>> clerk: and the time is 5:01. this meeting is being held by webex pursuant to the mayor's and governor's declaring of a local emergency. during the covid emergency, the fire commission's regular meeting room is closed, and meetings of the fire commission will be held remotely. to enter public comment, dial

415-655-0001 and enter meeting i.d. 2489-736-7432. comments will be addressed in the order they are received. when the moderator announces that the commission is taking public, members of the public can raise their hand by pressing star, three to enter the queue. members of the public will hear silence until it is their turn to speak. members of the public will have three minutes to comment. please ensure you are in a quiet location, speak slowly and clearly, and turn down any electronic items around you. roll call. [roll call]

>> clerk: at this time, president feinstein will read the land acknowledgement. >> president feinstein: the san francisco fire commission acknowledges that we are on the homeland of the ramaytush ohlone. as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homelands. we wish to pay our respects by

acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone and by acknowledging their sovereign rights as first people. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. item 2, general public comment. members of the public may address the commission up to three minutes on any matter within the commission's jurisdiction that does not appear on the agenda. speakers shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or department personnel. commissioners are not to enter into debate or discussion with a speaker. the lack of a response by commissioners or department personnel does not necessarily constitute agreement with statements made during public comment, and there is nobody on our public comment line. >> president feinstein: all right. public comment shall be closed.

>> clerk: item 3, approval of the minutes, discussion and possible action to approve the meeting minutes from the regular meeting on september 8, 2021. >> president feinstein: all right. and do we have any public comment on that item? >> clerk: we do not. there is nobody on the public comment line. >> president feinstein: all right. i see commissioner covington's hand raised. >> commissioner covington: thank you, madam president. i would like to make just two quick corrections on the minutes. on page 2, paragraph two, it reads that -- excuse me -- who's going to be attending the memorial service for 9-11. mr. ong is the brother of miss

betty ong. >> clerk: i'm sorry. what line are you on, please? >> commissioner covington: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14. line 14 on page 2, where it says mr. ong is the brother of miss betty -- >> clerk: that's paragraph one. >> commissioner covington: okay. yes. paragraph one, 14 lines down. >> clerk: all right. >> commissioner covington: so betty, excuse me, b-e-t-t-y. and then also, i would like the meeting to reflect our discussion related to the drivers of muni stopping when directed. i also suggested -- that's on

the last page, page 4. i also suggested that we send the video to sfgovtv so that as many citizens as possible should be aware of the fact when they're given direction by fire personnel to stop that they stop, and with those minor corrections, i would like to move this item. >> clerk: okay. i just have clarification. so you want me to add in that it should be put on sfgovtv? >> commissioner covington: i'm suggesting that the videotape regarding these issues. >> clerk: okay. and you want me to add sfgovtv? >> commissioner covington: yes,

please. >> clerk: okay. >> commissioner covington: i've already moved this item. >> i second it. [roll call] >> clerk: the motion passes. >> commissioner covington: thank you. >> clerk: okay. item 4, chief of department's report. report from chief of department jeanine nicholson. report on current issues, activities, and events within the department since the fire commission meeting on september 8, 2021, including budget, academies, special events, communications, andout reach to other government agencies and the public. and report from administration, deputy chief jose velo. report on the administrative divisions, fleet and facility status and updates, finance,

support services, and training within the department. >> good evening, president feinstein, vice president nakajo and commissioners, and near practitioner brokaw. chief jeanine nicholson. my report tonight will be brief, but i first want to thank president feinstein for her words at the 9-11 ceremony and the attendance of our other commissioners. thank you very much for being there, and i want to give a shoutout to olivia scanlon and the others for helping us get it together. it was a really touching ceremony, so thank you everyone who attended.

and i met our nominated fire commissioner, arney morgan there. i believe he will be getting sworn in on monday afternoon, the 27, so looking forward to that. that is the latest information i have on that. there have been lots of sort of meet and greets going on with our panels for new firefighters, and tomorrow, i will be taking all the recommendations from those panels and deciding who will be on the meet and greet staff. and then violation of covid, which has really been taking up most of our time these days. we have a lot of other things we'd, you know, really like to focus on, but this is where

it's at right now. right now, we have 122 who are not compliant. out of that 122, 18 are on long-term leave, so we really have 104 noncompliant. some have filed for exemptions, and those are working through the system, so we'll see what the final number is, but we will definitely be losing some people due to the vaccination. and sort of pivoting or not pivoting but rolling right into that, i do want to welcome dr. jan brokaw and nurse practitioner stephanie phillips.

dr. brokaw came on board and was thrown right into the fire with the covid vaccine, and i am so grateful for her leadership, her and stephanie phelps. you all have just really done some wonderful work, and there are a lot of other things you'd like to be working on, and we have many of the same goals, and we're getting there. it's just taking a while, but i look forward to hearing from them later. and with that, i will conclude my report. thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you, chief. is there any public comment? >> may i -- may i just go back one second? >> president feinstein: yes. >> how could i forget the therapy dogs? so yesterday, myself and

catherine alba were just north of san diego with an organization that has agreed to supply us with a therapy dog, and lieutenant catherine alba is to be the handler. she got to meet and choose the dog that she's going to bring back, and there was another dog there that i fell totally in love with, and we're bringing them back, as well. chief velo will have photos of them later, but i am just thrilled to bits. i wish i could be the second dog's handler, but i have other pressing things to do. so yeah, that's just a bit of good news for our members to have some canine love around, so thank you. >> clerk: and there's nobody on the public comment line. >> president feinstein: all right. public comment will be closed,

and just so i don't forget chief, who will be the second handler? >> christina gibbs, lieutenant christina gibbs, so those are the two people that will be handling the dogs. >> president feinstein: very good. thank you. do my fellow commissioners have any questions or comments for the chief? all right -- yeah. commissioner covington, yes. >> commissioner covington: thank you. chief, i'm glad to know that you didn't pull rank on the

puppy. that's to lieutenant gibbs to do that. how many dogs do we have in the department, including the two new ones? >> so these are our very first therapy dogs. >> commissioner covington: yes, i know that. >> we do have search and rescue dogs, and i know that one was retired, and captain gareth miller is going to be getting another one, so that does leave us with three, chief velo? will that be three? we have two right now, and captain miller, when he gets his therapy dog -- sorry, next search and rescue dogs, that will give us three search and rescue dogs. does that make sense? >> commissioner covington: i was waiting for a response from

chief velo. >> no, the number is correct. we have three, plus the two therapy dogs. three for search and rescue. >> commissioner covington: okay. five altogether. is vader one of the dogs that retired? >> president feinstein: i'm seeing a shaking head no. >> commissioner covington: okay. all right. thank you. well, i think it is wonderful because we had a lot of discussion over the cat who was going to be a service cat, so it's good to see that we have this going on and that you were able to go down just north of san diego to select them, so kudos on that. nothing else at this moment. >> thank you very much, commissioner covington, and let

me just add, there's still time for me to pull ranks on lieutenant gibbs. these canines will be coming to live with their handlers on october 26. they need to do some bonding and break them in there before they will be in the fire station, so it's still a couple months away, but it's -- it's in act, and in addition, this foundation source, hope foundation, will be here on october 18. they're bringing a dog for the son of a recently deceased firefighter, christopher yauch, so they're just really doing great stuff. >> commissioner covington: yes, we certainly appreciate them. can you give us some information regarding the

[inaudible] hope foundation? >> where the name came from? >> commissioner covington: yes. it sounds like it was named after a particular person. >> i believe it was named after a dog, but i don't know exactly. they raise and train dogs for military veterans, for all sorts of people. guide dogs, they do it all, and -- and for fire departments, and i believe they're also going to be working with the coast guard soon and who knows who else, but yeah, they're just, yeah, wonderful, wonderful stuff for us. >> commissioner covington: very good. i wanted to just say regarding the 9-11 commemoration, i thought it was wonderfully

planned and executed and such an inspiring time from betty ong's brother, and i thought it was inspiring when he said how much time he had, miss scanlon said take all the time you want. we were just riveted to his words, listening to him say what his sister went through when she was on the phone with american airlines, describing what was happening, and being calm in such a situation where the other two stewardesses had been killed.

so it's just a reminder that stewardesses do much more than serve coffee. they were there for our safety, and they do deserve our respect, and i would really, really like to thank mr. ong and his wife for coming and sharing their family's story. thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you, commissioner covington. vice president nakajo, good evening. >> commissioner nakajo: good evening, madam president, chief, administration members. chief, i just want to get some clarity on next steps. you reported out a number of members i believe are at the point of where -- correct me if i am wrong, but that's the

clarity i'm looking for -- that they have not registered, but i'm wondering what is the next step in the process for those members. could you clarify a little bit, chief, and give a little bit more information, chief, as to what the next steps are now that we've identified the number? >> absolutely, vice president nakajo. so what we have done is some of my staff have met with -- i believe not a disciplinary meeting, but what is available, what can happen to them in terms of exemptions and what happens if they get approved or if they don't get approved. we invited the union to

participate, as well, so they could advise the member, as well, even though it's not an informational meeting, it's a disciplinary meeting. they still have time left. they can get the johnson & johnson vaccine before september 30 and be compliant. so -- and just to be clear, these are people that have registered that they are not vaccinated, so it is what it is. we were down to about four people that had not entered their vaccination status. if they are not fully vaccinated by october 13, which means two weeks after their last shot, we can move separate

them, but there is an agreement with the union and with the department of human resources for the city that there is a sort of two-week grace period, amnesty period whereas long as they get their last vaccine by october 13 they can then return to work on november 1, but they cannot work between october 13 and november 1, so if there are any real holdouts -- but, you know, once we know who is not going to comply, we will begin the separation process and that will include an administrative meeting with me before i send it to the fire commission, and then, that's up to the president and you and the commission how that's going to move forward.

>> commissioner nakajo: thank you very much, chief. just one question of clarity. it sounded like october 13 was the deadline date, and my question is, by october 13, the members have to be vaccinated with both vaccines? >> so yes. they have to be fully vaccinated, which means two weeks after their last shot, so either their second shot of pfizer or moderna or their only shot of johnson & johnson will had to have happened two weeks prior. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. thank you for that clarity, and i'm going to make a recommendation that these options be presented to the members. thank you very much, chief, and madam president, that's my question. >> and if i just, madam president, yes, the city is putting on several vaccination clinics, so there will be

plenty of vaccine -- i mean, there is plenty of vaccine available, but i believe there's going to be toward the end of the month, as well. i believe there's going to be several clinics in the city. thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you, chief. and i believe we already called for public comment. am i right, madam secretary? >> clerk: yes, you did. >> president feinstein: thank you. >> president feinstein: all right. i think we are ready for chief velo. >> good evening, madam president, vice president nakajo, chief, command staff. deputy chief jose velo. this is my report for august 2021. i will share my presentation, and again, this is some of the

highlights since the last report and some highlights in september, as well. we're happy to report that all the strikers that were deployed to the dixie fires and other fires are safely home, so lots of good kudos from the agencies that we responded to assist there to help. we do have three members that are assisting in the fires. two members in the [inaudible] fire and one member in the [inaudible] fire. they are part of the incident management teams. we have started this incident management team. i actually had to report about an hour ago, i got an update

that's been at the [inaudible] fire, and he has given a presentation, one of the briefings at the caldor fire. one of the images there, they also made a significant donation to the caldor fire relief fund. the fires are not over yet. we still have 11 active large fires. to date, 2.3 million acres have burned, and just to give you an update, this is less than last year, but it's two times the average of the last five years, so a really bad year for our forests in the state of california. [inaudible] are currently -- they were invited to a workshop in portland with other members of the fire service in the country, a fire dynamics

workshop they hope to bring back to the training. they're having the 20 academy, they are in session, as you know, week seven of the 20 weeks. we have lost one due to deficiencies, so we have 19 remaining in the academy, and this is week four of testing in the academy. they're teaching the recruits, and we do it in a small little house and just by opening and closing, we identify the ventilation patterns we also have [inaudible] rotations,

sorry, and some of the skills, they continue to practice skills and operations, so that's continuing nonstop at power and folsom street. so here's the on boarding process of the 129 academy. [inaudible] we are connecting with many agencies within the city and collaborating with other departments to bring some population to the city and to the department. part of that is the city e.m.t. he participated in the interviews for the lead instructor for the next cadre of city e.m.t., and we will have a support that way, too. we have members that are going to help us in some projects,

and part of their [inaudible] extremely busy. he can fill you in any question you have about this program, but this is one of the things that he's working on right now. as you recall, we enroll our city e.m.t. internships and we're happy with what they're doing out there and hope that in the future they can be part of the department. our team continues to do training in the best way they can. communications, outdoor skills in a safe manner, but they

continue to practice [inaudible] and they brought into the department and we created this train the trainer program for our folks to be able to deliver some -- not only physically training and [inaudible] training but also mental training, yoga, to our members. so now, these members will go out to their departments and start training the members. it was no cost to us, and now we're going to expand the knowledge into other stations. [inaudible] and the chief was there, too, and the events of september 11, where we climbed the building tower, 53 stories, to raise money for the international [inaudible], and the mayor was there, too, so

happy to see that the chief was able to climb those stairs, as well, too. and here are our new therapist dogs. we have marley on the left-hand side with lieutenant alba and sadie, who's to be assigned to lieutenant gibbs on the right-hand side, so those are new members of the department that you'll get to meet hopefully very soon. dr. brokaw is really going to talk about this, but i really want to commend her and stephanie phelps for the work that they're doing to [inaudible] but this week, yesterday, today, and tomorrow and then in two weeks, we're going to have members coming in to do a wellness check, cardiovascular and other things. it's really a ton of work, and chief parks and stephanie and dr. brokaw have been doing a ton of work. this is what she's working on, bringing wellness into our

department. so this is yesterday, some of the members that were doing that yesterday, divisional training. as far as covid numbers, we had a really bad month. we had 51 members quarantined for covid. delta variant really took a toll on us. we had a little bit of a spike, but now, we still have 17 members, so we continue to direct or members to mask indoors and limit the contact with the public, which is difficult, the way we work in the fire department, too. on the random alcohol and drug testing program, 69 members were tested, and all were in evidence. it continues to help with [inaudible] and probation physicals and all results were

negative. 121 service requests in august. 112 were closed. [inaudible] and in late 21, stations 37 and 44 will be out to bid, so this is an on going contract that we have, replacement generators that have a limited life span, and we get this through eser bond money. we have completed the [inaudible] we have two units that respond to the cliff rescues, and we have an additional instructor for that so we need a brand-new vehicle. and station 49, you wanted to know about that. the interior completion for the images that are going to be hanging on the walls in station 49's for the fall of 21, and the art fence, the famous fence

is going to be estimated spring 22, and chief can explain the delays. there's several things that changed with that. the size -- the design, it's not changed, but the metal was required to be changed, so we hope to see that fence in the spring of 22. station 30, some of the updates, you remember this culture that was -- observation desk, that's completed. we have a -- interior work that's going on. there you see on the bottom, we have to create a new path for civilians, and we also have a ski lift for our jet skis that's going to be in the corner of the station, as well. going back to 35, we still have an issue with the electrical situation, and i know you're going to have a presentation the next meeting from d.p.w. to address all those issues. fleet engines, we have 11.

we told you there was a delay for the recall of the transmission, and there's some parts of that transmission. there's a nationwide delay. the truck that we're waiting to come has not come yesterday. as of two days ago, it was in new mexico, and hopefully, it'll be there by the end of the week. and our [inaudible] staff visited the [inaudible] factory and they're working on the [inaudible] project. as you know, that's been a major budget in the project. this is part of the things they're working on when they are there, talking to them, and it's continued to work on the next few months of this project. our chief o'connor [inaudible]

liaison, some of the project he's working on, as you know, we have a requirement from the board to the 2050 planning. basically, it's not been -- they extended the [inaudible] the manifolds, the portable efws, completion by december and a presentation to the board of supervisors, and [inaudible] until the full system is completed and projection for that is 2050 for that. we continue to do drills. september 29 is going to be a drill at [inaudible] will be attending, and the goal of this drill is the configuration of the portable water supply system for pressure and flow, so we focus on that, so that's [inaudible] and so forth. so as the chief said already, the 9-11 ceremony, every single station in the city has had, just as we've done for the last

19 years. and last but not least, our memorial fire mass, vice president nakajo was there, and the mayor was there to remember the fallen -- it's been two years since we had that event, and we remembered their service. that's it for my presentation. any questions? >> president feinstein: thank you. thank you, chief velo. madam secretary, is there any public comment thus far? >> clerk: there is nobody on our public comment line. >> president feinstein: all right. then public comment shall be closed. i'm just -- before i turn it over to my fellow commissioners, i'm going to make one announcement, which is that i did, on behalf of the commission, to extend an invitation to the department of public works to come before this commission to talk mainly

about station 35, and i know that we received, in our written materials for the meeting, a colored sheet, we received it for every packet, which showed pictures and updates on station 35, and i just want to comment, i was incredibly disappointed to see that the flu projected date for the station to become operational is fall of 2021. and i think a lot of what we need to discuss at the next meeting, when the department of public works does come, is why this has gone so awry. the completion date has been

kpleeded since -- since the time when i joined -- exceeded since the time when i joined this commission, and that was in january 2019. and i hope they are prepared to explain why a misuse of public dollars, using up bonds that are very much needed for other construction projects in the city for our department, and, you know, to -- to basically continually share the same information over and over with different words, i don't want them to think that we don't notice that. so that is my comment, and other than that, i know you don't put that together, chief

velo, but it did come under your report, and i wanted to make those comments. but other than that, i thank you very much for your report. >> thank you. >> president feinstein: all right. my fellow commissioners. vice president nakajo? >> commissioner nakajo: thank you very much, madam president. chief velo, thank you very much for your comprehensive report. i have just a couple of comments or questions that will refer to assistant deputy chief velo. part of our decision is

[inaudible] but i was just looking for a question of clarity a little bit because on your calendar sheet, i don't know if you have that in front of you, there is amounts of meetings and identifications, and one of those meetings identifications is august 6 of 2021 that talks about meeting with the director arce from oewd, and so i was just curious to know what that is because we are in -- still rolling out our declaration of diversity, so i'm wondering what each role has to do with where we're at, so if you could share some

information with the relationship of the department with oewd, chief peeples. >> thank you, president feinstein, vice president nakajo, chief nicholson, and command staff, as well. very good question, vice president nakajo. some of the work of this department is to look after the workforce of our department, the future workforce and the current workforce. that's exactly within oewd's wheel house. they are the ones who administer and manage a lot of these resources for people to be developed. we have to do a lot of work with promotions, and also just to help future recruits and candidates to succeed.

we find that a lot of individuals are lacking just base skills that are common maybe 25 years ago, base skills, communication skills, quite a few things that fall within our minimum qualifications. so we're looking for solutions. these are developmental solutions for raw candidates right now and how those are going to be partnered in the future because we're looking for resources for a lot of the programs we're going to need to ramp up here shortly. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. that makes a lot of sense to me. i'm a big fan of the internship program and what's involved in the development cal support. i know that oewd is about development and job training. part of when chief velo was going through your report, it sounds like a -- and i don't

have any issue at all. it sounds lake a lot of recruitment or identification of target population to get them interested in some area or some items in the fire department or city e.m.t. again, i can appreciate that, but i'm just trying to take this in as we as a fire department creates a workable unit that's going to be used within diversity. i'm also watching other departments because this diversity is, as i understand it, a mandate for us to adopt [inaudible] by other department, so i'm just curious as to everyone's going to roll it out, and i think we are fortunate to have an officer, chief nicholson, be focused on that, as well. so thank you very much for that, and i can see where recruitment would be part of

it. if it's recruitment, i know we had some specific [inaudible] but that's good. it's good that we are active. if i can continue, madam president, i have a couple of questions for chief dewitt. chief dewitt, same thing. i'm looking at our commissioners docket, page 83. there's -- end of the paragraph, eser bond 2010 n.f.s. update through august 2021. seismic, talks about fire station 16. you with me, chief? and what's happening with this is as i read this, it's interesting because somebody like commissioner cleaveland would usually be scoping this

out. it says completion date, july 16. the contractor achieves substantial completion january, and it talks about fiscal closeout for that project. my question is, is who created the liquid damages and who's paying for this and where does it come from? can you share this? >> i will do my best. good evening, commissioners, command staff, dr. brokaw, deputy, anyone else i've missed, i am deputy chief [inaudible] with court services. i was not the assistant deputy chief during that build, but what i do know about liquidated damages, but what i do know is

they are put into play when the contractor does not conform to the schedule as you saw. so we have an initial substantial and final completion date that was not met by the contractor, and so those liquidating damages are set out in the contract that will be charged per day for every day of delay. those liquidated damages are used to pay for p.w., department of public works project management, extended project management time, any architects that are on-site to continue work along the way, so basically goes to all of the other departments to continue to remain on the project during the delay. the contractor does not receive any of that money, it all goes back into mostly public works. they receive the entire amount.

>> commissioner nakajo: so we have a number of things that we are covering, overruns and delays. i don't want to assume anything, but it's our funds that we are paying out. >> that's correct. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. that's part of what i want to try to get confirmation on because it sounds like we're not at fault in terms of paying this liquidated damages. is that a good way to put that, chief, or do you want to put me on the right track? >> that's correct. if we had caused the delay, we would end up paying the contractor more money for all of the delays that they are experiencing. so in this case, it was the contractor who caused the delay. they were fined the liquidated damages, and the amount is determined by contract, like if it's per day, they're charged a

certain amount of money, and then that money goes back for all of the public works project management, construction management, all of their time on the job. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. it does not come back to the bond, it does not come back to the department, it just basically reimbursed p.w., so -- for their time, their extended time on the project. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. i just wanted to be clear as to what that tracking was, so i'm going to move onto my second comment. it's under eser bond 2014, seismic improvement program. i believe we're talking about station 35, so i don't know if this paragraph -- sounds like it has something to do in terms of the electrical kinds of

connections. i assume that there's somebody hired to manage the project, and pg&e is another form of management. do you want to explain that to me a little bit more, please? >> p.u.c., pg&e, other sister agencies, are not really part of that management team. they are independent. i'm not sure -- is that your question? so the question, the point of energization, all of those areas, they are based on pg&e errors, not the project management team's errors.

so that's the story, kbu i don't think we've really had a final conclusion. >> yeah -- >> commissioner nakajo: i think you -- go ahead, cleve. >> yeah, may i interject? thank you. yeah, there's a lot of sort of finger pointing, and i think we can definitely get into this more in two weeks when we do have public works here -- >> you're muted. >> thank you. so there's a lot of -- i think we can get into this more when public works is here, and perhaps they'll be able to answer, but in my experience, it has been -- there's a lot of finger pointing and nobody is taking responsibility, and the money comes out of the bond, and so that is the frustrating

part. for me, we have so many needs and a limited amount of funding, so yeah, it just is frustrating. >> commissioner nakajo: okay. chief, the president has started to talk about how long she's been involved with the commission, and we're talking about station 35. for me, particularly not in terms of identification or anything but the term is 25 years. so for me, it goes all the way from the old days that we used to talk about station 1, where they were at, station 5, station 16, station 49, now station 35. so i'm just concerned because

it's bond money. i'm not going to say it's our money, but our members got the public to vote for those bonds, but for us, it's an order of business. if we don't have our house in order for a matter of business, i'm going to start to get concerned, but somewhere along the line, we have to start taking accountability. any way, those are my questions. thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you, vice president nakajo. i don't see any further comments -- oh, yes, commissioner covington. >> commissioner covington: thank you. i'm looking forward to our meeting with the d.p.w. i have a number of pointed questions for them. i thought that they were going

to be on today's agenda. i learned, you know, that they would not be here today, but in anticipation of their representatives being present, i did visit station 80 -- excuse me -- 35 on monday, and it is a gorgeous facility. while our firefighters are in this very cramped, old, dilapidated building, so commissioner nakajo says it is not our money, but it is our money. that's my feeling. it is our money, because we are citizens of the city and county of san francisco, we are commissioners of the fire

department, and we are taxpayers, and we are boosters to our city, and to have hundreds of thousands of dollars go to no benefit to us as citizens or as a department is reprehensible, so i know i want to get to the bottom of it and come up with a resolution. this is just not the way a huge project should go, and the calendar speaks for itself. this has gone on far too long, and we need, as you've already

said, some accountability from somebody because someone's responsible. if you're project managers, you're supposed to manage the project, not look inspiration from the gods of war, so that's my comment on that. so two weeks. should be interesting. >> president feinstein: and if i might just indicate we did extend an invitation to d.p.w. to appear at this meeting, and they indicated that they could not be prepared in sufficient time and there are are appear -- and therefore are

appearing at the next meeting. because like you, commissioner covington, i visited station 35 twice, and it is gorgeous, and it is where -- our people are deserving of it, and they're not being able to use it through no error of ours, and that is what is particularly distressing, along with the fact as chief dewitt mentioned, you know, liquidated damages don't go back to the bond. they go back to the department of public works. every dollar out of bond is one less dollar we can spend, and we have several that are in need of work, so i agree, it should be an interesting conversation in two weeks.

>> commissioner covington: the money that we're talking about are not chump change. i think it is senator dirksen that said, $1 million here, $1 million there, and before you know, it we're talking about real money. i have other questions, also, but i am mindful of the time, and we have our medical team that's going to be speaking, so i will hold off on my other comments. thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you, commissioner covington. any comment, maureen? >> clerk: no, there's nobody on our public comment line. >> president feinstein: okay. so public comment is closed. our next item, please. >> clerk: item 5, update from department physician. dr. jennifer brokaw to provide an updated overview on the

duties and responsibilities in the physician's office, and accomplishments over the last year. >> president feinstein: dr. brokaw? >> hi. very pleased to join you. very happy to be here tonight. chief velo, i think you're going to share my presentation for me. it's brief. it's 12 slides, so it shouldn't take more than eight minutes. sorry couldn't do this myself, but -- so i'm here to talk to you tonight since i joined the department as supervising

physician in march of 2020, just as the pandemic hit san francisco. i have a very strong memory of looking at the cruise ship full of passengers with covid outside the golden gate, and i have not received an offer from the department yet, so i told her, look, i don't know if you're going to hire me or if you are planning to hire someone else, but your department needs a physician, so it's been a very historic 1.5 years. we're not out of it yet, and i really appreciate the opportunity to serve the city and the department in this way, so thank you. so i wanted to give an overview

of the physician's department. some of you may be familiar with it, others may not, so yeah. so the best way to think of the physician's department is part of the hub of the wheel of the workforce machine in the department, and the hub of our wheel includes our office, the department office, and human resources and payroll. and basically, we are working together to keep our firefighters and paramedics at work, healthy, paid when they need to be paid, legally compliant, and we do so with the assistance of, of course, the command staff and leadership and also d.w.c., which is the division of workers' compensation. next slide. so how do we do this? we -- in our office, the

physician's office, we do four big things. we do a -- the new hire medical screen, so for every academy, for every big new hire group, we are part of -- we are one hurdle in the process to become gamefully employed at the department. we also do medical screens for members in our department who are undertaking civil service promotions, so we do a medical screen of them. a big part of our job here in the physician's office is injury illness liaison and claims management, working very, very closely with the department division of worker's compensation to help both members have their medical claims created within the division of worker's

compensation, to connect with occupational health and specialists, and to get back to work when their injury is healed or their illness is over. and a lot of that has to do with a return to duty evaluation, which is an important part of that. and then, we are also instrumental in the modified duty program, where an injured worker who's not ready to go back to full duty can be assigned office work within the department while they're still undergoing therapy for their injury. next slide. another big and important part of our job is wellness and compliance, and by compliance, i mean compliance with osha regulations. traditionally -- and this was precovid, we did -- we did and

do infectious disease notifications. now right now, it feels like it's all covid, but in the past, it's also included t.b., tuberculosis exposures, blood borne pathogens such as hepatitis b and c and the needle stick hotline. we are under osha mandate to screen for hearing loss and t.b. regularly, and we are working to get back into compliant with that? we have an immunization program and have for a long time in the physicians office wherein we provide booster shots to firefighters who have not had, say, a tetanus shot or need a booster for hepatitis a or b or

if their immunities get low. and when we do new hire screening, we check people's immune levels to various infectious agents, and once they are hired, we will offer booster shots if they need it. as chief velo mentioned, starting this week, we have restarted health screening, which has not happened in this department for a few years, and very, very successful first week of our know your numbers campaign, which has really been made possible by my colleague, stephanie phelps, and she has had the assistance of the health services system of san francisco? it's been a really nice collaboration wherein they have lent their contracts to us, and we have provided the funding, and so far, we have screened over 100 firefighters for

cardiovascular -- firefighters and paramedics for cardiovascular events and ten-year risk factors for cardiovascular events. next slide. chief velo showed this, but this was a flier that went out. it's a private confidential screen, but we will get aggregate numbers about the health of our department with respect to cardio lackar disease, and from that, i hope to plan for pilot programs, training, education, and perhaps some policies around health related things at stations. next slide. something that has been important to me since i came into the department is health education. we have a lot of expertise in our department. stephanie is not just a nurse

practitioner but a ph.d. in occupational health. we have tony boone who is our industrial hygienist who knows a lot about what he calls engineering controls to make stations healthier. he's been instrumental in getting exhaust systems installed to remove exhaust and remove harmful agents out of the stations. during covid, he's been very important for us to educate us. and then, i have been working very hard both to counsel members one-on-one but also have done several videos and webinars along with stephanie phelps, natasha parks,

firefighter arlene nunez to educate about various topics, mostly about covid, but most recently, we did a sleep webinar for firefighters. as soon as i got here, i began writing a newsletter. i think, commissioners, you received this newsletter. it was borne out of necessity because the covid pandemic was a fast moving topic, so i began writing about covid immediately and giving numbers to the field, and i continue to do so,

but this is an example about a newsletter that was not about covid but was about cancer in the fire service. next slide. and you can see it's very flushed out and i hope clearly written. i do spend a lot of time preparing these, and it's been very gratifying to hear that people read them. next slide. so i want to talk specifically about the sars-cov-2 response. it's really taken a lot of my time and stephanie's time. just to recap, we have had about 229 cases of covid in our department. i think the number is six hospitalizations. currently, we have 32 people

off work for either isolation from that ten-day quarantine isolation or continuing to be off work, and we have nine people, additional people, who have been off work for more than a month, and i think many of those people may not ever return to work because of their experience with covid. so it's 229 people. most people have had mild cases, but as i say, six hospitalizations and nine people total whose total career has been impacted forever. so what have we done during this time? we've talked about the education we've provided. we've also done notifications of exposure to covid, so that includes both ambulance runs and medic runs for the fire suppression people. contact with known covid

positive patients. also, exposure to colleagues in the fire station that have tested positive, which has been a lot of our recent experience with the delta variant. we've filed a lot of worker's compensation claims for covid because it's presumptive illness that's covered by workers comp. there have been instances where people were, you know, away on vacation and clearly did not get it at work, but the majority of our cased are presumed to be due to work. because of the delta variant and our rapid spread in august in which we had 52 cases of covid, including vaccinated members who had to leave work because of covid, we've implemented rapid antigen testing in the state in

collaboration with the california department of public health. chief velo and stephanie have gone out to stations and done these 15-minute rapid antigen tests at stations where there's been more than two cases at a station. finally, we have been real proponents of vaccination. anyone who knows me knows that i am a huge fan of the vaccines. i have spent i don't know how many hours doing one-on-one counseling with reluctant members, i have spent hours at the moscone center doing

vaccinations, and i have set up in my office to offer the field the comfort and event of getting vaccinated here with us. it's been a very interesting experience in the last couple of weeks, but i have vaccinated about 24 members of the department, and it feels good to have been part of that effort. next slide. so to recap, you saw this slide with chief velo, but you know, we had been doing so well with keeping the virus at bay, and then last winter, we got hit pretty hard. you can look at the peak of that spike and know that we began getting vaccinations right there and then at the peak, and the vaccinations worked extremely well in addition to having p.p.e. readily available to us

throughout the pandemic until the delta variant came to town and did what it meant to do, which is get transmitted very easily and breakthrough the vaccine, although it does not make vaccinated people very sick. so as chief velo said, right away, 75% of our department got vaccinated, but 25% were holdouts up until a couple of weeks ago. we got 82 to 85%, but i believe we're closer to 90% vaccinated now. next slide. so i've been here 1.5 years now. and when i think about the

future of what i would like, the pandemic has taught this department and me that our office can do a lot more with regard to health screenings and education. we can partner with the chief of health and safety to do programming, and we have. we can expand our surveillance of the department to make sure we understand the issues that are on going. in the past, mental health has been carved out from the physician's office, and that is something that i would like to create a bridge to the

behavioral [inaudible] and that network of therapists will be available to our members free of cost through the employee assistance program starting in january, so that is really exciting. as you can imagine, like, everyone, but especially people on the frontlines, mental health is an issue that you can deal with. [inaudible] >> so that's the conclusion of my presentation. it's my honor to work in the department and help out during this time, and i welcome any questions or comments. >> president feinstein: thank you, dr. brokaw, very much.

>> thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you. let me turn to my fellow commissioners, if they have questions -- ah, every time that the grid comes up, everybody has moved around, so i have to relocate you, but any questions for the doctor? >> clerk: there's nobody on the public comment line. >> president feinstein: thank you, madam secretary. public comment will be closed. chief nicholson, i guess, is now on the commission and she would like to make a comment, so chief nicholson, please. >> pardon me, and thank you very much, president feinstein, i just wanted to be sure that the commission has met our nurse practitioner, stephanie phelps, who is here, as well, and if she would just like to say hello, she is fabulous, and we just so appreciate her as

well as dr. brokaw. so stephanie phelps. >> yes. thank you so much for having me. i just want to say it's been a pleasure to work with dr. brokaw the last 1.5 years, and i'm proud of the work that we're doing and the work in mental health and engaging in a mobile t.b. program that should be coming soon. >> president feinstein: excellent. thank you. thank you. vice president nakajo or commissioner covington, any questions or comments? >> commissioner nakajo: i defer to commissioner covington first, and then, i'll have a comment after the commissioner. >> president feinstein: all right. commissioner covington, please? >> commissioner covington: okay. thank you, madam president, and thank you, mr. vice president. and so dr. brokaw, can we begin

at the beginning? can you tell us how you were invited to interview for this position? >> yes. my background is in emergency medicine, and in 2010, i decided that patients were getting lost in the system and needed that heath advocacy and navigation was a much needed service, so i peeled out of the emergency room and created a company called good medicine, and we were a group of multidisciplinary health professionals that provided advocacy and engaged in approximate advanced care planning with seniors and supported them through serious illness. and actually, through a friend of mine, directed the film

toxic [inaudible] about firefighters and cancer, i was introduced to tony stefani at the cancer prevention foundation. and tony, soon after meeting me, had me come to present to the board about the company, good medicine, and the services we offered. shortly after that, i became a contracted patient advocate with the cancer prevention foundation, and my work was with firefighters who were at end of life after battling cancer. and after working on several very sad and difficult cases with the foundation, they commended me by giving me the white helmet award, which was a great honor. and at the gala, where i gave my remarks about my work with

the foundation and my vision or my thoughts about firefighter health and wellness, chief nicholson approached me and said, you know, we might have a physician's spot available, and i'd like you to interview for you, so i did. like, i said, when the pandemic was at our door, at the golden gate, i really did feel compelled to serve in some way for the city. >> commissioner covington: thank you for that background. and who do you report to? >> my direct report is to chief velo. >> commissioner covington: mm-hmm. and who hired you? >> the commission. >> commissioner covington: could you please, please, please let her answer the

question. >> it was the commission. >> commissioner covington: yes. we interviewed you, and it was a good interview. i'm so happy that we didn't have any lag time between you interviewing with the commission and coming on board. so just to make sure that we cover some of the basic information, you are totally vaccinated? >> absolutely. >> commissioner covington: and members of your staff are, as well? >> 100%. >> commissioner covington: well, i want to commend you on the newsletter.

it's very good. the first time we received it in our packets, i was elated to see the information in such a handy dandy format to keep up with, so i appreciate that.

>> there's a lot of paranoia of the vaccine and the likelihood of experiencing side effects. one of my approaches is i listen to everything that they say that's happening, and i say, you're absolutely right. if you slap out the virus for what you've told me about the vaccine, what you've told me is correct. it causes blood clots. it can cause, you know, neurologic problems. it can affect the heart. the vaccine side effects and serious side effects are quite rare. i always acknowledge that yes, of course, there are some

people in the world that have been harmed by the vaccine. we can't deny that. but when you imagine now that, you know, billions, now billions of people have been vaccinated -- the number of people who have been harmed is so vanishingly small, this is just such a huge win for the vaccine scientists, we really have to embrace these as a medicine that can both protect you and protect our society. the other thing i like to point out to our vaccine reluctant members is they are first responders. they are people who run into burning buildings and perform c.p.r. on people whose hearts have stopped. they are a brick in the wall that we have to build in our

community against the virus, and being vaccinated is a brick in the wall. it was difficult news when we learned that vaccinated people could transmit the virus; that they had similar amounts of virus build up in their nasopharynx as unvaccinated people. that was difficult to overcome with some of the reluctant people, but i like to point out that you're still five to seven times less likely to become infected in the first place, even when exposed, and that you are certainly much less likely to land yourself in the hospital. and i also [inaudible]. >> commissioner covington: thank you very much. you've given me a comprehensive answer to the question. you said that there were 299

cases of covid within the department. >> 229. >> commissioner covington: 229. okay. that is better, 229. all right. is there a common route to transmission? >> you know, it did change. in the beginning, in the winter time, i would actually say that most people were infected by friends or family, but we did have several members become infected at the congregate care settings when they went into transport patients or provide services. there was transmission to our members there. now with the delta variant, it

has really changed. i would say the majority of our members are infected at the fair -- fire stations, so there's been much more peer to peer transmission of the virus. >> commissioner covington: i think it's important for people to realize that so they understand why there is such a push to be vaccinated. it's very important. you mentioned during your introductory comments that nine people may be off work permanently. can you give us some more information about that? >> well, i can say that there's some people whose physical condition will not permit them to come back to work. >> commissioner covington: and

that's as a result of covid? >> yes, yes. >> commissioner covington: okay. >> there are some people that became really ill and have developed ptsd as a result of it, so i can't say that they'll ever come back, but they may take a long time. >> commissioner covington: yes, and ptsd takes a long time to even begin to grapple with before you get to the other side. >> yeah. >> commissioner covington: you said in august there were 52 cases, and now how many cases did we have? >> in august, there was 51 cases. right now, we have 15 people in isolation in their ten-day, you

know, quarantine period, and 17 people remain off work. >> commissioner covington: and those people that are in isolation, are they in medical settings or do they just remain at home? >> no, they are not permitted to come to work. very few of them are very ill. >> commissioner covington: so just self-isolation. >> yeah, per the c.d.c. protocol. >> commissioner covington: okay. thank you. i wanted to ask about 2010, you

said you wanted to be more in health advocacy. >> yeah. >> commissioner covington: do you feel that you have been a strong advocate while you've been in the department? >> yes, i have. it's a funny position to be the department doctor because i am the employer. i do represent the department, so i am not the member's physician. i represent the employer, and when they are injured, i do not see a lot of their medical records unless they choose to share them with me, so that is a unique position to be in. i think, in the past, there's been some loss of trust between the physician's office and the members, and i've spent a lot of the last 1.5 years trying to

regain trust. you know, i have to call out my colleague, stephanie, who i think has really held this department together in terms of how the field, the firefighters, paramedics, and e.m.t.s, have felt about this office. i think she's been a bridge, but the [inaudible] was involved making difficult decisions or involved in making difficult decisions about somebody's capacity to continue working, so a lot of my time in the last 1.5 years has been really trying to establish a rapport and to communicate to the union and the field that i'm really here to improve -- try and improve the health of the department and to advocate for individuals to be healthier

and to get better faster. >> commissioner covington: well, thank you for that response. and the last page of your presentation, you have future roles for physician's office at sffd. could you elaborate on some of the things that you're thinking of? i see expanded health screening and that sort of thing. >> yes. we would like to, as i mentioned, continue to do events like we are undertaking in the coming weeks, where we

do a [inaudible] and both do hearing tests and test people for t.b. we'll collect those results and, you know, advise members what they need to do if they have a positive t.b. test or need hearing aids. that's something i covered in one of my newsletters. i don't think people realize that hearing aids are allowed -- you are allowed to have hearing aids if you're a firefighter. you just can't wear them into a fire, doing things like that to reassure people that having a medical condition isn't necessarily the end of your career, and we are here to help

you through whatever disability you have. chief velo's been terrific in conceptualizing a campaign that we would like to roll out in the next year called 30 in and 30 out? 30 years of service and then 30 good years of retirement. to be healthy in your retirement, you have to start during your career. >> commissioner covington: yes. well, your attention to hearing lot is much appreciated, because that is one of the occupational hazards of being a firefighter because many of them lose their hearing. so to the extent that we can save firefighters, i think that is great that we can have that

screening. i will yield the floor so that my fellow colleagues will have the opportunity to ask you questions, and thank you. >> president feinstein: thank you, commissioner covington. vice president nakajo. >> commissioner nakajo: thank you, madam president. thank you again, doctor, for your presentation and for answering all these variety sets of questions, as well. i wanted to remark just in terms of being part of this presentation and exchange of information, i definitely wanted to acknowledge you as our department physician, but also, i think your remarks towards stephanie phelps was appropriate because there in the interim before you came in, and even before, when we had our [inaudible] physician, very often, stephanie phelps was the person that was the open arm, if you will, to the membership.

and to me, it's all about customer service and decor. again, i'm referring to commissioner cleaveland. i must be missing him if i talk about him twice, but he has talked about bedside manners, and so i -- doctor, i just wanted to say how appreciative it is. i also wanted to acknowledge anthony boone, your team, but also barbara marino in terms of all the support staff at the doctor's office. i -- since you've come in, i do appreciate the newsletter. sometimes it becomes show me more of an overt change that is sophisticated, well planned out, and that became that piece for me. i started looking forward to that piece, but also, i started reading that piece.

and then, i started realizing that it was not just related to health related issue, but somebody's menu was out there, as well. i just wanted to say that was a good form of communication. again, i appreciate all of the times that you spent with all of the details. i think that your relationship and your caring nature within the department and your professional decorum is obvious within that, as well. i also, commissioners, i have to yield, through transparency, that a few weeks ago, i was a patient of dr. brokaw when i went to get my flu shot, so i was able to see her within her setting, if you will, and have a little chitchat, and it was able to have that little

decor as i looked away as i was able to get my shot. thank you for that, and thank you, madam president. >> president feinstein: thank you, vice president nakajo. i wanted to make a few comments. i appreciate and i like the newsletter, too. i've learned a lot about it, and i think it's really a fabulous idea, and i hope all of our members are reading it. it conveys a lot of really, really good information that can benefit us all, and i just

have to say, since the time that i've been on this commission, the piece of work that i've seen, it would certainly impact my mental health. i wanted to ask you one technical question here, and that is with regard to, it's

the chart. it says covid and sffd 2021, and there's the two big spikes, and then, it -- it -- it appears -- i'm not quite sure i'm reading the date right -- september 2, 2021, that we're going up against. >> you know, you're correct. at the beginning of this month, we were on track to repeat august. >> president feinstein: wow. >> and -- yeah, yes. i i was very concerned. i sent an e-mail, you know, to our command staff but also to the department of public health saying okay, i think we need to rapid test everybody in the department every day because we were just passing around the virus very, very easily. the velt -- delta variant is

really a bad, bad player. and as long as we've been trying to enforce mask mandates, i think what happens in the fire house is, eventually, somebody takes off their mask, and the delta variant can spread. i am happy to say, though, i think that as of, like, three days ago, the virus was starting to fall off. just this week, we have not had more positive cases, whereas couple weeks ago, we were getting three or four new cases a day. so knock on wood somewhere, but the beginning of september looked like august, and i think the end of september is going to look like a steep drop off.

>> president feinstein: oh, that's really good to know. because i saw that, and i thought how can that be? >> i know. >> president feinstein: so thank you very, very much. you know, the physician's office appears to be in very good hands thanks to you two and also to mr. boone, and yeah, thank you for keeping those who take care of us healthy. >> yeah, we want to acknowledge nancy parks, too. she's part of our team, too, and it's a pleasure to work with her. >> president feinstein: well, that -- i was remiss in not acknowledging that, and i've got to say, i think it's a great idea to go around to the stations. that really makes, i think, a

big difference to go to them rather than wait for them to come to you because they may or may not, so that's an excellent program, so thank you. thank you. all right. >> clerk: are we moving on? >> president feinstein: i think we're moving on. thank you. >> clerk: okay. item 6 -- item 6. commission report. report on commission activities since last meeting of september 8, 2021. >> president feinstein: yes. vice president? >> commissioner nakajo: thank you, madam president. i just wanted to take this opportunity to just acknowledge that to commissioner covington, when i was making references to

eser bond funding, if i made reference to that wasn't our concern, i was mistaken. my point is it is part of our responsibility and it is our funds, so i just wanted to make sure that my point was clear in terms of safeguarding and doing the oversight of the funds that is very important, so that's one thing that i wanted to make sure that we were able to clarify. the other thing was that i attended mass on sunday, september the 19. the fire, police, sheriff mass, and i just wanted to acknowledge the command force, chief nicholson, that the representative from the fire department, captain joe [inaudible] did an excellent job in presenting the remarks of that particular occasion of mass, so i just wanted to acknowledge that publicly, as well. thank you, madam president.

>> president feinstein: thank you. thank you. i think the chief has indicated that we did all attend the september 11 event, which really was put together in the most moving way. i really commend everybody in the department who worked on it, and i think like everybody else, you know, mr. ong's comments about his sister were, you know, really tremendous, and this historical context, and he -- he was -- he was -- he was really truly just fantastic, and i do want to echo, too, the things that the chief expressed to miss scanlon, who i know was there at 4:00 in the morning, setting up and getting everything

organized, and also to all the members of the command staff that were present, and the members. it was very moving, very, very moving. and i'm sorry. commissioner covington, i wasn't sure if you have -- usually, you have your white pen, and i can tell. ah, there you are. thank you. sorry about that. >> commissioner covington: oh, that's quite all right. i just wanted to say to commissioner nakajo that i wanted to know how the moneys were spent in the city, and i -- monies were spent in the city, and i hope he didn't take umbrage with what i said because i know how near and dear this city is to him, so i

wanted to make clear that i got you, bro. thank you. >> commissioner nakajo: commissioner covington, thank you very much. >> president feinstein: all right. and public comment? anything, madam secretary? >> clerk: there is nobody on our public comment line. >> president feinstein: it will therefore -- public comment will be closed. >> clerk: okay. item 7, agenda for next and future fire commission meetings. >> president feinstein: all right. we will have a full agenda for the next meeting, i can assure everybody. please don't try being out on vacation or calling in sick because we're going to need you. department of public works will be -- well, you're going to need a doctor's note. the department of public works

is going to be presenting and hopefully explaining to us, you know, why we keep waiting for station 35, and, you know, i think it's going to be a very robust conversation between the commissioners and those representatives. they may call in sick. i don't know. we'll see, but that will be part of it. and then there'll be another item on the agenda, so it'll be a robust meeting. i'm sorry. vice president nakajo? >> commissioner nakajo: thank you, madam president. i just wanted to interject when d.p.w. does appear, all of our collective concerns is that training center, and what's

going to happen with that training center in the sense of the kind of responsibilities that we need that are being demanded in terms of our personnel and producing folks with some real training, but also, as earlier presented, if there's diversity and recruitment, that we have a facility that's state of the art for the city and county, so i'm concerned about that, and i just wanted to put it out there in terms of that, madam president. thank you. >> president feinstein: much appreciated. thank you. >> clerk: and there's nobody on the public comment line. >> president feinstein: thank you, madam secretary. public comment is closed. >> clerk: all right. and item 8 is adjournment. >> commissioner covington: so moved. >> commissioner nakajo: second. [roll call] >> clerk: this meeting is adjourned at 6:51. >> president feinstein: all right, everyone. have a good night.

you. >> well to the epic center are you ready for the next earthquake did you know if you're a renter you can get earthquake shushes we'll take to the earthquake authorities

hi welcome to another episode i'm the chief resilience officer for san francisco i'm joined by my good friends for the earthquake authority we're at the el cap center for the city and county of san francisco started in 2013 to get the community and talk about the risk we think about earthquake if usual great city you'll see one of the demonstrates we've built the model home and i encourage other episodes we'll be retroactively retrofitting and showing you as property owners to employ you work for the california earthquake authority talk about your role and earthquake shirnls up think the viewers want to know if

you're a renter or property owner how the insurance issues. >> i'm the chief mitigation officer or c e a a property line funded pubically managed entity that provides earthquake shiners for one to four units and mobile owners to come down and renters throughout the state of california. >> what make the c e a deft. >> we work with 19 participates the insurer that sells you, your homeowner policy you're not obligated to buy it but you can buy a policy. >> am i covered with homeowners insurance. >> no california homeowners understand their homeowners insurance doesn't cover earthquake they need a separate policy if you're an shiners you

can get the earthquake insurance policy. >> so explain why it is for the c e a is deft if a traditional insurance agency. >> irreverent so in the 80s the state of california passed a law that requires any company that writes the policies to over earthquake insurance the homeowners are not required by commissioner cranshaw can bye there was so much loss they were going to stop writing the insurance policies for earthquakes they wanted to stop a serious insurance policy. >> we're talking about the homeownership's buying the earthquake shiners but 70 percent are renters what's my opposite. >> the option for renter the earthquake be insurance company is affordable i think people don't realize just exactly what it covers it covers damaged property but loss of use if you

have to be under a building they have a quarter main that was broken as well as emergency repair if interests glass breaks in the carpet you need to be in our unit that's whether earthquake is important. >> you're title you're the excessive mitigation officer for the state of california when i think of insurance i don't think about mitigation. >> so as part of public safety mission the c e a started to put aside mitigation loss fund 5 percent of invested income and when i joined the company 34 years ago we had $45 million to make a difference for moving and incentivizing and mitigation for california homeowners to structure engineering a unique opportunity to cervical homeowners to help them to mitigate the equivalent. >> whether an owner or renter

i want to find more information about earthquake insurance where should i go. >> earthquake authority.com not only information about insurance but a calculated figures and as of january lots of deductible and 25 percent if a homeowner mitigate their hope up to 20 percent off their premium as an incentive for the work. >> what does mitigate the home mean. >> strengthen, renovate, retrofit through a home particularly older to earlier codes and you put in adding streamlining maybe collar bolts to tie to the foundation or to the wall so it is braced to earthquake can be very, very affordable and really makes a difference. >> thank you very much for

being with us i encourage the viewers not only to checkout the earthquake authority but we'll talk about

good morning everyone. who loves transit in san francisco? oh, my gosh, everybody loves transit. who had a great ride? who had a problematic ride? that's actually a pretty good. that's okay. that's good. hi, ktvu. so i am rafael mandalmen. i got to take the j church in with a group of activists who are very committed to getting the j back in the tunnel. my experience on the j was a mix of the good and the bad. so i will say that two years ago, the last time that we did this, i was not actually able

to participate on that day but i think my staff waited 45 minutes. there was like a three to five minute wait but that was fantastic. i was riding with a woman who recently had hip surgery and now there was a transfer at church and market that there was not pre-pandemic and we had to, you know, i think the experience that a lot of folks with accessibility challenges had where we got off and we have to get across this street that is a very hard street to traverse and then it turns out that the elevator that's supposed to make it possible to get down and make the transfers broken. so then we waited for the s-line which is not as frequent and actually involves a fairly rikdy contraption crossing to get into it if you are having accessibility challenges in getting in. so anyway, it was interesting to see the extra burdens that our system poses for people who

may be in a wheelchair or using a walker or a cane and i think that needs to be foremost in our minds as we think about how to make our system work for everybody. thank you to the transit rider's union for getting us here after two years. thank you. it's been a rough couple of years, but i do want to just express my heart felt gratitude to the staff of m.t.a., the staff of the transportation authority, the operators, all the workers who have gone so far above and beyond over this last year and a half for operators getting on those buses and those trains at a time when it was not entirely clear what kinds of risks that might pose to your health when people were dying and like chicago dying in and getting sick in terrible numbers. it was a very scary time and yet people showed up to work,

kept our transportation system moving and we were able to radically in a matter of days transform a system that we had, you know, come to rely on into an emergency system that got our essential workers back and forth to prioritize equity and i'm proud of that. i think our m.t.a. has been recognized nationally for the changes it made in those early days and putting equity first and i think that's something that they can be proud of. as we approach what we hope will be the end of the pandemic, it is clear that we are not out of the woods. many of us, all of us i think are very concerned about the notion that we might be aiming at 85% of the service that we had prior to the pandemic. i think all of us agree that the service we had prior to the pandemic was actually not adequate to the needs of san

franciscans, much less the needs of the additional san franciscans that will be coming to address our affordability crisis. so 85% is not enough and, for me, and i think for all of my colleagues, a very high priority for the next year is going to be figuring out how to get the revenue that the m.t.a. needs to make sure that we are not aiming at worse service than we had before, but are aiming at better service than we had before. and that has been imperative for all the reasons we all know. it is the right thing to do for equity. everyone should be able to get around this city without a car, but it is also an environmental imperative as smoke is filling our airs -- is filling our air and as we face a global climate crisis, we have to get people out of their cars. so, this is a -- an exciting

thing to be back. i love this. i love this event. i love that we're doing a month this year rather than just a week, and, with that, i want to introduce someone as a friend who i worked with and thank you so much, cat carter. >> thank you, supervisor and chair mandelman. what a beautiful day for a muni ride. we keep having these beautiful days for our ride arounds in transit month. thank you all so much for being here. thank you all who did the ride along and leaving a good example. i want to quickly introduce our colleague, who worked tirelessly to pull this all together and coordinate everything. he's been doing amazing work and he'll be up here a little later. we talk a lot ant our transit

first policy and i think we all continue to fall short of that ideal. it's really past time to take our transit first policy seriously. we need to make transit the first choice for people to get around meaning more and better service that's fast, reliable, clean, easy to use and safe. we need to put riders first. we have no more time to waste as supervisor mandelman was just saying, the climate emergency is here. mount shasta has no snow for the first time. fires are causing massive damage across our country. before the pandemic, muni served over 700,000 daily trips while contributing less than 1% of the city's green house gases. back in the '80s, muni served over 900,000 daily trips. we need to figure out how to get that many people back on muni and more. we know some people face dyer services in the coming days and months, but we need to start

building the future. we need -- we know street priority is necessary to do that and we know sfmta has done a pretty good job of that. we've seen them move very quickly to bring faster, more reliable service by putting transit 1 on the streets. but too many riders are still left behind. we have too much service that hasn't come back yet and we need sfmta to work quickly to improve its network. but to really put riders first, we need to grow sfts. we need to invest in it. this is going to take all of us working together. we need to build a vision of a network of fast, frequent, reliable service that connects every neighborhood that provides real accessibility. we need service that's easy and safe for all. this is the idea behind our 30 by 30 vision to have those fast, frequent routes that travel end to end and that

connect all neighborhoods. we need all our city leaders to champion the major funding muni will need. we invite you to keep setting an example. keep logging your rides at ridecontest.org all month long and tweeting your experience. and, our city leaders need all of us as riders and as voters to keep speaking up and showing up to build the future of muni that we need. thank you again for showing up and speaking up today and every day for the future of transit in san francisco. and now, zack will introduce our next speaker. >> thank you so much, cat. we're going to hear from some of our courageous supervisors who road transit today starting with supervisor mar. >> supervisor mar: good morning, transit riders. it's so great to be here with

all of and my colleagues. i'm showing our collective love for transit this morning and happy transit month. i rode in this morning on the n-juda and the ride seemed a little bit smoother with fewer delays and quicker than before. so that was great to see and i believe director tumlin and m.t.a. actually have some data to back that up. so, that's been really great. as you all know, we're in a critical moment for public transit in san francisco. we can't afford to debate measures. we can't afford to be divided and we can't afford to drop the ball on delivering the service or go back and forth on the world class transit system that's needed and deserved. we need to put our money where our mouth is. that means we need new revenue.

we need to make sure every san francisco voter knows what's at stake. we can't go backwards for our climate, for vision 0, for a more livable city and planet and we have to go forward. we need more service not less. more revenue not less. more lines not less. and let's give three car trains on the njuda. let's bring bar to the west side. and, sure, let's tax the rich to fund the bus. and, we need to have the vision to ultimately create fair, free public transit in san francisco because we know every dollar invested and spent on transit pays dividends for our economic recovery, for economic mobility, for our public health and the quality of air we breathe and for combatting climate change and cutting our city's single largest source of

green house gas. mobility is a human right and public good in reliable, fast, fully funded and ultimately free transit is a north star we all should be working for. let's get the basics right, let's dream big and let's deliver. thank you again, transit riders. thanks to m.t.a. and t.t.a. and just all of the passionate transit advocates in our city and my colleagues and i were with you and we're going to keep pushing forward to create the transit system san franciscans need and deserve. >> thank you, supervisor mar. now i'm thrilled to introduce san francisco's very own mayor. mayor london breed. >> thank you. well, good morning everybody. i am so excited to be here with all of you to really kick off transit month in san francisco and, first, i want to take this opportunity to thank all of the transit drivers, all of our

operators, the sfmta staff and many of the folks who during this pandemic were essential workers because we knew that during the pandemic, so many people would rely on public transportation and there was a lot of concern about whether or not it would be safe and i've really got to send a shout out to jeff tumlin and the work he did to make sure we were cleaning the buses on a more regular basis and, yes, they have been cleaned on a more regular basis that we were supporting our drivers and the transit riders union, i want to thank you for raising money for masks and ppe for many of our drivers especially because we saw really high rates of covid with a number of our drivers and you stepped in, you supported them and that's what this city is all about. we know how important public transportation is. we don't want to go back to the days when i used to catch the bus in high school and junior

high. we would always just look this way, look that way, is it coming? we've got to start walking? are we going to be late to school? well, we are new and improved. we have a lot of work to do and part of what the sfmta is trying to do as we speak is to make the system more reliable. make it more efficient. we know what we need, we know it's been very challenging to deliver to san franciscans the service that this city deserves because we're saying take public transit, but we also have to make sure that it's reliable, that it's safe, that it's clean and it's exactly what it needs to be in order to serve what is a world class city especially as we recover. i want to thank each and every one of you today and i'll see some of you on muni. i've been on muni in this pandemic in disguise because i

didn't want folks to bother me when i'm trying to get from point a to point b. every time. i end up missing my stop. so hopefully i'll see you out there on muni this month. thank you all so much for being here. >> hello, good morning everyone. i'll just be the bearer of all good news. like every year, i rode the 49 to city hall. it was fantastic the ride. it was quick and efficient. we got here within 15 minutes or so. it was incredible. and, that's how lucky we are to have a world class transit system. we're just simply not going to be able to maintain and make it

better. that is definitely a priority for me and for all of my colleagues on the board of supervisors and i am sorry that i have to leave early, but i have a very good reason that fits into transit month. i am a representative on m.t.c., the metropolitan commission. so congratulations. please get back on muni. it is safe. it is reliable. it is clean. can't wait to see you on the bus. take care. >> thank you, supervisor ronen. so, we have a couple more supervisors coming up. i'm thrilled to introduce supervisor chan from district 1. >> supervisor chan: good morning, transit riders. it's good to be here today. i came to san francisco's chinatown when i was 13 years

old. i went to galleio high school and the 30 stop was my jam. that was great. i went to u.c. davis, but still used public transit. greyhound and m-track and then when i came back to work to the city, it was getting a little harder. but my first gig in city hall as an aide, i was still living in chinatown and i had the best ride to work. it was on cable car and it was awesome. i love public transit, but at the same time, you know, as my work got more demanding, life was a little bit more demanding, you know, riding around, bus hopping was not easy and for any of you who've done bus hopping in san francisco, you know it takes some time. if you miss that transfer, you know what, you can just get a lot of anxiety going on in you waiting for that next bus.

so i know that means we need to do better with our public transit. you know, today as a supervisor representing district 1, prepandemic in the richmond, we have one of the highest ridership with 38. 60,000 riders, one direction every day. let's bring back to that level and that's what we need to do and because we know that public transit is public good and we ought to fund it like it is. you know what, i want to also give a shout out to carina chan here from china town trip. she reminded me if any of you have known that her interview with ktvu recently, she reminded me that transit equity is social, economic, and racial equity. let's remember that. happy transit month.

>> supervisor stefani: good morning everybody. i am catherine stefani supervisor for district 2. i want to thank everyone for all their work on transportation and to the transit riders. thank you for continuing to call attention to this extremely important issue. i see my neighbor steven chun who now works for the sfmta and it's so great. i have a family of four. i have two kids. we took it right to the giants game. it was safe. it was reliable. it was frequent. we want it to be reliable. we want it to be frequent and we are very lucky we had that experience the other day. this morning, i rode the 49 in. and, again, it was an easy thing to do. but, i do want to mention

something about families and transit because you cannot ignore the fact that it is very difficult for families who have kids to get around the city especially when you have two different school, two different droppoff times, sports, there's so much that families face when it comes to making sure transit can work into their lives. so let's not forget the families in san francisco. i know my former boss used to say transit first does not mean transit last. i want to thank everybody for your continued focus on transit. we are a first class city. we need a first class transit. so thank you for continuing to be here and thank you for your focus on that. happy transit month. >> hello transit riders. i am dean preston, district five supervisor. i want to thank transit riders

for putting this event on. thank everyone else for m.t.a. and all of the workers making our transit system roll even during a pandemic. this month marks my 28th anniversary as an everyday muni rider and i've just got to say, i just love public transportation, love riding the bus, and, like they say in the movie, you've got to love it to hate it. here we are. but, you know, i took my daughter today to school on muni as i always do, and i thought about the fact that it takes me an hour round trip door to door to do that. and, it would take me 20 minutes if i were to drive. and, in too many ways, we are a car first city masquerading as

a transit first city. we have to do everything possible with urgency to flip that script. and, so when i think about transit month and thank you for extending transit week to transit month so we have a whole month to celebrate transit, but, you know, i think about all the neighborhoods that i represent that continue to not have their muni lines a year and a half later. i think about district 5 families. i think about neighbors who live up on a hill who are seniors. i think of folks who have seen their muni lines suspended indefinitely with promises for the first year that their line would definitely come back and now a process in place through which their line may be permanently and forever gone. i think about how advocates and community leaders in the tenderloin and in the filmore had to fight so hard with

everything else going on in the pandemic, had to fight so hard to get the 31 balboa back and thank you for fighting that fight on behalf of everyone in san francisco. when i think about transit month, i think about the operators that continue to drive throughout the pandemic as essential workers themselves and transporting essential workers. i think of the transit operators not just here, but in new york city who continue to operate buses and subways in the middle of catastrophic flooding. i think about all the operators from muni, sam trans, and other agencies that went to help in san jose after the tragic p.t.a. shooting. when i think about transit month, i think about the riders, all of you who choose to or who must use muni and how we as a city have not done enough for you all during this

pandemic or ever in san francisco. a transit system should be based on the principles that more service leads to more rides and more riders and less service leads to fewer riders and fewer rides. that is why cutting service and cutting lines for financial savings is a death spiral for transit. we must win back transit ridership as we recover from this pandemic. and unfortunately and it saddens me to say it, right now, riders are being given nothing to fight for. and, are instead too often being asked to just accept osterity. we must have a more robust vision that inspires people to ride muni and to support the bold funding measures that we

need to take to the ballot. we need a vision that includes fair relief on a path to free muni. investment in our workers and more reliable service and not strategies that pit riders from one part of town against riders from another part of town. we need a vision of a world class public transit system for our city for generations to come. and, as supervisor mar put it so well, let's tax the wealthy to make this happen. thank you so much. next up is supervisor haney. >> supervisor haney: all right. thank you, dean. i'm going to ask the easiest question that i know the answer to. who rode transit here this morning? all right. how many of you ride transit most days? all right. well, apparently, they're going to be tracking. i already looked. there's somebody who already in september has ridden transit over 60 times, so whoever that person is, if they're here, i

think their name is anthony, very impressive. you probably know this person. we are going to commit not only this month to ride transit, but to support transit and i want to thank the transit riders union. i want to thank all of my colleagues. jeff tumlin, the mayor, the m.t.a. staff. we always rode over here this morning with a guy named jason from the m.t.a. who works so hard every day 90 this system, to improve it and it has been especially challenging over the lars year and a half and i want to recognize all of them. many of the folks here are involved in supporting this system and improving it and i want to thank all of you, the m.t.a. board as well. one of the things that has been so important this past year as there have been advocates and i see a lot of the folks standing up here who have fought for our public transportation system

every single day over the last year and a half and it was under tremendous strain. other folks have said this, you know, people were scared to go on because they were worried that they might be sick, that it wasn't clean, that it was too crowded. as people stopped riding the bus and the train, lines were cut. all of that was a huge attack on what we know as one of the most essential parts of our city and people stood up and fought is to make sure it was maintained. and i especially want to recognize the folks who fought for the 31. this was a line and give it up for the return of the 31. people in the tenderloin. people who live in s.r.o.s. families, seniors. we rode the 31 today from district 5. i went over to district 5 with

dean preston and a number of folks and we rode it in and it is such a critical east west connecter for the district that i represent and i want to thank you all for fighting so hard for it. the last thing i want to say is i'm the budget chair and my colleagues told me i've been authorized to put this up and to say we are committed to funding muni, funding sfmta. happy transit month. >> supervisor melgar: thank you for being here. i'm the supervisor for district 7. we actually share a longer border with district 5 in san mateo county than with district 5 in san mateo county. i will talk about the great things we're doing. we're doing really well in terms of transit. i love muni.

muni is now free for all youth thank you to my colleagues and to mayor breed for making that happen and, you know, we're committed to training and supporting a new generation of transit riders so that we can have the highest possible ridership and get people out of their cars and into public transit. that's how we solve the climate crisis is to make sure we reduce those carbon offsets and take the bus. that's what we need to do. i am an immigrant to san francisco. i came when its 12 years it cost a nickel back then and muni gave me freedom. it was a freedom that as a kid from el salvador like very few in my generation had in my country, but here, muni alloweded us to just have the entire the world class city that is san francisco at our feet. if you haven't seen the newest marvel movie, go see it because

muni is a prominent character. it's so much part of our identity. i want to thank all of you for your advocacy. t.w.u. and local transit workers who have put their lives and their families and health on the line for the rest of us. we need to keep supporting them and advancing this wonderful public good that is transit. in my district, we have city college, san francisco state, and u.c.s.f. as part of the zoo all of the organizations that rely on public transit to be healthy and expand. we want to make sure that san francisco comes back from this pandemic and public transit is the way. let's fund it. let's fund it adequately. let's pave the way for our future and our childrens' future by having a muni system that's fair, that's affordable and that is open to all. thank you so much.

sorry. i was supposed to introduce my great friend supervisor ahsha safai. >> supervisor safai: good morning everyone. supervisor safai here. in the past, i have to say and truthfully, i've been a big critic of the sfmta and a lot of that has been justified, but today i want to focus on the positive. i think within the last year, even in the midst of this pandemic, there's been a lot of improvement. there's still a lot of room to grow. there's still a lot of improvements to be made. despite all of the challenges and a virus that's spreading rapidly via air internally, our operators showed up to work. many of those operators live in my district in the excelsior, omy and outer mission and they don't complain. i mean, they do complain,

julie, i know you know that, but justifiably, they show up. and, if they have complaints, they make it known, but they still show up and do their job every single day. so i had an awesome driver today on the 14r. her name was "dee." we got from geneva and mission all the way to the inner mission and 14th. my daughter rode with me, got her to school in less than 20 minutes. it was a wonderful ride. the red lanes worked. no one was blocking us. the driver drove professionally and, you know, what, the bus was packed, but it felt safe. every single person was wearing a mask. i forgot my wallet at home. she still waited for me. i had to come back but we made it on time and i think there has been a lot of good work done and a lot of that improvement has been the result of the advocacy of the transit

riders and those that know the system intimately ride it day in and day out. so i'm very happy to say that the part of town that i represent, the essential workers have been getting up every single day to get to work, they're riding those buses. every single one of the buses was packed today. the 14r, the 14, 43, every single one of them. and thanks so supervisor melgar and her advocacy, we have the m-line coming back. that's also serving our district now. that's a really big deal. you know, the 52 excelsior's back. we are making improvements and, yes, my daughter rode for free. thank you, supervisor melgar for your advocacy and mayor breed and the rest of the board and supervisor preston for really making access for those children and youth a high priority. so we're going to continue to celebrate it this month. we're going to continue to promote muni in any way and

ridership as we can and we will invest in the right way. it also means pedestrian safety and traffic calming. so, anyway, proud to be part of this day today, proud to support this effort and i'll stand with all of you in continuing to make muni a priority. thank you. >> good morning. my name is jeffery tumlin and i'm here to say that public transit is fundamental. 47% of san francisco's green house gas emissions comes from the transport sector and public transit is the primary way we're going to make a difference with climate change. public transit is opportunity and our way to correct for past inequity. public transit is essential for efforts to improve health and safety of our population and public transit is essential for

san francisco's economic recovery after this brutal 18 months. i'm particularly grateful to all of our front line and operations crews particularly our operators who showed up to work every single day through a pandemic to make sure that essential workers could continue to get to work. i'm grateful for the incredible creativity and risk taking that all of our transit planning staff did in reinventing the muni system practically every month for nearly 18 months and i'm really proud of the achievements that they've been able to do with all of that work that they did. we're getting phenomenal speed and reliability improments on all of our core systems. yesterday, we released preliminary data that was showing 20% in speed on the freeway. benefits that i did not think were possible and involved a tremendous amount of risk

taking and creativity among our crews. i'm grateful to our traffic engineering team who has invested in designing 20 miles the in order to hold on to all the speed and reliability improvements we've gotten during covid. and i'm grateful to the operatoring crews who on our frequent lines shifted to headway management which has meant that our buses are more reliable than they've been in all of the decades than we have data to support that. i'm so grateful to our riders union who've put up with all of the changes that we've made. the stumbles that we've made, the corrections that we've made in order to try to deliver the best possible transit system despite the challenges we are facing. i'm also here to ask for your help. i think has been made clear to all of you, muni is facing the worst financial crisis in history. we're so thankful to the government for getting us

through last year and this year. what's clear from all of the data from the counselor and the controller's office is we're expecting at least another four years of huge covid related financial losses. particularly to two of our three biggest sources of revenue, parking fees and transit fares. we're going to need a lot of help to find ways to fill those gaps. we, all of us on muni staff believe that we were delivering far inadequate service back before covid. we need dramatic expansion and improment in the frequency, the number of lines, the speed, the reliability. we need a world class transit system for san francisco and we're going to need help from all of you. i'm also so grateful to all the board of supervisors and have offered their help to find ways to fill this gap to fund mu nshgd eeushgd and to finally

deliver the transit system that san francisco deserve its and need. and, with that, i'd like to introduce our sfmt academic board chair. >> thank you so much for that, jeff. i'm so grateful for our staff, the leadership of jeff tumlin in helping to reconfigure transit. our operators were essential workers and it was a really tough time for many of them as they struggled with things in their family. they showed up;, they persevered and they served this city. what was also so illuminating at that time was our riders were essential workers. in those areas where we had a lot of essential workers. i really want to thank the transit riders, you guys have made such a large difrnts. because so many of our riders are essential workers and can't come up and show up at a hearing and testify and support

the need for transit, the voice that you provide is super powerful and i'm so grateful bringing this up, celebrating for a month. we need to tell all san franciscans, public transportation is essential ask we need them to support our ultimate ballot measure which will come in the future for our funding needs. i want to thank the leadership of our board of supervisor, also our transportation authority for all committing here to support our funding in the future. it is really critical. the biggest challenge public transit has is it's not as sexy as so many other areas and it's very costly. especially to maintain the reliability and the service. we want to bring back as much service and all the lines that we can but it's crucial because covid really battered our revenue sources and we really increasingly depend on the general funds. we don't have the advantage of generating most of our revenue

but that means it's more critical that we need your support. we need all of our elected leadership, everyone in the public. the transit riders and everyone to champion us for a future that we can provide the visionary network that everyone wants and deserves and, without it, our city will struggle. i invite all of these people who've been off of transit to come back. we need you to come back to survive and thrive. i need you all to evangelize it taking muni is safe. tell them about our faster service. i live on the 14r, 49 line. i take those buses almost every single day and i have to say i've been so impressed whether it's 1:00 in the morning or 5:00 in the morning. thank you for your advocacy and let's fight together for public transit.

>> thank you, director boarden. director tumlin, director chang. all the supervisors and mayor who made it out here today to celebrate transit month. and all of you who are standing in the sun for the past hour showing your commitment to a better transit future. thank you, everyone. public transit is at the core of san francisco's economic recovery. muni kept us going during the pandemic thanks to the work of the transit operators, our safety ambassadors and all our front line workers who risked their health to keep our city going. roger moranko is unable to be here today. thank you muni operators and members who kept us going during this pandemic and keep us going today.

now, more than ever, we know that muni is more than just a line on the map and more than just a yellow sign post at an intersection. it's a sense of belonging and freedom of movement it's access to education, to jobs, to all the opportunities san francisco has to offer. from the bay view to the richmond. just because i owned a fast pass. but supervisor melgar, it was $0.35 when i was a kid. it's a little bit more today we're gathered here today to celebrate transit but we also know how much further we need to go. many lines remain suspended with their futures uncertain and sfmta doesn't have the funds it needs to invest in

21st century transit needs. i have hope to reinvest and fund a world class transit system here in san francisco. hope that when we raise our collective voices together, anything is possible. we're the people who make this city hum. the people who never stop riding during the pandemic. who know what's at stake should we fail to invest. but we're also the ones to make this change happen. in fact, we're the only ones who can. so, thank you all for gathering here today. thank you for your energy, for your spirit and for celebrating transit not this month, but every month to come for a world class transit system here in san francisco. thank you. so that is the end of our rally

and press conference. if you have not yet go to ride contest.org to sign up and track your rides this month. we're giving out prizes for winners. we have a ton of events coming up at transitmonth.org and we hope you'll join us throughout the month and going forward in the future. so if everybody can come up here for one last picture, that'd be great. thank you. >> on december 28, 1912. san francisco mayor, sonny jim

rolph stared into the crowds of those who have gathered. a moment in history. the birth of a publicly own transit system. san francisco municipal railway. muni as it would become to be known. happy birthday, muni, here is to the next 100 years. the birth of muni had been a long-time coming. over the years the city was disjointed privately owned companies. horses and steam and electric-powered vehicles. creating a hodgepodge of transit options. none of them particularly satisfying to city residents. the city transit system like the city itself would have changes

during the san francisco earthquake. the transition that will pursue from this aftermath would change san francisco's transportation system once again. facilitated by city boss, abe ruth, ushering in the electric city car. the writing was on the wall. the clammer had begun for the experiment including public transit people. owned by the people and for the people. the idea of a consolidated city-owned transit system had begun traction. and in 1909, voters went to the polls and created a bond measure to create the people's railway.

would become a reality three years later. on december 28, 1912, mayor sonny rolph introduced the new geary electric streetcar line and the new san francisco railway. that he said would be the nucleus that would host the city. and san francisco gave further incentive to expand the city's network. a project by way of tunnel leading into chinatown by way of north beach. in december the first streetcar was driven into the tunnel. just two years after its berth, muni had added two lines.

and k, l and m lines that span out from westportal. in 1928, the j line opened heading west to the beach. in 1944 san francisco voters finally approved muni take-over of the market street railway. by then motor bus and trolley bus improvement had given them the ability to conquer san francisco's hills. after the war most of the street-car lines would be replaced with motor or trolley bus service. in 1947, the mayor recommended replacing two lines with motor coaches. and it appeared that san francisco's iconic cable cars had seen their final days. entered mrs. cluskin, the leader to save the cable cars.

arguing that the cable cars were a symbol of the city, and she entered a charter placed on the november ballot. it passed overwhelmly. the california street cable railway was purchased by the city in 1952. there were cut backs on the cable car system and in 1957 only three lines would remain. the three lines that exist today. in 1964 the cable car's future as part of california's transit system was sealed when it was proclaimed a national historic landmark. in february, 1980, muni metro

were officially inaugurated. in that same year, muni received its first fleet of buses equipped with wheelchair lifts. in 1982 when the cable car had a shut-down, they added an alternative attraction to the cars. the festival was a huge hit and would continue for the next four summers in a permanent f-line that would extend all the way to fisherman's wharf, by 2000 the f-line was in place. and in 2007 muni extended the third line to the southeast corner and returning to third street. for the first time in 60 years. in the course of last 100 years,

muni's diverse workforce forged by men and women of innovation have reflected the many cultures that flock to the city. muni's ground-breaking antidiscrimination has guaranteed equal opportunity for all. the city's policy mandates the course for the future, as they work diligently to increase options and increase multialternatives, and deduce -- reduce the carbon footprint. it continues to improve the systems. during this sen -- centennial year we reflect on the transit system.

>> i'm rebecca and i'm a violinist and violin teacher. i was born here in san francisco to a family of cellists, professional cellists, so i grew up surrounded by a bunch of musical rehearsals an lessons. all types of activities happened in my house. i began playing piano when i was 4. i really enjoyed musical activities in general. so when i was 10, i began studying violin in san francisco. and from there, i pretty much never stopped and went on to study in college as well. that's the only thing i've ever known is to have music playing all the time, whether it

is someone actually playing next to you or someone listening to a recording. i think that i actually originally wanted to play flute and we didn't have a flute. it's always been a way of life. i didn't know that it could be any other way. >> could you give me an e over here. great. when you teach and you're seeing a student who has a problem, you have to think on your feet to solve that problem. and that same kind of of thinking that you do to fix it applies to your own practice as well. so if i'm teaching a student and they are having a hard time getting a certain note, they can't find the right note. and i have to think of a digestible way to explain it to them. ee, d, d, e. >> yes.

then, when i go on to do my own practice for a performance, those words are echoing back in my head. okay. why am i missing this? i just told somebody that they needed to do this. maybe i should try the same thing. i feel a lot of pressure when i'm teaching young kids. you might think that there is less pressure if they are going on to study music or in college that it is more relaxing. i actually find that the opposite is true. if i know i'm sending a high school student to some great music program, they're going to get so much more instruction. what i have told them is only the beginning. if i am teaching a student who i know is going to completely change gears when they go to college and they never will pick up a violin again there is so much that i need to tell them. in plain violin, it is so difficult. there is so much more information to give. every day

i think, oh, my gosh. i haven't gotten to this technique or we haven't studies they meese and they have so much more to do. we only have 45 minutes a week. i have taught a few students in some capacity who has gone on to study music. that feels anaysing. >> it is incredible to watch how they grow. somebody can make amazing project from you know, age 15 to 17 if they put their mind to it. >> i think i have 18 students now. these more than i've had in the past. i'm hoping to build up more of a studio. there will be a pee ono, lots of bookshelves and lots of great music. the students will come to my house and take their lessons there. my schedule changes a lot on a day-to-day basis and that kind of keeps it exciting.

think that music is just my favorite thing that there is, whether it's listening to it or playing it or teaching it. all that really matters to me is that i'm surrounded by the sounds, so i'm going top keep doing what i'm doing to keep my life in that direction. shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their shopping and dining within the 49 square miles of san

francisco. by supporting local services within our neighborhoods, we help san francisco remain unique, successful, and vibrant. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> my name is ray behr. i am the owner of chief plus. it's a destination specialty foods store, and it's also a corner grocery store, as well. we call it cheese plus because there's a lot of additions in addition to cheese here. from fresh flowers, to wine, past a, chocolate, our dining area and espresso bar. you can have a casual meeting if you want to. it's a real community gathering place. what makes little polk unique, i think, first of all, it's a great pedestrian street. there's people out and about all day, meeting this neighbor and coming out and supporting the

businesses. the businesses here are almost all exclusively independent owned small businesses. it harkens back to supporting local. polk street doesn't look like anywhere u.s.a. it has its own businesses and personality. we have clothing stores to gallerys, to personal service stores, where you can get your hsus repaired, luggage repaired. there's a music studio across the street. it's raily a diverse and unique offering on this really great street. i think san franciscans should shop local as much as they can because they can discover things that they may not be familiar with. again, the marketplace is changing, and, you know, you look at a screen, and you click a mouse, and you order something, and it shows up, but to have a tangible experience, to be able to come in to taste

things, to see things, to smell things, all those things, it's very important that you do so.

>> chair mar: good morning. welcome to the public safety and neighborhood services meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. thank you, mr. chair. the record will reflect that the committee members are participating to the same extent as if they were present in the meeting room. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. either channel 26, 78, or 99 as