to say back in -- several years ago before the supervisors. link it to the budget process. budget hearings, part of the presentation and q&a from supervisors to departments, what's your budget for employees, how many reports did you get. there were a lot of detailed questions in the budget seminars. you could have maybe an entity audit. or take a look at whether or not what was -- there's no way really to determine -- in the report, say you report, i plan to spend a million dollars in the coming years in language access. we don't really have a mechanism. we don't have access to the budget information to tell if that department spent that amount or adjusted it.

they can report that in the report but that's kind of like in the following year. they report on all of the things that went on but for this reporting period, it ended -- the period ends june 30th of 2020. so all of the information is from the previous year. we have no way of determining if what you're saying budget wise checks out with your actual budget. yeah, so those are a couple of ways -- the budget analyst, maybe they could be part of that. >> supervisor chan: yeah. i think ultimately it is to really -- i would love to see in terms of when we have the follow-up on this conversation, i'd like to see providing some spot to and recommendations

around accountability mechanism for us to either for you to continue to track, perhaps tweak your tracking for compliance and that report will come to the board and allow us to have some tools around looking into making sure that the department are in compliance. i think my last thought, i look forward to seeing and learning more about the pilot program, about the community language pilot. i was a translator and interpreter for almost all city departments, really played the role of translating and interpreting information but nothing compared to what we have at the board with our awesome

translators on hand helping us. but just like to understand a bit more about the structure, accountability, consistency really in translation. and i really appreciate our language access network presentation today. i agree that the inconsistency is what really hurts the credibility and accuracy of information. and the fact that i think it's something that perhaps the board will definitely look into, third party service. i agree when the city contract, be it for design or community design process, all of those often times lack language and cultural competency the way we do outreach with third party

services. thank you. >> supervisor preston: thank you. just want to add my voice to the appreciation for folks for president walton in calling the hearing and also to all of the presenters for your work for language access. and also really want to associate myself with the remarks of vice chair chan, particularly around accountability and looking forward to ways the board can help with accountability and compliance. i would urge the public to read the report that is part of the agenda. taking the time to read through that in detail, i learned an incredible amount. and i think that's enormous amount of work going into the report. i want to acknowledge that and thank you for all of that work.

and also, i knew i appreciated the work of the office for having your talented folks assist the board to make sure folks can have access during this time, especially during this time where folks can't be in the building physically. what i didn't know is you only have 2.5 positions in your office to provide that service to any city department. my appreciation for that, you're making your folks available to the board of supervisors and the public.

i have one question around the number of bilingual staff decreasing and i appreciate your response in questions around strategies and ways to increase the numbers. i was curious what accounts for the numbers decreasing. is that people retiring and we're losing folks from the department or anything else going on either are folks leaving for example, the government to do this kind of work elsewhere either because of insufficient support in the city compensation or is that not the issue. what is driving the decreasing numbers? i find it concerning. is that just natural retirement or something else going on. >> that's a great question supervisor. i can share from my own experience. we've had probably almost the

entire office has been bilingual. we purposely set out when we formed the office to hire individuals with bilingual skills because we knew we were doing this work. my biggest obstacle is they always get picked off by other departments or nonprofits. a lot of the nonprofits we work with like our community ambassadors and they pick them off and it's always the bilingual ones. i would say this is why there's such an opportunity for community members who have bilingual skills, you can earn a living doing this. we can train you and then there's such demand for it. a lot of it is because they get picked off by private sector, nonprofit organizations. there's a lot of people who have been bilingual are retiring from the city.

they get paid a lot more elsewhere. >> supervisor preston: thank you. in addition to the recruitment issues, in making sure we are as competitive as possible as the city in attracting, training and retaining folks who have a skill that as it has been eluded to by a number of other speakers and supervisors, is an incredibly difficult skill to develop so looking forward to attracting folks and retaining them. thank you for your work. seeing no other comments from colleagues, mr. clerk, can we go to public comment please. >> clerk: thank you mr. chair. we continue to work with jim

smith from department of technology too bring us public comment callers. for those watching, if you wish to speak on the item please follow the instructions displaying on your screen. dial 415-655-0001. enter the meeting id of 187 038 5484. press pound twice. for those already on hold in the queue, please continue to wait until you are prompted to begin. you will hear a prompt that informs you your line has been unmuted. if we can one more time request introduction to the services for public comment i would appreciate it very much.

(translating) (translating) >> clerk: thank you. mr. smith, could you bring us our first caller please.

>> i'm a community advocate, thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment on language access. we have community members who would like to share their experience in san francisco. hello, my name is christina.

i'm a single mom. i'm very concerned about a problem. during covid, i hear a lot of issues regarding the asian hate because i am concerned about public safety for my child i do not allow my child to go out.

because about -- my children cannot have a very frequent contact or interaction with society and with the community as well and they cannot go outside for school and also that's the reason why my children can only go for online. and that's another issue i want to raise. because of the increase in asian hate issues, our community and

also san francisco lost the sense of security. and also because the asians not really understand english and when they have assistance, they don't know how to do it. and what i want to recommend and what i want is in each community you can increase multi lingual

access, resource center to help our residents. increase staff at the help centers and increase some police to help with the language service. >> clerk: the time has concluded for the caller.

>> we have no more calls in the queue. >> clerk: thank you mr. smith. >> i'm sorry, they reraised their hand. i'll unmute them now. thank you. >> hello. hello? >> hello. (speaking spanish)

>> good afternoon i'm danny, i live here in san francisco, california. so i live here in the city and i had an emergency and the police and paramedics arrived but when they got on the scene, there was nobody that spoke my language.

and because there was nobody that spoke spanish with them, the police assumed that i was either drunk or drugged, so they arrested me and they slammed me against the wall and they fractured my back. so the emergency i was having was a seizure and because of what was happening, they thought i was drunk and drugged and i am

still suffering the pain of fracture that i experienced since my back is still broken. i think every time there's an emergency there should be someone who speaks the language of the caller so that somebody doesn't have to go through what i went through. i have been now six months with

this injury and without work and suffering the consequences. that's all. thank you. >> clerk: thank you both. mr. smith do we have further callers in the queue? >> no further callers in the queue. >> supervisor preston: thank you mr. smith and thank you mr. clerk. seeing no further callers, public comment is now closed. i just want to say if the last caller does not make the case for the absolute essential, essential nature of what this hearing is about, i don't think anyone can. i think it is absolutely heartbreaking to that individual to think of what you have gone

through that from what i'm hearing was totally preventable if we could make sure that we are following through on our commitments around language access. i want to thank president walton again for calling for this hearing, shining the public spotlight on this, looking forward to doing anything we can to implement these recommendations and we'll turn the floor over to you president walton for concluding remarks you may have. >> supervisor walton: thank you chair preston and to all the members of the committee for hosting this hearing today. i truly believe and to echo your comments about the last caller and one of the hardest things in public service is really trying to address issues that sometimes we have a hard time achieving. and this is definitely one of them. if it was up to me, obviously everybody in this city would be

bilingual and everybody serving the public would be bilingual. but we have to put some things in place that are going to make sure and ensure we're doing the best job we can as a city and that goes for city departments and all services we provide to address any language access concerns. so we are going to be working on that. i want to thank director and commissioners for their presentations as well as annette, eva and rebecca with language access network. your work in our communities is extremely important. and we're going to do what we can as a city to be more supportive in providing the language access and definitely want to thank our chief of staff for all of her work on this and we just have a lot more to do together. my last and final thought is thank you to interpretation, not

only today but continuous interpretation at our board of supervisors meetings as well. having you and the role you provide is very important as we provide access to everyone and do what we can to serve everyone. thank you chairperson and i would like to move to file this hearing. >> supervisor preston: thank you president walton. on the motion to file the hearing -- >> supervisor walton: let me rephrase that, i would ask someone from the hearing to move it. >> supervisor preston: mr. clerk. >> clerk: on the motion to file the hearing, vice chair chan. >> supervisor chan: aye. >> clerk: member mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: aye.

>> clerk: there are three ayes. agenda item 7-10 are two ordinances and two resolutions settling lawsuits and unlitigated claims against the city and county. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on the litigation agenda should call now, 415-655-0001. enter the meeting id of 187 038 5484. press the pound symbol twice and then press the star key and number 3 to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and then you can begin your comment. >> supervisor preston: open up public comment for the closed

session please. >> we have no callers in the queue. >> supervisor preston: thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is now closed. on the motion to convene in closed session, mr. clerk. >> clerk: motion to convene in closed session. (roll call) there are three ayes on the motion to convene in closed session. >> supervisor preston: thank you. we will now convene in closed session. >> clerk: the members will leave this live meeting and connect to the closed session meeting. after closed session is concluded, the members of the committee and myself will reconnect and i will present a summary of the actions taken