it's a very diverse working class neighborhood and people told me, you know, that both they love a lot of things in the community and that they also live in fear. and so one thing we've been talking about, you know, harm reduction and abstinence and i think we should do everything and we need a safe injection site and we need a linkage center. we need everything for sure. i agree also that this is a mental health crisis. the health crisis. it is a safety crisis and i think it's also a community development crisis. and i'm a little surprised that we're not naming that. and so i want to name it, colleagues, you know, because i do think that i am -- i know that we cannot encarson rate ourselves out of this problem. that is not an effective way,

but i also don't want to pretend that there aren't people out there who are selling poison to others and causing people harm. and those people have weapons and they have guns. and other people who've lived there, who have children, live in fear. it is a community development crisis, because, children who are growing up surrounded by violence and people dying have higher scores of adverse childhood trauma and those things, they will carry with them for as long as they live and i don't want to pretend that's not real because it is. so while i don't want to increase police, i do want better policing, smarter policing. so in my conversations with folks in the community, something that everybody said whether they were supporting this emergency declaration or not is that they hoped that the

police that they were getting, the police service they were getting were better. and so i do want to ask you, chief scott about this. on the two things that i mentioned. number one is the drug dealing. so what are we doing to be smarter about it. to target folks and to deal with it effectively and i realize that when you say drug dealing, it's a bunch of different things. there are people who are barely over the amount of, you know, with intent to sell and there's the people who, you know, like just needed to, you know, support their own all the way to the folks who are calling the shots and rerecruiting

others is tremendous violence what are we doing about that and i don't think it's necessarily flooding the community, but i do think it takes strategy one of the things i heard from folks in the community is that they didn't always feel safe with police folks around and i particularly heard this from folks in my latino community who, you know, i heard a couple stories about folks who called police because they, you know, and that really hurts my heart because san francisco's an

immigrant city. in order for community policing to really work. they have to be all those relationships and so, you know, with this plan, i think that, you know, i'm not pretending that we don't need the police because i think that we do. i want to make sure that we're doing smarter, better, more respectful and not less because that is what people are fearful of. and that's people who are in support of this emergency declaration and people who are against it. so i wanted to give you a chance to address those things. thank you, chief. >> thank you, supervisor melgar. i just want to point out first as i answer your question. what we are doing to address

the drug other because it's both just to put that in context. these are not users, these are people that are dealing drugs. to put that into context and the context of fentanyl, we've confiscated in those arrests, seizures and search warrants associated with those arrests, 23 kilos of fentanyl which is four times the amount that we've confiscated last year, and the reason that is the case in my opinion is we focus more on the higher level drug dealers and we have made street arrests as the drug dealers on the streets, but we've also

focused on the higher level drug dealers and where the drugs are coming from. that's been apart of the strategy. now, when somebody said earlier, the really small amount of fentanyl that it takes to cause an overdose, when you think about 23 kilos of fentanyl, that's a lot of dangerous drugs off the streets and we have to keep doing that and making arrests as we do that and part of it and that's part of the doing. community policing and the level of service, yeah, there's work to be done. >> supervisor melgar: in respect. >> in respect. yeah. . and that's something it's not just something the safety with respect is not just something on our police cards. it's really our strategy statement and it's what we

expect of our officers and when officers fall below that, there is accountability there. to get to that level of community policing that we all will agree that we believe we need is the officers have to we still need to they really are able to do good work and that's not to say they don't see things that are happening in

front of them, but the engagement that happens in that format in the tenderloin because it's so dense is really important. our analysis told us the tenderloin is one of the most stressed in terms of lack of resources what we continue to do is try to make up those shortages we still fall short and i've said this publicly and i'll say it here occupying a community with police officers with the press of tactics. i'm talking about community policing, engagement, understanding who's in the neighborhood, who's doing what, working with the community, that takes time and you have to have the people to do it. this declaration has nothing to do with that. and i believe when we do those things, we get to the place that you're talking about. and, again, it's apart of

reform that we've been working so hard in the last five years to implement. there's a lot of work that goes into this and it's also a component of collaboration to make sure that our officers are able to call the right resources in to do things that maybe they're asked to do, but we shouldn't be doing in the first place and that's apart of this declaration is making sure those resources are there consistently. of the when they're there, officers are able to focus on the drug dealers and the robberies and the things that really have people afraid to walk the streets in the community. but sometimes we just can't because we're being called to other things. that's why we're bringing public officers much closer to the streets. i think it all goes together, supervisor and that's why i'm so much in support of this and it helps us get to.

>> supervisor melgar: i think that you are correct. and i think that having accountability in terms of discipline is not quite what i would say is a success. i would much rather, you know, officers have those relationships. have training and professional developmental support. you know, ahead of anything going awry because that is how you build community trust and, you know, that is how you are ultimately successful in being able to figure out what meets the police response and what does not. and so thank you so much. i appreciate the answer, but i do agree that there's some coordination. much of maryellen wants to get

out of this in 90 days, i'm wondering if it's not going to take longer. the other thing i wanted to ask you and it's the last point that you just touched on, chief scott is that, you know, we just heard that, you know, andres powers talked about, deputy chief of staff powers talked about, you know, subsequent action that we may take to enable the public health department to hire folks, you know, more expeditiously to support the efforts of supervisor ronen and supervisor haney to beef up mental health sf. so i'll just tell you a little anecdote. when i was in my earlier career i worked for the ira center that worked for the paranatal support to women that had

opioid addictions in the mission and i was violently attacked once after supporting giving out condoms to ladies on the mission on 16th street and it left me at st. luke's hospital with a concussion and lack of hearing in my right ear. and i suffered from post traumatic stress for years after that. so this is work that people do because they love the community and it is also like it can be dangerous and it can be risky and so we are going to tie hundreds of people into these positions and i'm wondering in terms of the coordination between, you know, fully staffing this out putting out a system that works that supports people to succeed, how are we going to be able to make sure that, you know, the safety of workers, you know, is, you

know, also prioritized in how we roll this out. you know, so back to what you just said, chief scott. i just want to make sure that, you know, people have the proper training and understand when a police response is needed and when it is not needed and, you know, how we support and make sure that as we roll this out, we have real success. >> yeah. absolutely, supervisor melgar. that's really important and we do have a lot of experience in working with a lot of our collaborative partners. sometimes people are called to the scene and it might be the right resource and the situation turns violent and they will ask for an officer to stand by to keep the peace if you will. you know, with our c.g.i. tranging and technology we have implemented over the many

years. you never hear about them in the news. especially in these days. so, you know, officers are trained well and they are trained to deal with these crisis situations when people that are and i think the training is paid off and our officer and this department is committed to that. so it needs to work together. we don't want to have people out there to help people being attacked like you just described what happened to you. quite frankly, we often times do get those requests. we get those requests quite often because sometimes when people in whatever state of mind they're in whether it's drug induced psychosis, it can

be very violent very quickly and we do a very good job of that. we report to our commission and the public, you know, 50,000 of those types of situations and we have, you know, a less than -- it's less than a tenth of a percent of incidents that turn to a use of force. so i think we have a really good track record on those types of issues and we'll continue to support whoever we need to to make this work and that's what we're here for. >> supervisor melgar: thank you, chief scott. so my last question is about resources and again, knowing when it's appropriate to have police intervention and when it's not and, maryellen, this is a question for you and that's along with many of my colleagues, i think all of my colleagues during the budget process this past year, we've supported the community

alternative at programs because, you know, most of us agree that, you know, police response should be reserved for situations that are violent and, you know, require that, but that will often times, that backfires that it is much more appropriate to have a community based response. and so we appropriated that money and it's just sitting there and it's in your department and i'm wondering, you know, is that going to be part of this, are we going to get this out. if it's not a priority, can we put it somewhere else so it can get out. so i have a particular interest in this because i'm the supervisor on the west side. i disagree with my colleague, supervisor safai that we can have tenderloin in any of our districts. i think that would never happen. in our city, we respond to different people depending on the resources and the color of

their skin. and i really resent that and i'm -- but i'm wondering, you know, so out here on the west side, we have folks who are and i -- we get very few services and i think that would be great to roll out the community alternative. wouldn't it be great to, you know, are roll this out as part of this emergency response so that the police can then be freed up to deal with the things that they actually need to deal with and not everything. >> thank you, supervisor. i have met.

we all said -- so let me just put that to the side. first of all. getting out of covid and being able to focus on other things. one of the focuses that i have had is to help coordinate the existing response teams that we have in the field that are also new, that are also piloting. so we have skirt and sort and then we will have our first street wellness response team that's nonmedical, more of a community -- it's a partnership with the community provider and h.s.h. to do community

response. so my feeling about it is that i am very open. i agree with you. i believe that there is a place for community response. i think that it could be a good addition and really help us with our overall responsiveness for really minor things that and that currently their police responses. they're very low. so if someone calls it in, are these certain types of responses, like somebody in front of your door, sleeping in front of your door for instance. >> supervisor melgar: or just move it to a different department. shouldn't we just move it. i mean, because if it's not an emergency response and, you know, are it's not useful to you, necessarily, you know, it certainly would be useful to me in my district. you know, and that's what we

deal with all the time. it's not stuff -- somebody's doorway or using their hose to take the shower, you know, those kinds of things that community based things. but that has nothing to do with the emergency declaration. you know. so my question to you was is there a role for it in what you're building with the emergency response and if there isn't because if it's not an emergency, if it's not that, then we should move it some place else and then use it because it might make it better. >> we are hopefully going to kick off the response in a matter of days. so we've really got to use how

they connect. if it turns into a medical or police call. it's really not as simple as just throwing it out there and those details are lacking. i have committed to the time to try to process, to a process to figure out how is the best way to figure out what's proposing. it can't be a stand alone because otherwise it's sort of -- so. >> supervisor melgar: it puts them at risk. >> but that's why it hasn't moved yet. >> supervisor melgar: thank you. that's all my questions and comments. thank you, president walton. >> president walton: thank you, supervisor melgar. supervisor mar. >> supervisor mar: thank you,

president walton. i'll try to keep it brief because most of my questions have been asked. i do want to say i came into this meeting and i'm supportive of this emergency declaration in this motion. it has been stated by everyone, there's a clear public health emergency in drug overdoses and drug overdose deaths in our city and the tenderloin are really at ground 0 and the city's really failed to address this crisis in a meaningful way just leading to continuing misery and tragedy for drug users, families and really the central city neighborhoods, especially. and as supervisor melgar noted, this also intersects to related crisis and poverty homelessness and systemic racism and more in our city and beyond. like supervisor safai, i worked in the tenderloin for many years, working on the workers union hall before moving my work just several blocks away

but really a world away to city hall and, you know, when i worked in the tenderloin, i on a daily basis did have to walk by drug dealers and users outside of our office or the union hall, but i also know the situation and problem has just gotten so much worse. and i've seen it myself. i constantly hear from my former colleagues at local two and folks in the community, families, organizers, and others. so in my briefing with director carroll this week, it was really helpful in getting clarification of, you know, what the mayor's emergency declaration covers and what it doesn't and really what the vision and the strategy is to address the crisis playing out on the streets of the

tenderloin. that's really so that new public health resources can be deployed in the neighborhood in a coordinated way to really meet the urgency of the crisis. and i really see this as something that the tenderloin community and supervisor haney and others have been urgently calling for for a long time now and really just increased city hall resources and attention to address the drug crisis. and i also have, you know, spoken to and heard and really agreed with concerns raised by many advocates and leaders including many of you, colleagues about the emergency declaration and the tenderloin plan and really focusing at least in her communications through the press about focusing on law enforcement as a strategy and how this could

lead to further drug use and policy. this emergency declaration is really not needed for the mayor, for chief scott to follow through with any new law enforcement plans ramping up law enforcement in the tenderloin. they can freely redeploy sfpd personnel to the tenderloin or any other neighborhood they see fit. so i'm in support of this emergency declaration. i have faith in director carroll and her leadership and the team to really lead the job here and serve a similar effective coordinating roll they've done through the covid command center. but i do have a lot of concerns

about where we're at right now with this. i'm going to have concerns about the timing of this announcement, of the mayor's announcement about this just before the holidays. i have a lot of concerns how the mayor's communicated about the emergency declaration with such a strong emphasis. [please stand by]

>> so those are the kind of things that we're working on as far as the plan goes right now, and there's three phases to it.

>> supervisor stefani: -- where she expressed her frustrations with the current state of the tenderloin. i also want to associate my comments with those of supervisor safai on his insistence that we invest more in stage recovery. i think that's just a start. it's one of the reasons why we heard from the recovery center working group, who heard from people who have been in the criminal justice system who sometimes got sober in the criminal justice system. we heard from them for hours, and there may be a lack of understanding and ideas to help those are suffering from

addiction. for me, today's vote is a choice as to whether we continue where two people die from an overdose today or we address the most dire public health crisis facing our

residents. we know that overdoses sky rocketed to 4,307 in 2020, and now, in the first six months of this year, narcan has been used 4,200 times that we know of, there could be more deaths on the street if we weren't using narcan. for me, these numbers are stark indicators that something is deeply flawed in how we are currently addressing the drug addiction and the overdose crisis. last year, when you look at what we spent, we spent $1

billion to address drug addiction and overdoses. we significantly increased our supply of needles to save peoples' lives. we are spending money on billboards encouraging people to use, and you are not

investing in recovery, something is very wrong. what do we have to show for everything that i just mentioned? we still have the highest overdose death rates in the country. not to mention a rise in homicides and shootings, among the highest in the country. we need to address the real solutions that address addiction. if you go to find treatment at sf.org, you'll see right now, according to d.p.h., there are

66 beds open for substance abuse right now. there are 34 mental health beds for those suffering from mental health, but that doesn't even tell the full picture because these are just to be funded beds. these are beds open all over the place right now as we speak, and the information on fine treatment is not always working for people in treatment. davis house shows 249 beds with 39 openings, so you can't get even the full story. i've been touring all the facilities we have under d.p.h. they weren't at capacity then, and i'm told they hold beds and lease them out to other

counties, so what is the correct information? i know we have 100 openings right now, and yet, we know that the tenderloin streets are lined with people suffering with the disease of addiction. fentanyl is a drug that is 50 times stronger that is morphine. this is not something that you

come back from. every expert says it is not like any other drug. it is more addictive, and it's more deadly. we just settled two lawsuits arguing this exact point. the people who are dieing on our -- dying on our streets are clearly in a position where they cannot help themselves. we have to admit that harm reduction is not working, and we have to get serious to help addicts and those in the tenderloin. unfortunately, for those who suffer from addiction, consequences work. consequences work, and that's how a lot of people are compelled into recovery. i heard someone say in our city

government, who i won't name, that we are robbing people of our bottoms, and i think sometimes in our policies we are enabling people in our deaths. i know that there are some people who disagree with me, but the disease of addiction is not a free license to use on the streets until you kill yourself or seriously harm someone else. the disease of addiction is awful. it's a thief of a disease. it causes people to do things that they don't want to do, that when they seek recovery, they end up making amends for the things that they've done. you don't punish the person for being sick with substance abuse, but when their behavior causes harm to other people, when the alcoholic who can't stop drinking keeps getting behind the wheel of a car, yes,

i feel sorry for the person who's suffering from alcoholism, and it sucks, but you know what? that person can't get behind the wheel of a car and kill people. addiction is messy, it's awful, it hurts the children in the tenderloin. this is not just party, party, party, like the billboards would have suggested. this is a disease that causes people to do things that they don't want to do, it causes people to commit crimes that they don't want to commit, and we need to provide consequences and ways out for these people. and what else? the people who sell.

when people are arrested for selling and they're without within days again. i know one person was selling drugs with a weapon was sent to drug court with an eventual dismissal. on october 27, a known tenderloin drug dealer was in his court hearing on felony possession for sale, only given diversion with a promise to go to five n.a., narcotics anonymous hearings, and the case would be dismissed.

narcotics anonymous is for addicts who desire to stop using. you send a drug dealer to narcotics anonymous who's not suffering -- they just -- they have more customers. it doesn't make any sense to me. and also, how are they proving to the judge -- when i was a d.a., they had to come back with slips when we had them go to n.a. or we had them go to a.a. meetings. they actually had to go to the meetings and prove to the judge that they're getting better. the judge dashboard shows that they haven't tried one of these cases, and meanwhile, the death toll sky rockets. these dealers are coming in from outside the city, and they do so with total impugnity.

are we simply going to talk or arrest our way out of this? of course not. no one is saying this. the mayor definitely isn't, but we must enforce the laws that help prevent deaths and create unbearable living conditions for our children and families. we need a combination of law enforcement and social services. we need a combination of consequences and treatment. this is what has successfully happened in europe, and it's exactly what our mayor is advocating for. in my opinion, it is the only humane option, given how dire the imagine has become. notwithstanding the great issues that people who are addicted to drugs are facing, we have to acknowledge that the epicenter of this crisis is still in the tenderloin, where a significant number of immigrant and refugee families work and live. what does it say about our

city? and i was very moved when i had my meeting with director carroll when she had her meeting in the tenderloin and heard the experiences of the families. what does it say when we allow children to walk-through the tenderloin seeing people that are dead from overdose, assaulted on the way to school and work, which is happening. i'm not being dramatic. what is it going to take for us to say, enough is enough. in november, an 11-year-old girl -- my daughter's 12. an 11-year-old wearing a hijab who was walking her younger sister to school was attacked by an individual experiencing

mental health problems, enough to land her in the hospital. i don't understand why we're not doing more, and i'm glad we're doing this. when we talk about the tenderloin, we have to talk about the children and families that are in the community. the reality that folks who are living in the tenderloin day after day, what they face is important. and i'm glad that supervisor haney is supporting this. we have to try something new, and an emergency declaration is a start. let's be clear, what we said over and over again. the mayor and the san francisco police department currently have the authority to enforce drug laws prohibiting drawing use and dealings, and this

proposal does not allow them to do this. the proposal will allow the city to leverage existing resources for the tenderloin. it will quickly create centers where those suffering from addiction can receive mental health and other human services. and i know this is going to be hard because it is very hard to catch that person in the fleeing moment when they've had enough of their disease, when they're willing to get help, but we need to have a place where it's there, and we can quickly get them into the services that they need. it will, and i'm hoping this disrupts the deadly open air drug market. it has to stop. the alternative of others that i've heard and everything i've read seems to be a combination of doing nothing, arguing about what to do, or just doing the same, and one of the ways that people struggling with

addiction commonly get access to treatment in san francisco is through the criminal justice system. is that the best way for people to get help? no, it's not, but we shouldn't ignore a good and practical approach for an unknown perfect one. given the awful and increasingly deteriorating situation, i believe we need to try everything. i am actually just dumbfounded that we are facing the situation that we are, and i have to say, i have such profound faith in director carroll, that she will be able to use the necessary resources, be open and honest with what she's doing, report back to us, and make a difference because we no longer have the option to

do nothing, so i have no questions. i'm ready to go. i'm ready to vote yes, and i want to thank you, director carroll, for what you put up with and for what you are going to embark on because, like i said, i have full faith that you are going to be able to make a difference, and i am here to support. thank you. >> president walton: thank you, supervisor stefani. supervisor chan? >> supervisor chan: thank you, colleagues. you really have helped answer some of the questions that i had about the declaration, the intents behind it, what connection there is, if any, to police response, and what the linkage center will actually do.

while i appreciate what the department has done under director carroll's leadership, i really am not sure if i have much more to ask of all of you today. i have realized, regrettably, the questions that i have unanswered are mostly due to the fact that there's not really a plan. instead, we have made references on all the work that my colleagues, like supervisors ronen and haney have been working on so hard with mental health s.f., and what other departments should have been doing all along with our city, our home oversight committee, and just implementing programs and measures that we know work, that will throw down to the court issue. most importantly, the answer that i have today confirmed my questions regarding the timing and the actual intent of this declaration.

mostly, those questions were rhetorical for me, personally, because let's be frank. if this declaration was about protecting our most vulnerable, then where was the declaration of emergency when there was a significant rise of hate attack on our asian community, especially on our asian elders? were we not suffering enough, hurting enough, or valuable enough to protect our merchants? where was the protection when small businesses on geary street were vandalized four and five times in a row in less than six months. if this declaration is truly about tackling the fentanyl

crisis, where was this declaration when we voted to urge the mayor to do so in september this year? or even in october, when we already learned the death toll of drug overdose crisis was out of control? in fact, there was a chronicle exclusive in 2019, december 2019, that informed us that san francisco had the highest drug overdose death toll among the way area? subsequently, we already knew in january this year, as the chronicle again reported that last year, 2020, was san francisco's deadliest year for overdose. so we knew, right? and again, we knew by may of this year san francisco was set to break the previous record on drug overdose deaths. where was this declaration then? meanwhile, we know what works,

colleagues, and that work is hard; coming from policy solutions that may not -- i

have been, and i will continue to be committed to doing this hard work with you all, my colleagues, who have been doing this work, and i just want to note that our colleague, supervisor aaron peskin, who could not join us today, and part of his district in the tenderloin, will be introduced . >> president walton: supervisor chan? i believe that supervisor chan is frozen. if she isn't aware -- >> clerk: mr. president, i

believe we have lost connection with supervisor chan at this point. >> president walton: so i believe we will call supervisor chan back at this point. i'm going to say a few words and then pass it to supervisor haney. and the first thing i really do just want to start off by, again, appreciating everyone for being here this evening. all of my colleagues, the clerk's office, department heads, you, director carroll, chief scott. i know the meeting did not have to take place during this time period, but no one is complaining, so i want to thank you all for being here. i've been around drug abuse, addiction, death, violence my entire life. i don't wish that on anyone,

and i just want to start off by saying, if you sell drugs, you need to be held accountable. that is not what this is about. this is not what the declaration is about. this is about what the back and forth has been about the last few weeks. there's nobody on here that i think wants to accept people who sell drugs and hold them accountable, and we're all upset about those billboards. probably for a different reason, but i was upset about those billboards, as well. it's funny. i was threatened earlier today via text. somebody told me that if i didn't vote to support this declaration, that i would pay for it during my reelection in november, and this is someone who lives in district 10, someone who has never attended

a public safety meeting, someone who's never took advantage of any opportunity on any issue, but who felt the need to threaten me on my personal cell phone, that if i did not support this, i would suffer in my election. the only reason i say that is these are the types of issues that require us and the mayor's office to come together, and we didn't do that. we are pitted against each other, and by the way, this won't affect my vote. my vote is about doing the right thing. and supervisor chan, you touched on this, but about the fact that we've known about the

crisis in the tenderloin for a very long time, and we all know how we want to save lives not only in the tenderloin but all across san francisco. i do have to ask, as the district 10 supervisor, it was said that we're failing in the tenderloin. what about the 15 homicides in district 10 this past year? what about the two homicides in my district alone over the past couple of weeks? are we not failing there? and where's the outcry for the families that lose people to violence? we have a public safety plan. there are things we worked on with the mayor's office, with law enforcement, that have not been fully funded as we talk about addressing crisis. i only have a couple of questions because i know we've been here for a long time before i pass this over to

supervisor haney. and supervisor melgar, i don't know if i quote you directly, but i think you said that the mayor will be pursuing more police presence regardless of how this vote goes, so i'm even more confused about what we're doing here today, and i just have to say that on record. chief scott, are you still here? i do have a question for you. thank you, chief. and it was something you said earlier that resonated with me. you said your objective was to get them to a better place, and so i -- as i hear that, you don't have the authority and the ability to do that now without this declaration or proclamation or emergency? >> it's limited, supervisor. i mean, yeah, since there are

beds available, although that may be true, one of the things that i constantly hear and that i see, you know, is on one hand, we're being asked not to arrest people. on the other hand, we're being asked to be out there when all the stuff is happening, so we're in this kind of no person's land of if officers are being asked to arrest, but then, they're seeing people smoking fentanyl and passed out in the streets, what are the alternatives for people to address that situation? we need to get people to identify the services that they need when they're arrested, and that's just not present in my opinion. i've talked to many, many officers, i've worked with many officers, i've been out there in the tenderloin, and i've

seen stuff with my own eyes. i think the facility that we're going to open can make a difference. if we're going to be tied up for two or three hours on a misdemeanor arrest and a person is going to be back out on the street by the time we write the report and book the evidence,

that is not helpful. we're out there to help. we're not out there to allow people to kill themselves on the street. we don't have to use jail as the alternative all the time. there are times when jail is appropriate, but often times, officers are very good about getting people to the right resources, and that's what i'm focused on with my support of this. >> president walton: thank you, chief, and i want to say this as a supervisor who obviously worked very hard with your department, and a lot of folks in community to develop a

public safety plan, as someone who is a supervisor who walks the beat with your captains, and we talk about ways and strategies for law enforcement to be visible and present and support community, because some people have a myth when you don't want people harmed for no reason or when you try to do everything you can to try to decrease the amount of police contact with people of color that, for some reason, you're just 100% against law enforcement, which is not the case. as someone who works with the departmental proper, proper ways to engage with the community, you said some things, chief, that i 100% agree with. it is, quite frankly, unusual, and a dilatory expectation to expect a police officer to be in a certain situation and not respond a certain way, and i

truly believe that's why you should not be visible or present in certain situations. that's why we have a street crisis response team. that's why we have the focus on putting strategies in place like c.a.r.t. that's why we have substance use and mental health professionals responding because it is a daunting expectation to put on a police officer to be in a certain situation and not respond with a law enforcement lens. that's why not calling out police officers to respond to mental health issues, to respond to substance use issues is a problem in the first place, so i assistant with you on that statement because i wouldn't want to put you or any of the officers in that predicament. director carroll, i do have just a couple of questions from

you because most of my questions have been asked earlier -- oh, go ahead, chief scott. >> oh, thank you, president walton, and thank you for that observation that i just made. this is one of the reasons why i urge to voice support on this. as we stand right now, at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, when all of this stuff is still happening, we don't have the resources to do just what you said. we don't have them, and the reality is this: this stuff doesn't stop at 10:00 at night, 11:00 at night, and people are still putting themselves in harmful situations using dangerous drugs. as it stands right now, we're

[indiscernible] it's so important to build this infrastructure right now because if we want to stop there, and you know this from district 10. there's times that we needed to be there 24 hours a day to stop what you described in your districts. not that we're the only answer, but who else is out there 3:00 in the morning. >> president walton: there's definitely different responses what's needed in d-10 versus some of the others. but street crisis response is supposed to be a 24-hour team that's out there. we should be putting more resources into that to make sure that happens across the entire city. when c.a.r.t. is up and running, when we do everything we say we're going to do around mental health s.f. in fact, street crisis response should be responding 24-7 right now, but i do agree with you,

the police department is too strapped to respond to certain situations, and police officers should not be put in certain situations because there are people with the expertise to respond differently, and we need to make sure we understand when we have an adequate response. the people with the expertise are on this plan.

director carroll, can you tell us which providers support this plan? >> so we're working with d.p.h., who's working with the providers. adrian, are you able to answer more specifically some of the folks that will be providing services. this is adrian dekelly, and she's the closest pulling the plan together. >> sure. good evening, honorable members of the board. right now, we are working with department of public health, homelessness, and supportive housing. our intention is to utilize the full community provider network that we already have on contract. as you know, we're trying to expedite this as quickly as possible, and so we are in specific negotiations with some

of those providers. i don't want to speak to that at this point -- >> president walton: not to interrupt you, but this question is not necessarily about contracting, but it really is specifically to the note that it was mentioned that everyone is working with providers, and i'm just curious which providers, community-based organizations, nonprofits, have stood out in support of this proclamation. >> we also have an additional community stakeholder working group that we've established. it includes both people who are working with us and trying to help us improve our plans, so it includes the community-based districts including market and tenderloin c.b.d.s. we've been working with additional partners, glide, st. anthony's, others in the

area. >> president walton: so i really just asked the specific question because i really wanted an answer to know what providers were supportive of the plan, and this is not a gotcha moment, but glide has sent e-mails definitely in opposition to the plan, so i just want to -- if we don't know who is supportive of the plan. i can tell you that we've got members of glide who don't support the plan. so my question is very specific. which providers in our community that work with mental health, that work in the tenderloin. which providers are supportive of that -- >> supervisor, let me just jump in, we haven't had anyone who refused to work with us.

for us, the work we're doing is not around supporting or not supporting this declaration. those are not the conversations that we're having as we're putting this operation together. as adrian indicated, we are working with our city partners, and we intend to staff our linkage partners, and they tend to be career based and community based organizations, but we're not having conversations about do you support the community declaration or not. everyone we work with has been very cooperative, and no one has said we refuse to work with you because we disagree with you. that has not happened. so i cannot say, we're into this thing and who's into this thing or not. i think everyone is interested in a better way in the

tenderloin. everyone we've been working with has been supportive, and i don't think -- adrian, correct me if i am wrong -- but no one has said no, we disagree, and we're not going to work with you. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> president walton: again, director carroll, this is not meant as a gotcha moment. again, i have great respect for you, and we have a great working relationship. i know in your earlier statements, you talked about working with providers, so i just wanted to know if there were providers that came out and stood in support of this, and if we don't know that right now, that's fine. i just wanted to know if there's some i could be reaching out to, maybe having a conversation with, but yeah,

that was the intent of the question. >> i think that there are -- i think that within some of these organizations, and even within our organizations, okay, there are differing opinions about approaches to the problem. and in every organization, and in every department, you are going to find that, so i don't feel like it's a gotcha at all. i'm really just trying to understand the question or maybe answer the question. but what i'm saying to you is no one has shut the door on the conversation. everyone we've invited to the table has come to the table, and we're altogether trying to figure out the best plan. adrian and i are subject matter experts, and we help to coordinate in a way to help keep this moving forward, but that's the best answer that i think we can give to your question, is that we know

within glide, we know of the different approaches within the organization, but i'm pleased to say, for the most part, the folks that we're working with are there and willing to work together. >> president walton: thank you, director carroll. supervisor safai, i know you made a statement earlier just in terms of a comparison to, you know -- obviously, there have been questions about making this declaration without having a plan, and i know you stated that we didn't have a plan what we went into the pandemic, and that emergency response, which is 100% true. i would say that this pandemic, you know, that we're still in was -- is a once in a lifetime, we hope type of emergency, and the reality of it is, we have tenderloins here in san

francisco. we have tenderloins in los angeles, tenderloins in baltimore, tenderloins in d.c., and it's a travesty in terms of what those areas look like. and, you know, these are not new tragedies that we've had to deal with here in san francisco, so i just don't want to act like this is the same magnitude because we shut complete cities down as a response to the pandemic because this is something that we haven't seen different. this is a response to the pandemic. i just want to say -- i'll come back and say a few more comments later, but i can't see me being in a position where i don't have clarity to what is going to happen and what the approaches are for this

proclamation of emergency declaration. and knowing that what is conservatorship and knowing that i was the only one who voted against it. any opportunity we allow for negative interaction between law enforcement and people of color is very problematic. being someone who has had personal experience with that, being someone who has lost family members, and someone who can't forget the george floyds, the breonna taylors, and mario woods, i just don't get the clarity from this declaration that we are not going to be criminalizing black and brown people or people of color with addictions with this declaration. and i do believe, after hearing from the chief, after hearing from director carroll, after hearing from certain leaders

with the city and the community, that we have the ability to respond to this without going through this declaration. in fact, i know there's probably about 100-plus million of prop c resources that have not been utilized, and there's strategies and a plan that we actually supported in may 2020 that was specific to responses in the tenderloin, and we could beef up responses to this. so i'm not in a position to support anything that may possibly lead to mass incarceration again, and i just wanted to state that for the record. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: thank you, president walton. i'm going to come back after, if it's okay. i know supervisor chan was cutoff, and she wanted to jump back in before i made my

comments. >> president walton: thank you, supervisor haney. >> supervisor chan: yes. thank you, supervisor safai and president walton. i am sitting in my house, and the power just went out. thank you, supervisor haney, for allowing me to jump back in. colleagues, the last part that i wanted to mention was our colleague, supervisor peskin, that his district includes part of the tenderloin, and i know he's introducing another motion to decide if we want to continue this conversation when we return on january 4, so i'll be supporting his motion on january 4, too, just so we can continue to hold people accountable, and i want to make

it clear where i stand on my vote, that although i have clear concerns, that i will leave the decision to supervisor haney. he lives in the tenderloin, in the heart of the tenderloin, and he has to answer to the residents of the tenderloin community. i will align myself with his position today. i do want to make it clear, president walton, that i am low on battery on my phone, and i am having challenges to connect to my laptop and my wifi at this time. i am worried that i will not -- if this meeting goes on much longer, i may not have the actual battery or power to stay on. i just want to make that clear right now while i have the chance. my apologies. >> president walton: supervisor chan, and no, we definitely accept your apology and understand in this world of technology and the fact that this meeting was not something

that any of us was prepared for completely. please keep me posted, and i'll let everyone know where you stand as we go through the meeting. >> supervisor chan: thank you. >> president walton: supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: thank you, president walton, and colleagues, for your comments and concern. i heard pretty much everything that was said, and i appreciated all of the questions and clarifications. i have a few more questions that i wanted to make sure were addressed that i think are pretty critical. some of them were addressed, and i wanted to make sure that i have clarity. you know, one brought up the

tenderloin. the containment zone has been a place where people of other neighborhoods have been displaced, they haven't received services. we are a tremendously compassionate neighborhood, but as a part of that, we have a neighborhood who have a high level of need who come to us from all over the city and beyond. i wonder, director carroll, if

you could help us understand, by declaring an emergency specifically in the tenderloin, and i will say, we did ask for a public health emergency to be declared on overdoses, and obviously, the tenderloin is an area that has the highest impact along with soma, and the highest rates of overdoses, but i never asked for it to be specifically in the tenderloin. i wonder if people come to the linkage center who are from the tenderloin versus coming from the south of market or the mission, is there a difference in the way that they're going to be treated? is there a difference in the prioritization that you're going to give to people from

the tenderloin versus other neighborhoods? and i wonder, if that is the case, as other people have suggested, that we have a lot of people that are experiencing overdoses or addiction on our streets or in our neighborhoods that aren't in the tenderloin, that we're going to focus our efforts strictly in the tenderloin? >> okay. thank you for the question. if it turns out that we are -- were able to make a huge difference in the tenderloin -- and, i mean, that will be a huge success -- we are -- we

are -- we're talking about this and about how to expand this through the rest of the city as needed. i think this particular linkage site is intended to serve the tenderloin. and i do want to say, if we do not have this declaration, we cannot -- we cannot do this for months to a year. it will take a very long time, so we will have to -- we're just not going to have this particular resource, and it really will impact our ability to make a difference in the neighborhood. before i go, i just want to tell supervisor chan that there's 8,000 people that lost power in the richmond, but pg&e is on the way, so i just wanted

to give you an [indiscernible] as we speak. sorry. i'm distracted by pg&e. so to answer your question, we, of course, again, we're going to be assessing on a daily basis what the accessibility, what our census is on the site, if we have room, then we would certainly start within the impact area of what we're doing in the tenderloin. i also want to say that we still have the -- while this skirt and all of the citywide teams are all citywide, so we have not said we're taking all the city resources that exist and all they're going to do is the tenderloin. we are looking at how is the best way to maintain it in the

tenderloin while serving other areas of the city. >> supervisor haney: well, you're going to standup a linkage site, but i wouldn't even -- the location that i heard, i wouldn't even necessarily describe as the tenderloin, so if you have a linkage site to serve the tenderloin, how do you define the site that's going to serve the tenderloin over and above other neighborhoods? if people show up from the mission or soma in the tenderloin, are you going to prioritize where they come from or is it just that the outreach is going to be overwhelmingly focused in the tenderloin or they'll be served equally no

matter where they're from? >> so we are somewhat constrained by the emergency declaration, that these resources are meant to be targeted for the tenderloin. that said, self-preservation is not something we're going to be interrogating people around. i mean, that doesn't make any sense. if we are -- if we're experiencing, you know, outflow, and we're going to focus there. if our outreach is there, we believe the most people we're going to get is from the tenderloin. we're kind of refining how the referrals will come from, for example, community-based organizations or others -- or

advocates who may bring someone in. we're asking if those are from the neighborhood. and for this, we're mostly constrained by our objective, which is to make a difference in this particular community, but also by the definition of the declaration. my hope, and i think that supervisor ronen spoke to this a few hours ago, is we see this really work. so once we're past the emergency time frame, we can expand and/or duplicate the model. >> supervisor haney: thank you. thank you for that. i have a few questions about the linkages, and when we're talking about, of course, a link -- linkage site or a linkage center, you know, some of the questions, and i think that they're very fair

questions and concerns, is linkages to what? are you going to be able to ensure that, for people who are brought to the center or who were referred -- and i want to talk about the role of community organizations in this. i don't want to grapple with people and take them to a site without having worked with them before. i don't think that's going to work. what's going to work is working with organizations that have already connected to people, and we're making streamlined access to those places in a really urgent and effective way. so are we making more placements available or are we just connecting people to placements more effectively or both -- >> both. >> supervisor haney: okay. >> both. so we are -- i think the first, we definitely want to be more

effective with the placements we have. we want to be very transparent and very sort of -- we want this to be a menu, essentially, for this group of folks that we hope are going -- that we're going to have come here so that we can, you know, be sharing information about what is actually available. the other thing, i believe, that is so important, is the assessment and coordination. this is the first time that we have a place where everyone will be. when i say everyone, i mean all of representatives of all of the resources that exist within

our -- the resources now. to supervisor stefani's point, there are beds available as we speak right now. the other thing we want to do is work closely with h.s.h. to make sure people that have coordinated entry or their documents, if there's a problem getting them in. to be honest with you, we already do this at a much lower level through hsoc and some of the other outreach efforts. we problem solve all the time for people in that way, but it's at a much smaller scale, to be honest with you, and this feels like this is going to be something very different in which we're going to be tracking, really, what the resources are on a daily basis and be able to problem solve for people. and like i said, somebody has

an appointment, for instance, if someone decided they were ready for treatment and couldn't get there for a few days, we don't want to turn them back out on the street. and so we'll have everything there, right? and it's just going to be much more efficient and a way that we can actually effect change and serve these fellow residents of san francisco better. >> supervisor haney: so one of the things that i'm hopeful that we're using this time and effort to jump start some of the inefficiencies and lack of access and hurdles that exist for people to get care that you you -- care, that you, during this

time, can break them down and be transparent about them to bring about longer term systems change and can be built into how we do things normally. i'll point out a couple things, and i would just love your commitment to work on these things. one is we know that sometimes it's hard for people to get enrolled immediately in medication. they're told to come back in a few days and it's not immediately identifiable. we know we have over 700 vacancies in supportive housing where we've been trying to get people placed, and all of the hoops and barriers, and how to identify getting people into a bed or a treatment bed and all the vacancies there, or a

permanent treatment plan, to identify what's holding us back there and breaking through on that. and lastly, the role of community organizations. like, we know a hospitality house that's working with a set of folks with overdose, that they know they can get into care, but because of all the layers and krurcrates and layers of this and that, that they're not able to refer someone directly. i hope that you can not only have the linkage site but freeing up placements and rapidly ensuring access to organizations and knowing that we can help them effectively. >> yes. yes, yes, yes to all of that. and to beg the obviously

question, could we do this -- could we do this without, you know, having a linkage physical site? we do it, and we could continue to improve it. the difference is that we have a physical place where we can engage and not me, we, but that providers can engage with people, that they can get safe off the streets, and that they're welcome to come in the door and walk out the door and come back, you know, when -- and that's just -- that's just the -- the fact of the matter, so, you know, i -- and the other thing is, like, having a higher level. so i intervene all the time when i can, when there's issues with these kinds of sort of systematic issues that we have. we had a client -- i don't want to give too much information. we had a client who was homeless who was ready to go,

who had supportive housing, but we had problem with the housing authority or something. the housing outreach workers can't deal with that sort of thing, and this is something that we were able to figure out. this is crazy. we have a vacant unit. we have an assignment. we have a human being who's ready to go inside, but it's not happening because of crazy things happening. we were able to resolve this, and i think this will helpful not only to resolve but help us identify why those problems exist, and again, that's the longer term, the issues here that we want to pursue. >> supervisor haney: i think as an example, and i mentioned this just a few weeks ago in my comments, we had a hearing about prop c amounts, allocations that we had in the budget, and there are dollars

that i think could help us prevent overdoses, and we haven't put out the money, we haven't funded the beds directly. those kinds of things, and i know as part of this, we're putting a lot on you in 90 days, but one of the things you can do is start getting all of that out. it's about doing the things that we've already committed to. and i think that's a big part of it. the very last question that i have is i think accountability here is going to be very important, and you talked about, you know, whether we might have -- there might be some sort of hearing at the board or -- but i want to get clarity, and i want to get some statements about how are we going to measure success? what are the metrics that we're going to be accountable about? we don't have to have a whole list here, but i think one of

the things about covid and why i want folks to be brought to the overdose epidemic is that level of transparency, how many folks are being placed in the treatment beds? what's the wait time to get a bed? how many people are we reaching on the streets? and then doing that, you know, in deep partnership with the people who are out there right now in the community and making sure they are a part of all of those efforts. can you speak to what your vision of that is now, and i certainly will, you know, in my role as supervisor, you know, want to, you know, make sure that's a huge part of this, not just for the board but for the public? >> absolutely, and it's very important to me that we measure

the metrics. the controller's office was the team behind the dashboard and a lot of data collection and sharing and crunchtion that we did during covid. and so that's the other thing. we're -- we know how to -- we have the infrastructure to share, and so the kind of things that we are looking at very -- so i don't have all of the metrics, but what i do have, it'll be part of this document that you're going to get sent as part of this plan. less open drug dealing, less open drug use, and we have ways to measure that. let open tents, less waste on the sidewalk. we're going to measure 911 calls. we're going to look at all the

different types of calls that come into the area. we are going to use surveys and ceilings to determine types of public safety. we, number one, need to be tracking overdose deaths as this is the impetus for us having this calling for this emergency declaration, so we'll be working with medical examiner and -- and all of that. so most of the things, we already have tools to collect that data, and -- and, you know, that will -- and then, we'll also be adjusting those metrics as -- if it turns out that we need to -- we missed something that we need to add. we also have the existing teams, like i've mentioned any times, sword and skirt that are in the tenderloin, so we'll be pulling data from their

systems, also. so absolutely, this has to be a huge part of what we're doing to determine whether we are successful or not. >> supervisor haney: and you, and i appreciate that, and i do think there should also be -- one of the things that i think is critical to success, and we saw this during the process of bringing people inside during the -- when we're bringing people in place in the shelter in place hotels, doing it in close partnership with outreach organizations and people that have connections in the neighborhood is critical, so the idea that we can have city staff do this on their own and bring people to a centralized site, that's not going to be effective, so i hope that the deep collaboration is there, and i will definitely be engaged in that. for data, for history here,

when i came in in 2019, we had a situation where we weren't reporting overdose deaths until nearly a near after the prior year when we were reporting. so for overdose deaths, we didn't know until the end of 2019, and we require it to be reported at least more regularly, so i think that helped to spur the emergency and being able to respond in real-time. obviously, having the data is one thing, but using it to save lives and to respond in real-time is critical, and so i hope that we can do that on many more indicators than -- than overdose deaths, and use it to help people. and, you know, i think generally, you know, i do want to say that i appreciate the commitments that were made tonight and the clarity.

you know, i know we are going to be working closely together and also holding everyone accountable to these commitments. and even thoi i think i've made it clear that i will be supportive of this. there's a lot of work left to do to get it right, and if these commitments are not upheld, that we would bring this back and revoke this authority. i think it's important that that was underscored, as well, and i take that very seriously, but i also take seriously the commitment that we have to residents of this neighborhood to respond with urgency, coordination, to confront this epidemic, to ensure that this neighborhood is safe and healthy and to save lives. so thank you, again, director carroll, and thank you again, colleagues, for all of your questions and comments, and i will turn it back over to you,

president walton. >> president walton: thank you so much, supervisor haney. supervisor chan? thank you. supervisor preston? >> supervisor preston: thank you, president walton, and just some -- a few question additional questions to director carroll. i just -- you made a comment earlier in the beginning of your presentation that nothing like this has ever been done before, and i wonder if you can explain how the -- how the linkage center as you general vision it is different than the center at 1380 howard? the 2019 announcement by the mayor of that facility and the plans there to help those suffering from substance use and mental health disorders sounds to me to be nearly

identical to what you're describing. i'm just wondering if it's the location of the linkage center or something about it that will make it different than what's being offered at 1380 howard? >> thank you, supervisor preston. first, it's a neighborhood response, which is nothing we've ever done before. also, this is mental health. although we focus on health, h.s.a. is committing resources. we are going to bring in the components of homeless connect. so in addition to seeking health services, folks may have a pet that they need to help with. they may not have an i.d. or other issues, basic problem

solving issues that can prevent a person from seeking care that we want to be able to kind of have these wraparound. we also have h.s.h., so we want to coordinate access to health, what is needed on the side of the housing for the person, are there other basic needs that need to be met? and then, in addition, i've mentioned a few times that we're going to be working with adult probation. i think next week, if we're talking next week or providing you more information, that there's going to be partners at the table. so from that perspective, i think it's different. it's a combination of linkage, but also a respite site. it is a drop-in center. it's a place where people can come rest. it's safe. they can get food, it's hygiene, and we're really trying to have this be a way

that we can -- because the other thing that we've been told from our public health partners is life on the street is about moving from one place to another, so we're following the advice of the public health folks that we create an environment that people will be able to come into and feel okay and even provide some stabilization for them during the day or at night or when it's needed, so i think it's much expanded from the 1380 site. >> clerk: i'm sorry. pardon me. we will lose our interpreters. we have 146 people who are

listening and 88 in the queue. i just wanted to make sure you had all the information needed for the public. >> president walton: thank you, madam clerk. >> supervisor preston: thank you, madam clerk. real quick, just to follow up, is this intended to be indoors or outdoors? is this intended to be, like, a tend model somewhere? >> we don't have the -- we're still providing services indoor, we're still providing shelter and drop-in, and we are

moving forward. obviously, we will be taking all the precautions we can. we will be offering testing and vaccination at the site, but no, we are not -- indoor or outdoor, we are planning on moving forward. >> supervisor preston: and when do you expect to complete your written plan? >> we'll have something to you on monday. >> supervisor preston: thank you. and last questions, what are you planning to do in the next two weeks that you couldn't do if this was taken up at the january 4 meeting? you said, if we don't do this declaration, it'll take many months or a year. i would submit that's only accurate if we don't pass a new declaration in a couple weeks [indiscernible] that you couldn't do if a revised declaration of this type was

passed in our january 4 meeting, when the plan was before us? >> supervisor, we're doing this -- the mayor has asked for this because there's two deaths a day. if we were losing two people from covid a day, we would be taking action. there would be no hesitancy. two people a day are dying of overdoses, and most of them are dying in the tenderloin. surely, we can't wait two weeks. that's the only thing i can tell you. >> supervisor preston: my question is what will you do differently in the next two weeks if you don't have this approved today or another version of it on january 4. what will be different for your work between now and then? >> we're going to continue -- well, we won't be able to sign a lease or moving forward with

any of the materials or things that we will need, so those are things that we can't do. but obviously, we are going to continue to work to open the site. we'll continue to work with our community partners. we'll continue to work with all the other things that we can do, but, you know, we're not really going to make the difference that we need to make specifically to address this specific crisis, and so it's just two more -- it's two more or four more or however long it goes of not addressing this particular crisis. >> supervisor preston: thank you. i'm done. i would just comment that it's basically two weeks, you will not be able to sign a lease when you can't do this, and we could hear this on january 4 when we actually have a plan before us. >> if i might, supervisor,

through the chair, we are prepared to sign a lease. we can do so as soon as we have a declaration. there are other parts of it that we are determining whether we need some adjacent sites, but we're ready to go. we have a site, that the -- what i was referring to is the overall design and whether or not we need some additional space outside that would require a tent is still to be determined, but we have a site identified and we are ready to go. we could have signed it today. >> supervisor preston: thank you. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor preston, if you want to follow up with director carroll after public comment, you may do so, but we should go onto public comment now because, one, folks have been waiting for hours, and two, we will lose interpretation in 30 minutes. [please stand by]

press pound twice and you'll know joined as a listener because you will hear the discussion but your line will be muted. once you're ready to get into the queue when you should pressá3 listen carefully to the prompt that you have been unmutedand begin speaking . as we stated earlier we have interpreters on standby. they areready to jump in and assist the public with their interpretation . i would love if they can introduce themselves . we will start with agnes live for chinese. arturo christensen for spanish, raymonds for filipino, sonya atkins for arabic and keon trang for vietnamese. >>. [speaking chinese] thank you.

>>. [speaking spanish]

>> mister boris. let's go on tosonya atkins . in arabic. okay. keon, are you available? >>. [speaking arabic]

>> thank you. keon, are youavailable ? >>. [speaking vietnamese] and raymond, were you able to join us?

>>. [speaking filipino] thank you. >> thank you to all of you for being with us and for your patience andstaying on as long as possible . we also think you have very beautiful voices. we welcome the community when you are able to assist. the timer will be set for one minute for each speaker . i'm going to ask something is typically not done.however,

so that we can hear from all of the communities of interest who are limited in english proficiency if there is any wa you can get into the queue now thatwe can take your comment . if you are an english speaker , you wouldn't mind pressingá3 that will get you backinto the queue . going to take all the calls this evening as we want to hear fromeveryone so we will be here as long as possible . there are approximately 147 are listening and about just as many are in the queue now to speak. if you would like to speak pressá3 unless you are willing to wait to get back into the queue. operations, do we have our first caller in the queue at the interpreters are going to jump in and assist with whatever language they can assistwith . let's hearfrom our first caller . see a good evening supervisors. my name is kevin and i'm

president of the hotel san francisco and also a lifelong resident of san francisco in my will on the council and as an individual . i'm calling to express our support for the emergency declaration thatyou're holding on here tonight . there is a public health drug crisis in the tenderloin and it's time it should be treated as a crisis that is. the majority of our hotel workers live in san francisco and many live in the tenderloi . our employees, residents and visitors are all impacted by this emergency. this declaration will allow those addicted to get the help they need and also protect those that live and workin the tenderloin as well . again, i urge you to do the humane thing, the right thing and approve this emergency declaration that has been proposed by the mayor thathas

been needed for way too long . >> clerk: thank you for comments and lastly i apologize for interruptinganyone tonight we are setting thetimer for one minute each . next speaker . ca my name is jeremy miller and i oppose theemergency ordinance under consideration . i align withcomments by supervisor preston . it's not a question of whether an emergency exists, it's a question of whether granting emergency powers to the mayor effectively address this emergency and the answer is no. there's no need to theorize aboutwhat this ordinance might or might not do . mayor said house you would use emergency powers and as maya angelou says when someone shows you who theyare believed them the first time. there's the question of enforcement . this declaration says deaths occurred outside the tenderloin

how do you square this with defined geography . addressing the concept of tough love, it's a fascist profile to talk love withparamilitary treatment . the safety of the tenderloin has been london pre-explore the pain of attics to give them more power would be atravesty . >> clerk: thank you to the caller thank you for yourcomments . next: please . ca this is lesliedreier calling on behalf of housing rights committee of san francisco . we oppose the emergency orders and really hope all of you supervisors would back this plan. what's happening in the tenderloin is the result of policy failures , putting profits over people needing homes and services for decades. this power grab will not remedy the situation or does the causes and it will only make

matters worse. if the city want to address steps they must look at dpw city workers stealing residents and survival gear every day. we urge you to address problems by keeping an expanding hotel programs and implementing evidence-based solutions like heart. in this season of cold, rain and covid searches reject this emergency ordinance. trust the mayor when she says she will enforce it bytapping." no, keep your authority . >> clerk: thank you for your comments let's hear from our next caller please . welcome, caller. >> caller: kenny perry okay? >> welcome ca i'm with the

mental health association of san francisco and i'm a native san franciscan and longtime resident of the tenderloin and our agency opposes the proposed legislation that would be an acted and voted on today. appreciate all the dialogue i heard today it feels like in my experience and identify as an attic and an alcoholic and the only thing that's worse for me is the voluntary treatment. we're all about voluntary services first. it feels like we talk about cards which is great proposal and i don't feel like, our agency feels like we haven't committed ourselves to these alternatives . this is not the time to repeat the mistakes of the past through the overreach of the

over policing of the tenderloin seems to be guaranteed by what's being proposed. this could be an opportunity to commit ourselves and implement alternatives. >> clerk: thank the caller for their comments. let's go to our next caller please . >> caller: jennifer greeted mark, several years of community outreach or response to the tenderloin due to the pandemic has increased homelessness and behavioral healthchallengesalongside massive increases in policing . people are suffering . when this emergency declaration was introduced by mayor marie we needed a her. we need the mayor to implement money and instead we got some kind of sick joke absolutely nothing and a lot of threats. we got pathetic offsets of the lincoln center for 100 people,

calling it a containment tank two days ago mary and carol said yesto threats and arrests . did you even talk to any homeless people ? get something real in writing. vote no on mayor giuliani's war ondrugs . >> clerk: do we have another callerin the queue ? >> this is paulina and i support mayor breeds emergency declaration of the tenderloin. we can help people selling drugs and are addicted without sacrificing publichealth and safety .we need to reignin the chaos and disregard for life in the tenderloin is urgent . we can't allow these streets to be afree for all. that's not functional . we don't deal with that level of turmoil. we must talk more about the impact on the greater

tenderloin and the city and not apologize for it. we need to use city resources more effectively and cut through the redtape now . i don'tcare who proposes what when . i'm fed up with the bashing of mayo agreed the police to the detriment of common sense and healthmeasures . i'm disillusioned by the special interest groups profiting from the worsening of this complex. the emergency plan is clear enough this is a low barrier approach . better long-term treatment ... >> clerk: thank you for the caller. we are setting the timer for one minute. if possible could you please provide comments to a minute. let's hear from our next caller please. >> caller: my name is william jake, i've lived in san francisco for 28 years .

please ratify the emergency declaration. people mostly homeless are dying every day because of the situation with drugs and the situation with people living on the streets and five blocks is completely out of control. alarming number of people living on the streets are seriously disrupting our communities whilethey are killing themselves with drugs . we certainly have an emergency on our hands, don't we ? the mayor finallydeclared a state of emergency in the tenderloin . ithink it's clear and she needs what she said . the current situation is absolutely horrible. it's bad for everybody, especially homeless people who are addicted to drugsso it's time for a change now . the successful response for all those mental health resources as and law enforcement are clearly what'sneeded to address the urgent emergency so mayor

breeds, i trust you and i thank you . >> clerk: thanks for your comments. next speaker please. >> caller: my name is kelly powell and i'm representing the hotel council of san francisco and i'm a member of the bay area women's and children's center advisory board in the tenderloin for about 20 years andi volunteer there .i'm calling to support the emergency proclamation mayor breeds as declaredurge you to vote yes . the reason, people are dying on our streets in unprecedented

... the proposed plan should change every day and this is not good governance. i don't understand why we're not self starting with services and before we give the mayor emergency powers let's see a publicplan the whole community can get behind and start implementing cards and come together with real solutions . >> clerk: let'shear from our next caller please .

>> caller: my name is stephen, i'm vice president of central council and also a firefighter in the city. a few days ago i went on a detail to station 36 in san francisco . we were all like forwarding calls after calls, overdoses, stabbings, assault.as somebody grew up here the situation is downtown is untenable. it's a dystopian nightmare. if your tourist would you think of our city and what do you think your experience would be like if you lived there you're undoubtedly hearing people saythis is a return to a police state and a failed war on drugs but i can tell you as someone used to work atstation 36 these drug dealers are preying on people .they threatenresidents and even us

the first responders . this must be stopped . the villains are clear, it's thedrug dealers and they must be stopped right now. i support this declaration by the mayor and i thank you for your time .>> clerk: let's hear from our nextcaller please . >> caller: my name is jack and i work in san francisco . i opposed the emergency ordinance and i grew up going to the tenderloin and have long been in need of services and have never needed more policing. people face discrimination and they are taught to respond to any type of weapon's arrest. clearly not well-equipped to support people . the mayor should move forward with spending 100 million of unspent funding and address the 10 percent rate in housing and get people on the streets to go. many supervisors have made it clear it is that you don't have relationships with people that aredoing the work topermanently house people and that's what we

need . we need permanent housing for people . >> clerk: let's hear from our nextcaller please . >> my name is lidia branson and i have spent 14 years of my life working in the tenderloin on the corner of goldengate and jones and i'm now working at a project in the mission. i've gone through a lot of changes myself while working in the population of the tenderloin with the idea that people need to hit rock bottom in order to be, to go through recovery with drugs. i know thisnow not to be true. that now rock-bottom is in fact sometimes death . adding in morebarriers for service for people and forcing them into treatment is not the way we're going to solve this problem . i do not support this measure. thank you . >> you for your comments, we

have 171 people listening at 112 are actually in thequeue ready to make comments . let's hear from our next caller. welcome, caller. >> caller: i am a community minister workingwith on the house to focus in the tenderloin and other areas of the city . i am urging the board to vote no tonight. because this is an extremely urgent problem and it does need to be dealt with quickly but it needs to be dealt with well and we don't know that this plan will deal with it well because nobody has seen an actual plan. i urge you to delay your vote until january 4 when we had a chance to look at the plan, see the details and have a strong assurance that nobody will be threatened with arrest for declining services and i believe that we will lose

people to overdoses in that time but a poorly executed plan will probably risk us more lives than alienating peopleand re-traumatizing people that waiting another 12 days will so i urge you to vote no tonight . >> clerk: thank you for your comments. let's hear from our next speaker please . >> caller: this is marty regan. this plan must address and alleviate the root causes of poverty for long-term sustainable success . we call the city to open the shelters waitlist. relief for hundreds of millions for low barrier easy access mental health and reduce the bureaucratic barriers that providers can quickly get people who are on the streets safely housed into themany units . providers know what works.

mobile case management, compassionate evidence-based and effective intervention that are critical to meet the needs ofthe tenderloin for all residents . >> clerk: thank you for your comments,let's hear from our next caller please . >> my name is sandra dressler, a resident of district to defeat an action at st. james this couple church of richmond. we oppose the emergency ordinance under consideration. i am a public health professional and volunteer worker with needed services. the criminal justice response does is not a solution. systemic change is needed. the mayor is sitting on over $100 million of proxy funding

for behavioral health treatment programs that will be much more effective than dealing with th crisis of addiction and overdose on our streets . the solutions that at the root causes for these problemsshould be implemented and are intervening with police response is not appropriate or effective . this is not a political challenge, it is a human rights issue . vote no. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from our next caller. >> caller: this is charles had, president of the coalition for san francisconeighborhoods . not just for some but for all. we have joined in the past with rescue sf in supporting supportive housing legislation and a place for all and we join together with him tonight in supporting the mayor's legacy proclamation for drug overdoses in the tenderloin and for all

of our neighborhoods begin to look like that further. we support the emergency proclamation because it will enable the city to have more effective emergency response to public health, behavioral health, social and housing services . now, stop talking. it'stime to act . thank you very much and seasons greetings to all of you. see you next year. >> thank you for your comments. let's hear from our next caller. >> of public concern is that substance abusers are in a system involving advocacy, fundraising so that people may be addicted to the present system as a whole and some of these people on the street just need a pound.

some are homeless and they become involved with other people that want them to use drugs because they don't want to use drugs alone and they wind up doing dying in twos and threes and some people are safer in jail than off the street and fentanylare medically indicated . they suffer from ptsd and deaths. people can take drugs in jail even if they refuse to be on the street,jail can be a preventative measure . there are worse alternatives to jail for having a hard time. >> thank you for your comments operations, another caller in the queue .

>> caller: this is matthew, i'm a district resident and i agree the situation in the tenderloin is dire oppose the resolution becauseit would eliminate important safeguards against corruption . san francisco is in the midst of a major public corruption crisis. several high ranking officials have been arrested or resigned due to corruption allegations and meanwhile this public proclamation would remove contracting requirements and civil service rules that exist to prevent corruption.this enables the crooked backroom deals that would erode public trust in government and iurge the board of supervisors to reject this resolution and work within the boundaries to address the crisis in the tenderloin >> clerk: thank you for your comments, do we have another caller in the queue ? >> caller: this is david elliott lewis, 15 year

tenderloin resident, member of people's congress i have concerns about how public comments will be waived by the emergency board as well as other safeguards. it's way too vague at this time pleasevote no instead do this . provide housing forall who need it. there should be no one sleeping on our streets . provide counseling services at the safe injection sites, safe use of sites. get rid of coordinated entry please and stop closing hotels, shelter in place hotels when the government is still willing topay for it . stop the law enforcement or move along policing that don't have any housing to move along to. david elliottlewis, a longtime resident , thank you very much . >> clerk: thank you for your comments do we have another caller in the queue ? >> caller: i work in downtown

san francisco and i oppose the mayor's emergency declaration which is just an expansion of already existing strategies that have been tried and don't work and its decision pointing to hear peopleusing drugs but not once did i hear anyone mention perdue pharma or speculative real estate or any of the actual causes of the opioid crisis and homelessness crisis in the tenderloin .the city is trying to do militarize and defund law enforcement and build up empowered working-class and neighborhood organizations independent from business and realestate interest groups. something that would help the tenderloin community is making san francisco a true sanctuary city giving rewrites for all immigrants. do not vote to letlondon read

it give more money to the police . >> clerk:thank you for your comments. mister tang may i ask you turn your camera off. thank you sir for being here . operations, do we have another caller in the queue ? >> caller: [inaudible] >> caller: i am someone who grew up in the elves and network for the elves and today i speak on behalf of of the citizens that have been neglected and unheard for decades. just because the dl is filled with many lower-class first generationimmigrant families does not give anyone the right to take advantage of us . if we and open air drug market isn't permissible than it shouldn't be permissible in ours. the dr has the highest population of children in the bay area but we must invest in and we all knowit takes a village to raise a child and you cannot raise a child in the

middle of an open-air drug market . we are asking you to and on the side of justice, on theside of truth andwe are not a containment zone and i'll leave you all with this . god almighty is watching . iq. >> clerk: operations, another caller in the queue ? >> caller: this is ross from the richmond. raised ships in the day. it's pretty disheartening to hear people not support the measure that would hopefully get people off the streets. i think even if you don't support this measure, at least propose something. it's too long, too little and i really think that there at least needs to be something done.