do is maybe not as many presenters, but maybe have a small -- maybe if i can ask the chair to continue this hearing to the call of the chair, we can check back in a few months, maybe as we get into the fall to see where things are and see if there are any adjustments that have been made and maybe we can recheck back in on this

conversation. but i really appreciate the guidance that dr. phillips has given us. i think we've had some previous conversation with our city's economist at the budget and finance committee to let us know about the current state of vacancies and how that relates to our overall economy trying to watch those trends and make some policy adjustments when we can. obviously, the -- some of the small business packages that we've all collectively supported have been super important in terms of grants and loans as these federal dollars are coming back, those relief packages become that much more important. then a lot of the other things child care and accessible and affordable child care, schools re-opening, public transportation, acceptable, affordable public transportation. on all of those things, people being able to pay their rent, people being able to put food

on table. all those things relate to how the conversation about re-opening our economy and how it relates to the city's health. our tourist industry will be dictated by travel and people feeling safe and our vaccine levels. it's the first time i had heard that we're projecting to be 80% fully vaccinated by june 15th. i think that will have a significant impact in how people return to the office space and then in the meantime as we hit yellow tier, 50% capacity, many of the businesses will then begin to pilot how they want to do some of this hybrid environment. so we appreciate the conversation. wanted to put some of the things out there that are more forward and longer term like central soma. none of the permits have been pulled but i'm sure as our economy strengthens they will be. we'll be able to see that.

so thank you, chair, for allowing me the flexibility and conversation. to the call of the chair and maybe in the fall, we can come back and have a little bit shorter more directed conversation in certain areas. >> supervisor melgar: thank you, supervisor safai, and if i can ask you to make that motion after we hear from the public, then, you know, we can vote on continuing it to the call of the chair. so, madam clerk, can you please take public comment on this item. >> clerk: yes, thank you, madam chair. checking the status of callers in many queue. if you have not done so already, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. you only need to press this once. for those already on hold, please continue to hold. looks like there are no listeners and no callers. thank you. >> chairman: okay.

thank you madam clerk. so public comment on this item is closed. do you want to make a motion, supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: thank you. i make a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair. >> chairman: thank you. will you please call the roll, madam clerk. >> clerk: yes. to the call of the chair. [roll call] you have three ayes. >> chairman: thank you. the motion passes. madam clerk, are there any other items today. >> clerk: that concludes the business for today. >> chairman: thank you very much and thank you colleagues.

sustainable future . >> san francisco streets and puffs make up 25 percent of cities e city's land area more than all the parks combined they're far two wide and have large flight area the pavement to parks is to test the variants by ininexpensive changing did new open spaces the city made up of streets in you think about the potential of having this space for a purpose it is demands for the best for bikes and families to gather. >> through a collaborative effort with the department we the public works and the municipal transportation agency pavement to parks is bringing initiative ideas to our streets.

>> so the face of the street is the core of our program we have in the public right-of-way meaning streets that can have areas perpetrated for something else. >> i'm here with john francis pavement to parks manager and this parklet on van ness street first of all, what is a parklet and part of pavement to parks program basically an expense of the walk in a public realm for people to hang anti nor a urban acceptable space for people to use. >> parklets sponsors have to apply to be considered for the program but they come to us you know saying we want to do this and create a new space on our street it is a community driven program. >> the program goes beyond just parklets vacant lots and other

spaces are converted we're here at playland on 43 this is place is cool with loots things to do and plenty of space to play so we came up with that idea to revitalizations this underutilized yard by going to the community and what they said want to see here we saw that everybody wants to see everything to we want this to be a space for everyone. >> yeah. >> we partnered with the pavement to parks program and so we had the contract for building 236 blot community garden it start with a lot of jacuzzi hammers and bulldozer and now the point we're planting trees and flowers we have basketball

courts there is so much to do here. >> there's a very full program that they simply joy that and meet the community and friends and about be about the lighter side of city people are more engaged not just the customers. >> with the help of community pavement to parks is reimagining the potential of our student streets if you want more information visit them as the pavement to parks or contact pavement to parks at sfgovtv.org

>> good morning. welcome to the april 16th our local agency formation commission meeting in san francisco. and, this meeting will come to order. i am supervisor connie chan. i am joined by our vice chair cynthia cuspollock and we're joined by commissioner gordon mar. the clerk for our commission meeting today is alyssa samora. i'd also like to thank all the staff at sfgov tv and i also want to recognize today our legal counsel is joining us as

well. madam clerk, do you have any announcements? >> yes, i do, madam chair. due to the health of our employees and the public, city hall is closed. commissioners will attend the meeting through video conference. public comment will be available on each item on the agenda. we're streaming the number across the screen. available via phone (415) 655-0001. meeting id 187 703 5856. then pound and then pound again. whennen connected, you will hear the meeting discussions

but you will be muted and in listen only mode. speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television. if you submit public comment via e-mail, it will be forwarded to the commissions and be apart of the official file. that concludes my announcements. >> thank you, madam clerk. please call the roll. >> clerk: all right. on the call of the [roll call] roll madam chair, you have a

>> thank you. i just want to quickly acknowledge that i have requested our local counsel counselor to look into our local by-law as it currently stands and to really think about i want to also recognize the fact that we have a vacancy on this commission while i'm really grateful the fact that we have quorum and we're able to move these meetings forward. i'm grateful to have this body be fully appointed and have a full commission. moving some of our really great work forward. so i have asked and directed, you know, general counsel to think about possibility like proxy voting or however way we

can approach this to make sure that we can really get some of my colleagues on the board of supervisors to be able to join us in help us here at the local. i think here with that, i also look forward to working with our clerk at the board of supervisors, madam clerk, to really think through what we can do to support local. with that, madam clerk, please call item number 2. >> clerk: item number 2 is -- >> commissioner: oh, sorry. yes. go ahead. >> clerk: my apologies. approval of the lafco minutes. >> do i see objection to

approving these minutes? do we need to call public comment for this? >> clerk: yes we do, madam chair if you have not already done so please press star 3 to be added to the speaker line. do we have any callers on the line? >> there no callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. madam chair. >> we're seeing no public comment. public comment is now closed. madam clerk, please call the roll for item number 2. >> clerk: on item number 2 [roll call]

there are three ayes. >> chairman: so the item has been approved. i think we should call the items out of order today and madam clerk, i'm thinking that we should give the floor to our executive officer for his report first ask and please call item number 8 and number 6 together. >> clerk: item number 6 is a memorandum to the board of supervisors highlighting lafco's 20 including the near staffing changes. >> chairman: great. thank you. and executive officer the floor is yours >> okay.

thank you commissioners. the first item i have for you today was some staffing changes at our renewal energy consultants. on march 25th, jenny winston, the senior sustainability program manager announced she was leaving to per sue a new opportunity. her last day was april 2nd. mrs. winston has been the project manager as lafco's renewable energy project. i am currently working with the team to determine a new staffing structure and rate. this change in staffing does not affect lafco's contract with banner but also includes an option to extend. so that's the update from banner. the second item that i have for you today, commissioners is an announcement about my future with lafco.

i've already reached out to every commissioner, but i'd like to announce i'll be stepping down as executive officer when my contract expires in september. this was a difficult decision. if the commission agrees, this time period would ensure a smooth transition to my successor. it has been a great honor to serve as lafco's executive officer for the past three years. it will be exactly three years this coming may 2nd. i'm incredibly proud of what we've been able to accomplish. i have crossed paths with so many dedicated and hardworking people devoted to public service and i learned so much from them. that said, i know that we still have a lot of work to do before i leave and i look forward to working with you, commissioners, and your staff in the remaining months and

i'll do everything i can to ensure a smooth transition. so, that concludes my executive officer's report. madam chair and now i'll move on to the memo. as you know, at the last lafco meeting, you requested that i draft a memo highlighting lafco's 2020 work. i worked with your office to craft the memo and a draft has been provided in your packets. it covers the gig recommendations. it covers our work on clean power sf and my recommendation for that is that you approve the draft memo to the board of supervisors and send it off to the board of supervisors. and, madam chair, i'll hand it back to you. >> chairman: thank you executive officer goebel.

i really think that really does memo to the board supervisors gives us the opportunity to the depths and the breath of the work that you have done and accomplished and it's just very amazing. i wanted to see, so thank you, really for all the work that you have done for lafco and i'm sure that my fellow commissioners have -- want to make remarks as well about your departure. but, at this moment, i thank you and the memo we can d. go into and discuss more and if any of my fellow commissioners have questions around that. i'm not seeing anyone on the roster. oh, commissioner mar. >> commissioner: thank you, chair chan. i don't have any questions or comments about the memo. i think it summarizes and

highlights all of the really important work conducted through lafco over the past year and it's important information to be provided to the city. so thank you. i think executive officer goebel for that but i just want to express my deep appreciation in respect for all the work that you've done with lafco in your tenure as executive officer. you've demonstrated tremendous leadership and thoughtful, capable leadership of lafco and the memo reflects all the great work that's happened through your leadership along with, you know, the lafco commissioners. so thank you so much for your service and, yeah, and thank you for working with us on a transition to some -- towards somebody else to fill your big shoes.

thank you. >> thank you, commissioner mar. >> chairman: thank you. while seeing none of my other colleagues on the roster, madam clerk, should we go to public comment on these two items. >> i'm sorry. can i jump in here? >> chairman: absolutely. >> apologies i didn't put my name on the roster. i just want to echo my colleagues' comments. the memo as everyone was saying just really does highlight how much work lafco has undertake inn the last year. it's a really wide and deep body of work and i think that the board of supervisors can take a look at this memo and really see some suggestions for legislation. i think it's really wonderful,

i just also want to say that i appreciate you offering to stay through september as we do recruit and hire a new executive officer. i'm not sure what that timeline will look like. there should be some overlap, but we're obviously not sure of the time frame. so thank you so much for offering that and we'll see sort of how it lines up in the end. thank you. >> chairman: thank you, vice chair cruz-pollock and i see commissioner sing is also on the roster. commissioner sing. >> commissioner: yes. and apologies. thank you, chair chan, apologies i'm still having some camera issues. hopefully i'll get through them shortly. just wanted to echo fellow commissioners' thanks. executive officer goebel.

especially for me as i was learning the ropes of the commissioner, the depths in his work is always reflected in this memo and so i just really wanted to give him my thanks as well. >> chairman: thank you. i think that i hope that executive officer goebel that you can see all the work you have done and how much we appreciate you and i want to make sure that we also give the public an opportunity to comment on this too, but really also just any of the work that lafco has done together as a team moving forward and making this recommendation to the board of supervisors. so seeing no one else on the roster that we move this to public comment, madam clerk.

>> clerk: yes. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on these items both item 6 or 8. if you not have already done so please press star 3 to line up to speak. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you have been muted and then you may begin your comments. do we have any callers on the line? >> yes. we have two callers listening in and one caller in the queue. >> clerk: caller? >> yeah. can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. please begin your comments. >> okay. good. eric brooks with californians for energy choice and the local grass roots organization of our city. i first want to thank bryan goebel for being very accessible all the time and

learning about clean power sf especially which is my main [inaudible] with lafco and we'll be sorry to see him go. but we've got a lot of work to get done before september and hopefully that will produce good fruit. i'll get to that later with agenda items. i wanted to speak specifically to the report that was put out and just note something very important that many of you have in the board of supervisors have already been contacted about and that is that there's an effort that's very important that's ongoing now in city hall to meet with ya'll and talk about the importance of restoring the current cuts in the funding of the san francisco department of environment and actually expanding the funding and

centering that funding in the city budget in grants and things like that from other city departments which make sf's funding and makes it pretty much impossible for the san francisco environment to be a coordinator of all our [inaudible] in san francisco. it's very important that we add more funding to san francisco department of environment [inaudible] and it's very important that we work to make sure the san francisco environment is able to be the coordinator of our environmental and climate objectives citywide because that's the way their piece mill funding and project works. they don't even have the funding to serve that role. so please do. if you haven't spoken to the folks that are going around city hall talking about that, please do reach out to them and you can reach out to them through me.

i'm at brookse@igc.org. thanks. >> clerk: thank you, caller. operations, do we have any other callers? >> there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: great thank you. madam chair. >> chairman: seeing no more public comment. shall we go to item number 3? >> clerk: i believe there's no action to be taken on item 8. item number 6, there was a memorandum with a recommendation to approve the memo and present it as approved to the board. >> chairman: got it. so let's um, do i have a motion on the floor to move item number 6. >> commissioner: i'll move.

>> chairman: do we need a second, madam clerk? >> clerk: yes, we do. all right on the motion to adopt the memorandum and send it to the board of supervisors for item number 6 [roll call] there are three ayes. >> chairman: thank you. looks like the motion is unanimously approved. moving to the board and so let's call item number 3. >> clerk: all right. item number 3 is a community choice aggregation activities report. an update on customer bill dling seas and progresses towards 100% renewable energy. for members of the public who are joining us today and wish to provide public comment please call (415) 655-0001.

meeting id 187 703 5856. then press pound and pound again if you have not already. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and then you may begin your comments. madam chair. >> chairman: thank you, it looks like today we have the honor to have ms. barbara hail assistant manager at the enterprise for our san francisco public utilities commission and is here to present it. thank you to much and really good to see you. >> thank you. thank you president chan and members of lafco. i appreciate the opportunity to represent the p.u.c. today and our clean power program. i have to start by saying thank you to bryan, thank you to the executive officer goebel. i really want to recognize the partnership that we have had

with mr. goebel over the past three years. so thank you. and we'll surely have more opportunity to celebrate bryan and his contributions between now and september. so thank you for the opportunity to present today. two of my p.u.c. colleagues are joining me today. britney gallagher and kiara herman. so let's take a look at the agenda. i will present our enrollment and service statistics. -- >> clerk: sorry to interrupt. i'm not able to share the presentation: >> yes. >> clerk: apologies for the interruption. >> thank you and thank you, ms. herman for the interruption. we want to make sure folks can

see what we are presenting today. so if we can go to the agenda slide, please. so i will present our enrollment and service statistics. ms. gallagher will present our drink sea. for those of you following our clean power sf program, you're our program remains stable. there's really no changes since our last meeting so with that

i'll turn it over to delinquencies. >> i'll be providing an update on the data we provided to you at the last meeting as well as providing some additional information on customer protections in place or in development to assist customers with their utility debt during this time. thanks kiara. okay. so all delinquency data being presented to you today is off the march 29th, 2021, and it is in the same format we presented to you during the last meeting. so the map shown here depicts the residential customer that are more than 90 days dling

went in each zip code. there are approximately 18,621 that are more than 90 days delinquent and this represents an 8% increase next slide, please. so this map represents the average. and these dollar amounts only represent the amount that customers owe clean power s.f. in total, they may have an youd standing balance of more than 2 to 2.5 times shown the amount here. there's been a $14 increase in

the average compared to the data that we presented to you during the last meeting. next slide, please. okay. so the next two slides illustrate delinquency data for our commercial customers. and this map depicts the percentage of commercial customers that are 90 days or more delinquent by 90 days or more in their zip code. there are 9,700 customers that meet this threshold which represents a 4% increase compared to the data we presented to you during the last meeting. next slide, please. so this map illustrates the average amount delinquent for commercial customers and these dollar amounts only represent the amount that customers owe to clean power s.f., so given that these customers may have an outstanding balance of more

than two to two and a half times shown here. there's been a $32 increase in the average overdue balance compared to the data that we presented to you last month. next slide, please. so given the data just presented and the state of customer [inaudible] , clean power s.f. ensures to take action to make sure our customers. clean power customers to pg&e for non payment and they've ordered to suspend disconnecting customers for nonpayment through june of 2021. we're also working to ensure that clean power s.f. customers are able to ensure the full benefit after the

moratorium expires. in addition to that, there's also the rearage management plan or amp that allows care or fera customers for participating in a payment plan. next slide, please. okay. so this slide summarizes the eligibility requirements for c.a.r.e. and f.e.r.a. in the last meeting. care and fera requirements are set by the federal guidelines. in addition to the household income criteria, customers can qualify for care based on their enrollment based on the public enrollment program. and this is limited to care as qualification for fera is only based on household income.

so in addition to the initiatives in place that i just described, more assistance is on the way and clean power s.f. has been actively involved in proceedings of the c.c.u.p. to advocate that our customers receive additional protections and relief. the c.c.u.p. has recently issued a couple of proposals to provide additional assistance to residential and small business customers impacted by customers through bill forgiveness and longer payment plans. and our advocacy in these proceedings has been focused on modifying eligibility requirementings that have been impacted by the pandemic and not qualifying for existing programs like care, fera or amp receive some level of assistance. through these proceedings, we also intend to support expanded payment plans for all customers for up to 24 months which would

grant customers more flexibility and allow them to spread out payments over a longer period of time. as we discussed and at the last lafco meeting, the american rescue plan act includes funding that can help customer that is have fallen behind on their energy bills and so this includes $250 million in funding that california is expected to receive to support low income californians with their utility bills. and then on top of liheap, the utility bill is included in the emergency rental assistance rescue plan and this is intended for landlords and tenants to apply now. administered by the california department of housing and community development. next slide, please okay.

so because of the we've been working to ensure our customers are aware of liheap. a nonprofit that administers liheap in san francisco. and staff has been working with sfpeninsula energy services to market liheap in san francisco to help promote the program as well. and, as a result of these discussions, we've recently made a few changes to provide better information to our customers regarding liheap and to ensure that sf peninsula energy services is well equipped to help their clients understand the program. the actions we've taken so far include updating our website with additional information regarding liheap and we've also provided a refresher training on liheap and other afford ability programs to our call center. in addition, we will also be

providing sf peninsula energy services with translated and printed clean power sf materials that they can distribute to their clients. next slide, please. these are the eligibility requirementings fliheap. and the liheap program takes a number of factors into consideration when prioritizing benefits to applicants. and some of the factors that they take into consideration include their income, their energy burden, whether they are apart of a vulnerable population or if they're receiving benefits from the employment development department. that was specific to the c.a.r.e.s. act. >> sorry. so i guess ms. gallagher, so

does that mean that for the energy -- could you further define energy burden? >> yeah. so energy burden is typically defined as the amount that customers pay for their energy bill relative to their income. >> chairman: good to know. so for the edd benefit recipients, it doesn't matter, right? because as long as they're currently receiving. or does it have to go back to a certain time period. >> so that was specific to the c.a.r.e.s. act. i'm not sure of the order of factors that they take into account when they are prioritizing. i just know that these are the factors that they look at when they are prioritizing the funding because there is limited funding. >> chairman: and i just want

to quickly on slides 12 that you mentioned. the california department of housing and community development that's going to administer the fund to provide the relief for utility debt and do we know when that's going to start or do we have more details on that program? >> is that, are you referring to the emergency rental assistance? >> chairman: mm hmm. >> so my colleagues will have a better understanding of that. landlords and tenants can actually apply for that program right now. the supplemental liheap funding is not yet available, but it should be coming soon. like i don't have a specific date on when california will be distributing those funds to the local providers because things are still kind of in the works, but we'll continue to provide

updates. >> chairman: great. that would be great if you could provide the information on the emergency rental assistance that's currently already out there to madam clerk and to lafco commission to the commissioners and that we can have that information. i think, for me, i would love to share what it consists of and making sure that information is publicly known. >> as i mentioned earlier, california is expected to receive $250 million in supplemental funding through the american rescue plan act

and san francisco received $$410,000 that was allocated to california through the krvmentd cares act. the california department of community services and development is the state department. so csd represents 5% of the funds in california to cover admin cost. using factor formula and the formula that they use takes low income population energy costs and heating and cooling into

account to determine the amount of funding that's allocated to each local service provider. so assuming that the american rescue plan liheap funds are distributed similarly to the way that the c.a.r.e.s. funds are distributed, we can expect $250 million in supplemental liheap funding. that concludes my section. i'm going to pass it off to kiara now to update our process on renewal energy. >> chairman: thank you, ms. gallagher. >> thank you. >> okay. thank you, britney. so i'm kiara, and as britney said, i'm going to be talking through power supply and recent procurement efforts.

okay. so to start, i want to share where we're at right now. so our green to clean power sf customers in 2020 and while working hard to get to 100%. clean power sf has contracted for 467 megawatts of new wind and solar projects including 3 new solar and battery storage contracts right here in california. the map on this slide here shows the results of our renewable power procurement to date. these 467 megawatts achieves 100% renewable energy supply.

that identified a path for clean power sf supply to be 100% renewable by 2025. this is 5 years ahead of san francisco's goal i'm happy to share that we're already making progress towards these targets. of the investments identified in our long-term plan, clean power sf has already contracted a local 75 megawatt solar storage facility in alameda county and we've extended our contract with the geyser facility in sonoma county for 2029.

this represents 125 megawatts that we've added to our portfolio since the i.r.p. was adopted in august of last year. the chart here shows the contributions that all of these renewable investments have the green portion of each bar represents the renewable energy. clean power sf and we'd like to share what we've currently been working on to have all of the needed renewable resources online by 2025. so this is a summary of our ongoing pro curement activities. we're working to contract for both large utility scaleable as

well as smaller projects to support up coming power projects now we'll go through each of these in more details through the next set of slides. so clean power sf long term resource portfolio contains 81 megawatts of solar located in the nine-county bay area. we're working on a request for proposals for r.f.p. to install about nine megawatts of solar throughout san francisco. the map here shows the locations of the four reservoirs that were identified as the highest stability sites to supply clean powers f and will be required in this r.f.p.. we're required to issue or

r.f.p. add the end of this year by 2023 for 2024. we're also working on efforts to develop new renewable resources across the state of california. this is being done through a renewable and stand alone storage solicitation which will lock up technologies and our storage across the state we aim to have these come online 2023 through 2024. we will prioritize cost effective projects located within the nine bay area counties. clean power sf is also addressing systemwide grid reliability. last october, clean power for

long duration that can clean or store energy for when solar is less to come online between 2024 and 2025. the joint c.c.a.s received over 100 bids in response to its r.f.o. for a wide range of responses. and then, this is a high level timeline of the large scale activity that we've just gone through and this is present from october 2020 through 2025. as you can see, we're going to

be very busy in 2021 and 2022 working towards our 100% renewable goal. you plan to see the resources we're working on now which operation between 2023 and 2025. in addition to these larger scale efforts, we're also working on developing smaller facilities to support forthcoming clean power sf supply programs. first up are the disadvantaged communities which were presented on at the last meeting. these are two california p.u.c. opportunities to increase energy renewable energy in the state's disadvantaged communities. clean power sf has allocated just over 2 megawatts and is charged up to that amount in disadvantaged communities in northern california.

the program will require projects to be at disadvantaged communities in san francisco which are the purple highlighted sections of this map. and pg&e service territory. by 2023 or 2024. eligible clean power sf customers in san francisco's disadvantaged communities will be able to subscribe to their output and receive a 20% total electric bill discount. we are planning to launch the green power program until our new projects can get developed through our competitive solicitation process. and we're also working on a program that will help build

small scaleable renewable projects in san francisco. through the program, clean power sf will enter into standardized 20 year agreements with projects that may not be suitable to supply onsite customer demand and thus will have otherwise been stranded with other contracts. projects that participate in the tariff can be on roof tops, parking lots or other spaces in the city that have little energy demand themselves. instead, the program goes into the grid and becomes part of the clean power sf. we initially plan to target projects that are able to come online between 222 and 226. you can look forward to hearing more about this program as it's being developed. that concludes our presentation and we're happy to take any questions that you may have.

>> thank you ms. her man and ms. gallagher. nice job, ladies. i really appreciate you representing clean power. >> chairman: thank you for the presentation. i mean, it's amazing. it's amazing that we're five years ahead on renewable energy. our 100% renewable energy goal and meeting that in 2025 and it's something to be very proud of. thank you for all the work that you and your team really have been doing not just now, but i know that for sure like just me and my former role as legislative for supervisors it's been a long time coming. it took a lot of dedication and energy, pun intended to get us

there. i wanted to see if any of my fellow commissioners have questions for this. i think there is. i see a little hand raised. but i couldn't tell exactly who that is so. vice chair cruz-pollock, please go ahead. >> commissioner: thank you so much for this presentation, ms. gallagher to really put into perspective some exciting things coming online. i did have two questions. the first is of the projects identified in the r.f.p., i see a few represented in this body of work that is coming online soon, but what about the larger projects. will we get an update on where

those are? >> yes. we're happy to provide additional information on the status of the contracts that we've signed and projects that are under construction. and, kiara, ms. herman, may have some that she can provide to you right now, but we have had a number of projects recently come online, projects that were constructed because we signed an agreement to purchase the reduction. ms. herman. >> commissioner so those are projects earned by sfp.u.c.? >> no. these are projects that have been constructed by solar and wind developers that have signed a contract from the project with us and so they are able to take advantage of the federal tax credits that come from being participants in the

market that are for profit entities. >> commissioner: and are these on properties owned by the city and county of san francisco? >> no. to date, we have not constructed any for clean power sf that are on city property. >> commissioner: oh, okay. >> kiara, do you have information on the project that recently energized? >> yeah. so we had a wind project in southern california come online i think in early march and we are projecting to have a second project come online in september of this year and our first solar and storage project come online in december this year. >> commissioner: what about, i just want -- the projects that are listed in the i.r.p. are projects to be built

regionally. so are any of those in progress? >> sure. so the i.r.p. included kind of a combination of larger scale projects throughout the state and it also included kind of the higher stability projects that were included in the local energy report. are you asking about that substantive projects? >> commissioner: yeah. the sites that were identified, i believe the tiers were low, medium, and high suitability and so i just wanted to understand. i'm not looking at the document in front of me so i can't side by side compare which of those projects made it through to the 100% renewable projects and so maybe i can ask for a comparison in the next presentation, that might be helpful to really understand, you know, if there's a gap

there in terms of things that could be developed in the future. i think that's sort of when we talk about the local build out plans, that's sort of what we're looking at as where those projects would be that will be part of clean power sf these would be projects that we would enter into these projects they would be on city and regional so that they would have an ownership present the sfpuc. so i'm interested in those specifically. if we can just have a date on those. >> sure. and we can certainly provide that. but just to make sure we're getting across our message from what kiara presented, when she presented the map of san francisco that showed the reservoirs that were being developed, those were among the

high suitability projects that were identified in the i.r.p., nothing has been constructed yet and what we're doing is preparing the request for offer so we can begin those projects. >> right. i understood that. the other question i had was which projects had to be submitted to the city's lobbyist to be included in the biden infrastructure plan. which of those projects could san francisco receive funding federally to develop? >> so let me go ahead and take that. you know, we are excited about the new leadership in dc and the commitments to infrastructure to hear about we're really hopeful to help us pay for local infrastructure as you're pointing out, commissioner. and just for members of the public and for background, on

march 31st, the biden administration released a $2 trillion infrastructure proposal called "the american jobs plan." it's a high level outline of priorities, so it doesn't include details that we're anticipating those details will come in the coming months. the plan proposed $100 million for power infrastructure. which includes targeted investments of at least 20 gig watts. a new grid deployment development authority at the department of energy that allows for better leverage. it's intended to allow for better leverage of existing rights of way roadways, railways and support creative funding tools to spur additional high voltage transmission lines and then a

10 year extension and phase down of the expanded direct pay investment tax credit and production tax credit that currently exists for clean energy and storage projects. biden's plan is really just in the first step of what will be a lengthy debate over the specifics of the proposal. congress will make final decisions about the details including exact funding allotments and specific programs that would receive funding. this could take the form of the large bill that goes through the budget reconciliation process or it can move forward through multiple bills, smaller bills. we're keeping a close watch on how all of this unfolds so we can take advantage of any opportunities. we're going to stay very engaged. we're going to advocate for our priorities with the mayor's office. san francisco will take a look at this opportunity from a san

francisco perspective and so we will make our proposal through the city process. we'll stay engaged with congressional staff and with our association, you know, the california municipal utilities association. the california association of community choice aggregators. the water side. you know, we're going to be all over this, right. with respect to the specific projects that we've proposed in our integrative resource plan, those are certainly in our minds candidates for the kinds of projects that if the details allow us to put forward, we certainly will make those proposals as the city develops, what the city will ultimately put forward. so we will stay engaged on it, and, yes, the fact we have our integrative resource plan that puts us in position to know what it is we want to

prioritize from the energy side and our capital planning process is a wonderful city tool for having projects already identified and sort of in the pipeline to the extent that the details that come out of the biden infrastructure plan allow us to submit them. >> commissioner: when those details unfold and we know more, will you be making those specific projects public. the ones that are being submitted. >> we'll work for the city on that, yes. and we'll be happy to continue to report on the plan and how it's unfolding through the process here at lafco. >> commissioner: great. thank you. >> chairman: thank you so much and i see commissioner mar is

also on the roster. commissioner mar. >> commissioner: thank you chair chan. thank you for this informative update on power sf plans to move to 100% renewable energy. i actually had questions about the small scale projects, the last part of your presentation that sounds really interesting and potentially exciting. and this relates to some work that i've been doing around, building decarbonization of our existing stock in supporting homeowners to transition from natural gas mrienss to all electric and there's a budget and legislative analyst report that i had requested that it's going to be released soon. you know, i'll be having a hearing on building decarbonization of existing stock coming up soon. so i'll be interested to see

how expanding solar panel installation in homes and multi-unit apartment housing can also be combined with that. so the tariff program sounds very interesting. so i'm just curious. these are for small scale projects up to 1 megawatt. would this primarily be filler or panel installation on homes or apartment buildings? >> so i think what we're envisioning is larger roofs, larger than a typical home where there isn't a lot of consumption at the site. we do have programs that support development of apartment and residential solar. the feed and tariff program is intended to capture those larger roof spaces like a

warehouse that doesn't have a lot of consumption on site but a huge roof, much more solar capacity if you will than they could consume on site. so that's the type of target building we're looking at for the program. supports solar installations on residential properties. multi-family properties. >> commissioner: that's helpful to understand that. i was just wondering if you -- is there any potential for the various small solar installations on single-family homes and smaller multi-family apartments contributing to the renewable energy capacity? >> so we do have a net energy

metering tariff, and so we do pay customers who have residential, commercial, solar systems where they have some spill onto -- out onto the grid, right. they consume less than they generate. so that's how we there's a st

and shows what other clean

choice advocators are doing in the country. east bay energy is doing a lot more when it comes to resiliency and supporting local jobs and job growth and while san francisco might not have the same risk of firefighter shutoffs as other areas, we need to focus on resiliency and local local power and one thing i'm disappointed that there's no program on building carbonization and energy efficiency for the c.c.a. and that's something we can definitely work on and something that can be a source of jobs if we work to create incentives to replace gas heating and gas cooking in existing buildings, not just in new ones and then on top of that, move away from really

long distanced transmission dependency. and that creates the same dependency on these transitions that have created wild fires and if we focus on other sources of energy or local or looking at local bay area. sources of energy, that's a good thing. i guess, lastly, there's some talk of offshore wind and i think that's something that doesn't involve transmission on land and could be something that the bay area as a whole and really works on building out jobs and that. that can be a long-term birthing for all of california and definitely the bay area. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. may we have the next caller, please. it appears we have three

callers left in the queue. >> good morning again, commissioners. eric brooks. so i want to echo the comments of the previous speaker gabriel golfman. you know, it's good that we're proceeding towards at least purchasing one hundred% clean energy within five years, but that's not what clean power sf was supposed to be at all. it was supposed to be a lot more like what gabriel was describing. when we first started working on it in early 2000s, they drafted a plan to build out 100% locally sourced and regionally sourced right here in our bay area renewables, efficiency and all the other

resources that gabriel talked about so that we would be energy resilient in our local community. if we continue to just buy energy from long distances as those other communities near those facilities also adapt clean energy policy 100%, we're going to be in conflict with them for those sources of energy. every local on earth needs to localize their energy resources and work aggressively locally on their energy use and we've been asking sfpuc to do this for 16 years now and that plan is not materializing. so my organization and others plan circulating a sign-on letter to insist on a citywide and bay area local build-out plan to power san francisco 100% locally and regionally by 2030. that's what is needed.

that was what was originally intended by this. that plan needs to be centered on local jobs. it can create tens of thousands of jobs to do a plan like that and we're in the biggest economic depression since the great depression in the 1930s, we need to produce local jobs and that plan will need to be centered on environmental and climate justice to communities like the bayview hunter's point and the mission are the first ones to get these retro fits in their communities so that they can be the first to benefit because they're the most under the gun financially and they need to be first up for jobs etc., and then, gabriel mentioned we need to stop depending on long range transmission lines. all these objectives need to be met. that sign-on letter, we will present to you. it's already gotten a lot of groups signing on. we will present that to you next month for the may lafco

meeting and we would like the board of supervisors in cooperation with the lafco to present a citywide build-out plan. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. do we have the next caller, please? three people listening and two left in the queue. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is moses garcia. i currently serve on the sfp.u.c. advisory committee and chair the power sub committee. first, i wanted to congratulate commissioners chan and crews pollock on your elected leadership positions. i wanted to let you know that -- i wanted to let this commission know that the c.c.a. is a power who are deeply engaged in renewable energy and the work of the power enterprise. second, i wanted to express my

gratitude to a.g.m. hail. power, water, has been a constant i've been truly heartened by the work of the sfpuc and the staff on this front. the power sub committee meeting in may will be focused on programs. while we've been doing our best with available resources and within the current regulatory systems, i look forward to new affordable programs that ensure that utility rates don't hamper the economic stability and recovery of our customers who need the most support. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. and we have the next caller, please. >> thank you very much, chair chan and commissioners. we have 25,000 members in the

region with about 10,000 in san francisco. we've been deeply involved in 2013. and i want to point out that c.c.a. members have progressed so we've been a consistent stakeholder for years i want to congratulate the program on moving to 100% in 2025. that's really exciting. and i also appreciate gabriel's comments. presenting things without any comments ability past commitment doesn't necessarily let us know where we are. kind of doesn't present a full picture. so i do encourage you to look at the cal c.c.a.'s website and programs farther feel that

launched after us. today, so staff and so this response to this presentation and right near the san andreas faults if you're being chased by a lion and jumping to a bush, we keep trying to where do you think we would be on clean energy by 2030.

we are way behind. we need a concerted effort at a local and regional build-out and impact in disadvantaged communities. those and that's a fact launching a feet in tariffs for four to five years. so it is great that they're doing that. if you've been engaging with the program over time, this is why we're taking chances and discouraged and why you hear this tone. some things are good, but they are way overdue. we are crawling our way and

last the board of supervisors -- >> clerk: thank you for your comments. was that the last caller? >> there are no more callers in the queue. thank you, i really appreciate all the public comment and i do want to say this i think in terms of local and sort of respond to all this work that sfpuc has been doing that really recently at the board of supervisors, we just approved $21 million and barbara, ms. hail can correct me if i'm wrong committed to build out a transmission pipeline to get energy into san francisco. and i think that that work and i think for all the public

comments, those will make the public comments today, i thank you for your time and advocacy work for a long time. these really need to our ongoing commitment. it takes a long time. i for one understood and learned a lot during the time to try to shut down marin's power plants to really think about polluted energy outlets that really hurt san francisco i think for these lessons to really be the watch dog for the

work that needs to be done we should probably have sfpuc to come back i think to also answer some of the questions that vice chair crews pollock has really posed and perhaps to have an update on the integrated resource plan and to have to really help us to understand where we're at that including the goals that have been planned out and put things in context. knowing where we've and to really help us understand where we're going next. what other ways that we should continue to think about to

advocate for that is part of the integrated resource plan and continue to move things forward. and thank you, madam clerk, seeing there's no public comment. public comment is now closed for this item. shall we move forward to item number 7. >> clerk: yes, madam chair. there was no action on item 3: item number 7, members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item call (415) 655-0001. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and then you may begin your

comments. >> thank you, madam clerk. we appreciate the executive director of the california association lafco being here ms. miller. we appreciate you being here with us today to present some updates and we look forward to it >> thank you very much, madam chair, members of the commission. it is my pleasure to be here. i was last here in november of two thousand seventeen and three years. my goodness, where does the time go? over three years. i want to take a moment. let me first, if i could share my screen here. i want to take a moment to

acknowledge executive officer goebel. bryan, you will be missed. you have done some really good work in your ten year with san francisco lafco. you've developed a robust work plan. and i know you're going to be discussing that work plan in a little bit here. but i did want to acknowledge and thank you, bryan, for all of your great work with san francisco lafco. and, can you see the presentation? >> chairman: yes. thank you >> great. i can no longer see any of you. i want to make sure that you can see it. so i want to be respectful of your commission's time. you've already had a fairly

long meeting and you have several other items to discuss. so i'm going to go through this presentation rather quickly and only hit some highlights that i believe are highly relevant for you. and, i'll just note that i provided a separate power point deck that is a detailed look at who calafco as the state association is. i will not be going through that today but it is available to you as a resource and i'm happy to answer any questions about whatever's included in that deck even though i'm not covering that. so i'm going to do a very short overview of lafco and of lafco's role and responsibilities and a look at your lafco which is quite unique and this is a quick overview of calafco and of course i'm able to answer any questions that you have.

so california's the only state with an entity like lafco created in 1963. we've been called a lot of things. the state short of legislative government. the watch dog in orderly growth and development and the state did create this in 1963. your lafco was formed initially to create the public utility district and you are very unique ginn your city county structure. so the traditional role of lafco does not apply to san francisco lafco. the original purpose of lafco is created by the state legislator 50 years ago was to review, approve, or disapprove

proposals for city incorporations and the city. for over 58 years, the scope and responsibility for lafco has grown consider bey to include the original mission of promoting orderly growth we now preserve agriculture and open space and ensure efficient, sustainable public services as the authority of lafco and the responsibility has grown over the years so have the statutes of lafco. the local reorganization act. it's the c.k.h. is the body of

government code that governs lafco so we call it the lafco's bible. they adopt local policy and commissions make the final decision. just as your commission has done by statue they appointed an executive officer, a clerk and legal contract. each lafco has authority within its home county and no authority outside its home county. they're independent of all other lafcos and independent of all other lafcos. just as c-sack has no authority over its county members or the

league. we serve as a resource and a support to our members like all other local governments, lafcos are subject to legal frame works and state laws and here's a list of state laws that you are required to follow. so this question is really relevant to the traditional model of a lafco which, again, we know is not you. so one of the biggest questions we ask is what does the lafco actually do? the majority of which do not apply to you because your city and county sphere of influence is co-terminus meaning they are the same. so there's no rude for

annexations or detachments or incorporations or any of these reorganizations that are listed here or even a sphere of influence. you have a sphere, but there is never a need to update it because it is co-terminus. the bottom two bullets are really what apply to this lafco and, again, your real area of expertise is the special studies. and lafcos are granted the authority to initiate special studies. and this is especially important and has always been especially important to san francisco lafco. so this is an overview of lafco's jurisdiction. and in fulfilling their admission, lafcos have

planning, regulatory and resource function. again, your lafco's expertise is really in the resource function area. i'm going to really quickly give an overview of those three areas. can you see on this list that lafco's jurisdiction is over cities, independent, and dependent special districts and a laundry list of what it does not include. the two gray areas there are j.p.a.s and while lafco's cannot have authority over j.p.a.s. they provide agreements when they are formed as well as a future water companies must submit maps to lafcos and they

request information from both those are are required to respond with the information that lafco has responded. i want to be clear that lafcos do not have any authority over land use, but they do have some planning function. spheres of influence were developed as a long term planning tool and lafco's prepareling update, they're the only entity who has the authority to do so. and, as a resource, they participate in local planning and local and regional

planning. statutory requirements are that if a sphere of influence is going to be updated in some way shape or form, that a precursor to that be a municipal service review and any boundary changes that the lafco approves has to be consistent with the sphere of influence of any affected agency. a municipal service review serves a number of purposes in addition to a precursor to changing a sphere of influence. it also serves as a document to help understand what is the service being provided, how well is the service being provided, and what are the opportunities for either expansion of that service or gaining service efficiencies. so when doing municipal service

reviews or m.s.r.s, there is a by statute, a whole laundry list of things that need to be included, and this is a list of what some of those things are that the lafco needs to be looking at when they are conducting an m.s.r. and a change of sphere. the municipal service review has a whole laundry list of things that it includes, it looks at. and lafcos even though statutorily, the context of the review is defined for them as well as a list of determinations that need to be made by the commission. the way in which the lafco can

conduct the m.s.r., they have discretion over that. so, for example, let's say my county has ten water providers and 15 sewer providers and 10 fire protection districts. m.s.r. on all services i can choose to focus i'm only going to do the upper western portion of the county and all of the services in that area. so there's a lot of discretion in terms of how the la fco

wants to create their work plan and their municipal service review plan and their special studies. and then here is a list of all of the determinations that need to be made and most recently, we added -- it was added by statute, a focus on disadvantaged communities specifically disadvantaged unincorporated communities and sewer water and fire protection services to those disadvantaged unincorporated communities. in the municipal service review as they have aspired

-- this is los angeles county. these are the spheres based on the various -- i'm sorry. this is riverside county. excuse me. so lafco has some regulatory

functions as i mentioned. the regulatory functions are the formation of cities and districts changing the boundaries of existing agencies. lafco has the authority to activate or divest late in powers. they have the authority to control the public extension services outside city and district boundaries. but, again, i want to remind you that they are prohibited from directly regulating land use. having said that, however, they have to adopt policies that encourage orderly growth and development. so they really serve as a partner to cities and counties in terms of that logical development. and, this is really your area of expertise, your lab coat as a resource particularly in the area of special study and

modelling interagency agree. lafcos have been around for 58 years now. they have a lot of historical and trending information and your lafco is no exception to that. you are developing a robust library as a really valuable resource in terms of trends that are going on in san francisco in terms of the areas that you have taken responsible for oversight over. just a couple of points, you know, we hear so much about. the state created those processes and the proceedings are very deliberate and they are deliberate at the local

level because the locals know best. when you keep things at the local level, you're able to consider local circumstances and conditions and we all know how diverse this state is and so being able to consider local circumstances and conditions is really a critical aspect of that decision making. the state and their mission is wide in scope and their role is both proactive and reactive and really the reality is the more reactive, excuse me, the more proactive a lafco can be the less reactive they can be. the less active nature of lafco will never go away, not 100%.

the last time i was here, i highlighted some of the great work that your lafco has done under the ability to do special studies and i wanted to continue that trend. so as highlighted in that fabulous annual report for 2020 that was completed and the work that the memo that's going to go to the board of supervisors that you talked about earlier, the great work that was done last year by this lafco in the face of some of the most challenging times anyone in our lifetime has experienced, you really created some great work on some really highly relevant topics with value added recommendations and outcomes.

three surveys of on-demand work and a whole series of recommendations that came out of those surveys. the report on how san francisco can prevent a power disconnection prices during and after the covid crisis and then assessing bank account ability during the covid pandemic really is just a wonderful example of one of the benefits of the unique nature of your lafco that i'm going to touch on in a moment. because it just underscores how nimble your lafco is and can be. and i kept this slide in from my previous visit with you because it stands on the great unique work this lafco has been doing all along. and this really underscores,

this slide sort of underscores and gives you a teaser for your up coming conversation about your 21, 2022 work plan and opportunities for your lafco and some studies, some opportunities for studies on behalf of the board of supervisors. you just heard from the clean power sf that the p.u.c. team on the progress and the work still to be done and i understand that public banking is a priority for the board as well as this lafco and your gig research. and, you also have done a number of studies as the previous slide noted that have opportunities now as an opportunity to do some updates on some of those studies.

you have some challenges as well as some opportunities. so some of the challenges that i see are that you have a very unique model and it doesn't fit the standard lafco. clearly, all of the things that i just described is what does a lafco do, the majority of those don't apply to you and so that creates a challenge for you to align the vision of your lafco's -- what is the vision for your lafco's future to what is actually possible for you and then to adopt a work plan that's aligned with that vision which is your next conversation, i know. and now i would add to this list a transition of your executive officer, two new executive officers. so passing the baton, the leadership baton for your executive officer.

however, in the face of those challenges, you also have a lot of opportunities and you'll notice that the first bullet is the same one is a challenge. you are very unique and so that actually is an opportunity for you because you're more nimble. that uniqueness allows you a nimbleness and the flexibility in responding as a lot of your 2020 work products demonstrate. you have the ability to assist and support the city owned studies and specialized consultant hiring like no other lafco does. that partnership that you have developed between your lafco and the city is so strong and it is an opportunity your discussion coming up about your work plan is an opportunity for you to adopt a work plan for

the next fiscal year that is aligned with the vision that this commission has for itself. and calafco stands in support as a resource for you as you do all of those things. we are celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. we are your state association. we don't have any oversight or authority over our member lafcos, but we offer a structure of information sharing, resources, we represent our member lafcos at the state legislature with other state entities and in partnership with other state associations. we're proud to say that all 58 lafcos are our members along

with a host of associate members. we have a 16 member board, you're in the coastal region. and you have four board members representing you one and we have legal county and c.p.a. on. we have a robust website that we're focusing on making it even more robust. we have eight list seshs. we have a whole host of educational and networking opportunities that includes an annual conference workshop, university courses, the calafco university courses. we just transferred to all

online, all virtual at no cost to our members and we are building a fairly good so far library of which didn't exist before. as our member lafcos are learning how to generate themselves in new ways to meet the demands of the world we're living in today, we are doing the same we act as a resource to other state agencies as a legislature and as a legislative advocate for all lafcos. we worked together on many legislative matters for a

stronger voice in sacramento and have worked on many special projects of mutual interest. with that, i am -- i want to stop my presentation i'm not sure i know how to do that. i think i've stopped it. so i'm happy to answer any questions that the commissioners have. >> chairman: great. i can hear myself in the echo for some reason. i hope that is better now. great. well, i think my first question is as a member of -- and i actually want to thank vice

chair crews pollock making sure we understand especially for someone like me who is a new member to the commission really have a better understanding what lafco is about. so as a member of the counsel lafco, does california lafco provide any type of orientation for our newly appointed commissioners? >> that's a great question, madam chair. we actually conduct a regular sort of lafco one-on-one, if you will, which is sort of an orientation into lafco. we encourage our executive officers to do an orientation for new commissioners, but we can certainly assist in that and i'm very happy to do so. >> chairman: that's great.

so madam clerk, i think let's make sure that we do put together an orientation protocol for all the newly appointed commissioners as well as an executive officer. let's make sure that an orientation with california lafco is very helpful and that we keep this presentation on the record as part of the documents that we will provide to all newly appointed commissioners as well as the alternate and executive officer or any staff that will be working on lafco and let's also make sure we include a conversation with the legal council of our san francisco lafco to make sure that we really understand our authority moving things forward and i think we need to set those protocols. colleagues, i want to make sure that if you have any questions for executive director miller

that this is the time. seeing no comments. no one on the roster from my colleagues that we will go to public comment on this -- oh, wait. vice chair, please. vice chair crews pollock, please go ahead. >> commissioner: thank you. as always, this is so informative and helpful, ms. miller. i have one quick question and that's around municipal service review. one thing you did list was refuge and as san francisco has a private provider for those. would that also apply to services for the city that are provided by private or private

companies? >> through the chair, if i may, it's my understanding that you actually did a -- let me look here. you had completed previously a study on refuse. and so when i had mentioned that there may be some opportunity for updates since that study was done in may of 2011, that was 10 years ago, it may be an opportunity to pull that special study out and do an update. i wouldn't -- it would necessitate an update rather

than starting from scratch again. unless your service provider has changed. >> chairman: i don't think our service provider has changed, but i think that we have some problems with our existing service provider as many of us

>> yes, there is one caller in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. caller, go ahead. >> good afternoon again, supervisors. this is eric brooks with the san francisco clean energy advocate and our city san francisco. just want to highlight something that's really important in what the presentation -- what was said in the presentation that lafcos have now gone beyond the mere task of integrating cities within counties and now to a very large extent are about good government making sure good government happens and that is of course san francisco's mandate as a city and county and i wanted to talk about an issue that i brought up before. it would be good to make sure that the lafco gives some focus

to that to make sure and we need lafco to be part of this discussion so it can including sfpuc on all climate goals, not just electricity goals. we need to make sure that their funding is from the general fund and independent of corporations like recology which provides a huge part of the budget right now and for reasons that the chair just stated we needed the central budget inclusion and

environmental justice and then the last thing the stimulus that just came out and this new stimulus that's coming on the way we feel and this is a new ask that we didn't talk to you about before, commissioner chan, we feel 1% of the city budget can now go to climate objectives and local resiliency, bike ability, transit, etc., so, please, focus on that and that will help fund it as well. and, finally, please talk with supervisor mandelman about his idea for a climate hub. that will help the department of environment integrate all this and reach out to small businesses and local communities that need jobs and get them into a really well

coordinated city process under the san francisco department of environment. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comment. i believe that was the only caller on the line. could you confirm. >> there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. madam chair. >> chairman: thank you. public comment is closed. i just wanted to actually repeat what ms. miller has talked about in terms of fair influence and specifically compared to lafco and within this body's authority again unique to san francisco is that this body is focusing on municipal review and studies. you know, i think when it comes to the budget, when it comes to what the board of supervisors should be doing, please, having

a public comment made directly to the board of supervisors where that body really has the authority to make decisions, you know influencing on budget decisions and otherwise when it comes to the department of environment, this body does not have a direct authority or even any authority or influence when it comes to their budget. so moving this forward, i think that, thank you, so much, director miller, for your presentation today. this body looks forward to working with you especially in really assisting our executive officer and moving things forward as well as hiring a new executive officer that will come onboard and learning the ropes and hopefully, if i can make my advocacy with my

colleagues on the board to really have this body fully staffed and fully attended by all members of the commission and that we can work with you closely and last but not least, i look forward to having you return to do a quarterly and annual report about just what other counties are doing. just really help this body to understand what our neighboring counties are working on. actually, come to think of it, also, one more note is that we hope that this body also has a chance to do a meet and greet for the board directors representing san francisco in sacramento. and representing our region just so that, again, this body is informed beyond what the limitation of city and county of san francisco understanding i think one of the ways to really understand like you said to be proactive, and in our

role is to really also understand what other counties are doing and fully have an understanding of our authority. so we look forward to working with you. >> thank you so much, madam chair. i really appreciate the opportunity to be back with you. i'm happy to do whatever it is that you and your commission need in terms of support to help move your last co-forward. >> chairman: thank you. we'll hope to see you soon. and, madam clerk with that, let's call item number 4 which i think it's really appropriate given the fact we just had the presentation to identify it is time for a municipal service review. thank you. >> clerk: and, for the record, madam chair, there was no action taken on item number 7. item number 4 is a preliminary renewal energy assessment. for members of the public who

wish to provide public comment on this item please call (415) 655-0001 now. meeting id 187 703 5856 press pound and then pound again. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. >> chairman: it looks like we have our executive officer to present this item so, please, the floor is yours. >> thank you, madam chair, and i can now say good afternoon, commissioners. today, i'd like to present a preliminary snapshot of what some cities are doing it's really just scratching the

surface. all right. there we go. so at the november lafco meeting, a former chair made this request to get a glimpse of what city departments are doing on the renewable energy front. this does not include the service that powers municipal buildings in san francisco, but really we wanted to get an idea, what are other city departments doing in the way of building out renewable energy projects. it was not an easy task mostly because there's no clearinghouse for this type of information. so i worked with our renewable energy consultant and i also reached out to some key city staff. and it was just easier for me to meet with key staff at that particular department really to gain an understanding of what renewable energy projects are

being developed or under construction and which department's plan renewable energy, energy storage. a lot of the new solar projects being developed or constructed are a result of the city's better ordinance passed in 2017, that requires roof top solar on most newly constructed or most retro fitted buildings. must incorporate solar or a combo of both. i should also point out that under the city's draft action plan, one of the strategies is to invest in local renewable energy and energy resilience projects were safe and affordable and that includes local, energy production by 2030 and scaling up programs like net metering, community solar, and battery storage. >> sorry, bryan. are you sharing slides. i don't see. there they go. great thanks.

>> okay. can you see them now? >> chairman: yes. now we see them. thank you. >> great. my apologies for that. so one of the departments that i was seeing that was very helpful was the san francisco public utilities commission. their distributed energy resource project team works on small to mid sized solar, mostly commercial retrofit projects. so before you here is a high level list of current projects in the development construction or permitting phases. on average, this team develops about two to three projects a year. so you can see that one of the projects in the development phase at the top is on 9th street, a building of the san francisco public library. another one is at the garfield pool on treat street. the southeast health center on keith street.

moscone a couple of schools marina middle school. and then also there is a project under way at the opera house. the other department i reached out to was the sfmta and their renewable policies is focused on sustainable transportation of course and the goals are outlined in a number of plans including their own strategic plan, climate action plan and zero emissions neat and plan. they're transitioning their non revenue fleets, not buses and support vehicles, things like forklifts to electric and implementing the necessary facility improvements for those fleets. they're also developing a transition plan to accommodate a zero emission battery bus fleet and developing additional actions with the department of

environment in the 2021 climate action plan. san francisco international is really doing a lot. they have net zero energy, carbon, and waste goals by 2021 and they're about halfway toward meeting those goals. they're currently updating their strategic plan to focus on how to further operationalize those net goals. they're also commissioning a energy resources study and that's going to determine where the best investment would be to site battery storage. there's also the potential there to build out more microgrids. you may know that in 2018, sfos air filled operation pa elm the world's first zero net at an airport. they're doing quite a bit because funding isn't as much of a challenge with airline

support to make investments to help achieve its net zero goals the department of emergency management has a request to install solar. it also helps obtain solar generators and is also looking at regional home security projects to see if there's access to renewable energy. next up is the department of environment which is doing quite a bit in this arena not only leading the city's climate action plan, but playing a central role in planning, developing, and setting requirements for green building and construction. they also assist the general public with energy efficiency, solar, and financial incentive

programs. and, right now, one of their senior green building coordinators chairs the municipal green buildings task force that's made up of 20 city departments along with a member appointed by the mayor. and this was a directive by mayor breed. the task force is updating the city's environment code which is the green building requirements for city buildings and one major issue the task force is considering is how to update the energy requirements. so should new buildings be battery storage ready. should it be required for critical facilities like librarians, recreation centers and things like that. so the focus is on requirements usually a signal of what's to come for the whole city. so i did speak with a number of staff members there who helped me understand their involvement in everything and of course, the department has produced a number of planning documents

over the years including resilient and solar and storage that was produced a few years ago. san francisco unified school district as i mentioned in the first five of the p.u.c. is building out some solar projects, a couple of schools currently, but they have six solar systems installed. they do have a goal to strive to generate 100% of their power needs on site by 2050. they also have another goal with the design using no more energy that they generate on site. the port of san francisco currently has about 1.8 megawatts of solar with a goal to increase to 1 megawatt this year. i'm certain at this point if they'll be able to reach that goal due to the crisis. other priorities have popped up.

there has been some interest and a potential solar installation at pier 45. that's not a list of all city departments. i'm still getting some responses from some departments, but some of the challenges that were mentioned, one survey mentioned peak pricing as an issue and a need to change pricing. the p.u.c. is working on a power prices service study that will incorporate a time of use rate. time of use rate is trying to urge consumers to conserve energy. i know that the p.u.c. is working on a feed and tariff program which another survey responded and said it would be great to have and, of course, physical space was cited as another challenge. san francisco's built environment does present challenges.

the conclusion based on this preliminary review is the city may want to consider exploring the creation of the system to keep track. one contract that i spoke with is procurement might be needed to and there are a number of city departments that i'm working on. but i hope this is at least the starting point for what's being done across some city departments and i'd like to thank all the city staff and, madam chair, that concludes my presentation. >> chairman: thank you, executive officer goebel.

this is amazing and it's really good to see the recommendation that you provide highlighting the need for us to actually have a city tracking system i think this is actually a question for our counsel that is there a way since within our authority is that we could actually create a mandate for from lafco as a body to issue a letter to all these or request basically an annual report from a list of city departments asking for the renewalable energy assessment because based on executive officer goebel,

there's currently no system tracking that and so can we actually ask them to with the good work that officer goebel has done to annualize the request they submit to the body for the report. >> i was going to say good morning, chair. but good afternoon. hopefully you can hear me all right. good afternoon, chair and member officer the lafco commission. in term officer a mandate the board has in that case there is a relationship that has been established between the p.u.c. and lafco and so there are some agreed upon reporting requirements and, in fact, we just saw their presentation today as part of that. so there's a clear relationship

that's been established. i would say, we can always ask for more documentation. in terms of man dating, ultimately, it would be the board of supervisors. its city administrator and its departments on how to proceed with respect to lafco. so lafco would not be able to mandate but i would be happy to work with them in a collaborative way and if the board of supervisors would give an oversight capacity or provide information on lafco with those other departments we could perceive a relationship with what we have with clean power, sf. i hope that answers your question. let me know if i covered what you were looking at there. >> chairman: kind of.

but that probably just means we should think a bit more about how to exercise or speak as a body and i'm going to have commissioner mar to ask this question right now and you can probably answer mine and his. >> thanks, chair chan. i just wanted to thank for his work of the city department. this is a very important step. to maximize as part of our plan to move to but i just wanted to

note that i believe vice chair is expecting experiencing technical difficulties with her wifi connection. so we will not have a quorum. supervisor mar, we will lose quorum. the alternate cannot take the place of any supervisors. >> chairman: good to know. thank you for confirming that. do you want to give us a time that you have to hop off? >> i 12:25. >> chairman: got it. understood. with that, i think please,

officer goebel and i'll probably have questions for our counsel specifically about the budget approval process. >> okay. sure u-thank you, chair chan and i'll just be very quick. i would love to continue to reach out to city departments and get together with some of the city staff members that i've been talking with to sort of develop a plan and figure out, you know, what would be the easiest way to gather this information and come back and report to you and also, i'm happy to go quickly through the budget slides since commissioner mar needs to leave soon. >> chairman: that's good to know. the unfortunate part is i think we also have to take public comment, don't we, madam clerk, on this item? >> clerk: yes, madam chair, and we still have three other items to call.

>> chairman: i thought we only have item number 5 as the last item. >> clerk: we also have items number 9 and 10 also since we only have 6 minutes left, do you want to call all of the items that are open so we can take public comment on all of them. otherwise, we'll not be able to finish the meeting and have to continue everything. >> chairman: got it. and so i think that this is a quick question for general counsel because the budget item is fairly important to vice chair crews pollock and i. if we continue the item number 5 to may and will we still meet our mandates to approve our budget? >> so this is an area where we're regulated by the sections of california law that deals specifically with lafcos and it does state that we are supposed

to approve the proposed budget by may 1st and the final budget by june 1st. however, in last year, we were running a bit late due to covid delays and not being able to hold a public meeting and so we did look into that public meeting and we did determine after doing some legal review that as long as we went ahead and adopted our budget, we believe we would be considered substantial with that requirement as long as there's a strong legitimate reason for the continuance and inability to approve it in time. we felt we had very strong reasons for that 15-day late adoption. so if we were to continue on this item, i think the options before you would be to just do the budget only and to just go ahead and approve the proposed budget which then could be revised between now and the next hearing. so that's one option. another option would be to

continue the item and then we would hear the proposed budget in may, 15 days late and then the final budget in june, 15 days late, that would, you know, be technically in violation of the statute, but it's not an enforceable third party obligation and it would be only a couple of weeks out of compliance. so, again, i think we would conclude it was in substantial compliance. >> chairman: understood given the fact we won't have quorum in just a few minutes, i think we should just continue item number 5, but let's actually go to -- we have to close out item number 4 for public comment. right. so let's move forward for public comment and for item number 5, we can continue that and then we can call the rest of the items together which is 9 and 10. >> clerk: yeah. we don't have callers listening right now. so i'll call it quickly.

d.t., please check to see if there are any callers in the queue and let us know if there are any callers ready. >> there are no callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. >> chairman: great. thank you. seeing no public comment. public comment for item number 4 is closed. let's call item number 5. >> clerk: and, for the record there was no action taken on item number 4. item number 5 is proposed budget plan for 2021 and 2022. >> chairman: great. with this item, could i have a motion to continue this item to our may hearing. >> commissioner: so moved. >> chairman: i'll second that and then madam clerk, please call roll for item number 5. >> clerk: we need to take public comment. for member officer the public who wish to speak is there anyone in the queue to speak? >> there are no callers in the

queue. >> chairman: great. thank you. seeing no public comment. public comment for item number 5 is closed and madam clerk, i make the motion to continue this item to may hearing and i believe that commissioner mar has moved the item and i seconded it and please call the roll. >> clerk: on the motion to continue this item number 5 to the main meeting [roll call] there are three ayes. >> chairman: great. now, so we will have quorum now because i just realized that vice chair crews pollock is back. >> clerk: madam chair, we don't have quorum because commissioner singh may not step in as a alternate seat. she can only be a member on the

public seat which is commissioner crews pollock. >> chairman: understood. thank you. madam clerk, please call item number 9 and 11 together, right. >> clerk: 9 and 10. item number 9 is general public comment and item 10 is future agenda items. >> chairman: seeing no other comments from my colleagues. madam clerk, please go ahead with public comment. >> clerk: please check to see if there are any callers in the queue. please press star 3 now if there are any callers ready. >> there are no callers in the queue. >> clerk: great thank you. >> chairman: seeing public comments for item 9 and 10 are closed. colleagues, public comment is closed so, colleagues, i think we'll move to our item number 11, the meeting has adjourned and i will see all of you in

may. >> thank you. >> chairman: thank you. hi everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and it has been a very, very challenging year for all of us in san francisco, but i've got to tell you, we're coming alive again. we're starting to open the city

again. i see you urban alkamine. thank you for all the work you do to keep us safe out here. we are here today because we are taking an additional step further to get the city re-opened. i'm joined by a number of our city department heads including our city administrator car men chiu and our librarian michael lambert. and, let me tell you, michael has not only been running this library, he and so many of our librarians and the people who work for the library here in san francisco, they more than almost any other department have been working as disaster service workers to help address this pandemic. they've been down at covid command at mascone center showing up every day doing whatever it takes. organization. going out to our hotels where we are helping to support our

homeless residents. going out to the community hubs to help support our kids. preparing virtual lesson plans and reading time. i did a reading time for kids during this pandemic as well virtually, of course. doing so many incredible things to help get our city going during a very challenging time. i know many of us, we wish we didn't have to go through this this past year, but what we should look at is the sacrifices we made and where we are now today. san francisco has vaccinated about 60% of the residents here in the city, more than the state and national average. and, over 85% of of those who are over the age of 65 have been vaccinated. we are on the road to recovery.

yes, covid is still here whether we want it to be or not. yes, we still have to do our parts and distance and wear a mask and not get too comfortable because the last thing we need is another surge and the need to shut this city down again, but the fact is san franciscans, we are on the road to recovery. we are on the road to building a stronger san francisco. and, that gives me hope for the future and, today is not just talking about our recovery. it's also looking at re-opening our city. re-opening our libraries. of course, we're going to start with the main library and then we're going to head over to

chinatown, mission, and a number of the community libraries and i don't know if you know this, but i grew up in san francisco, and, at that time, there wasn't all this computer internet stuff that we had today. we had to actually go to the library because we would get a look report assignment and the western edition library was my library of choice. i went to ben franklin middle school. and we had to go through a card catalog to find the book, it was in alphabetical order and that's how we did things. now it's all computerized, it's easy. and, in fact, i still have a library card and now i download my audio books and other things for free. so all those books i forgot to bring back, they just disappear after they expire on my phone. a lot different than it used to be. no excuse for those of us who want to take advantage of

reading, of using the computers and other things in the library, we're finally opening and i just, i can't be more grateful to this department and what they have done. all of its employees. all of the people of san francisco, we did this together. we made this happen together. yes, we have our challenges like any other major city. we still have so much work to do to unaddress the inequities that continue to exist in our society. but we're in a good place right now and we should be proud. we can take a moment. we can take a moment to enjoy this time and to recognize the fact that we are here, that we have an incredible opportunity, and we have a future to look forward to. that's what today is about. it starts with our libraries. the giants and the warriors are

now able to play with fans. i saw folks out there soccer leagues, a bunch of kids playing in soccer leagues. i went to the tennis center in golden gate park, packed with people. of course, being responsible, i saw folks walking their dogs and doing all kinds of fun stuff in our amazing parks system. so we are on the road to recovery and i am looking forward to the day when we can finally throw these masks in the area and wave them like we just don't care because i don't even know what any of you look like anymore. so, with that, thank you so much. today is about opening our libraries as a first step in our road to recovery along with other many of our incredible city assets for the public to enjoy and, with that, to talk more specifically about our library and the work that we're

going to be doing to move our city forward is our city librarian michael lambert. >> thank you so much. it feels so good to be here. thank you, madam mayor. thank you, so much for your leadership for guiding us all through this past year and welcome everyone. today is a special day. i'm so honored to be here with mayor breed and announce the books are back and your san francisco public library is re-opening. as our mayor mentioned, she is a power user of the library's collections and we appreciate all her support for our institution and our library staff. i also want to acknowledge the president of the san francisco public library commission,

dr. mary wardell garduzi and library commissioners connie wolf, dr. aronia lopez and commissioner john lee and the executive director marie zapella. thank you all so much for your advocacy and leadership on behalf of our library system. also here, is carol eisen. i have to say carol has been a tremendous partner this past year working with our staff who have been activated as disaster service workers and more recently helping us to recall staff so we can re-open the library. thank you, carol, for your partnership. it's so excitingtor here at this moment and i am beyond thankful that we're finally able to re-open our libraries for in-person services. it's been a long, hard 13

months, but now we're in a position to safely re-open our libraries for brows and bounce. patrons will be able to experience browsing our stacks again something i know they have dearly missed. we'll also have our public access computers available for printers and high-speed internet access. and, it's really fitting

we'll still be offering spl to go and next week we're going to open the patrero branch and the west portal branch tuesday. we should have all of our branches re-opened by the fall before the start of school. and i really want to thank the community for all your patience and support. you've hung in there and i just

really appreciate all your patience as we phase this re-opening and the coming weeks and months ahead. at this time, i'd like to introduce our city administrator carmen chiu. in 2019, city administrator chiu partnered with the challenge initiative to compile a woman's book list to inspire the next generation of women leaders. we're so fortunate to have her support in getting our libraries re-open. city administrator chiu. >> when i was a little girl, i can remember going to the library. i maxed out every single book i could possibly get with my library card. it was always some kind of a cartoon, garfield or whatever it might have been at the time. and, i have to say how important it was for me to be able to access the library. my parents didn't have a whole

lot of money. it wasn't as if we could go to a store and pick out a book or the latest edition we've been hearing about or reading about in school. for me, and many people like me in my community, being able to go to the public library was the one place you got to go where you had the opportunity to get the books you saw in school. you were able to borrow and bring it home. take to your bed or read it on the couch. it was a place that created opportunities. the opportunity to dream and the opportunity to learn. and i think for so many san franciscans, being able to see the libraries re-open, our public libraries re-open is a blessing. i think san francisco has among the best library system in the entire country and i want to thank michael lambert, our city librarian and all of our commissioners, our friends of the library, our mayor for your support of our library system. today, when we think about this

announcement, why i'm so excited, you know, covid-19 has not been kind to people. it's a disease that has required that we went against every single nature of our being staying away from our friends, our families, being disconnected from one another, being isolated and, in particular, for people who are seniors, for our kids. and, so, when we think about bringing back our libraries, it's more than just being able to access books free and wonderful library services and education, it's about coming back together as a community. and, when i think about how exciting it is that not only the main is opening but that chinatown branch is opening and mission branch is opening, it makes me proud because we're also thinking about the communities that are underserved and not only that, but the community that is live in the most community residential neighborhoods. so i want to thank the library for not only being a place where we can learn but being a safe place for our community to

come back together. i want to thank the mayor for all of 0er leadership. i can't imagine a single meeting with the mayor that she hasn't thought about what are we going to do about bringing people back together. what are we going to do about mental health and i want to thank her because she has been constantly pushing not only for us to re-open, but to do it in a safe way, to remember that at the end of the day, we have to make sure we keep our community safe and to do this together. so i want to thank her for her leadership. and, finally, my last thanks really goes to the workers, the staff of the public library. at its peak, there were 600 san francisco public library workers who were deployed as disaster service workers. the folks helping to pass out food at the pantries. the folks coming to the command center coming to help with all the things we needed. now, we still have 150 who are still deployed. they have been a critical part

of our whole response and i just want to thank them for not only the work they continue to do in our emergency response, but for all the work that they are going to be going as we re-open our branches. today is a great day. the sun is shining on us and we are so thrilled. congratulations to the library system. >> thank you. speaking of the san francisco public library staff, we want to thank shauna sherman for joining us today. she runs the african american center here at the main, but she worked as a contact tracer and we really appreciate people like you and others for the work that you continue to do to uplift the community. and so, i know that and, again, carol, thank you for getting all of the staff back to the library because, let me tell you, i know it was hard work but because many of the library staff felt so dedicated to the

work of helping to support the city, yes, they wanted to come back to work, but they also wanted to finish the work they were doing to address this pandemic. so, again, we want to say thank you so much for your hard work and all that you did to help this city throughout this pandemic. and, unlike carmen chiu who probably returned her books to the library when she was a kid, thank goodness i waived all those fines and fees of the past because i'd be in real trouble right now. forgive me, library. forgive me. [ laughter ] but, with that, thank you all again to the commissioners, the friends of the public library. so many incredible people who care deeply about making sure that people in this city have access to books, that they have access to educational materials to computers and all the things that can help nurture and grow your mind, but also a really good for your soul.

so, with that, i want to open it up to questions. do we have any questions? no questions. easy. easy day today. all right. thank you all so much. take care.

>> good morning, everyone. this meeting will come to order. this is the april 21, 2021 budget and finance committee meeting. i am matt haney, chair of the budget and finance committee. i am joined by community remembers and is miss linda wong with our clerk. i want to thank sfgov tv for broadcasting this meeting and madam clerk, do you have any announcements? to protect board members t legislative and committee room are closed and will be participating remotely. this is to the various local, state, and community members will attend through a v