>> chair peskin: welcome to the rules committee for the san francisco board of supervisors for monday june 6, 2022 i'm the chair of the committee, aaron peskin joined by connie chan. our clerk mr. victor young. >> clerk: the board of

supervisors and its communities are now convening hybrid meetings while still providing remote access via telephone. we'll be taking public comment as follows. first public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda. those attending in person will be allowed to speak first, then we'll take those who are waiting on the telephone line. for those watching either channel 26, 78 or 99 and sfgovtv.org, the public comment call-in number is streaming across the screen. the number is (415)655-0001. then enter the meeting i.d. 2496 949 4989 # #. you'll hear the meet discussions where you'll be muted and in listen mode only. when your item comes up and public comment is called, those joining us in person should line up to speak and those on the

telephone should dial star 3 to be added to the speaker line. if you're on your telephone, please remember to turn down your tv and all other listening devices. we'll take public comment from those attending in-person first. then we'll go to our public comment telephone line. you may send your written comment by u.s. mail to our office at city hall, 1 dr. carlton b. goodlett place. finally items acted upon today -- >> chair peskin: i want to welcome vice chair supervisor

raphael mandelman. please read our first item. >> clerk: item 1 is motion approving rejection nomination for the appointment lynne newhouse for the term ending july 2, 2026. >> chair peskin: colleagues, this is another continuing appointments to the public works commission under proposition b. we have forwarded a number of other appointees we are joined by lynne newhouse who has been nominated by mayor breed for the seat on the public works commission. i will start with ms. alonzo from our city administrator's office before going to ms. newhouse. >> good morning.

i'm excited that we have our third public works commissioner here today. this would officially give us quorum and allow us to us to proceed with the meeting which we have planned for july 28th. we have identified approximately 150 staff across the department who will need to prepare materials for commission approval or for commission presentations. we haven't been meeting with staff for several months as we finished putting the plan together. i'm excited to begin to get facetime with the staff again, and have them know what's coming up. it's about seven-week lied time -- lead time to prepare time. for instance, a meeting on

september 2nd, staff will need to submit the item for approval by mid-july. just beginning to prepare them and have them understand what the of all the commission mandates are. i'm joined by the public works commission secretary. i like to have him stand up here and introduce himself. >> chair peskin: absolutely. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is bob fuller. i'm the commission affairs manager for the public works commission. i previously ran the oversight committee for the alameda county, affordable housing bond. before that, worked for the city of chicago's committee on housing and real estate. i'm proud resident of district 8. >> chair peskin: thank you mr. fuller. congratulations or condolences whatever is in order. >> congratulations, we're lucky to have bob with us. [ laughter ] he and i are working to put all the finishing touching on the

onboarding plan. beginning in september, the public works commission will oversee the department of public works. the s.e.s. commission will oversee the department on october 1st. they'll have another month onboarding and training. we're working through what material commissioners need to oversee the department. thank you for having us here today. thank you for approving the commissioners so that all the plans we've been putting in place can be realized starting on july 28th. >> chair peskin: thank you ms. alonzo for all of that work. welcome, mr. fuller. why don't we go to ms. newhouse

seagle. >> i'm hearing-impaired. for some reason, next time i do something in this room, i will adjust my hearing aid better. you can hear me, i'm sure. good morning supervisors and thank you so much for considering me for this very important assignment and brand new commission. i'm very excited about it. i have served on several different government commissions and boards and i've been involved with them during periods of transition, we hired new executive directors and new leadership. i'm prepared for this.

i want to thank supervisor chan for your comments two weeks ago, for saying that i had your quote, actually here. i thought it was better that i can ever say. you said that i basically was on the ground, saw things and kept the project moving without holding it up, and made sure that after questions, made observations and didn't hold up the project. i hope i can stem with that same commendation when this is all over. infrastructure couldn't be more that holds the city together

when we need more housing. thank you, do you have any questions? >> chair peskin: are there questions from the committee members? i don't think there is ms. newhouse segal in relative to the comment supervisor chan made in the role you made in advocating for the van ness b.r.t. project as it related to the lighting of that project. you did in a way that was very effective and that acknowledged the costs and the timing and that ultimately, was successful. we have you to thank for that. clearly, showed your ability to effectuate something in the public realm under the jurisdiction of public works and m.t.a. that, alone, qualifies you for

this seat. are there any questions or comments from committee members? seeing none. i will open this up to public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public comment on it item, should line up to speak along the side by the window. for those listening remotely you can call (415)655-0001. meeting i.d. 2496 949 4989 # #. once connected, you will need to press star 3 to enter the speaker line. for those already in the queue, please continue to wait until the system indicate you have been unmuted. there's nobody in line to speak in the chamber. we have three listeners but nobody online to speak. >> chair peskin: okay public comment on item 1 is closed. i will make a motion to amend the subject motion by removing the word rejecting in the title and removing the word reject at

line 7 on that motion. a roll call please. >> clerk: on that motion to amend. [roll call vote] the motion passes without objection. >> chair peskin: i will make a motion to send this item as amended with recommendation to the full board of supervisors. >> clerk: on that motion. [roll call vote] the motion passes without objection. >> chair peskin: next item please. congratulations ms. newhouse segal. sounds like you will have no summer vacation. rachael, tell her she can't go anywhere in august. she's here in august. all right. next item please. >> clerk: next, item 2, hearing

considering appointing two members. to the mental health s.f. implementation working group. we have two seats and two applicants. >> chair peskin: thank you. why don't we hear from the applicant. colleagues, you will recall, we heard this earlier and filled a number of seats. we have two more seats to fill. today, we have two applicants for those seats. mr. fields for seat 6 and ms. la sar for seat 8. let's start with mr. fields. steve, are you on? >> yes, i am. good morning. i'm seeking reappointment to the implementation working group mental health s.f. as you remember, it almost seem likes a long time ago with the

initiative that resulted in the establishment of this effort to take a serious look and make strong recommendations for the kind of behavioral health system we need going forward. to put in place a coherent, recognizable system of care that can meet the needs of our client. it happened before covid. lot of the optimism and energy that was behind the initial setting up of the working group and are going to work with the department of public works on implementing this important legislation, took a shift in the way it's been implemented through the rules and protocols that were affected by the serious pandemic that we're facing. i think we also learned, even more about how important it is

to develop a coherent and focus behavioral health system if we're going to get in front of these challenges. it's been an exciting couple of years. it's one of the original members, i think we're coming to a very important stage of recommendations, and movement towards seeing an implementation strategy for our behavioral health system. i'm excited to continue my work on the working group do see this through. i'm seeking your support to be reappointed to the working group for another term. >> chair peskin: thank you, mr. fields. supervisor mandelman? >> supervisor mandelman: thank you mr. fields for being willing to continue to serve. i'm going to vote for your

reappointment, given that you're here, i thought i take the opportunity to get your thoughts this morning about our behavioral health service response in san francisco. that is our seeming inability to stand up new placement for some of the sickest folks in a timely way. through many budget cycles this board appropriated for more locked beds. yet, year after year, we have analysis and talk about the scarcity of these beds and find out that any expansion that may have happened has been incredibly modest. i know you and i talked about

the legacy closure of the mental institutions beginning in the 60s and failure to stand up inadequate community-based response. how are we going to get out of this? how are we going to get beyond the talking about solving this problem and moving much more aggressively on this? that's the first half of the question. the second half, how are we going to keep the stuff that we have now? related to the goal of trying to expand capacity is preserving the capacity we have. in the last several months, we found both on the public side and private side, some of the most important providers of the kind of placements that we need weigh more of are having trouble doing what they are doing now. it feels like a very challenging moment several years into mental

health s.f. wondering if you have thoughts on how we're going to get out of this. >> thank you, for the question. my day job is exactly director of nonprofit, progress foundation, that has been developing various responses to the various challenges we faced since the institutionalization was implemented as a public policy, not necessarily an actual reality. i pretty much thinking about how to come up with the next response all the time. let me say this about the status that we're in now, which is the continuum of care, range of services that we need in our community. if we believe in principles of

recovery. if we believe in the fact that people at two ends of the spectrum, who are challenged with behavioral health treatment needs and can't find that treatment, [ indiscernible ] my work has been trying to find every possible way to develop services in the community that can avoid that necessity. that necessity is always going to be there. the balance of our continuum of care is critical. there have not been, yet, i know the intention of the health department is to get there, they shared that goal with the implementation working group every time we meet. the other end of that spectrum is preventing recidivism. we invest in treatment sometimes. we invest in early crises intervention sometimes. what's lacking are the resources to build on those interventions

so that when clients and individuals come back to the community, they have the right kind of treatment support in the community. people leave lock care in stabilized situation. they return to a community system of care that is not expanded, that has not developed treatment-based alternatives and continuing recovery based intervention, to support their stability when they return to the community. for too often, we get into this dichotomy high intensity, involuntary care and supportive housing as a solution. people will leave hospital beds after eight days of stabilization and go back to a community where there's no treatment ongoing in the community for them. case management is a critical part of any behavioral healthcare system, but it isn't treatment. housing is critical. housing that doesn't have a range of supported treatment in

that housing is not going to build on helping that individual who's now will return to their living in the community, stay healthy. what we need to do now, from my point of view from the i.w.g., look at whatever we want to implement at the involuntary or locked end of the system, having a corollary and return to support them when they come back. i think my of us have seen the emergency situation that we're in our communities, and responded with even more earlier intervention. we have yet to build out the treatment community to refer to them. there are too many times we intervene in various drop-in

centers, people express in treatment, there's still a wait list. there's still too long to get on the list. duel diagnosis, residential and other treatment opportunities in the community. those beds have an expanded significantly at all. i don't mean some of the housing interventions that have been implemented recently, but ongoing treatment. the key to getting a handle on our challenge is to prevent recidivist. so many of our clients are returned over and over because they leave intensive treatment settings and go into a community environment where they are not yet ready to deal with being clean, sober and meeting the challenge of their mental health condition. that's our next job.

we have to actually build out a fully articulated continuum of care that supports our clients when they come out of intensive treatment settings so they're not returning to the hospital or to the emergency room again in three days or one week or even a month. we know how to do that. we have the models. we have the way in which we can implement it. that part has been delayed while we have put online so many early intervention models, they are all critical. you can't send someone ready for treatment. it's not going to be successful. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you for that. i think that point is -- i sense that as well. we have spent whole lot of time and energy and effort over the last several years standing up. lot of different kinds of outreach teams and lot of places, low barrier places for

folks to come in off the streets. even those seem to take an incredibly long time to get stood up. what we have not done is that dramatic expansion dual diagnosis beds we promised three years ago, the acute beds that we need the stabilization and pretty significant expansion of care beds. it just feels like we are not moving on those places or anywhere near the intensity that we ought to given the crises that we're in. thank you for the work that you do. thank you for the progress foundation. hoping we can make some changes soon. >> chair peskin: thank you. why don't we go to another reappointment. dr. monique lesarre.

>> good morning. wow, that was a great conversation. i'm monique lesarre i'm executive director for health and wellness. i wanted to thank you so much, chair peskin and supervisor mandelman and chan for having me this morning. really appreciate your time and energy and effort throughout the pandemic and other recent appointment. i appreciate the board of supervisors so much. it's been an incredibly challenging time for the last two years. i have been operating as chair since december 2020. we had a -- [ indiscernible ] i have been operating as chair of the committee. we have four hour meetings every

month. we spent lot of time in discussions with working students, incredibly challenging seasonal of care. only thing i would add, i think that we haven't learned our lesson yet for the things we used to have. we used to have african-american focus image. general hospital used to have latinx and lgbtq. one thing that the entire committee has been doing, really focused equity as well as parity for both the staff within the city and county, as well as the

community-based organization. really pushing to have system of care. one of the things, we don't have enough all the different types of beds. this is one of the most significant problems. however, it's also making sure that we have the seemlessness that mr. fields spoke about. we keep pushing the department very hard with love, but also very hard. they do respond to us. we have been pushing for them not to get too far ahead of pus. that has been some of the problems that we had. we haven't had a chance to have some of the discussions before things are stood up. we are in a very challenging time. we need to move quickly.

at the same time, we need to move smartly and with critical engagement. i think those are the things that, hopefully, we've been able to do under my leadership and we have an incredible dedicated group of people. i want to thank you for supporting, hopefully supporting my continuous in this position. i will be very delighted to answer any questions. i appreciate your time. >> chair peskin: thank you, for your continued service and willingness to serve for your work and your leadership. are there any questions from committee members? seeing none, let's go to public comment on this item number 2. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to speak on this item who are joining us in person, we do not have anybody in the chamber at this time. we'll move on to those listening remotely. please call (415)655-0001.

meeting i.d. 2496 949 4989 # #. once connected, you will need to press star three to enter the speaker line. for those already in the queue, please continue to wait until the system indicate you have been unmuted. that will be your cue to begin comment. we have two listeners but nobody in line to speak at this time. >> chair peskin: okay, public comment is closed on. i will make a motion to send these items to the full board with recommendation noting that seat number 6 mr. fields requires a residency waiver. mr. young, roll call please. >> clerk: on the motion to recommend residency waiver for in fields. [roll call vote]. the motion passes without

objection. >> chair peskin: we are adjourned.

this meeting is held by web expursuant to the executive orders and emergency proclamation suspending and modifying requirements for in person meetings. during the virus emergency, covid-19, the citizens general obligation bond committee will convene remote until this committee is legally authorized to mote in person. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. each allowed 3 minutes to speak.