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tv   Police Commission  SFGTV  October 13, 2021 5:30pm-8:00pm PDT

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>> it's 5:43 p.m. and attending the regularly scheduled san francisco police commission and thank you for joining us today. we have a light agenda today so let's go ahead and get started. i want to recognize commissioner vice commissioner elias and commissioner hamasaki and we have chief william scott and director paul henderson. looks like we have a full house. excited to be here.
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i want to thank sf gov tv. okay. with that said, let's go ahead and get started. call roll. >> commissioner hamasaki. >> here. >> commissioner yee. >> here. >> clerk: commissioner byrne. >> here. >> vice president elias. >> here. >> have you a quorum. also here tonight we have chief william scott and director paul henderson from the department of police accountability. >> thank you very much. please call the first item. >> line item 1, general public comment. at this time the public is welcome to address the commission up two minutes for items that do not appear on the agenda but within the jurisdiction of the police commission. under the rules of order either police or personnel nor
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commissioners are required to spond to questions by the public but may provide a response. opportunities to speak are available by calling 1-415-655-0001 and entering access code 2484-141-1745 press pound and pound again. press star 3 if you wish to make a comment. you may make public comment by e-mailing the police secretary or written comments via u.s. postal service. if you'd like to make public comment at this time please press star 3. >> all right. let's start with the pledge of allegiance. join me in putting your hand over your hart.
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pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [audio digitizing] and impact which impacts my speech. the d.a.s office has asked for
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review and you should review the conflict of interest policy. on page 4 of 5 you'll find d maintaining the conflict and keeps a list of the attorney's prior client and should be update. the ciu maintains the names and cases. this information could avoid situations similar to when when he could have accidentally called a former client after a search warrant. sometimes the best advocates is when a defense is needed. that's the end of public comment. >> commissioner: police call next item. >> item 2.
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>> motion to accept. >> is there a second to the motion? >> second. >> the motion has been made by commissioner elias seconded by commissioner hamasaki. before we take up the matter let's take public comment. >> members of the public that would like to make public comment regarding line item 2 regarding adoption of the minutes press star 3 now. >> there's no public comment. on the motion to accept the minutes how do you vote. mr. hak -- hamasaki is yes. commissioner byrne is yes. vice president elias is yes. and president cohen is yes. have you five yeses.
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>> thank you. next item, please. >> line item 3 discussion. provide significant incident and planned activities and events including a brief overview of any unplanned activities or events occurring in san francisco having an impact on public safety. discussion the chief described will be limited to determining whether to calendar for a future meeting. >> thank you, good evening, president cohen and vice president elias and directors and the public. i'm going to go a little bit out of order with my report this week. i'm going start off with the vaccination mandate information. i know that's something we have a lot of inquiies about. as of right now, the latest is we have 118 sworn employee who's
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are not vaccinated. we are 61 vaccinated and there's 17 other employee who's updated their information but there were errors but had to correct information to determine the status. we have another 10 whose vaccination records have not been entered yet and all employees on some type of approved leave. in terms of the vaccination rate roughly 90% vaccination rate of our 2,100 sworn members and the 69 have taken at least one dose as they complete the vaccination we'll be about 92.5% of the sworn members vaccinated. in term of our professional staff or non-sworn, we have 31
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employees or members not vaccinated and 11 who are partially vaccinate and 16 who have to correct the information uploaded and we believe those employees have been vaccinated but need to correct their information and those for those information records have not been entered are mainly employees on some type of approved leave. the process moving forward as of midnight the numbers have been fluctuating with some uploading status and some getting the first dose. the deadline is midnight tonight at that time any employee not n able to work the field. be plac administrative leave.
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an opportunity for due process hearing and eventually if everything continues with the due process hearings result as they are now, if we find the employee is not complying with the health order and department directives they'll be sent to the police commission for a non-disciplinary hearing for release from employment. that's where we stand right now. the numbers are changing. the employees have until midnight to update the vaccination status and tomorrow we'll have a full picture of where we stand with what i shared with you. that's the process and where we stand and we'll see what happens from here. switching to statistics and crime statistics. homicide we're still at an
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incline and 39 last year and we have a 13% increase. the majority those homicides are arms related. and i'll get to that in terms of race and sexual assault we're at a decrease compared to 173 last year and robberies were down 5%, 1,782 compared to 1,827 last year and assaults we're up. human trafficking we're up 30% which is 26 year to date compared to 20 at this time last year. crimes 3% increase, 3, 382 compared to 3,274 last year. and i'll start with the bad news our larceny and thefts are
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continuing to increase. we have an increase last week. we have 21,872 larceny thefts including car break-ins and store theft and grand theft and that's compared to 20,254 last year. in terms of burglaries and motor vehicle thefts we are in the negative. burglary better news than a short time ago. we show a percentage point decrease 5,682 burglaries year to date compared to 5,714 last year and motor vehicle deaths decreased to 4, 481 year to date and 5,020 last year which is inconsistent with the national trend. our arson up 9%, 269 year to
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date compared to 246 the years. in terms of our auto burglaries themselves we're up 26% compared to last year from when we look at 2019 comparison year to date we're down 26% when we look at 2018, year to date comparison we're down 29%. and in terms of our gun violence we have aggregated assault, a 23% increase from this point last year. we look at other assaults. personal bodily weapons, etcetera we're up 19% for those types of assaults 525 compared to 442 and assault with knives or cutting instruments we're
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down 14% year to date, 213 compared to 249. other dangerous weapons we're up 8%. 834 compared to 773. our arm related gun violence shows a significant increase which the good news is the pace has slowed over the year. the course of this year but we're still significantly above where we were this time last year. we have 172 victims of gun violence compared to 114 year to date this time last year. in terms of our homicides as i mentioned the majority of our 43 homicides are gun related and fire related. in terms of our shooting victims, there are 119 non-fatal shoot compared to 91 which say
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53% point increase. the stations the most impacted by our uptake in shooting gun related violence are tenderloin, mission and bay view. tenderloin is the largest increase, 34 year to date compared to 18 incidents followed by mission 28 year to date incidents compared to 13 this time last year and bay view, 46 compared to 40. central is even and richmond is actually below where they were this time last year. they have zero this year and had one last year and southern is up from 3 to 8 this year. homicide by district. bay view district has 12 which is the highest of the 10 district stations. tenderloin has 9, mission has 8, northern has 6 and park has 3
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and southern has 5, year to date. with the exception of the tenderloin they're were that were last year but tenderloin is down by one this from this time last year. we are at 115 year to date and again at the pace we're going we'll probably eclipse the number of 164. we had significant impactful arrests this week involving some. there was a homicide suspect who committed a homicide outside of san francisco but related in a gun related incident in san francisco and was arrest our community violence reduction team in the east bay.
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as many as six firearms were recovered with a subsequent search warrant including an assault rifle and we do believe that individual was involved in some of our gun violence and good investigation and search warrant in terms of getting the weapons off the street. in talk about hate crimes where we are year to date. we've had 99 hate crimes year to date. anti-asian crimes lead with 56 of the 99. of those it's important to note that 30 were committed by one individual. that individual was arrested and those charges were filed by the district attorney's office which by last check that person's still in custody. six were anti-latino, seven were antiish -- anti-jewish and one
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was anti-muslim and 11 of the 99 were anti-gay. we still are our community liaison units to assist those people and their families who have been involved in hate crimes. they have assisted with year to date over 150 including the 99 hate crimes but other significant crimes as well so that's been a great resource to assist the families in need after they suffered either a hate crime or other type of serious crime. in terms of significant incident there's one homicide to report for this week. the data and the incident happened on october 8. the death was declared on october 9 our medical examiner office and they responded to a call in the area of 25th street and south van ness avenue for a
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report of an aggravated assault by means of a fire and the paramedics treated a victim and he said he was asleep in his sleeping bag on the street when he awoke to the sleeping bag being set on fire. the victim sustain burns and was transported to a local hospital for treatment. saturday october 9 the victim succumbed to his injury varlt as a result of the incident and the homicide investigators are investigating and we are asking for the public's assistance on this particular incident. this is a heinous crime. if anyone has information call 415-575-4444. you can remain anonymous but we
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need it the public's help. there were also two shooting incidents. one october 6 at 11:00 a.m. in the bay view at watchman and missouri. our officers responded to the hospital regarding a stabbing weapon a male 51 years old. it was later determined from the medical personnel this was a shooting not a stabbing. the victim did not provide any helpful information to officers but the officers were able to locate a crime scene and found video footage depicting that incident and that is being reviewed. a few moments later a subject believed to be involved was seen -- when the video was reviewed, the subject that was believed to be involved was seen returning to the scene of the incident and collapsed at the rear of a vehicle. that appeared to be the same
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victim who we visited at the hospital and that person was transported by private party to the hospital so we are looking for witnesses. there were people that were in the area that we believe have information so again if anyone has any information call 415-575-4444. the next one was october 10 at 2:42 p.m. on 1200 block of treat in the mission district. victim a male 36 years old as garfield park when she was approached by an unknown person who pointed a gun at him and fired the gun once. the victim walked to 25th and treat and asked a bystander to call an ambulance and went unconscious but before going unconscious was able to provide the first name of the believed
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to be suspect and we have some information to follow up on but if the public has information call 575-444, 415 area code. we had a shooting that occurred today outside of our reporting period but i'll report on it and hopefully we'll have more to report next week at the next week commission's meeting. this morning at or last night at 8:37 p.m. a shooting occurred in the central district when our officers arrived on the scene they located two victims with gunshot wounds and learned a third victim had been self-transported to the hospital. all three victims had non-life-threatening injuries and there was a video that was recovered that depicted the incident and showed basically
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what led up to the shooting. our investigators have arrested two individuals from this incident and have been booked for the shooting. this investigation still has more work to be done. three more incidents to report. we had a series of bank robberies in the last couple weeks. we made an arrest on those bank robberies. there was one on october 4 at 10:20 at 1801 van ness a citibank. our subject entered and presented a note and threatened to shoot the teller and the video resulted in a possible lank to another bank robbery that occurred october 1. no arrests was made that day but our investigators were able to actually follow-up on leads and
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made an arrest of this individual. he was arrested living on the streets in a tent and was arrested at his tent and the search warrant was also conducted which resulted in recovery of evidence is good work. and two subjecs broke into a parked vehicle. the victim gave chase to the subjects and one subject pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the victim and escaped after the victim backed off after he saw a firearm was in possession of our suspect. the victim lost over $50,000 of camera equipment and that investigation is ongoing. we don't have arrests and can use the public's help on that
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one and there was one other assault at the 2500 block of mason in the central district on october 7 at 11:00 a.m. our victim 52-year-old hotel security guard had ejected the suspect out of a lobby for smoking drugs and causing a scene at this location. the subject then hit the victim two or three times and the victim fell to the ground and the subject repeatedly kicked him in the face. video was locate responding officers and investigators and that investigation is ongoing. we hope to make an arrest on that particular case as well there were no stunt driving events over the weekend which is great given this was a holiday weekend and we usually have these types of events over the holiday weekends. there was a follow up from a
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previous stunt driving or side show incident where officers get a follow up investigation in the city of pittsburgh and see the vehicle from a side show or stunt driving event that took place september 18. that car was impounded and seized and has been placed on a 30-day hold adds per the ordinance passed by the board of supervisors. again, i just wanted to remind people involved in these incidents we continue to investigate even when we break these incidents up and follow up on evidence and if we can prove a vehicle was involved in these incidents in a reckless manner that is against the law we'll follow-up and seize it under the law if the law allows for that and just because you might get away with it that night does not mean you may have gotten away from it and a want to congratulate and thank our investigators and officers that are part of our stunt driving response team because they are doing hard work to try to make
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this situation better in our city. our strategies will continue in the tenderloin which include high visibility presence and fixed post from marking to levenworth and our activity has been occurring and increased deployment because we were having shooting incidents and narcotics dealings throughout the night. and we are continuing our narcotics in the tenderloin area. there was a significant arrest by an individual who we investigated and this person has been involved in some of the gun violence in the area. he has been very active in the area with violent crime and other things against the law. that person was arrested and
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that was a nice job to slow down violence in the last couple months in the tenderloin. in the bay view we're focussing on deterring robberies and have ongoing abatement for those issues and enforcement an addition to our foot patrol including our captain who spends time walking almost every day on foot. hats off to him for doing that and having his foot beat officers and in the mission we increased our visibility during the playoff series between giants and dodgers. we have fixed post officers during the flea market driven by community complaints about some
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activities there and we have recently upped our castro and market deployment in the upper market area and castro and also additional officers on valencia street thursday to sunday night. we have a unit in that area. again, the giants will be playing this saturday. we expect that to be a capacity crowd. game five and we have officers inside and outside the event and chase has events on the 20th and the warriors are taking on the portland trailblazers on the 15th, two days from now and on the 21st they play the los angeles clippers at chase center.
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no domestic terrorism or news to report and that is it for my report. thank you for the extra time, president cohen and if you have any questions, i'd be happy to answer them. >> i do have a question. thank you for addressing the home side of the homeless man that occurred last friday morning. often times we tend to focus on the problem facing the homeless population but this could be a good opportunity maybe you could share with us your strategy or what you're doing to help promote homeless safety. >> this homicide's particularly alarming. there's a couple things. because of our deployment shortages we have not been able to do as much as work with the team as we would like and our role with that has not been enforcement at all. it's been supporting and standing by while service providers try to address the needs of our unhoused members of
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our city. we've had to shift some of that work to our district stations there are officers trained in that area and it does take training. we have better outcomes when officers are trained on number one, what we need in terms of collaboration with other city departments and the other thing is we're there to help. that's what the plan is. we've had to shift some of that work load to our district station and have officers trained to address the issue and will continue to do that. hopefully it's not a trend with this homicide. it's happened in a couple southern california cities years ago where they had a number of these type of assaults on unhoused individuals. we want to not have that happen in our city.
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>> all right. also in your report human trafficking is up 30% compared to last year. i'm unclear how you quantify human trafficking. how do you wouldn't the cases. and if it's involving the sex industry or labor trafficking that's when we include it in our statistics. there's an element of street activity that goes unreported. that it's not included in our statistics unless there's some type of reportable incident that arises from that. that could be sexual or labor
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trafficking. we don't get a lot of labor trafficking but do occasionally. >> that's all i have. thank you. do any of you have questions? john hamasaki. >> thank you, president cohen. good evening, chief. >> we had this problem last week and we have it again. we can't hear you. >> can you hear me now? >> we can barely hear you. >> i'll get my external mic next time. can you hear me, chief? >> i can hear you. >> regarding the unhoused individual, were there no witnesses to that? was nobody around or -- what are we working with?
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>> we have located some evidence video evidence and trying to identify people from that. that's helpful. we have not identified any witnesses yet but there are leads that we are following up on so hopefully we can make headway with that case. >> i recall eight of concerns and i think there's a policy discussion by the police commission but one of the challenges with break up the encampments is that people stick together for safety and when people are alone they're more vulnerable to acts like this. i don't know what the answer is but these are things the people deciding these things should consider. i'm happy to hear the earlier reports on the vaccination status.
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>> the total i'll break it down again and professional staff and not sworn, 118 sworn and 31 professional staff. they've gotten at least one of the doses. >> some people are taking this appropriately seriously. i think people who have not been vaccinated, are they being offered mental health or medical counselling because it just seems irrational at this point to -- are they being counselled about this? i hate to see people just lose
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their jobs. >> that's a great question and thanks for asking. our behavioral science and services unit has been very busy. this was before this came up. it's been a stressful year with covid and everything going on in our city and world. they've been very busy. those services have been offered. and we have our members where they can access mental health services through the app and get to are in contact with a trained physician if they prefer that way. >> are they given the opportunity to talk to somebody to help explain vaccinations? >> yes, sir, absolutely. we have a department physician
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doctor. she's been great and has been accessible. she's reached out and gone to meetings with our members and department town hall and she was available for questions and doctors from the department of public health have also been available. those physicians have been available to help answer questions and will remain available. >> sounds like the department is doing all it can to keep people informed and aware. great. thank you, chief. >> thank you. >> vice president elias. >> welcome back. >> hi, vice president elias. thank you.
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>> quick question. you mention the deployment shortages and the fact we may be losing 118 officers and i'm surprised we're still doing buy busts. are these special enforcements going to continue to happen given the fact we have deployment shortages and program have awards like the cmcr training now on hold because officers had to be deployed to other areas to cover the shortages because the buy bus operations take seven to eight officers at a time. i'm wondering how that works when we have deployment shortages in the department. >> thank you, again, good question on that. one of the plans we have in place we start the first phase
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of redeployment two saturdays ago and 31 officers were reassigned back to patrol assignment. once we have a final count after midnight tonight tomorrow we'll know what the numbers look like and have plans to reassign officers and some of our specialized units. narcotics is on that list and the other thing with that is we do still have significant challenges as we talked about in the tenderloin with narcotic sales and there's multiple ways to address that. issue and we'll have to make some disappointment adjustments if we do end up losing that many officers and some specialized units maybe will temporarily shut down until we get our deployment back up. we have a list of specialized
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units that are on that category and have some not in the category such as marine units and protection of infrastructure and all that. no one else can do the work we do. it would be effective to see how the programs are and how they yield. if they've been happening the past decade and we're still not solving the problem in the tenderloin we need to reassess what we're doing and figuring out if we should funnel resources to different
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strategies or programs. we can talk further about it. we're open to anything. we want to be effective than what we do. we want to make sure our resources are being used in the best way. definitely we have to address the issue in multiple ways and have to look at what the costs are versus the benefits. we're open to that. >> i appreciate it.
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>> there are two lieu ten and thes on the list. -- lieutenants on the list. >> no captains or a bof? >> no. >> thank you. >> we'll continue with the presentation the director of the department of police accountability. >> members of the public that would like to make public comment regarding line item 3 the police report press star 3 now. good evening, caller have you two minutes. hello. you have two minutes. >> i'm john jones and i'd like to give a shout out.
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there's evidence to the medically untrained person indicated the vaccine is an extremely risky proposition. though i'm not medically trained i'm not in the position to make recommendations for anybody else. i won't take the vaccine. thank you very much. >> good evening, i'm calling regarding my son murdered and still this case is an unsolved homicide and there's 44 more homicides and i just left a funeral yesterday add dugan and a few others gunshot victims and
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dealing with the mothers there. i'm just wondering what else do we do about trying to to solve these unsolved homicide. can we put the digital information at the other precincts and find a way to get them other places like this cleared channel and dmv, motor vehicles so the perpetrators can see the victims. the perpetrators of my son are still running the streets living as if nothing happens and we talk about homicides and how many a year but the families, what about the me and the families suffering in silence? i hear nothing being said about them or anything. i guess because i call in that's the only way i can get anything said is to call in.
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but half those other mothers can't do it and they're suffering. what do we do. what happens to the families that are suffering? i'm still suffering? i'm still going through it. i wait every week for this police commission to come on to bring up my son's name so at least that's the only way i'm remembering him right now. i'm remembering him but that's the only way i can get something said that feels like i'm doing something. i'm hoping there's another way we can find a way to get the justice system to find out how to solve these. >> thank you, caller. members of the public who have any information about the thirder call the tipline at 415-575-4444. president colen, that's the end of public comment.
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>> thank you. let's hear the director. >> line item 4, - report on recent dpa activities, and announcements (dpa's report will be limited to a brief description of dpa activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for a future commission meeting. >> we're currently at 642 case have been opened and so far this year we closed 704 cases. we have currently 377 cases that are pending and open and sustained 44 cases. this time last year we sustained 39 cases. we have 29 cases who's investigations have gone beyond a nine-month review and we have 31 cases that have been mediated so far this year. of the 29 cases that we have
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with ongoing investigations, 18 of those case cold cases and there are pending criminal and/or civil litigation with those cases. of the retaining cases that are pending decisions, there are 14 with the police commission and 14 as well awaiting chief decisions. and waiting on vaccination with the department and after meetings and back and forth with staff around several of the unions in the organization are in compliance with the city practices meaning where everyone is at 100% currently.
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of those records today. this past week dpa took 12 cases, 14% of the cases were allegations of an officer behaving or speak in a manner unbecoming of an officer and another 14% were failing for an officer to take required action. 9% for raising issues that were outside of dpa jurisdictions and were referred to other agencies. 9% were for officers allegedly misrepresenting the truth. 9% was from an officer using excessive force. 5% for an officer arrested and individual for an allegation of an individual arresting an individual without cause and the remaining 5% was for an officer
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that failed to comply allegedly with department order 507 with the rights of an onlooker for an incident. [please stand by] . .
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and sf pd that was involved with the eviction with notice being given to them about drug use in specific neighborhoods. it involved a total of 22 allegations and an opportunity just to give you mash ups like that . for the week, the other thing that i had to report, and i think we got a little bit of foreshadowing last week when my esteemed colleague diana rosenstein said that i wanted to talk a little bit about auditing and i'm not going to do a whole report here but i want to give a full report and foreshadowing for the audit. i've included it in our weekly updates so we have regular conversation and people know what's going on and what to expect with the audience .
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that i think that's helpful especially since our audit was award-winning for the past audit. i never going to not mention that . but i wanted to tell you about the audit that's forthcoming and this is just two things i wanted to report. the audit, just so we're clear is for dg oh 8.10 which was the guideline for firstamendment activity . there are two changes i want to talk about. none of the changes would impact the information that dpa is required and will be reporting to the police commission, however we are removing some of the questions that test the police department complying with the guidelines and i want to exchange explain that some people are aware. first of all we plan on reviewing incident reports to determine if some of the investigations required media authorizations
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however upon reviewing the actual report , the information in thereport can't answer the questions they are too broad and general . so instead of providing an audit finding which you can't do based on the information that's collected we will be providing a benchmark study that shows out other jurisdictions have actually upon san francisco's policy to provide more clarity to officers about when first amendment activities are relevant to the criminal investigation . and then essentially the rules that we have to provide clear guidance as to when the first amendment rules would apply. that makes it difficult if not impossible to either compare it to other jurisdictions ordrill down if something took place or not . we can make a finding based on what's been given to us but it wouldn't make a difference and it could be compared to anything because someone else
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could come to a completely different conclusion because it's so broad in terms of that definition in the dgo itself. secondly, you understand i want to make sure you understand issues in terms of the compliance with dgo 8.10 because the video and photographic recording requirements were last revised in 2008. i'm just trying to explainto you what we're talking about and those guidelines , they actually predate the departments on option of body worn cameras so that's what makes it difficult to apply the guidelines to an actual audit in the way to managethe expectations of what we normally would get out of an audit . what we will do is you still have all of the information in the audit. we will present the risks that we calculated about the police
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department's current video technology and you'll also get potential impact onfirst amendment activities . you're still going to get a major outcome from the audit but it's going to outline what some of the challenges are. as well as recommendations. but the other thing i wanted to make clear why we're talking about it now is i did want to waive the issue and not have to feel like the audit is going to change substantially in a way that's going todelay its production . so weare keeping the same timeline . you'll still have to audit before theend of this year . and i think we are currently in its internal quality control, internal quality control review process and we expect to have the added conference with the police department when this final review is complete and
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nothing is going to change in terms of those deadlines i wanted to explain it a little bit so people understoodwhat was happening before we even get it . i think i have one other reports which is outreach work this week. and we have been working this week with the lgbtq organization, aging group and senior centers. we had presentations at all these organizations talking to broader populations, the commission of the va and sharing information about contacting our organization to file and or make complaints as requested by those agencies. again if anyone has any questions on this call is both my chief of staff diana rosenstein and senior investigator christian crystal
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and the website if people want to contact us for the website is sfgov.org /eta and you can talk to contact us on the phone at 7711. that concludes my report. >> thank youdirector henderson. i had a quick question. thank you for giving us an update on the audit . i knowthis was a long time coming and the first presentation from the audit department was good but there was still a lot of work to be done . >> award-winning. >> yes, award-winning. one question, is your audit team able to do cost-benefit analysis of the programs within the department or is that something that... >> i think i know the answer to that . i think that's a fiscal audit and those are typically done
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withthe controller's office . most of my people have come from the controller's office but i don't know if that is in their scale or in their scope. i know that my people came fro the office that did that . i don't know if the personnel that i have it it's within their jurisdiction or ability to do financial analysis like that, does that make sense that's the long answer . >> at least we threw it out there so it's something we can circle back on to see what the cost-benefitanalysis are assome of these ideas . maybe you could help out in that area . >> the message that i'm getting is saying that it's possible that itdepends on the scale . >> to know. >> if you have specific details maybe we can discuss it off-line and i'm happy tosee all we can flesh some of that out . it will probably depend on how
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deeply you want to go and what analysis. >> we will definitely circle back, thank you somuch. my fellow commissioners do you have any questions for director henderson ? okay. all right john but only if you yell because we can't hear you. >> can you hear me okay? i'm going to ordera microphone tonight . so tonight i wanted to ask for clarification from director henderson. you mentioned that there was complaints of mass violations. our officers still required while vaccinated to comply outdoors? ithought it was indoors or is it outdoors to ? >> i can take that one if director henderson doesn't min . it's mandated by the health order right now and when we're following health order guidance
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that we have to wear a mask both indoors and outdoors right now. that probably will be changing and i don't think it's changed as of today but it probably will be changing becausethis has been kind of an evolving process . >> i would maybe suggest a reminder because i thought that it had lifted. i see probably halfof the officers outdoors not wearing masks . ithought it was limited at this point . but just maybe to remind people instead of it ending up in front of dpa. >> that's a department problem that complicates it is it changes when and if someone is carried in a vehicle or if you're in one of the offices or if it's a station going into an enclosed area either for an
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interview or to take a witness statement or youare in an enclosed environment . inside of a building. it doesn't even haveto be a station . >> okay. just from what i'veseen, i don't know . if it is the rule, then i'm not seeing it widely followed. but again, it's probably something that we have to remind people. >> this may answer your question that because the complaint was made the rules will be applied to the allegation that was made, that specific incident was conforming to whatever the current rules were and are so that process was going to take place anyway just because the
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allegation was made. >> understood, thank you . >> president: sergeant youngblood, public comment? >> members of the public who would like to make apublic comment regarding item 4, plus star 3 now . vice president elias, we have no public comment. >> vicepresident: next item please. >> commission report discussion. commission reports will be limited to a brief discussion of activities and announcements . commission presidents report, commissioners report and commission announcement and schedule items are identified for consideration at afuture meeting . >>. >> vice president: i'm going to
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startasking my fellow commissioners if they have anything to report . commissioner yee, we will start with you . >> i don'thave to much to report but i want to thank the chief and all the sfpd on this wonderful weekend we had . we had a lot of things going as the italian day parade.the first in a year. it was great weather out there and also the giants are looking forward to a game five that's coming tomorrow. the warriors and also the fleet week which was a busy time for us in the city which i'm happy to report there's no major incidents that we should be alarmed about. thank you chief and sfpd. >> vice president: thankyou commissioner yee. commissioner hamasaki . >> i don't really have anything to report other than a few
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people have reached out about our discussion last week which i think we should continue to have about how the significant policy is going to bedetermined in the future . i don't know the best way to do that but i did have a couple people reach out about that . and commissioner yee noted that was wonderful. >> vice president: i think we should have a follow-up on the agenda regarding that report and some of the information or misinformation provided to us in the public so we will obviously have to again dies that. commissioner byrne.
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director henderson.>> i was talking to my daughter. >>vice president:that's okay. if you can you yourself . thank you so much . commissioner byrne. >> i spoke to president: this afternoon and i've asked president: you put on the agenda for mid-november the state of policing in the tenderloin including but not limited to the continuing of open-market drugdealing . i had spoken to the chief and had one meeting with the chief that i had indicated we would meet at his schedule in early november. and just station up the agenda item on policing in general.
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>> vice president: i think that's going to be a great discussion and perhaps you can join us in coming up with alternatives or solutions to the narcotics problem in the tenderloin and the cost-benefit analysis of the older tactics that are used to try and combat the narcotics use in that area so that will be i think the great transition into that area so thank you so much. i have nothing toreport this week . hopefully i'll have more to report next week and then president colin, i didn't know if you had something to report as well. >> i do. before we get to my part commissioner elias, how are thingsgoing with ddo report ? >> we didreceive it back from cal doj . we have their comments. at this point that apartment and dpa will be meeting to discuss the recommendations from cal doj. and then after that meeting or maybe during that meeting the
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chief and i will have a discussion about 301 so that we can get finalized. i'm hoping we can get it for november. >> she just looked up. i'mgoing to be ambitious . wewill see . >> i have faith in us. >> i think we can get by november. i really do. >> the chief and i will have it foryou in november . >> that's good to hear, i know you had something tosay. you are too modest . i wanted to report out i have attended an invitation for assemblyman reggie jones who is assemblyman down in southern california. he is chair of the public safety committee and he's asked to come and make a presentation aboutthe work that he's doing legislatively . he was one of the authors and persons helping to get sp to pass and this is a piece of
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legislation i reported on last week and the governor had signed into law and i thought it would be good to know what the public safety commission is doing that we are able to keep a watch as to what's happening across the state let alone what's happening here in our beloved city of san francisco that is more to come. sergeant youngblood i'll make a connection with you to schedule us . to make that happen and that's all i have to report on that front . thank you. >> vice president: we appreciate having legislators, and think of us as a commissio . we have the recommendations we're doing but it's important to continue that work and keep it live and relevant itch may help with your leadership and having theselegislators come speak with us . >> i appreciate that. that means a lot because i think it is important for us not to make decisions in a
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vacuum maybe being knowledgeable. another thing i've been thinking about is inviting some of the bay area poa to come and talk with us. i was thinking about reaching out to our own president of san francisco poa for the commission for their thoughts on whatever they are working on to keep therelationship and information healthy . i was interested in how poa may be open in areas of the county. john worked up a little bit. i don't know if others would be interested. >> i'd love to hear from mister montessori a. he always has interesting thoughts. >> vice president: when we were live and in person the vice president used to be at all of ourmeetings and sometimes used two of your as well, not to
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speak but to introduce himself >> because we're online and we are zooming . i believe we just need to be a little bit more thoughtful and holistic about ourapproach when we are making decisions . i know we talked to mister montoya and to take those online conversations and bring them online so they are able t witness and here with a little bit more transparency .that is an idea that i toyed with. it didn't seem tobe pretty well-received so i will continue to move in that direction . you guys have any other requests for people to come join to talk about public safety? i'm open to suggestions chief and to youdirector henderson as well . if you have suggestions onwho we should be inviting . okay, ca nine we can just think about it and two kids haj and
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jay wagner if you can tweet some suggestions onsuggested speakers, let me know. okay folks, let's keep moving forward . >> public comment, for members of the public which would make to make public comment release press star 3 now. good eveningcaller, you have 2 minutes . >> caller: my name is john jones. i'd like to suggest the commission undertake a discussion of the open air markets of items thatappear to be shoplifted . a tour of the 24th mission work plaza will reveal several individuals selling copious
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items ofmaterial which appeared to be shoplifted . we all know walgreens is regularly shutting down drug stores in san francisco and i assume other merchants are similarly afflicted . this would be something the commission to address. thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you color and that is the end of public comment . >> vice president: one more thing, i wanted to talk about an order that was in the mission. it was an article that ran october 7 and it was regarding the lack of transparency, closed doors and inaccurate announcements from the san franciscopolice department and it was an interesting conversation . i'm sure your colleagues are familiar with these press reports regarding the
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discussion from last week at the commission meeting. specifically it was regarding the operations of various working groups on the policy. and just to let me quote you a little bit of what the article said in case you are unfamiliar with what i'm talking about. it appears to be some confusion about the extent to which the public and critical stakeholdersincluding the department of police accountability are given access to discussions about revisions of policing policy . ". i want to say that i believe in transparency. it's one of my core values and something that i think i really emphasizednot only by leadership on this commission but also on the board of supervisors . for the budget process i found it would bemore transparent and fair particularly to the
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smaller nonprofit organizations . and that transparency, that openness and full disclosure i think is critical to building and maintaining public support for anypolicy decision we make . for any policy decision that is made period. it's important to involve key stakeholders in the development of policymaking and that includes dpa and poa and the sfpd and our public commenters. the lawyers that listen to these commission meetings and since 2016 we've been involved in a top to bottom examination of policing policies through our collaborative reform initiative. and there are points where i've been disheartened and there's been points where i've been
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heartened and encouraged about the consistent reports of progress. and last was in the september 15 commission meeting.we were informed that 272 collaborativ reform initiative recommendations are in substantial compliance . and or that theyare in progress . and the other tribes was external validation so substantial compliance with 87 percent , in progress was 17 percent and i think 16 percent, six percent were in external validation. and so there's been some really good robust conversations that have been happening and confidence has been building as you seek to review these policies. the involvement of the stakeholders and the public particularly is important for a lawenforcement agency , never
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mind the public trust and to build credibility. i want to say going forward i think we need to be mindful of it and take extra measures to make sure that the public confidence and the policy changes are represented in the commission. with that that means we're putting together or putting forward information that is true . that has been spellcheck. it has correct grammar and is actually sound we say we are leading we need to make sure we are leading . and i just really want to stress that we are doing what we say. so perhaps we should consider including a public agenda item entitled proposed policy which would include draft documents along with a description of the outreach. that would also address the review process that was included in the preparationof
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the policy document . this could be included in the meeting packet as well as new members, knowing there is at least some body of work that can be transferred so that incredibly knowledgeable people when they leave or retire they're not taking all that knowledge and wisdom withthem that there is a document, kind of a living breathing document that we can refer back to . this is just an idea. it's not an idea that i had an opportunity to discuss with my individual commissioners but i am putting it out there for th commission to think about , possibly review and even adopt if they deem it possible. i think that this agenda is item could help ensure that stakeholders in the public are kept in the loop and keeping
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them in the loop also with the commissioners in the loop. there was some distorted this even in the meeting went commissioners including myself but things were moving along but when you made a phone call to staff it turns out the meetings work meeting so i want to clean up our act to make sure that we're not embarrassing ourselves and that we are producing work we can continue to beproud of . i lookforward to your suggestions and again , this is just a suggestion. i won't take it personally but i'm just trying to think of ways to be proactive and to be thoughtful about how we handle and conduct our business. that's all i'm going tosay on that . i don't know ifthere's any additional thoughts or reactions . of course, director henderson . >> thank you so much. i think the stuff you just articulated is super important
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and speaks to a number of disconnects and miscommunications that have happened in the past. i've made a number of suggestions . my strong suggestion would be maybe two agenda eyes some of those suggestions or have other commissioners or the chief have suggestions about these processes to bring those forward . then we can just adopted them because i thinkthis speaks to exactly what you said . the information is silo where i'm comfortable but nobody knows where the commission is comfortable that she is comfortable and nobody knows. itdoesn't serve the public's expectation about what the process is or how we're getting things done for giving notice to what's going to be done in the future . it makes it difficult to rely on the system when there are
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dark holes where information falls into or decisions that are made evenwhen they are made correctly but we don't know how to track them or gauge either wherethey're coming from , their edits forthe decision-making process . that's hard to do. anyway, that's a long way of saying that i've made suggestions . i'd love to offer that those suggestions could be presented as an agenda item to be voted on by the council were commissioned with the other suggestions that either the department or commissioners may have. >> vice president: good idea. i heard you refer to these suggestions in your talking points and remarks but to tell you the truth i have not seen them so i would love to just read them prior to hearing about them on the commission so we can give it additional thought and be able to make those sweeps around the edges where we need to or present them as a possible agenda item and we can look at them, add them or add their own.
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>> i'd like to recognize chief scott. >> a lot of what you say i agree with and we have to do a better job. we have done good work. i think we have made some mistakes in terms of some of what we've done in terms of this work . so i do want to raise our hands.we definitely should be a part ofthis and want to be part of this . it's a bigger conversation. we have a very aggressive schedulewith our policy revisions . not just dgo's but manuals and everything else that's on the plate. the more thought we put into this the better off we are so i acknowledge that we've made some mistakes and i think we can getbetter, we have gotten
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better but we have a long way to go . as a leader of this organization and police department i take responsibility but we are committed to being open and working with anybody who wants to be part of this process and thank you for your leadership on this issue. >> vice president: thankyou for being open to this, we will continue to walk down the staff commissioner elias . >> i also ask commission staff to post the policyschedules on our 30 day correspondence agreement . there's a list of all the gg owes that and in which water they'll be addressed and worked on. i noticed the department publishes that when they present at the cri to us . to have that list constantly available is important so they know which digi owes are coming up, where they fall into the sequence in terms of the lineup so that they know they're more informed and i think that will be helpful because i am not even sure if it's on the
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department's website. for if it is, is maybe not as easily accessible but we should put it on our 30 day correspondence every month just as the public is aware that gives them more information and the ability to call in and speak on any upcoming dto or if they have others. >> all righteveryone, thank you very much . we will continue talking about this, more to come. sergeantyoungblood, could you please call the next item . actually, i think we should call the comments already ifi'm not mistaken . let's keep going. >> line item 6, discussion of possible action to authorize the chief of police to extend the grant in the amount of 24,000 $975 from the department of homeland security adult emergency management agency. we must file new automatic identification on three responses to ensure continued and operability with the us
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election systems discussion and possible action . >> chief i didn't even know we had, we engaged really with the coast guard, can you tell us more about whatwe're doing , how these systems help, are there any privacy concerns? >> we have director leon but i'll talk about the operations of our marine unit.i mentioned earlier when i was i think commissioner elias was asking about questions about how we're going to deal with openers and i mentioned some units might have tobe temporarily shut down and other units that we cannot afford to downs . the marineunit is one of them because san francisco is surrounded on three sides by water . they the bay area, there's collaboration with not only the coast guard but other departments thathave an
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interest inthe san francisco bay . there's a lot of medication that has to take part in that . we've had incidents, one that comes tomind that that was a very hot high-profile incident several years ago . 2018 is when the tunnel underneath thefreeway, the park tunnel was compromised because the barge landed on it . and that was the type of incident thatrequired major collaboration and communication with us and the us coast guard . we workedtogether on this in persons who are lost in the bay or at sea . there's also infrastructure protection. wehave the bridges , we have other things on the waterfront that our mutual interest so it's really a great collaborative partnership with the us coast guard.partners . they helped us on everything from search and rescue to some of our infrastructure concerns equipment like this also helps us do that job and is one of those jobs people don't think about until there's an issue .
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but our members work the marine unit in their day in and day out around our city. patrolling, protecting and making sure that those waters are safe as we can make them in and within our jurisdiction. wedon't have total jurisdiction but we do have some . >> you mentioned about privacy concerns. this equipment doesn't raise any privacy concern issues. there are things that we do in the bay such as radiological detection as freighters are coming in and things like that. those are the type of assignments thatare marine units are tasked with . they have some equipment to help with some searches and detection of waters and things like that but that type of equipment is not used to invade
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on anybody's civil liberties. its infrastructure type of protectionand communications equipment so we can communicate with our partners . >> thank you. any yes, commissioner byrne. >> chief, how do i put it? what service does the marine unit of the sfpd supply thatthe us coast guard doesn't ? in other words what i'm confused is is the coast guard supposed to do all this or is there an area that sfpd does that be coast guard doesn't get involved? the. >> are marine unit patrols those areas. >> and the coast guard does no . >> they do not. >> why is that? >> if i could bring some
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context to what we are requesting. >> hang on one second. let me answer the commissioners question first. there are jurisdictions as far as what's considered sfpd jurisdiction. in other cities that have jurisdiction in the day. we go out to a certain point and then it becomes coast guard. we also ... >> but the code is sfpd or coast guard? >> that is sfpd. >> in case youask so the coast guard doesn't go wandering in for home runs . >> there were some significant incidents, the mass casualty advantage . the coast guard would assist us in depending onwhat type of incident. they may have jurisdiction over it . thecruise terminals and things like that , our submarine units
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patrol those areas.as well as the fire departmentwho also has the marine unit to do what they do . i'm sorry, director leeann. >> for some clarification but we are requesting to commission to move on for the grant, the grant purchased three automati identifications . the purpose of this is to provide or communicate this issue for some fees to other marine vessels so that there's no maritime collisions that take place. we've found marine units we are responsible for state and local laws outside of the jurisdiction of the us coast guard. but with this grant, primarily
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it's to purchase equipment that has reached the end of its useful life for everything and with this grant could help support our green units to continue our waterways and check out maritime infrastructure. if there's any questions that they have i'll be more than happy to try and. >> thank you forthe context and clarification . if you have any questions for the chief or mister young. all right. let'sgo ahead and take public comment andtake a vote . you . >> sergeant youngblood. >> for members of the public that would like to make a comment regarding a line item 6 press dark green now. and president, it appears there
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is nopublic comment . >> is there a motion to direct? >> all ocean. >> motion made by commissioner byrne,seconded by commissioner elias . >> on the motion to accept the grant, commissioner how doyou vote ? >> yes. >> commissioner is yes, commissioner yee. [roll call vote] you have 5 yeses. >> vice president: that's unanimous. sergeant youngblood please call item 7. >> line item 7 public comment on all matters related to number nine below including public comment on item 8whether to holditem 9 in closed session . please press star 3 now .
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and president it appears there is nopublic comment . >> thank you very much. line item 8, line item 9 in closed session, san francisco administrative code section 57.1 euro action . >> can we take public comment on that? we don't. is there a motionfor a session ? commissioner elias, is there a second? commissioner byrne. these called role. >> on the motion commissioner how do you vote for mark. >>. [roll call vote]
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>> vice president: item passes unanimously, let's get into closed session . >>.
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♪ >> all right. >> on the motion not to disclose commissioner hamasaki how do you vote? commissioner hamasaki says yes. [roll call vote] you have 5 yeses. >> this meeting isadjourned . >> good night everybody.
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>> i view san francisco almost as a sibling or a parent or something. i just love the city. i love everything about it. when i'm away from it, i miss it like a person. i grew up in san francisco kind of all over the city. we had pretty much the run of the city 'cause we lived pretty close to polk street, and so we would -- in the summer, we'd
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all all the way down to aquatic park, and we'd walk down to the library, to the kids' center. in those days, the city was safe and nobody worried about us running around. i went to high school in spring valley. it was over the hill from chinatown. it was kind of fun to experience being in a minority, which most white people don't get to experience that often. everything was just really within walking distance, so it make it really fun. when i was a teenager, we didn't have a lot of money. we could go to sam wong's and get super -- soup for $1. my parents came here and were drawn to the beatnik culture. they wanted to meet all of the writers who were so famous at the time, but my mother had
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some serious mental illness issues, and i don't think my father were really aware of that, and those didn't really become evident until i was about five, i guess, and my marriage blew up, and my mother took me all over the world. most of those ad ventures ended up bad because they would end up hospitalized. when i was about six i guess, my mother took me to japan, and that was a very interesting trip where we went over with a boyfriend of hers, and he was working there. i remember the open sewers and gigantic frogs that lived in the sewers and things like that. mostly i remember the smells very intensely, but i loved japan. it was wonderful. toward the end. my mother had a breakdown, and that was the cycle. we would go somewhere, stay for a certain amount of months, a year, period of time, and she would inevitably have a breakdown. we always came back to san
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francisco which i guess came me some sense of continuity and that was what kept me sort of stable. my mother hated to fly, so she would always make us take ships places, so on this particular occasion when i was, i think, 12, we were on this ship getting ready to go through the panama canal, and she had a breakdown on the ship. so she was put in the brig, and i was left to wander the ship until we got to fluorfluora few days later, where we had a distant -- florida a few days later, where we had a distant cousin who came and got us. i think i always knew i was a writer on some level, but i kind of stopped when i became a cop. i used to write short stories, and i thought someday i'm going to write a book about all these ad ventures that my mother took
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me on. when i became a cop, i found i turned off parts of my brain. i found i had to learn to conform, which was not anything i'd really been taught but felt very safe to me. i think i was drawn to police work because after coming from such chaos, it seemed like a very organized, but stable environment. and even though things happening, it felt like putting order on chaos and that felt very safe to me. my girlfriend and i were sitting in ve 150d uvio's bar, and i looked out the window and i saw a police car, and there was a woman who looked like me driving the car. for a moment, i thought i was me. and i turned to my friend and i said, i think i'm supposed to do this. i saw myself driving in this car. as a child, we never thought of police work as a possibility for women because there weren't
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any until the mid70's, so i had only even begun to notice there were women doing this job. when i saw here, it seemed like this is what i was meant to do. one of my bosses as ben johnson's had been a cop, and he -- i said, i have this weird idea that i should do this. he said, i think you'd be good. the department was forced to hire us, and because of all of the posters, and the big recruitment drive, we were under the impression that they were glad to have us, but in reality, most of the men did not want the women there. so the big challenge was constantly feeling like you had to prove yourself and feeling like if you did not do a good job, you were letting down your entire gender. finally took an inspector's test and passed that and then went down to the hall of
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justice and worked different investigations for the rest of my career, which was fun. i just felt sort of buried alive in all of these cases, these unsolved mysteries that there were just so many of them, and some of them, i didn't know if we'd ever be able to solve, so my boss was able to get me out of the unit. he transferred me out, and a couple of weeks later, i found out i had breast cancer. my intuition that the job was killing me. i ended up leaving, and by then, i had 28 years or the years in, i think. the writing thing really became intense when i was going through treatment for cancer because i felt like there were so many parts that my kids didn't know. they didn't know my story, they didn't know why i had a relationship with my mother, why we had no family to speak of. it just poured out of me. i gave it to a friend who is an editor, and she said i think this would be publishable and i think people would be interested in this. i am so lucky to live here.
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i am so grateful to my parents who decided to move to the city. i am so grateful they did. that it it. >> shop & dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges resident to do their shop & dine in the 49 within the 49 square miles of san francisco by supporting local services in the neighborhood we help san francisco remain unique successful and vibrant so we're will you shop & dine in the 49 chinatown has to be one the best unique shopping areas in san francisco that is color fulfill and safe each vegetation and seafood and find everything in chinatown the walk shop in chinatown welcome to jason dessert i'm the
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fifth generation of candy in san francisco still that serves 2000 district in the chinatown in the past it was the tradition and my family was the royal chef in the pot pals that's why we learned this stuff and moved from here to have dragon candy i want people to know that is art we will explain a walk and they can't walk in and out it is different techniques from stir frying to smoking to steaming and they do show of. >> beer a royalty for the age berry up to now not people know that especially the toughest they think this is - i really appreciate they love this art. >> from the cantonese to the
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hypomania and we have hot pots we have all of the cuisines of china in our chinatown you don't have to go far. >> small business is important to our neighborhood because if we really make a lot of people lives better more people get a job here not just a big firm. >> you don't have to go anywhere else we have pocketed of great neighborhoods haul have all have their own uniqueness. >> i went through a lot of struggles in my life, and i am blessed to be part of this. i am familiar with what people are going through to relate and
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empathy and compassion to their struggle so they can see i came out of the struggle, it gives them hope to come up and do something positive. ♪ ♪ i am a community ambassador. we work a lot with homeless,
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visitors, a lot of people in the area. >> what i like doing is posting up at hotspots to let people see visibility. they ask you questions, ask you directions, they might have a question about what services are available. checking in, you guys. >> wellness check. we walk by to see any individual, you know may be sitting on the sidewalk, we make sure they are okay, alive. you never know. somebody might walk by and they are laying there for hours. you never know if they are alive. we let them know we are in the area and we are here to promote safety, and if they have somebody that is, you know, hanging around that they don't want to call the police on, they don't have to call the police.
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they can call us. we can direct them to the services they might need. >> we do the three one one to keep the city neighborhoods clean. there are people dumping, waste on the ground and needles on the ground. it is unsafe for children and adults to commute through the streets. when we see them we take a picture dispatch to 311. they give us a tracking number and they come later on to pick it up. we take pride. when we come back later in the day and we see the loose trash or debris is picked up it makes you feel good about what you are doing. >> it makes you feel did about escorting kids and having them feel safe walking to the play area and back. the stuff we do as ambassadors makes us feel proud to help keep the city clean, helping the
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residents. >> you can see the community ambassadors. i used to be on the streets. i didn't think i could become a community ambassador. it was too far out there for me to grab, you know. doing this job makes me feel good. because i came from where a lot of them are, homeless and on the street, i feel like i can give them hope because i was once there. i am not afraid to tell them i used to be here. i used to be like this, you know. i have compassion for people that are on the streets like the homeless and people that are caught up with their addiction because now, i feel like i can give them hope. it reminds you every day of where i used to be and where i am at now.
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but i also want to make sure that we are -- . . . >> thank you, all, for joining us here in the bright and foggy richmond district of san francisco. it is so great to be here. this past weekend, san francisco really was pumping. i don't know about you, but i was all over the city and i saw people everywhere going to chase center to see preseason of the warriors and where we beat. . . . .
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and one of the most significant and the italian heritage parade and it was packed in north beach with so many people and so many businesses. our hotels were full. and so much going on in san francisco. it was really great and we just announced that one of the first cruise ships that we have seen since the pandemic started has returned. so when you think about we are still living in a pandemic, because 83% of san franciscans are vaccinated and seeing lower infection rates, that has everything to do with why we have been able to make really great decisions and continue to we occupy our city. we are on the way to a serious
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economic recovery and also i am so happy to see people out and about in the city. all the issues we faced before the pandemic continues. one of the biggest issues has everything to do with housing and affordability. when i talk about housing and how important it is to move forward, it has everything to do with growing up in san francisco and watching it become less and less affordable. watching friend and family move out of san francisco. people making decisions about whether or not to have children because of affordability. when i think about my life in san francisco, there were challenges and this is an amazing city and there is no other place i would rather be
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than in san francisco. but also i want to make sure that we are sharing in those opportunities. i talked to so many people in this community in particular and the conversation i have with them when i was first running for mayor, scott weaner has this bill that i think most people on the west side was completely adamantly opposed to and the conversation i would constantly have is how long have you been here? they were mostly born and raised here and here for 40, 50 years. they raised their children in the same house and still live there. when i ask where the children live now, the children who were adults and sometimes married with their own kids, often times they were not living in san francisco because they couldn't afford to live here. we have not done our part in insuring that we build housing equitably, geographically and our entire city.
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that is what today is about and looking at opportunities. we are not trying to make the west side of town into downtown, but what we're saying with underutilized places like this place that used to be a gas station, there can be the possibility to create four stories. with gus's market. this is possible in underutilized spaces and incredible addition to this community. this is important that we get rid of the bureaucracy, get rid of the layers and we look at being innovative and make it easier to build housing. it should not take 10, 15 years once a property is available to build. we have over 70,000 units that have been approved and the director of planning is here with us today and he is working
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overtime to come up with solutions to get the units online, but it is going to require a lot more. and today we're announcing a new piece of legislation that will help us get there called cars to casas or cas. mi casa, su casa. and cars to casas. and the whole point is taking underutilized spaces like gas stations that are closed, like garages and parking lots, places that aren't realizing their full potential and moving forward with allowing them to be zoned to build housing. that is what we're doing and i
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want to recognize the environmental impacts of what happens when you build more housing in the city and people are moving further out and commuting further and the freeways are packed and the cars and the congestion. when you build housing around transit corridors and that is how you help with the environment, too. it is so many things that this will do. affordability, helping the environment, and making sure that generation of san franciscans who love the city and who want to continue to call this city home and people who want to raise their children here and affords to live here. that is what more building means and all the folks who are joining us here today and in addition we have the folks who will talk in a little bit and
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ty davis from the housing action coalition and another person from bright line and folks who care about moving bureaucracy and moving the drama out of the way because we care about not only making that to live here. and we want to make sure the next generation doesn't continue to do with the challenges of affordability and as it relates to housing in san francisco and that is what's most important. and with that, i would like to introduce someone who has been a champion and unapologetic about pushing the envelope to get more housing built everywhere. and i don't know about you, but i don't see a four-story building and i don't think it's unreasonable to build something like this in areas where we desperately need housing and of course, a great supermarket to
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add. and the state senator is making it easier to build housing and robust transit and is willing to push the envelope and how housing plays a role in all of those things. we appreciate his work and advocacy and with that i would like to introduce state senator scott weaner. >> thank you for your leadership on housing. we are working very hard at the state level to encourage and sometimes require cities to allow more housing. and we have cities throughout the state that unfortunately many of them have just not
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allowed very much housing at all over time and have made it just impossible to actually get anything built and so we are trying to reset the rules at the state level to say that all cities must participate and we need housing everywhere and this is about future of the state. it is fantastic when we have cities and more than you think and san francisco is one of them and mayor breed is leading the way here and is fantastic when cities without being told you have to do it do the right thing and acknowledge that if we are serious about having a future for young people in our city, that if we're serious about having a city that can be diverse and people afford housing and serious about tackling to be creative and to find ways to allow more housing. and the mayor is proposing this very, very creative approach where we know we have so many auto uses in san francisco and
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some are closing down. gas stations, car washes and there the areas with the neighborhoods and the mixed use and near transit and near jobs and all parts of the city. and it is also about equity. and we have historically put our focused the housing in a few small starts of the city and we need that everywhere. and people on the west side also need more housing. and what i will also say is that the major talked about sb827 which to allow density near transit and actually the mayor during her campaign very bravely supported that legislation and she was the only candidate who did. and in the polling not only did
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she win, but the polling showed despite very loud voices that you hear, and that can sometimes seem like they represent the majority and the people who oppose all housing or don't want any change and show up and spend 10 hours of planning commission hearings and they are not. and whe you look at the polling, people understand that and are and the politicians and the mayor get it. and this is a fantastic program and i fully support it and have the honor of bringing up one of the great housing advocates and one of the is a deep grass roots movement and the movement of people who want to say yes and
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want to and billed like this and offer the really unique opportunity to make progress on multiple of our most issues. and this will take and we have the miracle of a moment in the middle of tragedy where rents dip and right back up there and we need to be doing everything we can to plan for the next generation and making our city more inclusive and access and building more homes and cars to casas and the number one thing that san francisco can be doing to address greenhouse gas
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emissions is building in-fill housing. this is going to literally be taking that car centric infrastructure and making it easier to build. the thing we know will make our city more sustainable is homes for the family that are right now searching on craigslist and they are crying. they are saying, i cannot afford to live in the city that i love and i cannot afford to live near my job. i cannot afford to be close to my family. these bills are making the city more inclusive for the next generation. and this is about building back better, and it is an incredible opportunity. i am so glad that we have leadership that is willing to take the major steps to address our chronic housing shortage. and there is a great quote that says don't tell me your values, show me your budget. for local government, it is actually don't tell me your values, show me your land use policies. and you have land. how are you using it? and how are you making it at the
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city? the best it can be and the most inclusive it can be. and i am excited about this and i hope that the board of supervisors takes the advantage of what the mayor is putting forward and a bold idea of taking car centric infrastructure and doing exactly what we know every climate scientist is telling us we need to be doing which is building in-fill, walkable communities and getting away from the carbon emitting technology of the past. and thank you so much and now i am going to hand it over to todd davis from housing action coalition. >> it is never fun to follow lar. i want to start by saying, how lucky are we in san francisco to have such amazing leadership on housing and mayor london breed and state senator weaner, two of the most amazing housing champions in california. as a parent of three teenager who is all want to come back to san francisco -- and i do