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. i am so grateful to my parents who decided to move to the city. i am so grateful they did. that it neverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr >> supervisor melgar: good afternoon.

this meeting will come to order. welcome to the december 13, 2021 regular meeting of the land use transportation committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. i would also like to acknowledge the good folks at sfgov tv for staffing us during this meeting. you have any announcements? >> clerk: the committee members participated in this remote meeting through video conference. the board recognizes that public access to city services is essential and invites public participation. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. either channel 26, 78 or 99 and sfgov tv are streaming the public call-in number across the screen. each speaker will be allowed two

minutes to speak. you can call the number on your screen, (415)655-0001. meeting i.d. today is 2492 843 1104 then press pound and pound again. you will hear the meeting discussion, you will be muted and in listen mode only. when your item interest comes up, please dial star and 3 to be added to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. you may submit public comment to me via e-mail, land use transportation clerk.

if you send public comment via e-mail it will be made part of the of the official meeting. finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the january 4, 2022 board of supervisors' agenda. madam chair. >> supervisor melgar: thank you. for those joining us for public comment today, please note that we will be calling items 3 and 4 together later on in this meeting. please call item number 1. >> clerk: item number 1 is the hearing to discuss the state of

sidewalk conditions and ongoing maintenance strategy to ensure variant accessibility for people with disability. members of the public wish to provide public comment call the number on the screen. that number is (415)655-0001. meeting i.d. today is 2492 843 1104 press pound issue pound again. the system will indicate that you have raised your hand and confirmation. >> supervisor melgar: thank you very much. today, we have this hearing on the state of the sidewalk. our city, you called this hearing at the request of a number of community members who were growing increasingly concerned with difficulty of navigating hazardous sidewalks, especially people who have

limited mobility because of a disability or age. residents were feeling that the process of making official complaints or repair is not transparent or efficient. it's quite confusing. i hope that today's hearing will uplift the experiences and challenges and also prompt us to do better as a city and-in addressing some of the basic concerns regarding accessibility and safety. i asked representatives from d.p.w. to join us to describe the process how issues are addressed so we can put it out there and perhaps work through some of these issues. we're also joined by deborah kaplan from the mayor's office of disability. thank you so much for being here. to provide insight on how they advise on these issues.

we must be honest that damaged sidewalks and routing alternatives are not always safe. we became aware of how things we can take for granted.

before we hear from the city department, i like to invite jennifer welsh from the community living campaign to present. the community living campaign creates community networks and advocates so that seniors and people with disabilities can be heard and thrive. they are active in my district in my district 7. which i very much appreciate. we also -- her suggestion from senior disability action in shaping this hearing. i want to thank both of these organizations for their input and for being here today. i know some of the members will be calling in for public comment. i would like to bring up jennifer to present.

in the interest of keep things moving, i will be asking if you can keep time to 5 minutes. jennifer, are you here? >> yes. >> good afternoon, chair melgar, supervisor peskin and supervisor preston, i'm jennifer welsh, the sf sidewalk search party facilitator, c.l.c. we have been cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disability and thrive at homed as a a nonprofit for over 14 years.

the s.f. sidewalk search party came out of frustration for spending more time walking to work. >> chair melgar: hold on a second, jennifer. madam clerk please advance the slides. >> the s.f. sidewalk engage residents to search for sidewalks. for example, we've met with the sfmta, public works, and bureau of urban forestry and staff. we created a contest called broken sidewalks, contestants took photos of sidewalks and included a rubber duck to highlight the problem area. we worked with the bureau urban forestry to get sidewalks with

two inch ride down. we started a video project called the sidewalk search party newscast. we asked residents to make a one minute video to be part of the show. i use a wheelchair. many people without disabilities have had similar experiences. here are some examples how people get injured on san francisco's sidewalks. i rounded the corner on to a side street and felt my foot hit the concrete before i went flying forward. i looked at the sidewalk, large blocks of concrete. semitruck driver was reversing. a good samaritan had to run over to tell the driver to stop moving. a blind pedestrian walked into unsecured and unmarked scaffolding and hit by fallen

debris and taken to the hospital. a part of the sidewalk had scaffolding not lit. it was dark and i couldn't go on the streets because of cars and rain next to the scaffolding. there was a piece of plywood as i stepped on it, i can feel it gave way but it was too late. it was a big fall and i hit my upper lip. the person in this picture decided to head across at as across theasphalt. he sank further in the asphalt. unfortunately, this is not uncommon at construction sites. it should never happen. we recently met with the bureau street use and mapping, the a.d.a. coordinator for public mayor office of disability.

we needed a dictionary of acronyms just to follow the conversation. the bureau of street use and mapping gave us an internal flowchart how they route 311 sidewalk complaints. we really don't understand the process. that's what we're hoping to learn at today's hearing. we also wanted to bring the experiences of others to this hearing. we created a survey in english. we had 165 people respond from all over the city and 89% were seniors and people with disabilities. 55% of people said they frequently encounter unsafe or inaccessible sidewalks. 153 people out of the 165 who answered our survey came across to navigate sidewalks regularly. 78% said that san francisco's sidewalks are not well

maintained. to sum up, i like to share a comment from someone who took our survey. my health depends on walking, for exercise and for social contact. fall risks is always a concern and there's a lot of work to get to an accessible safe condition. thank you, supervisor melgar for calling this hearing so all departments that are a role in maintaining our sidewalk have an opportunity to share share processes and to hear from the public. thank you. >> chair melgar: thank you so much, jennifer. that was a great presentation. i love the sidewalk, clap me up campaign. humor, a very effective way to get your point across. thank you so much. now, i like to invite the staff

from public works to present. we have michael lennon from d.p.w. as well as nicholas crawford. mr. lennon, i'm hoping you can walk us through the process ever repair is we can understand what it is. you have seven minutes for that and mr. crawford will have up to five minutes for his part as well. welcome to land use committee. >> thank you for having us. i'm manager with the san francisco public works, bureau street and mapping and the inspection and enforcement division. we are largely a reactive entity. historically, public works receives between 1200 and 1500 complaints each month.

all complaints are directed to the bureau street and mapping. whether they come through 311 or referrals from your offices or otherwise. as they are taken, they are assigned a unique identifier, request for action number that is used to track the matter for intake to completion. each different type of sidewalk or complaint topic has a different service level agreement associated with it. the topic of today's presentation is on sidewalk and construction of public right-of-way. they have three business day response time from the time of first action. you can see in the photos here, there are green tape markings on the sidewalk.

we use paint. most responsibility is on the adjacent property owner for maintenance on the public works code 706. in this instance, the green paint marks the city responsibility due to presence of trees. whereas white paint is used to identify property owner responsibility. as i touched on in the prior slide, property owners are mostly responsible. except in a few circumstances. some of businesses are caused by city main tree after implementation of a property several years ago. when damages went into a return,

at the corner zone where the a.d.a. accessible ramps are located. if the damage is related to a utility or if there are certain special cases such as the bricks on market street. property owners do have a responsibility from the front of their property to the curve. in making the repairs, once we responded, we taken the initial action the inspector are tasks with identifying, confirming whether or not -- >> chair melgar: sorry to stop you. i'm still seeing only the first slide. is it just me or everybody else able to see page 3.

>> clerk: we can see the current slide. i can see a copy of their presentation. >> looks like she's froze. >> clerk: madam chair? okay, there she is. >> supervisor preston: i see chair melgar was frozen. are you still with us? you are muted. >> chair melgar: the storm is really bad in my area. i do have my device on in case i need to hot spot it. forgive me, i switched internet.

i'm sorry, i got frozen. everybody else able to see slide 3 of the presentation? >> yes. >> supervisor peskin: yes, we are. >> chair melgar: okay, it's just me. >> sorry about that. >> clerk: you're in 2 minutes 40 seconds in. >> once the inspector visits the site and they take first action, whether we are issuing a notice to repair to a property owner or interagency referral to either a public utility or a city agency, the initial notices provide a 30-day window for repair. then reinspection is performed to verify whether or not the

repairs have been made and property owners provided a second final notice, which additional 15 days. then if the conditions that at issue have not been abated upon the reinspection, then it will be subject to abatement by a city contractor. there is a little bit of nuance within city responsibility. property owned by department of real estate are treated in the same manner as a private property owner. the san francisco unified district is a state agency. while we have worked with them to try to get contribution or coordination on it, ultimately, that does fall to the city for

repair as supposed the school district. there are a good number of codes that apply to either 706 at the top there and then there are a number of other codes that have a more granular reversal or regulation of the types of use occupancy or responsibility for repair sidewalks. we included a pretty exhaustive list but it's a pretty lengthy list. i'm not going trying to go into that. there are any follow-up questions about code specific items, i'll be happy to follow-up with you offline with those. i believe this is just another continuation more of the same

codes and that is from construction site and occupancy to table and chairs. >> clerk: your five minutes is up. >> i did talk about lot of our reactive approach which is the majority of our work. we also do have a proactive arm and that is through the sidewalk inspection and repair program. this implemented back in 2007-2008 when gavin newsom was mayor was intended to in and repair all sidewalks in san francisco on 25-year rolling basis. that breaks down to 200,000 square foot sidewalk repair annually. we did have a few setbacks due

to covid. our contracts are up and running and completing repairs. then the other program that we have that's administered is the accelerated sidewalk abatement program. whereas the sirp program is proactive. this is a reactive program. it does focus on high priority sites for claims have been filed or other high priority issues that need to be abated. this is where property owner or another entity doesn't complete the repairs after we've gone through the process. it will be referred to the accelerated sidewalk abatement program and their properties will be posted and abated by our contractor with the cost of

repairs as well as inspection fees. i will turn it over to my colleague, nick crawford. >> chair melgar: i do have couple of questions and then my colleagues may as well. thank you so much for explaining the color coding. that's like transformative. is that on your website anywhere? is there a way that we can let the public know what these different colors on the dots? it's xs and dots. i understood what the difference was. is there any way to let the public at large know what this is? >> i want to say yes, it is on our website. i think it is.

i'm not 100%. i believe it is on our website. then the color coding and the breakdown who's responsible based on what color is in included in the specific repair notices that are issued to property owners when issue need to be repaired or identified. >> chair melgar: the person with a disability, trying to walk down the sidewalk doesn't necessarily know what's in the notice to the owner. who makes -- is it the inspector that makes the determination about -- i know, for example, on my street, the p.u.c. repaved after changing out the water pipes. in doing that, they messed up all the sidewalks. i'm wondering who makes the

determination about like, who's responsibility? is it something that's caused by the public activity? >> it would be the screen inspector responds to the complaint. they will be the initial person to accessed the scene and make the initial findings. if there are complaints or mention of like a public utilities project or a pg&e excavation in the area, we do feel complaints where they say this sidewalk was damaged by pg&e excavator or similar. then that is considered. we will connect with the utility company or sister agency to determine whether or not they should be held responsible for those repairs versus the

default. >> chair melgar: someone in the public just walking down the sidewalk, wouldn't necessarily know any of this? >> no. the biggest indicator would be if the sidewalk is marked, the dots usually, the color coded dots usually indicates that one of our inspectors has been there. they issued a notice. the xs usually are put on there pre-construction. that is like the follow-up pre-construction meeting we will walk with the contractor and confirm the scope of work to put in a work package to issue to them. the xs are getting closer to the actual repair. >> chair melgar: thank you. my last question, which is a big one, is about temporary sidewalks and next two construction sites. in some neighborhoods where there's a lot of development happening, we see a lot of that.

sometimes the scaffolding takes over what would be a bicycle lane or a parking lane. it creates all kinds of conflicts for people trying to get through. in this hearing, i'm worried about people with disabilities. you can't really know. it's a bummer. my question to you, who approve those? do you work with the mayor's office of disability? how is that circumventing what is adequate? how does that happen? >> if it's a vertical development and it's impacting the public right-of-way, most

permits do come through our division who responds to those complaints. we'll do a milestone inspection, pre-construction meetings and milestone inspections for the vertical developments. each property is required to provide an adequate path to travel. if they are going to occupy the entire sidewalk, then they would be required to provide a path of travel in the parking strip which could include ramping into an out of the parking strip around the construction site. places of scaffolding, same thing, there's a director's order regarding the type of scam folding of -- scaffolding and needs placement of boards at the end of it to highlight it. in terms of mayor's office on disability, when complaints are submitted directly to the mayor

office of disability, first stop is with the disability access coordinators, they will review it. i believe they open a formal complaint file on it and then they will refer that to my division and our inspectors for follow-up and action. then we will report back on our finding, action taken and in most cases resolution of the issues at hand. they will prepare a formal response to comply to the complainant. then they report out and provide a response as required by the higher federal. >> chair melgar: thank you. mr. lennon is there a time limit for temporary path to stand?