that was a very difficult for all of us to interpret something that had never happened before. and our role with being at the command and having communication and webinars, we had to shift in so many ways that we were not used to and had to do it quickly. we wanted to make sure that our presence was there and gather our partners and gather anything that we could to make sure that we were able to respond in the best way possible. and given also the need that we knew that was just so big, so huge, we just had to pull our efforts together. so at invest neighborhoods, one of our principal jobs is to develop programs, administer programs and do grant management to support the economic development goals within neighborhoods, within commercial corridors, very specifically

focus on small business. and so we partner and then fund non-profit organizations that are on the ground that have the culture and competency and we are also invested in increasing their capacity so they could best serve our small businesses in those corridors day to day. we also are very much in touch as we are leading those programs and having conversations and always piloting new programs and piloting new projects, working with your staff and the board, making sure that we are working towards supporting our small businesses in our neighborhood corridors which we're very proud of. next slide, please. and on this slide, the overall office of economic and workforce development goal. so the goal that we are most responsive to in our strategic

strategy, our strategy, is that we focus on supporting diverse and vibrant neighborhoods by strengthening and investing in small businesses, non-profits, community organizations, commercial corridors and public spaces as you have just heard me mention and describe some of that. within that, some of our objectives are that we provide customized support to stabilize our neighborhoods and commercial districts, including again, the small businesses and the non-profits within them. we also focus on the physical a assets of physical spaces within our corridors to provide and to celebrate culture, to provide safety and healthy spaces within our corridors, because we know that they're vital to our neighborhoods. next slide, please. so, again, i want to dive a little bit deeper in terms of our role and the spectrum of providing service to small

businesses and how we view it. and i spoke a little bit about this, but i wanted to just put it in terms of a spectrum of how we work with our partners. we really do see them as partners. we don't just see them as third-party administrators, or, you know, just rentees. we work very closely with them, again, to meet our economic development goals as a city, as a neighborhood, as we gather input and work very closely with our neighborhood partners and our community organizations on the ground to develop goals for how we want to support the corridor. pre-pandemic, i will say that many of our neighborhoods were very focused on stabilizing given the high rent, and so really the focus was on supporting the existing businesses, on keeping them there, through a variety of many different strategies and interventions. so when we get the funding, what

we do is we develop the programs and administer it. there are internal programs that we have that we administer ourselves, but many of them, again, we put out through a request for proposals. and then we give the opportunity to organizations to apply to meet those goals that are in there, including many supervisorrial aspects and priorities that go beyond some of our focus neighborhoods. and then we work with partners who then directly provide that service to those small businesses in our neighborhoods next slide, please. so our programs are divided in these five buckets and how we work with our small businesses. so we have our group -- our core group that really focuses on the technical assistance, the response with the small business development center, and loans and grants that go to directly administering those and that go directly to small businesses on

administering the community block grant fund. again, many of those being technical assistance providers to small businesses who then provide that assistance in the communities, in the corridors, and with the goal to retain or to create new jobs. with public spaces, again, it's about activating, beautifying the public spaces, working to build along those commercial corridors, providing a clean environment. again, so that these -- these spaces could be places of gathering and attracting our commercial corridors. -- for our commercial corridors the next one is storefront and buildings, so this is an internal program that we manage ourselves, which is s.f. shine, which many of you are familiar with it. this program itself works with directly small business storefronts and manages the applications and review of the applications and then provides

grants to support improvements within storefronts or facades. the commercial corridors, we have three programs under that category. we have construction mitigation, a partnership with sfmta, where our office goes along the corridor to provide the services to support during time of construction. we have outreach and vacancy tracking that we do throughout many corridors, not every single corridor in the city, but many of them, and then we have city-wide funding that we administer in, again, through via priorities that come our way. we administer those funds. for the neighborhoods, the focus around neighborhood is really about the ecosystem around the commercial corridors and we see and view the commercial corridors as being vital to the quality of life of the residents that live there within them, as

well as our entire system within the city. so our community benefit districts are a part of -- right, we support the -- support the creation of those districts, and oversight as it relates to reporting back to the board and annual reporting. we also -- also there's -- we're administering any grants but it is to enhance service, whether it's additional cleaning or special projects within those community benefit districts. we also partner with the mayor's office of housing community development to support our eight cultural districts, which each have economic development as one of the goals within their stabilization strategies. so we are one, a partner and informing and guiding some of those strategies. and making sure that they know what they have access to in terms of our services to support small businesses, but in

addition, where there's funding that relates to economic development, we administer that funding and programming. for our opportunity neighborhoods, these are our equity-focused neighborhoods of historically disinvested communities where we want to make sure that there's access to economic development in these corridors for these neighborhoods. and provide those vital services within these corridors in these neighborhoods. next slide, please. this is just a list that i wanted to provide just a sampling. it doesn't include every single one. i am sure that i have missed quite a few here -- partners. these are the partners that we actually fund to conduct the work, to do the work, in a variety, once again, in a variety of different ways. we have our program grant partners which provide many different services at the neighborhood community level. we have our community benefit districts and we have our community block grant partners which a lot of the primary focus

there is on providing business technical assistance. next slide, please. and here what i wanted to highlight was during the pandemic, every single one of our partners have stepped up with us. not only in -- and i will go into it in terms of the direct funding and what we did to re-program the funding and what we did to shift -- as supervisor peskin mentioned in the beginning in terms of what the traditional programs were. and now we needed help, to get the word out, to interpret the health policy. and we needed -- we needed a different way of reaching businesses. we needed more webinars. ways that we never even imagined that businesses would want to access, and the need was there. and it actually has -- i will say that it has strengthened our direct relationship with businesses because they are reaching out to us. and we have managed to grow our

database, and to grow our very individual relationships with our small businesses throughout this process. and in this case, one of our community champions i would say during covid has been the northeast community federal credit union who we depend on partners to help to us get the funding out whether it's direct payments or direct checks, and filling out applications, walking the corridors which became, you know -- you know, traditionally face-to-face in many of our communities of color that is a way to reach our businesses. and in this case upon closure, it became very difficult because our storefronts were shuttered. so we had to again to go the extra mile and figure out how can we reach these businesses. next slide. observe covid our to the -- before covid our budget was a

little bit over $4 million, and with the storefront improvements and our women entrepreneur grant, in the case of a fire happens, we deploy people on the spot and to help businesses and to know that there's this resource available. we have our construction mitigation grants which this past year in round two of the disbursement did disburse $546,000. but we do have a fund there that is a multiyear fund to be used stores become criteria for that before sfmta. and then our loan investment fund. that was $1.5 million. and here just at the bottom i wanted to highlight during round two, even given the challenges that we've had, that 71 businesses for central subway

were able to get grant two funding which i will say that pre-pandemic the program was focused on providing that technical assistance and then giving the funding out that way once businesses developed a business plan to help them and then the grant was meant to help to stabilize them. in this case for pandemic, the criteria changed so they could use it on rent, utilities and other things so they could survive through the pandemic. the next is the van ness also distributed to 15 businesses and so those funds were disbursed, $120,000. next slide, please. so in contrast when we're used to managing and overseeing and contracting out about $4 million during the span of one year, through covid, which it is more than a year, so we have put out and managed and continue to

manage $52.8 million with covid relief with the same staff -- actually reduced staff -- because many were deployed, including myself. one thing that i want to sort of highlight here -- actually i'll wait to the next slide. next slide, please. so in terms of -- okay, we have this funding, and how are we prioritizing it? and how are we reaching those that we know that have the hardest time accessing resources? how do we minimize the barriers knowing that the usual way was a paper application, door to door. our storefronts are closed now, we can't do that. it presents, you know, a lot of -- also we wanted to make sure that everybody was safe, right, in terms of covid and the spread and that we were managing that. and our partners also had to deal with that. their offices were closed. so we had to think through all

of those things and i will say that the resiliency, first, round one of resiliency, that was a paper application. we learned a lot. and we had quickly to pivot and figure out how we can become digital, but, at the same time, how we made sure that we worked so closely with our partners that even with that digital application -- one, that we made it as simple as possible in multiple languages, but that we worked closely with our partners so they could access it. so for the first round of resiliency, you know, we learned a lot. we learned a lot and we did the first-come-first-serve. when we saw the numbers that we knew we were not reaching our -- right, equity in terms of the ones with the largest barriers that we wanted to reach -- immigrant owned, businesses of color, businesses that speak different languages. and so i will say that we pulled with our partners -- and this is

an example of how we re-programmed dollars and worked across the city with our partners to re-program those dollars into one program. which was the muni grant program in those neighborhoods. that's why those neighborhoods were listed there because it's where we had partners that agreed to re-program to direct disbursement to our communities of color. and that allowed us that built-in way for a different way to reach small businesses in those communities. and we saw great success in that. it was first time that we had worked with digital services at this level across our partners in one program. on top of that, with that program, our partners leveraged additional private dollars on top of the $1.1 that we gave out to then to continue -- sorry, muni grant programs that they

hadn't reached or grant those they had already rewarded. and they leveraged at least -- i know they have leveraged more but in terms of grants at least $500,000 in private donations to help to support their small businesses in japantown. so, again, we have learned, first-come-first-serve, that didn't work so well. and then we did the mini-grant program that we worked with our partners and those efforts were so successful in terms of reaching our communities of color that we decided that in round two of resiliency that we wouldn't force them to reapply. we took their applications of both the women-owned businesses and those many neighborhood, mini-grants and we absorbed them into our second round of resiliency for consideration, in addition to opening it up to new applications. so then we conducted a lottery from those applicants. since then, again, we have

evolved and changed. i would also say -- and i will speak to the next slide please -- i will just go through in terms of what our level of impact and then go to our latest grant and what it has been and how that has shifted also. next slide, please. so, again, the need is huge and though the amount of funding that we have been able to not only fundraise but to reappropriate, even with the first round of $24 million, you know, we see the difference here. we are not able to reach -- based on the need. but in comparison in december when we look at this graph, it's federal -- the federal p.p.p. program was able to reach in san francisco 37,000 businesses. with $4.1 billion. in comparison we have been reaching a little bit -- and this is growing because there's

still loans being processed and added, but just over 1,300 businesses with $24 million. next slide. however, in terms of who are we reaching, our priority populations, this slide shows that in terms of reaching our minority owned and our women-owned businesses, our city grants and city loans have far exceeded what federal dollars have done. at least as of december. we have not tabulated the new numbers for the p.p.p., but i do know that there's been changes and they have learned that there's a continual process for all of us. next slide, please. and here on this table you will see -- so also to put into context the amount of applications that we have received versus the amount of awards that we're able to give out. and i want to point out in row number three that we talk about

second round, i already made the point that we absorbed the applications from the women's mini-grant and also the neighborhood mini-grants which were i think that were the highest amounts there that we gave out, depending on the neighborhood, of $5,000. again, we worked with our partners to make those determinations there to reach the businesses within those. so, again, i think that once you subtract the mini-grant, what you will see is that we have been -- based on the applications, we have been able to reach about 28% of applicants. and we've disbursed at this point, out of this pool, 85%. that last percentage that we haven't disbursed yet is our latest -- is our latest grants that just closed which i will provide a highlight before we end. next slide. so in terms of our combined

grant and loan reach, these are the top 10 neighborhoods that -- (indiscernible) so mission, number one, at $250 -- and so on and so forth, tenderloin, chinatown, and then western edition. and as you can see these are the top 10 neighborhoods that we have reached. again, it matches some of the historically invested neighborhoods. and on the left you will see that it's based on, again, the number of awards that we have reached on based on preferred language. next slide, please. here you will see a breakdown based on race and ethnicity. so we have been able, 52.1% of our awardees have been -- have identified as women-owned businesses. and over 72% minority-owned

businesses. and i also encourage you all, if you haven't already, you should take a look at our website that really breaks down to the point of the women-owned grants, in terms of what kind of businesses got the support and the help. and it's pretty fascinating to be able to see some different breakdowns there in term of our outreach. next slide. now so here i wanted to show the spread in terms of geography. so district three, you know, has done very well as supervisor peskin pointed out. we also have district nine there and district six, district 10. so, again, so that you can all see across the city within the districts. and this is based on the number of grants and loans. next slide.

next slide is and once you add in the loans and the grants and the different amounts, this is the spread. next slide, please. now a point to make about the spread. so in terms of the areas that have the larger concentration of commercial small businesses, this is the area that peaks. if you want a visual where our loans and grants have been, this represents 1,525 grants that have been given out and 334 loans. and so what you will notice is that there are higher concentrations as you saw in the bar graph in the districts that have the higher commercial concentrations. next slide, please. now an update on our s.f. shine for reopening which was before our san francisco relief grant fund for storefronts. this was our last application

that closed. so we just announced to the pool on april 19th the final awards. now we are going to be -- we are still waiting to get that funding for the second round, but we decided to notify the awardees so that they, you know, they wouldn't be waiting anymore to hear back on whether they were qualified, and we are still moving through that. this is the other point that i want to make about this grant. this is different than the other grants. this is a reimbursement-based grant to help to support businesses reopen for modifications they had to do in terms of, you know, adhering to public health guidelines. and also they were able to leverage if they wanted to, you know, to build a shared space that could go towards supporting some of those aspects of it. so it's all about reopening. and this is a reimbursement-based grant, which means they must submit -- they

must submit receipts for reimbursable items based on the grant. and here we're highlighting 78%, more than 78%, that received the grant are minority owned. more than 48% are women-owned and more than 42% are immigrant owned. and next slide, please. we have two days, may 7th our grant closes and we still have plenty of -- plenty of grants and funding based on what we have allotted. next slide, please. so for this application, we have had different focus groups and we spoke to different industry groups, restaurants and others about their experience with the process of applying to the funding. we spoke to your aides about the

frustrations they had heard. so what we heard is that people are tired of applying and not getting the grant. they wanted more -- more transparency in terms of selection criteria, and they wanted to know and to understand what are my chances, even of receiving these funds upfront? and they thought also that the award amounts that were given, that we were trying to reach more people, that they were too small many times to make a difference to them. in terms of the barriers, so we also modified the criteria based on where we saw barriers for different businesses. and so newer businesses that were established between june and december, they were not able to apply to many of the grants, so we changed that for this application. in terms of language, again, that's something that we always need to make sure that we are

making sure that it's accessible and they also mentioned that there's a digital divide and how are we going to work through that and how are we going to deal with that? and so, again, we have done webinars and we have worked really closely with our partners and so -- and then we'll show in the next slide in a second where we are at, and where we're monitoring how we're doing in terms of our applications. in terms of prioritization for this criteria, because we were trying to really -- based on the input we heard, okay, we should be giving grants to those that have that financial need, those small businesses that have a financial need that we just need to help based on their finances. the ongoing operation, in terms of the longevity -- like, we want to help to support businesses that are 15 years plus that are community anchors in our neighborhoods. and to support those generating more jobs.

so before this grant, most of our funding focused on the lower level of total employees. five or less employees. so we opened that up and we added a criteria where it's two plus and higher. so now the bigger businesses that generated those jobs pre-covid could actually qualify to apply for this relief fund. and also wanted to prioritize in addition -- i know that there's the entertainment venue fund but i wanted to, again, to prioritize the venue as applicants to this additional funding. next slide, please. and we will begin our review process and we have minimized the amount of review, especially in the $5,000 category of the grant, so we can start getting those funds out quicker. and we hope to have the checks

all out by the end of june. so far as of this morning we have received 809 applications, but we have programmed funding for 1,430. next slide, please. and this is what our current -- almost done, one more slide after this. but this is our current terms of applications. and as we learn and became more digital and and so as of -- as of, what is it -- i think that it is -- i think that it is as of this morning. and as of this morning, this is and there's more businesses and

so that might be a proportion -- i don't have the exact number, but the breakdown right now as far as it is, we have 80% minority owned that have applied and 51% women-owned and 33% that prefer a language other than english. next slide, please. and today in a press release our announcement of the awardees from the dream keeper initiative. in terms of looking forward to recovery, it's going to be very important that we lead with equity, that we make sure that we do things different. and this investment has allowed us to do that, and these are -- this is -- this particular r.s.p., $3.7 million to invest in black-owned businesses to support new partners, and in

providing technical assistance and providing the resources and hubs where communities can come and access those resources and to boost and to elevate the presence of our cultural events that also bring vibrancies to our commercial corridors and strengthen our corridors and small businesses. so these were the areas that this initiative help to support and we're very excited that we will have so many new partners to help us to implement and to lead with equity. specifically, for black-owned businesses during this time, and looking forward through recovery to push us through in that way and making that investment and focused investment as we should next slide, please. and with that, that concludes my

presentation. i am happy to take questions. i tried to cover a lot, i know that i didn't cover enough. i'm sure that there's a lot and i'm happy to have a conversation and get your input and feedback thank you. >> chair haney: thank you so much. president walton? >> president walton: thank you so much, chair haney, and thank you so much and the entire team for the presentation. i do just want to start off by saying that oewd has been very nimble and able to support our families and small businesses through the pandemic. working with the small business commission, of course, along with our office. and so i'm very appreciative of that. and as we look at moving towards permanency with the strategies and policies that we have utilized during the pandemic, like investing in neighborhoods which i know that was pre-pandemic and family relief and even possibilities for right to recover and what that could

look like at shared spaces, i want to just make sure that we continue to involve entire communities because these are great programs that have supported the sustainability of our businesses through the pandemic. but there are other things that need to happen as we move towards permanency with these strategies because of the impact they have on neighborhoods and communities, and those are real to those neighbors. i do have a question just in terms of increasing the pot for investing in neighborhoods. how is that possible? any thoughts on that? and any ways that we could do that aside from us just finding money within what we do. are there thoughts in the department on that? >> so i can start and i don't know if anyone else wants to chime in. so i -- a big area of increase is going to be through -- and, again, the last initiative that i have shared -- and thank you president walton for also helping to champion that.

so that's going to actually be a big -- a new program that is pretty -- i think large and focused so it will be a big focus in terms of moving forward and that's going to add additional funding to help to support that community. in addition, as usual, you know, we are stewards of the funding that comes from the board based on priorities that you are all hearing from, and so as you hear that we'll be managing through that -- i don't know if there are any other thoughts in terms of city-wide. i think that we're going to really be looking at some initiatives to boost our shop local and our digital -- bridge our digital divide. we have also applied or gone after some federal funding to try to help to support some of those efforts. and we're waiting to hear back. but i think that our -- it's going to be very important. i think that our businesses are

looking to us in our corridors to help to be that bridge across the city of bringing everybody back to our local corridors and being that lead in terms of helping to unite across all of the efforts that are happening. so that we can contribute in that way. that's one of the things that i see happening. >> president walton: thank you. and then i know that you talked about construction mitigation. how much resources is there remaining in that pot? and has all of it been grants? >> so construction mitigation is one that has a very specific criteria. it doesn't -- that criteria is set by m.t.a. and there's three boards really that approved that criteria, right, including, you know, board supervisors and m.t.a.'s board and the t.a. so that program, the actual grant portion of direct relief,

or direct assistance -- sorry -- that one is only triggered in the case of projects that are two years or longer. and have had significant delay. so, yeah. >> president walton: so how much do we know -- how much is in the pot right now? and the resources that have been allocated, have they been through grants or was some through loans as well? >> the loan program has not -- my understanding -- and i can get back to you on this, i don't think that the loan program has been activated. so in the entire pot and i'd have to get the final counting but for sure there's $4 million u.s. dollars allocated for multiyear. and this past year about -- i mentioned 580 something were given out. so, yes, so there's still funding, definitely, in that. and those -- that specific $4

million is specific for grants specifically and payments when this program gets triggered. >> president walton: no, i think that is great because i don't think that we should be charging businesses for -- for issues and concerns that were not created by them. so i think that the grant portion is great. and then just my last question, i don't know if you can answer this or somebody else -- but in terms of transition with new leadership at oewd, are conversations happening with new leadership? and i'm only asking that because supervisor peskin's point earlier, we're probably going to have to do some of this again because there may be questions that we might have about direction, etc., that may not get answered today. so i'm wondering how that transition is looking? >> thank you, president walton. i can let you know that we have been having conversations with

her coming on board on may 17th our c.f.o., we have been briefing her on the budget and the budget process so that we -- so that she can hit the ground running when she starts on may 17th and the priority has definitely been focused on making sure that she understands all of the different programs and the leadership of those programs and how to -- how they interface with the board. so, yes, we're having those conversations and i'm very excited for her to start. >> president walton: thank you so much. thank you, chair haney. >> chair haney: thank you, president walton. colleagues, other questions or comments? i see someone with their hand up, was that -- supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: i got a different way of getting your attention every time. [laughter] so a quick question. so when you showed the numbers

for grants and loans that have gone out by district, you know, district 11 is really low, and i know that it's not for want of trying. we have a really good representation of black-owned, latinx and a.p.i.-owned businesses. so i wanted to know what efforts you guys are going to make to double down and to ensure that some of the areas that are not represented in the grant and loans that are being administered and given out -- are you doing any additional efforts to ensure that underrepresented districts and neighborhoods are going to be included in the programs going forward? >> absolutely. so as i mentioned, you know, we continue to learn, we continue to work closely with our partners to do that. and so we've increased the number of webinars that we are

conducting with our partners, but, yes, there's more -- i have got to say that there's more work to be done. we're happy to take a look at it and we'll continue to do so. and, yeah, increase our efforts where we see the gaps happening >> supervisor safai: yeah, that would be good, because i know that personally i have spoken to a number of the businesses that have tried to apply and they didn't qualify and they didn't have two employees, and i had to remind one of the business that's you can count yourself as an employee. it's just some of the simple stuff -- barriers. but, again, these are businesses that as many colleagues have said and as you know that are just struggling to survive. so there's a disparity in the distribution of the funds it would be good for you all to really double your efforts, because -- and i know that over the past year that, you know, the person that is supposed to be our main point of contact from your office has been pretty

m.i.a. and i know that it has hurt the businesses out in our district. so just really -- and it's now reflected in the amount of businesses that are adding access to those loans and grants, so, really, we just want to encourage you guys to highlight that, double down, and find a way to get additional funds into the businesses in the neighborhoods that are not represented. >> absolutely, thank you for that. >> supervisor safai: thank you, chair. thank you. i know that you guys are trying hard and i know that you guys are doing everything that you can. it just would be really be helpful to get additional effort in our district. >> chair haney: supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, chair haney, and thank you to all of the members of the budget and finance committee as well as the budget and appropriations committee because i know that you have been doing this for seven hours. so i -- i don't want to go on

for too much longer and thank you, of course, to miss wong and the clerk as well as all of the staff from oewd. and i think that we start at the beginning by acknowledging that this should be continued so that we can speak to the new director, but i want to -- i want to leave with a bunch of high level thoughts. i want to start by acknowledging that none of us have ever been to the covid pandemic rodeo before. and we are not using the tired old phrase much anymore, but we are used it at the beginning that we were building the plane as we were learning how to fly the plane. and we did that, and we learned from that, and i think that, you know, there's been an acknowledgement of those things and mr. tumlin, in last item, acknowledged some of those things.

i, frankly, all -- writ large i'm proud of the city. i'm proud of oewd. we did pivot. but president walton spoke to the notions of permanence. there's some things that are going to disappear relative to the government practices after the pandemic is over and we go to whatever the new normal looks like. and there are some things that will be made permanent. and there are things that will be adopted and in whole and in part. but one of the things that -- and this goes back to the notion of oversight -- and transparency. is having a process by which everybody understands what's going on -- and while i'm delighted that in the current round as of right now you have 809 applications and you can take care of 1,430. the experience has been up until

now that we're doing less than a third. and i get it -- i'm not saying that we have enough money to take care of 100%. but that -- when you don't have enough money to take care of 100% -- and i say this as somebody who is on the bay restoration authority that distributes $25 million of taxpayers' money every year. and it's very clear who got rejected and why and what geographic region they came from and whether it's from this community or not. so while these graphs are interesting, they speak to the recipients. they don't speak to the rejectees. so it also would be interesting to see -- i mean, out of the other 72%, who didn't get them and why not? and were they people of color? were they women or legacy businesses or were they in this part of town versus that part of town? i think that it's also

interesting -- and, again, i started by acknowledging what was said, which is that district 3 -- and i don't look at this through a district lens -- has done good. but if you start actually delving into this, some of the stuff is loans, and some of it is direct grant assistance that will never be reimbursed. and so understanding the difference between loans and grants is very important. and if you look at the breakdowns between your lines 16 and 17. 16 being the number of loans and grants given per district, and 17 being the grant amounts, i mean, it's interesting -- i'm using district 3 because it's a fun one to use -- it would appear that $719,000 was distributed to about 200 parties, less or minus if i'm doing the math right.

and about $2 million was distributed to less than 70 partners. so (please stand by) getting out in a

period of government goofiness. so the most transparency we can have is the best government we can be as long as we remain nimble and it doesn't take forever to get the money. so what is the process? how do you score these things? who gets rejected? i mean i love all the slides and

the pie charts as to who's getting it but what i'm not seeing is who isn't getting it and why and how did you get to that conclusion? >> so two things that i like to differentiate for the panel, there is a panel that was for the r.s.p., for the last r.s.p. we have a community panel for that piece. so that is a little bit different. for these grants, it varies. it varies on the different type so if for example, the first set was first come, first serve and we got a lot of questions around that, what our numbers were looking like. the second one, i'm going to say the mini grants where we work with our partner, that was geographically. within those economic areas that they identified and that was

first come, first serve within those geographies, each was in the neighborhood. they had the minimum criteria, so number of employees and some had two types of grants. some had storefront grants and some had individual entrepreneurs, who were serving those home based caters -- caterers and those that owned barbershops, they didn't get funding. again, we tailored with our partners, so that was the mini grant. so it was lottery based. so as long as they met the minimum criteria, then we pulled and requested documentation in terms of, you know, in terms of

lost. so there was, you know, you have to show and demonstrate that there was a certain percentage of loss in the first time. we also prioritized again our opportunity neighborhoods, those that have been historically disinvested in, in terms of the numbers we would be giving, but each one really like we learned, it was tailored, it was based on the partnership, and at the time, who we saw was not getting reached by the federal loans and program. as we were hearing feedback, that's what we were trying to tailor. so this last round, this s.f. resiliency, it's the first time you fill out the basic information. it's very tailored. that's why the number of applications you see there are lower. up front, what we did is you fill out the criteria and it will automatically tell you whether you qualify for that criteria or not, up front. so we were trying to solve for

that, right? so that way businesses don't have to wait or you know, and lot of times they don't. at this point, they applied so much that they're exhausted and i don't know. so very intentional. in this last round of resiliency, we laid out the criteria and said you know what? it's a lot. just fill out the application. it will tell you also. so it was both ways. laying it out, but also in our process of applying, it would be -- it would help the business so they don't have to figure out all the puzzle, the equation, everything. we prioritize in terms of what you heard before, our input. those were financial needs, low income households, moderate income households, those that were closed longer, so those are all the considerations and every grant was different, literally because we were trying to shift based on who we thought was missing out, who we thought was

not able to reach by p.p.p. or other programs. >> thank you. i know everybody wants to have some dinner, so i won't say anything else other than to turn it back over to the chair and just to say that i know that and it's coming at the end of next week, i mean we have a couple of options here mr. chair and colleagues on the budget and appropriations committee, and obviously by the end of this month, you guys are all going to be in budget pick for a while. so one possibility is maybe hearing the vision and getting some of the slides i just talked about and hearing some updated

ideas based on this may 19th. i'm throwing that out as an idea. any way. we can hear more about legacy business being fully funded. >> thank you supervisor peskin. i'm open to working with you to bring this back and to keep this hearing open and to hear from the new director. i did just have and i don't want to keep folks too much. i just had one or two quick things and then we still need to take public comment. one is, you know, i think this hearing is really important and we're sharing a lot of information and providing a lot of transparency, which is great. i'm wondering what is the best ongoing way to share this type of information and publishing this type of information.

i apologize. i haven't dug through all the websites that exist and everything else. is this reported or made transparent on a really regular basis for a small business themselves to see? is there a way we can work with the data folks in our city to be able to just put as much of this out there so people can really access what's happening and see what's happening. i mean part of it is stuff happening in public, like what supervisor peskin said and the other thing is to see where all the funds are going. you know, i learned a tremendous amount about what you presented. any thoughts on how best to share this or make it public? a regular or monthly report? i think this is going to be an ongoing thing, even as we move beyond covid. >> what i will say is that we do post a lot of information on our website. what i will say our capacity is limited.

we want -- we need to figure out a way to be -- to have that support we need. we don't have a data person assigned to us. so the data you see before you is from those doing the grants, doing the outreach, doing the webinars and we pull it together. so, definitely trying to figure out within our capacity what is the right and we're going to think through what is the right moment or milestone where we can report back. definitely on our website we try to keep it as updated as possible, for sure. yes, this is an area i'm going to say just out right, we wish we had more capacity to be able to -- but i feel like we've done what we can, a pretty good job with what we have. yes, this is an area where i think it would be helpful to have a little bit more support. yes, our website pretty much

will show as much as we can in terms of updating on a regular basis. >> great, great, thank you for that. i do want to be clear about something and i know that supervisor peskin and the entire committee agrees with this. you have done a tremendous, tremendous heroic work the last year and have been asked to do so much more than was ever imaginable with not enough staff and not enough resources and i do want to also appreciate the way that you all have learned throughout the process and haven't just doubled down on an approach that wasn't working. even just the way you shared your presentation where you said first, we did first come and first serve, and then we change it this way, then we changed it that way. obviously there is based on the feedback, there are a couple more iterations of changes and we're trying to help with that in the feedback we're giving. the fact that you're willing to change and adapt and learn, it's

really fantastic and i think in bringing back the new director, one of the things that we want to let her know is how important the that, that approach continues and that we continue in that path. so i do want to thank you, you know, you and all of your staff and community partners. we are so grateful for your leadership and your hard work, your tireless work over the last year. we want to support you by getting more resources for some of the things we identified here. more staff, more data support, and i just want to underscore the appreciation for your work and your willingness to learn and adapt and commit to equity. i want to acknowledge my friend, juan carlos, i don't know if he is here as well, who has done incredible work as well and doesn't like the limelight but

is a huge asset to the city and i'm grateful for his work. with that, i want to -- madam clerk, if there are any folks with us, who are here for public comment and if my colleagues have any final thoughts or questions, we'll do that. >> yes mr. chair, we're checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. those who wish to make a public comment, please press star 3. mr. smith, are there any callers who wish to comment on item number 5? >> we have one caller in the queue right now. >> could you please unmute the caller? thank you. >> caller: thank you supervisor for letting me talk about the subject. i'm the owner of the business

located at 24th and york in the mission district. as many business owners, i had to close my business for an entire year. i was laid off. it was difficult for me to pay my business lease. thanks to the generosity and the mission, i was able to give my lease from them. they told me not to pay for five months and they cut my rent in half for the rest of the year. without the generosity, i would not have a business today. many people are not as lucky as me. i have worked with several friends that have small business. we applied for the relief grants. the applications are complicated and only businesses have. the grants require credit reports and signs of need. many of us have lost jobs and

some of them have lost their houses from how can someone expect to have this credit report. the language is another barrier. the way that the spanish class is reading, it's not clear and confusing. i don't know where the government got these translated, but they need to do a better job. we are also finding that some of the businesses don't have internet or own a computer. you must have a connection or money to get a grant. if this is the case, only rich people should be applying for the grant. i have held several businesses and applied for the grant. none of the applications would answer or told us we rejected or anything, just what our application status was. it is so difficult to get back with the business, especially in san francisco. there was -- i mean there are a

lot of high prices that we have to pay and requirements -- >> the speaker's time has elapsed. >> thank you for your comment, next caller please. >> hello? >> welcome caller. >> yeah, hi. thank you all for your services and commitment to the residents of san francisco, for businesses, with emphasis on small businesses and most vulnerable residents. i think that most of my questions have been answered. i hope that this selection process of qualified businesses will be revisited, for instance, i own a small business i start in 2019. of course i spent that year in

marketing and putting the business out there. at the end of 2020, our clientele doubled. we had one employee and we saw that we needed more hands and posted on job boards for hire. we were in the mist of interviews when the shelter-in-place was announced. every grant application applied either got no response with no reason at all. so i really hope that this selection criteria will be reconsidered because there are small businesses out there with one employee that is ready to hire more employees if the resources are made available. again, thank you all for your

services. i do appreciate it. >> thank you for your comments, mr. chair, there are no other speakers in the queue. >> great, thank you so much. public comment is closed. so before i make a motion to continue this to the call of the chair, supervisor peskin, do you want to make any closing remarks? >> no, thank you all for spending as much time on this and i look forward to continuing this conversation with the incoming new director of oewd and continuing the conversation around the budget on things that we touched on and also continuing the longer term conversation about what appropriate governmental oversight relative to oewd might look like in the future. that's probably the least pressing of those three things. with that, thank you chair haney

and colleagues. >> thank you. thank you for you and your staff for bringing this forward. thank you again to all of the staff from oewd and the office of the small business. we really do appreciate your work and it's been incredibly hard year on everyone on our small businesses and on all of you and your staff as well. so we do extend our deepest gratitude and looking forward to trying to get you a little bit more support as we move forward and i hope we identified some areas where we can do that in this hearing. colleagues, not seeing anybody else on the roster unless supervisor safai is sending me a carrier pigeon or anything like that. he is running out of ways to get my attention. [laughter] >> seeing none, i am going to make a motion to continue this hearing to the call of the chair.

do i have a second? >> second, ronen. >> second safai. >> seconded by supervisor ronen, a roll call vote please. >> vice chair safai. >> aye. >> member mar. >> aye. >> member ronen. >> aye. >> president walton. >> aye. >> chair haney. >> aye. >> thank you so much committee for all of your time and patience and participation today. it was a long day, but we got a lot done. madam clerk, is there any other item before us today? >> there is no further business. >> great. thank you. [♪♪♪]

over where we were last time year-to-date. many of these guns are used in crimes, and we recover them after the crimes are committed. we are working with a.t.f. and our crime gun investigations unit to really try to get a handle on these guns. they're not serialized, but we have made some arrests where people are manufacturing the type of guns in their homes. we just arrested last week an individual who was in his homemaking ghost guns, so it is a problem in the city, and we are working to address that as

best we can. significant incidents this past week, we did have a homicide at mason and market. this was a shooting. we had some really good investigative leads on this, so i will have more news on this for sure next week for the commission, hopefully very good news where these lead in terms of holding the shooters accountable. one victim was pronounced deceased at the scene, and the second victim was shot, but these injuries on the second victim were not life threatening. there's some good evidence, including project video in the area. well, i will report where we are next week on these, as well, and i think we are going to be able to hold these folks accountable. other critical incidents on this report, there was an

aggravated assault at fourth and channel. this happened on april 30 at 2:00 in the afternoon. an officer from central station was driving by on fourth saw the suspect standing over the victim and striking the victim as the victim was on the ground. the officer approached and took the suspect in custody without incident. the victim indicated he was walking with a baby stroller and the suspect walked up and punched him in the back of the head and he hit the ground. good thing the officers were in the right place at the right time and were able to make an arrest. the district attorney filed charge in this incident, and the baby was not hurt in the

incident. other significant incidents, we had a potential hate crime at mcallister and leavenworth. this was on the muni 5 line. the victim was sitting in the rear of the coach when five victims, we believe to be around ages ten to 12 -- >> president cohen: ten to 12? >> yes. long story. the victim's hair was lit on fire. we don't know whether it was intentional or not. that's what we're investigating, but nonetheless, it is very, very disturbing. so the age of the potential suspect is ten, so if this was intentional, it's even more disturbing. we're trying to identify these individuals. the victim is okay, but again, these are just random type of acts that we've really got to get a handle on in our city.

and the one that i will report on is an assault with a deadly weapon, an assault on an elderly. the suspects were standing on a bus plat -- the victims were standing on a bus platform, and the suspect ran up and stabbed both of them. with this terrible incident, we did make an arrest on this case, and i want to say this: you know, this arrest -- this is where we talk a lot about community policing and officers on the beat and officers knowing their neighborhood -- that's how we made this arrest. the officers from tenderloin who know that community who know, you know, a lot of the people that come and go and get

involved in a lot of things were able to take the evidence and quickly identify the person that did this. they knew where to find this person, and they made an arrest very, very quickly on this case. that's how community policing comes together. again, we want to prevent these cases in the first place. if you're having officers hookup on the platforms, but we can't be everywhere, and we can't be on every corner, but it helps when the officers are there, and it helps when the officers know their community. so that arrest was made. it was a very, very quick arrest, very responsive. we also have our community liaison unit that are supporting our victims with social services, and that's why we put social services for the community in place so we can

enhance that level of service, as well, so we'll keep you posted on that if there's any further development. it was one single suspect on this case. we also have side [inaudible] working with our neighboring jurisdictions, what we knew is that in the east bay, they had significant side shows that they disrupted, and the pattern has been when they get disrupted in the cities in the east bay, they move to san francisco, which is exactly what happened. we were deployed with our stunt driving patrol unit, which we take from officers from all-around the city, and that's exactly what happened. we were able to break these events up fairly quickly. we did confiscate several vehicles, and we didn't have shots fired, which is always a

good thing we don't have shots fired, so i just want to give a kudos to the officers in the units. there was one arrest, five vehicles towed, and we have other vehicles that have been identified, and we're going to follow up on the back end and see what we can do with that. i think i'm out of time, so that concludes my report. >> president cohen: thank you very much for your report, and please, on behalf of the commission, thank the officers' quick thinking and good policing in the cases that you highlighted. >> thank you. >> president cohen: i just want to push you a little bit. you made this report with some shocking and heartbreaking individual incidents.

how do we move forward? what's the strategy? are we augmenting? pivoting? obviously, the community policing is working. if the officer had not been driving down fourth and king, just imagine what would have happened. we would have been dealing with a homicide. what do we need to be doing differently? >> well, i think, commissioner, part of what has happened -- we talked about this today when we briefed on some of these incidents. we have some room to improve on the collaboration. we have to take a look back and see if we missed anything. the officers have been in

contact with them, but the thing is, when you take a look back at these cases, we don't want to miss anything with an entity, particularly a public entity that may have a go at getting themselves involved in these situations by their acts. but one of the things we have to do is look at it from every aspect of it. for example, in cases where we know that people have had run-ins with bouts of psychosis, drug induced or otherwise, and then, we look back, and so many entities have been engaged with that person. sometimes, there's nothing that could have been done differently, but oftentimes, we say, if we had done a little bit better in this area or that area, we could have done better. that's what we're going to

start to do, not just in policing. we're concerned with putting our best foot forward but also bringing in our other departments. i think we have room to grow there. we have partners. it's not that the entities aren't there. we need to look back at these incidents critically and not let it happen again. that's one thing we're going to try to drive in the police department, and i know we have the willingness, but we need to work together and pull this together because the last thing we want to do is, we should have caught it here. we don't want that to happen. >> president cohen: thank you. completely understood. colleagues, are there -- hamasaki. commissioner hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: thank you, president cohen. chief, that's a great point.

was this -- regarding the highly publicized attack, you said this individual was known to officers. was this, like -- i don't know -- substance abuse, mental health related incident? is there any more you can share at this point in the investigation? >> well, commissioner hamasaki, that's a really good question. speak to what i just said to commissioner cohen's question, that's what we're going to take a look back at. right now, we knew who he was. that's why we were able to

locate him to quickly, but there is no indication at this point that there was no type of hate or prejudice, but there is no investigation to be done, so i don't want to close that door. at this point, we don't see any evidence that this was a hate crime or prejudice related, but there are other areas that you mentioned, and right now, we're doing that. we're in the process of doing that, so i don't have all of those answers for you, but definitely, we're going to do that on this case, and we want to establish the practice that we do that on all the cases. as you know, commissioners, oftentimes you look back and say, if the right people gave

the right information, it could be [inaudible]. >> commissioner hamasaki: -- and we want to be sure to not fuel the fire and instigate other incidents here. the other thing, in my 27, 28 years in san francisco, problem of drug sales in the tenderloin

and, you know, i've seen a lot of posts of large seizures. i think it's good that we're getting those off the streets. but i guess we've had those conversations before. i've sat in on a lot of community conversations in the tenderloin. it seems like no matter what we throw at it, the next night, it's the same situation. is there a long-term strategy and is it possible that maybe we could have a presentation on that to address the concerns of the residents of the tenderloin maybe in the coming weeks or

months? >> yes, we'd definitely love to do a presentation. we do have to make the arrests on the drug dealers, and you expect that, and it should happen, particularly with the level of fentanyl we're getting off the street. we've almost, year-to-date, doubled the amount of fentanyl, and we've gotten a large amount of fentanyl on the street. we quadrupled the size of our foot beats, and we had officer -- fourth to eighth street, on every corner, we had

officers there every day. >> commissioner hamasaki: i remember that. >> things got much, much better, but we weren't able to sustain that. public dollars are not unlimited, but we know that that works. another example is when we were having a lot of problems at the b.a.r.t. platforms down below, as we call it, at the tunnel, and we joined forces with the b.a.r.t. and the b.a.r.t. p.d., and it was great because we were patrolling late at night. here's the thing. we're not solving the problem. if we displace it, it just goes to another area, but i think that's where the community policing [inaudible] arrest and we're not -- i'm going to use a

term that you use -- playing whack-a-mole, but if we are consistent, that's what we can do. if you're consist enough, in my professional opinion, you can make a difference. >> commissioner hamasaki: well, make president cohen and i can work together and schedule something and talk about how we can hopefully see some change in the coming months. i know it's a long-term prospect, but, you know, it's -- for those of us that passed through, i don't live there, but it's -- you know, nobody -- there's just too many families and children that live there to allow this to be acceptable, so that's -- that's my only thoughts on that. thank you, chief, thank you, president cohen. >> thank you, commissioner.

>> president cohen: commissioner larry yee. >> clerk: commissioner, you're muted. >> commissioner yee: thank you there, sergeant stacey youngblood. first of all, i want to thank the sfpd that solved the stabbing of the senior asian women on fourth and market. my question is can we do collaboration with the sfmta

police and see if they will, instead of board checking, instead of checking fares, actually getting on the bus and traveling with the residents to and from, making them feel safer. just yesterday, we were in a community meeting in chinatown, and all the community leaders were there, and then, they asked a question about safety, and how can they feel safe? i said we're doing the best job we can over here in san francisco police department, and in central station, they're doing great, but then, this thing happened, and i was just shocked because it's just that it shows how vulnerable we are, and i guess we have to see if there's any additional resource that we can partner with, and i was wondering if the m.t.a., they have their policing out there, if they can join with

you, seeing if that will work to make it safer for us in the city. >> thank you, commissioner yee. so whenever we could, i told you we would work with partner agencies in the city, and we'll have more for you on that. >> commissioner yee: thank you. >> thank you. >> president cohen: colleagues, are there any other questions for the chief? okay. chief, thank you for your report. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> president cohen: let's keep moving. >> clerk: continuing on-line item 3, d.p.a. director's

report. report on recent d.p.a. activities and announcements. d.p.a.s report will be limited to a brief description of d.p.a. activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for a future commission meeting. presentation of the monthly statistical report. >> president cohen: director henderson, welcome. >> thank you. are we ready? >> president cohen: we're ready. >> okay. we have 299 cases today that are currently open and pending. this time last year, we had 337. we've sustained 23 cases this year so far. this time last year, we had

sustained 15. in cases that have investigations that have gone beyond nine months time, we have 27. this time last year, we were at 38. that number has gone down. i've been reporting it every week. so far, cases that are mediated this year are at 11. this time last year, we were at 16. cases whose investigations have gone beyond the 270-day investigation, 18 of those cases are being tolled, and again, looking at each cases case-by-case where they're tolled, the officers are on disability pay, vacation, but require -- that have longer delays related to scheduling. again -- and i know we got a call about this, but as a

reminder, there have been no 3304 deadline that's have been blown or missed by d.p.a. since i have taken over. i will continue with that trend, and i think to date, that's still the case. i think there's a reference to some of the other cases, but i have to consult with the city attorney, because i'd hate to violate confidentiality, but no 3304 violations or deadlines have been missed so far. in terms of the outreach, we've done a number of expanded outreach things this month that include -- and again, as a reminder, a lot of the community activities are on our website that can be found there, and many of them are live streamed so that people can participate in them actively as they have interest.

on the 22, we met and coordinated a meeting with the s.f. young defenders program and are making sure they play a role in our program in the summer. also on that day, we participated in the community megablack meeting, focusing on the sunday school meeting and the concept for sunday school for black youth in san francisco. on the 24th, we joined a meeting, and on the 27, we participated in the black law enforcement racial equity team meeting, addressing implementing the racial equity plans that d.p.a. has published

and is also on the website, as well. the next day, we followed up with the equity leaders for those initiatives, of which d.p.a. is one, just following up on the implementation again. on the 29. so sorry, can you hear that? >> president cohen: yes. >> because i'm focusing on jumping something else, she wants to take it away, and now i've got the sad eyes. sorry. on the 29, we also participated in the community megablack meeting, talking about initiating a series of black town halls to address getting important information to

disenfranchised communities. and we are about to rollout our summer and fall internship programs, so i'll have more later next meeting on that for everyone. i want to talk more about the audit because our audit team -- and i alluded to this before, but they received an award from the office of the controller in their april department wide merit award event, and the event was in recognition that our audit, san francisco's audit, again, thanks in large part to this commission and malia cohen when she was a member of the board of supervisors won the alga awards. this is the first use of force audit that was done of this

type that went into as much depth as it did, and it was part of the reason why it won the award. the audit presented their report at the 2021 alga national conference on wednesday, may 4, which was today, so this was happening earlier today, the presentation of this audit for reviewers and auditors all throughout the nation. currently, the audit team is following up with the police department on the implementation and the status of the report and the use of force data report on accuracy, development --

[inaudible] >> okay. thanks, ashley. >> president cohen: can we just make sure that everyone is on mute, please. >> okay. the next item is the monthly statistical report that was published already. i'll just give you the highlights of it. no one wants me to read all of the stuff. d.p.a. received 63 complaints this month, which is an increase of 19% from the same period as last year. currently, we are down 2% year-to-date. in 2021, total complaints we have received at this point was 221, and 2020, total complaints received was 204. and that information was also published already, and like i said, summarized to make it easier as well as a chart line talking about how the volume of cases have come in, meaning the

method that folks reach out to d.p.a. and contact us. tonight's senior investigator who is present on the call is brent bajen is available if questions come up and taking notes for us, and also, the contact information for d.p.a. where folks can contact us directly is sfgov.org/dpa or you can just google sfdpa, and the phone number to contact the agency 24 hours a day is 415-247-7770. i want to end by thanking all

my staff for making this presentation and i will end with that. >> vice president elias: thank you, director henderson. next item, sergeant youngblood. >> clerk: commission reports. commission reports will be limited to a brief description of activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for a future commission meeting. commission president's report, commissioners' reports, commission announcements and scheduling of items identified for consideration at future commission meetings, action item. >> vice president elias: thank you. commissioner yee? >> commissioner yee: thank you very much, commission vice

president elias. i'd like to submit a resolution honoring asian american and pacific islander police officers and personnel for the next meeting. if you could please tell me what i need to do, i'd appreciate it. >> vice president elias: okay. great. we have the item received, and we'll work on getting it agendized. any other commissioners? commissioner brook center, commissioner byrne, commissioner hamasaki? >> president cohen: i do have one thing that i want to report out. i've invited to have the a.g. come and sit in the commission, specifically talking about the use of force policies, the agenda that he's going to be

putting forward as the attorney general, and he has accepted the invitation. we are working on getting the meeting scheduled, so hopefully we can get this done within the next month. more to come. thanks. >> that is fantastic. >> vice president elias: very exciting. very exciting. okay. so let's go onto public comment. >> clerk: at this time, the public is now welcome to make public comment regarding line item 3, the reports to the commission. if you would like to make a public comment, please press star, three now. good evening, miss brown. you have two minutes. >> yes, hi. i wanted to say -- talk about -- concerning my son

again and read his case number to the public. my son was murdered august 14, 2006, and if anyone knows anything concerning my son's murder on 2006, out there in t.v. land, it's -- the case number is 060862038, and the perpetrators that murdered my son, their names are thomas hannibal, terrence moffat, andrew badue, jason thomas, anthony hunter, and marcus carter. one of them is deceased. these are the men that were there that day that pulled the gun on my son. this is down at 850 bryant in the homicide detail room -- this is how i got these names.

these names weren't pulled out of a hat. these names are on my son's case, and sometimes when i call in, i feel like i'm entertaining you all, but i'm not entertaining you all. this is something that i'm suffering for for the rest of my life, and i just want some consideration concerning this because my son's case is old news. -- my son's case isn't old news. my son won't be able to live his life, and i won't give up fighting for him or anyone, and all i want is some help. our kids are dying on the street, and whether it's 20 years ago or to the present. i shouldn't have to live like

this. i'm a taxpayer, too, and i want some help. >> clerk: thank you. vice president elias, that is the end of public comment. >> vice president elias: thank you, sergeant youngblood. can you please call the next line item? >> clerk: line item 4, presentation regarding asset forfeiture. discussion. >> vice president elias: who's presenting on this? >> thank you. we have community presenter [inaudible] swanney on this. >> thank you. sergeant, can you put the slides up for this? >> clerk: yes, sir. >> thank you. should i go ahead and start?

>> vice president elias: yes, please start. >> hello, everybody. good evening, president cohen, vice president elias, members of the commission, and chief scott. my name is deputy chief swanney, and i oversee the investigation division, and within the asset forfeiture division, we have the narcotics unit, and that's primarily where we focus on the asset forfeiture. part of the people presenting with me are going to be our c.f.o. for san francisco police department, patrick leon and sergeant chris oshida, who

works in the narcotics unit and one of his specialties is assess forfeiture. and what i'll start out with, if we can -- oh, we're already up. so basically, the statutes that we cover are just there for reference. they cover title 21, which is drug and food crimes, general crimes under title 18, foreign international, and -- but primarily what we do is we focus on state narcotics laws, and so that is our primary under the health and safety, sections 11469. these sections in s.b. 443 actually outlined and made it a lot more clearer how asset forfeitures were going to basically be not only administered by the police

department, attorney generals, and district attorneys, and also the s.f. admin code which basically describes the fund itself. the purpose of the asset forfeitures are basically in three steps. it's to seize the items, it's the court review and disposition of the cases and the case review, and the distribution of funds. and, of course, the purpose is to intervene, disrupt, and deter criminal activity. and the items that are seized, primarily cash, is strictly regulated on how we distribute that, which we'll go into later. most of the items that we seize, they're almost all drug related. 90% or more of our cases are

drug related, and they're usually at the execution of a search warrant, but not every search warrant that concerns property results in a seizure, and i'll have sergeant oshida describe that in a flow chart. when there is belief that property or cash is connected to illegal drug activity, again, what we would do is then present this to the district attorney, and we work closely with the district attorney's office on this. next slide, slide number 4, and i will turn this over to sergeant oshida, who's the real expert. >> good evening. as you can see from the slide, there's two flow charts, one on the top and one on the bottom.

one is the state level forfeitures, which is what we normally deal with. on the bottom is the federal aspect, and we have a very limited wall net, so i'll speak mainly about the state procedure. so what typically happens is i will get a report for somebody who was arrested for drug trafficking, and we talk about asset forfeiture, it's for drug trafficking, not possession standard. a minimum of $500 seizure funds has to be reported for seizure to be initiated. i gather the facts, probable arrest. i do a work-up of the individual that's arrested, and i present to the district attorney's office, and they will either initiate forfeiture or deny forfeiture on that case. once forfeiture has been

initiated, the person whose assets are seized are given instructions on how to oppose the forfeiture, and they have 30 days from the date of service. once that's done, then it's in the judicial system. now whether the case is adjudicated or the district attorney's office and the individuals come to a stipulated agreement, that's kind of where it stays until i get the instructions from the d.a.s office on how to distribute the money, and that's either giving it back to the person or depositing it into a department account, and that's generally how it works. we can go to the next slide. now, i just want to reiterate that just because someone's

arrested and they have more than $500, we don't always file an asset forfeiture. there's a lot of research into the person that's being arrested and their history and likes like that are taken into consideration. and in this slide, it talks about, of course, cash, property, real property. sfpd, as long as i've been there, have never seized any real property. we don't have any vehicles to date that we've seized, and occasionally, we will seize items like jewelry and watches or things like that, but for the most part, it's cash. >> thank you very much, sergeant oshida, and as sergeant oshida said, 95% of it is u.s. currency, and that's because it's easy to

distribute. rarely if it's cars, the issue becomes storage, etc., and very rarely jewelry. again, california law prohibits us -- we have not seized real property, but it does prohibit us from seizing any kind of real property that is being used as a family residence or for any lawful purpose. that is in there, in the state law, so protects citizens from their homes. -- from their homes being seized. slide 6? and then, you know, the third part is the distribution, which c.f.o. young will go into in more detail. basically, the district attorney gives us a letter, and the letter will basically outline what -- how much we're

seizing and what's happening to that. is there anything you wanted to add on that, sergeant oshida? >> no, that's -- the distribution, it can be a total amount, it can be a partial amount, and that's totalled between the district attorney and the person filing the claim. it could also be determined by the courts at the end of their proceeding as part of their -- at the end, you know, when they plead guilty or whatever may happen, the judge may rule that the assets be forfeited. another time that they don't receive their property back, they don't file a claim, and we usually give them a couple of month grace period before anything is really deposited into the account. >> and then, just the last part, just the individual does not get their property returned

if they don't make a claim or if a claim is not filed or -- or a stipulated agreement with the d.a.s office that a portion of it is forfeited, like what sergeant oshida just described, or the court could rule that the items are not forfeited or they're distributed as part of a plea agreement. and that's all. we can go to slide 7. and i'm going to hand this over to our c.f.o. who can describe our distribution. >> thank you, acting chief. >> thank you. >> before i begin, i did want to add that for federal joint investigations that result in [inaudible] that [inaudible] or

federal attorney's office, and we don't have involvement in that process until it gets adjudicated, and it is a separate process from the [inaudible]. >> vice president elias: i'm so sorry. can you please speak up? we're having a really hard time hearing you. >> can you hear? sorry. can you hear me? >> vice president elias: yeah. >> sorry. it froze. i want to start with explaining the asset distribution. federal and state law determines how forfeiture is allocated [inaudible] for federal agencies, their

[inaudible] their organizational hierarchy [inaudible] and the -- for the department of justice program is administered by the [inaudible] recovery section, and for the department of treasury, it's [inaudible] by the executive office for asset forfeiture. as i tried to explain earlier, the types of receipts we receive, it's only determined once it goes through [inaudible] at the federal level, we receive notices from either the respective department of treasury or finance office. for state forfeitures, the distribution is [inaudible] california health and safety code sections 11469 and 11495.

how it's distributed is that of the proceeds, 24% goes to the california general funds, 1% goes toward the california district attorney's training fund. of the remaining percent, 15% of that amount is allocated toward antigang and antidrug programs that is to be -- the programs determined by the sheriff, the chief of police, the district attorney, and chief probation officer. the residual funds pertains to [inaudible] fund of 55%, and that goes to law enforcement that participated in the

[inaudible]. next slide, please. this slide shows what the total state forfeiture of the assets for the last three years. the role other entities refers to other law enforcement agencies that we're partnering with. [inaudible] 2020 due to the pandemic and the closure of everything. next slide, please. [inaudible]

next slide, please. so how asset forfeiture funds are used. [inaudible] the california district attorney's attorney association uses a manual on what the california state requirements are. to summarize how funds are used, funds must be used for law enforcement purposes. some examples of that item [inaudible]. the other requirement is that [inaudible] to increase or supplement law enforcement resources. agencies cannot budget in advance of anticipated shared

funds. next slide, please. the following slide is [inaudible] addressing some of our budget needs. within these categories, we have nonpersonnel [inaudible] the use of funds of such items include our [inaudible] development that provides opportunity for personal and professional development and to enhance policing skills at all levels of our department, personal protective department, and evidence management, inventory control of our property, capital upgrades, additional enterprise storage infrastructure and [inaudible] district attorney's office.

next slide, please. that concludes our presentation. if there's any questions, i'm sure we'll be happy to answer them. >> vice president elias: thank you. is that the -- i'm sorry. can i interrupt you or are you finished? >> he's finished, commissioner. >> vice president elias: okay. great. ah. >> president cohen: okay. thank you for the presentation. thank you, commissioner elias, for stepping in on my behalf. commissioner yee is the first name on the roster. commissioner yee, do you have questions? >> commissioner yee: yeah. i'm looking for budget 2020.

has that been spent already or is that in the progress of being used? that's on, probably, next to the last page. >> that's a -- >> commissioner yee: yeah, total dollar amount is 1,328, -- no, $1,328,236, so have those funds been exhausted? >> yeah. so that total represents what we have spent in the fisk of year 2020. >> commissioner yee: okay. spent. >> yeah. >> commissioner yee: okay. >> for 2021, $907,000 represents what we have spent so far. it does not include the items that are currently procured and

in progress [inaudible] office. >> commissioner yee: is there also a balance or is that spent -- as it comes in, you guys spend it? is there any balance for 2021? >> yes. so in terms of -- in terms of how we can use the funds, we can't budget for items in advance or anticipation, so we do have to wait until we receive the funds before we spend it. in terms of the balances, you have existing balances in the -- we do have existing balances within our federal funds. [please stand by]

so i'd like you to explain a little bit more about the nonpersonnel and perhaps is

there an itemization of how these funds and how the department uses them? and, then, my third and final question would be how are these funds that are recovered or these assets that are forfeited and taken by sfpd, how much goes to the drug task force? or the narcotics division which seems to be the division that would be handling or primarily in charge of these types of cases? >> let me answer the first one. >> commissioner: i'm so sorry. but i really am having a hard time hearing you. if you could speak louder. you have a really low voice in general. >> president: you're not the only one. it's a struggle over here too.

>> i'm almost -- >> president cohen: that's relative patrick. [inaudible] at least not in my family. >> vice president elias: exactly. >> i don't know if this makes it any different. i'm talking through the phone but i do apologize for the audio. so within the categories, i tried describing it earlier, for the nonpersonal services, part of what is included within the amount is pause for our leadership development and another portion of that includes some of the support costs for our enterprise system

infrastructure. because the system. we also needed to add additional assets. so of those amounts, a portion of the nonpersonal services and a significant amount of the capital equipment was for the [inaudible] . the interdepartmental services that was part of what we have with the attorney's office. it pays for an attorney to work on [inaudible] cases. we've had the work order with them for many years and that's what that line represents. in terms of securing supplies, we've purchased personal protective equipment for our

sworn members and it also includes applies to our evidence based manage system that improved our inventory management system for property evidence. if i may ask, what was the second question that you had, vice president elias? >> vice president elias: whether they had an itemized list of where the money is spent. i'm sure sfpd has more to show us in terms of where this money is specifically going. is that fair? >> we can -- in terms of -- it's only clear if i.

-- is that in terms of state capital equipment? >> vice president elias: right. >> i would have to run a different report to generate those types of details. it wouldn't fit on the slide. >> vice president elias: no worries. i think that will be good information for us as well and then a final question is how much of the money that is actually forfeited and sfpd has that goes into specialized units such as the drug taskforce or gang taskforce? how is that diffeyed up? is it divied up in those those specialized units? >> sure. within the funds, we spend it

on the year that needs arise. so, for instance, one example would be for the enterprise construction that we had and we also needed extra storage and within that scenario, funds were made. and in terms of funding for specific units, we don't do allocations like this is going to this and that. it's based on long-term needs

that has large investment requirements. so one example, we did plan to use some of the funding to help with the drug section of our criminalistic slab. there has been delays within the transition, the [inaudible] was supposed to be open earlier, but there has been delays. we were supposed to move to the traffic collision and the forensic science division. once it actually becomes operational, it would require some of distancing equipment to be replaced and also to have existing capability gaps. one example of that would be --

in terms of specific use, we don't have any specific allocations for any. it's more based upon what [inaudible] is about. >> vice president elias: okay great. and i think there will be more clarity when we get the itemized list. we look forward to that. >> president cohen: i have a couple questions for you. thank you for the presentation. i thought it was incredibly thoughtful and very well put together. just if you have presented on

this and stated it, my apologies, i just did not hear it. question, are there any differences in the kinds and type of assets that are seized through federal forfeitures versus state forfeitures? >> did you -- so a majority of our assets are all cash. so 95% cash. is that what you're referring to? and, as far as property, very rare. >> president cohen: okay. >> anything outside of cash. >> president cohen: are most of the assets seized related to narcotics arrests or investigations? >> almost all. >> president cohen: is any assistance offered by law enforcement or other government agencies to exonerate persons to help them retrieve their seized assets? >> oshida's on the line there,

are you still on the line, chris? >> i am. >> okay. >> president cohen: sergeant, let me re-ask the question. is there any instance offered by law enforcement or other government agencies to exonerated persons to help them retrieve their seized assets? >> so they're served with the paper work to tell them the forfeiture's being initiated. all the steps they need to do and how to fill out the paper work and where to do and the timeline. we don't really do more than that. forfeiture is a civil matter. so if they, you know, if you've hired an attorney they need help, and we get them in contact with our d.a.'s office and they work it out with them.

>> president cohen: all right. so is there a reason why there's been a significant decline in state forfeitures from $600,000 in 2019 to $196,000 in 2020? and this is versus a relatively flat dollar amount of federal forfeitures from a little over a million dollars in 2019 to $905,000 in 2020. yeah. 2020. that's the number. >> that's primarily based upon the closure of the court. so because of the pandemic, there hasn't been a lot of activity because the courts have been closed and so that's why there's been that drastic reduction. >> president cohen: i see. i didn't think about that. that makes sense. this is a little more on procedure. do your procedures differ when

seizing for evidentiary reasons rather than for other reasons? do the procedures change or is it standard? >> no this is -- go ahead. >> sorry, sir. when the person is placed under arrest and charged with trafficking, the funds are seized as evidence. so the individual's issued a property receipt. so the funds are seized as evidence initially and forfeiture is initiated from the road. >> president cohen: okay. i want to refer back to slide 4. you don't need to pull it up but if you can just refer to it for the purpose of my question. what share or proposed

forfeitures are approved by the district attorney? >> forfeitures can be approved in the d.a.'s office. we can't do anything without their approval. >> president cohen: i didn't hear that last part. can't do anything without what? >> without their approval. >> president cohen: so they're all approved by the district attorney's office. >> yes. >> -- that are initiated, yes. >> president cohen: okay. so also on slide 4 in the top level, you show that a narcotics unit is activated to verify forfeiture. is this the case for assets seized outside of narcotics related cases? >> so typically if it's a nonnarcotic case, there are

penal code sections that apply to criminal profiteering. typically who is investigating it will notify me and say this is what happens and these are the funds we seized. i'll forward the report to the d.a.'s office. as far as i'm concerned personally, i don't have any role in that. it's between the d.a.'s office and that investigative unit. >> president cohen: okay. is anyone else in the department authorized to verify forfeitures? >> at this point, they all go through narcotics. >> president cohen: okay. that's good to know. so that's one point of interest. okay in slide 9, can you explain or what explains the near doubling in the amount of federal forfeiture revenue? 18 and 19 and 19 and 20? is it just more narcotics?

>> i think one thing that's not easily explained within any of these slides is that the forfeitures that we receive isn't really based on what's collected i think in 2019 or 2020. the forfeiture only represents the number of cases that have completed the adjudication process. so the 2019 number can be composed of cases that date back 10 years, 5 years and everything in between. for us, there's no easy way for us to say why the numbers are the way that they are other than the total receipts are representative of the number of cases that completed the adjudication process and the

number represents what the federal agencies have decided is an appropriate share for the mr. president. when we request for a share, it's not guaranteed and there's no promise that we're going to receive anything. what they consider is the participation that the agency is providing to the investigation, but also it is up to the federal agencies and the courts to decide what amounts any agency is provided. >> president cohen: so okay. so the budget has been tight in the last couple of years and i'm wondering how you decide how to use the funds that are assets for forfeiture accounts.

>> so part of how we spend the asset forfeiture accounts, a lot of it is dictated by what the requirements for both the federal and the state provisions require. one of which is that any use has to be -- has to supplement our budget. any type of request, any type of -- any type of use of the fund must supplement our budget. if we had a -- we can't cut a budget item and then use the forfeiture funds to replenish whatever the cut was. so everything we spent the money on is accordance with what the state requirements are and what the federal requirements are in supplementing resources and ensuring that it's for law enforcement purposes only. there are additional

requirements from the feds and also on the state side. there's some items that require their special permission before we are allowed to spend the money on those items. >> president cohen: what agency has the ability to audit this fund? this pool of money? because i'm going to tell you right now to an untrained person, to a civilian, it sounds like a slush fund and i know that's not the case. so just tell me. it feels like we're having this hearing but it's so opaque. we almost know that about wherever other penny in the police department's budget spent. but this is not quite as clear. help me understand where and how the money is spent. >> so within the money, all of the uses that we spend asset forfeiture on, it is subject to the uniform guidance requirements, the federal

uniform guidance requirements, it is subject to the single audit. we do report it to the city. the city does hire an independent accounting firm, auditing firm to audit the city's finances. >> president cohen: as a result of that audit that the city pays for, where does that -- where do those findings lie? where is that report? >> it's part of the city single audit report. >> president cohen: so it's the controller's office that's managing this audit? >> correct. >> president cohen: okay. >> so the auditor, they sample specific programs depending upon the risk profiles, depending upon the amounts, what the other entity that monitors these programs itself is the inspector general. so, at times, they come out and they do an assessment and either a monitored visit or a

actual full audit of jurisdictions and ensuring that they're complying with all the rules and regulations, the federal requirements. they do offer the department of justice offers trainings on how to administer the funds, what permissible uses are and to provide some of the. >> president cohen: so, you're giving me great detail about the process. i really just want to know numbers. what's in the account and what are you spending it on? >> can you repeat that? >> president cohen: what's in this account? what's in this budget? and what are you spending it on? that's, i mean, i understand there's rules, state and federal rules. i get all that. but the singular issue is how

much do you get a year and what exactly are you spending it on? those are just the two issues that we have not gotten an answer to. >> so on slide 11, i tried to provide some context of what we've spent the money on. it is within the major category budget or major category of expenditures. we can provide additional details. unfortunately, i can't run the report at this time. it will have to come after. i did describe some of the uses. so within nonpersonnel. for example, within nonpersonnel services, one of the line items that's included within the $426,000 of this year is expenditures for the leadership development institute.

another item for capitalized equipment, expenditures that we had for the enterprise infrastructure, that's what we spent some of the money on. the d.a.'s office, we have a work order with them, that represents the last item for interdepartmental services. so there is some context of what we -- i tried to provide some context of what we spent the money on. slide 8 and slide 9 does represent what we received from both the fed and the state. >> president cohen: okay. i'm going to pivot. commissioner elias has a question for you. i see one in the chat, commissioner elias. did you ask this one already? >> vice president elias: no. well i asked him for an itemized list. i think it addresses all of our concerns. you're absolutely right, every penny in the department is accounted for. so we just need more clarity on

this. so i think if he provides an itemized list of where this money is going and if we can get it for years 2019, 2020, and an up to date one on 2021 so we can see how much money is come engine and where it's going. so if you can get those to the commission office and they will distribute to the commissioners, i think that will be helpful. >> i can do that. >> president cohen: thank you very much. we appreciate that. and i'm going to stop with my line of questioning. i just wanted to add a finer point to the questions that were already asked. seeing that there are no other questions in -- out there, we are going to continue to move forward. mr. leung, thank you. and the rest of the team, raj and oshida, thank you for your presentation. very informative, kind of. >> i apologize for my audio issues. >> maybe it's a department thing. the chief had trouble with it too. >> vice president elias: they're trying to silence you

all today. >> president cohen: they knew you were coming to talk numbers and budgets. we're joking, guys. come on. lighten up. okay. what's next, sergeant youngblood? >> clerk: next is public comment. >> president cohen: all right. >> clerk: for members of the public that would like to make public comment regarding line item 4, please press star 3 now. and president cohen, it appears there's no public comment. >> president cohen: all right. thank you. let's keep moving forward. next item, please. >> clerk: line item 5, presentation regarding community violence reduction team. discussion. >> president cohen: all right. who do we have making this presentation? >> so we have our operations

chief redman may want to open this up. if not, commander viswaney is going to do the majority and before we open it up, i just want to say this is an extension of the conversation we have when we did the california partnership conversation and one of the big pieces that you all see as we really are restructuring how we approach our violence and particularly with g.t.f. i think commander viswaney. >> just to check, can everybody hear me? >> mhmm. >> if we can put up the slide. >> coming right up.

all ready, chief. >> okay. i will save you the formal introduction. in this portion, what i will have is i'll have lieutenant scott biggs is going to work with me to present this and, again, i oversee the investigations and part of the investigation and the strategic investigations bureau. and within the strategic investigations bureau, we have formulated a new structure that lieutenant biggs will go into detail about but it's the community violence reduction team and this is a modified it's transitioned from just the gang taskforce where lieutenant biggs was originally responsible for. he has much larger responsibility and he worked

closely with lieutenant lou on it. and within the community violence reduction team, you have gun violence team specific. ment it's the crime gun intelligence center and narcotics and we can go to slide 2. okay. now i'm just doing a brief introduction on this and this one just to give you relationship of how this is going. so we started a partnership in may 2020. you had already received a presentation by california partnership for safe community, so i'm not going to go too much into detail on that, but it is important in the context of this presentation. so california violence initiative and prevention grant started this funding.

it's a three-year grant and we partnered with california partnership in may of 2020 as an independent consultant to help us structure this new structure for gun violence and it was primarily to not just reduce gun violence, it was also to reduce repeat offenders and to build trust between community and police. and, what they did is they did a data driven analysis on homicide and shootings and found that group dynamics drove gun violence. it's looking at all different aspects of violence. and, from there, what i will do basically talk about how this is going to transition into

this new unit. do you want to go ahead and start that, lieutenant biggs? >> yeah. sure. can everybody hear me? great. i'll first give an overview of -- actually, if you can go to the next slide, please. the community violence reduction team, our top priority is gun violence based on the significant of our violence reduction initiative. restructured our approach under this cvrt team. basically, cvrt is made up of dedicated investigators focusing on homicide through their work. these investigators understand

current street rivalries, monitor crime trends. they focus on repeat offenders and respond to critical shooting related incidents. they also -- we also have strengthened the collaboration with the gun crime investigations unit to focus on this gun violence as well. this new approach focuses on intelligence collection, detailed analysis and proactive disciplined investigations and, you know, i just want to emphasize that our work cannot be done without input from the community and intervention partners. so when it comes to complex street conflicts we know that homicides and shooting related incidents go beyond our county lines. so basically requiring us to work with other outside agencies including state and federal agencies as well as

other prosecutors as well. members of the cvrt team will receive specific training in this new process in our new effort specifically in procedural justice search and seizure and risk management and that frame work is currently being built out. next slide, please. so cvrt and our unit have implemented a weekly shooting review board meeting. the meeting consists of investigations bureau patrol and other outside jurisdictional partners that intend. the goal is to use data and current crime trends to focus our efforts and identify opportunities next slide, please in partnering with cjic,

we captured data including maps that's depicted on this slide here of shot spotter activity. this information is presented during these meetings, during our discussions of weekly, i'm sorry allows our department basically to focus on identified hot spots so we can shift resources accordingly and provide district level deployment recommendations from this meeting. the shooting review meaning further is not meant to be a venue for the focus on specific investigations. instead, it's primary purpose is to understand current violence to prevent future violence. next slide, please.

sfpd knows that a majority of our gun homicide and nonfatal shootings are driven by and connected to street group dynamics. as you can see here depicted on the slide it's a complex web to understand exactly what's going on. our collaboration with ca partnership and our hard work -- the hard work of the cvr team confirmed that the majority of our gun violence in san francisco is associated with these high risk networks. next slide please. we specifically look at a rolling 90 day period in order to determine which groups are causing the spikes in violence at any given period of time.

this process helps us identify potential victims with hopes of intervening in those incidents. by recognizing which groups are mostly active, we're able to focus our enforcement and intervention efforts. a strong -- using a strong problem analysis and the shooting reviews are the first, basically the first two initial steps in implementing our focused approach. next slide, please. the review process allows us to identify and focus on individuals that are basically driving violence in san francisco and surrounding cities. this is backed by academic research which indicates that specific focus on high risk individuals can significantly reduce gun violence. therefore, the cvrt officers work to identify these

individuals in the hybrid social networks that are becoming -- that are at most risk of becoming victims or offenders of your next shooting or next homicide. all this is nationally recognized via academic research which is highly likely to retaliate within the next 120 days. so our goal primarily is to interrupt these cycles of retaliation to prevent further victims from shootings. next slide, please. i just want to highlight again

we currently are working with in response to shootings and homicides, this group is comprised of different city agencies and community groups supported by the mayor's office. the primary focus of this meeting is to provide victim assistance and offer services. the goal is to help community

service and step away from the life style. to remove violent offenders from the street. we do understand arrest and incarceration should be used and and we support intervention strategies and that will conclude the presentation. >> president cohen: thank you, mr. bigs. any question. >> vice president elias: it was my understanding that you had selected certain officers to man this unit so that it can accomplish the goals that you set forth in this presentation. maybe you want to speak a little bit about that. >> sure.

thank you, commissioner elias. we did. some of the investigators that were doing this this type of work are still in the unit. we enhanced that with ten officers. the type of officers who now are part of this unit, the new officers, they all have a strong policing type of community background. it is about reducing shootings and reducing people from being shot and reducing arrests really because we'd like to do it without arresting. we do know we have a job to do once we have a shooting and we need to be held accountable for that. but the goal bottom line is can we do that on the front end?

so those officers have been introduced to many of our communities. we just had a meeting with residents of patrera hills on monday and what we've been doing, we've had these meetings monthly and we've been introducing the new officers a few at a time where they get on our meeting. they tell about themselves, what their backgrounds are, it's about a 45 minutes to an hour meeting and it's about engagement. so we do think we have a very talented crew of officers that complement this work and we're excited about that. >> president cohen: particularly, you hear the

chief report coming down from violence in the bayview. in march, just a recap, we heard presentations from supervisor walton. presentations from the command staff and the street violence intervention team as well as community members and it's my belief that no resource should be spared in the efforts to reduce gun violence. so in response to tonight's presentation, i just have a couple questions, i think they're very simple. here is my first one. it's in two parts. are we fully resourced in our efforts in gun violence in the bayview as well as some of the other more violent police districts? and, again, this is through intervention efforts. are we resourced where we need to be? >> no. we're not. that's an easy answer. the data supports that answer, but here's the thing, you know, we've got to make the best of what we have until we can get

fully resourced. in bayview, we added total officers since we first started having this discussion in the bayview alone and a lot of this violence is in the southeast part of the city so which causes units like the cvrt, the community violence reduction team to focus on this. we know there's more to be done there. but to answer your question, we don't have enough officers to do what we need them to do. >> and, if we're not fully resourced what community intervention resources needed to bring gun violence to an

absolute minimum? >> well, the good news is this. the majority of that money is going to support that. the mayor's office has been supportive of this, new approach to work and we fully expect that this will be expanded. i know, you know, through the human rights commission director davis has funding to help with the violent issue from a supportive perspective, getting people hired to support that work and prevention type of work. so all of those are good things that are steps in the right direction. so i think we're getting there. i do think it's going to take us really getting this started and then seeing what the needs are. we hope to have some early success with the life coaches and then we'll have better opportunity to actually see what the needs really are. and, by the way, actually on

the call, he presented to the commission. so i think he's on the phone if we have any questions for him as well. >> president cohen: okay. that's good to know, thank you. >> one thing i wanted to adjust recently. the arrest that's made in addition to homicide, this team worked really closely. we just made that arrest and the press release should be going out any minute right now. the same thing with another homicide recently there was an arrest. we're still not done with the press release. still an open investigation, but same thing. the cvrc team was really instrumental in getting some of these arrests and to give you an idea of a recent example of

community component, we had these specially trained officers out on the street and there were two people that we were looking for that were wanted and they happened to see them and they have the sensitivity and the maturity to pull back and actually make the arrest away from this very volatile family event which had a pretty large attendance and it would have not only safety wise, it was escalated a situation, but i think it would have really reduced the trust between family members, community members, and this team had the where with all. back in the day, they would have made the arrest. they held themselves back and

said, number one it's not appropriate. this is probably not the type of venue we want to make an arrest in and, you know, they made the arrest. i think it was, what? 24, 48 hours later. way more low key and it worked out for both of us so just an example. >> president cohen: thank you. i appreciate that example and i want to acknowledge john hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: sorry. i was moving my mouth a little bit slowly today. thanks, president cohen. so is this -- i'm sorry. so is the gang taskforce, is this like a rebranding or is it still a separate unit that works with the community

violence reduction team? >> no. commissioner, this is the total restructuring. there is no more gang taskforce. the community violence reduction team is the unit now. we still investigate the shootings as we have explained in our investigation. it's more than just the name change. it's really a different way of doing business, more community center, more collaborative and, we still have that work of investigations to do, we're doing it in a different way. you know, we have to collaborate in order to move the needle on this work and really, you saw the presentation, you know, when i say we want to continue that trajectory that the city has that presentation, that california partnership, you saw the trajectory from 10 years to now which has been almost a third of what it was, we think there's still room to continue

to do that with the challenges we have with reenvisioning our whole jail system and with people in the city. it's more than a name change. we still have to do the artwork of solving crime. investigators have to do that but there's a lot more to this than that now. >> okay. >>. >> commissioner hamasaki: ultimately, i guess a name change and restructuring is great. what i care about is the impacts on the community and, you know, gang taskforce in san francisco historically has not had a great relationship with the community in san francisco and gotten calls here. i know from my work and i don't know if cindy ever worked gang cases in her day, but you know, it's not just the arrests and i assume this was in the

presentation that my questions were on, but i did send over some questions to the commission office that i assume will be covered at a later date. it's not just who gets arrested. it's how people are treated on the streets. the detentions, the stops, the -- when there are shootings. how people are treated in the community especially young black males in the bayview. so, you know, i think it's great the way you're thinking about this and thinking about the approach, but i guess maybe we can talk more about details and how this is going to be implemented with some specificity and to ensure that,

you know, it's not just a name change but, you know, i don't know all of the answers as to why there are, you know, i do, you know, gang taskforce -- gang and narcotics have always been the units that have been identified as um, creating some of the resentment towards sfpd. so i know this was kind of a broad overview, but i'd like to get more of the details and learn more about it in the

coming days, months, weeks. >> yeah. thank you, commissioner. i will say we hear you on that and we also hear the community. part of this process is really listening to concerns from the community that we do this work in and that's why it's driving a lot of this approach. so you get no disagreement on us. we do have to treat people the right way. we have to be constitutional in our work and we have to be respectful even on the worst day when somebody has shot somebody. that's a part of this work that we want to make sure we are attentive to and it is definitely more than just a name change because we are listening to you as well as the community on those issues and as the lieutenant pointed out, we can make all the arrests in the world but we're not successful unless we have the trust of the community doing our work and that's part of

what we're trying to get. that's part of what we've heard on those -- officers heard it directly. new officers in this unit when they talk to community members about these issues, they want to secure jobs, but they want to be treated with respect but they want to do it the right way. we appreciate you bringing that up. but, definitely, we're in tune with that. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. thank you. and, you know, i'm not -- i guess, i appreciate all of the goals and aspirations of the restructuring. i'm just um, i want to see it in action, i guess. so, you know, that -- time will tell, but i do, you know, commend you and the department on rethinking the approach that has caused problems in the past. >> yes, sir. thank you.

>> vice president elias: if i can add something too. you know commissioner hamasaki, i've handled several gang cases as well and i share your concern, but i would also like to invite you to some of the meetings that the department has had with lawn and reagan who are helping guide i think the new unit and are a big resource in how i think the development of this new unit is going to happen and take shape so as well as their collaboration with the public defender's office and other community stakeholders who are think are going to disspell the negative, you know, the negative experiences people have had with the old gang taskforce. so i really am looking forward to it and i'm a big fan of

vaughn and reagan. >> president cohen: with that, i'd like to recognize commissioner yee. >> commissioner yee: madam prosecute, i have no questions. >> president cohen: my apologies. anyone else have anything they'd like to add. okay. let's go to public comment. >> clerk: at this time, the public is now welcome to make public comment regarding line item 5. if you would like to make public comment, please press star 3 now. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> caller: hello everybody. this is danielle harris. i come here tonight from having handled numerous designated gang cases over the years.

i have studied sfpd gang taskforce files in extreme detail as part of that representation and their designated gang experts for days at a time in some instances. at the same time, i have lost clients that i cared about to gun violence and i don't want to lose anymore. but i also don't want to live in a city where young men of color are watched and under round the clock surveillance and i can tell you after several decades, i have never seen a white person arrested for a so-called gang offense in the city. i am very much in support of community based interventions that offer real support and real alternatives to young folks instead of branding and

surveilling them. but i haven't seen or heard any details that provide any clarity about how if and how this new program differs from what we know as the existing gang taskforce and i want to believe that it will, but in order for folks i think to believe it, we need to hear more detail. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. good evening, you have two minutes. >> caller: yes. i wanted to piggyback off of that too about the gang taskforce and as i've been complaining about since i found out that my son was accused of being a gang member, you know, that needs to change. and, my son is murdered and dead and in his death, he was being accused as a gang member.

and he's not here to defend himself. you know, and i think about, you know, one of the resolutions to fix it. you know, we're talking about the homicides and the shootings and all that and i've been asking and mothers and fathers have been asking to put out the posters. we're talking about paying police officers to walk the streets. why don't they put out the posters so we as mothers and maybe the violence will stop there and the gun shootings will stop there and those victims' faces were continuously out there. i know if i was a murderer and i see a person that i murdered, i'd think about shooting -- not shooting someone again and maybe i'll get caught. and then i think about all the people that have been arrested for murder. they say they've been arrested or they've been caught. yes, you caught them, but have they been convicted? they're being let go because nobody quote unquote no one's coming forward.

we can say we caught them, we arrest them, but there is no conviction. there's no conviction made on those persons. not that i know of. what can we do about that and how many times are we going to keep preaching to the choir about the same thing over and over again especially about th

president cohen, if i can make a motion to pull this from the calendar. >> president cohen: sure, absolutely. let me just check procedurally. sergeant youngblood, i don't think we need a motion to pull. we can just at the discretion of the chairman of the board move this to pull it off the agenda and put it on a future agenda, is that correct?

>> clerk: i believe so, president cohen. >> yes. >> president cohen: okay. thank you. we will pull it off the agenda and revisit it in the very near future. okay. no problem. i think we still need to take public comment on the item even though we're not going to be hearing it because it was publicly noticed. [please stand by]