task force agenda. and, mr. chair, that concludes my announcements. >> chair townsend: thank you, mr. carroll. i want to say just because of some of the correspondence we've received and conversations that have come to me as i'm out in the public and many people are concerned and wondering how we could have removed certain neighborhoods out of certain districts and i just want the public to know you may have seen maps during all of that. none of them are from us. we have not approved any maps. ultimately, yes, the maps will come from the redistricting task force even though some people are under the illusion that the board of supervisors can fix whatever we do that they don't like, that is not the case either.

and so i just want people to be aware. i also know that some of our members as well as the public are anxious for us to start drawing and submitting maps. yes, we all want to do that, that's what we're here for. i am reluctant to do that without hearing from the public. we serve and our desire is to link the needs of the public of the citizens of san francisco and i think it would be improper to do a lot of drawing until we have heard from them. so we will start hearing from them and then we will start our map making schedule very soon and at that time, we can all get very busy and hopefully we can come out at the end of the process friends at least. but that's where we are now. thank you, mr. clerk. item number one. >> clerk: agenda item number

one is a roll call. members, when you hear your name please indicate you are present that you are here. [roll call] mr. chair, we have a quorum. >> chair townsend: wonderful. thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: agenda item two is an update to regular and special meetings schedule. members who wish to make public comment should call the public

call-in number. that call-in number is (415) 655-0001. enter the meeting id of 24866267041. press pound twice followed by three to enter the system to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. for those interested in the teleconferencing system webex, please indicate so by raising your hand within the webex meeting. doing so will add you to the speakers awaiting recognition. mr. chair. >> chair townsend: thank you. i believe number two is a carry over discussion i believe we had on monday night in putting together our schedule. there were some shifts and some

changes and i am hopeful that mr. wilson ing is here. before i go to him, vice chair reiner, did you have any comments you wanted to make concerning the schedule? >> vice chair: no, chair townsend. >> chair townsend: okay. thank you. >> thank you, chair. good afternoon members of the task force. my colleague joe atkins here will be doing a screen share shortly with the latest version of the redistricting task force proposed in district meetings schedule last updated from our conversation on monday. and here it is. thank you, joe. control screen, perfect. and to just quickly recap that last meeting, the proposed updates are highlighted in the calendar provided in your packets displayed before you as

well that we're adding two additional meetings per request of the chair for the purpose of facility reservations if we are going to be conducting meetings in person and then adding proposed district focused order per the chair and vice chair's recommendations and providing anticipated locations in the notes column that you see before you to plan ahead. based on some of the comments we heard on monday, the packets are reflective of the few changes. and also for members of the public to follow along as well. the updates since monday are we updated the monday, february 14th meeting to wednesday, february 16th, in observance of valentine's day. the april 6th meeting is to start at 5:30 p.m. the task force had previously

adopted a 10:00 a.m. start time for this meeting at the november 17th, 2021, meeting. so this would be a proposed amendment to that previously approved start time. and we also received feedback at the last meeting specifically regarding districts 1, 2, and 7 occurring in march. i have made a side note of that, but we don't believe that ordering of these districts would have a material impact on how the lines would be drawn for the less impacted districts. but i will defer to the task force amongst you all for further deliberation and discussion on the specific ordering of these districts and i'll be glad to reflect any changes that the body would like. before we do that, i want to just ask the task force to confirm or rather reconfirm whether in-person meetings will occur starting on january 14th, 2022.

at this time, our office believes there may be some conflicting opinions based on feedback we've received from members as well as public feedback that we received on our end. at the january 3rd meeting, this task force confirmed they would like to host in-person meetings. with the chair and vice chair, we've been advised that in-person meetings may not occur and we need the task force to take some actions to affirmatively let us know whether in-person meetings would occur between the 14th through the end of april and the select dates were chosen at the last meeting, but we wanted this for operational planning and staffing planning, we do want to confirm those things. a few deadlines for your consideration on our end, our clerk john carol will need to

confirm the agenda in advance of the meeting on the 14th to meet the five-day noticing requirements in consultation with our personnel and i.t. units, we also need to plan on our end any recruiting and logistics if we're going to take meetings in person because we are as clerk calvillo previously mentioned, we are recruiting for two as needed temporary eeuchltd t. positions and this will be the determining factor. and we want to be able to be clear about what the schedule and expectations are for potential candidates that are interested in this position just to be made upfront and just to make a note, absent of additional i.t. staff, our resource and availability is to support in-person meetings is stretched incredibly thin. basically, everybody that you see administering this meeting inclusive of our i.t. staff, that's essentially the team that we have, and we are trying

to expand our envelope with additional staffing and we will need to determine what their work schedule looks like based on what the meeting demands are for the next several months. operationally, we will need to provide the affirmative to the locations. many of these places are generously providing accommodations without cost to the task force with consideration that we are also in the middle of a pandemic. so as a business courtesy, i want to be able to let these facilities know that if there's any chance that a venue may not be used that we provide them sufficient noticing and setting just expectations upfront and hopefully not something that would be changed as we embark on the next three months. and then let's see.

we're also working on how we can be considerate of any household concerns and then also as a reminder, sfgov tv will not be able to provide any in-person meetings will be streamed. today, on behalf of my team, the board divisions and also on behalf of chair townsend and vice chair reiner we have two

questions before you today. will the task force be having in-person meetings beginning january 14th through april? this would from the operational perspective, this is an all or nothing question in consideration with what we can accommodate as well as consideration of sufficient time for public noticing, outreach, and then also hiring and personal staffing, planning. the second question we have is will the task force approve the additional dates and times of the calendar we have presented before you today specifically adding the february 16th and march 14th meeting dates which are currently not on the schedule. changing the april 6th meeting start time from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. per chair townsend's request and then confirming the district focused meeting order and if meetings are in person to affirm a definitive end time so that we can reserve

facilities for that specific time frame and we look forward to the task force members' deliberation and action on this and i'm available for any questions. >> chair townsend: thank you, mr. ing for such a thorough report. members. >> clerk: mr. chair, i see member pierce awaiting recognition. >> chair townsend: member pierce, let us know what we're doing. >> member: yeah. i have two questions to redirect back to mr. ing. number one, if we are meeting in person, what are the capacity of each of the facilities that we're going to be meeting in and i also would like to know are those capacities reduced capacities to allow for distancing? and in the event that we have

overflow, do all of those facilities have the capacity to handle overflow so that we can sufficiently distance? i mean, this sounds like a death sentence to me for some of the general public, so i'm really concerned about that and i will take my questions at the end of every other members' comments, but i do need those questions answered before we vote. >> member pierce, wilson ing. with regard to the capacity needs facility, one of the minimum criteria we had when vetting some of these locations was they had to have a minimum of 100+ head count and with regard to distancing, currently in accordance with the current health order, there's no distancing requirement for public meetings i don't believe and the city attorney's office

can correct me if i'm wrong. but each individual facility may or may not have their own house rules they may wish to implement. and then with regards to overflow, we are anticipating all facilities will have overflow, but we're also not anticipating the capacity limit to be reached at this point based on our assessment of the volume of public callers at this point, website traffic, at least on our end unless arranged otherwise. >> member: thank you for the response. >> clerk: mr. chair, i see member hernandez gil awaiting recognition. >> chair townsend: please. >> member: thank you. my understanding is that the mayor's supplemented

proclamation requires all persons attending in-person meetings, regardless and the public may have ended in person, but they also have to have the option of attending virtually. to me, the main thing is addressing whether all of us on the task force are comfortable attending these in-person meetings because we understand the public must in any way be able to participate in the meetings with us. we all hopefully have seen the numbers with this covid spike. i feel comfortable attending these meetings, but i have to admit that i'm hesitant and particularly if it gets worse, i think it would be prudent to do so. so i would like to get a sense. i guess from everybody on the task force to see if they want to meet in person because it's

either we all go or nobody goes. >> chair townsend: mr. carroll, is there anyone else? >> clerk: there is additional members of the task force and i also recognize carin mcdonald who was the next person in the roster if you'd like to recognize her. >> chair townsend: i'd like to get the members first. >> clerk: okay. the next member is member cooper. >> member: thank you, mr. ing. i think that was a really wonderful good presentation. i guess my questions are about just looking right ahead of this next meeting at city hall just to of clarify that we'll be able to have people, you know, the public in person as well as remotely, but what that would look like in terms of the

rules around vaccination and masks that would go on next week? >> let's see. with regards to masking and distancing, masking will be required within city hall. distancing may not. and i would also defer to the city attorney's office as well because the up coming -- if we are going to have in-person meetings, city hall is not going to be the only location that in-person meetings would occur and if there's certain locations with their own individual house rules such as vaccination or temperature checks or distancing that's required that city hall may not have whether that poses like logistical hurdle for us, i would defer to the city attorney's office. >> chair townsend: i would

like to hear from the city attorney as well. >> good afternoon. let me just make sure i understand the question. so, wilson, your question is whether we can use other locations that may have rules different than the rules applied to city hall? is that right? >> member: yeah. one, under current city policy in city hall, just only the masking requirement is applicable to city hall. >> that's correct. >> member: and then since we also have additional locations that the redistricting task force would move around to, if they have their own individual house rules whether uniform application of those screening protocols or rules would need to apply. >> i'm sorry uniform between what? if they have their own house rules, i think we have to respect them. >> member: okay. >> right. i assume you would have to respect those rules. maybe they'd be flexible about

them. i assume you have to be respectable to use their facility. >> member: okay. so for all the locations, the minimum requirement is masking and if each individual facility layers additional rules, then that is at the location's discretion, correct? >> yeah. and if you don't mind a suggestion, it may be useful as we're building out this charter spread sheet that you're developing, you may want to note if there are locations that have particular house rules that we should pay attention to. they may put on persons of the public to attend. in that case, they know sort of in advance or maybe this could be something on the agenda then they should definitely go to that meeting remotely. >> member: two more. quick followup. are we allowed to make our own rules in regards to

vaccinations? >> i suppose if the task force could make rules as guidance for wilson and his colleagues in terms of what is acceptable as conditions for remote locations if that's the question, member cooper. if you want to provide some guidance to wilson and others i'm sure they would take it into consideration. i would say that could become very challenging because as i mentioned, it's difficult to find locations in the city. so keep that in mind. and certainly, well, i probably don't have anything else to say on that front. certainly, i'm trying to stay abreast of all the different rules changing around covid and omicron, but i will confess i'm not a public health expert, but i trust the task force will be

reasonable with whatever rules it wants to adopt. >> one for followup. you mentioned a sort of all or nothing when we talked about in-person meetings or not. can you elaborate a little bit more on that. let's say that we choose to take these next few meetings off the table because of the current omicron wave, does that mean that we're sort of shutting off the opportunity to go back to the public february, march, april? >> yeah. so when i say all or nothing, i'm speaking purely from the operational standpoint because if we are going to be going off site, we are also recruiting additional staff and if, you know, if you guys meet in-person for certain dates, but not other dates, that may change the scope of the candidates that we are trying to recruit for. so, for example, one of the

basic requirements when we need to know when we hire a potential candidate or whether a candidate would accept the position or not is knowing what the hours of operation or locations that they wouldn't potentially need to go to are. so we do need to know whether we're hiring somebody for the next three months or multiple candidates for the next three months or are we just having some stand by assistance for certain dates where we're going to be in person and some not. and that was what i was getting at. >> okay thanks. >> chair townsend: i thought that all or nothing meant if we have public meetings, in-person

meetings that all of us have to attend or we do a remote meeting. >> that is true as well. >> chair townsend: i don't see how we can dictate the rules in their facility. i don't see us telling them we're going to do this and we can't demand it is what i'm saying. mr. carroll, are there others? >> clerk: there. mr. jeremy lee is in the roster. >> chair townsend: mr. jeremy lee. >> member: okay. thank you. so i can speak for myself in

terms of what i'm comfortable with. i think redistricting is just as impairtive to the public and providing access to them is essential so to me that outweighs any risks at least at present. so i'm fully comfortable going out into the public. with that, every member of the public can also participate online and so i would ask that member ho and member hernandez gil, when doing that outreach, make that abundantly clear that members of the public still can participate electrically or in

person. i still want to reiterate my desire to have a meeting dedicated for map making somewhere in between the long line of indistrict meetings as well as a weekend meeting preferably in april. the last weekend meeting on this schedule is early march and i think it is a disservice to the public if we do not provide a weekend opportunity for them to participate closer to the deadline. thank you. >> clerk: mr. chair, i see member pierce next in the roster. >> chair townsend: member pierce. >> member: i can wait until our consultant goes or i can go right now. >> chair townsend: go right now. you've got the mic.

>> member: let me be clear, we are delivering meals to people and i happen to live with my 75-year-old mother and help with my 99-year-old grandfather. if we change to meet in public, that will require me to spend the rest of the process in quarantine so that i do not indanger their lives. i really feel strongly about this because i am holding hands and attending funerals right now. that is since member lee put his position out there, if we vote to do in person, i will show up, but this creates a real hardship and a life-threatening situation for me. i also have concerns with the age of both our chair and vice chair although they appear to be healthier than i am, i know

what those age differences mean in terms of outcomes because i'm seeing it directly. turning it back over to you, mr. chair. >> chair townsend: mr. carroll, who's next. >> clerk: there are further names in the roster. i do want to jump in for a moment to mention that by action of the task force during the monday meeting, the task force did adopt three in-district meetings. i want to make sure everyone knows the three meetings are presently scheduled. you could make the change to remove them, but i just want to make sure everyone as a baseline knew that's where we stand right now. and, mr. chair, i see that vice chair reiner is next in the queue. >> chair townsend: yes. thank you so much. >> vice chair: i've spent the last couple of years isolating because of either family situations or because of myself just to protect myself. i worry that if we do decide

based on what i see all over the country and what i'm seeing here, if we do decide to have an in-person meeting, we are going to take the timeline of people being ill or potentially getting ill and expanded over a longer period of time than if we decide during this real surge in january to continue to have the meetings with our districts, but to do them remotely because the surge is definitely happening. it's just starting. and i'm very concerned that i want to be in the district. i can't wait to meet -- there are some members of the task force i've never seen in person. i feel the task force would operate in a much more collaborative and wonderful manner if we could at least meet together. so i'm really anxious to meet with my colleagues and the members, but i think that we

would be inviting a long term turmoil for the task force and difficulty if we didn't do the first three meetings for now for january and see how this variant really spreads in san francisco. we're starting to -- we're a very dense city. we're starting to see some very serious problems and i am very hesitant to meet in person regardless of the fact that we said that we'd love to do that. we're looking at numbers here that are very discerning. >> clerk: mr. chair, i see member hernandez gil next in the roster. >> member: thank you. so based on these past few comments from task members and also a couple of comments that i've received from members of the public in district 6, i do

not believe that it's prudent for us to meet in person over the next two weeks. right. at least until the 22nd. potentially things could change by the 29th. i don't know if that's going to happen. it's something we can review as we get closer to that date, but i am going to make the motion for these next two meetings, the one on the 14th and the 22nd for them to be district specific, for them to be done online. i believe that while there are members of the public that prefer to attend in-person meetings and i acknowledge and recognize that and i appreciate that. i also want to be prudent to them to be attending while there's a surge going. >> member: member pierce, i second. >> chair townsend: there's a motion on the floor. are there others who want to comment before we vote? >> clerk: mr. chair, there are still further members of

the task force in the queue. >> chair townsend: i understand. i was just checking on the members. so we will go to the role, but i want the other members get their comments in now. >> clerk: member cooper is next in the roster. >> member: thank you. yeah. i'm supportive of this motion. i agree with member jeremy lee that we do need that. having in-person meetings are very important in a but just seeing how this is going but i think that carries a lot. i really would like to hear from every member if possible on peoples' own personal levels. i think that will help us as we go through decision not just now but carrying on and maybe we'll have to check in with

folks and i think it would be nice to hear from everybody. personally, the bayview -- i am also 100% willing to defer to even a minority of the task force if they really feel like that. i think that will also kind of reflect in the public as well i think a lot of the communities, they're looking to hit from the in-person side of our outreach and also community that is are going to be impacted and that are impacted by the virus. so i don't, you know, if the virus continues to get worse, i don't think going out on personal the people that want to get to that process. i hope if we do end up having to do our meetings remote, we find some other way to reach these communities without having the internet or these

meetings. but that will be for another time. >> clerk: mr. chair, i see member chasel lee next in the roster. >> member: thank you, mr. chair. i am supportive of member hernandez gil's motion. i'll say that from the outset. i also agree with him. i can corroborate his statement about members of the public in district 6 who are you think comfortable with meeting in-person in the middle of a surge. and this goes beyond just the strict six. we're drawing districts for living people. we need those people to be alive first and foremost. alive and well. i think we need to keep that in mind as we're going forward. yes, we do value in-person input. as vice chair reiner says.

meeting people in person makes for a more collaborative atmosphere, but we can only collaborate with each other anding with the public if all of us are alive and well. so i think it is prudent to go with member hernandez gil's motion. my main concern then is mr. ing's references to his staffing issues if we need to somehow annul that in some shape or form should we take this course of action. thank you. >> chair townsend: thank you. >> clerk: mr. chair, i see member castillon. >> chair townsend: mr. castillon. >> member: thank you, mr. chair. >> clerk: i think that your

microphone has cut out. >> member: can you hear me? >> clerk: we can hear you now but we just missed all of what you just said. >> member: okay. i will try to speak very closely to my computer. i'll keep my comments short, but i know member cooper was hoping to hear from everyone regarding their personal feelings towards the current situation. i'm generally supportive of member hernandez gil's motion in this particular capacity. i also think that sometimes actually when we have in-person meetings, it can be a burden for the public at times having to sit through long meetings while in order to wait for their opportunity for public comment. so i do want to keep in mind there are ways in which virtual can increase access to the public. >> clerk: mr. chair, we've reached the end of the queue to

the side q2 representative carin mcdonald has been taken out of the roster and is no longer awaiting recognition. >> chair townsend: okay. then at this point, i think we should go to the public. >> clerk: okay. mr. chair, we're working now with matthew ignao from the department of technology. if you wish to comment on the regular and in-person meeting schedule. call the number (415) 655-0001. the meeting id number is 24806267041. after you've entered the meeting id, press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting then press star followed by the number three to enter the queue to speak.

for those members of the public who are connected through the meeting through the webex teleconference meeting, please raise your hand to indicate you would like to be added to the queue of speakers that we're generating waiting recognition. and for those on hold, please continue to wait until you hear the prompt informing you your line has been unmuted and you may then begin your comments. speakers will have three minutes to speak. can you please connect us to our first caller. >> caller: hello. >> clerk: please begin. >> caller: okay. hi. this is jenn with the legal women voters of san francisco. i just want to say that i really appreciate the discussion that you're having today. these are some tough decisions and i also want to mention, you know, that for most of the local jurisdictions in the state of california, you have

had to work on this process in 2021, more or less most of them have done this process virtually for the los angeles city, they have done all their meetings virtually. i know for los angeles county redistricting commission, they did at least one meeting that was hybrid where they did it in person and a virtual at the same time and i know from one organizer who was present there said that only 20 people more or less showed up for the in-person whereas more folks ended up calling in to give public comment. i just wanted to bring this up because, you know, there are a lot of redistricting commissions across the state of california that have already done this and have already had to do this virtually or in some version hybrid and that it would be in the interest of the

redistricting task force to seek out those commissions and ask for advice on how they're doing this process especially with the surge and i appreciate the option regardless of in-person or virtual and that i know in previous discussions, it was mentioned about doing video public comments about having recordings ahead of time and so that may be something to explore as well. but overall, thank you for this discussion. >> clerk: thank you for sharing your comments. could we have the next caller, please. >> caller: can you hear me now? >> clerk: please begin. >> caller: all right. david pillpell. i agree that the task force members, staff, and the public are great at this time. so i would continue to meet remotely and monitor the

situation as circumstances may change in the next three months. i also did some research in the last few days on the question of regular and special meetings and want to point out to you and to the city attorney present, the brown act again 54945a and the sunshine ordinance and 67.6a requires setting the time and place for regular meetings. the current adopted task force by laws in article 6 section 1 have the time, but not the location. i think that seemed fine at the time, but now with the possibility of having actual meetings, there are some issue that is come up about 15-day notice and there may be other issues on the difference

between regular and special meetings so i would encourage you to consider a by law amendment in the future to add the regular meeting location to article 6, section 1 and note in the brown act and in the sunshine ordinance in particular, 67.13 barriers to attendance prohibited and there may be other requirements that apply that talk about not discriminating or adding conditions to attendance and that could be interpreted to layering, adding or layering conditions that an outside location may impose as a condition or barrier to attendance for various folks. so the bottom line is i think we are well served by continuing to meet remotely at this point and let's just see how things go. i like you all. i want you all to be safe. i want to be safe.

i -- we can't afford anybody to get sick and anybody to be down for the count here. thanks for listening. >> clerk: thank you for sharing your comments. can we have the next caller, please? >> that was the last caller. >> clerk: mr. chair, that was the last caller. >> chair townsend: thank you so much. before we go any further member comments -- >> clerk: just real quick, mr. chair, if you can close public comment. >> chair townsend: i'm sorry. public comment is closed. the. >> clerk: thank you. >> chair townsend: i think it's no secret to any of you that i have been anxiously awaiting with tiptoe anticipation of our public meetings because i just kind of like what goes on with in-person meetings. but quite frankly, in may, i'll be 79, you know, and while my doctor is amazed at my health

as am i because it's certainly not because i took care of myself, i just don't take chances and i haven't taken them for almost two years now. i don't want to start because of this task force. it is a -- i mean, we're looking at tv -- we're looking at the views, we know what's happening. so i don't think anyone would hold it against us if we would hold off on the public meetings that are scheduled now, the next couple, make them virtual and we still hopefully in the second district meeting for some of these districts, the ones that we're talking about now have more than one meeting and hopefully, we can get out to the public by then, but nothing is going to be -- nothing is urgent or serious

enough to risk peoples' health when there is another way to do it. you know, i just don't think we need to make redrawing the district lines of russian roulette for the public or any of us for that matter, you know, we'll take our risk and see what happens. it's just not necessary. there are things that we'd take that risk for every one of them. we can go to any further member comments if you all have them. >> clerk: mr. chair, i don't see any further members of the task force, but i do see d.c.h. awaiting recognition. >> thank you, chair townsend. sorry to jump in just before you're going to vote on the motion. but i did have one idea or suggestion to share with the task force. if we are in the short term going to move to some remote meetings for understandable public health meetings and we

are still going to have some district focused discussions and hopefully some district based feedback from the public, i wonder whether it makes sense to have such discussions on multiple districts where some of these remote meetings come up. so if we're not tethered to in-person meeting locations, you know, going to district 6 to have district 6 feedback and we're doing remote instead, i have to hear about district 6 and district 3, for example. i think that time is running short unfortunately for this task force. we are essentially three months away from when we need to be done with this project. and remote meetings may be a way where we can accelerate our ability to receive that public comment and feedback. just a suggestion for you all to consider. >> chair townsend: thank you. that is intriguing and perhaps we are to at our next regular meeting, perhaps that is

something that we would want to explore and especially since you never know until you get in a meeting, but since we suspect some meetings won't be as contentious as others, certainly, we may want to look at that and i would ask those of you who are looking at scheduling and putting these meetings together, it's not only outreach, but talking about how this might or -- and let's look at how this might work. but at this point, if you can go to the vote on the motion restate and we'll take a vote. >> clerk: mr. chair, i do see further members have entered their names into the roster. >> chair townsend: if you're going to talk about his proposal, could we hold that until after the vote because that has nothing to do with the

vote. >> i'll hold it until after the vote. >> chair townsend: anybody else. >> clerk: mr. chair, i don't see any other names in the roster. we heard a motion offered by member hernandez gil and seconded by member pierce to make changes to a portion of what was adopted on monday. this will be to make it so that the january 14th, friday, special meeting to begin at 3:00 p.m. instead of occurring in city hall room 400, it will be a remote meeting like we're having presently and also for the special meeting on january 22nd, a saturday meeting that will begin at 10:00 which presently is scheduled to occur at third baptist church that would also be held as a remote meeting like we're having right now. from that motion, it would preserve the special meeting location at first

congregational church 1300 following. i can take the vote on it now. on that motion, [roll call] mr. chair, there are nine ayes on that motion. >> chair townsend: thank you, mr. carroll. mr. chasel lee, did you want to make your comment at this time? >> member: yeah. sure. thank you, mr. chair. i am intrigued by the

suggestion as you are, mr. chair, however, i am somewhat weary of it because it warps the discussion a bit. we chose to do district centric meetings. if we are to have multiple district discussions in the same meeting, i would urge -- i would suggest having those districts be diametrically -- >> chair townsend: hold on. my suggestion would be and i know i'm cutting you off and i apologize that we make this a discussion at our next meeting where everyone can participate because you're going to do this now and someone may respond and then someone else and now we're

discussing on issues that are not agendized as well as taking time away from the already agendized item. but i'd like to make more comments is during the agenda period agenda item, we may want to set this for discussion. would you be agreeable to that, mr. chasel lee? >> member: thank you, mr. chair. that suggestion makes complete sense to me. >> chair townsend: very good. >> clerk: mr. chair, just so everyone knows, we have drafted and translated and posted an agenda for the january 12th meeting that is next

wednesday's meeting. it is posted online and there is updates to the regular and special meetings. we have also and translated an agenda for the friday, 2022 special meeting in conform answer of the action will now need to be changed. i can take care of the clerkal clerical bits. we need to post that agenda before the five days out from

that meeting. so sunday it requires translation staff. it was written to have a district focus of district six which we can update and change, but if on the january 12th meeting, you attended to make changes to the meeting that was going to happen later, the train will have already left the station. i will make sure everyone understands that. mr. chair, i see while i've been yamering that member hernandez gil has added his name to the roster. >> chair townsend: member hernandez gil. >> member: yeah. i wanted to make a comment on the personnel issue that was brought up earlier. given the fact this task force just this past monday agreed to

have the meetings in district and that we have now changed. i think it makes sense to continue with the hiring as if those meetings were still happening in person. i recognize that anybody who is brought on board might just end up sitting around for a couple of meetings. that's unfortunate, but it's still better to guarantee that we have somebody who is able to participate in all the meetings if they do happen in person. it's respectful to the workers and it's respectful to the staff who have been doing the hiring and that would help address this all or nothing issue that we have. i would rather make sure if we do go out into the public in the next few weeks that we have enough staff already. >> chair townsend: thank you. i was thinking about that as well and, of course, i don't know how city policy and city hiring worked, but i would think since these sound like temporary hires that you may want to structure the hiring of

notice that would say no more or no less than x amount of meetings or time. [please stand by]

>> but we will -- that recruitment will remain active and we'll continue interviewing candidates and vetting candidates as well. and based on the current schedule or the anticipated schedule that we have before us. i want to nag a reminder there's the february 16th, 2022 proposed meeting date as well as the march 14th, 2022 meeting date and the april 6th, meeting start time amendment to 5:30 p.m. that will also need to

be addressed. >> thank you. can we move to the next item. >> clerk: member cooper is awaiting your recognition. >> i was just going to move to the things that were mentioned that we adopt so my motion is to add the february 16th, meeting shall the march 14th meeting asper the agenda packet as well as modifying the time for the april 6th meeting and as well as adding the times to the meetings as outlined in the agenda packet and i don't know if it can get more specific than that. >> do i have a second. >> i second. >> it's been properly moved and seconds. mr. carole.

>> clerk: on the motion offered by member cooper and seconds by member caseel lee to special a meeting on february 16th, 2022. to begin at 5:30 a wednesday and schedule a special meeting on march 14th, 2022 to begin at 5:30, as a monday and amend our meeting schedule on april 6th, 2022, at 5:30 instead of at 10:00 and then to accept the proposed end times. those end times documented in the paperwork in our task force packet, that's the summary on that motion. [roll call vote]

>> clerk: mr. chair, there are nine ayes once again. >> thank you. now we can move to item 3. i believe our mapping update. >> clerk: that's right. hang on just a moment, mr. chair. just catching up. a mapping update and this is a discussion and possible action item. we'll take public comment on this. we are joined this afternoon by karin macdonald and seth neil, i believe is here as well from q2 consulting. members of the public, who wish to provide public comment call (415)655-0001 and enter the meeting id. press the pound symbol twice and press star followed by the number 3 if you wish to be

entered to the queue to speak and please wait then until the system indicates that you have been unmuted and you may then begin your comments. for those interested members of the public who are connected to the meeting through the webex software, if you wish to speak, indicate so by raising your hand and within the web ex meeting and we'll add your name to the queue of speakers who are awaiting recognition. this item is called. >> thank you. ms. macdonald and mr. neil, you have the floor. >> thank you so much, chair, and vice-chair and members of the task force. it's great to be with you. it's nice to see everybody. just in general, i would like to a a couple things about the mapping capabilities we have to support you and this is kind of in reference to the last item also and of course support you

with any remote you probably know we just finalized the state of california which was completely completely remote to there's of knowledge there these days amongst mapping consultants so we will be able to support you no matter what you decide to do. from a mapping perspective, there are usually some logistical charges that we would definitely need to work with and his team on if you decide to go to hybrid meetings and those have quite a bit to do with the fact that if sometimes difficult for the public to see a screen and the detail of a map when the mapping consult apartment in the members are in one rom and then everything is projected on to a screen. we can of course, figure out how

the best work with you on that and make sure that everybody can see the maps and participate that way. i know there's a concern should that happen but it's definitely going to require a little bit of thinking out of the box to make sure that happens and people can participate fully remotely when you are not fully remote. just like one of the members of the public said, we have a little bit of experience also with hybrid meetings and we have the same experience that there were very few takers with hybrid meetings that came to the in-person portion and most people were on-line and just making sure that we can support people that are on-line so that they can participate in the same way as people in the room will

definitely require some logistical working around things. so, having said that, seth has been working on a number of things for you and thank you for all of your requests and i'm going to move things over to seth so he can give you an you update with respect to the tools and so fourth so thank you. >> thank you, good afternoon. chair townshend and members of the task force. i have some updates, especially to materials that are available on the task force website. and if i may share my screen, i can perhaps just show where some of the things are now located and let people know where to find where maps are submitted. thank you.

they are related to mapping and one update is the map submitted from the public has been updated to show the air table results for both the redistricting plans and the coy public input through the air table form so as you can see there's not been any submissions yet on that form but these are the submissions that we have received so far for the re districting tool so these were posted to the website with the zip files but this breaks it

out a bit more so you can see the different contents of it and i'll just briefly show how to use this. so you can see, each row is a plan that's been submitted. the date of submission, the general comment, which is expandable here, also you can see the pdf maps that include an overview. this is one you can zoom in more to see the map. as well as district-specific maps that include the percent deviation, names and commons, as it applies. you can still get the full attachments here and the attachment section and this includes all the files as well as the geographic files, the shape files that you can load into a g.i.s. if you want to see them at full detail or work with them in any other way. you can see the text files that collect the comments that are for the over all plan and

district-specific comments and overview of the pdf here. and as we get submissions here, they will be available here on this tab. i'll make sure people know where the coy input form is. also noting that we are working on some improvements to make it more central to find the coy form and so this page gives the instructions on what a coy is and how to submit and it has a link to the on-line form. you could fill in the information about your community and when you press it it shows up in the air table that i just showed you. and as i mentioned, we are making some improvements to this page and so i'd like also to

thank member cooper for his suggestions and working with us on that. so, let's see, stop sharing and i think those are the updates that i want to make sure that people saw and i know there's at of interest in seeing all the different types of submissions that people make. >> so a couple comments, thank you for this. this looks great. very easy to use. looking forward to going through the different maps. the sessions that first popped into my head and is it possible to get higher resolution images on the actual pdf so they're a little more eligible. i can't even read this street names on them.

it's charging to look at. if there's not maybe my second comment is that you mentioned that the shape files are there and do we as task force members have access to a gas program so that we can load the different submissions from the public over lay them and so we can better visualize and compare them? and this is for the district plans as well as the communities of interest? >> this is for the actual -- well, i guess, yeah. at least for the actual maps that we're getting from the public. >> if i could perhaps answer the piece about the g.i.s. so since the district mapping process was starting to work will be live, we will have a professional mapping software

available we can use to pull up any map that you would like to see on this screen so you would just let us know and we will import the map and then you can look at it in greater detail, if that helps. >> it's a good point to have and later it might. as for receiving the maps, right, it would be very useful to be able to compare them and visualize them at our own leisure individually as individuals. so that is a question and if we don't have access to that, at least having higher resolution images because as it stands, there are unusable at least for me. >> thank you.

>> we'll look into having higher resolution pdfs and the overview map is provided at a high resolution than the district-specific maps. and that one in part because we can provide a larger file for that one and for providing maps at that resolution for all the district. we had problem with e-mails not being able to be sent to e-mails but we can look into how we can have a high resolution on those. >> >> mr. chair,. >> jeremy lee is waiting recognition. >> my question is from macdonald. >> i asked about adding chinese

or filipino to the mapping tool and i just wanted to get an update on that. >> thank you so much for that question. i think we're working with john's shop on that and i will make sure that we can get an update on where that stands. >> ok. so, it is still currently in the works to make that happen? >> i am honestly not sure what the status is of this so let me check into it for you and get back to you. >> ok, great. thank you. and then another question for you, i have concerns around the timeline around drawing draft maps, using your institutional knowledge of the last cycle, can you just give a high-level overview of just the amount of time it took the previous task forced to come up with a draft

map and when they did that? >> yeah, thank you for those questions also. so, we've spent some time looking at your proposed schedule and the fact that you want to do the in district listening sessions, presumely before you start drawing lines so you can get some input from people. what i don't see on this schedule right now is an opportunity to actually focus on the entire city and county of san francisco and stop and just say ok, what is the innaught wee have received and start to put that together, pull it together and start to map. i think the suggestion to look into combine something of these listening sessions for some of

the districts might be good to open up some of the meetings to create that space so can you do that. i think that you should figure out collectively when you want to have a draft done and then work backwards and what the last task force did was, it had a listening session and it heard from all of the districts and started drawing. if you wanted to follow-up and obviously we would have to go into the fall pretty much because right now you are not in every district. if you want to model your process on the last process, again, the suggestion to look

into taking the five hours that you have for each directing listening session and perhaps say ok, the first hour that have or for this particular looking at the schedule opening up some of the meeting days that you have already agreed on when you know you are all available, and then saying ok, those are the days where one day we're going to just sit down and see what we have received and look at maps and the communities of interest and then just start work on a draft over perhaps a period of three or four days and i would say a good time to shoot for would be maybe mid to end february depending on what you decide to do with respect to the listening sessions.

whether you have a map, you will illicit more feedback obviously. people that perhaps did not feel like they needed to provide you with their community of interest, may come in and say, this draft actually splits my community of interest so now i rally do need you to know about it and so, you get that feedback and you get feedback like, you know, this just doesn't work for us and so fourth so you want to leave enough time afterwards to be able to review what you've done and get enough input so i would say, looking at the schedule, if you can open up some days, that really are just dedicated to the city and county coming up with the draft and having enough time to continue to work on iterations of that draft, while you are also going out and listening again to feedback might be a good plan and i hope that made sense. >> y. of course. yes, of course. in your view, when we finish

that listening and then what do you think is a sufficient amount of time. after the listening and develop that draft map. >> if you've heard, you have given everybody an opportunity to give you the first thoughts on the district and then you can start immediately to work on your draft. now again, this is an open and live mapping process so it will be iterations and as you heard from the public you may be changing some things if you thought may work and you may make adjustments so perhaps just take three or four days and just try to get something out on paper and say this is our draft and we're going to stop right here for a little while and just input because it's also

difficult for people to continue to provide input while the map is moving. so that is something to also keep in mind, you know. so i personally and these are the days when the draft map or maps are being developed and formulate what you need to know as a task force. >> something that i think would be for the task force and the public as we start to head into district-specific meetings, is for us to have some data around

the demographic make up of the existing districts so we can center ourselves with understanding the current profile of the different city and is this something that your firm would be able toll put together in advance of some of our upcoming district meetings? this would be something useful not only going into these meetings but something we can refer to through out the entire process. >> thank you for your question and also thank you for your e-mail. i have not responded to but we actually have the data that you have requested and i was going to send them to you this afternoon. >> ok. excellent. >> we'll follow-up and put it together. exciting. thank you. >> that's all i have. >> i don't see any members of the task force awaiting

recognition. >> very good. at this point, i think we're perhaps we should go to public comment. >> we can go to public comment. i should also note for everyone's information, that because the january 12th restricting task force agenda is posted on the website, and agenda item number 4 is a mapping and community of interest visualization item, that discussion of strategy and timeline for developing drafts could also happen there, because it's part of our agenda item for the 12th. mr. chair -- technology is checking to see if we have callers in the queue. we're working with matthew from the department of technology. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on the mapping updates call (415)655-0001 and enter today's

meeting i.d. press the pound symbol twice and press star followed by 3 if you wish to be entered into the queue to speak. for those interested members of the public who are connected to the meeting through the web ex tell meeting software, if you wish to speak indicate so by raising your hand with the webex meeting and we will add to you to the queue of speakers and for those already on hold in the queue, continue to wait until you are prompted to begin and you will hear a prompt that informs your light is unmuted and that is when you will will begin your comments. we have 15 listeners rit now and two callers in the queue. three callers in the queue. can we have the first caller, please. you have three minutes. >> caller: this is (inaudible) of san francisco. it's time to get attention to share something before public comment and hopefully it's something i wanted to respond to but we wanted to recognize that

the next few meetings, the next two or three meetings be kept as a single-district focus. you haven't done one of these meetings before. a lot is going to surprise you. i think especially because you are starting with district 6, which is brave to do, there's going to be a lot of lessons to learn and you are going to want to have time during these meetings to talk about those lessons and use them. also, whether these meetings are district focused or not, people are going to show up with feedback about their district. even if it's not the focus of the district. public comment that needs to be heard. and it's important because people may not be able to show up for the meeting, you've scheduled for their district. they might be able to show for another meeting. so that's an important thing to keep in mind too. i'm still looking at pasta agaia

for the task force. so you know, on march 2nd, the task force had a deadline for public to submit their maps. on march 29th. they had a deadline for the public to submit their supervisor district maps. so, not really sure how that all worked out. we have to dig into the agenda and meeting notes more but the meeting information is there on-line if you want to find that. there were draft notes for people to respond to that in december. there's a lot of catching up to do. it's been a hard time to do this work so, thank you for all your time to get it going. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for sharing your comments. could we have the next caller, please. >> caller: can you hear me ok? >> clerk: please, begin. >> caller: david pilllaw. nothing much to share this was a great update and i appreciate

the thoughtful work of the cast of thousands hyped the scenes and i think the way you have discussed taking input by district and fussing with it, it's all good and i'm supportive. i'll leave it at that right now. >> clerk: next caller, please. >> caller: hi, i'm calling from sf rising. i just wanted to thank you all first for your work so far and to the mapping consultants for working to get the mapping tool up and also keep it updated based on everyone's feedback. i do want to urge the task forced to get some training on the calender for people to learn how to use these mapping tools. at sf rising we've gotten questions about the tool and we are trying our best to field them and figure out the mapping tool ourself, but we would love is really for us to have some training so we can point and say, let's mobilize people to

get to these so they can learn from start to finish, how to create a district or a coin map and we also want to encourage you to provide these trainings and other commonly spoken languages in the city at the very least, have translation services in spanish and chinese. so yeah, i do hope you are able to add something to the calender in the nexcom of meetings and so we can start training folks up on how to use these tools. >> clerk: thank you very much for sharing your comments. [please stand by]

>> clerk: thank you, mr. hooper for your comments. do we have any further callers in the queue? >> there are no further callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. mr. chair, there are no further callers. >> chair townsend: thank you. public comment is closed and i don't think there's any action to be taken.

>> clerk: mr. chair, there are now several members of the task force awaiting recognition before we move on. >> chair townsend: why don't we go to them before we file this. >> clerk: member ho has her name in the roster. >> chair townsend: member ho, please. >> member: thank you, chair townsend. i wanted to circle back to the conversation of when we should have our first draft maps. but, i do, you know, in line with the values of this panel being inclusive of all of the communities and that we are making it that each individual district can have, you know, their own attention. i think it's important for us to first receive feedback and at least be at every district

before we, you know, propose our first initial map. and that is the point of community input and i think it's a core value to i think all of us. so that's all. i just wanted to. i don't know when with all of these changes and cal kerr and all that stuff and because we haven't finalized the rest of the dates for the meetings. i would just encourage us to not start making maps until we hear from the whole city. that's all. thank you. >> chair townsend: thank you. >> clerk: mr. chair, i see member hernandez gil. >> chair townsend: mr. hernandez gil. >> member: i just wanted to echo what some of the folks in public comment said around this training, the need for training. i have received some, not a

lot, but a surprising number of requests around issues with the tool. it's challenging for people to wrap their head around some of the options, so i definitely do think that it is important for there to be a training and also for there to be somebody or someone who have technical needs. specifically, i've got a member of the public reached out to me and mentioned that they couldn't opening up the masks they made and it was just blank. so i really want to make sure we're getting as much feedback about the maps. [mr. chair, i see member pierce

in the roster. >> chair townsend: member pierce. >> member: i want to weigh in and thank you for the feedback from everybody in the public as well as my fellow members on all of this. i want to weigh in on, yes, we want to hear back from everybody before we start planning maps and like the chair and like member hernandez gill, i am hearing back from people as i'm walking down the street getting phone calls and texts and e-mails about people who are concerned with how this process is rolling out and i think especially in certain districts i don't think it's necessary for us to shorten our

kwej because i think that's going to cause a lot more problems for us down the road. i know we tabled this discussion until next week so i'm not going to get too far into it, but it does speak to the discussion that we're having right now and i agree that if we go even on districts that we are not going to make significant changes to, if we go and start creating maps without having heard from them, we're kind of sunk. but the creation of these calendars say two to four weeks and we don't have that kind of time to expand in order to redesign something that is already out there on the table. thank you, guys. >> chair townsend: thank you. >> clerk: mr. chair, i don't see any further members on the roster, but mr. neil has some

comments. >> thank you. thank you for the comments and i would just like to say that we are working on some training materials to go into more depth and also would encourage people to get in touch with our e-mail support in support of redistricting if you run into issues so we can help you through that as well. yeah. >> chair townsend: thank you so much and just before we close this off, i just want to make sure that the public understands, we want to get to the mapping and we wanted to get to it yesterday, but we can't do it until the right kind of information and tools are in the public's hands. the public is asking for tools so they can work the resource site and they want training tools and we want all of that

and we've got to get that to you and then we can get started on some effective map making. it takes time. we're here on behalf of the citizens of the city and county of san francisco and we're not here to meet just the needs of those who are deeply into computers and deeply into map making and one of the reasons i'm concerned about not having public means, i want to make sure that we deal with the lowest common denominator when it comes to understanding who can understand what we're doing. i want to be in public so we can actually explain it to people who don't do computers. they have rights in this process as well. this process as well just because even though they may not be googled up.

it still affects them and we have a responsibility to meet their needs as well as we meet everyone else. so i'm sorry it's going this slow, but i don't know a proper way to speed it up. and so we're going to keep plugging and we're going to get there and i can tell you, members, because of how we have to do it there are some late nights in our future. thank you very much, mr. carroll. >> clerk: mr. chair, i don't see any further names in the roster. would you like to move forward? >> chair townsend: yes, please. >> clerk: i can file this discussion noting for the public that mapping update does appear on the january 12th agenda as well. agenda item number four is task, force member reports. this is a discussion item and we will be taking public

comment from the task force member reports. call (415) 655-0001. enter the meeting id of 24802627041. then press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting. following that press star followed by the numeral three if you wish to be entered into the queue to speak. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and that will give you opportunity to provide your comments. for interested members through the webex telemeeting software, please indicate so by raising your hand. doing so will add your name to the queue of speakers awaiting recognition. mr. chair, the item is called. >> chair townsend: thank you. members, are there any reports? are there any hands? >> clerk: mr. chair, they're

coming in now. i'm seeing member chasel lee awaiting recognition. >> member: thank you, mr. dhar. i wish to report that i spoke with several community members in the tenderloin to discuss the up coming meeting on january 14th. that is all. >> chair townsend: thank you. >> clerk: i see member hernandez gil on the roster. >> chair townsend: memo hernandez gil. >> member: similarly, i have had a couple of conversations with a couple community groups in the tenderloin updating them around the districts -- i've already communicated the concerns. i also had three conversations with the office of supervisor ronen just inquiring around what the status of the tasks

force was on the brief updates and very brief conversation with supervisor safai just explaining and reiterating to not just them but the supervisors that it has been drafted and that we're still in the process. >> chair townsend: thank you sir. >> clerk: mr. chair, i'm seeing member jeremy lee in the roster. >> chair townsend: mr. jeremy lee, please. >> member: i just wanted to report that this week i along with member ho took a meeting with api council. they plan to put forward -- they're kind of putting together their own version of the district wide maps and a point to submit that to the task force in the near future. >> chair townsend: thank you, sir. is there anyone else? >> clerk: mr. chair, i don't see any members of the task force awaiting recognition.

>> chair townsend: thank you. then we can file this item and move to -- oh, public comment. >> clerk: that's right, mr. chair. >> chair townsend: yes. public comment on this item. >> clerk: reaching out now to the department of technology who is working with our queue of callers who wish to provide public comment on the reports. member os the public who are interested in providing public comment should call (415) 655-0001. today's meeting id is 24806267041. after you've entered the meeting i.d., press the pound symbol twice. for those interested members of the public who are connected to the meeting through the webex telemeeting software, please raise your hand inside the system and await recognition. mr. chair, i see there are 15 callers listening to the meeting.

are there any callers who wish to provide public comment on agenda item number four? >> chair townsend: bless their hearts. then we can file it on to the next item. >> clerk: if we could close public comment and then we can file the item. >> chair townsend: public comment is closed and now we can file the item. >> clerk: thank you. of i'll do so. noting for everyone's benefit, the task force member reports is presently a regular item on our agenda and will appear on future agendas as well. agenda item number five is city department representatives/public official reports. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this should call (415) 655-0001. enter the meeting id of 24806267041 followed by pound twice. if you're in webex, you can

raise your hand and await recognition. mr. chair, this item is called. >> chair townsend: thank you. mr. carroll, do we have any city department representatives or public official representatives who want to make comment at this time? >> clerk: just delaying for a moment to see if anyone's going to add their name to the roster. mr. chair, i'm not seeing anyone awaiting recognition. >> chair townsend: thank you. is there public comment on this? i imagine so. >> clerk: let's take a look. checking now to see if we have callers in the queue. i will reiterate even though we've heard them numerous times in the last minute or so. interested members of the public call (415) 655-0001. in enter the meeting id of 2486267041 followed by pound twice followed by star three to enter the queue to speak or

raise your hand in the webex software if you wish to speak. do we have any callers on this item? mr. chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> chair townsend: thank you, public comment is closed. and we can move to the next item. >> clerk: i'll file this discussion as well, mr. chair. >> chair townsend: item number seven. >> clerk: number six, mr. chair. >> chair townsend: i thought that was six. >> clerk: if you wish to provide general public comment for item six, general public comment, please raise your hand at this time. if you are a caller who has dialed (415) 655-0001 and you have entered the meeting id which is 24806267041 and then

you've pressed the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting. if you wish to speak, dial star followed by three and that will add you to the queue of speakers. if you are connected to our meetings from within the webex client, if you wish to be added to the queue, raise your hand and await recognition. we still have 15 listeners and one caller in the queue. can you please connect us to our first caller for three minutes. >> caller: hi. this is lauren girardin from the league of women voters of san francisco again. i just wanted to circle back to what the chair was talking about before that came after public comment on this item. so i just wanted to say the suggestion that you wait to have a draft map until you have met with each of the districts in these meetings. i'm looking at your calendar of meetings. the last district that you meet with is district 7 and you do

not meet with district seven until march 14th. in the other districts twice before then, but not district 7. so if you're going to wait to have a draft map on these district specific meetings, it's suggested that you should relook at which districts you're meeting with and when so that you meet with all of them as soon as possible. otherwise, you are waiting to have to draw the map until after march 14th which will be less than one month before the final map is due. i do not believe that one month of feedback on the city by draft map will be enough time to produce a final map that you can all agree on and that will work for the city. that would be really tough. that's the timeline. so it might be worth thinking that over again.

so thank you. >> clerk: can we have the next caller, please. >> caller: my name is francisco de costa. and it's very important that in conducting all your meetings especially the action items that we have on our website. especially because of the pandemic, we need to access the documents and also the nature of what's happening in our nation. we want a well-informed, educated knowing exactly what's happening in san francisco.

and i've monitored and i've heard all of your deliberations, i'm monitoring them because i have a blog. what i want is the data has to be verified because we need the critical data to make the right decisions. we have been hoodwinked before in the redistricting we need people whose hearts are in the right place. anybody can talk the talk. we need to have accountability and transparency and have all your action items on your website. thank you very much.

>> clerk: thank you for your comments, mr. de costa. could we be connected to the next caller, please. >> caller: i assume you can hear me okay. david pillpell. once again, i find myself in agreement with lauren girardin. yes, as she said. if you wait until you've heard from all districts, then that would be mid march which would give you a month or so or probably less than a month if you take a few days after that to start adding meetings and moving lines and such so that would take you to march 1st, but that would move it up by a week and a half and you may want to revisit the question of

addressing more than one district at a meeting. i see, for example, the meeting set for district four we can take a lot of time talking about district four, but really there aren't a lot of ways to slice and dice district four. or we're going into the inner sunset to some but i haven't anyone suggest that four should include west portal or how we're going to connect to chinatown or hunter's point. i'm not sure that an entire meeting just devoted to four is necessary. anyone can talk about at any district at any time and they're encouraged to do so. so there may be some value to

addressing more than one district as part of the focus of any particular meeting. again, i agree with lauren girardin. thanks very much. >> clerk: thank you for sharing your comments. do we have any further callers in the queue? >> there are no further callers in the queue. >> clerk: mr. chair, there are no further callers for public comment. >> chair townsend: very good. are there any members who -- >> clerk: mr. chair, i don't see any members of the task force who wish to be recognized during general public comment. >> chair townsend: thank you. i would not think so. >> clerk: could we close public comment? >> chair townsend: please. >> clerk: public comment is closed. and i can move us forward in our agenda, mr. chair. >> chair townsend: please do, sir. >> clerk: agenda item number seven is future agenda items. this is a discussion and possible action item and we will be taking public comment.

members of the public who wish to provide public comment should call the public comment call-in number which is still (415) 655-0001. meeting id 24806267041 followed by pound twice. if you're connected by web ex, raise your hand in webexif you wish to speak on future agenda items. mr. chair, this item is called. >> chair townsend: members, what say you about future agenda items? >> clerk: delaying for a moment to see if any memos. mr. chair, i see member jeremy lee. >> member: i would just like to at our next meeting, it can be, you know, kind of lumped in with the schedule updates that we do discuss and decide on a specific date that we have a

draft map out for the public. just because, you know, having a draft map is really what's going to excite the public and get them interested and involved in redistricting and i think unless we have that, you know, the response may not be as robust unless we have that out first. thank you. >> chair townsend: very good. is there anyone else? >> clerk: mr. chair, i don't see any further members of the task force awaiting recognition. i should note that for the next agenda, this being the agenda that's published presently and available for public viewing right now for the january 12th meeting, the wednesday, january 12th meeting to be begin at 5:30, we have agenda item number four appearing on that agenda. it is a mapping and visualization with a bullet that says strategy and time line for developing draft maps. it's already published there. >> chair townsend: we are covered there anyway.

wonderful. and, mr. jeremy lee, i assume that will meet your need. >> member: yes. perfectly. >> chair townsend: perfect. is there anyone else? >> clerk: i'm not seeing any further members of the task force awaiting recognition, mr. chair. >> chair townsend: general public comment. >> clerk: this will be the last time we take public comment on today's agenda and it is public comment on future agenda items. member officer the public who wish to provide public comment on future agenda items should call (415) 655-0001. and then enter the meeting id which is 24806267041. press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting and star followed by three if you wish to enter into the queue to speak. for those interested members of the public who are connected to the webex client, if you wish to speak and comment on the future agenda item, raise your

hand within webex and await recognition. checking now to see if it we have any callers in the queue from among our 16 listeners. could you connect us to our first caller or let us know if we have no callers in the queue. >> there are currently no callers in the queue. >> clerk: mr. chair, there are now callers. >> chair townsend: very good. public comment is closed. and, mr. carroll. if you can file this item. >> clerk: certainly. >> chair townsend: and i believe that brings us to adjournment. >> clerk: that is correct, mr. chair. there is no further business before the task force. >> chair townsend: well then, the task force is adjourned. thank you member. thank you, ms. mcdonald, and mr. seth neil for your presence: city attorney shannon and all those participating. all the clerk staff.

we thank you all so much for serving us so well at every meeting. thank you have a great weekend and i will see you probably before i can turn around. i'm getting used to seeing all of you. >> clerk: the next meeting will be on wednesday, january 12th at 5:30. it will be hosted remotely as well. the agenda is posted. all the access information is there. >> chair townsend: look forward to seeing you all. have a great weekend. bless you.

>> the city has undertaken a pilot program to hook up private privately -- owned hotels. >> the community members say this is helpful for them especially for the seniors and families with kids from seniors being able to connect with the family during the pandemic and too watch the news has been

really helpful during this time where they are stuck inside and are not able to go outside. for families it is important to stay connected to go to school, to get connected so they can submit resumes to find jobs during the pandemic. [speaking foreign language] >> challenges that might seem for the fiber in chinatown is pretty congested. the fiber team found ways around that. they would have to do things such as overnight work in the manholes to get across through busy intersections, and i think the last challenge is a lot of buildings we worked on were

built in the early 1900s and they are not fitted with the typical infrastructure you would put in a new building. we overcame that with creative ideas, and we continue to connect more sites like this. >> high-speed internet has become a lifesaver in the modern era. i am delighted that we completed three buildings or in the process of completing two more. i want to thank our department of technology that has done this by themselves. it is not contracted out. it is done by city employees. i am proud and i want to take a moment to celebrate what we are doing.

january 4th, 2022. welcome toern and our first order of business is to read the land acknowledgement. >> before we do that, commissioner, i'm going to call the role. commissioner bernal's on his way. [roll call]

>> clerk: commissioner giraudo will read the land acknowledgement commissioner the san francisco health commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and rrlts of the ramaytush ohlone community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples.

>> thank you. >> commissioner: so the next item on the agenda is recognizing the disparjing. >> clerk: commissioners, this item was introduced to you on december 7th. today is your vote on the item. i'll read the resolution. whereas the health commission acknowledges the disproportionate health disparities faced by the native americans and higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, aids, prema sure death, domestic violence, and other violence exposure. stress related illness and depression illness and suicide as well as a disproportionate morbidity and mortality due to the covid-19 pandemic. and whereas the health commission acknowledges that the native americans may face one or more systemic barriers including unstable or lack of

housing, food insecurity and limit to access to culturally sensitive cultures. whereas the health commission acknowledges the health data contains significant data gaps on american indian and alaska native race and underreporting on american indian and is a native carriers. rendering to fully identify the disproportionate health disparities and whereas the health commission recognizes it has not been proportional to based by the american native indian. the san francisco human rights commission published a report in 2011 titled discrimination by admission an issue for native americans in san francisco detailing the ways in which american indian

communities experiencing disparities in san francisco. and process which was guided by members of the local ingd yan ask meaningful ongoing partnerships alaska native organizations slash tribal members to identify and understand their public health needs and develop a set of public health priorities and be it further resolved, the health commission recommends the san francisco department of public health including accurate and african american health data and health impacts and public reporting where possible. and the health commission directs the san francisco department of health to add a footnote to any presentation or report that includes race and/or ethnicity presented to the health commission explaining a lack of data for

specific communities to ensure no community experience is being visible and be it further resolved, the health commission directs the san francisco department of public health to work with local american indians and community tribal members to identify recommendations to address these health disparities including presenting to the health commission within six months. >> thank you for reading the resolution. motion to approve an order before we go to public comment. >> director: yes, sir. >> president: do we have a motion? >> commissioner: motion to approve the resolution. >> commissioner: second. >> president: all right. can we go to public comment,

again, star three. before we begin, i have something to read. for each agenda item, members of the public will have an opportunity to make comment for up to two minutes. the public comment process is designed for feedback. however, the process does not allow questions to be answered in the meeting. the commissioners do consider comments for members of the public when discussing items and making a request to d.p.h. so we'll start with you, caller. i've put two minutes on the clock and please let us know that you're there. >> caller: hi. good evening everyone. excuse me. i'm the executive director or rfrlt american indian corporal district. and i just wanted to express my support for this item and just express the importance of this for the department of public health and the commissioners for their work. as many of you may or may not know, it's been highlighted in

the reports for the last few years. lowest income rates in the city and unfortunately we haven't seen this requested in our policy changes with our different organizations throughout the year. just wanted to call and stress the importance of this resolution and thank those that have stepped up and agreed to a significance of working on it and i hope this is a step in the right direction working with the native american organization and the funding distribution and the policies are also accurately including americans in their data. so i just wanted to say thank you. >> director: thank you so much for your comments. next caller, are you there. >> caller: hello. this is michael petrellis calling and regarding this item, the resolution addressing health disparities of the local

american indian communities. i am calling in to speak in favor of this resolution and i hope this is resolution passes unanimously. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please let us know that you're there. >> hi, good afternoon. my name's mary travis ellen and i'm the advisory board president for the american indian cultural district. i'm calling to ask for your support in passing this resolution and not leave it just as words on paper. it is a commitment. it is a modern day promise and treaty that will commit this commission and san francisco to address all the health disparities that have occurred in the past. in the interest of equity, we have so many concerns that need

to be addressed and have not been addressed by this city. so i'm asking for your support in favor of this resolution. thank you. >> director: thank you very much for your comments. next caller, please let us know that you're there. april mcgill, are you there? >> caller: yes. good afternoon, commission. my name is april mcgill. i'm one of the cofounders of the american indian cultural district and i just wanted to also say thank you commission for supporting this resolution. it's really important to the american indian community to make sure that the health disparities that our people have been facing for decades is not forgotten and that we

include those statistics in this work. i also would like to thank all of those organizations such as the california consortium for indian health, native american health, and just all the other boards who've worked so hard to make sure they create visibility for the native american community. thank you very much and i appreciate all of your support. >> director: thank you for your comments. i believe we've got one more commissioners. please let us know that you're there. >> caller: i just want to thank the commission for your support on this resolution and equitable words of ms. mcgill in regards to really focusing on having accurate data for our

community. so often, we're invisible or we have been termed what is the asterisk nation and so i just really appreciate the city and commission's attention to this matter so that we can work to improve the health of american indians and alaska natives in san francisco and really throughout the state. thank you. >> director: thank you so much. commissioners, that is the last hand that i see. thank you all for your comments. >> president bernal: thank you, secretary morewitz. we will now go to commissioner comments. in developing this resolution. commissioner chung. >> commissioner chung: thank you, commissioner bernal. i believe i was absent from that meeting and i feel terrible that i wasn't there

because the actual human rights commission report was doing my ten year as the health and human rights commission and i was one of the commissioners presided at the hearings for the report. and so it is heartening for me to see that we are finally really like addressing some of the issues highlighted in the report especially around disparities. i've said before there were two american indian health organizations and, you know, because of funding and, you know, other reasons, you know, one of them had to close the door. so hopefully, you know, this would help prevent, you know, any of these kinds of situations ever happen again and to make sure that we give

our support to the native communities. >> president bernal: thank you, commissioner chung. commissioner chow. >> commissioner chow: yes. thank you. i wanted to thank the native american communities for coming together with the department to work out this resolution. i know at the time that we spoke about it that there was need to bring together community input and i think that we're very satisfied that this has occurred and we can look forward to our cooperative relationship in order to address these needs. it was interesting that yesterday, usa today on a national level carried another article on the native americans and the challenges they were facing not only with omicron, but overall in terms of indian health. and so i'm very pleased and

privileged that this commission will be able to address this locally and i encourage the support of all of our commission. >> president bernal: thank you, commissioner chow. commissioners, do we have any other questions or comments before we move to a roll call vote? all right. seeing none. of thank you to the members of our community working with secretary mark morewitz and your ongoing work with the department to ensure san francisco's american indian communities are supported and that their health is addressed by the work that is done here in the department. thank you also to director colfax and the leadership of the department for your work in this area and we can move on to a roll call vote. >> secretary: [roll call]

all right. the item passes. thank you all. >> president bernal: the next item is the approval of the minutes of the health commission meeting of december 7th, 2021. do we have a motion to approve? >> commissioner: so moved. >> commissioner: second. >> president bernal: any public comment? >> secretary: sure. folks on the line who would like to make a comment, please press star three now. please let us know you're there, caller. >> caller: hello. this is michael petrellis again and i want to discuss the minutes from december 21st and

what's missing. while there is information about the latest developments with covid-19 and the variants, there's nothing in these minutes indicating that you all discussed mailing everyone in san francisco both the home test and a so we can get better epidemiology and i think that san francisco which prides itself on being the first in so

many public health issues that's all i wish to say about the minutes from last month. >> secretary: thank you for your comments. >> president bernal: any other public comment? >> secretary: none that i see. >> president bernal: all right. we can then move to a roll call vote. >> secretary: all right. [roll call] the item passes. thank you. >> president bernal: all right. our next item on the agenda is our director's report. director of health, dr. grant

colfax. >> director: thank you, president bernal. you have the director's report in front of you. there is quite a bit about covid and covid updates. so i encourage you to read that. i've also provided that in my covid update. i do want to call your attention to another emergency issue that we are working hard on with other city departments. this is being led by the department of emergency management. but on december 23rd, the board of supervisors voted to approve mayor breed's state of emergency declaration in the tenderloin. this state of emergency focuses on the very high rates of drug overdose in the tenderloin and we are working under the leadership of the department of emergency management to do everything that we can do to mitigate and prevent as many deaths due to drug overdose as possible. this includes establishing a

service center where people will be able to go to avail themselves of city services including behavioral health services, behavioral health treatment. the team is working very hard on that and we expect this to be up relatively soon. this was announced today that the building was leased for this purpose. lots of work going on covid related and then also related to the very serious situation in the tenderloin. that's my director's report summary. i'm happy to take any questions from the commissioners. president bernal, you're on mute. >> president bernal: you're on, don't listen. no. i was on mute. secretary morewitz, before we go to questions is there any

public comment on this item? >> secretary: i don't see any hands. i see no public comment. >> president bernal: okay. commissioners, any questions or comments before we move into the covid-19 update? i don't see any. >> secretary: actually, i'm sorry. it looks like a caller put their hand down and back up. it looks like that person wants to speak. is that okay, president bernal? >> president bernal: yes. of course. >> secretary: please let us know if you're there, caller. >> caller: hi. it's michael petrellis again. so i am disappointed that dr. colfax, you are not raising the issue in your report about mailing everyone in san

francisco a covid test. in washington, d.c., about a week and a half ago, mayor muriel bowser found city money to begin distributing covid-19 tests through public libraries, recreational centers, and d.c. government buildings. while that is not what i would like to see here, it still is a terrific development for public health that the d.c. government is making the covid test so widely available for free and all of their government buildings. i think you should consider this, dr. colfax in addition to making the n95 masks available everywhere at san francisco government buildings and the home test. i don't think as year three of

the covid pandemic begins here that we're in a good situation because there is no discussion at this point ability mailing the tests and making them more widely available. thank you. >> secretary: that's the only public comment, commissioners. >> commissioners, any comments or questions before we move on to the covid-19 update. okay. i do not see anyone. so back to director of health, dr. grant colfax. >> director: thank you, commissioner. thank you, president bernal. and i think we'll go into the covid update with presentation as that comes up. thank you mckayla. so thank you, commissioners.

let's just go right into the slide. we're having an unprecedented surge you can see here on the far right of the slide that curve. it's basically a line going up with cases now approaching 100,000. we haven't seen the likes of this before and these are data looking at the data just over the next couple of days. i fully expect the number to go above 100. so we are in the midst of a surge like we've never seen before. the other thing that's important to emphasize is while our vaccines and particularly

the boosters are extremely protective. the vaccines are not working as well as you can see from this slide, our case rates by vaccination status here, the vaccines and the boosters still are somewhat protective. you can see our case rate here is 82.5 per 100,000 people who received our booster. 120,000 for people who received our initial series but are not up to date. in other words, have not received a booster and for unvaccinated, that rate remains even higher at 133.1 per 100,000 cases. the bottom line is unlike prior surgeries, we're going to see a lot more people who are fully vax -- who have received our initial series of vaccine and who are up to date on the vaccine and have received the booster. they are still at very high

risk now for getting covid-19. the bottom line, however, is particularly people who receive a booster, the odds of being hospitalized due to covid-19 are tremendously reduced. so getting those -- that initial vaccine series into arms and getting that booster is more important than ever before because as far as transmission is concerned, all san franciscans are at greater risk than ever before. so this is looking at our covid hospitalization numbers over the past two years. and you can see here that our -- i'm sorry over about the last year. starting in october of 2022. you can see our hospitalizations are on the far right. we have just over 100 people

with covid-19 in the hospital. that is approaching our summer 2021 surge with delta and then still lower than our alpha surge. i also want to point out that that all important metric of hospital capacity, you can see here that we still have good hospital capacity in terms of number of beds across the city. our i.c.u. capacity is 41.8% of beds are available. in remaining noni.c.u. capacities those so-called surgical beds are at 21.5%. at this time, our hospitals from a hospital bed standpoint are not in danger of being overwhelmed. i will say though as you probably read in the press and heard directly from others, we are having challenges with staffing levels to some degree and just to provide some examples, we've had over 250 staff out due to covid-19

infection related issues and at laguna honda hospital, we now have over 70 staff out. this is another challenge that we need to address as we continue to support our health care systems both within the health department and other health care systems across the city. just one other point to make on the side on the far right with the omicron surge, there is a percentage of these cases in the hospital who are hospitalized primarily for other reasons, not covid related. so people coming to the hospital are tested and are covid positive versus people who come into the hospital specifically due to covid-19 related symptoms so based on the data from the zuckerberg

hospital so i think this slide is also important to review with automotive of you. this is looking at our covid hospital census on our case rate shown with the blue line and yaxis is the right. and i think what's important here is you see that oicron is not to the rate of hospitalizations at this time and that's really consistent with a couple of things. our wall of immunity for preventing most serious hospitalizations as well as 81% of san franciscos have received

those first initial series of doses. now getting a booster, so up to date on their vaccination. and the other part of the equation here is that it appears that omicron is less likely to cause severe illness compared to delta or alpha. at least what we saw with our winter surge last year, we are doing better related to the case rate overall. but still, we're going to have lots of people become infected and that's going to translate despite this wall of immunity and despite omicron is still going to result in a large number of hospitalizations due to covid-19. next slide.

our test positivity has sharply increased consistent with our case rates here. you can see the number of testing seven-day average. we are at numbers that are unprecedented. 17.1% if you just want to take a moment to provide you with additional testing data that are not fully realized on this side. that takes into account the holidays and i just want to assure the commission that on december 28th, we've reached our all-time high of testing in the city, across the city but not including over 12,000 tests being done in a single day and our four-day running average that excludes the holidays is

now over 11,000 tests being done. d.p.h. is shouldering a large burden of the testing numbers here we've and we are working with other health care systems to encourage them and require them to do more testing. just to remind the commission, the health officer had the health order that requires specifically health care systems to test their clientele of the request. we've received communication from other health care systems in the city where they are specifically sending their staff and patients to city sites to get tested and this is obviously concerned because we

expect per health order require all health care systems to do their part during this unprecedented surge. next slide. in terms of vaccine administration, we again as i already mentioned 81% of the population has completed those initial vaccine series of those eligible, we're at 85% and then our booster numbers still have a way to go here, but i will say we are in a much better place than any other jurisdiction i'm aware of. and you can see here among our residents 65 and over, those numbers are even higher at 75 and 76% respectively. i also just want to add, this is not on this slide, but among the 5 to 11-year-olds in terms of their vaccination status, we

are at nearly 66% of 5 to 11-year-olds now having received one shot and nearly 50% of those 5 to 11-year-olds having received the initial, completed the initial series. next slide. and this is just looking at the booster recipients by age. actually, we're at 55%. so this slide is slightly updated from the last slide. i apologize and i just want to emphasize every bit does count and you can see here by the age breakdown of people receiving a booster, this is reflected and this discrepancy in terms of the distribution of boosters by age is reflected to some degree by the fact that the boosters were recommended for people of older ages initially. so that's one of the reasons that number's so much higher

among 65 and over. we've also been very focused on ensuring that we are reaching residents at high risk for the worst outcomes due to covid and that means focusing on often focusing on older resident including those in our skilled nursing facilities residential care facilities for the elderly and other congregate settings where there are large numbers of older adults. next slide. so just in summary, omicron has replaced delta as the dominant variant. you'll recall in early december, we announced the first detection of omicron in the united states. clearly, omicron is far more transmissible than delta. so that is positive news, but there is reduced vaccine efficacy for transmission

especially without boosting. we are having rapid increases in our numbers. our resident hospital number is increasing rapidly. omicron hospital severity at this time is tracking at about 33% of what we're seeing with similar rates with delta. so, again, it appears to be less severe. this could change, but we are watching this very carefully. at this time, those protections correlate with the peak census that about 250 people in the hospital with covid by later this month. again, that's a testament. there are wide variation in those numbers, but that gives you ball park figure of where we are thinking we may end up and we're working with our health care systems watching that hospital capacity so carefully and, again, working to address potential staffing

shortages and issues there. and then, again, i've said this many times already in this presentation, boosters are so important and increasing boosters now can have a significant impact even this month. there's reasonable scientific evidence that boosters start working quickly after a receipt. so we're encouraging everyone who's eligible to get a booster as quickly as possible and we've been tweeting in real time on a regular basis where people can actually drop it and get boosters. we've expanded our booster availability within the health department and are working with other health care systems to support increasing booster availability as well. thank you, commissioners, that's my update. happy to take any additional questions. >> president bernal: thank you, director colfax. commissioners, before we go into comments or questions on

this item, we need to go to public comment. >> secretary: anyone who would like to make public comment, press star three. caller, you're unmuted. please let us know that you're there. >> caller: hi. this is michael petrellis again. and the issue i am calling about today is the lack of discussion from dr. colfax and the commissioners about mailing everyone in san francisco a home test for covid. we also need to discuss mailing everyone n95 masks. i don't believe in year three of covid we are going to see it

under control if we do not make masks and tests widely available. and we need to follow the example of washington, d.c. where they've made the tests available for free and all municipal government buildings. without widespread testing, i don't think we're going to get accurate epidemiology. and i think it is really worth it to spend the money to mail the masks and the tests everyone in san francisco. it really needs to be done if we're going to control this pandemic. thank you very much. >> secretary: thank you. >> president bernal: thank you, caller. commissioners, do we have any comments or questions for director colfax. i see vice president green.

>> vice president green: first of all, i want to thank you so much and the team as well because you produce statistics in which the state of this pandemic is spreading to get these kinds of up-to-the-minute. i think you deserve high praise for this kind of work and i know which gets to one of two questions i had and it really all relates to the whole question of staffing. i know you have a burden and responsibility to address the pandemic as well as the issues in the tenderloin. and i think coincidentally with that this is the first time during the pandemic where hospital stats have been decimated by the but also given

this whole issue of staffing, are there specific statistics that will trigger things like a remgts in other words, we're in a situation where there is a whole other element of work force issues that we haven't faced up until now in the pandemic. but i wonder if you can just comment in general how you're all holding it together. >> director: thank you, vice president green and i just want to acknowledge the team has worked extremely hard on this and the number of employees who've been activated to address the covid-19 pandemic were scheduled to go back to their other work december 31st and we had to delay that they're going back to that to

their regular jobs because of this. in fact pulled a number of additional d.h.p. employees due to the covid-19 surge. so there's a lot of work in the department that unfortunately will continue to be delayed as we address this issue and i think the commission is well aware of as the city is re-opened and so many other priorities that are not directly related to public health, other departments are working in so many other areas and that this work is now really even more entered at d.p.h. compared to when we had our covid command center where dph played a major role, but there were many other departments involved. just to assume the general context. i think the team is digging even deeper and working even harder. we have an incredit burglary

group of leaders on the ground and i do want to focuses on our congregate settings. all those issues are areas where we are focusing and it is forcing us to prioritize. right now according to staffing, we are in a reasonable place. we do have a number of challenges usual staffing rates, we're able to maintain those and as i think you know from the state, there's been new guidance about people returning to work after testing positive if they are

asymptomatic and if they have a negative test five days after their initial positivity, again, provide their asymptomatic and have a negative test. so that's positive for us in terms of getting people back to work in a safe way. we are actively discussing with the hospital council and watching the hospital bed capacity. i think one of the challenges that we have in the next few weeks in particular as you well know, commissioner green as a practicioner yourself, hospital consensus tends to go down a little bit during the holiday and that surge team is reviewing the metrics to ensure if there is evidence if we start to run out of hospital bed capacity that steps will be taken to voluntarily or

otherwise decrease the elective surgeries across the systems in order to make sure that we have capacity to care for people who are most at need. >> vice president green: thank you. is there a curriculum. this is one of the questions whether there is any calculus or any way you're viewing the percentage of people that are out with sick calls. >> director: yes. and i think for an example of this, i'll turn to our director of the health network just to share a little bit of detail in

terms of how this is looking on a day-to-day basis. >> hi. it's rowland pickins. can you hear me? >> director: yes. >> thank you, dr. colfax and i invite dr. earlich comments also. you're absolutely right, commissioner green. it is a hospital by hospital calculus but i think the common theme is that, you know, we have state ratios particularly in terms of staffing beds and so all the hospitals are relying upon that and to that extent will operate beds as

long as we have the staff and, again, patient safety is the number one goal and so if a hospital were to be in the situation where they thought they wouldn't be able to adequately staff beds, then we have our regional emergency management protocols where we go into the state and all the way up to the feds, we're able to request additional resources. so those maneuvers have been put on the table in terms of if we find ourselves in that position of some of those preliminary discussions have already begun to happen, but i'm happy to have susan earlich comment. >> sure. thank you. susan earlich executive of san

francisco general. this is indeed a uniquely challenging time for us one is there's a time in the winter every year as people get sicker. this year as dr. colfax mentioned, we're challenged a bit more because we have more staff out on leave because, you know, for various reasons. we have quite a number of staff out because they're either sick with covid. they have high risk exposure to somebody who's known to be covid positive and they're being managed by our occupational health system. and that number of people is approaching 300 right now just at csfg. so with that being said, we have incredibly resilient, persistent and creative teams and the way we're managing that

is as follows. first of all, we have entered into a third level orange in our area so we are slightly reducing our common space surgeries. i won't say these are lesser procedures, but they are less urgent than other procedures. and so our number of o.r.s are operating. instead of eight, we're operating seven in a flex room. and we are also reducing procedures in other parts that enables us to take staff in that area specifically in the pacu and rotate them to other places. for example, the pacu, we have some nurses who are qualified to work in the i.c.u.s. particularly impacted by staffing losses so those nurses can go and work in the i.c.u.s. so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. we are adhering to ratios by

reducing the number of beds we have open. so in the emergency department, we don't open all of our beds because we can't staff them. we go on diversion more than we would like to. but we're doing other creative things, but like, you know, if we can open our surge units for a proportion of the day, we will do that in order to augment flow and finally, there is new guidance coming from the cdc that allows people to get back to work faster and we're in the process of implementing that. we don't know exactly how many people that will impact, but any people we can get back to wow sooner, we will do that so we're in the process of starting that this week. i think that's how we're managing it. you know, we just have an amazing team. they're just doing a remarkable job taking care of people in

the community. thank you. >> vice president green: thank you so much. do you think with this wonderful example of how you're managing, are other hospitals in the city following suit? >> you know, we are uniquely impacted with volume at this time. and part of what we're doing is working as dr. colfax mentioned, we're working with the other hospital to see if we can reintroduce the idea of level loading. we did that as you recall back in the first surge. there was a covid unit that opened at st. francis. i'm not sure that we'll do exactly that, but we are exploring ideas for level loading where we need to. the other thing i didn't mention is we are converting as many to telehealth both in the specialty clinics and primary care and that also helps relieve staff to go and work in other areas like testing for

example. >> vice president green: that is wonderful. thank you for this thorough answer. very much appreciated. >> appreciate your support. >> president bernal: thank you. commissioner giraudo. >> commissioner giraudo: thank you. dr. colfax, in your report, you mentioned dr. phillips' concern that some of the health systems are not really doing their part for testing and are sending not only their employees but others who walk in the door, potential patients to be tested at the d.p.h. testing site. is there anything more that you can do or dr. phillips can do with this so-called concern to get the other health systems to do their part?

is there any push or anything that can be done? >> yes. i'll let dr. phillips answer that. i will say we've been reaching out directly to other hospital system leaders to ensure that they have insight into the situation to work with them to collectively problem solve around this issue. this so we're working with them but we're going to see

unprecedented demand and quite frankly d.p.h. is carrying a huge burden here. however, whenever we can, but we are really calling upon other health care systems to do their part different health care systems are a different change in that regard. others it's not clear at this time what their plans are to do that and i will turn it over to dr. phillip as our we have been in communication for some time that the order has been in place that they provide testing to their patients on request

within 24 hours. so we recognize it's been a challenge during a so we have some evidence. we're following up with a letter from the health officer reminding them of the health order and we do want to continue to work together in a. >> president bernal: all right. thank you, doctor. >> commissioner giraudo: thank you. because it was my own employees

who needed testing. so just to note if there was any other push, but i understand it needs to be constructive. as much as possible. but thank you very much, dr. phillips. >> president bernal: thank you, commissioner giraudo. commissioner chow. >> commissioner chow: yes. thank you, president bernal and dr. colfax for actually an amazing response to this rapid surge as you said. i was wondering if there was any forecast or a lot of forecast in the papers from maybe experience in other countries how we might feel in terms of and what you're playing for in terms of the length of this particular surge and i guess secondly, i am

interested as i've been trying to read through the what we are actually asking for when we say fully vaccinated versus up to date vaccination. there are areas that are requiring the booster for example. i think kind of in lieu of what's going to be started to implement that. so i just wanted to understand a little better and thirdly in regards to the schools and i know that has been a continued challenge and i'm glad to hear we're all working together to try to keep the schools in operation. it does talk about rapid testing. i think the concept of some people that we've heard about sending tests to homes only gives you one test or two at the most for each kid.

here, we're talking about actually testing more frequently for example in schools. so i'm not sure how we are cooperating or working with the school district or encouraging them to be sure to follow the guidelines. so those are my three questions. >> thank you, dr. chow, and i'm also going to ask our health officer and page director susan phillips, but just to go through a couple of your questions in terms of projecting about where this -- how this surge will go, obviously, this pandemic has humbled us on any future predictions about disease patterns. but i will say that most experts i've talked to looking at those international, national, and local situations

believe based on increasingly based on data and to some degree on modelling to a lesser degree on speculation. this surge will be very steep and fast because this is such an infectious virus it will go through populations very quickly. we've seen that in south africa for instance that may already be in the u.k. locally using the models by dr. maya peterson who you know we've been working with since the beginning of this pandemic. our projections show that locally our hospitalizations will peak sometime later this month, like this month followed by a relatively steep decline going into february. so, again, the actual data is still being generated obviously as we move into that future,

but so far, the limited relatively is tracking with that projection. so it's a long answer. but the point is it's going to be an intense surge that will peak relatively quickly and dissipate relatively quickly if those models hold. i did want to touch on the rapid testing question that you brought up and just to emphasize that we are working all possibilities for pulling out more testing kits. rapid testing kits, home testing kits as you know and we're doing everything we can

to avail ourselves of an adequate supply of home testing kits to use in very specific situations to protect the most vulnerable. there's a national shortage. the supply chains are very irregular and in some ways nonsense cal there are places where they receive home test kits in large numbers and there are other places where home test kits have not showed up. we have ordered tens of thousands of home which really is a week from now and that can shift by the hour two more weeks to three more weeks. we're also cautiously optimistic. we are literally purchasing

these kits. we don't have any additional information on the 500 million test kits will be coming and how they'll be distributed. so we're working on three levels. one is we're talking to the state and working to see when they may be able to and then again waiting on the state, on the federal it is a national shortage. we are ready to deploy these materials and there has been a lot of work with the school district both in terms of figuring out how to deploy rapid testing if and when it can be scaled up as well as additional testing. so i'm going to let dr. phillip answer that question. respond to that question. >> yeah.

this is a top priority for all of us in this city at d.p.h. and sfusd and schools across the city and for families. so that is a key focus. we've put out our strong statements that despite the number of cases in omicron, the previous efforts and preventtive measures in schools have allowed schools to be open during our prior surges and we believe that that can happen again. testing is a component of this, but so are masks and ventilation and all of the core prevention strategies for covid-19 and those have to continue. so the schools have their own testing contracts and they are positioned and situated to best work for their needs for their students if their families at sfusd in particular. the state is additionally sending rapid test kits and people may have heard of other

jurisdictions and school counties that have distributed those kits. because of the recent severe winter weather throughout california, the state had announced that some of the supplies had been delayed and we are understanding that in san francisco those kits are arriving in the next day or so and will be distributed by sfusd. they also have other opportunities for home test kits through the contracts that they have now. so we're continuing to work with school partners as we have done since the beginning of the pandemic. we have a school's team that's just focused on assisting schools as much as possible and that team continues to meet with and talk with not just sfusd, but all schools across the city. so that is what we have in place right now. we continue again to look for all opportunities to assist and continue to make sure that the city wide resources are also available and as we scale up testing, we know that will be

to the benefit of students and families as well. i also wanted to ask a question about up-to-date vaccinations and what that means. this is a new term that we have in our most recent health order and rather than saying a person is fully vaccinated, this is really an acknowledgement that now we're talking about are you up to date. so that means you've gotten your primary vaccine and that also gets tricky because just this week, we're hearing at the interval the boosters has decreased by the fda and cdc from six months to five months after an mrna vaccine. so that is what up-to-date means. we have not made that a requirement in most general settings. the exception to that is going

to be in indoor megaevents which previous have been a 1,000 people or more in a venue and the state has revised its definition to be 500 people or more. in those settings starting on february 1st, everyone who attends will need to be up to date on their vaccination and their staff as well. we also said in high risk settings, has been done since the beginning of the pandemic. nurses facilities all must be up to date on their vaccinations by february 1st, but that we are encouraging and urging people to do that as much as possible. >> this is a moving target. i understand the up to date definition now and i think dr. colfax and the entire

department has been remarkable in one that we should be very pleased to be able to support. so thank you. >> thank you. commissioner chow. commissioner guillermo. >> commissioner guillermo: thank you. and i really appreciate all of the answers to the questions so far and the thoroughness in the details. i appreciate that again in advance. one has to do with sort of a followup to rapid testing. knowing that there's a lack of availability of the home testing kits i'm wondering what impact that's going to have the data collection efforts around

covid knowing that there are going to be more and more people who are just going to be self-testing at home and they won't be reported to the health department or to their provider and whether there's a sense of how impactful that lack of information is going to be and our ability to respond as a city. and then the second question has to do with contact tracing knowing that it was difficult to do to begin with when we first were impacted by covid and the surges, but with omicron even more so and i'm just wondering if we have an update on the contact tracing efforts that have been put into place or whether there is, you know, with the difficulty is at this point given this surge and the state that we're in. >> director: thank you, commissioner guillermo. i will attempt to address the

testing and rapid diagnosis questions. i'll let her provide an answer to that question. but going to the rapid test kits where people will be testing and whether they test negative or positive, there's no formal way for them to record and there's no requirement. i think it really calls into focus the fact that going forward with the surge and like with future surges, we need to really focus on the number of people hospitalized to ensure that we're able to take care of the people who are most sick with covid-19. i think increasingly, the absolute numbers of covid-19 infections, the specific rate is less important than the

change in that rate and whether that rate is going up with what i would call conventional testing. you know, a week or two weeks later. but those actual specific numbers are more matter more i would say qualitatively than quantitatively going forward. as you see in the slides that i showed earlier, the rate of infection is high. the percentage of that is lower than we've seen before which is really good news. that being said, i mean, we have talks with the data team and to some extent the state, what are systems that could potentially be put into place. there are some counties that have piloted voluntary reporting of positive test results from home test kits. i think that that's a creative way of testing this but it also

could adds additional challenges. if you only have people testing positive reportings of that don't have your rate because everybody is testing negative would necessarily report in those situations. i think overall until we get many more and those should be leading indicators and should not in any way from trying to get as many of those home test kits out to people as quickly as possible particularly with regard to being used in a rapid diagnosis and also based on state and local guidelines being able to return back to work and other activities if

you test negative. i hope that gives you the specificity to the answer you hope to receive. >> before we go to dr. phillips, just wondering then again about messaging, you know, around the importance of testing overall versus testing when you have symptoms. and so that's something it's probably not a good around that messaging right now, but it is something that i think it would be important for us as the health department to be very aware of and to be prepared to communicate with the public around that issue. >> director: thank you, commissioner. the thank you for reinforcing

that and we have reenforced the importance of testing. and obviously people who have symptoms. but also to test with regard to travel history to consider testing when people are going to be around particularly vulnerable populations or people who are unvaccinated and those are recommendations that are on our website and we are reenforcing the recommendations of the state and cdc in those regards as well. dr. phillips, if you could answer commissioner guillermo's question about the contact tracing update. >> yeah. certainly. commissioner, thank you very much for the question. it is not feasible to contact all of those people and that indicates for some time with having hundreds of cases, but what we have done since the beginning of the pandemic and what we continue to do is try

and optimize the information that we can provide to people so that they know how to isolate or quarantine safely. everyone does get an auto mated message and they are told, you know, if you need additional support in order to do isolation quarantine, they can call our support center. we do continue to have a covid support group that are experts at telling people and giving people information about resources and about ways in which they can isolate and quarantine safely in their own homes and residences. so that is really the focus in trying to make sure that people know what is -- what we need to have them do and that they have people that they can talk to and ask questions of if needed as this comes up. but more and more, this is something that people are doing in their own homes or needing to do on their own with support and information about how to do

that safely. >> thank you. i appreciate that. this is sort of a reminder for the public that there are resources on the department's website, you know, instructions, guidelines, you know, all kinds of things that people can go to versus going to other sources on the internet that may not have good, accurate, scientific based information and so i appreciate that you've reminded us that we are on, you know, a number of the questions that we've been asked, that have been asked, that the department has definitive information with is up to date as possible and that there are resources for us. thank you. >> thank you. and we'll continue to make those as clear and accessible and remind people via social media and other ways so that will be front of mind for people as they need that

information. thank you. >> president bernal: thank you, dr. phillips, commissioner guillermo, and director colfax. i do not see any other comments or questions from commissioners. i did want to just go back to your presentation, director colfax and acknowledge that you showed we've been through two fall years and almost entering our third year and given this third peak that looks to be steeper than any. it's clear how much strain this has placed on the entire department to our program attic staff. our leadership and just want to acknowledge all of their hard work and everything they've been through over the past two years and just thank them for their perseverance and just acknowledge how hard they've been working and know that the commission stands fully behind them in support of them and of you and your team as well, director colfax. >> director: thank you,

commissioner. thank you, commissioners. >> president bernal: all right. we're moving on to our next item which is general public comment. >> secretary: hi, folks on the line, anyone who would like to make a comment. at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission that are not on this meeting agenda. the brown act forbids a commission from taking action or discussing any item not appearing on the posted agenda, including those items raised at public comment. >> caller: mark just said that this is general public comment for items that are not on the agenda and as you have heard me say previously during this

meeting what's not on your agenda is making tests and n95 masks more widely available. i have not heard anything and it's not been on your agenda about mailing everyone in san francisco a home testing kit. however, we're all going to be getting ballots in the mail and i just think it's very interesting that the politicians are taking elections as they should. but they need to expand their agenda and allocate to mail those tests to everyone in the city, especially in those areas where you're seeing the increases happening. you also need to start mailing the masks to everyone. i don't believe that there is a

shortage comparable to the covid tests. so why aren't the masks being distributed at the libraries, at police stations, at fire stations. i think san francisco has to examine why you are not discussing at this point the dawn of year three of this pandemic. you're not even discussing mailing the tests and the masks to folks or making them available at municipal buildings. i hope you have heard what i have said several times during this meeting and that you soon put these items on your future agendas. thank you. >> secretary: thank you for your comments. that's the only public comment that we have, commissioners personal thank you, caller. we will move on to our next item which is an action item, a resolution making findings to allow teleconference meetings

under california government code section s4953e. as we've done every month now, the health commission considers passive resolution to give it and all of its sub committees including the jccs to meet remotely for the next 30 days. so approval is requested on this. commissioners, you have seen this resolution before, so i think there's no need to read it through. do we have a motion to approve? >> commissioner: i move to approve the resolution. >> commissioner: i second. >> president bernal: secretary morewitz, do we have any public comment on this item? >> secretary: folks on the line please press star three now if you wish to make public comment. i see no hands, commissioners. roll call vote? >> president bernal: yes, please. >> secretary: [roll call]

thank you. the item passes. >> president bernal: great. thank you, commissioners. our next item is an action item. we have stella clou who is the dph manager of care. >> secretary: i believe jenn louie is also. >> we're establishing a process to address the backlog. this is a legal process consistent with california state law and this is all in

conjunction with the city attorney, the mayor, controller, as well as the tax collector. i do want to reiterate that our goal is always to maximize the use and we hope that our work on this process we're able to increase the number of active accounts. but the actual zones. this is a process of last resort. can't leave unclaimed funds in the program. with that, i'd like to turn it over to stella chou.

>> it looks great. >> thank you. happy new year. my name is stella chou. so thank you for the introduction. we will also touch base on information about the sf auction program as well as the in-treatment process. we'll look at what we need for the program. followed by we will be sharing our communication and our plan prior to our initial shipment in calendar year 2025. and after that, we will also provide a summary of program

changes if the shipment policy is approved and implemented followed by our plan exit staff and the q&a section. our objective today this sf city auction shipment policy has been approved by the health commission's finance and planning committee on december 7th. and today we are here to ask the commission to approve this and allow us to move forward with the implementation. the issue here is that the department's goal has been to ensure the program participants can maximize the use of the benefits. in june last year, the health commission approved the sf co

to make the program easier for the employees to access. under that program approved by the health commission, we are implementing multiple projects to achieve our goals. in addition to that, the program also has a backlog of accounts and contributions that have been inactive for multiple years. as a result, we're here to propose continuing this project under the sfco communication projects to improve the utilization of the project and we ask the health commission to approve when eligible to inactive program funds based on the state and the city's

current shipment process. a little bit background on the city auction program. the board of supervisors in 2006 approved the health care security ordnance which created the san francisco city program. launched the sf city auction program as one way for employers to meet the employers spending pilot we also contracted san francisco health plans to the program including managing the sf medical reimbursement account referred to as sf benefits and also managing the poor accounts where contributions are initially deposited before they

move to the accounts. in june last year, the simplification program was approved to increase the utilization and employee engagement through three mechanisms including the simplified wellness process. why all this again, they are under this project, they are all under way. this problem always has some level of account as the program grows. just to share with you what are we doing currently in terms of communication and knowledge and data projects. one of them is to renting our

program website. we are also replacing our existing logo to increase employee trust in the program. we are also rewriting the all employee materials to the 8th grade level. this is all under way and also learning from one of our pilots in 2021 call healthy airport pilot. we learned that the employers warranted highly influential in terms of optimized enrollment of the employees. so our plan is to further expand these employer pilots this year for employers that with large numbers of employees that have not set up their account. as part of this data project, we've also contracted with

transunion to perform auto mated and searches for updated employee information. so what is the. it can be transferred to the local agency after a period of three years. and the city can have such process already if managed through the treasurer and tax collector's office and it's governed by the state law as well. and in the last i would say year also, they've been meeting with the mayor's office, the controllers, city attorney, through draft policies to draft this policy in process to initiate a new fund in this

program. why do we need to initiate? back in 2015, the health commission approved and deactivation policy for the sfmra and the activation policy only deals with the this program will always have a fund. which at the end of the year

will have so it's inevitable as the account grows. we would like to propose this shipment policy to allow us to initiate the inactive funds totalling the state's shipment process managed by the treasurer and tax collector's office. and, again, the city has been implementing this shipment process for various programs. and because, you know, we established this program in

2008 and it's been 18 years. so we have an unusual large sum of money that's that has been inactive for over three years. so it's about $104 million which we present about 7.6 of the total percentage ever. our future projections will be about $36 million annually which means that 90% of the employer contribution funds are going back to the employees. but we can do to a budget drop. next, i would like to share our

plans before the initial shipment happens. our communication and outreach lan to further reach out to this next town. if this policy is approved by the commissioners our plan is to stop the outreach plan in april april. so we will implement this policy starting in july and urge them to activate the account. and counting gym, the three year period required by law will start to kick in and during that three years, our plan is to conduct an additional and more consistent and targeted notification and outreach to the employer and

employees and our detail of what plans need to be out in the next few months and after that, three years of that period, if it's still inactive after all these outreach efforts, we will follow the state laws, we'll follow the city's shipment process and notify the city that the city will now issue the funds unless they, you know, within the statuary period which is within 45 to 60 days. we will also do any publications in the newspaper as required by law to make sure that we get that information out and that's when the fund will be instituted in the

general fund. that's the time line we are seeing. so now let's look at a summary of changes if this policy is approved and implemented. hoping for your contribution. once we implement this new policy, the city will hold all the employer contributions. as of today, the health plan pays all claims and other program costs directly and after the new policy is implemented instead of an. >> and lastly, we mentioned the two pool funds. we have an activation policy in place, but the unassigned pool

accounts which was started in 2016 which would have no policy to address it's activated. so we whether follow the same shipment process. if the department will continue to work with other city agencies and san francisco health plan to implement policies in the next few months and next in the again, starting in april, we will increase our outreach and community efforts

from april to june and then throughout the three years. we will also need to implement the existing city policy within the city program. and in order to enable the san francisco health plan like it does now. we will need to set up the new bank account and set up a process to do this day-to-day activities. and we will need to review all and notifying all employees. in the next few months, our plan is to come back to the

health commissioners and and today as the health commission approves this policy to start to implement shipment policy we also have alice from the finance department and we have the san francisco health plan representatives who are here to answer any questions you may have. as not requested, i will stop

sharing so we can see our faces better. >> secretary: commissioners, i will check for public comment. first on the line, if you'd like to make a comment, please press star 3 now. >> fishs, any questions or comments before we move on to the next item. commissioner green. >> vice president green: thank you for the elaboration of information. it helps clarify this a great. i'm wondering if you can answer a few questions that i have. from your answer, it sounds

like the office of labor is responsible and i wonder if you can comment on two things. first of all, you know, how that will unfold as you produce these materials which should be much more understandable than they were in the past, how that will unfold and the other question i have if you've apparently been using transunion for awhile. we still have $104 million that hasn't been claimed and if i read correctly, if someone contributes funds in 2008 and passed away in 2011, if you did find family members, it would be too late for them to tap into the funds. people may not have been as clear in the past and i'm wondering whether everyone has confidence that we're doing

what we can to reach out. >> first, i will take the question on the office of labor standards enforcement and then i'll give the rest of the. >> once this policy is approved by the to understand what changes we need to make and based on last year, we know that's critical if we want to further optimize the employee because that pilot is incredible. we have over 70% employees enrolled after the presentation. so that leaves some time to kind of let them learn from that. but, in our next update in a couple months, we're hoping in

a few months, we've announced, we can provide you updates to your question about the olse and did that answer your question, commissioner green? >> vice president green: backward reaching question. >> yeah. and then for the rest may i ask you to clarify? >> sure. thanks for the question. so yes, we use transunion which is a credit agency. but it's actually used for people where we have bad data and so that is used consistently to try and get because that's the last thing we want to see is the return mail, the vast volumes of return mail that we get. i think the bigger answer to your question though is there are thousands of employees that we actually have valid data for today that are not actually setting up their accounts.

and so that's what stella is sort of talking about is that's really the problem is trying to reach them. it's very difficult in some cases and what you're seeing is like, you know, this accumulation of many years right of population, but from a -- i think what you're trying to get at is what you're doing to try to make sure that people today know and will use their money and that has been we really have to start leveraging employer voice more because that's also been part of the logo change. it's like it didn't say the city and county of san francisco, so people just toss that kind of stuff. it's also a problem that you have large numbers of people in service and retail and entities that have termed through many jobs. so they don't even remember they have contributions from two jobs ago. so that is our challenge is really trying to reach those folks who are fairly disconnected, don't understand

the programs that's a lot of simplification kind of changes and we have three years to reach them because what has happened in the current program, nothing has ever been permanent. so anyone month has ever found out like in a future job or a past job they've had contributions can always call us and get all of their contributions restored so that has been the status quo up to today. in three years, if this policy is approved, that will no longer be the case. so what we have to do in between now and three years is really try to increase that level of engagement to those employees and try and leverage more employers. it's very difficult. you know, most of the people whose funds would be in danger come from very large employers. you know, macy's, target,

starbucks, they're churning through thousands of employees and so that will just be a challenge that we are going to try and find the secret sauce to. >> vice president green: thank you. that's a huge undertaking and i really appreciate the degree of challenge here. i guess the last question i have is whether any thought as this money goes back to the general fund if the d.p.h. itself has had shortfalls whether there would be any ability to look at this money whether it might help fill our back needs as well in just general. >> thank you for the question. i will pass this question to jenny lee to address. >> yeah. this is a great question. as a technical matter, it falls to the city's general funds as those fund balances are subject to the appropriation of the mayor and the board like any other funds that we may have, and so this is a conversation i think that will take place over

the next several years, like what will happen with the funds that we wanted to separate the use of the funds and just the actual implementation of this policy which is just the policy we need to have for that small percentage of unclaims that we do have and i think there's a separate conversation about how this fund could be appropriated for it. >> vice president green: thanks so much. >> commissioner: sure. if i could also just add, i think the city fund is also our largest funder. so the determination about how those funds would be used as a technical matter is one thing, but we are always working really closely and working very

hard to establish and build that relationship with the mayor's office and whether it goes to it's going to be that process and relationship that we worked to build through, the pujt and vice versa one way or the other. >> president bernal: all right. seeing no further comments or questions, i believe we can

move on to the next item. >> secretary: i apologize. that was an action item. >> president bernal: s apologies. okay. so before we i know this is coming forward does the finance committee i'm glad we were able to bring it to the full commission for some additional insight and questions and information. so i'll move to approve. >> commissioner: second. >> all right. secretary morewitz, do we have any public comment? >> secretary: we already asked for public comment so i'll take the roll.

[roll call] great. the item passes. >> president bernal: okay. on to our next item which is the resolution recommending that funds claimed for the san francisco achievement option be used in san francisco. back to stella cho. >> secretary: and this item will be deferred. so we'll look at that in the future. >> president bernal: thank you. our next item is the 2016 public health and safety quarterly bond update. we have a number of team members. >> give me one second. i apologize you should see your

button any second. >> good evening, commissioners. i'm going to go briskly through a presentation, but we will have time at the end of the presentation for questions. basically, it's going to be myself to the director's office and joe chen from public works and then ucsf from the campus architect and roesha can speak to the research building. with that, joey, you're going to share the slide deck.

>> thank you. it should show up any second. >> the last time we came before you was june 17th. we've moved some of the data. we didn't eliminate any data, but we've moved some of the more detailed data to the appendixes. if there are questions that relate to that, we can always go to that. >> can you see my slide deck? >> yes. >> okay. so before i start, i'm going to address two questions that came

from commissioner green because she alwayses and the most appropriate questions and so -- and i'll paraphrase, commissioner. the questions evolve around what sort of lessons have we learned since we started doing some of the 2016 rojs and what are our biggest challenges. i think some of the lessons that we've learned relate to slide 9 and the presentation and i kind of categorized them into four areas. one is we've learned technically to simplify the bidding documents and take out all the allowances and the reason you put in allowances is because you're not quite sure the quantity of the so when a

subcontractor sees that, they put a lot of risk in the dollars. the second thing that we've learned is we have to do more site exploratorization. so before we get into construction, we have a better idea of what we're dealing with and i think part of the problem is we've made a lot of people reluctant because of the perceiveded work level. the third thing is we've asked our in some cases, we got no bid on some of the projects or

one bid and when that happens, the price goes up 30 to 40% because there's no competition. so we started that dialog and conversation with our general contractor to increase that effort. the fourth thing is actually do early demolition of certain projects so we can understand all the unforeseen conditions like we're doing with psych emergency services. so those four things are kind of the categories i would lend myself to say are the strategies around lessons learned. i think our biggest challenge continues to be the budgetary impacts. the factory shutdowns are

affecting everyone floeblly. this diagram shows you the top is the global disruption to supply chain because they can't get into dock to unload their goods because there's no trucking or they're piling up the containers. the slide to the far left is an actual slide that was used in 60 minutes so the supply has shrunk, the demand increased and the cost went up dramatically. so these are some of the challenges that we see that are almost outside our control, but we're trying to look at maybe using more local materials that aren't contingent on shipping or materials that are the

reason is we're only tracking the first two bond sales. the first sale was between three of the departments that's fire. the third was solely ours for d.p.h.. next slide. so this is a financial picture of zuckerberg. the take away here is in june,

we projected a higher amount of budget for zuckerberg, but between conversations with mr. wagner and staff because of the clinics were so close to being shovel ready, what we need is a decision to transfer approximately $18 million from the zuckerberg over to the clinics to make sure they kept their momentum going and as a result, it was done a couple months ago and then both castro division, that's the reason we moved that money temporarily. if you look down on footnote five, second collum, we're able to secure 11.4 million in a

2020 bond in november to help zuckerberg out. next slide. these are the community clinics. it's cast trudeau, mission, and southeast. if you can tag in. it's second to the last you'll see those high percentages. that's the reason we didn't want to move the money because we didn't want to slow down the project. so we moved those moneys there. we were able to finish vaccines as i said and get into pretty deep construction in the other two clinics. why don't you go from here from six to eleven. >> sure. thank you, mark. good evening, commissioners. this next slide just shows the bid prices for each of the six

projects as compared to the 2016 budget, the city those estimates. this table was updated from the last presentation, june. the two additional projects that have now proceeded into the original phase. so much of the higher prices that we're seeing for the projects can be directly correlated to much of the covid-19 impacts that mark discussed earlier as well as some of the cost drivers that were discussed at the last meeting. i do want to spend a few minutes to discuss project four. because of the huge delta the city's cost assessment, we recognize that we need to address this project differently than the other five projects. so the team is working together with the contractor and as well as with the design team and d.p.h. to identify engineering ideas and scope reduction

concepts that were currently valuing last meeting in june. since the last meeting. the clear cost driver one, mark discussed this earlier, supply chain issues had just gotten worse in the last six months which is leading to higher costs overall on projects. additionally on cost driver four, that was the covid-19 health order cost impacts. right now on any contractor and subcontractor are now required to show proof of vaccination. so we are starting to see some trade labor resource impacts as

now all contractors have sufficient staff that's fully vaccinated. therefore, they're not allowed to work on the vsfg campus. so we're monitoring this issue as the time progresses. so this one i'll skip. mark went through that earlier as well as slide number nine. i'm happy to report there's some good news after many months of delay on the rehab, rehabilitation project. this project has now achieved completion in november 2021. this is for the project because

the start of the analysis were contingent on the completion of the project. and the rehab department can now move into a new space so all these projects are inner linked and connected. by the end of this month, we will have all the projects constructed. the department of public health lab early demo. the clinical laboratory track replacement. and for the next eight projects some of which i discussed earlier the general contractor which will be used to deliver the next eight projects. these projects include the

seismic upgrade building 89 specialties and this method was chosen primarily within one occupied building with an overlapping schedule. we're also tracking two projects that have been we are expecting plan review for these two projects through the end of 2022. and just on the last slide. i have an update on the community health update project. the construction progress is

going well. we are approximately complete. the contractor will then be mobilized and d.p.h. will relocate from the existing health center. once the building's occupied, the contract will return with an overall project completion by the end of 2022. i'm also happy to report on this project, we've received permanent power from pg&e back in november of last year which typically is typical for any project because this allows the contractors to start elevator mendecino health center is the

first health center to be completed. with patients being seen in a new space on october 15th. it's approximately 7,500 complete with a target completion date of 2022 and the project is currently focused on interior finishes as well as sign improvement. so at this point, we turn it back to mark and he can give you a brief update on the research and academic building project. >> yeah. so the xaekd building is going well to a little over this data is sort of december data it's around 60% completion, but it's really taking shape there on campus and we're collaborating with the u.c.s.f. team on the

roadway that divides existing building and the research building and we're using it collaboratively, the oj problem there is with pg&e. so at this point, if we can open it up for questions, commissioners any questions. before we do that, secretary morewitz, do we have any questions? >> secretary: there's no one on the line, commissioner. >> president bernal: thank you. commissioners, any questions or comments. commissioner chow. >> commissioner chow: yes. i was looking through this program schedule and i think briefly, mark, could you

describe how far our projects are in terms of being behind or being ahead? >> commissioner chow, can i have joe address that since he's been collaborating with the general contractor and their scheduling far more than i have. joe. >> yeah. sure. obviously right now, we have two projects that are nearing completion. those are the sixh surge space and the rehabilitation project. so those are probably the closest -- currently in construction that will be done shortly. those have been different for different reasons due to unforeseen condition, hazmat. the schedule has been pushed out for those reasons and

probably has also identified code issues that need to be addressed as part of the project so we had to deal with those. so currently under the more recent projects, we just started the and fiber reinforce wrapping to strengthen the column. so it's a multitude of schedules depending on which project we look at, you know, the longest so at least these active projects, it's about three years.

we also have other projects in the pipeline we talked about earlier. the main scope, those will be planned review through the end of 2022 maybe as typically we're looking at those adds one to maybe two years. >> commissioner chow: so in summary from your finances, are we on target and have found enough money to complete all the projects for instance with what we had to do? >> to be completely transparent, we don't really know right now. there's two unknowns. one is we haven't appropriated any interest money although we were able to get our hands on a little over 23 million from the

various sources. so we're also looking at some of the budgetary gaps that we have in the building, because if you recall in 2015 and 2016, a former health director garcia and mr. wagner and i had advocated for more money to the tune of 535 million for the 2016 bond. we were in competition with sfmta and affordable hows and so from the beginning, we knew we didn't have enough to do everything that we knew there were dishss for. so we're looking for any kind of funding so source the 2016 bonds. >> commissioner chow: so, can we get i gunshot in the future,

your next report, a continuation of discussion as to where we are with these? i'm just reminded of when we had to drop a building over at laguna in a and it's kind of history repeating itself, increasing cost of supplies in that case and here we have shortages of supplies, increasing bids and as we know an inpopulation factor right now. so i think from the standpoint of the commission, we should understand the financial imp indications of all this sooner rather than later. >> absolutely. and we're going to be diligent around working with the foundation and also we're advocating and we've got place holders next year, 2023 and i think greg, correct me if i'm

not wrong in 2028, we're on like a five year cycle to bridge the gap. both at the clinic level and at the campus. >> commissioner chow: thank you. commissioners, any other questions or comments. all right. thank you and your team. >> thank you. >> president bernal: okay. our next item is the report from the finance and planning committee. commissioner chung. >> commissioner chung: thank you commissioner personal. and the finance and planning committee met before the commission meeting today and we

had one contract report and three new contracts to consider. the contract reports include one contract extension for positive resource center and also, you know, like an extension for covid response for institute familiar as far as like, you know, one contract, technically new contract just to extend the previous contract for another year until june 30th, 2022, due to the rfp for a new contract. and the three adds needed

support services for mental health sf and all these items have been added to the consent calendars for you to consider. >> president bernal: that leads us directly into our consent calendar. back to commissioner chung. >> commissioner chung: as i mentioned earlier, all the

items have been added to the consent calendar and we recommend the approval of all the contracts. >> president bernal: great. commissioners, any comments or questions before we have a motion to approve? or is there a motion to approve? >> secretary: i'll do a roll call vote. [roll call] okay. great. thank you. the item passes. all the items pass. >> president bernal: excellent. all right, moving on to our next item which is other

business. commissioners, do we have any other business? >> president bernal: okay. seeing none. we'll move to our next item. we'll hear an update from commissioner chow from the december 28th, 2021,j.c.c. meeting. commissioner chow. >> commissioner chow: thank you, president bernal. the joint conference committee met and we did the regulatory affairs report, human resources report and the medical staff report and in the human resources report, we did report that we were beginning to find more nursing of course, you heard about the existing nursing shortage and this is

bringing on new resources to help fill difficult positions and this is one of the first times i think we heard we were making progress on things like i.c.u. and such other very highly sought specialists throughout the country. we also then received the medical staff report which included an extent of the discussion of the largest department which is the department of medicine and all the work that they are doing as part of the report, we also then updated the department of medicine rules and regulations and emergency department standardized procedures which are used by the anon positions very extensive position which are very well done which we did pass votes on your behalf. the committee also discussed

the presentation care strategy. in order to to be able to capture more timely fashion and is ask so we're looking forward to seeing how this measures patient satisfaction which was right after a patient leaves and also then how well our satisfaction is proceeding in terms of their goal which is really the one measurement is how well do you want to

recommend working here so that in our closed and that concludes my report. >> president bernal: thank you, secretary morewitz. thank you, commissioner chow. do we have any questions or comments for other commissioners? okay. seeing none. we'll move on to our next item which is a consideration of a motion to adjourn. do we have a motion to adjourn? >> commissioner: i move to adjourn. >> commissioner: i second. >> president bernal: all right. >> secretary: a roll call vote. [roll call] take care everyone. >> president bernal: thanks

all. >> commissioner: thank you commissioners. >> president bernal: thank you director colfax. thank you, team. >> commissioner: happy new year everyone. >> my background is in engineering.

i am a civil engineer by training. my career has really been around government service. when the opportunity came up to serve the city of san francisco, that was just an opportunity i really needed to explore. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] i think it was in junior high and really started to do well in math but i faced some really interesting challenges. many young ladies were not in math and i was the only one in some of these classes. it was tough, it was difficult to succeed when a teacher didn't have confidence in you, but i was determined and i realized that engineering really is what i was interested in.

as i moved into college and took engineering, preengineering classes, once again i hit some of those same stereotypes that women are not in this field. that just challenged me more. because i was enjoying it, i was determined to be successful. now i took that drive that i have and a couple it with public service. often we are the unsung heroes of technology in the city whether it is delivering network services internally, or for our broadband services to low income housing. >> free wi-fi for all of the residents here so that folks have access to do job searches, housing searches, or anything else that anyone else could do in our great city. >> we are putting the plant in the ground to make all of the city services available to our residents. it is difficult work, but it is

also very exciting and rewarding our team is exceptional. they are very talented engineers and analysts who work to deliver the data and the services and the technology every day. >> i love working with linda because she is fun. you can tell her anything under the sun and she will listen and give you solutions or advice. she is very generous and thoughtful and remembers all the special days that you are celebrating. >> i have seen recent employee safety and cyber security. it is always a top priority. i am always feeling proud working with her. >> what is interesting about my work and my family is my experience is not unique, but it is different. i am a single parent. so having a career that is demanding and also having a child to raise has been a challenge.

i think for parents that are working and trying to balance a career that takes a lot of time, we may have some interruptions. if there is an emergency or that sort of thing then you have to be able to still take care of your family and then also do your service to your job. that is probably my take away and a lot of lessons learned. a lot of parents have the concern of how to do the balance i like to think i did a good job for me, watching my son go through school and now enter the job market, and he is in the medical field and starting his career, he was always an intern. one of the things that we try to do here and one of my takeaways from raising him is how important internships are. and here in the department of technology, we pride ourselves on our interns. we have 20 to 25 each year. they do a terrific job contributing to our outside

plant five or work or our network engineering or our finance team. this last time they took to programming our reception robot, pepper, and they added videos to it and all of these sort of things. it was fun to see their creativity and their innovation come out. >> amazing. >> intriguing. >> the way i unwind is with my photography and taking pictures around the city. when i drive around california, i enjoy taking a lot of landscapes. the weather here changes very often, so you get a beautiful sunset or you get a big bunch of clouds. especially along the waterfront. it is spectacular. i just took some photos of big server and had a wonderful time,

not only with the water photos, but also the rocks and the bushes and the landscapes. they are phenomenal. [♪♪♪] my advice to young ladies and women who would like to move into stem fields is to really look at why you are there. if you are -- if you are a problem solver, if you like to analyse information, if you like to discover new things, if you like to come up with alternatives and invent new practice, it is such a fabulous opportunity. whether it is computer science or engineering or biology or medicine, oh, my goodness, there are so many opportunities. if you have that kind of mindset i have enjoyed working in san francisco so much because of the diversity. the diversity of the people, of this city, of the values, of the talent that is here in the city.

it is stimulating and motivating and inspiring and i cannot imagine working anywhere else but in san >> everything is done in-house. i think it is done. i have always been passionate about gelato. every single slaver has its own recipe. we have our own -- we move on

from there. so you have every time a unique experience because that slaver is the flavored we want to make. union street is unique because of the neighbors and the location itself. the people that live around here i love to see when the street is full of people. it is a little bit of italy that is happening around you can walk around and enjoy shopping with gelato in your hand. this is the move we are happy to provide to the people. i always love union street because it's not like another commercial street where you have big chains. here you have the neighbors. there is a lot of stories and the neighborhoods are essential. people have -- they enjoy having their daily or weekly gelato. i love this street itself.

>> we created a move of an area where we will be visiting. we want to make sure that the area has the gelato that you like. what we give back as a shop owner is creating an ambient lifestyle. if you do it in your area and if you like it, then you can do it on the streets you like.

>> welcome to the rules committee of the san francisco board of supervisors for today monday january 10, our first meeting of the new year. i'm the chair of the committee, aaron peskin joined by vice chair supervisor rafael

mandelman. our clerk is mr. young. >> clerk: the minutes will reflect the 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 at sfgovtv.org or streaming the public call in number across the screen. each speaker will be allowed two u.m.u.s -- two minutes to speak. you can call (415)655-0001, meeting i.d. is 24937467581. you will hear the meeting session. you will be muted and in listen mode only.

when your item of interest comes up, dial star 3 to be added to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet location and turn down your television or radio. you can e-mail rules committee clerk victor.young@sfgovtv.org. comments maybe sent by u.s. mail to city hall, 1 dr. carlton b. goodlett place, san francisco, california, 94102. that completes my initial comments. >> supervisor peskin: please read the first item. we are joined by board president walton for items 2, 3 and 4. first item please.

>> clerk: item number is hearing considering appointing five minutes term ending december 17, 2023 to the sweatfree procurement advisory group. anyone like to provide public comment call (415)655-0001. the meeting i.d. is 24937467581. then press pound and pound again. please dial star 3 to line up to speak. >> supervisor peskin: , we have three of five seats that are subject to applications. all of them individuals who want to continue to serve on this advisory group that was created during my second term as supervisor long time ago when then former state senator tom hayden was on a mission to get governments to reform their procurement behaviors.

two of the three applicants are here today. david oringer like to continue to represent employees. there are still two seats that are vacant. so people who are serving on the sweatfree procurement advisory group should apply to board of supervisors for the two seats. why don't we hear from the applicants present, marin julienne fisher. >> i'm marin. i served on the committee for more than the past four years.

i've been the vice chair. do you have any questions? >> supervisor peskin: i don't have any questions. thank you for your service and your willingness to continue to work on this important advisory group. if there are no questions from committee members, why don't we move on to julienne fisher. >> i'm working on my camera. i'm looking forward to the opportunity to continue as member of the sweatfree community advisory group.

i look forward to helping with that and whatever other exactlies that come up in the coming years. >> chair peskin: thank you for your service and willingness to continue that work. i don't see any questions from members. why don't we open up to general public comment. any members of ther public like to comment on item number 1? >> clerk: we're checking to see if there's caller in the queue. please dial 3 to be added to the queue. for those on hold, continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. we have seven people listening but nobody in line for public comment at this time. >> chair peskin: okay, we'll close public comment. colleagues, how about we vote.

supervisor chan? >> supervisor chan: thank you. i want to thank all the applicants for submitting their applications and willing to commit their time and efforts in this critical issue. i want to give a shot out to julienne fisher who is a constituent of mine and neighbor of mine. i want to commend her work not just for the sweatfree committee but also living wage coalition and ensuring workers rights and really a fair wage as well as good working conditions for them. i look forward to seeing their work, especially during the pandemic. today i noted that there's some studies coming out that during pandemic, the ethical practice

of these factories may have downgraded significantly. i really look forward to seeing your work and partner with your work. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you supervisor chan for those comments. would you like to make a motion? >> supervisor chan: yes. it will be my privilege to make a motion to move forward three applicants with recommendation. >> chair peskin: on that motion mr. young. roll call please. >> clerk: yes. on the motion to appoint jason oringer to seat one, marin to seat 2 and julienne fisher to seat 4. [roll call vote]. the motion passes without

objection. next item 2, ordinance amending the administrative code to provide members of the public and sanitation and streets commission with health insurance coverage to the san francisco health service system. members of the public wish to provide public comment on this item should call (415)655-0001. meeting i.d. is 24937467581. then press pound and pound again. if you haven't done so, please dial star 3 to line up to speak. >> chair peskin: thank you mr. young. we are joined by the author of this administrative code amendment. supervisor walton. the floor is yours.

>> supervisor walton: this is to expand health service system. including public works commission, sanitation and street commission, and the sheriff's department oversight board so our new commissioners have the option of health insurance coverage through the san francisco health services system. i'm requesting that this ordinance is sent as a committee report tomorrow's meeting as we are very close to swearing in new members of the sheriff's department oversight board. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you mr. president. one question for you. which is i don't see reference in the file before us which is what this will actually cost. relative to the in addition of these three bodies.

>> supervisor walton: thank you, supervisor peskin. give me couple of minutes i will get that to you. >> chair peskin: any questions or comments from committee members? seeing none at the moment. we can item number 2 up for public comment. >> clerk: we are checking to see if there's callers in the queue. please dial star 3 to be added to the queue. for those on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicate you have been unmuted. it appears we have 9 people listening and one caller to speak. >> caller: yes. my name is denise mayfield. i'm coming to you about p.o.b., protect our benefit request.

there's a supplemental cola that has been put aside for those that retire before 1996. >> chair peskin: i'm sorry, that is not germane to the issue before us. you can make that general public comment tomorrow at the board of supervisors. this is an item on an amendment to the administrative code to provide healthcare benefits to individuals on three public oversight bodies. are there any other members of the public who like to testify on this item number 2? >> clerk: that was our last public commenter for this item. one moment. that was our last caller. >> chair peskin: public comment on item 2 is closed. president walton?

>> supervisor walton: thank you. why don't we move to item 3 and come back as i get a response. >> chair peskin: while we're awaiting to answer to item 2, mr. clerk, please skip over that for now and please call item 3. >> clerk: item number 3 is an ordinance many amending the elections code to submit information, documenting the city's intended open source pilot program to the california secretary of state on behalf of the board of supervisors and upon approval of the secretary of state to implement such a system for use at the november 8, 2022 election. members of the public who wish to provide public comment call (415)655-0001. meeting i.d. is 24937467581. if you haven't already done so, dial star 3 to line up to speak.

just to note, there's a request that items 2 and 3 be sent -- [ indiscernible ] >> chair peskin: i'm aware. president walton this item has been brought to the committee. >> supervisor walton: again, i'm back. this one is another very simple item i have before you to authorize an open source voting pilot in san francisco. this legislation will allow the department of elections to submit a pilot for review with the secretary of state as you all know, the board has tried previously for over the past 15 years to push for an open source voting system and we're very close. we've been innovative leader when it comes to settling standards for fair and transparent elections. this will allow us to continue to do that.

i'm requesting this item to be sent as a committee report and i like to thank elections director for moving forward with this project. elections commissioner chris and trent lang director of california clean money campaign for the advocacy organizing the community support throughout california system. deputy city attorney for helping us draft this legislation and my chief of staff. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you. are there any questions or comments from committee members? this thing has been kicking around this institution as long as i've been kicking around in this institution. let's go to public comment. are there members of the public who like to comment on item number 3, related to open source voting? >> clerk: we are checking do see if there are any callers in the

queue. please dial star 3 to be added to the queue to speak. we have 7 callers in line to speak at this time. please note that public comment is through call-in only. you should not be on microsoft teams for public comment. again, the public comment line to call for public comment is (415)655-0001. meeting i.d. is 24937467581. then press pound and pound again. you can press star 3 to be added

to the line to speak. mr. atkins, can we have the first public comment? >> caller: good morning, my name is alec bash. i'm calling in support of this ordinance. i want to express my appreciation to the president of the board for sponsoring it and to the other cosponsors and to chair peskin for his having to continue this for so many years now. i've been involved with that issue from the outset. i want to tell you how important this is and how beneficial this is for san francisco to proceed with this. i want to thank you for going forward with this. which i believe the committee tends to do. thank you, that's all i had to

say. >> chair peskin: thank you mr. bash. next speaker please. >> caller: thank you. good morning. my name is c.j. cole. i'm with the organization fair fight voting. national nonprofit to strength. democracy for all voters by promoting the responsible use of technology in elections. my comment are likewise. we support this legislation. we appreciate president walton for bringing this forward and others that have been involved in crafting this legislation and pushing for this for many years within san francisco. open source voting is a good idea for transparency. it is worthwhile mentioning that open source voting is not sufficient alone for security. there are other safeguards that should be in place including

robust post-election auditing. restoring trust in instilling trust in elections and outcome of elections through piloting this open source voting project certainly will be paramount. we support this idea. we hope receive favorable report to the full board and fairable from the full board tomorrow. appreciate this coming forward and verifying voting support. thank you so much. >> chair peskin: next speaker please. >> caller: thank you to the members of the rules committee. my name is matt roe. i'm speaking on behalf voting works. nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that will be providing the hardware and software and services for the proposed open source voting pilot. voting works is the only nonprofit voting systems vendor deployed in the united states

elections. i submitted a letter in september last year to the board of supervisors election commission and director of elections indicating we will be interested serving open source voting system pilot at no cost to san francisco. i worked with director of elections john partnership to - john arnst. most recently, i worked with the director to draft procedure for the pilot program to start the regulation process for open source voting system in california per the secretary of state november request. i'm coordinating with the mayor disability council to

incorporate feedback. i want to thank the san francisco election commission for their support today, board of supervisors president walton for introducing this legislation and director of elections for his partnership finding pilot program. thank you for your consideration. i'm available to answer any questions regarding voting work and our technology. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you. are there any questions for -- i see no questions. all right. why don't we -- we already dealt with ural item. you have been recommended to the full board. i see you trying to get in. we already discussed item number 1. we can move on to the next caller. >> caller: hello, supervisors. trent lang, president of california clean money campaign.

nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with over 100,000 supporters in california. we've been very pleased to work with president walton on this pilot project as well as the commissioner and the secretary of state office to ensure that the regulations in place in time for this pilot project to go to help san francisco fulfill long-term goals to move to open source voting systems. the board of supervisors long taking leadership in the movement to have more secure and transparent elections with open source voting systems. it's been a very long road. you allocated funding to help develop the system. now it's extra exciting that voting works has come through and designed and built a very strong open source system so the county doesn't have to spend the millions of dollars to build its

own. which is pilot project would help to approve and give more transparent elections that people want as well as huge cost savings for the city. we're also especially excited about this because once it's proven in san francisco and certified, then the whole state and the whole nation will be able to use this system. very excited about this opportunity. thank you all for your support. thank you supervisor mandelman for coming on as a co-sponsor. let's help california lead the nation for more transparent and less costly elections. thank you. >> chair peskin: next speaker. >> caller: hello, supervisors. my name is brent turner. i'm here today representing some folks -- i don't know if they'll be able to show up on the call. i've been speaking with former

cia director as well as fellow by the name of dr. juan gilbert who is very well-known in this particular space and also i want -- just in case allen decker doesn't show up, i want to give our full support for this work and thank everybody involved. i do have to mention that back in 2004, when alan decker first demonstrated this kind of system with open source, we were soon to present in san francisco. i think around 2006 this work actually started out and then later was carried by others -- i

have to thank trent lang for carrying the ball here in san francisco with the public and making sure this didn't go dark on us. obviously, it's important voting works is able to fill the role that we need right now of providing the trial system and it's a great day for the county and we look forward to seeing this more prevalent throughout the united states. thank you all. >> chair peskin: thank you. next speaker please. >> caller: hello. i'm with the national voting rights task force. i have been speaking of open source since 2005. we need this. some source code that has been

used in california and across the country was written by mr. elder who had 23 convictions for embezzlement. we need to look at the source code. we need to know who wrote it. beyond that, there are data files, log files of who logged in. who used the password, who ahead this phone call from the machine. it's just a lot of files that we have not yet been able to get access to. by making it open source, we won't have a -- we'll have a much more transparent election and much better idea of what's going on. the final point is this, the

pilot will impact election systems over decades across california. because it's open source across the country. our elections are really billion --being challenged. we need to make transparent possible. i urge your support for this legislation. thank you. >> chair peskin: next speaker. >> caller: hi, i'm marin, you just appointed me to the advisory group. it happened at my day job. i maintained open source project for 10 years. i want to say code is law. source code, it counts votes. it's making decisions and those decisions are properly in the hand of elected officials.

for example in san francisco, we passed rank choice voting. we limited to three choices not because of the decisions by the public officials, because the vendor say they can do no more than three. that's endangering trusting code to handle something as voting to a private entity. i'm hoping this is a sea change how we think about government and software. we move more software that makes government decisions into open source and into the hands of the public. thank you. >> caller: hello, i'm david smith i'm long time volunteer for the california clean money campaign. i'm commenting in support of this legislation. i want to thank board president walton for introducing it. committee member mandelman for

cosponsoring it. the pilot project from november is a great opportunity. san francisco won't need to spend millions of dollars to develop its own open source voting system. the nonprofit voting works has developed complete, open source system used in u.s. elections. we can use it. let do it. thank you. >> caller: good morning. i've been the board appointee for the past years. now i'm working closer with president walton's office on today's legislation. i want to thank president walton for their work, committee member

mandelman for sponsoring it. i know chair peskin you presided over hearing. before today's legislation, the city is developing its own open source system. in 2018 the board allocated to start that development but that money was taken away during the pandemic and never restored. during that time, the nonprofit voting works was able to develop open source system on the own. i first discussed the idea mid-september and mid-october, the commission president and i met to discuss the pilot size and scope. th c