is grateful for the public and the staff's patience while we started at a different time today. but we are ready to roll. secretary fuller, please call the other kind of roll. good morning. please respond with here or present. lynn newhouse. siegel present commissioner newhouse siegel is present. lauren post here chair post is present. gerald turner present. commissioner turner is present. paul wolford is absent and fatty zabi is also absent with three members present. we do have quorum for the public works commission and for members of the public wishing to make comment on an item from outside the hearing room. you. dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the today's meeting id code. of

(266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. and to raise your hand to speak, press star three. unless you are speaking under general public comment, please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed. if commenters do not stay on topic, the chair may interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the agenda item at hand. we ask that public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity, abusive and hate speech will not be tolerated. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff and the public is always welcome to thanks to govtv management and

media services staff for helping make this meeting possible. chair posed thank you before calling the next item, are there any requests from the commission to amend the order of today's agenda? all right. hearing no requests, we will proceed. secretary fuller, please call the next item. item one is the announcements by the chair, commissioners and secretary. and this is an informational item. thank you. i do have several announcements, mostly pertaining to recent press reports that many of you may have seen. there was one regarding the lawsuit that's been recently filed regarding the city's improper clearing of encampments, i should say alleged improper clearing of encampments. when our city streets are cleaned and made safe. interim director short, can you please remind the commission of what training our public works staff has, our frontline staff when they

perform this basic public service. sure thank you, commissioner. chair post carlo short, interim director. even prior to the lawsuit, we would do regular training with our staff on our policies, particularly around what's called bag and tag. so we have a written procedure around how we will essentially take belongings that are on the street and record them and we hold them for a period of up to 90 days at the operations yard, we have a series of containers where those are kept an and then the individual parcels whose belongings are taken can come and claim them at the operations yard. so we a number of years

ago we revised the policy to incorporate some concerns that had been raised and we have then been particularly most recently in light of the most recent lawsuit, doing additional trainings for our staff on how to comply with that policy. so and procedure. so we do those trainings regularly. and then we've been doing basically weekly reminders with our supervisor users about the importance of making sure that we adhere closely to our procedure. thank you. there was another article recently on street vending being banned on mission street with a focus on the city assisting legitimate vendors to pursue different work after touring mission street recently. as i noted at a previous commission meeting and being appalled by the conditions in which our public works, street services employees must work, i'm very pleased by this change and hope it will allow

our staff to perform their jobs safely and confidently. on one of san francisco's most important commercial corridors, i noted there was an article in this morning's paper actually regarding some public works employees filling the need to wear bulletproof vests and otherwise having to take extreme precautions when they're doing their jobs. once again, interim director short, can you please describe how the right of way is cleared of illegal vending by public works and other city employees. yes. carlos short and i do have a little note on the proposed changes to the vending program in my director's report in terms of how this work is done. we work in partnership with the san francisco police department who are there essentially to keep our employees safe. so the goal for their presence is that they need to ensure that we are able to

discharge our duties as public employees safely. unfortunately there have been a number of incidents with our employees who have fortunately, no one's been badly hurt. there have been a few physical altercations, but there have been many unpleasant threats made against our employees. and so our employee safety is, of course, our highest priority. we have made the option available to staff if they wanted to wear more protective gear. some staff have taken up on that and do routinely wear them and others don't. it's available to them really to just ensure that they feel as safe as possible when they're out doing their work. but we do make sure that we are partnered up with san francisco police department personnel for our staff safety when we're doing this work, particularly in

in areas where it can get contentious and where we know that not not everyone out there is engaged in the best behavior. thank you. i've said it before. i'm going to say it again. i'm very uncomfortable with public works providing this service to the public. i really think it should be a police matter. that's my opinion. i'm not on the police commission, but i'm just very unhappy that our public works employees are continually put into this position and feel compelled to take these precautions, which i think are extreme. and i'm very grateful to our employees that do this work. lastly i'd like to briefly mention the commission's search for a permanent director of the department. there was a recent opinion editorial in the chronicle regarding the length of time this search has taken since its former director, nuru

stepped down. regrettably we no one contacted the commission prior to publication of this opinion editorial for of course, we would have been happy to educate the writer on our process to date. as noted in our past commission meetings on this matter, the commission will give a thorough briefing to the public on the search process after a director has been appointed until then, we continue to ask the public's patience as we fulfill our mandate and make a comprehensive and careful effort to find the very best candidate we can who will be a top flight manager and an inspirational leader. that concludes my announcements. are there any announcements or questions from my colleagues? commissioner turner. good morning. i just i'd like to comment in the last almost four weeks, it seems every week we've had a very significant article

as relates to the day to day operations of public works and what our staff shows up religiously to make sure that the streets are safe and sanitary. but in every one of these cases, i just want to remind us, and more importantly, give my kudos to the team all of these things are collaborative and coordinated efforts with dpw , the police department and others. we don't do it solely and in fact, it's not just our employees. it's many city employees who are put in harm's way and potentially, you know, jeopardizing situations. and so i want us not just at public works, but all of our sister agencies to really take stock of not just the street conditions that are confounding. many of us . but i would also argue that when we work collectively, i think we're going to have a lot more strength to tackle this issue. and so i'm really looking forward to one, hopefully a turning of the tide. we've got some very big events coming up,

such as apec that we've all been coordinating, that the street conditions and all those things are really important. but i think the coordination that's coming out of that are going to lead to some learning lessons, some things that we can apply going forward, because i think that we recognize the challenges that are on the street, but i also recognize the opportunity to leverage and partner. so i do hope that this relentless editorials and others will seed by the success of the city and our sister agencies working together. thank you, chair post thank you. if there are no more announcements or comments from the commission, secretary fuller, do you have any announcements today? thank you. i have a brief announcements. first, the is my regular update on the sanitation and streets commission. they held their latest meeting this past monday, october 16th and heard a performance measure report from the bureau of building and street repair. they also adopted their calendar of regular meetings, which primarily take place on the third mondays of the month. so we'll have we'll

have they have their adopted calendar later in this meeting, the commission will consider a proposed calendar year also for 2024, the only other announcement i have is that commissioner, our training is available in each commissioner's employee portal and commissioner's must complete their required trainings by the end of december and thank you to commissioners for taking these valuable trainings and also to offer my assistance and any help troubleshooting issues with access or tracking of training. i'm therefore commissioners if they do have any issues. so happy to help with that. and that concludes my report. thank you. please open this item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item one announcements by the chair,

commissioners and secretary may line up against the wall for this from the door if present here in the chamber. if you are outside the chamber and calling in dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access code. of (266)!a151-9374 0 pound poun. and then press star three to be recognized used. in the chamber. no one has come forward to speak on this item, but sf tv has let me know that we do have one caller who has raised their hand in the queue so if govtv please unmute the caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice when you're speaking, time is about to expire. great. can you hear me okay? we can hear you. excellent david paypal. good morning. so my only comment on item one is

in relation to the advanced calendar, i have spoken on this before, um, although it is somewhat informative, it is not easy to read. and if i'm having trouble with it, perhaps others may be as well. i just wanted to publicly encourage secretary fuller to meet with the mta and puc board and commission secretaries to share and discuss templates that they use for agendas, minutes, presentations. et cetera. i think that there are some things that each of those three bodies plus sanitation streets do well and should be shared and be more consistent among the various commissions and other things that could be better that others do better. and i just think that that a meeting of the minds would be useful there. i hope that's helpful. i'm happy to

discuss more offline on that. thanks for listening. thank you. caller and that is our final caller for public comment on this item. thank you. please call the next item. secretary fuller. item two is the director's report and communications and interim director carla short is here to present this report. and it is an informational item. good morning, commissioners. carla short, interim director. i want to start with some good news on the love our love our neighborhoods permit front and the love our neighborhoods permit aims to make it easier for residents and organizations to install such community serving amenities as little libraries. sidewalk benches, tiled staircases and public murals. the goals of the new permit are to create a process that is user friendly in expensive, better coordinated with other city departments, and streamlines approvals a lot of

thought good legal and legislative work and community outreach has gone into getting us to where we are today. this week on tuesday, supervisor melgar submitted substitute legislation for the permit. just as a reminder, she had introduced the legislation at the end of june so that the funding ask could be included in this year's budget. at that time we knew that we needed a few months to continue to iron out all the details. the legislation is now more complete and is tentatively scheduled to go to the board of supervisors land use committee for a hearing on monday, october 30th. supervisor melgar's office will be working to bring out community and merchants groups for public comment. the ordinance has five co-sponsors supervisors melgar, stephanie ronen mandelman and engardio chair post. we talked briefly about some of the street vending challenges, so i wanted to let you know about some of the upcoming permit changes that you referenced. our enforcement of sidewalk vending continues to evolve as we work to keep the

public right of way healthy and safe as you know, we launched this program back in september 22nd, and we've talked about it at a number of times here. the goal of the program is to create a legal path for legitimate vendors to make some money and to bring order to what has at times been a chaotic scene in some neighborhoods, particularly the mission overwhelmed with blocked sidewalks and the sale of stolen goods over the past year, the bureau of street use and mapping has issued about 170 permits since the program began, and about 85% of those are located in the mission. we have seen some improvement in street conditions when our inspectors are on site. however, the situation remains problematic. on mission street, particularly between 14th and cesar chavez, putting people safety at risk. for example, the sidewalks, as you noted, sometimes get so crowded with the sale of goods that people are forced to walk into the traffic lane as a

result, we will be issuing an order in the coming days that will put a pause on street vending permits along that stretch of mission for 90 days and even those folks who have have had a permit in the past will not be allowed to sell their goods. there the office of economic and workforce development and supervisor ronen's office are looking for alternative sites for permitted vending, including working with bart on some bart plaza activation, which is not under city jurisdiction, but also looking at other alternative sites. vendor will also have the opportunity to apply for permits to sell in other areas of the city. the city's working with community organizations to provide outreach to vendors in english and spanish to let them know about the changes. enforcement of the policy change will ramp up over the next few weeks. our street inspectors will be tasked with enforcing the new rule. as you know, police will be on hand to protect our workers. police can also conduct operations pertaining to the sale of fenced

goods. okay some discouraging news about our budget. we're faced with a budget, a projected budget deficit of at least 500,000 i'm sorry, 500 million in fiscal year 2025, 26 alone. so mayor breed has directed all city departments to propose mid-year general fund support cuts of at least 3% to help close the funding gap among the directives are to limit the expansion of existing contracts and programs. pause new programs that have not yet started review current vacant positions and identify the ones that can be eliminated and propose reductions in current contracts that are not meeting required. performance metrics. mayor breed reiterated that her priorities continue to be advanced public safety, economic recovery, homelessness and behavioral health responses and supporting clean and thriving neighborhoods

. our targeted reduction to meet the 3% mark is 2.1 7,000,015 positions. actions deputy director bruce robertson and his budget team have been working the numbers to come up with a proposed general fund cuts that will have the least impact on the delivery of our core services and to align with the mayor's priorities. the department's proposals are due to the mayor's office by next thursday, october 26th. it's important to keep in mind that once the proposals are submitted, there will be a likely a lot of back and forth with the mayor's office on which, if any, cuts should move forward. it's also important to note that the budget scenario is likely to change. could get better. it could get worse. it might stay the same. we'll keep you updated. all right. we've talked about apec as you probably know, the big apec event is fast approaching. this is the asia pacific economic cooperation leaders meeting, and that will be in town the week of

november 12th and draw president biden and nearly two dozen heads of state. we're also expecting more than 1200 corporate leaders and i believe it's at 2200 media representatives. this week, the secret service and other law enforcement agencies held a press conference to map out the tight security measures that will be put in place with apec's main events located at moscone center, the streets surrounding the hub will be shut down. other parts of the city will also be during different periods, depending on the different satellite events. busses will be rerouted. the central subway will not be running and there will be flight and maritime restrict options while our operations team have been very involved in preparations, so have our streetscape and engineering teams delivering community driven projects. if you happen to be in japantown, you'll see that the pedestrian bridge over geary boulevard at webster street is now a jazzy, bright red and initiative championed by neighborhood leaders. we'll also be

installing two decorative sidewalks, one at stockton and washington in chinatown that has a beautiful cloud design and the other at stockton and union in north beach, showcasing the green, red and white colors of the italian flag. it's important to note that these community inspired improvements will be in place long after the apec conference ends to benefit san francisco for years to come. and lastly, i wanted to note that we are hosting another love our city neighborhood beautification day event tomorrow. this month's volunteer workday is taking place in west portal and other district seven neighborhoods. we'll start the day at 9 a.m. at west portal elementary school, which is at 210 claremont boulevard, and hope that perhaps you can join us. and with that, i am happy to take any question is. thank you. regarding the budget cuts, please do keep us posted on that. i realize it could all change and it will be a negotiation between you and the mayor and other city

departments. but so i'm not going to ask for specifics because there's no point. you don't know what the final outcome will be. but please do keep us apprized of that at our biweekly meetings. will do. thank you. and regarding apec, i presume our operations teams will still be working to keep the streets clean and safe within the security perimeter around moscone center. is that correct? they're going to allow our folks still in or no? they will allow our folks in. we will be doing that cleaning at night, which was requested. so, yeah, we will be allowed to do to go in at nighttime and clean. and if any emergencies come up like a large sinkhole or a pothole. sure of course we'll be allowed into to make those repairs. great. and then lastly, regarding our neighborhood permit, you know, that's near and dear to my heart. i want to thank you and thank the department for their work on this. you said legislation would be introduced in october and it was. so i would like to point out it's always wonderful when a

deadline that's stated is made. and thank you very much. and i look forward to hearing more about that in the months ahead. and we'll spread the word about public comment on the legislation so it can be as effective as possible. so thank you very much for your work on that. great. thank you. and i do want to express appreciation to our advice attorney chris tom, who worked very hard with our team to get that legislation ready for the rest middle. great. thank you very much. deputy city attorney tom, commissioner turner. good morning, deputy director short i guess i have three questions here. first, would love our neighborhood and permitting permitting process. at our last commission meeting there was a request either to consider these large planner tub issues or to have a separate kind of hearing around those. i made a request. was it possible to consider those planters as a part of this permitting or does it need to be a separate kind of issue? thank

you, commissioner turner. we've been looking at making some revisions so those so container was on the in the public right of way. do not necessarily require a permit if they meet our guidelines that have been established. so we are looking at potential revisions to our guidelines to clarify how and where containers can be placed. and i think that that is the appropriate mechanism to address those concerns. great my second. and we may need mr. robertson to join us. so also at the last commission meeting, we were made aware by our chief resiliency officer of not a really good forecast as it relates to our ability around gold bonds and others, but more importantly, our pay as we go around our general fund. so i guess what i'm trying to understand is it seemingly they told us our

street conditions and our ability is going to be about 74, which is about 1% below. we now have potential. another 3% to our budget, which you guys have done it met magnificent job of getting us through the last one, including even with the supplemental funding. it seems like we've got several issues here. one on the street and sanitation side, street conditions and how they're going to maintain funding. and then more broadly, public works as a department, how we're going to say staff and how in general we're going to weather what seemingly is an economic storm. my question, i guess, is how do we and what is our role either through our advocacy? i know you guys have come up with and are working on forecasts. what are potential other resources, gas tax and others, but seemingly what should we be doing? and it seems at this point we should be having some finance

conversations. commissioner bruce robertson, cfo of public works. it's a very good question. i think at this point we're still waiting to hear what the current year financial status really looks like. and we're waiting for that information from the controller's office, the mayor's office and the board of supervisors, their budget and legislative analyst. that will really give us a definitive picture of how good or how bad it is. i think we all have our thoughts of that. it's going to be a challenge. so for now, what we're doing internally, we are running scenarios for the worst possible scenario, hoping that it doesn't come to that. so i think your point of the capital plan in being the challenge is well founded because i think as mr. strong stated last commission hearing, that the go is really the big challenge. and a lot of our staff are funded by

paco. so we are indeed, as you stated, you're spot on looking for alternatives on the funding sources, things we can get from the state, the county transportation authority and elsewhere. i think for now, though, the ask would be just wait for maybe the next hearing and see what we come back with with our budget reductions. we are being very surgical at this point. i selfishly am very fortunate in the department more broadly is very fortunate. we have a very good deep bench on the budget side. so the proposals, they took the first crack at looking at the $2.17 million reduction and i was kind of blown away with the surgical nature in which they did their initial recommendations. we talked about it internally at the executive team with the stated goal. and i want to make sure i put this on the record, minimize operational impacts. everything we do is all about minimizing operational impacts with the goal of having no operational impacts. so this one we can weather. i think. okay.

but each one its trade offs, we're giving up something that we would be doing and either trying to prioritizing things or looking for other avenues, any additional cuts. that's where i started to get a little concerned. so when we get a budget instructions for fiscal year 25 and going forward, and that's where i think it's going to be a bit of a challenge. so once we get a sense and i should know the date, it's imminent, that the joint report will be issued, we'll have a much better sense of where we're going to lean on. you and the other commissioners for help as well as, you know, put on our creative thinking caps about what we need to do. one thing i would add is this will be my third reduction. so fortunately, even just myself, i've got some experience, as do other members of the budget team. so we have some experience in terms of trying to minimize the impacts. so it's going to be a challenge and i think we'll really get a better sense when we see that joint report and when we see the

mayor's budget instructions that usually come out in early december, there's some talk they may come out a little bit earlier to give departments a little more more time to think creatively and how they can identify any cuts they may have. so not only as the interim director, short stated, are there actual reductions, but there's ways to think and look about some of the contracting we're doing in some of the other items that we have in our operations portfolio to make sure that we're trying to save and be conservative with our funds. those chair posts, i would just suggest there may just need to be some collaboration with streets and sanitation. my concern is we're already forecasting a street condition at and it's lower than i think all of us want and any significant budget forecasting unfortunate is going to have to have some impacts and i just wonder and again, two commissions that have to meet in the middle if we do get to some budgetary reductions, where are they and what is the condition

that we can all agree to? i'd like to be at 75 and greater street sanitation may find something lower than that, higher than that. but whatever it is, i'm really interested in knowing how it's all going to come together. thank you. last question. so director short, so of our of the city's kind of projected 500 million citywide kind of cut, we may anticipate up to 15 positions that we would need to just not fill. is that correct? or are these positions ones that actually would be laid off and or furloughed? sorry so these would be positions that are cut, but we but not individuals. so these would be positions we're looking at vacant positions that we would not fill, but they would be cut from our budget so that we wouldn't be able to necessarily fill them in the future. so it

is looking at removing them from kind of the approved positions as we are looking hard at positions that have been vacant for some period of time that we feel like, okay, if we haven't filled it in the past five years, can we live without that position? and why? so again, credit to the budget team to really and actually cfo robertson did some of this work himself to really look at where are the positions that we seem to have been able to manage without so that we are, you know , again, the goal is no no impact to our to our current delivery of services. thank you. commissioner newhouser eagle. so i'm not sure where we are on the

agenda. commissioner turner brought something up that i'd like to add to, but it doesn't it it doesn't look like this. there's an agenda item if people are following our meeting, if the public is following it, report this is still the director. okay. so we're asking the director questions. okay. okay. all right. and other staff as well. obviously so. all right. so at our last meeting, i do want to follow up on on on commissioner turner's question. about the impediments of the right of way. it's not just containers. i had mentioned, and it didn't appear in the minutes and it seemed okay that it that it doesn't show in the minutes that i asked specifically about it. but it's also about barriers that are put up in terms of in terms of fencing, whether we don't know what the originators

purpose was. and this is a lot of it is prior to dpw having jurisdiction over that. but there are a lot of impediments in terms of fencing. and i would also like to see that reviewed and to have some kind of a of an audit on that from not a financial audit, but a condition audit of the conditions from the department about where it is. i don't know if they'll go street by street, but there they appear to be all over, especially in the more crowded residential areas where there are not just single family homes, but not not huge, huge multiple family dwellings or multiple unit dwellings, but there seems to be a proliferation of these very close to the very close to the edge of the sidewalk, i think closer than they're supposed to

be to the actual street. and it's impossible to walk. it's impossible to open a car door on the passenger side. and it's sometimes it's very difficult to even park because of fender gets hit. i've seen it so i don't know if it's to stop dog is there are there is a lot a lot of green space i'm sure director short that you are aware of that and it's beautiful to see a lot of green space around our trees. but if there's a lot more use of our sidewalks now and our right of way with all of the electric vehicles that are that are occurring and also people using people driving their cars less, that means they have to traverse on the sidewalks between however, they're getting around rather than driving into a driveway or a parking lot. so i see it as an impediment. i'm a senior citizen, and i think that

we're going to have more and more senior citizens and more and more use of the sidewalks. and i think we need to take a look and evaluate how much of the space is not not usable for walking. mr. newhouse. siegel what i'd like to propose is that we take a look at this issue and ask for information on it in the context of a future operations. if it's operations bureau report that we fold this in to some of these other issues that we address in terms of obstacles in the public right of way. interim director short, would that be a way to address the commissioners questions and concerns, do you think? sure. happy to do that. i think this is one of those classic examples of something that kind of bridges both sides of the department. we do have guidelines as part of the urban forestry sidewalk landscaping

permit that talk about, you know, how you can include decorative fencing in around a tree basin as part of a landscaping permit. those guidelines do try to account for exiting cars and we require what we call a courtesy strip to allow people to get in and out of vehicles and then we, of course, our bureau of street use and mapping is responsible for our obstacles. block ing the right of way. so this is really kind of a shared and shared role in terms of ensuring that the right of way is accessible. but that is our primary jurisdiction at public works, is the public right of way and ensuring that it's accessible. so we do want to be sure that it is. and so, yeah, i think we can approach it that way and bring kind of the various we can report on what our standards are and then what we do if we find things that are not in compliance. so maybe the

standards are very important. that's basic. so people don't continue to add more to it. but also to have a report on what the existing conditions are at this point, we don't know what they were when dpw first took over this role, but that i don't know if it's getting better or worse, but but residents should understand that there's a new sheriff in town. so. good thank you all right. not literally. yes, yes, yes, yes. no, we know one commissioner is enough. all right. if there are no other further questions for interim director short from the commission, we will open this item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item to the director's report may line up against the wall furthest from the door. if you are here in the chamber, if you're calling in, dial

(415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access. code (266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. and then press star three to raise your hand to speak. no members of the public have approached in person to speak on this item and govtv is indicating we have one caller and please unmute that caller and you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice. great. can you hear me okay, we can hear you great. david pilpel again. so on item two, i have three comments on the restricted communications contract report that's included with the agenda materials. i think it would be helpful if the project that title and they're not all projects they're project

or grass but if those titles were applicable had department names or had more intuitive titles for example p.w. folsom street scape project i believe is public works. but it may be that mta is the lead japantown peace plaza. i think japantown is actually one word and i think that's a recreation and park department project. itc immunization and travel clinic relocation. i think that's a health department project. i don't know the lake merced trail improvements project if that's recreation and park or puc and then some of the and on the next page, the davies symphony hall elevator modernization. i assume that's the war memorial performing arts center department. anyway, just having the department name in there

would help and then maybe for the professional services and other things that are actually public works indicating which of them are idc, bdc or bsm would help because the way it's written now, it has some information, but it sort of raises more questions. all right, i've said enough on that. on safety and street vendor enforcement. the next topic, in addition to police, i would explore the use of deputy sheriff's since they are now able to do some tnb work and other field work without getting into debates between the poa and the deputy sheriff's, there may be an opportunity to partner with the sheriff's department on enforcement so that it's not just police fronting for dpw frontline staff in dealing with street vendor enforcement and

safety on the streets. and finally on apec. i appreciate the heads up. i understand that there is thanks. i understand that there is a city web page with information and links available at sf dot gov slash apec, although it's a bit light right now, it does have some information on police, peace and transit reroutes. but i didn't see a lot on there yet about public works and impact on street vendors and other law enforcement issues. so perhaps more information will be available there in the future and additional updates at the next meeting. prior to apec would be great. those are my thoughts on item two. thank you for listening. thank you. caller and we have no further public commenters on item two. thank you. please call the next item. mr. fuller. item three is general public comment, which is for topics under the

commission's mandate but not related to a specific item on today's agenda, members of the public who wish to make three minutes of general public comment may line up against the wall for this from the door here in the chamber. if you're calling in again, use that. number (415)!a655-0001. and the meeting number access code. is (266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. and then press star three to be recognized id and as a reminder, general public comment is limited to a total of 15 minutes for all comments and b can be continued to the end of the agenda for item 12. if we exceed that 15 minute time limit, it is now 11 a.m. and look, looking up, we do not have any members of the public in person who have come forward to give public general public comment at and sf

govtv is indicating that we do have one caller wanting to speak under general public comment. please unmute that. caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice. great david pilpel again, very briefly here. the board of supervisors voted this week to limit remote public comment at its meetings and i hope that this commission will not follow suit. i think that would mean very little public comment, not just for me, but from others, and make it extremely difficult for folks to get down to the meetings for all the reasons that we're stated in public. comment on monday opposing it. but the board chose to do so anyway. i hope this commission will not revisit and restrict at remote public comment in the way that the board has now and i still plan to follow up with certain commissioners and david steinberg on the sunshine

ordinance and its impacts on the commission and this department. that's all i have on item three. thanks for listening. thank you. caller and that is our only caller for public comment. thank you. i would only note that the commission fully intends to keep remote comment intact unless and until we are subject to the same unreasonable vitriol that the board of supervisors has been subject to, if that should ever occur, we will revisit that issue. secretary fuller, please call the next item. item four is the consent calendar of routine matters includes the draft minutes from the october 6th, 2023, meeting of this commission . an eight contract awards one contract modification, one grant agreement modification, an all modifications and awards are eligible for the consent calendar in accordance with the contract delegation policy adopted by this commission. please note that corrections to the minutes have been made for

clarity for items one, four, a, four, c and item seven an all consent calendar items can be heard individually upon request by a commissioner, staff or the public adoption of the consent calendar and all resolutions contained in it is an action item and before an action and before a motion is made. i'm happy to take any corrections to the minutes or questions on the consent calendar. thank you. before we have any questions, specific questions to the calendar, i would like to thank secretary fuller, deputy city attorney tom, interim director short and all other public works and city attorney staff who have changed our contract award procedures so that the public works commission can approve contracts for the initial term and amount along with an option for the department director to extend the term and increase the amounts that these same contracts do not have to come before the commission again. thank you very much for your work on this. it'll make a big

difference, i think, in the efficiency of our meetings. that said, i do have just one question on items in the consent calendar. my question pertains to item four, b and c, and it regarded a vendor ground control and they in the four b item in the staff memo, it stated that they lacked the requisite experience for the j 57 general engineering services contract, but then they had sufficient experience for the j 61 general engineering services contract and i didn't understand this when it seemed to me the work was essentially the same as interim director. short could you clarify that for me. or anyone on the staff? i didn't mean to pick on you. that's okay. i cannot clarify that for you. chair post and i apologize, but let me see if we can have someone from the team come up and clarify this. secretary fuller, do you have the written comments that you provided to me earlier for are you able to pull

that up easily? i am searching for them. i do know that the project manager here did respond. let me just make sure i did to my satisfaction, but i would like it read into the record. okay. oh no. oh, yes, i do have it. i apologize. i do have it here. so the project manager noted that regarding four b and four c, ground control did not respond to the city's request to submit additional information for the j. 57 contract in order to verify their experience. so they were deemed non responsible based on the information in their original bid package. they did, however, respond to the request for additional information for j. 61. so we were able to confirm their experience and recommend them for award. thank you. that

concludes my questions on the consent calendar. there are any other questions on it before we entertain a motion? commissioner turner my question really has to do with 4k, and i don't know if it's really a question. i know that we are having a lot of discussion as it relates to workforce grants and particularly as it relates to our tree watering and maintenance. this is one that i know that for a whole host of reasons we want to keep moving, but i want to thank staff. this has been a grappling situation around how do we do this? and even this morning, having a good, robust conversation with interim director short, i think that all the workforce development work, how we facilitate it and what it means to the street conditions is really important. but i still think there's a lot of work to be done, a lot of clarification and making sure we're really aligned, not just from the city standpoint, but really are we getting a true workforce development and the impact through and through. so i wanted to acknowledge while i've got

still reservations around how we're approaching this, i do want to thank staff who continue to be responsive, particularly over the last several weeks grappling with really is not just an issue for us, but really a city wide issue as we try to carve our path. so i want to thank folks, but also really push us to continue having these conversations. thank you, commissioner newhouser eagle. yes so this is also a thank you and acknowledgment, not just to staff, but to you. chair post. for helping this this is brand new. the way that we review contracts and it's it it's not a sexy issue that the public likes to get involved in. but if there are mistakes made in it, it gets very interesting and very sexy. so it's something that's very important to pay attention to.

and i've noticed through our modifications to make it actually work. so it may seem to the public and even to us like, oh, we're there it is again, you know, we're another modification , but we're trying to make it practical, make it work for the department and for the vendors and for the city. so thank you very, very much. it's necessary. wonderful. if there are no more questions, i will move that we adopt the consent calendar and the resolution is affiliated with each item. so moved. thank you. secretary fuller, please open the consent calendar to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item for the adoption of the consent calendar and resolutions contained in it may line up against the wall for this from the door. if in the chamber. if you're calling in. dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access. code

26615191374. zero. pound pound. and then press star three to raise your hand to be recognized . no members of the public have approached in the chamber to speak on this item. but if govtv is indicating we do have one caller. please go ahead and unmute that. caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with notice when you have 30s remaining of your time. great. david pilpel again, so no need to pull it. but my comments of course are related to the minutes item for a and commissioner newhouse siegel referenced this a bit earlier. i believe in my opinion, the public comment in the minutes should be summarized briefly, and that is done, done and done very well by commission. secretary fuller. but in some cases, commissioner comments and questions aren't they're generally captured, but they're

not always captured. and i think it's important that commissioner comments and questions be included both in the minutes and add on the advanced calendar for follow up. so where there's a comment or an inquiry or a request that that be documented so everyone knows and that can be followed up, i think that's important. i also have some minor edits to the minutes and non-substantive i can go over those with secretary fuller. i did want to call out a couple very briefly. i thought it was odd on page three under general public comment to state, the general public comment began at 1041 and concluded at 1047. that seems superfluous and i would probably strike that at and there was something else. oh item seven at the end, general public comment continued. usually there's a note that says not necessary. sorry, something to that effect for the rest of

it. i think is pretty straight forward. and again, if i have some minor non substantive edits, i can raise those. there may also be a way to streamline some of the capturing of comments. for example, on page two at the bottom, um, commissioner turner and secretary fuller, i think rather than bullets, this is a stylistic issue, but rather than bullets. yes, those could be longer sentences and take up less space and capture the same information. but again, that's a question of style. those are my thoughts on the minutes. thanks for listening. thank you. caller and that is our last commenter on on this item number four. pardon me. thank you. the no further questions or comments from the commission all in favor

of adopting the minutes from our prior meeting and the resolutions attached to the items regarding the contracts. please say aye or yes. yes i. the vote is unanimous of those present. thank you very much, secretary fuller. please call the next item on the agenda. item five is the operations division, central operations overview and manager warren hill and acting manager ramsey alvarez will present this overview. and this is an informal item. and just to let you know, we're using the remote microphone because the hardwired one was not picking up very well through the live feed. so well, good morning, commissioners. i'm just going to take this up here. warren hill, assistant managers for the bureau of central operations. we're going to give you an informational overview today on our workforce development and our community

engagement programs. my colleague, when he comes up, will introduce himself. where we fall within the organization and we are under the direction and tutelage of our deputy director, ms. jada durden. so we are the bureau of central operations and we are again presenting workforce development and community engagement going into our workforce development program. it falls. we have our apprenticeship program and we have our workforce development community contracts for our apprenticeship program. we have the general labor apprentices i'm sorry, the general labor apprenticeship, the apprentice gardener program. um, the apprentice arborist, technician program, the apprentice, stationary engineer program, which is currently on pause and the apprentice apprentice. mason the general plumber apprenticeship and our street inspector trainee program for our community workforce development programs. these are things you all have heard quite a lot about over the past few

months. our pit stop program, the summer youth program, trash can, steam cleaning, our sweeping grant for individuals. they're over here in chinatown. our sidewalk pressure washing grant and most recent. we did solicit hit our clean grant and we are anticipating an award on that very shortly. mr. hill yes, ma'am. why is the apprentice stationary engineer program been paused? there are some negotiations that are taking place between the union and da. thank you. for our current at current participation is what we have is our 9916 program, which is more akin to a pre apprenticeship program. now these individuals is that you all have seen throughout the city are wearing our ppe yellow vest. they do provide street sweeping street cleaning services throughout the corridor's route. so we currently have 194 of those

individuals that are currently working for our department. there are 150 i'm sorry, 140 that are actually public works employees. and then we have a remaining 54 that are jobs now program participate outs. we have 12 general labor apprentices and we have one active general plumber apprentice who is scheduled to complete the program in december. these 12 general labor apprentices are approaching one year and their actual program, which will be 4000 hours, they have complete did a little over 1500 on the job training hours and are also now completing rsi related supplemental instruction at the laborers training center in san ramon, which will make them full fledged entry level laborers at the end of their program. for our community workforce development program. so we have our pit stop program. the pit stop program is to provide clean and safe public toilets, used needle receptacles

and dog wash dog waste stations in san francisco's most impacted neighborhoods that is. a 14,118,000 $947,000 grant. our summer youth program, the summer youth program. it is to provide workforce development opportunities to high school aged youth to learn the fundamentals of urban forestry. that is a 440 $440,000 grant. our trash can steam cleaning grant that that is, to train individuals to train the workforce in steam cleaning and pressure washing procedures to clean and divert litter and other waste from our public spaces. and right away that is a $117,472 grant. we have our sweeping grant that is to ensure an an make our public spaces more inviting by cleaning and diverting litter and other wastes from public spaces, sidewalks and the right of way. that is a $269,310 grant our

sidewalk pressure washing program, which operates pressure washing services on designated sidewalks and hotspots in san francisco to ensure clean sidewalk birx alleys and maintaining also that public right of way. that is a 506,100 $506,107 grant and our clean program, which is relaunching and this will provide job training, employment, workforce, workforce development services is and opportunities while also providing clean, safe, inviting public spaces by cleaning and maintaining and diverting litter, cleaning and diverting litter while maintaining a the public right of way that is a $2,411,712 grant for our program grant participations. what we have is through hunters point family. they have 171 participants actually involved in the pit stop program cam mission hiring hall, who we just awarded their contract in

september, has 82 individuals actually employed and working on that grant. the summer youth program. they had 63 individuals actually complete the program this year. the trash can steam cleaning program has 13 an individuals is tree watering has 11. and our giant block sweep, which is actually the sweeping grant, has seven. and the sidewalk pressure washing has five. some highlight numbers for our pit stop program, as you are aware, we have 30 pit stop locations throughout the city. and our program numbers for the last year in 2022, there were a total of 525,224 flushes or uses throughout the city. so we average about 35 a little, a little over 35, 40,000 uses per month and needles collected. that was 7119 in for doggy bags

distributed that was 33,528. and last trash bags collected was 10,763. i'm going to hand this over to my colleague. thank you. worthy commission director short and deputy city attorney tom. my name is ramsés alvarez and i'm the acting manager for our community engagement team. i think i have one of the best jobs at public works because in a way, i get to talk trash for a living and so our division looks to establish and deepen a culture of community engagement at san francisco public works. at its core, our goals are to raise the favorability of the department with the public. we do these things through two units. our community programs and our outreach and enforcement team. so our engagement comes from multiple channels, from volunteer events to tool loan

services to project managing on community driven capital projects, to educating people on the responsibilities and resources available to them related to garbage disposal. while we tackle community issues in a collaborative way that capitalizes on department expertise and deeply connects with the people we serve. on that note, public works is approach to engage and values local citizens and organizations as resources for learning and partners in community improvement. last year, our community programs team helped organize nearly 900 volunteer events. this year we've already done more than a thousand. there are four programs that serve as cornerstones for our events. adopt a street graffiti, watch street parks and our monthly neighborhood beautification day. our team also partners with community groups to help develop community driven capital improvement projects. we also organize major events for the

department, like our arbor day fare and operations yard, open house, and for our own employees, like our public works , health fair. the adopt a street program is a partnership between the city and merchants and residents. groups or individuals agree to adopt an area and take an informal response ability for keeping the street and sidewalk clean in return, we provide free cleaning supplies like pickers and garbage bags and also pick up the debris they collect through this program. people and groups around the city organize cleanup events with us. similarly, graffiti watch is a partnership between the city and her residents to keep graffiti off our streets. graffiti watch empowers people to take ownership of a heavily tagged area and remove graffiti from. public property. some of the object's volunteers paint our utility poles mailbox pieces, city trash cans and other street furniture you see here in the

street park program, residents steward a public green space under public works domain and lead gardening workdays, often times, neighbors will work with the department to turn a bare green space into a serviceable, activated community hub. some examples include gardens, medians, recreation spaces, community gathering spaces and tiled staircases. our neighborhood beautification day is the signature volunteer event for our department from january to november, we host 8 to 12 projects on one day in each of san francisco's 11 districts. it's really a special event where our logo comes alive and volunteers can work alongside a public works arborist or a laborer. and ask exactly what they do and how they do it. and finally, here's what we have to show for it. this past fiscal

year, we had 18,934 people contrib. to 38,411 volunteer hours across across our programs . they did a lot of work, picked up a lot of trash, planted a lot of plants and abated a lot of graffiti. but for me, the true value is the presence that they show for these volunteer events. i can't tell you how many times people look at our volunteers on the street and thank them and let them know that they really appreciate their effort. and i think our events allow for people to really recognize that the people of san francisco care with their community. looks like . our community driven capital projects are developed by grassroots efforts. they are spaces under public works domain that the department has no long term plans to develop and in some cases like that of an unaccepted street, the department is legislatively

handcuffed from even working in the area. so these projects start with someone who has an idea to change the way a green space or a medium or an unaccepted street looks until a clear vision is, is or i'm sorry and a plan is presented to the department to consider until a clear vision is refined with the help of the department and developed in more detail and the department in community works to help make a corner of san francisco a better place to live . on the other side of community engagement is our outreach and enforcement team. their response for educating merchants, property owners and residents of their rights and responsibilities regarding street and sidewalk cleanliness. when outreach falls on deaf ears , we enforce city code to ensure sanitation standards are met. we follow a progressive discipline model. violators are first sent an outreach letter informing

them of their current violation. and given time to address the infraction. eventually the department conducts a re-inspection and if the issue is still there, we issue a notice of violation, which is essentially a warning letter for a potential fine. if, on the third inspection, a violator has ignored all warnings, a citation with a monetary fine is issued. this is a data breakdown down of the one teams effort efforts. and it's a lot to throw at you. but i think the biggest thing that i want to showcase is there is a section that shows monthly actions and from january to march, we didn't have many. it was never more than 50. and so one thing that i really wanted to point out is that like many other teams in public works, we were subject to some of the hiring shortages and since march or april, we've been able to

bring folks on board. and i can proudly say that now we have outreach coordinators all over the city and assigned to every zone. so there's coverage now in the city where for about a year we really didn't have a complete picture or a complete resources devoted to the outreach and enforcement efforts and more than just issue citations as our staff, our outreach coordinators, they're not inspectors. so true to the spirit of the engagement team, they go out in the community and they speak to schools and they attend our cleanup events and go anywhere we can to meet the public and preach the gospel of public works. so with that, i think we both will open it up to questions. should you have any. thank you very much, mr. hill and alvarez. i do have a few questions. this is a lot of data

to give us, and i confess i have not had a chance to fully digest it. so we'll maybe have to bring you all back at a future date with more heads up. and i realize you're missing a bureau director, interim director, short. any eta on when we might get a permanent director for this bureau. i believe that that position is currently posting for recruitment. so we are actively trying to recruit that that manager for this unit. great thank you very much. how many employees does this bureau have approximately that carries out all the work that you two have described to us this morning? yeah, i think we're budgeted for between 25 and 30. it seems like we got a lot done with a few people. so thank you very much for that. thank you. i have no further questions right now. any commissioner turner.

thanks mr. you got to get these fixed. mr. hill. as it relates to the workforce development program. so having a really good conversation this morning with interim director short and really kind of ties to how we're defining workforce development, how we're approaching it, and more importantly, who we're utilizing to do it. but i just wanted to make sure that i've got this correct on. can you go back to slide. six so yeah. all right. so slide six, if i did the math right, we do about. $17.8 million in workforce grants, correct? um okay. and then you go to slide seven. really effective of that investment. we're supporting staff and participants of about

350. is that correct? seven page seven rather than slide seven, i think is that yeah, there we go. correct okay. so that breaks down. i mean, and this is just very simple. you take 17 million divided by 350, it breaks down to about $50,000 dollars per staff per participant that we're investing. am i interpreting that correctly? the so yes, no, but kind of not really. so for the example, the clean grant that is posted, we have not awarded that actual grant yet. that will be the dollar amount for it for pitstop program. um, that is not at the that's the budgeted amount but that's not the current expected expenditure . so for its close but not really. so that's that's why i say that i can give you the exact figures and present that

to you or send that back to you to give you exactly what it breaks down per employee, per agency. and i'd be careful i'm not really looking per person. i'm looking at how we're investing collectively. and so and this is actually again, good news when you look at kind of national averages and what it actually takes to invest in workforce programs. we're about the right number. so i'd like to acknowledge that. but i'd also like to understand of that. 352 how many are actually staff that are facilitating the program versus participants, if you could do that follow up for me, i can get that for you. no problem. great. my next quick question has to do more with community engagement. um my first question is, is public works week considered a part of community engagement? we have a role so public works week is a larger department initiative. one slice of public works week is our public works open house

and we essentially invite the public. usually school age students, some folks in the trades, perhaps high school students that might not want to go to college and might want to enter a trade and find out what it is to work for an entity like public works and we invite them to the operations yard and it's our version of disneyland. you go to the different shops, you can see folks woodworking, you can see people painting, you can work with our electricians and for us, it's another showcase of what we do and who we are. got it. thank you for that clarification. and then the last point on the community driven capital projects, we all know it's great to be able to engage the community and go through an ideation process and let alone come up with a design schematic. but none of that's free and it also takes a lot of time. so when a community sees an alley, they see something that they want to improve. i'm assuming they don't just come to public works and say, now let's get to

work. i'm assuming there's a process, there's a budgeting because it's our staff and all those things or my or is there a grant that they can apply for? how does this actually work when we want them to do this ideation? we want them to capture and protect their neighborhoods with great ideas. but how do they actually do this and where does the money come from? that's an excellent question. with not a complicated answer, but i'll try to make it as simple as possible and perhaps just giving you kind of a general idea of how these projects come to us and how they come to fruition might be the easiest way to explain it. more than likely, when a project comes to our division, it's because it is spearheaded by community and that being said, they're coming up with the design and they're working to get the funding. now whether they get that from an add back or some type of grant, it's really up to the community. and so what we do is we verify that where they would like to do this

project is actually under our domain. and then we work internally to make sure that we don't have any long term plans for the space that what they want to do is something that we would allow and give them permission and actually support. and so once we get all those things in a row, it comes time to really, you know, spearhead the creation of these things. and so one of the pinch points you've identified already, right? these folks come to us with limited budget and often times can't get a grant before for, you know, they have the plan to do something and you're right for folks that need permits are bureau street use and mapping has to look at something and look at a plan and figure out guidance for what permit they need. our engineers need to see the soil composition of something if they want to build a retaining wall. and all those things cost money. and, you know, it's i don't have a really good answer of how we

help these folks. all i can tell you is that as of right now, we do the best that we can to provide them guidance in order to give them kind of the tools that they need to get the funding and get a viable site plan for the development that they want. interim director shaw, is there ever alignment with these community capital projects and our apprenticeship program that is our interns, any capacity around? and if someone has a crazy idea that we maybe have ten hours within the bureau that we can dedicate. i'm just i'm just wondering, because this is often the stumbling block. people do have amazing ideas. and so i'm just trying to think through how we love these ideas, but how do we support the community or can we support them with our capacity in terms of our our apprenticeship program? that's an interesting suggestion . and certainly at times we have our are you know, as mr. alvarez noted, um, staff from the

engineering side or even landscape architecture side who might support a project oftentimes times if the community has an idea for something and their district supervisor is enthusiastic, they might give a little bit of seed money or matching money that can be used to cover some of our staff time and in some of those cases, we would have potentially have the opportunity for an intern to work on those projects . so but but even those interns are generally funded through the projects that they work on. they're not general fund supported. we do our best to try to find and general fund that we can. as i said, either a supervisor might allocate, even if it's just to complete the design, and then oftentimes that is one of the ways that these projects get funded is through an add back from the board to kind of realize the project. and that can sometimes include the final design work. so i think i think it's fair to say and i'm looking at my colleagues for

their nod that we do try to have our interns participate in these types of projects. they are fun and exciting projects and i know, for example, our landscape architecture interns have worked on some of these projects in the past, but i don't think that we have connected it with our other workforce development programs, other than the maybe you could talk about the, um, the partnership that we've had in the past with the clean and green crew, um, that works on street parks. oh, thank you. back to you. sure. i'm i'm happy to talk about it. or i can if you want. so, um, for the, for the various projects that we have, um, once they're completed, we usually allow them to exist under the umbrella of the street park program. and we had a clean and green crew that was essentially a group of guess like young employees. and they would come to these street park sites and they would actually canoe attribute some labor to

the sites and learn about gardening and work alongside our volunteers and also our bureau of urban forestry staff to kind of get some job skills and also contribute to these spaces that are actively stewarded by members of the public. sorry to put mr. alvarez on the spot. so that's after they've been created that even though they are the communities responsibility to maintain, we will often work with the community on these cleanup days and sometimes through the neighborhood beautification day as well. great thank you. and i'll just add, do you have the staff capacity to not adopt the program? that's not too strong a word. but when a community organization or neighborhood does reach out to you, as you said, but they need help with funding. they need guidance, and you provide that, as you've described. and is there do you

follow up? do you take them under your wing? do you do you do you help them? you know, do you just i mean, obviously, you have to separate out just one person that may flake out. they had a good idea one day. you never hear from them again. but if it's a if it's a real a real project, legitimate, do we have the ability to check in with them three months later? how's it going? how's did you put that funding application in? is there anything else we can help you with? we have the capacity to do that. i think we empower folks with the information and all the knowledge that they need to make a project actually happen in terms of holding their hand and going step by step. so we more than likely don't have the resources or probably would never contribute to some grant that they're writing to improve our space that would be on them. but we can point you to some resources that you might be able to apply to or perhaps some agency that might be willing to help you design some plan in

some way. but in terms of actually lead them down the path, step by step and having check ins with them, we don't do that to a certain degree. our programs empower folks to show the moxie to develop these areas. and the more you show us that you can develop the area and are serious about it, i think the more that we're willing to work with you. yeah, so that makes sense. i didn't mean lead them by the hand, i just meant in the end, if it does happen, then it reflects well, of course on the community organization that made it happen, but also on public works . if they can say, wow, public works was really helpful, they got us started and we talked to them every few months. they did this. they did. that's all i meant. i didn't mean it becoming sort of a quasi public works project because i agree with you. it's the neighborhood organization. it's theirs. and they should take the lead on it. i just was hoping that, you know, whatever our capacity we can do to kind of be a part of the solution for them.

commissioner, one of my favorite days is when we actually have a ribbon cutting for one of these community driven capital projects, mostly because they all seem to be very appreciative of the effort that public works. also contributed for the projects that they spearheaded or they advocated for. great. thank you, commissioner turner. mr. alvarez, can i get a clarification? because i think actually i was on the same maybe i didn't understand this, so i thought community driven capital projects were quasi public works projects that we've identified them. we've now for lack of other words, they're now a part of our capital projects pipeline line or is that not the case? sorry i'm yeah. again, another interesting concept. and so i would look at this from a philosophical way. they are projects that public works is involved in because there are asset we're helping these folks kind of make their vision a reality. but in terms of devoting actual project managers to these sites that doesn't happen. i would look at

community engagement role as more of a liaison between our department and this community group or a given community group making a project happen. and so my role is that if there's a hurdle, a roadblock of some way, if something that our department can help with and it's feasible to help, i'm supposed to connect the group with whoever the subject matter expert is within our department. i think the where i got confused. thank you for that. i think my understanding were these were either spaces or areas where we have jurisdiction. so we would have to sign off on everything. so that's why i just assumed if you know, someone comes and says, hey, we want to do this alley, we become lockstep because it's our alley, our responsibility. so that's going to chair pose this point. and if we want that alley approved, then it should go onto our capital pipeline and so on and so forth and be supported. what i'm hearing, that's not necessarily what happens. someone could come and say, hey,

it's an alley, we want to do this, but if it's not within our already planning our budget or other, it doesn't necessarily mean we're going to like adopt that project. it's a great idea. if they keep it moving, we'll support them. but it doesn't necessarily. even though it's our jurisdiction, we have to sign off on it. it doesn't necessarily become a real thing until i'm still not sure when it becomes real. but it's not real if it's in this category three. i think your characterization that you started with is right on the money. so folks come to us, they want to do something and it doesn't necessarily fall under the public works portfolio to develop, but it is a public works asset. they come to us and we give them permission to do something. interim director short, you had a comment? yes. thank you. just to add to what mr. alvarez said, i he's describing the process through our community engagement agent bureau. we also do have some projects that are really community driven that then go to

our capital side of the house for implementation action. so there are are cases where the community comes with an idea, but either because of the scale or because it kind of gets driven through the district supervisor's office first and they are willing to allocate the resources to make it a project that we then do assign a project manager to. and then we take it kind of from, from conceptual into implementation. but when it comes, it's sort of the, the operations community engagement program is taking a little bit more of a grassroots approach, i would say. so that's where the community is, is not just conceiving of it, but really they are implementing it with our support and with our permission. an and i do want to note, i think, you know, mr. alvarez and his team does a really good job of we write letters of support for projects

if they are seeking funds, if we've been approached by them, and also they really help. they don't hold their hands through the whole process, but they do kind of hold their hands or at least help guide the project through our approval process. us so while it is, the onus is really on the community group to do develop that project and get it implemented when it comes through this group, they are they are doing a lot of facilitation to help to help ensure the success of the project. great. thank you. this was a very informative presentation on something as small as putting the organizational chart at the beginning. it's helpful. i mean, it's a big department. i'm still getting to know it. i look forward to seeing you again next year to hear how things are going. and again, thank you very much. i also would like to comment. it's a small thing, but i appreciate your business attire today. you both look very professional and i think it's a small thing, but i think i would like the public to know about the high standards of

professionalism maintained in the department of public works. so thank you very much for participating today and for this very helpful presentation. thank you. secretary fuller, please open this item to public. oh, commissioner newhouser. yeah i. i have. i i think that it's great that about their attire. i don't think i don't feel comfortable with us. i don't feel comfortable with us commenting about what the attire of anybody who presents to us or unless it's not appropriate for their work that they're doing. but. i, i don't i don't feel comfortable with that. so thank you. so noted. secretary fuller, please open this item to public comment. members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment on item five. the

operator division central operations overview may line up against the wall furthest from the door here in the chamber. if you are calling in remotely, dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access code. of (266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. then press star three to raise your hand to speak in the chamber. no one has come forward to speak on this item in person and govtv is indicating we do have one caller who would like who has expressed interest in speaking on this item. please unmute that caller and caller. you will have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice. great. david pilpel again, so i don't have much here this small but very effective group supports all of operations and does their own thing as well. and i appreciate

their efforts. i think one of the slides mentioned that violations can lead to a request for a hearing. i think i've mentioned before, it would be good to have an item at a future meeting about administrative hearings of various types that the department conducts and how those go. so i might ask one of you on the commission to request that as a future agenda item. i think future presentations from the various groups should have not just where they are in the org chart, which is great, but also just a high level summary of current staffing information budgeted versus filled positions . to just give some more context on the size and status within the organization. and i think we all understand the existing hiring and staffing challenges plus the new midyear budget cut

overlay that was discussed earlier. and finally, i learned from slide 15 what the colorful names are for the various paint colors. that was totally cool. i did not know that there was a name for mailbox green and that differed from san francisco. green and that seawall, gray is different from feather gray and hanson brown is different from hershey. brown so i have learned something today, and thanks again to the staff for all that they do. that was fantastic. thanks thank you. caller and govtv is indicating we have one other caller on this item. please go ahead and unmute that caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. painkillers. that was totally cool. i did not. there was a name. hello. caller you're unmuted and you're from san

francisco green and hello hello. i'm sorry, i think i'm in the wrong meeting. i wanted to the dpw commission public works. this is public works. yes oh, i'm sorry. i'm watching a live in. i, i see something else on tv. sorry. my name is george romero. i'm a civil engineer here in san francisco, and i also run a nonprofit called greening projects. and first of all, i wanted to give a shout out to ramses. he's been really great helping us with these community projects and he just has a very positive attitude, which has been really helpful. sometimes i feel like when we try to work with public agencies, it's more of a sort of like giving us the reasons why we can't do something. so i really am grateful for his for his work. the one thing i wanted to say, though, is a comment that was brought up as far as like and i think ramsey's addressed that as far as getting

the initial work done. as a civil engineer, i'm able to provide some of the work pro bono to get some of this work done. and then obviously, i can finish up the work if we get funding. but a lot of projects do not get that or do not have access to that and that is problematic. the other reason, the other concern i think that i have is that a lot of these grants, because they require the people that have extra time to work on on these projects and have the access to people that can raise funds or have funds, you tend to see a lot of these grants going to neighborhoods that don't need the money as much. and so the other poor neighborhoods do not get as much of these funds are simply because of the grant, simply because they just don't know how to apply for them. they don't don't know how to execute them. so i think that is a that is a concern. and the other thing i'm going to mention, too, is that even though these are community driven projects and we have to

depend on grant funding and fundraising and so on, i mean, we're sometimes selling t shirts and having a bake sales and so on. we still have to pay fees to like dpw and planning that can together a couple of these permits go up to $7,000. so that's not a small amount for people. people are trying to raise money. so that's something that i would like to bring up and maybe have you look at in the future, find a way to waive those costs. thank you. thank you. caller and that is our final public commenter on this item. thank you, commissioner turner. is director alameda still in the chamber? yes. good morning. morning or afternoon now. yeah. about to

almost. so i appreciate the caller's comment because i think it's where i was grappling earlier, which is this is a significant impediment. you know, as a developer, i can tell you what it costs to hire an architect and engineer jessica to a schematic design. is there an opportune city? and maybe commissioner wolff would also be a good partner on this is there a way that we can create other pro bono conduit? is there a way in which maybe there's a small grant fund or something that's created that really does help with some of this front end due diligence and leveraging our interns? and my question to you, i'm assuming people have posed this over time. have we had any study around these questions on how do we support schematic early design work in community driven projects and what is, for lack of better words, the pro bono opportunity for partnering with our own architecture bureau , but others to help facilitate them. i'll i'll chime in on that

one and then see if, uh, deputy director alameda has anything to add. so we, um, i would say quite a few community groups do manage to, to access pro bono work. a lot of the pro acts that even come through our community engagement group have some or all design done through pro bono work. however, i think it's important we, we if the city is accepting that it we go through a gift, accept and expend process. so there are regulations that sometimes make, um, make the acceptance of pro bono work a little bit tricky. and so that is one of the things that we that we have to go through. i'll use an example. there's a very community driven project at the harvey milk plaza to, to redo that project. and they had a pro bono work. did

all the early design, conceptual design work, and then the city actually received a grant that is going to go towards completion of the project. and so we first had to do an acceptance spend for that work product before we could then take it into our own our own house to do the final, you know, conceptual and then construction design. and so that is part of the process. and i think that sometimes that could be for a significant projects that could it slows it down. i think i wouldn't say it's an impediment because we see a lot of projects come in this way through that pro bono work. but we do need to make sure that we're careful about when we accept, accept that outside work. yeah, i'm glad that's actually the example and i just couldn't get to it of the challenge that i've seen is, you know, you can get the best

pro bono architects they can be your next door neighbor. they can design the taj mahal. and when it comes time to get it permitted, we're starting from scratch. and so my question, i guess, is, is communities want to engage in this work. it is great to find pro bono architects, but i think we should. what does it actually mean? how do we actually leverage it? and then i would also just argue you and i keep thinking about a project down in the bayview where i've been looking for a pro bono architect, and i can't find one, but if i had a grant source that really supported these type of initiatives that are grassroots, that are community driven, but because of that missing expertise in the community, it's not getting any legs. so i really want us to explore this. and again, i think the commissioner would would be a great example, a great partner in some of this thought around how do we engage, how do we support the community and how do we really address this pretty significant impediment, which is we do accept and want pro bono work. sometimes we can't. and more importantly, sometimes communities just don't have that expertise. yeah, and if i can add deputy director ron alameda,

city architect and i think interim director for short kind of hit all the highs and the lows in terms of trying to navigate those straits because they are rather tricky and kind of dovetailing my staff as well as pro bono staff, we've we've harvey milk plaza is a really good example where there was a little bit of pro bono work, you know, all of a sudden, you know, trying to seek other funding. we were able to work with capital planning and find some funds. so it's been kind of in and out of my realm or my people's realm as well as the public realm. but we've and another example was golf street housing cabins, tiny cabins where there was a handoff between pro bono and my staff and stretching for the funding internally as well as

externally. and it's a good partnership. it's like i said, it's a tricky to tricky straits to navigate. but it's been good partnership in terms of getting some momentum with the pro bono as well as dovetailing the expertise of my staff, particularly when it came to navigating some of the ada issues or the dbe issues. so we constantly try to seek to leverage both those worlds, but they are quite often two separate worlds that somewhat collide. also. i wonder if food would be a good source for even earlier before we ever see anything like that. the caller had expressed a need for assistance on where do we get money? and i mean, maybe it sounds like almost food would be a good city resource also for these types of projects, getting them kick started. that's good.

thank you, commissioner newhouse. siegel i, i commend the caller. i think you said so many things that that are common sense and that i would agree with. but that there is such a slippery slope here about equity, about who gets to do these these pro bono things, who can afford to work pro bono and not pay. also, we do so much monitoring. we're learning in our first year of being on this commission about how much goes into contracts that are awarded and all of the all the background that's necessary for each one. and it's i, i would say if we want to do this, it's a wonderful way to get more accomplished. it's going to require the city attorney maybe to have a new specialist on this. i don't know how what they

look into, but there's there are liability issues, especially with architects of. i think it's a great idea. i just see problems with monitoring standards. uh grants sources. if he was talking about grants, that's monitoring the grant sources. again part of why public works was so. vulnerable to complications. ethics complications is because a lot of times there's a lot of really good motives us and we see we're in a position where we see the results. you know, you don't have to look at a chart and it might make sense, but it it sure is difficult. i'd like to see it. i'd also love to see more

charts about about when we're shown the work that's done even on the operating chart we just saw on budgets. i'd love to see a i'd love to see where our this work is done by supervisors or districts to have them labeled by the number just so the general public. so we see it. but so the general public sees this. there's certainly some areas that are way more needy than others in things, but i think we should see that. thank you. thank you. good. thank you, deputy director almeida. all right. i think this was still part of was is still. i think that was our public comment on item five. is that correct? secretary that's correct. all right, good. there are no other

further questions or comments. secretary fuller, please call the next item on the agenda. item six is the public works annual over review and i'll i'll present this report and this is an informational item. give me a moment. to okay. so this overview is based on the activities of the commission from its inception or not inception from its beginning in july 2022 through july 20th, 23, and obviously i'm not going to go through all the charter language, but essentially the as a review, the commission is empowered to exercise all the usual powers of a san francisco commission. and aside from those

powers and duties that have been conferred to the sanitation and streets commission and we've had numerous conversations and briefings about that, but want to make sure that we still have access to that in our overview. but here's kind of the meat of the overview. so in its first year, the public works commission held 21 meetings lasting a total of 64 hours, with an average of with an average meeting length of three three hours. the commission heard nearly 100 informational reports and approved 66 contracts and grant awards and modifications with an approximate value. of $266 million. i'd like to thank the commissioners for volunteering their time, energy and perspectives and considering all of these matters and a special thanks to chair post for her leadership in getting this commission off the ground and helping navigate the many questions the of a new

commission and also thank you to interim director short. the department's staff and deputy city attorneys for their thoughtful work and responsiveness to the commission . and well in the next item, we'll discuss the 2024 calendar further. but there is a here's the proposed list of regular meetings for next year. changing our cadence from the current first and third fridays instead to the second and fourth mondays. with some exceptions, as. and then also we have a reminder of the. the terms of each of our commissioners. chair, post commissioner turner and commissioner vice chair

darby have terms that expire in the midpoint of 2024. i'll be in touch about renewing appointments and working with your appointing bodies as we enter the new year and also a reminder to our other two commissioners that their terms they have a good amount of length still to expend until 2026. and that concludes my report. but i'm happy to take questions on this overview. thank you very much. i have some comments i'd actually like to thank the public works commission for their many hours of volunteer service over the past 15 months. what are today's overview? doesn't reflect are the non public meetings and the work for the department director job search. the various briefings by deputy city attorney tom, deputy city attorney yadira taylor and other city attorneys on various matters. briefs by public works

staff and one on one meetings between commissioners and staff and one on one meetings with client departments, business leaders and community organizations and of course, the hours spent reviewing documents and preparing for our biweekly meetings, serving on the public works commission requires a serious volunteer commitment, and i am grateful to my colleagues for their always cheerful cooperation and their dedication to successfully executing their responsibility to represent and serve the public. are there any questions or comments from my colleagues on commissioner turner? thank you. a couple of different things. first, starting with the proposal and budget hearing over the course of the last couple of commission meetings, we've talked about the timing of that, making sure we have enough timing, particularly for you

know, changes in interim changes. it seems like this is not a big shift, but it's enough of a shift for us to capture enough time between the two commissions. so i wanted to thank folks and hope that i'm interpreting that correctly. is that correct? interim director short. are you're talking about the january budget hearing? yeah so i think that is, um, should be sufficient time for, uh, it's, it's at the moment in our budget development process where we have something to share with you prior to needing to submit it. so hopefully it allows time for your input and review. i don't think that we shifted it. i think this was as similar timing to last year. is that true? yeah, it's an excellent question and i probably should have put a note in here just to make sure that it's as clear to commissioner ears as well as to the public that the january

budget overview meeting would be an informational item where commissioner where the staff present. and then there's lots of time for question and answers. and it's not until the first meeting in february that a vote is actually taken by the commission. and so there is opportunity in between. there to have additional briefings, to have additional questions be raised and things like that ahead of the actual vote, too. so a fair amount of deliberation and that is how most commissions do run their their their budget season as they have a single presentation time for consideration and then a vote later on. great. my second question has to do with with the sanitation and streets commission. they're not moving their their meeting dates and times. is that correct? that that is correct. they're keeping the same cadence of the third monday of the month. great thank you. if there are no other

questions or comments, please open this item to public comment . members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment on item six. the public works commission annual overview may line up against the wall furthest from the door if you are if you are calling in, please. dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access code. of (266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. and then press star three to raise your hand to be recognized. and then we do not have any members of the public who have approached in person to speak on this item. and it does appear we have two members of the public who are calling in

who would like to comment on this item. sf govtv please unmute the first caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. great sorry. david pilpel again. so on this item, i think the presentation that you got seems like a fair summary of what's transpired over the last year, year and a half. um, i don't recall if this commission has adopted an annual report. i'm just looking in the charter. 4.103 requires an annual report and suggests that that can be included with the annual statement of purpose and 4.1 and two sub two. but i also don't recall seeing an annual statement of purpose this year. um, so perhaps if that has been done, someone could point me to it and if not, then maybe those

two things could be done and the annual report could include this capturing of what the commission has been up to since its inception or for the last year or year. and a half. i think that would be useful for other audiences that don't partake or listen to every minute, every scintillating minute of what this commission does. roughly twice a month. otherwise, those are my thoughts on item six. more on item seven shortly. thanks. thank you. caller please cfcf-tv. please unmute the second caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. hi there, this is aaron brettler local business owner. i've been here before to talk about small wheeled transportation driveways and the like. thank you all for your

work thus far. i really appreciate everything that you've been doing. i just have two quick comments. one is just that i having been in before and often been the only member of the public in the room raising points that the commission and executive director jj durden has said are worth noting. i am a little confused as to what the follow up process looks like when things are raised with this commission. i'd love to know more about what that engagement could look like. looking forward to seeing more people from trans asian advocacy coming into public works as there are many people who rely on the sidewalks for transportation and hope to see more collaboration there. my only other comment is that i did hear recently that there was voted that remote public comment will be removed. and i just want to express some dismay with that because many people cannot make it into the room. i've mentioned before that i'm not allowed to bring my skateboard into city hall and so it makes it that

much harder for me to get there to make public comment. it seems to me if it is technologically possible for public comment to be rendered from a remote location, then that should absolutely be maintained and i hope to see it returned in the future. thank you very much. thank you. caller. and that is our last caller for, uh, for this item. and that concludes public comment. thank you. i will just like to reassure the second caller that we intend to keep remote public participation an intact at this commission. an also, i believe the commissioners mission statement and its annual report will be included in the department's annual report this winter. our into one document, isn't that correct? secretary fuller we are working to incorporate that or

find a an additional solution if necessary. so thank you very much, commissioner turner, interim director short. i think it's now been two meetings ago. the caller, maybe three meetings ago. i think the last caller was talking about at the lip at the driveway and intermodal kind of connectivity, particularly skateboards and there but i do believe that we did close that matter out because it had to do with the stormwater house size and curb. so i think internally we resolved that. but i think he does present an interesting question, which is when we do that, do we report back out to the public when we resolve that? and i only bring it up because again, just like last commission, we had the tubs. so i'm just wondering how do we make sure that the public knows that we've we've closed those things and we reviewed them and made a determination. thank you, commissioner turner. i think we don't have a formal process for that. and maybe i could discuss

with the commission, secretary fuller, about what we think the best way to record that, whether it's through the director's report or through a memo follow up or that would go in the correspondence log, or what makes the most sense. so if it's okay with you, we'll we'll sidebar on that and then, um, we'll try to get a process in place that we can follow consistently. commissioner newhouse. siegel thank you, commissioner turner. i think that is a great idea. we're here for the public and they should see what's being done. and by the absence of things being on the list, they will see what's not being done. but i would suggest that that be just a suggestion. it could be a very, very simple list. that would be part of the director's report. and that just just the list we don't need to discuss. and so

anyway, i'm open to anybody else's suggestions and whatever staff comes up with. but. that's a great idea. thanks. oh thank you. i think that this was an informational item, so if there are no other further questions or comments that concludes this item. is that correct? that is correct. wonderful. secretary fuller, please call the last item on the regular items for consideration prior to closed session. so item seven is the public works commission 2024 meeting calendar. and i'll i will present this calendar and it is an action item, including a resolution to be adopted. and i will display splay that calendar again and just to note in in the previous item that that that calendar had a slight

error in it in our the reality is, is january 22nd is the date of our actual first meeting in january. so i apologize for any confusion about that but this is the date that's on this presentation in the resolution and in the staff report. so earlier in the year, i received numerous requests from commissioners to find an alternative meeting date and time to our current first and third fridays cadence and finding meeting, finding meeting space in city hall is never easy. and with the return of in-person meetings for nearly all public bodies this past spring, scheduling became more challenging. but i would like to report that thanks to the great work of building management staff, we were able to identify the second and fourth mondays at 9 a.m. as an alternative meeting time that will hopefully help us to make quorum and have as high of attendance by commissioners

as possible. i'll just to note that the dates with asterisks denote when meetings are out of the normal cadence due to holiday conflicts such as memorial day. you'll see in may at and in october for the indigenous peoples day conflicts with our normal date. so we're instead meeting on the seventh um, and let's see, so the proposed calendar, while not perfect, represents the best alternative for commission attendance staff availability, meeting space and accessibility to the public. and i'm happy to take any questions on this item and just to note that the commission would need a motion to adopt this proposed calendar and the resolution attached to this item. thank you. are there any questions or comments on the calendar? commissioner turner i

know it was a huge feat to do this. i want to thank everyone for making it happen. just a couple of things. i think there's a couple places where it says, you know, 2023 we know is supposed to be 2024, so we'll make those changes. also so i just wanted to be clear here. so the joint meeting sorry, back to the budget thing. so the joint meeting in january, that's our first meeting, which which again, i thought this was a little different. i thought we started in usually the fall or so is this i just want to be really, really clear. this is the same process that we normally follow. sorry yes. so i'll i'll start and invite cfo robertson to chime in. so we start we do get our budget instructions in the fall. we typically get them in november, early december. i think. and we, you know, start to work on the budget kind of at that point in

time. there's a lot of the capital budget goes ahead. so i think maybe that's that may be what you're you're thinking of but i'm pretty sure we had a similar calendar last year. and this is as commissioner sorry, as secretary fuller said, you know, most commissions do this where we give you an overview you of our draft. what we expect to submit pending your feedback in one meeting, and then there's time for questions and comments and then we come back to you for a second meeting where we either respond to any of the inquiries, we got any changes that we made, and then you would take the vote on that. so this is pretty consistent with the city's own overall budget schedule. and also, i might add, commissioner turner, this past january, we had a small meetings with deputy director robertson's budget

staff. prior to our public meetings where we could really get into it and ask questions and understand hand the budget carefully, since it's hard to do that in a in a large public meeting. so i'm sure the staff would be happy to do that again if we request it during the month of january so that we're all well prepared for our january 22nd meeting and well prepared for the eventual vote in february. i appreciate that. and deputy director robertson, maybe it is in in directors, correct? i'm getting confused as during chief resiliency officer strong's presentation on what i thought he said is that they started working in the fall to determine what our capital projects are, where our funding is going to be, and then that feeds into the instructions which feed. so it all of that, though, is happening internally until we see what seems to be a draft in january, then we have a preliminary that's in february, march, and then you guys submit through the city's normal process. that's okay. thank you.

if i got that right. uh, commissioner turner, bruce robertson, deputy director of finance and administration. that's absolutely correct. that the key date for us, february 21st per the charter. that's the date we need to submit it to the mayor's office. so everything really on the department side works back from that date. and so last year, i'm looking at my phone real quickly. it looks like we did come back in january for the first hearing in january and then the second hearing was february 3rd. so again, we need to make sure that we get everything done and check all the boxes before that key date of when we need to submit the budget to the mayor's office. february 21st. we are working on the budget now and we are putting together a schedule that will probably be finalized in the next few weeks. and once that's complete, we'll make sure we send a copy through the to the commissioners, through commission secretary fuller. not to beat a dead horse, but to be very, very clear. so what we anticipate getting into the end of this year is one from the

capital budget side. we'll know what they're envisioning and you guys will get budget instructions here, november, december that allows you to develop the draft budget that you'll submit to the commission in january. if the commission has any questions as as chair pose pointed, we can ask for special meetings to get those resolved. but the goal is by february, ideally before the 21st, we are submitting our budget on to the city, the mayor's office. we will submit it on february 21st, ideally a few days before, but there's usually changes up until the 11th hour, so we will do it then . and yes, we will absolutely hold individual briefings or small group sessions with commissioners to highlight and spend some more time doing a deeper dive. and also just to be clear, when we come before for the commission, it will include both operating and capital. that presentation will include our submissions for both. both. thank you. chair post. i would just encourage us to really think about how tight that

timeline is. we only have one meeting in january 3rd and then ideally you want this to happen before the 21st of february. it just seems if we have any inquiries or need to have those, you know, off meetings, we should start planning for them now. how effectively would only have about two and a half weeks? you yes, i think it's a good idea. and as i said, fortunately, we have in january before the 22nd for that that sort of as deep dive as as deputy director robertson described. so but it never hurts to plan ahead for people's calendars. get busy. so we'll do that then. commissioner, if i could add one point, it is a very tight timeline, but it kind of has to be a little bit of a tight timeline because if we go too early, there may still be too many moving parts and then if we go too late, we may not have enough time to be well, to have enough time to brief the commissioner to seek your approval before we have to meet that charter mandated submit submittal date. all right. this

is an action item. if there are any questions or comments, i will move that we adopt our the commission's 2024 meeting calendar. i second. great. please open public comment on this item. members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment on item seven. the adoption of the adoption of the public works commission 2024 meeting calendar and resolution may line up against the wall for this from the door in the hearing room. if you are calling in, dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access code. of (266)!a151-9374 0 pound poun. and then press star three to be recognized calendar back up.

and we do not have any members of the public in person who wish to speak on this item, but we are hearing from sfcv that there are there's there are two callers interested in speaking on this item. please unmute the first caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with the 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. okay, great. david pilpel again. so on this item, i like moving the meetings earlier to start it. 9 a.m. i have no issue right now with moving them to mondays. could be any day. we've tried fridays. let's try mondays. that's cool. i still think that an even earlier time would be great. like 8:15 a.m.

and you know start early, finish early. people get back to work, doesn't kill the whole day. i appreciate commissioner turner for pointing out the typos that was in the staff report in the chart. but i think the resolution itself has the correct dates and it says that they're all in 2024. and there was no issue with the dates themselves. it was just the year i did note the rules of order article three, section three calls for adopt, opting the calendar of regular meetings at the first regular meeting of the commission on or after the first day of december. so it talks about doing that in december. the next time the commission reviews the rules of order, i might amend that to say something like not later than on the first meeting of the commission in december, blah, blah, blah. because it does appear that this action today is

a bit in conflict with the rules and oh, actually, to the extent that you're doing that today, if your way waiving the rules to do that, then i think there's a process to suspend the rules to do something that's inconsistent, that's in article three, section one, you could suspend the rules for purpose of adoption adopting the regular meeting schedule today. i'll leave that to the commission secretary and the deputy city attorney to advise whether you need to do that. in any event, i think it may be time to take another look at the rules of order. and finally, i do not see any obvious holiday conflicts. i think the regular schedule works as proposed. and i did see some nothing else in the resolution. oh, in the first. whereas pursuant to the rule holds regular meetings on the second and fourth mondays as i might add something like in general

because the second whereas then speaks to specific dates that aren't entirely the second and fourth mondays and in the 31st resolved clause. thanks and then the first resolve clause, it's a little screwy. it reads the san francisco public works commission establishes the september 2024 public works commission meeting schedule. something should be reword worded there in the resolved clause and maybe in the second, whereas you could say that public works commission hereby schedules or intends to hold regular meetings on the following dates in 2024. anyway, those are my thoughts all the way around. sorry if it was a little convoluted and thanks for listening. thank you. caller and we have one other caller, sf govtv please unmute that. caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and 30s to and i'll provide you with a 32nd

notice. thank you, aaron. or here again, just sort of a comment on some experiences i have with the difference between this commission and the sf mta commission. both of which i tend to attend for purposes of discussing transportation for small wheeled mobility. and i note that these meetings tend to be much less attended in general by the public. and i wonder if that does have something to do with the time of day that it occurs. the mta commission meetings usually start at 1:00 pm and often go, well into the evening and are pretty well attended by members of the public. i agree with the previous caller that perhaps starting before 9 a.m. would offer some opportunity for people to attend, but just want to note that the issues that intersect with public works often intersect with things like those issues that i raised, but also those with things like houseless community. and there are various people who would otherwise show up to speak on these matters but are often at work and during these days issuing care to members of the

public. and so i would like to see the possibility explored of doing this later in the day such that more people could come either during their lunch hour or into the evening anyways, i appreciate that all of you work very hard and are only so available so often. so thank you for your time and would just love to see the public more involved to the best available. thank you. thank you. caller and that is our last call final caller for this item. thank you. uh, just a couple of questions for deputy city attorney tom. i don't have the our rules of order in front of me is it necessary to suspend them if we adopt the calendar today. good afternoon, commissioners. deputy city attorney christopher tom here. um, i believe it would be prudent to vote in your motion

to both suspend and the rules of order. uh, to the extent that they conflict with the timing of adopting your calendar in the same motion as, uh, your consideration of the adoption of the calendar for 2024. thank you. commissioner segal yeah. so i. the first time that i saw this is the new schedule. i knew that we were considering monday's, but the first time that i saw this is on our agenda this week and the first time that i actually saw it. for some reason i did not have that link. i don't know why, but the first time that i actually saw it presented is today here for a vote. so i would like to know if . if adopting this. it's

mandated that we do this at the before the end of the year. is that correct? so what happens if we don't accept it. we have until we have until until january. is that, uh, or till the end of december. so it's best practice to, to adopt a calendar before the year when the meetings begin. the regular calendar. yes. i'd like to see more discussion of this and more . there's. there's a lot going on with this in terms of what sas is doing and, you know, looking at our at our terms of office, some of you will actually not be commissioner was not not wishing that. but it's possible well after next june

and i'm the only one sitting here who will for sure be sitting after the first half of 2024. and i'd like to have i'd like to see more of this. i'm not prepared to vote for this yet. um, i'll address a couple of concerns as, as you know, we sometimes have a problem getting quorum at and secretary fuller did pull the five of us and monday's appeared to suggest a higher rate of getting quorum given people's work schedules. secondly, as i understand and the staff prefers this because then they have three monday commission meetings each month instead of some weeks where they have a commission meeting friday and then another one, the sanitation streets commission. three days later. so this is a nice way to have the departments do commission meetings spaced

out in terms of staff preparation for these these commission meetings and to accommodate our commissioners who work full time and travel as part of their work. they indicated mondays as a rule, would be much more convenient for them for fridays and that they felt they could attend more often. so that's why. and then of course later on top of regardless of what anybody prefers, staff or commissioners, is the difficulty of getting a hearing room for a minimum of four hours at a stretch. we remain the low commission on the totem pole, which means we get the dregs of what other commissioners don't want at. and i was delighted when secretary fuller arm wrestled or did something to secure a hearing room for monday mornings and so that that also is the wrinkle that always needs to be factored into this. so with all those

reasons, i think i'm pleased with the calendar. as i said, i think we'll have a higher chance of attendance by the five of us, as well as be easier for staff to prepare for the commission meetings. and we have a hearing room. so that's why i'm i, i hope that you would be comfortable adopting the, the schedule. commissioner turner, you had a comment? yeah. and i guess it's to commissioner newhouse. segal i think i hear what you're saying, and particularly with commissioner zarb and commissioner wolford out. i guess that is my question. we do technically have one more meeting before we really need to do this. and ideally not suspend the rules. so i hear you and i'm actually we did do a lot of work to find this date and time. my question is, is there any harm in waiting until the next meeting to go ahead and adopt this just to make sure, you know, commissioner newhouse, segal and others really don't have any further comments? i don't know if you can elected any comments from commissioner zoghbi or

wolford at this point as based on the comments i received from commissioners zoghbi and wolford. they're in support of this meeting cadence is to your first question and to commissioner newhouse seagulls concerns. i don't see any great cost in continuing this to the next meeting or even to the beginning of december if necessary. obviously, there's at least one typo in in the resolution that needs to be corrected as well. so i'm i'm comfortable with with moving this to a later consideration then chair pose with that i would actually move that we continue this item until the next meeting that will allow the revisions to the resolution itself along with gathering any other additional feedback from staff and the commission on that's fine. i will second the motion. um we've had public

comment on this, but not on the motion. i guess, have we? i can't even remember. so there's actually an active motion to adopt. that's right. and did i make that? so you will withdraw, you, you, you made the motion so you would need to withdraw it the prior motion and then we will open public comment on this new motion, which is to continue the calendar vote out to two weeks from now at our next meeting. and just to make sure that i have it correct, commissioner turner made the motion to continue. okay and i seconded it. yes so now we'll have public comment on this new motion. please okay. thank you. okay on the motion to continue this item and to a to the no. november 3rd meeting of this commission on members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on this

motion may line up against the wall for this from the door. if you're in the chamber, if you're calling in, dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access code of. (266)!a151-93740 pound pound. and then press star three to raise your hand to speak. and in the. in the chamber we do not have any members of the public who have come forward to speak on this item and we do have one caller who has raised their hand to speak on this item as of govtv. please please unmute this caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice. great david pilpel again. so you already took public comment on this item. i think you're exercising your discretion to reopen public comment on sorry,

on this specific motion. i don't think this sets a precedent for the future, for reopening public comment when you've already closed it, although exercising your discretion is fine. i support the motion to continue this matter to your next meeting of november 3rd. thanks for listening. thank you. caller and that is our only caller on this item. thank you, commissioner turner, did you have a further comment or question? no. all right, great. all in favor of adopting the motion? please say yes or i. i it's unanimous. thank you very much. um, deputy city attorney tom, may i amend the order of today's agenda at this point, or did i miss the boat on that? earlier in the meeting. um typically, the order is, um, changed at the beginning , but i don't see. there's no reason you couldn't. the

commission couldn't change the order of items right now. thank you. i'd like to suggest that we amend the agenda to take the number 11 new business initiated by commissioners. now we will not need item 12 general public comment. i do this so that people, when we go into closed session that can be basically considered the end of the public portion of our meeting and people don't need to wait around or check back in. so that's why i would like to propose amending our agenda to take new business. now, before we vote to go into closed session, if that's all right with everybody. we okay. do we need a motion to amend it? i can't remember. i don't know that we need a motion on. i think my commissioners deputy city attorney chris tom, i. i don't think you need a motion, but the practice has been varied

, so i'll leave it at that. i'm going to take the practice, the variance. what we don't need a motion. i do not have any new business to initiate. do my colleagues on the commission have any new business to initiate that they'd like to see on future agendas? all right, good. good all righty. uh, commissioner. excuse me. secretary fuller. please call the next item on today's agenda. i'm sorry. so there was no new business? yes, there is no new business. yes, there is no new business initiated today. okay. we do need to take public comment on that. i beg your pardon? yes, we do. thank you. so members of the public who wish to make three, three minutes of comment on item eight, which or pardon me, item 11, which was heard out of order , new business initiated by commissioners may line up against the wall for this from

the dwarf here in the chamber for if you're calling in dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting number access code. of (266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. and then press star three to raise your hand to be able to speak. okay. we do not have members of the public who have come forth to speak on this item and as kfxb-tv is letting me know that we do not have any callers who want to speak on this item 11. so that concludes public comment. thank you, secretary fuller. please call the next item on the agenda. so returning to the order of business on the agenda, item eight is conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation on deputy city attorney's christopher tom and kristin jensen will meet with the commission and the

commission will need a motion, public comment and vote to enter closed session. thank you. is there a motion? in a second to enter closed. thank you. i will second to hear the closed session conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. given the motion, we will now turn to public comment. members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment on the motion to enter closed session may line up against the wall furthest from the door if present. if you are calling in, dial (415)!a655-0001 and use the meeting access code. of (266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. and then press star three to raise your hand to speak. we'll hear from folks in the chamber first. and there are no members who of the public who have come forth to speak on this motion. sf gov tv do we have any callers who wanted to speak on the motion to enter closed session?

and we do have one caller, so please go ahead and unmute that. caller and caller. you'll have three minutes to speak and i'll provide you with a 32nd notice. great. david pilpel last time today. so i believe this may be the first closed session regarding ending litigation that this commission has had first or second, maybe the first. in my experience, the best practice here as to the agenda is to some arise the nature of the claim or the litigation matter. the agenda does provide the minimum information on the case, name, number, venue and date. that was filed and the proposed settlement of 450,000in exchange for dismissal. but it does not characterize the nature of the

claim or allegation. so by comparison, the board of supervisors primarily at the government audit and oversight committee, when considering settlement of litigation, has little tagline at the end that the lawsuit or claim involves an employment dispute or a personal injury on a city sidewalk or alleged dangerous condition on public property. something to give some color or flavor of the nature of the matter. this particular item appears to be a federal case. i don't have access to pacer, so i have no way to look the thing up. i have no particular interest in doing so. in any event, i don't know that it's fatal to today. it's certainly not. but in the future, if the city attorney could also include that, you know, just a few words at the end this this matter involves an alleged something or other that

would be very helpful to the public, perhaps to some of you as well. and also to indicate if the commission would be taking final action on the matter or if it's the board of supervisors that ultimately approves some settlements are within the commission's jurisdiction. some are within the board's jurisdiction upon recommendation of the commission. and i think let me see if there was one other point i wanted to make here. one moment. 30s. i think that's the good for the oh, i remember now other boards and commissions also prepare a resolution on on litigation settlement. it's the mta board

is a good example there. that was also why i suggested that commission secretary fuller meet with the mta board secretary to see how that works, because this would suggest to me if the commission approves this, that there would be a resolution that that flows. and even if it's pretty bare bones, having a proposed resolution i think would help. so those are some suggestions for the future. and i have no comment on the underlying action. thanks again for listening and have a great weekend. and that concludes public comment on the motion. thank you very much. is there any debate on the motion hearing? no. all in favor of entering closed session? please say yes or i. i. i the vote is unanimous. secretary excuse me. we will now move to closed session all members of the public and staff not part of

this discussion are asked to please leave the hearing room. we will take a few minutes for people to exit the chambers we are returning from our closed session. i would like to make a motion that we not disclose. close the discussion during closed session. is there a second commissioner? seconds we will now open public comment on the motion. members of the public who wish to make a three minutes of comment on the motion to not disclose discussions during closed session may line up against the wall for this from the door. if you are present, please dial. if you're not if you're calling in, please . dial (415)!a655-0001. use the meeting. access. code (266)!a151-9374 0 pound pound. and then press star three to raise your hand to speak. okay. we have no members of the public in person and we have. and we

have no members of the public who have raised their hand to speak on this item. so that concludes public comment on this motion. thank you. we will now take a vote on the motion. all in favor say aye or yes? aye. and the motion passes. and the action of the commission will be posted on the next at the next business day. is that correct? it will be posted at the next business day. i believe that concludes our regular calendar. is that correct, secretary fuller? that is correct. we do not have any other business on this agenda. our next meeting then will be on friday, november third at 9:30 a.m. and we are now adjourned. thank you.

>> shared spaces have transformed san francisco's adjacent sidewalks, local business communities are more resilient and their neighborhood centers are more vibrant and mildly. sidewalks and parking lanes can be used for outdoor seating, dining, merchandising, and other community activities. we're counting on operators of shared spaces to ensure their

sites are safe and accessible for all. people with disabilities enjoy all types of spaces. please provide at least 8 feet of open uninterrupted sidewalk so everyone can get through. sidewalk diverter let those who have low vision navigate through dining and other activity areas on the sidewalk. these devices are rectangular planters or boxes that are placed on the sidewalk at the ends of each shared space and need to be at least 12 inches wide and 24 inches long and 30 inches tall. they can be on wheels to make it easy to bring in and out at the start and the end of each day. but during business hours, they should be stationary and secure. please provide at least one wheelchair accessible dining table in your shared space so the disability people can patronize your business. to

ensure that wheelchair users can get to the wheelchair accessible area in the park area, provide an adequate ramp or parklet ramps are even with the curb. nobody wants to trip or get stuck. cable covers or cable ramps can create tripping hazards and difficulties for wheelchair users so they are not permitted on sidewalks. instead, electrical cables should run overhead at least ten feet above sidewalk. these updates to the shared spaces program will help to ensure safety and accessibility for everyone, so that we can all enjoy these public spaces. more information is available at sf.govt/shared spaces.

>> welcome to i'm a cochair for san francisco mayor disability. today is october 20th. 2023. welcome, everybody. present on zoom.