>> thank you. good morning and welcome to the rules of committee of the san francisco board of supervisors for today, monday, november 28th. i'm the chair of the committee, aaron peskin joined by vice-chair mandelman and committee member supervisor connie chan. our clerk is mr. victor young, mr. young, do you have any announcements >> yes, the board of supervisors and its committees are having hybrid meetings for public comment and providing remote comment. the board recognizes

the equitable public access is essential and taking public comment as follows. first public comment is taken on each item on the agenda. those attending in person will be allowed to speak first and we'll take those who are waiting on the telephone line. for those watching channel 26, 28, 78 or 99 and sfgovtv dot org, the public comment call in line number is streaming across the stream. the number is 415-655-0001. the meeting id of 24885274429 and then press pound and pound again. when connected, you'll hear the meeting discussion but you'll be muted and listening mode only. when an item of interest come up, those joining in person should line up to speak and those on the telephone line should press star three to be added to the speaker line. if you're on the telephone, remember to turn down your television and other listening devices you may be

using. we'll be taking public comment from those attending in person first and then we'll go to public comment telephone line. alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing, e-mail them to the committee clerk at victor dot yong at sf gov dot org. it will be included in the file. send city hall one dr. carlton room 244 san francisco, california, 94102. that completes my comments. >> thank you, mr. young. could you please read the first of two items. >> yes, item no. one is a resolution updating the proposed designation of agencies qualified to participate in the 2022 annual joint fundraising drive for officers and employees of the city and county of san francisco. and i believe there's a request this matter is sent out as a

committee report. >> that's correct. we will go to supervisor mandelman who is the sponsor of this item. supervisor? >> thank you, chair peskin. the city's heart of san francisco charity drive is an annual drive that provides a way for city employees to contribute to the charities traffic choice by weekly payroll. it is outreach to city employees. it's a long city program to support philanthropic employees and we the board of supervisors approved a resolution for those charities as a part of the san francisco campaign. however, less than two weeks after this year's campaign was lunched on october 1st, we learned that among the many charities represented by the federation that partner with city, there are several that are appear to be anti-lgbtq groups. this was

brought to my attention by city staff who expressed profound concern that city resources are spent amplifying those groups and although i understand this campaign includes a range of charities and provides city employees to donate to any 501c3 of their choice, i and others have been troubled to have the city seemingly to be promoting lgbtq groups when using city resources. and we paused the campaign to consider next steps. the resolution before you today proposes a temporary solution that allows us to relaunch the campaign for this year with a much shorter and targeted list of participating chairs with a clear focus on supporting bay area, bay service provides and city employees will have the opportunity to write in the name of any charity or non-profit they would like to support but the list published by the city in support of the campaign will be shorter and focused on bay

area based organizations. this is a temporary and imperfect solution that allows us to relaunch the campaign for this year in according to the admin code. we need to come up with a more permanent solution and we need to consider a more comprehensive update to the language of the administrative code. i hope we do that early in the new year so we can make changes to lay the groundwork for future efforts. i want to thank our city administrator carmen chiu and sophie, the legislative and policy and public affairs director with the city administrator's office who have spent a lot of time and done a lot of brain damage trying to figure out what -- how this program should be structured going forward and what we should do about the current years program or and so i would like to, after my colleagues have a chance to

speak, invite ms. heyward to come up and provide additional details on the proposal. >> thanks. ms. heyward, i appreciate your work although it has implicated a larger conversation and maybe today is not the day but i thought we use this as an opportunity to discuss the combined charity programs and its utility, its history and its future in an age where donations facilitated by the internet have become a lot easier so i wanted to have broader -- i'm prepared to vote for this and appreciate supervisor mandelman and your office's work on this but also am questioning whether we want

to devote what i understand to be more than a full-time equivalent staff, more like to an ongoing program in an environment where charitable giving by people in general and city employees in particular is, has -- many less barriers these days. and so, i lean towards maybe starting a conversation to exercise this function from our government in total. maybe you want to comment on that as well as the specifics of the resolution before us. supervisor chan, sorry. i'm not looking at the screen. my apologies. >> no problem, thank you chair peskin. i concur with your sentiment about while this has been a long time tradition of san francisco, it is time to revent this program. i think

that there are good example like, what sfpuc have been really working on like the social program they have established a data base for us to give and in partnership and then also i think that existing, actually, another program we have like give to sf also need a revamp. perhaps it's time to start that conversation and what does that look like for the entire city, both as a government but also for our workers to give and i just want to thank supervisor mandelman for taking this on and would like to be added as a cosponsor. thank you. >> thank you, chair peskin. thank you, supervisor chan and of course, thank you supervisor mandelman. i do have a presentation today and with your comments in mind, i want to note the presentation gives an overview of the program and some of the history, so that mayday the groundwork for the broader conversation. i'm joined today virtually by deputy city

administrator johnson and colleague, angela. angela has the presentation to share. i don't know how to make that happen but i'm hoping it will. >> good morning ms. yip and ms. johnson. >> hi. my name is sophie. i'm the director of legislation and public affairs for city administrator carmen chiu. for the opportunity to present this morning. i'm be brief but give an overview. what i want to do is sort of set the perimeters of what exist in the administrative code. give you an idea of the process and how it works and the data to date. and then i do want to propose what we consider a temporary solution to allow us to relaunch the program for this year in accordance with the requirements of the admin code but plant the seed of ideas that we could act on potentially with your partnership early in the new year. going to slide one, please, administrative code section 16.93 defines the

structure of the program. first and foremost, it requires that we have an annual campaign. that's why we're working quickly to come up with a way to relaunch it in an acceptable way for this year. the specific language says each year the city and county of san francisco shall hold an annual joint fundraising drive. there's no may in there. it also defines which federations and federations are groups that represent a large group of charities. which federations can participate and here the language is clear. any federation that meets the criteria defined in the admin code may participate. those were created in 988 and updated -- 988 and updated in 19 -- 1988 and updated 1977. it defines the timeline. the mayor designate a champagne chair and the controller has backup for payroll deduction and processing

any individual checks that employees gives and the city administrator reviews applications and make recommendations to the board of supervisors for approval which federation meet criteria. in addition to those named roles in the admin code the work of the campaign chairs is significant. right now, it's the sheriff's department and the airport and they work together to administer the program and then sprinkled throughout the city in every city department there's a campaign campaign who motivate staff and encourages them to participate. on the next slide, we have the specific criteria included in the admin code. it's the rule of our office, the city administrator's office to review applications from federation that apply to make sure they meet the criteria. but as you can see there's not an opportunity to screen for what types offer advices any -- any services that the participates

charity support. are they a 501c and submitted audits statements and been in existence for a year and our little opening for changes this year, at least half of them have to be located in the bay area. in addition, i want to stress and i will stress it several times today that in addition to the federations included in the campaign, city employees can always write in the name of any 501c3 nonprofit they wish to directly support through the donor's trust office. you're not limited to just the charities included through the federation. the next slide, i'm going to guess i can skip this. this is just the process by which the recommendations make their way here to the board of supervisors. federations do have to apply every year. city administrator's offices review those applications and we

forward a recommendation to you. i want to give you a snapshot of the campaign and the city resources involved in administering it. 10% of city employees participate each year. they raised just over a million dollars last year. i think it was $1.2 million. and city staff partner with the lead federations to administer the program much on the city side on the front end, the board of supervisors and the city administrator's office are involved in designating the participating federations and office of the controller establishes and implements payroll deductions and processes individual checks and then the sheriff's department, airport and then captains throughout departments citywide work on the ground game of motivating employees to join and participate. on the next slide, let's see here. yes. as you know, as supervisor mandelman noted, thank you, we had launched this year's campaign on october 1st as planned and then we paused the campaign on

october 12th after receiving complaints from city employees but this prompted an evaluation of the whole program and bring us to where we are today. so, on the next slide, here we go. we clearly have no mechanism by which to screen individual charities that can participate and i'm not sure that they would be possible or appropriate. in most circumstances, it's hard to make a clear distinction as to what charity city employee should or shouldn't support. so the resolution before you today proposes to strengthen the existing geographic requirement that is in the admin code by, instead of focusing on the fact that at least half of any med races charities be located -- federation charities be located in the bay area, we're expanding that or narrowing it, i guess, to say all participating charities should be based or located in the bay area and that

any funds raised through the campaign be spent on services in the bay area. and then lastly, although it's not in the resolution, i also want to note that the federations themselves have opted to further require that any participating charity sign onto a nondiscrimination pledge to be included in this campaign. and again, i will say that city employees would retain the ability to write in the name of any of their own preferred 501c3 to donate through the donor's choice option. next slide, the results. let's see. the number of participating federations is reduced from 4 to 3. so creating healthy communities, america's best local charities and earth share is the three federations we would partner with and i provided to you and the clerk, the updated charities a part of

those federations and it's a shorter list than before. what this also means though is that the federation global impact, we lose because this is a federation that, as the name suggest, represented charities that's focused on international activities and that's a loss. another item we distributed to you and i have given to the clerk is a separate appear from global impact to consider and if there's a way to loop them back in. and then, depending on how the resolution goes today, we can relaunch the campaign for the coming year much we will likely have to start payroll deductions slightly later because we need to give enough time for the controllers office to setup deductions but we can get it done by the end of this year. and then next slide, again, this is the temporary solution that i've just outlined. i wanted to plant the

seed of what you can consider for amending the language of the admin code which would take an ordinance not a resolution so a little bit more time. so three options to consider, one, i think that you could certainly amend the criteria defined in the admin code in any way you feel appropriate so that organizations could be screened a little bit more tightly. i would note that it's probably not the preferable solution from our end because i'm not exactly sure how or who screen all of the various charities and what kind of perimeters we would set up there. the next is you could consider an ordinance that limits participation and this touches on what supervisor chan was suggesting, to named funds that are already associated with the city. for example, give to sf and give employees, would have the ability to name any 501c3 they want to directly

support. that would narrow the group that we, as a city amplify and if that's a concern, it could get to that. lastly to the point that perhaps chair peskin was making, you certainly have the opportunity to consider an ordinance that would eliminate the program entirely and that could perhaps acknowledge that the universe of giving has certainly changed since 1988/1997. it's probably easier to setup reoccurring donations now than it was then. i will say another benefit of the program that i don't want to ignore is that some of these smaller charities do not have to spend dollars on direct outreach to reach the pool of 30,000 city employees. that concludes my overview presentation. i'm available for questions. you can see deputy city administrator johnson is available for questions. thank you! >> thank you, ms. heyward and that last slide display the

universe. i have not come to any hard fast conclusions. i wanted to have that conversation. i mean, option number two also, i think, has merit as option number three. i guess my question would be, how -- what are the next steps beyond what we're doing today and the board will presumably vote on tomorrow and i think time is our friend here because this -- any code changes that we make presumably would not be applicable until the next cycle, right? >> that's correct. time is kind of our friend but i went over the slide very quickly that had our campaign timeline and by march 1st of every year, the admin code requires that applications from federations is submitted and i believe it's a date in april whereby, may it is may 1st, the board is supposed to approve the participating

federation. thinking through the legislation timeline, we can fix this for next year but we should hit the ground running in january. >> something would have to be introduced by the end of this year or early in january to be lawed by the march deadline. >> we're happy to partner with you to make sure it happens. >> it's a conversation i'm happy to have -- i haven't have it with supervisor mandelman as long as both of us on the committee. i'm happy to follow someone's lead and options two or three are the right ones to explore. i would throw out there a couple of next steps suggestions. one is, how much does this cost us? and do we, i mean, don't get me wrong. sometimes i'm happy to spend money to make money, so i mean, that's -- it's a data point we should be interested in and two,

and i don't want to create work for anybody but what does the universe of an approximately 3,000 people that take these think? i don't know if we have a simple relative way of serving them but it might be of some utility. those are my two thoughts for the ongoing conversation. i'm happy to participate in whatever way is most expedient without stepping on anybody's toes? that's it for me. supervisor mandelman? >> >> thank you, chair peskin. can we look at the slide with the three options? >> sure. i don't know how to get it for you. >> ms. yep. >> in you could go to the option -- if you could go to the option slide, that would be great. >> well done. based on the

comments of colleagues, it seems like, well, i haven't said anything but i agree that trying to keep the -- trying to sort of tinker with the current program and put guardrails on it going forward, that seems like a ton of brain damage and not worth trying to do, so i'll be the third person on this body to say that option, that the first bullet on there seems like a non-starter and we shouldn't do that. in trying to understand and it seems like and i would share the sense that the third bullet may be the, certainly the simplest, concern i think for me about going with the third bullet rather than trying to at least explore the second bullet is there are these 3,000 people who use -- and wleefb -- -- and liking some aspect of the current program. so i'm

wondering how much of that demand could be met for a second bullet. the other thing that's a peaking about the second bullet, i think it's good to encourage city employees to make charitable contributions and in particularly to thing that's are priorities that the city is trying to advance and maybe some funds like give to sf if there's a relatively simple and cost effective and efficient way of making it easier for city employees to do that and if some number of those 3,000 folks would appreciate that option, i would be interested in trying to give it to them but not if it's going to mean a ton of work for a city administrator's office that we have a lot of other priorities for, so, i don't know. do you have any preliminary sense of that and just respond to chair peskin's question? do you have thoughts on how we would get feedback from city employees on this? >> i have two thoughts. to

address the city employees who participate enthusiastically in the program, we did receive complaints this year but we received a lot of e-mails in support of the program so i do want to acknowledge that as well. and to your second point about cost and how to make this efficient, the administrative code prescribed, i believe, a percentage of each donation that the city holds onto. we could look, i would say more comprehensively at the entire section of the admin code that deals with this section to build in ways to make it more efficient. perhaps, it is not efficient to accept individual checks rather just focus on the payroll deduction for example. i think that's probably the benefit to any charity anyway. that employees feel like they can give nor if you spread it over 26 pay periods and i would just have to guess that processing individual checks is

more labor intensive for example. but that actually makes me think that there are probably other aspects of the admin code i didn't focus on today related to this program that could be overhaul through cost effectiveness and a lens. >> well, you got three supervisors up here who are interested in this conversation. none of us probably feel particular ownership over this. it sounds like you all can do some work to come up with something, somewhere between bullet two and bullet three and any of us are happy to probably lead sponsor and the others would probably cosponsor. >> thank you for your patience and support through this. >> thank you for all your work on this. >> supervisor chan? >> ms. johnson, anything you want to add or subtract? >> no, thank you. >> is there any public comment

on this item? members of the public who wish to speak on this item and joining in person should line up to speak at this time, and those listening remotely, please call 415-655-0001 and enter the meeting id of 24885274429. press pound and press pound again and press three to enter the speaker line. those in the queue, continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and that's your queue to begin your public comment. no one in the room for public comment. and just checking online. there's nobody online for public comment on this matter. >> public comment is closed -- supervisor mandelman, would you like to make a motion. >> i recommend we move. >> to recommend the matter as a committee report, chan?

>> aye. >> mandelman? >> aye. >> peskin? >> aye. >> the motion passes without objection. >> next item, please. >> -- next on the agenda is item no. two, ordinance amending the administrative code to permit members of the san francisco employees' retirement system (sfers) to designate special needs trusts as retirement beneficiaries in certain circumstances, and to specify requirements for those trusts. >> supervisor safai is the lead sponsor of this measure and a member of the retirement board. supervisor safai, welcome, good morning. >> thank you, chair. thank you, colleagues. colleagues, today i'm presenting legislation to change the administrative code to allow for special needs trust as retirement beneficiaries. i will give a brief overview of the legislation and turn it over to staff, the retirement system to elaborate further. as the president of the retirement system, we have a responsibility to our members to update the

rules and regulations when it's necessary. last year, a member who was planning their estate pointed out they would not lead their survivor immunity to the surviving member unless it was deposited in a special needs trust. this is because survivor immunity recovered by adults with disabilities can cause disastrous unintended consequences to their benefits that they are currently receiving. for individuals due to their disables of relying on public needs based benefits such as ssi, supplemental security, income, medi-cal and section 8, this could result in a loss of these benefits. this could mean a loss or barrier to affordable housing, healthcare, personal care, community supportive services for persons with develop mental disabilities and

many more items and things. allowing for survivor a immunity to be placed in a trust or supplemental trust would often solve this problem. it is a form of trust that's recognized by both of social security administration and the department, california department of healthcare services. as a vehicle for holding and managing funds for benefit of a person with disabilities where they are not, they would not interfere with their eligibility for other benefits. this has been done in the california state teacher retirement system and the u.s. department of defense and many other places around the country. in addition, and this is an important update as well, the code has not been changed since 1983. and does not reflect a general neutral terms that we used to. so, we would be making a much-needed change to the code to reflect the diverse city

employees that we have in our workforce today. we have cecelia, karen, and our new ceo, cio, allyson to elaborate further on the legislation. before i hand it over to them, i want to thank richard and annette, annette is a current beneficiary who have advocated on behalf of her family member, so that their son would be able to benefit from this in the future and so, thank you to them for bringing this to our attention. i'll hand it over, through the chair, i'll hand it over to the spurs representation here today. i think that's karen bortnick. >> good morning, supervisors. thank you for inviting us here. i'm not sure i can add much more than what supervisor safai has already told you. but i can tell you how this proposed ordinance would work. when a member comes to retire, they do have an

option to name an individual who can receive a monthly immunity after their -- anuity after their death. as supervisor safai told you, if they name a dependent adult child to receive that monthly annuity, that may impact their ability to receive public benefits. this special needs trust will allow them to receive the benefits without losing their ability to get these benefits, these public benefits from the federal government and state government. so, the way it would work, someone would come into retirement, they would tell us that they wanted to select an option, that's what we call them. you have one of three options and they would want to name the trust rather than the dependent child. as it stands now, you cannot name a trust to receive a monthly benefit

because there is a very fundamental retirement rule that a benefit must be definitely determinable. you have to know when it starts. you have to know when it ends. if you have a trust, it could in theory last forever and that would violate the rule. in this particular case, as drafted as we understand it, it would put the burden of ensuring that the benefit will stop at the death of the recipient on the member and the trustee which simplifies things for spers because the other plans have a very difficult burden of tracking and making sure that -- that they learned about it, so they can cut off the benefit. as i said as drafted, it would impose all of those obligations on the member one to ensure the trust they are designating notes all of the legal requirements. we don't have to do any analysis.

we don't have to ensure that it's a proper special needs trust and then again, at the time of the members death, the trustee steps in and again affirms that this is a proper trust at the death of recipient, beneficiary, the trustee steps in again and has the obligation to inform us and the trust would have to reimburse us for overpayment. we can implement that. i can't tell you how, what the cost would be because it's really hard for us to estimate how many people would be qualified for this but i have to say i would think as drafted, it would be very small number of people and again because the principle burden is placed on the member and the trustee, there would -- there should not be anything but a minimal expense for spers and i'm happy to answer questions >> thank you for that

presentation and thank you supervisor safai. this seems like a straightforward tweak and sensible. are there any members of the public who would like to testify on this item no. two >> yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item and joining us in person should line up to speak it a time. for those listening remotely, call 415-655-0001. enter the meeting id of 24885274429. then press pound and pound again. once connected, you need to press star three to enter the speaker line. for those in the queue, please continue to wait until the says -- the system indicates you have been unmuted. there's no one in the room for public comment at this time. double checking. there's nobody in line for public comment at this time. >> two for two. public comment is closed. supervisor mandelman? >> thank you, chair peskin. i

want to thank supervisor -- supervisor safai on this. i set one up for my mother after my grandmother's death. and it's helpful when someone with significant disabilities has asked, has access to other assets. and i think that this just does make sense. i would like to be added as cosponsor and happy to support it today. >> all right. with that -- supervisor safai? >> i want to thank nami, the national alliance of mental illness for writing their letter of support and pointing out the importance of this, so i want to thank ann fisher, the executive director for working with us. it has taken time. it has been a year since this has been setting so i want to thank the family and again, annette and her family and for their patience

and i want to thank the staff at spurs, karen, allyson and team and our city attorney for working on this to get this right, so thank you very much. thank you, colleagues. >> thank you, supervisor. thank you to the retirement system and with that, i will make a motion to send this item to the full board with a positive recommendation on that motion, mr. young, a roll call, please. >> yes. on the motion to recommend the matter, supervisor chan? >> aye. >> vice-chair mandelman? >> aye. >> chair peskin? >> aye. >> the motion passes without objection. and we are adjourned. [gavel]

>> # >> >> >> >> you are watching san francisco rising. >> hi, you are watching san francisco rising. reimagining our city. he's with us to talk about how our library's economic recover.

mr. lambert, welcome to the show. >> thank you. i'm glad to be here. >> i know it's been difficult to have books going virtual. have we recovered? >> yes, we are on our way. our staff stepped up big time during the pandemic to respond to the health emergency. since last may, we have been able to steadily increase in person access to library facilities. currently we are at 95% of our precovid hours of operation. in the coming weeks we are going to fully restore all of our hours. we have four branches that we are going to bring back to seven day service. they are currently operating at 5 days a week and we are going to go to every tag line and i

know all the foot traffic has not returned to san francisco, but our library is seeing a resurgence coming back. >> can we talk about programs after covid? >> absolutely, that is part and parcel of our mission. we were doing that work precovid and certainly the library stepped up during the pandemic. we doubled our level of programming for personal finance, small business help, jobs and careers. we have a dedicated small business center here at the library. there is a wide suite of programs that our librarian led. we have a financial planning day coming up in october and we have financial coaches that members of the community can come to the main library and take advantage of their expertise. >> i understand the mission is in the middle of a renovation.

how is that going and are there other construction projects in the horizon? >> yes, we have major projects in the pipeline. the historic mission branch library, carnegie library over 100 years old and we are investing $25 million to restore that facility. we are going to restore the original entrance on 24th street, the staircase from the lower level up to the grand reading room. we are going to push out on the orange alley side of the library and expand space for teens and children, we are going to create a robust community room, a multipurpose space. we are also investing $30 million in the chinatown branch, we are going to upgrade the mechanical systems to the highest level of filtration as we increasingly respond as cooling centers and air respite

centers and open access to the roof. it has some unique views of chinatown to create the inspiring space it is. >> i believe you have programs for families that have free and low cost entries for museum and zoos, is that correct? >> yes. it's a fabulous resource. go to our website. with your library cart, patrons, our residents can go to the public library and get passes to the museums, all of the incredible cultural institutions that we have in san francisco all for free with your library card. >> how are these great free services paid for? how is the library system funded? >> we are so fortunate in san francisco. we are funded for by

the library fund and those that taxed themselves just for library services. we also get a dedicated portion of the general fund. that together allows us to be one of the most well supported libraries in the nation. we have the third most library outlets per square mile of any municipality. all of our branch libraries have professionally trained librarians on-site. service that we are able to provide, the collection, we are a leading library in our country. >> that lead know ask about your biggest annual event in the city. how does the event work and what's happening this year? >> we are excited for this year's one city one book.

this is our signature annual literature event. we have everybody in the community reading the same book. this year's title is "this is your hustle" named after the pulitzer prize nominated and pod taste. this is about the population. one nice thing about this selection is that they are both local. we are going to have several weeks of programming, kicking off next month. it will culminate here in the auditorium november 3rd. so our library patrons will get to meet the authors, hear from them directly, and one other important aspect about this year's selection, we have our own jail and reentry services department. recently the foundation awarded

the san francisco public library $2 million to work with the american library association to shine a light on our best practices here in san francisco, and really help our peers in the industry learn how they can replicate the service model that we are doing here in san francisco. >> that's great. well, thank you so much. i really appreciate you coming on the show, mr. lambert. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you, chris. that's it for this episode, we will be back shortly. you are watching san francisco rising. thanks for watching.

>> there is a lot of unique characteristics about visitation valley. it is a unique part of the city. >> we are off in a corner of the city against the san francisco county line 101 on one side. vis station valley is still one of the last blue color neighborhoods in san francisco. a lot of working class families out here. it is unusual. not a lot of apartment buildings. a lot of single family homes. >> great business corridor. so much traffic coming through here and stopping off to grab coffee or sandwich or pick up food before going home.

>> a lot of customers are from the neighborhood. they are painters or mechanics. they are like blue color workers, a lot of them. >> the community is lovely. multi-racial and hopefully we can look out for each other. >> there is a variety of businesses on the block. you think of buffalo kitchen, chinese food, pork buns, sandwich. library, bank of america with a parking lot. the market where you can grab anything. amazing food choices, nail salons. basically everything you need is here. >> a lot of these businesses up and down leland are family owned. people running them are family. when you come here and you have an uncle and nephew and go across the street and have the guy and his dad. lisa and her daughter in the dog

parlor and pam. it is very cool. >> is small businesses make the neighborhood unique. >> new businesses coming. in mission blue, gourmet chocolate manufacturing. the corridor has changed and is continuing to change. we hope to see more businesses coming in the near future. >> this is what is needed. first, stay home. unless it is absoluteliness scary. social distancing is the most important step right now to limit spread of virus. cancel all nonessential gather everythings. >> when the pandemic litly land avenue suffered like other corridors. a few nail salons couldn't

operate. they shut down. restaurants that had to adapt to more of a take out model. they haven't totally brought back indoor seating. >> it is heartbreaking to see the businesses that have closed down and shut because of the pandemic. >> when the pandemic first hit it got really slow. we had to change our hours. we never had to close, which is a blessing. thank god. we stayed open the whole time. >> we were kind of nervous and anxious to see what was going to come next hoping we will not have to close down. >> during covid we would go outside and look on both sides of the street. it looked like old western town. nobody on the street. no cars. >> it was a hard eight or nine months. when they opened up half the people couldn't afford a haircut. >> during that time we kept

saying the coffee shop was the living room of the valley. people would come to make sure they were okay. >> we checked on each other and patronized each other. i would get a cup of coffee, shirt, they would get a haircut. >> this is a generous and kind community. people would be like i am getting the toffee for the guy behind me and some days it went on and on. it was amazing to watch. we saw a perfect picture of community. we are all in this together. >> since we began to reopen one year later, we will emerge stronger. we will emerge better as a city because we are still here and we stand in solidarity with one another. >> when we opened up august 1st. i will not say it was all good.

we are still struggling due to covid. it affected a lot of people. >> we are still in the pandemic right now. things are opening up a little bit. it is great to have space to come together. i did a three painting series of visitation valley and the businesses on leland. it felt good to drop off the paintings and hung them. >> my business is picking up. the city is opening up. we have mask requirements. i check temperatures. i ask for vaccination card and/or recent test. the older folks they want to feel safe here. >> i feel like there is a sense of unity happening. >> what got us through the pandemic was our customers. their dogs needed groomed, we have to cut their nails so they don't over grow. >> this is only going to push us

forward. i sense a spirit of community and just belief in one another. >> we are trying to see if we can help all small businesses around here. there is a cannabis club lounge next to the dog parlor to bring foot traffic. my business is not going to work if the business across the street is not getting help. >> in hit us hard. i see a bright future to get the storefronts full. >> once people come here i think they really like it. >> if you are from san francisco visit visitation valley to see how this side of the city is the same but different.

>> my name is alan schumer. i am a fourth generation san franciscan. in december, this building will be 103 years of age. it is an incredibly rich, rich history. [♪♪♪] >> my core responsibility as city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. i am also the tour program manager, and i chair the city advisory commission.

i have two ways of looking at my life. i want it to be -- i wanted to be a fashion designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it was a constant battle between both. i ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn, big changes, and now i am here. the work that i do at city hall makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the garment industry. i had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents.

it is almost like an extended family. i have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. she was a dressmaker of the first order. i would go visit her, and it was a special treat. i was a tiny little girl. i would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time, girls did not wear pants. the garment industry had the -- at the time that i was in it and i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. you will see the predominant designers, owners of huge complexes are huge stores were all male. women were sort of relegated to

a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. there was a woman by the name of diana. she was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. she classified it as a third i. will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of san francisco, and was the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. i believe he has not a third eye , but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through

this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. >> the board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. jeffrey heller, the city and county of san francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. >> to impart to the history of this building is remarkable. to see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you start talking about this building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face. with children, and i do mainly all of the children's tours,

that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can start talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of san francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor. >> at times, my clothes make me feel powerful. powerful in a different sense. i am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me. usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the

look, or sometimes the complication of the look. i have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit? retirement to me is a very strange words. i don't really ever want to retire because i would like to be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing honor of working in the people's palace. you want a long-term career, and you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving to someone or something you're then yourself.

follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way.

mr. fuller, please, call the roll. good morning. respond with here or present. thomas harrison. >> kim hartwig-schulman. >> here. >> ibing kwon will not be available today. mogannam. >> here. >> >> simi. >> present. >> with 4 members present we have quorum for the sanitation and streets commission. due to