>> 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. i bet you all are wondering why we're here today. aren't you wondering? this is probably the worst kept secret in san francisco, politics, but today i'm here to make a very important announcement. yesterday, the public utilities commission approved the contract for our city attorney dennis herrera to become the next director of this incredible department and i'm so grateful to our city attorney for the work that he has done to lead this city for the past 20 years, an office of dedicated public servants who fight every single day to focus on the things that mart the most to the people of san francisco. and with our city attorney

moving on, we now have a vacancy potentially soon. and, as a result, we have to fill that vacancy. and i can't think of anyone better to serve as the next city attorney for the city and county of san francisco than assembly member david choo. some of you ask, why david? many of you have reached out to me and expressed the interest in seeing someone like david become city attorney. now many of you may know him as the board of supervisors, but his extensive career, getting his law degree from harvard. working for the nineth circuit

court of appeals. working as an attorney for the united states senate. working for lawyers committee for civil rights for the district attorney's office. he has an extensive career in law, one even before he stepped foot in the world of politics. that's why when he served as the president of the board of supervisors, he was a consensus building. he was someone who was dedicated and worked hard to tackle many of the issues he now continues to tackle in sacramento. focuses on tenants' rights, focusing on employment rights, civil rights and discrimination, there is a number of things that david and i continue to work on time and time again because it centers around the best interest of the people of this city. we are here today at a location that david will talk about in just a little bit, but it's just one example of the work he

did as an attorney to fight for those who are immigrants to san francisco to ensure that they have access to affordable housing just like anyone else and his work with the a.p.i. community and a number of other challenges that existed during this pandemic demonstrates his commitment to fairness. it demonstrates his commitment to san francisco and it's why i know he'll be an incredible city attorney. and before i bring up david to talk a little bit and answer questions, i first want to just say a few things about our city attorney. you know, we have been so fortunate in this city to have dennis herrera as our city attorney for the past 20 years and, before he took office, he took office as a pledge to the people of san francisco that he

would ensure integrity in public institutions and time and time again and every fight that this city attorney's office has taken on, he has done just that. starting early in his career with pg&e and the fight to shut down the power plant which was an environmental harm to the people of the bayview hunter's point community. the work that he did to ensure that same-sex couples can marry legally just like anyone else was historic and went all the way to the supreme court where we have accomplished our goals, although, there are still fights that need to be done to ensure equality. his work when we first discovered sadly some of the challenges that existed with a number of city departments here in san francisco. he and our controller ben rosenfield investigated, dug deep, uncovered, and made

recommendations of decisions that are currently now being implemented to restore public trust in those particular departments. his career is a long one, but one that has established him as the city's attorney, but most importantly, the person that we all rely on. the person that we all respect and trust when it comes to implementing policies and dealing with cases that are the right thing to do and that will continue to protect our city. this is why i'm so grateful to him, so grateful and honored that in the wake of the challenges of the public utilities department, he is taking on this new role. and although i know he won't be very far away from the city attorney's office, i know that he's going to do some incredible work for the public utilities commission especially with everything we need to do

to continue our fight for clean power and the challenges of distribution and running our own power system here in san francisco. our water, our sewage, our infrastructure, long-term planning and also just making sure that the people who work in that department know that they have someone to count on to lead that department and make good decisions on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. with that, i want to bring up city attorney dennis herrera before i introduce david chu. >> thank you, madam mayor. i see one of my last roles still as city attorney. when you get the pleasure of being an official, you can correct the mayor. she said potentially an opening. i submitted my letter of resignation, you accepted it. come 11:59 p.m. on october the

31st, halloween, i will no longer be city attorney. and it's been an honor and privilege of my life to serve the people of san francisco as their city attorney for nearly 20 years. i've accomplished all that i could ever hope for and more as city attorney and while now is the time for new professional challenge for me, i'm thrilled to be able to lead this office in the hands of someone who is committed to the mission, the values and integrity that have made the san francisco city attorney's office so remarkable for so long the nation's preamanent public law office. i knew david chu way back when. he is committed to transparency and clean government and he is independent which is the most

important thing you can do as san francisco city attorney. i just want to give you a few examples of his dedication to the people of san francisco. one focuses on everyday issues and david and i worked together to support the entertainment industry through legislation that made it safer for patrons to frequent night life venues in san francisco. that was david chu's leadership. another example shows his commitment to clean that tightened rules and regulations and expanded accountability and access. that was david chiu's

leadership. and finally and most recently, david worked with us fighting for california consumers. some of you, probably most of you remember that cities throughout the state won public nuisance law against the lead paint industry. that made sure we saw remediation of thousands of use of lead paint throughout california. the lead paint industry didn't like the imposed remedy and they went up to the legislature and tried to sneak through a bill that would have limited traditionally imposed liability. david chiu took the leadership, phoned me, worked clearly with our office to make sure california consumers were protected and that those traditional remedies stayed in place and that millions of californians would benefit. more than anything else, that's what you need to be a good city attorney and he won't be doing

it alone. i can tell you the professional integrity of the attorneys, the investigators and the industry leading staff and the attorney's office is unquestionable and they will continue to do their job for the people of san francisco and they will work tirelessly to ensure a smooth and seamless transition and make him the best city attorney he could be. it is my honor and privilege turning over this office to somebody who will be a tremendous steward of our traditions. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> thank you again to our city attorney dennis herrera for your service and thank you for your commitment to san francisco. the city attorney's office here in this city is arguably the number one city attorney's office anywhere in the country

and it is because of the leadership of our current city attorney and i know there are big shoes to fill and so in making a decision like this, it's not a decision that you take lightly. it's important to do what is in the best interest of the city and ultimately assembly member chiu will be doing this job for the next couple of months until you, the people of the city of san francisco make your decision. he is the peoples' attorney. he represents the people of the city and county of san francisco and, ultimately, you are the ones who decide and i think that over the years many of you and hands down, he is one of the most gracious, hardworking, consensus building, structured,

relentless, pursuit of justice person i know. i've worked with him for many, many years on so many issues starting with the board of supervisors and before i bring david chiu up to say a few words, i remember when i was elected to the board of supervisors and one of the first supervisors who reached out to me was david chiu. and we met and he had a binder like this thick. and he said this wasn't it, there were a number of other things that i needed to read before i do my job. he wanted me to be prepared for what the job entailed. not when i got to the job, but before i set foot in that chamber, he wanted to make sure that i was ready to do the business of the people and we went on to work on so many pieces of legislation together and even when he left to go to

sacramento, he would still reach out to partner on important issues impacting the city. he is one of the hardest working legislators i know and what's so interesting as an attorney, it's always from a lens, a legal lens of trying to get to the point to really make sure that the policy is effective. and i think based on what our city attorney dennis herrera has already said about his work, his consistency, his involvement in important issues and protecting the public's best interest regardless of who the fight is against, he will continue with that same drive, that same commitment, that same spirit of love for the people of san francisco. ladies and gentlemen, i introduce you the next city attorney for the city and county of san francisco david chiu. congratulations. [ applause ]

>> good morning. i am so humbled and grateful for this appointment. and let me start first by thanking mayor breed not just for this opportunity to serve, but for her tremendous leadership during these incredibly difficult times and i'm looking forward to working with her and alongside her with every single member of the board of supervisors, with 100 city departments and commissions to move our city forward. i, of course, want to solute my friend, our current city attorney dennis herrera. for the past 20 years, he has established the gold standard for public law offices in this country. i think it would take us an hour to summarize his

accomplishments, but let me just say in short, our city owes dennis herrera an incredible debt of gratitude. and i am looking forward to working closely with him during this transition and with him in his new role. i also want to take a moment of personal privilege and thank my dear wife, candace. in addition to her public interest job, she has for the past seven years held down the home fort while i have been in sacramento looking over our very rambunxious five-year-old son. growing up in boston, none of us ever expected that i become

an attorney because my family, none of us had ever met an attorney, had ever known an attorney, but something happened my college freshman year. i got a call from a friend about a hate crime involving eight asian students at a nearby school who were on their way to a formal dance, who were attacked by football players who hurled racial epifats. and the most incredible thing about that experience is those football players were never disciplined. that moment among others changed my life. i became a student activist. i studied the civil rights movement. i changed my major from bio chemistry to government. i wanted to fight for justice. the fight for justice is why i

became a public interest attorney. why i clerked for the nineth circuit. why i served as a criminal prosecutor. why i served to the democratic council. why i then became a civil rights attorney. the fight for justice is why i moved to san francisco because in our city, we stand up for those who are more vulnerable than we are. we right wrongs. i first came to san francisco to work for the committee for civil rights as we were challenging proposition 187. an anti-immigrant initiative that would have kicked immigrant kids out of schools and hospitals. a couple years later, i represented a number of affordable housing organizations including mission housing and i want to thank sam moss and your leadership because, at that time, there were rules in place by governor pete wilson to kick immigrant tenants out of their homes. immigrants like my parents, homes like the ones behind us.

well, for those two lawsuits, we prevailed. justice prevailed. for the last 13 years, i have been so honored to serve as a local then as a state lawmaker for san francisco. and during that entire time, the fight for justice has been front and center. i've been fighting for our collective civil rights, offering laws not just to expanded rights of housing and the rights of our immigrants, but the rights of our lgbtq community, the rights of women, the right to choose. and as your next city attorney, i look forward to furthering that right for our collective civil rights because in the wake of "me too," "black lives matter," and anti-asian hate,

we have a right. i've taken on some of the most entrenched corporate companies in america. big pharma, gun manufacturers and lead companies. wall street and big predatory profiters for schools. i'm going to fight to make sure that we are protecting workers, we are standing up for consumers and we are going to hold corporations accountable if they cross the line. as a policy maker working with our good mayor, our supervisors, our city attorney, i've worked hard to address the pressing issues of the day. whether it be getting folks to work or making sure tenants are housed after this pandemic. as your city attorney, i'm going to work with these policy members to look for ways and opportunities to use the law, to address the pressing

problems of the day. homelessness, public safety on our streets. the existential. let me just close by observation about what is happening in our country at this moment. we are living in dark days. there are rights that we have taken for granted that are literally in danger. the right to health care. the right to choose. the right to vote. but the san francisco city attorney's office has often stood up during dark days when no one thought marriage equality was possible. when donald trump targeted our sanctuary city. when mayor breed needed legal advice in how to defend san francisco from a new virus called "covid-19." and the incredible professionals at the san francisco city attorney's office have wielded legal

swords and legal shields for our city and state time after time after time and i'm looking forward to standing alongside each of them, to standing alongside the office. and standing up for san francisco and fighting for justice. thank you. [ applause ] >> and, to talk a little bit about assembly member chiu's work, i wanted to bring up sam moss who is the director of mission housing development corporation, mission housing. sam. >> thank you, mayor breed. to say it's an honor to be up here is really putting it lightly. i never thought ten years ago when i first started at mission housing we'd be here today, but it is a true honor to be up here and help david move on to the next part of his career,

but most importantly to usher in such a great person to the city of san francisco. there are a few people in the affordable housing industry's experience that have fought as hard for low-income tenants than david chiu and i don't just mean, you know, fighting hard with a tweet here and there. david really, he writes the legislation, he calls you up. he wants to know what you think. and it is rare that a politician truly believes in what they're doing that doesn't just want to write legislation for legislation's sake. david really hits the ground running and he understands. mission housing would not be where it is today without the hard work and support of david chiu both as a city supervisor, the president of the board of supervisors, as well as a city person up in sacramento and i think it's fitting we have this

event today. to have this press conference here i think it brings it all back home. so i want to thank everyone for coming and say again what an honor it is to be here. congrats. [ applause ] >> all right. there it is. the worst kept secret in san francisco is finally out. with that, are there any questions? >> city attorney herrera, where does that city wide corruption investigation stand and how do you pass it on? >> let me just say, first of all, you are correct that we've been working diligently over the course of the last year and a half both the controller's office and the law enforcement agencies to make sure that our departments live up to the highest ethical standards. and we have over the course of

that time rolled out numerous recommendations, actions, which demonstrate how seriously our office and the controller's office take our investigation. while i will not comment on the specifics of any investigation, as i've said all along, our investigations continue and irrespective of whether i'm in that office or not, they will continue because these type of investigations are made up not necessarily of the folks at the top. we have some of the most dedicated legal professionals anywhere, veterans u.s. attorneys offices and other agencies that are committed to this work and will guide, advise assembly member chiu as the investigations continue and they will continue and they'll go where they are and the next city attorney will make his

decisions and his recommendations in the actions he chooses to bring and he'll continue to advise mayor breed about the best way to ensure we're living up to the truest and highest ethical ideals. that will not slow down and it will continue. >> thank you. and i'll just add that some of the investigation that the city attorney and controller's office has done for various city agencies have led to a number of recommendations which i immediately through an executive directive implemented certain directives like the department of building inspection and the department of public works, so i will continue to do what is necessary to get our city on track and to restore public trust after a very challenging time for our city and this is why in making decisions about who is running these various agencies that were, of course, of concern from the public.

that's why it's so important to have people like our city attorney at the helm of the public utilities commission as well as other agencies and making those decisions, you can be assured that these public servants like david chiu and like dennis herrera have their own established reputations and will be extraordinary leaders in helping make these decisions in these various conditions. all right. no more questions. easy crowd, huh. all right. thank you everyone. [ applause ] are going to spea

>> hi everybody, i'm the general manager of your san francisco recreation and parks department. i'm thrilled to be here with all of you and our honored guests. we have our mayor, our assembly men, supervisor mandelman, our new assessor, our commissioners. to all of the honored and elected guests, we have a ribbon

cutting for all of you today that is right up your alley. this is actually the ninth ribbon cutting of let's play sf. this happened -- let's play sf, none of us remember where we were in 2012 but if you were a voter here, you passed a parks bond in 2012 that allowed a community of your peers including some of our representatives i'll introduce in a second, to identify the most needy playgrounds around the city for public and private investment. we're also joined today by drew becker, the ceo of san francisco park alliance, the recreation parks department and our commissioners and elected family here have worked together to make sure each of the 13 most deserving playgrounds is funded and neighborhoods are

revitalized through a combination of play, creativity, of connectivity and if you look at this space, you can see the potential of this project. this project is also the beneficiary of the open space acquisition fund that goes back to the 70s. the city was smart enough -- this used to be a rail line, many who live in the community know this. look what we have been able to do with it. it's really quite special. this particular 1.7 million renovation includes something that is near and dear to my heart and to the hearts of so many children in san francisco, a nature play area. part of our san francisco children and nature initiative. to give every child in san francisco a nature-based experience every day. it is little projects like this that really make the difference. so i'm really thrilled with

that. we also have a lot of ada accessibility features in this project so we can all get out and enjoy our parks and play. we even have green space on that end of the alley for dog walking and exercise equipment and all kinds of fun stuff. this project was a mix of funding services from the let's play initiative and we also have funding from the 2012 community opportunity fund and some will speak to that in a second. let me just say a few thanks and then turn it over to our mayor. first to all of you for being patient. these projects take time. it seems 2012 was a really, really long time ago but in playground time, it was like a blink of the eye. special thanks to dave who leads the jury commoners. i believe dave is speaking in a

bit who wrote the application and dr. michael lindsay, i don't think dr. lindsay could be here today, but the school was very involved in the cof application and design and certainly they're going to enjoy the space. quick shout outs to our partners. the san francisco parks alliance, we wouldn't be able to do these projects without the caring, generous support of the parks alliance. the san francisco children and nature network, our city family from public works. there are several here. thank you dpw, you guys are awesome. i see rachel gordon in the background i think. and everybody has a mask on. i shouldn't be calling out people by faces because i can't see them. again to our commission. to the parks recreation advisory

committee, the committee of citizens that works with us to help develop these projects. i know karen and steven are here. thank you for your presence. to my own staff for their hard work. lisa is here, she has been the captain of let's play sf. i see nick here, thank you nick. michelle who leads an amazing crew. james, robert, i know i'm going to forget somebody. these are the people who so lovelily and talently care for the space. our commission president likes to say victory has many parents and this is another victory with many, many, many parents. thank you to the entire team of people who have worked on this.

in the interest of time, i'm going to turn it over to our mayor. mayor breed. (applause) >> thank you. we want to just extend heartfelt thank you to the people of this community, especially. it was your work, your advocacy that made it possible. people ask me in the last year and a half, isn't it hard being a mayor. we just went through a global pandemic. it has been tough. yes, it has been tough but being here today makes it worth it every day. i'm here with community. i'm here with people who care about san francisco. and who want to create these amazing opportunities for our children, for our neighbors. that's what this city is about. the same thing happened when the pandemic first hit our city. we all came together like never before and yes, we are one of the densest cities in the country, which is why creating spaces like this are so

important, but we also saw despite a global pandemic, we saw one of the lowest death rates anywhere in the country and seeing the highest vaccination rates anywhere in the country. so -- (applause) we should be proud. but i'm not surprised. it's what we do best. when an opportunity presents itself, we don't see just a problem. we see a solution. jury commons is a solution for the community. it created an old rail yard, a place that this community knew about for many, many years and used for many, many years but had a vision to make it into something that can be extraordinary and that's what you created. all the greenery, all the plants, all the play structures and yes, the advocacy it took to get it done. reaching out to apply for fund ing with the city. you know how difficult the city can be and how difficult it can

be to get funding from the city as well. i want to thank the parks alliance stepping in with the last bit of cash to get it over the finish line. it takes a village to make incredible things happen in san francisco and the village of jury commons has been instrumental in making this happen for the community around us and the entire city. this is an amazing accomplishment, one we should be proud of and one to take us to the next level for economic recovery. we know during the pandemic, our parks were everything for us. our open space and parks, they brought us closer together. i don't know about you, but i didn't know a lot of my neighbors. during this pandemic, going outside, meeting folks, walking around, going to parks, you get to know people you never knew lived in your neighborhood. that's what this jury commons

will continue. as we begin to open and recover and go back to our lives the way we knew it once before, this will still serve as an important gathering place for this community to make sure that our kids, our neighbors, we continue to know one another, support one another and get through any challenge that comes our way. thank you for being here today. (applause) i'm like to introduce assembly member chui. (applause) >> thank you madam mayor, particularly for your leadership during these times. i'm a former musician and i usually don't verbalize the songs in my head but i have to at this moment. the song going through my head is the one that starts with

"it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood". i'm going to stop there. it truly is a beautiful day here in this very spot. the mayor has thanked so many folks from her perspective as our incredible leader of our city. i'm going to thank so many of you as a parent. as someone who has a ritual with my 5-year-old son every weekend of trying to find a new park to play in. and what you have created here is not only going to be the destination this coming weekend, you have given not just kids a slide to slide on, adults something to play on, but just another place for us to bring community together. when i'm in sacramento, my colleagues ask me, hey, you represent san francisco, san francisco seems to have a lot. why are you such a park advocate. i explain to folks that in our amazing city, seven years ago

when i was first elected to the legislature, i would tell folks in chinatown, you have immigrant kids kicking soccer balls on top of housing projects and in the mission, you have latino immigrant kids kicking soccer balls down alley ways and a few miles away, the bayview, african american kids from time to time kicking balls on top of formerly toxic contaminated sites. this is why we do the work we do. we need to make sure our next generation of kids have the opportunities that every child should. the opportunity to play, to thrive, to learn how to be in community with each other, to grow strong and to grow to become the next mayor of this city. i just want to thank all of you who are part of this amazing community. this village, whether from the public sector and from rec and park and with the commission,

whether you work with rec and park, from the private sector helping to construct the spot. whether you're from the nonprofit with your vision, it takes all of you coming together. in particular, i want to ask, how many are jury commoners? raise your hand. you guys are the ones who really made it happen. let's give it up for them. thank you so very much. with that, it is my honor to introduce someone who represents this section of the mission, my good friend supervisor mandelman. (applause) >> thank you. there are a lot of politicians to speak today. i will try to be brief. i do want to say three big thank you's. first to jury commoners and the neighbors. this was a project that came out of the community. i think i remember back several years folks in the neighborhood, dave and others were taking care

of this park even in its prior iteration. the vision for what this park could become came out of the community, grant applications were done by community. even until the very end in figuring out that this park needed garbage cans god damn it. the neighbors stepped forward and e-mailed us and we forwarded e-mails to rec park and they figured out we need garbage cans. tremendous thanks. and to rec and park for both providing joy during the pandemic for finding ways to keep us safe, i remember phil put in the dots around in delores park in early days thinking about social distancing and delivering a service i think people love, constantly our controller studies show people love our parks and grateful for the management they are getting and they really love it when we

have beautiful new or renewed parks like this. and to the parks alliance, drew and the alliance, thank you for your partnership with rec park and the work you do in district 8. we were doing a movie night which was fantastic and lovely and delightful. but the mayor and i were out for a ribbon cutting for christopher park opening, there's a lot of great work happening through the partnership. as a neighbor, i live like a block away. and very grateful to have this as a supervisor, i'm grateful for it. speaking of people who helped get us through the pandemic, the former head of the office of economic and work force development and now our assessor controller. >> thank you supervisor. it is a pleasure to be with

everyone today, especially when you step away from the evaluations you have to do being your assessor-recorder here in san francisco but most importantly, i wanted to say thank you to dave, to mary for your leadership in making this happen. ensuring we could get the work done and investments in place. i know how important it is to wake up in the morning and know you have greenfield equipment to do exercise on and i'm happy to see you here in jury commons and to the department of recreation and parks and all of the work you do to make sure the spaces are open, healthy and safe for our communities across the city. whether here, at jury commons, in delores park or all throughout special places, nooks and allies to enjoy each other, breathe fresh air, be safe and be in community, i'm so grateful to all of you and the parks alliance doing this in so many

places around our city. it is needed for all of us of every age. and i'm grateful for drew becker and continued work he does to make this happen. with that, drew becker. (applause) >> thanks. i want to bottle that. thank you so much. really appreciate it. so happy to be here today in this amazing new space created by the neighbors for the neighbors and for this great community. this is part of our partnership with rec and park the let's play sf initiative. basically it's crowd sourcing for playgrounds that will impact about 20,000 children when they're all open in a few short years. we have raised over $12 million for 13 playgrounds throughout the city. i want to thank the board and donors for making that happen. we are lucky to live in san francisco that prioritizes parks. in the past year and a half, we

have realized how important they are to our life, specifically playgrounds. if you remember back in the day, a year and a half ago when playgrounds were closed. there was the outpouring of support to open our playgrounds and i think it reached the state house actually. it was amazing to see. it's really the community like you is what changes that. you change this space with that as well. the san francisco parks alliance is a proud to support the rec and park department and happy to support all of the amazing things it does. it is by no big issue that the rec and park department is one of the best in the city and county of san francisco. people love rec and park department and under the leadership of phil, thank you so

much to him and what he has done for the department. phil, thank you. (applause) investments like this are the reason why -- this is amazing, timeout magazine called san francisco the number one city to live in in the world because of great spaces like this all over the city. you're within a 10 minute walk of all public spaces. new playgrounds and parks and allies that have come alive. that's the san francisco we know and we're proud of. i'm proud to be a part of it and the parks alliance is a part of it and the rec and park department is part of it and proud to be working for a great mayor like london breed making sure her dream is reality. i want to give a shout out to the capital team. (applause) it's under new leadership. stacy, congratulations on that. and then tara and alex, great

job on all the work you do. sarah and suzanna and team, thank you so much. we appreciate being a part of it. (applause) >> thank you. >> i live around the corner on san jose avenue. (applause) i've led the jury commoners as we call ourselves since 2009 which literally means i buy the coffee. i'll stay on the thanks train or describe more parts of the thanks elephant. number one, laura who couldn't be here, who started the jury commoners in about 2004. and started the organization that led to the work that led to us all being here. number two, in i think 2014,

eric anderson, the park services manager of this area at the time got me to write a grant for the community opportunity fund, which was unsuccessful. a couple years later, mary who is right there in the purple mask wrote the grant that succeeded and that's why we're here today. (applause) super thank you to mary. and then number three, i want to thank smart folks at rec and parks, i don't think i fully know how it works but assembled with a community opportunity fund grant money from the let's play initiative and it turned into a more substantial project and that's why the whole park is in great shape now. so what that got us, i want to point out a couple of things i'm personally super happy about.

anyone who lived in the area used the old park remembers what it was like. the paths were the crater of the moon, you couldn't get through here even with wheels. it is all great now for everybody to get through here and use the whole park. and number two, a new irrigation system, the things we plant will stay alive for a little while. (applause) as a volunteer, i'm super happy about that. one more thing. if -- for everyone who is here and interested, this is not an end, this is the beginning of the next step. for everyone here interested helping keep this park in lovely shape it is in today, find me before i go or google meet up jury commoners and you'll find us. join the group and we'll start coming and cleaning up and keeping it in good shape. thank you.

(applause) i don't know who's next. >> now to the business of this thing and cut a ribbon. >> okay. are we ready? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. (applause) ♪♪♪

>> we broke ground in december of last year. we broke ground the day after sandy hook connecticut and had a moment of silence here. it's really great to see the silence that we experienced then and we've experienced over the years in this playground is now filled with these voices. >> 321, okay. [ applause ] >> the park was kind of bleak. it was scary and over grown. we started to help maclaren park when we found there wasn't any money in the bond for this park maclaren. we spent time for funding. it

was expensive to raise money for this and there were a lot of delays. a lot of it was just the mural, the sprinklers and we didn't have any grass. it was that bad. we worked on sprinkler heads and grass and we fixed everything. we worked hard collecting everything. we had about 400 group members. every a little bit helped and now the park is busy all week. there is people with kids using the park and using strollers and now it's safer by utilizing it. >> maclaren park being the largest second park one of the best kept secrets. what's exciting about this activation in particular is that it's the first of many. it's also representation of our city coming together but not only on the bureaucratic side of

things. but also our neighbors, neighbors helped this happen. we are thrilled that today we are seeing the fruition of all that work in this city's open space. >> when we got involved with this park there was a broken swing set and half of -- for me, one thing i really like to point out to other groups is that when you are competing for funding in a hole on the ground, you need to articulate what you need for your park. i always point as this sight as a model for other communities. >> i hope we continue to work on the other empty pits that are here. there are still a lot of areas that need help at maclaren park. we hope grants and money will be available

to continue to improve this park to make it shine. it's a really hidden jewel. a lot of people don't know it's here. >> we have private and public gardens throughout the garden tour. all of the gardens are volunteers. the only requirement is you're willing to show your garden for a day. so we have gardens that vary

from all stages of development and all gardens, family gardens, private gardens, some of them as small as postage stamps and others pretty expansive. it's a variety -- all of the world is represented in our gardens here in the portola. >> i have been coming to the portola garden tour for the past seven or eight years ever since i learned about it because it is the most important event of the neighborhood, and the reason it is so important is because it links this neighborhood back to its history. in the early 1800s the portola was farmland. the region's flowers were grown in this neighborhood. if you wanted flowers anywhere future bay area, you would come

to this area to get them. in the past decade, the area has tried to reclaim its roots as the garden district. one of the ways it has done that is through the portola garden tour, where neighbors open their gardens open their gardens to people of san francisco so they can share that history. >> when i started meeting with the neighbors and seeing their gardens, i came up with this idea that it would be a great idea to fundraise. we started doing this as a fund-raiser. since we established it, we awarded 23 scholarships and six work projects for the students. >> the scholarship programs that we have developed in association with the portola is just a win-win-win situation all around.

>> the scholarship program is important because it helps people to be able to tin in their situation and afford to take classes. >> i was not sure how i would stay in san francisco. it is so expensive here. i prayed so i would receive enough so i could stay in san francisco and finish my school, which is fantastic, because i don't know where else i would have gone to finish. >> the scholarships make the difference between students being able to stay here in the city and take classes and having to go somewhere else. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] >> you come into someone's home and it's they're private and personal space. it's all about them and really their garden and in the city and urban environment, the garden is the extension of their indoor environment, their outdoor

living room. >> why are you here at this garden core? it's amazing and i volunteer here every year. this is fantastic. it's a beautiful day. you walk around and look at gardens. you meet people that love gardens. it's fantastic. >> the portola garden tour is the last saturday in september every year. mark your calendars every year. you can see us on the website

good morning. this meeting will come to order and welcome to the september oversight chair. . . >> >> and supervisorings ralph. >> supervisor mandelman: . i also want to thank and jason from sfgov tv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. thank you, mr. chair. the meeting members will participate in this meeting as if they were in their committee room. the board recognizes that public access is essential and invites public participation in the following w