patty zarb present. vice chair zarb is present with three members present. we do have quorum for the public works commission meeting. public comment is taken for all informational and action items on today's agenda and to comment in person, please line up against the wall closest or i guess closest to these two screens. the audience is right.

when public comment is called. and for members of the public wishing to comment on an item from outside the hearing room, you may do so by joining via webinar through the link shown on page two of today's agenda, and to be recognized, select the raise your hand icon in the webinar. you may also comment from outside the chamber by dialing (415) 655-0001 and using the meeting id of (266) 481-6148 5 pound pound. and to raise your hand to speak, press star three. the telephone login information is also available on pages one and two of today's agenda. commenters may speak for up to three minutes per item, and you will receive a 32nd notice when you're speaking. time is about to expire in the event we have many commenters on an item, the chair may reduce the public comment time per person to less than three minutes. 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 comments to the agenda item at hand. we ask that the public that public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner, and that you refrain from the use of profanity, abusive or 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 submit comments in writing via our email address. public works dot commission at sfdp. .org or by mail to 49 south van ness, suite 1600, san francisco, california 94103. and on behalf of the commission, we extend our thanks to the sfgovtv building management and media services staff for helping make this special meeting possible.

chair post, thank you. before we go on to the next item, which are announcements, do any of my colleagues have any changes or additions or requests regarding today's agenda? i will only point out that we did make a modification from our usual format today to accommodate director short's presentation. we have moved it closer to the end of the meeting. it made more sense for the items she will be discussing today, so we won't hear that toward the beginning of the meeting as we normally do. otherwise, that's the only change i've had to the agenda. all right, well, then we'll move on to announcements. i only have one today. and that is to point out, since we haven't met for quite a while, the july and august issues of the departments in the works newsletter, which have a number of always interesting articles and wonderful graphics and videos regarding a number of projects we've reviewed here at the

commission, but also many new ones. the mission branch library renovation, workforce development at the new nursery, and an art exhibit. there that i recommend. our curb ramp construction program. the initial planning for a new park that is underway under some freeway ramps in the soma neighborhood. the replacement of fireboat manifolds, which is really interesting if you don't know what a fireboat manifold is, i strongly encourage you to take a look at the august newsletter maintenance of sfpd's gun range, and i would only make an editorial comment. a new gun range is desperately needed for the city's police department, and we look forward to bond funding, which has been delayed, to be freed up for that new project. also in our newsletters, the marina neighborhood paving project was featured and our love our city volunteer work in district two and soma. that concludes my announcements. do any of my colleagues have announcements today? secretary fuller, any announcements on your end? my only announcements are also

first. welcome back from our august recess. but then also we will be we i have circulated a draft calendar for calendar year 2025 for our meetings and we'll be having ongoing discussions about what makes the most sense for commissioners, staff, and the public. but we'll be working on that to adopt a new calendar early this fall. so great. that's my only announcement. thank you. please open this item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item one. announcements by the chair, commissioners and secretary may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or press star three on your phone to be recognized.

okay looks like we have one in person commenter, you'll be given three minutes to speak and you'll get a 32nd chime when your time is about to expire. if you don't mind introducing yourself and your time begins now. thank you very much, aaron. we're here, just commenting on press clippings, things like that, the sf gazetteer published an article recently about the botts dots on dolores hill bomb, which included quotes from dpw. responding to requests by raphael mandelman's office to maintain those dots, stating that they were being used inappropriately and that they were not intended for the purposes of stopping

skateboarding or slowing traffic on dolores street, and that they were hesitant to continue maintaining them despite the fact that they were insisted upon by raphael mandelman. so i just want to make sure that these sorts of things don't get overlooked in the press clippings, as there is journalism being done, citing public works authority being overridden by political interests on behalf of district eight. thank you. thank you. and sfgovtv, do we have any callers at this time? and they are indicating that we do not. so that concludes public comment on item one. thank you. please call the next item on the agenda. item two is general public comment, which is for topics under the commission's mandate but not related to a specific item on today's agenda. and members of the public who wish to make three minutes of general public comment in person may

again line up against the wall for this from the door. and if commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three in your phone to be recognized. mr. moore, you'll have another three minutes and, do you want to project something? okay. sfgovtv if we could show the projector as wel. thank you. i'd like to use this time to play this clip recorded recently on shotwell. this is san francisco police operating on behalf as they quoted a public works enforcing the clearing of people who, as they, as the code they cited, said were illegally, residing on the

sidewalk. this video begins with the police kicking their tent continues with these folks loading all of their belongings into a bin, hoisting it onto of all things, a skateboard and rolling all of their things away down the street. while the police continue on disassembling their tent in order for it to be tagged and held by public works. from talking to a social worker that i know, it is my understanding that these tents do not need to be withheld, that people should have the opportunity to disassemble their tents and move on. and yet the police here did not give these people the opportunity to do so. they're doing this on behalf of public works. they said they were just doing their job. so as somebody who comes here to advocate for skateboards and people who rely on things with small wheels, i'm sure you can see here that my constituents include houseless folks who,

when forced by the police, have to wheel their entire belongings away on the sidewalk. so question for you all is whether or not you feel that sfpd is doing the right thing here. and whether the code is being implemented appropriately. there was no sf public works present in this moment, just these two police officers taking these people's home apart to be bagged and tagged for these people to eventually reclaim. i would urge you to send observers from public works to make sure that people actually have appropriate opportunities to take their homes with them when they're being kicked out by people with guns. thank you. we can just, let this roll for a second badge numbers are shown here, and i'll be sure to leave a note with the public works code that they were

citing. 30s. and your time has expired. thank you. and sfgovtv. are there any other are there any other callers wishing to speak during, general public comment? okay. and they are indicating that there are none. so that concludes general public commen. thank you. please call the next item item. item three is the consent calendar of routine matters. it includes draft

minutes from the july 22nd and july 29th meetings of the public works commission, 13 contract awards, and four contract modifications. one one correction of note that was caught at the last minute is item s, there's a typo in the title calling it potrero tower station. it should be the potrero power station, which is indicated in the staff report and the resolution. but that was missed in the actual agenda. so just want to make sure that is marked consent calendar items can be heard individually upon request by a commissioner staff or the public, and adoption of the consent calendar and all resolutions contained in it is an action item. but before a motion is made, i'm happy to make any corrections to the minutes and any questions. i have no corrections to the minutes and i regret that i did

not get two questions about the consent calendar, to staff in time to speak at this meeting. so i'd like to request just brief written answers. director short to my two questions. and again, i apologize for not getting these to you well in advance of the meeting so that they could be answered immediately, disregard my two questions are regard item three q the rent board tenant improvement project, that is a contract modification. i just would like to know just briefly what lessons were learned from this project. i understand it's going to be delayed now over three months. it sounds like there are a variety of scoping issues that didn't get caught initially that have been caught along the way. it's quite a laundry list, i thought. and just just a brief comment on can we do better going forward, not we public works per se, but when we scope projects when they're unknown and unforeseen conditions, which i do

appreciate, particularly in old buildings. just it just seemed that there were a lot here for what's not really that big a project. and my other question was for three, are the rebid on the south venice avenue elevator modernization? i just wanted a little more color on why this was rebid. i did read the report, but just a little more background on on why this was rebid. so again, brief written answers. it would be more than sufficient. thank you very much. so if any other questions. otherwise i will move to approve the consent calendar today. is there a second? second? thank you. please open the motion to public comment. members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment in person on the motion to approve item three, the consent calendar and all resolutions contained in it may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if

commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or press star three on your phone to be recognized. okay mr. breitbart, do you have any to project something again or okay, sfgovtv, if you could show the projector and you have three minutes to speak. thank you. my understanding is that the consent calendar includes the sidewalk maintenance contract, unless i'm incorrect, but i want to cite, ada compliance. this is changes in level section 303.3. changes in level between one quarter inch and one half inch maximum shall be beveled with a slope not steeper than 1 to 2. a change in level of one half inch is permitted to be one quarter inch vertical plus quarter inch bevel. however, in no case may the combined change level exceed half an inch. changes in level exceeding one half inch must be must comply with 405 and 406

ramps. changes in level greater than a half inch shall be ramped and shall comply with 405. shown there okay, i've been here before to talk about this. this is the standard detail for driveways in san francisco. thank you, director short for letting me have a meeting with some of the engineers. i appreciate that the engineers told me that driveways are for cars. that's like saying streets are for cars or sidewalks are for just walking. we know that we have a reality that is different than code states. this engineering drawing is not ada compliant, simply put. so sidewalk maintenance five year contract should include bringing all sidewalks within san francisco within ada compliance. more specifically, the reality of the driveways in san

francisco are not ada compliant. so regardless of what the drawings state or what any engineer believes, that driveways are for the production of these facilities is not in line with the standards, and the standards are not in line with the ada, so we'd love to see that addressed explicitly within the scope of work of this contract, which i believe is being approved today, and if this is not included, i believe that that contract should not be approved and that the scope of work should be readdressed to include this, as this is a five year contract for millions of dollars, and regardless of what the ada says, it should not ever be weaponized as a maximum standard of care. so let's see what we can do to fix this. thank you. thank you. and there are no more in-person speakers and sfgovtv is also indicating

we do not have any callers at this time. so that concludes public comment. thank you. if there are no further questions or discussion, all in favor of the motion, please say aye or yes. i aye. and it passes unanimously. and the consent item resolutions will be posted to the commission's website. secretary fuller, please call the next item. turning to the regular calendar. item four is the various locations. pavement renovation number 62 and sewer replacement contract award and project manager edmund lee is here to present this contract award, and it is an action item.

right. good morning. good morning, chair post commissioners, deputy city attorney tom and director carlos schwartz, edmund lee, public works project manager for the infrastructure design and construction division, it's been a while. glad to see everybody again, today i'm here to present on the various locations pavement renovation number 62 and sewer replacement project. i'm recommending to award this contract the various locations, pavement renovation number 62 and sewer replacement contract in the amount of $7,866,714.20,

with the construction duration of 425 calendar days to the contractor s construction management. as this contract contributes to the overall goal of maintaining or increasing the overall average condition of streets maintained by public works. i mentioned many times, but san francisco public works maintains approximately 12,900 street segments, and this is one of several contracts that implements the public works street resurfacing programs goal of maintaining and improving the overall average condition of the streets maintained by public works in san francisco and along with geographic equitable distribution of the street, resurfacing in all 11 districts neighborhoods, the public works street resurfacing program considers factors such as pavement condition, use of street, and coordination with other agencies, inquiries and available funding when planning and issuing contracts. and this is a map on the left of the

locations of work within our contract, as well as a list on the right side. for reference, this project has scope of work throughout various neighborhoods and districts five, three, five, and six such as downtown, civic center, tenderloin. south of market consists of pavement resurfacing on 34 blocks and 15 intersections and constructing ten curb ramps. sfmta has also joined our contract with electrical conduit work and the sfpuc has also joined our contract with four blocks of sewer rehabilitation. and this slide shows the overall life of the project. all the highlighted blue columns is sort of what's what's already past the vertical dark line shows today. and then the light gray columns show the future of the project. so, so far, you know, we've we've had

our planning and design and advertisement phases. currently we're in this awarding phase with hopefully with the commission's approval today, we can kind of proceed with the award and, move on to construction and with the implementation and close out of the project. all right, so june 26th was when we opened the bid, we advertised april 18th of 2024. we received four bids and the average bid was $9,548,448, $0.79, percentage of the average bid of all four bidders, compared to our engineer's estimate, was 120%, or a difference of approximately 1.6 million. the percentage of the lowest bid submitted by rnz construction management was 99% of our engineer's estimate, or a difference of about $83,000. after applying the appropriate bid discounts based on local

business enterprise statuses, gns construction management would remain the lowest bidder and our contract monitoring division from the office of city administrator reviewed, confirmed and made the determination that gns construction management, with a 10% micro hlb discount, was the lowest responsive bidder. this slide shows the breakdown of the cost share of the different sponsoring agencies. i do apologize for one error on this slide with the contractor. low bid reference. it says bassett engineering, but it should be gns construction management inc. so the main sponsor of this project is public works. with about $4.5 million of resurfacing and curb ramp work, then we have our sister agencies of public utilities commission, as well as the sfmta and our standard contingency. we apply a

10%. just to recap on the ask today is the recommendation is to award this various locations pavement renovation number 62 and sewer replacement contract. in the amount of $7,866,714.20, with a construction duration of 425 calendar days to gns construction management. happy to take any questions the commission may have. thank you, mr. lee. nice to see you as always. i do have just a few questions, why was there such a large difference between the high and low bids? i did look at the background information, and i saw that there had been an adjustment to the high bidder. but what what were the main components that, accounted for that difference? sure, i can see go back. well, so out of the four bids, r and s construction management as well as, esquivel

paving, those were the two bids that were pretty close to our engineer's estimate, the other two from mitchell and baumann were, you know, were sort of the ones that were much higher, overall, between all four bids, all of our scope of work, our public works scope of work, of the resurfacing and curb ramps was actually pretty spawn on, slightly under our estimate. or, you know, well, within the 10% range, mainly the other factors were sort of related to the either the other scopes of work or other support services that are part of the contract. such as traffic, traffic control, bid items or, muni overhead line de-energization bid items. so it was sort of a combination, you know, one contract, one contractor is higher in this in this category and lower in this category and so forth. but as i mentioned, overall between all four, our public works scope of

work was was pretty close to the engineer's estimate. great. so in other words, it was some of the other city agencies that perhaps were a little under on their estimate, such as muni wire overhead. correct. okay. got it. thank you very much. that's very helpful. i also, slide four, which is the map of the segments that will be worked on. on if we can go to quickly go to that page for a second. thank you. i think these maps are fantastic. director short would be possible. i see deputy director robertson is in the office too. in the audience that annually. perhaps it's in the annual performance metrics report. we have a five year map. let me know if this you think this is doable. let me first say the greater issue to ensure that all neighborhoods are getting adequate attention from public works. so the department is never accused of favoring one neighborhood over another for any reason. it would be great to see where all this work paving works happens annually with a five year snapshot. i would

expect that most of it would be in the northeast quadrant of the city and the major commercial corridors, and the other three quadrants, just given the wear and tear from density, commercial industrial uses. that would be my guess. in other words, i'm not going to expect to see you know, equitable and even paving throughout the city. and so those reasons would, of course, be noted if it doesn't look even right. we're not just throwing darts at the dart board. so but i think it would be really interesting to again, update it every year for a five year snapshot on where in the city, what segments were redone. so again, there's no district supervisor or neighborhood activist group could say our streets are messy. they've been a mess for 20 years. why don't you aren't you here? we say, well, actually, and we can always demonstrate. demonstrate how? we decide which segments get repaved and maintained and what goes into those decisions. would that be? i mean, just since we're doing these maps now, it's just a question of merging them and updating them.

do you think that's doable and would that be useful, do you think maybe deputy director or director gordon thinks, you know, that would be helpful to her when she responds to requests on why hasn't my block been done for since i moved here 20 years ago or whatever? what do you think about that, director shaw? yeah, i think that is very doable. we actually do an annual look at all the work that's been completed, so we could just, compile those. i can, i can touch on that a little bit too, actually. yeah. so we actually do prepare, you know, some of these maps that, that you're talking about, a lot of the, the local grants that we apply for, you know, require us to sort of show what our overall scope of work is with, you know, with the funding. but also we show, you know, with our sort of the, our whole program, you know, by fiscal year and also sort of the, the lookout of the, you know, the five years as well as the history in the past of what we've resurfaced, you know, over the past decade, are our street resurfacing program website also has an interactive

map on there that you can kind of zoom in and to a particular block or zoom out if you want a more holistic view and see what we've resurfaced over, over the life as well. so a couple of different areas where, you know, we can reference that, but i believe we have, i think an annual update to our resurfacing program coming up, i believe, next month. we can have that incorporated into the update just for your reference. that would be great. thanks. so i'm not surprised you're already doing this. yeah. so and to chair to chair post's comment, i think just as important as the map is the qualifications of why streets are being done, because it's not because they're distributed evenly, it's because they are in need of work, because they have more traffic. right exactly. it's just yeah, i mean, it's just to make sure again, that no supervisors always getting that that area blocks paved or things like that to make sure it's not squeaky wheels that get paved but just need. sure, sure. and i believe

this will be our first, annual update from our program. so we do have some slides prepared in there that sort of give a little bit of background and strategy and methodology of our program. so perfect. thank you very much, and then i guess my only other comment would be that i look forward to hearing how the progress on this particular contract has come along in in a year from now. so, secretary fuller, we can make a note on our forward calendar to hear from mr. lee just briefly on on where we are in your timeline that you showed us. if we're on schedule. thank you. commissioner selby, i know you had a question earlier. do you still have that question? yeah, sure. i'll just follow up to her question about i actually i mean, i did try to see and understand why these contractors are giving such a wide range because the winning the winning bid was like 32% lower than the highest bid. i, couldn't, couldn't decipher it. so i would like to make a request for the

future to maybe give a short presentation about page two in the attachments, which has the, you know, the bid items, quantities. i'm not sure if i can i share my i can't share that. yeah which, which is this? yeah. just to learn these. yeah. yeah. for sure. okay and, and just, just like chair post said, i would love, you know, just to get an update on this and see we get a lot of change orders. i want to see, you know, i just want to study on what type of change orders we've had on this project. and did it actually surpass the highest previous bi. oh i see, okay. right thank you, commissioner wolford, i was just going to share that if you actually look at the bid prices, they're not in an unreasonable

range from one another. you know, there's many there's the reason why that they're lower when you look at the adjusted bid price, is that the selected bid had a 10% discount because of the participation for minority microbusiness, you know, participants. but the range is actually in the normal acceptable range. one would generally see probably a 20% swing in a contracting number. and when you think about street, streets involve asphalt. asphalt involves petrol and people are putting in prices not knowing where petrol is going to be within the time span of this award. so they're putting in their own contingency because they really don't have the ability to come back and ask the city for more funds because they underestimated what it would cost them at the max. so when i look at these numbers, i see a really normal range. but to commissioner selby's question, i think it would be helpful for the public to understand what goes into you know, a bid at a high level without breaking it down into kind of micro pieces.

but just what constitutes a bid? and at a, at a level for the public to understand the great idea. thank you. any other questions or comments for mr. lee before we open this item to public comment? all right. let's please open this item to public comment. i suppose we'll have a motion. actually, i will move to award this contract, i'll second now open the motion in public comment. thank you. chair post, motion to approve. and vice chair rossabi seconded it. okay, great, members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on the motion to approve item four, the various locations, pavement renovation number 62, and sewer replacement contract award may line up against the wall. furthest from the door. and if commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your button. raise your hand

button in the webinar or press star three on your phone to be recognized. and we have one commenter in person. you're projecting again. okay, sfgovtv if we could have the projector and your time, your three minutes begins now. thank you. and we're here again, first, thanks so much for all the repaving efforts, they do not go unnoticed. my ride to here has gotten significantly better since van ness was improved. i'm looking forward to division street being repaved because it is particularly dangerous underneath there, shown here is some of the repaving done in the sunset district. this is just above kintara at 14th street. super nice. love it. skate here all the time. i've been skating here for the last 15 years. makes a big difference. when my friends and i go out to play. shown here is shotwell street. this is at 14th street, if it's

not clear just by the way, that the light plays on the ground, the new pavement, as i've noted before, is incredibly rough. bryant just a few blocks over, is more like the pavement on the first picture shown. but these these contract discussions never include any details about the aggregate to be used or anything like that. so repaving alone does not guarantee quality. and we've discussed how these things can be harmful when people fall on them. they can slow people down when they try to roll over them on. things with small wheels can be turbulent when rolling over them in wheelchairs. et cetera. et cetera. so i think it's really important that the public gets more breakdown on these sorts of things. i understand that the mta has the lion's share of advocacy in it, as noted by or as evidenced by the fact that i am often the only one here to speak on behalf of the public. and yet, it's important for you

all to know that there are many, many advocates who just seem to concern themselves with the mta because they are mostly concerned with walking and biking and so are not sensitive to these sorts of things. but these nonetheless affect low income people as we just saw in the last video, who rely on things with small wheels to get about in the world, missing from the map, i would note, is market street, which is, well within the bounds of the work area. i have previously tried to ride a bicycle down market street all the way out to the ferry building, and am continuously jostled about the challenge for me in that instance is that market street has sidewalks with brickwork that are laid perpendicular to the path of travel, and so my choices are between a very vibratory sidewalk and a street that is full of potholes, so stand in question for me as to why market street does not include it in

this contract, that it is well within the work area. thank you. thank you. and sfgovtv is indicating, oh is indicating we do not have any callers on this item either. so that concludes public comment on item four. thank you. all in favor of the motion, please say i or yes, i and the motion passes unanimously. thank you again, mr. lee, for addressing us today. thank you. commissioners and the resolution will be posted to the commission's website. secretary fuller, please call the next item on the agenda. item five is the director's report. and communications and public works director carla shaw is here to present. and this is an informational item. good mornin. good morning, commissioners

carla short, director of san francisco public works. i have several topics i'd like to cover today, chair post. i think you had asked for a brief update on how the grants pass ruling affects our work. so i wanted to give you that today, as you know, a federal injunction was in place restricting how san francisco could remove encampments. a portion of the injunction was lifted in late july in response to a ruling by the us supreme court. that portion concerned when san francisco can cite or arrest someone for violating our ordinances about sleeping or erecting tents in public, what has not changed since the grants pass ruling is our bag and tag policy, which pertains to the storage and disposal of unhoused people's belongings. the policy continues to be litigated in federal court, and the city remains under an injunction to

comply with its own bag and tag policy. while san francisco continues to conduct encampment operations through the healthy streets operation center initiative by offering shelter and services to those on the street, the city now is able to better enforce laws when refusals of shelters occur. this includes being able to follow up at a later time to an area that has recently been cleared in order to prevent encampment. in addition, public works staff is working with the police departments district officers to address smaller encampments on a daily basis. the goal of these engagements is to prevent encampments for areas recently cleared and to prevent small encampments from becoming larger ones. police officers conduct regular canvasses of their areas to identify any new encampments, and then work with our staff to clear them. okay. moving on. i am pleased to report that jason

anderson has joined your sister commission, the sanitation and streets commission, nominated by mayor breed and approved by the board of supervisors. commissioner anderson has been appointed to a full four year term ending july one, 2028. a fourth generation san franciscan, he earned his j.d. at uc law, san francisco and has worked as corporate counsel for 23 and me and law clerk at paul, weiss, rifkind, wharton and garrison llp here in the city. his addition means that all five of our sas commission seats are now filled. last month, public works staff welcomed a delegation of government officials and leaders from kazakhstan to our 49 south van ness headquarters to share with them san francisco's approach to earthquake resiliency and building safety. the q&a discussion was part of the us departments of state, department of state's international visitor leadership program. as the state department's premier professional exchange program.

current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields develop lasting relationships with their american counterparts through short term exchanges. city architect ron alameda building design and construction project manager, management bureau manager magdalena reiher, public works chief structural engineer ray lewis, and senior earthquake resilience analyst laurel mathews from the city administrator's office of resilience and capital planning, met with the officials from kazakhstan to share their knowledge and expertise, and our second group of global visitors just last week were from the municipal engineering foundation in victoria, australia. they came to meet with christina oliva, project manager with the bureau of project management and idc, and staff from our paving program to learn about road rehabilitation and reconstruction and waste reduction and reuse. these people to people. meetups provide great opportunities to tap knowledge and skill sets on

a global scale. i have to say, years ago i met with some folks from operations division in, from stockholm, and i was both heartened and a little discouraged that we had so many of the same challenges in terms of graffiti challenges and vandalism in large municipal cities. so it's misery loves company. i guess all right. new flashing beacons. last month we held a ribbon cutting in the outer richmond for a set of new solar powered crosswalk safety beacons that were installed with the help of our skilled trades workers and engineers. the beacons aim to bolster pedestrian safety. the new light fixtures, located at the crosswalk of 38th avenue and geary boulevard and formerly known as you've heard as rectangular, rapid, fast, rapid flashing beacons can be activated with the push of a button by any pedestrian wanting to safely cross the busy boulevard. once turned on, the

flashing lights alert drivers that someone is looking to cross the road. this is a collaborative project with the public works and sfmta. several public works teams are involved in this vital effort, including project management, disability access coordination and engineering, and from our operations side, carpenters, electricians and cement masons help with the installation work. under this initiative, public works installed the first safety beacon. earlier this year in dimond heights neighborhood at duncan street and diamond heights boulevard. the outer richmond one marks the second. the next flashing beacon is set to be installed at clayton and fulton streets, near the university of san francisco, and it is gravely needed at 38th and geary. when we were turning on the beacon and crossing the street, cars honked at us, so it was pretty shocking. yeah i wanted to share that 311 is expanding their language access.

and last week, deputy director alaric degraffenreid participated in a press conference with 311 to announce the expansion of language access at the 311 customer service center with the sf 311 mobile app now available in chinese, spanish and filipino. no longer just english, the 311 customer service center is vital to the work we do on behalf of the people of san francisco. in fact, public works receives more 311 service requests than any other city department, accounting for one third of all 311 service requests last year, we received 278,285 service requests through the 311 system. that's almost 38 requests an hour, or one every two minutes, every day of the year. i want to take this opportunity to encourage members of the public to get that number up, but truly to use 311, because it does make a difference and it does help us both track and manage our work.

all right. latinx hispanic heritage month this week marks the beginning of latinx hispanic heritage month. as always, our all star latinx hispanic heritage month committee has orchestrated a month packed with exciting events and informative presentations. this year's theme is honoring and recognizing latinx hispanic people's contributions to the sciences, which i am particularly excited to learn more about because there are so many intersections with the work we do here at public works. in addition to a variety of great events, the heritage team will be sending out emails that highlight and explain some of the most significant scientific contributions of the latinx, hispanic community. i want to give a huge thank you to the entire latinx hispanic heritage month planning committee for their work to organize and promote all of these exciting events. it's great seeing everyone gather, learn about, and celebrate the diversity that makes our department so strong. and lastly, as a reminder, our

next neighborhood beautification day greening and cleaning work day will take place in the bayview, dogpatch, potrero hill and other district ten neighborhoods on saturday, september 21st. this is a great opportunity to beautify the neighborhoods, meet neighbors, and give back to the community. kickoff is at 9 a.m. at the bayview casey jones playground, which is at 1601 armstrong avenue and more information can be found on our website at sf public works .org/ volunteer. i hope you can join us. and that wraps up today's report. thank you. i have no questions or comments for director shaw. do my colleagues. secretary fuller, please open this item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item five. the director's report may line up against the wall for

this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or press star three on your phone to be recognized. okay, mr. brimmer, you have three minutes to speak and you're projecting again, correct? yep. okay all right, shown on screen. great i'm just going to keep presenting on this until we address it, because we keep getting encouragement about 311 reports. so i've made at least a dozen about this. this photo is about a year ago. almost. exactly. so i'm just going to proceed. this is august 1st, 2023. oh, i'm sorry. my

apologies. let's get this just right. hopefully this will work out okay. yeah. august 14th. these fences just continue to grow. they started as a line here they are blocking somebody getting out of their car with a wheelchair. here they are protruding into the sidewalk. they just get bigger and bigger. they go away for a minute. when i report them. and then they come back in different orientations every single time. more and more dense over and over again. sorry, those ones are on the other side of the street. let's keep going. these are here in order to block the sunday market, right? that's what they're for. and yet they're up 24 hours a day, seven days a week. this is the block

away from my just a block away from my house. the sunday market doesn't not happen anymore. it just makes it all the more dangerous for people to walk through the area. these fences expand and expand and expand again, protruding into the right of way. so there's all this talk about houseless folks who don't have anywhere to go being in the right of way, but there's no discussion of the way that private building owners are weaponizing public works using the ada as a shield to say, well, the sidewalk is still compliant in order to compromise access to the street. that's what ada compliance looks like. apparently but you see how much extra sidewalk there is and how hard it might be to pass somebody on the sidewalk when they're walking towards you. now that this has been compromised, this is what it looks like toda. so fences, cones, you know, and all of this to stop some people gathering in public on a sunday.

so i'm going to just continue to bring this up because 311 calls don't work. and the ada is being weaponized to say that this is excusable. this was previously my favorite block. on my way home, i would ride downhill from wherever i was to get to my house. it's one block away from my house now. it's super dangerous. there are so many tripping hazards which are approved by public works anytime there are two people ahead of me. as you can see in this photo, i now have to come to a complete stop. the right of way is being compromised. we would never accept this for cars in the street. your time has expired. thank you. and sfgovtv is. there are no other in-person commenters and sfgovtv is indicating we do not have any other callers. so that concludes public comment on the director's report. thank you. please call the next item. item six is the commission's response to the civil grand jury report from

june 20th, 2024, and chair post will present this item and i do have a visual to show. and sfgovtv, if you could show the clerk pc. thank you. since our response is posted and attached to today's agenda and posted, i'll try to be brief here. as we've discussed before, the civil grand jury for 2324, fiscal year 2324 did issue a report, and citing public works, oversight and construction of capital projects in particular that part of public works mandate and the commission was requested to respond to the civil grand jury report. we were not required to respond. the department was, as were several

other city departments. but the commission was just requested to respond. but of course, we chose to respond. and i'd like to thank director short and the senior staff for meeting with the commission to talk about some of the issues that were raised and help us understand better, some of the concerns that the grand jury report surfaced so that we can better have a better informed response. we did submit our response ahead of the mid-august deadline for it. it was sent, as requested, to the san francisco county superior court judge and the jury foreperson and we, of course, thank and again, thank the citizens who served on the grand jury and took a look at what we do view as a very core responsibility of san francisco to construct and maintain capital projects. the first finding of we were we were requested to respond to two findings and four recommendations. and the first finding noted a lack of a central database of capital assets that made it difficult to track and budget when they when

they and how they should be maintained and upkept and the budget required. we agreed with that finding. it would be terrific to have such a database, but we don't feel public works is the right agency to house it. that we feel public works should be a leader in helping, populate the database, if you will. and of course, monitor asset facility degradation and when it's needed, when it needs to be maintained. and of course, we weigh into that when we oversee project construction to begin with. so we would like to participate in such a database. compilation. but we didn't the commission didn't feel public works should have core responsibility for it. the second finding by the grand jury noted that the commission lacked reporting protocols necessary for basically doing our job and overseeing department performance on capital project delivery. we agreed and disagreed with with this finding, we agreed that that we right now don't have perfect reporting measures in place, but

that the past two years since we were formed, we have been working very regularly and diligently with staff to put such reporting metrics in place as as we, as you all have heard about now for many, many, many months, and that we do intend to have regular reporting on capital projects on an annual basis beginning later this fall, and when we will receive the first of such reports. and we do feel that that report will allow us to meet our obligation to provide oversight in this part of the department regarding the recommendations that the civil grand jury made, that they requested the commission respond to, the first regarded having quarterly public hearings on public works capital project delivery for scope, schedule, budget. the similar things we always ask about in these meetings, we agree that it was important to ask these questions and get our questions answered, but that an annual basis for reporting is more than sufficient. and as i noted,

these reports will begin on an annual basis late this calendar year. the second recommendation that the grand jury made was that the commission should weigh into capital facilities, design and construction processes and procedures. we disagreed with this recommendation, frankly, with the exception of commissioner wolford, none of us have the expertise to get involved in this, nor should we. that is not our role. our role is not to get involved in the minutiae of project design and construction. our role is to represent approximately 820,000 citizens in san francisco to ensure that bond funds, when they are approved, are spent for the projects voters intended them to be spent on and thought they would be spent on, and that public expectations are met. we do our best to do that, and that is how the commission views its role. the third recommendation by the civil grand jury was for the commission to visit all city capital projects that are completed by the department to assess their quality and performance. once again, the commission disagreed with this

recommendation for some of the reasons i just stated. regarding the second recommendation. but first of all, we feel quarterly visits to select capital projects are sufficient, particularly projects where we have contracts pending or projects that are under construction recently completed as a volunteer body with a heavy lift for our regular meetings, we feel it is not feasible or reasonable to request site visits more often than this, nor to insist that the staff do the preparation to host commissioners for these site visits. while we find these site visits very informative, particularly, i'd like to note our tour of zuckerberg general recently. we feel that quarterly visits to select projects are sufficient and aiding us in performing our public role. the fourth recommendation by the grand jury that we responded to, again, we disagreed, was that the commission should develop processes to obtain client feedback on unresolved construction issues or concerns with capital projects that were delivered by san francisco public works. as you know, we do

invite client departments to come speak to us about their partnership with the department on large capital project delivery, lessons learned and anything of value that can be passed on to the commission and to the public about capital projects and public works. leadership of them with other city agencies. so we feel that is our role in assessing how clients feel about the partnership with public works. we rely on staff in their months and years long process of partnering, partnering with other city agencies to ensure that it is a smooth process and that city client concerns are raised before, during and after the construction process with senior staff, not with public commissioners. so that's sort of a summary of our responses. and as i said, the detail is posted along with this agenda and i encourage the public to take a look at it in concert with the department's own response to the grand jury report and the other

city departments that responded to this report. my colleagues, have any questions or comments on this? if not, secretary fuller, that concludes my report on this. please open this agenda item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on the commission response to the civil grand jury report may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, you would press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. okay mr. boyer, go ahead. your time has begun. thank you, just to compare, say this commission to the mta commission. mta commission weighs in a lot on design, perhaps more than they should, they rely on public input, perhaps more than they should, because it slows down

processes a lot. they would have, i would say the burden of community outreach and often use it as an excuse to not make any forward progress. the other thing they use as an excuse to not make forward progress is the department of public works, because they say things are done. the way they're done, and we have a hard time dealing with their engineers, we all need to reimagine streets. there's a century old legacy of focusing on car centric culture that continues to kill people. the mta has failed to meet its vision zero goals, despite the involvement of the commission and the public and everything else, i would say that the commission's, opinions on this are, unfortunately, compromising public safety. the fact is that the data shows that the mta alone is not able to save lives. and until they are, public works should be working as hard as it

can in concert with the mta to solve those problems. and if the mta commission cannot do it on its own, then the public works commission should be charged with stepping up and doing that sort of work. i am also not a traffic engineer, but i have a qualitative experience of the real world that allows me to come here and speak with expertise on things that apparently nobody is paying attention to. and public engagement alone with you all seems to not get us anywhere, because i've been coming here for at least a year, if not two, raising the same issues, and we're not making forward progress. so i would invite you all to come out into the world with us and engage. and i do believe that if the grand jury feels these things are important, then they should be entertained until they are found to be inconsequential or not helpful. but i see no reason to just say no. when a bunch of people have gone out of their way to say that we would like you to be more engaged because people continue to die as a result of a lack of engagement

on behalf of public works. thank you. thank you. and there are no other in-person commenters and sfgovtv is indicating there are no more callers on this item. so that concludes public comment. thank you. please call the next item. item seven is the department's response to the civil grand jury report for from june 2024. and director short will present this report as wel, and i'll have a visual posted for it. thank you. secretary fuller. so as chair post noted, the department was required to respond to the civil grand jury, we have our full response in the attachments for the agenda. i will give a brief overview, if we can go to the next slide. thanks. so there were four findings and nine recommendations directed towards public works. the city as a whole drafted a single response

led by the mayor and included public works, city administrator, controller, office of resilience and capital planning. i think it's fair to say that we all really appreciated the efforts put in by the civil grand jury. they spent a lot of time. they were very thoughtful about their assessments, and we share their goals for fiscal responsibility, maintaining our valuable assets, improving construction and maintenance, and transparency, and then also looking at capital planning and design processes. overall our next slide. thank you, we felt that there was a bit of a misunderstanding of the role of some of the city departments, particularly the role and responsibility of the departments of real estate, and then our client departments and how public works interacts with them, we felt that they, particularly with the department of real estate, the civil grand jury didn't really understand

how they play a role in asset management. and how we interact with them, we don't share the, civil grand jury's conclusion that more frequent reporting is necessary and will automatically result in better outcomes, through the commission, we have now improved and increased reporting, though we have always had internal reviews of our wor, and we have also invited other departments to come and attend those internal reviews of our work to provide feedback. so we continue to invest in those existing reporting procedures and the oversight processes and oversight bodies. but we didn't feel like it was necessary to add new, new, processes. we also continue to invest in our existing accountability tools. we have the facilities resource renewal model. there are alternate alternative project delivery models. our public works statute, which is our internal monthly review, as well as reaching out to client

departments, getting feedback from them and then partnering, formal partnering and informal partnering with other departments and our delivery partners as well as really trying to learn from our best practices and, other city benchmarking and best practices. next slide. so in general, we, disagreed partially with findings one and four. whoops thank you. which was that the cities significant amount of degraded assets is not properly quantified or understood. we don't disagree with that, resulting in an increased cost to taxpayers and a lack of transparency and accountability. what we found was that we do use the departments. city departments generally, not just public works, to update the

facilities resource renewal model annually, with estimates of remaining useful life for all building subsystems. it's not perfect in terms of cost projections, but it does provide a high level estimation of which assets are most degraded. but fundamentally, we don't have the resources that we need as a city to maintain these assets. so to sort of assign, this responsibility to of a theoretical cost increase to taxpayers solely on the lack of quantification didn't seem like the appropriate conclusion to u, we also disagreed partially with the finding that, the perception that the hourly rates of employees of the department for work performed by client departments are too expensive, and which leads to frustration and irritation, and that can negatively impact the working relationship with departments. so we have, the resources and the availability to provide the

calculation for labor costs to any client department who requests it. and we have taken, an effort to educate our client departments on the various components of our indirect cost plan. and i think that has helped, actually them process and understand why some of our costs are high. and then in terms of the recommendations, we disagreed partially with recommendations one through seven. i'm not going to read all of these. they're in our report, because they essentially didn't feel we didn't feel that they would be warranted or were reasonable. a lot of these relate to those additional reporting. we're doing some reporting, we could spend all our time reporting and we wouldn't get any work done. so we need to strike the right balance and then we actually disagreed with, recommendation number eight, because that has already been implemented, and so generally, again, i think that it was we really appreciated the

thoughtfulness of this civil grand jury report and the folks who contributed to it, and we always want to make improvements. and so we look carefully at recommendations. some of these we have already started, some have already been implemented, implemented, and others will will continue to invest in the existing reporting structures. so that's a brief summary. again the our full response is included with the packet and on the website. and i'm available for any questions. thank you director short and thank you to your team for putting your response together. i thought it was very strong an, i think i actually feel very comfortable and proud of the department and the commission's response to the civil grand jury report. as you noted, we all appreciate the hard work that these citizens obviously put in. it was actually one of the stronger civil grand jury reports. i've read over the years. they took it very seriously. it was very well done, and it deserved a serious

response. and i think we've met that obligation. so thank you to you and your staff for doing that. thank you. any questions or comments for director schwartz? commissioner wolford, it's not a question. it's really a comment that as a professional practicing architect, being aware of the civil grand jury, i to respect the integrity and the public and civic advocacy that the grand jury undertook. having said on other commissions for the city and county of san francisco, some of the findings, neglect to, you know, account for the fact that design is already design oversight services are provided by the civic design review and the arts commission. they're provided by the historic preservation commission, our planning department. accountability resides within real estate. and so while the city isn't perfect, you know, understanding how the city works within its different commissions and divisions and departments on the whole, it's doing an admirable job. and so i

just simply wanted to advocate and support what our commission and our directors report found. and endorse them. thank you, commissioner wolford, very helpful remarks. as always, secretary fuller, please open this item to public comment. members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment in person on the department's response to the civil grand jury may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, press the raise your hand button in the webinar, or press star three on your phone to be recognized. and we do have one in-person commenter and your microphone is on. go ahead, please. thank you. and you have something to project. okay. sfgovtv, if we could use

the projector to. let's just keep doing this. if the city cannot meet its construction codes, if the design is already done. but it cannot meet them, then something is not working. so where's the oversight? where's the accountability? if a civil grand jury makes recommendations and the department can just say, well, we don't think it matters and move on, what's the point of the process? if somebody can make a311 report and the city can say, well, it just doesn't doesn't really work for us, and that's the end of it. if an engineer can say, well, driveways are for cars, not for anything else, what's the point? when we construct bridges or tunnels under the ground a few inches is very expensive. being off by a few inches is very

expensive on a mass scale, and when we construct driveways and we're off by a few inches, it can be very expensive. personally, to fall and break your wrist, or hit your head, or lose all the groceries that you just spent all your money on. so i'm just sort of at a loss here. if so much work can be being done on behalf of the public to make recommendations to this organization, and it can just shrug its shoulders and say, well, we just we don't think this matters. as long as people are dying in the streets, as long as people are getting injured by infrastructure that's not being built to code. whether the san francisco code or the ada, then the job is not being done appropriately. and every step should be taken. i know that if i were a commissioner, i would volunteer my time to show up and look at all of these projects, because it matters to my material experience of the built environment. so i would

like to see the same level of effort put forward by other people who have gone out of their way to volunteer. thank you all for doing the work. and also, it's apparently not enough because we're not there yet. people are still getting injured. thank you. thank you for your comments. that's our only in-person commenter and we do not have any callers at this time. so that concludes public comment on this item. thank you. please call the next item today. item eight is new business initiated by commissioners. this is an opportunity for commissioners to suggest business for a future agenda. and it is an informational item. thank you. i don't have any new business and i'm going to cheat. and one comment from the consent calendar i neglected was i wanted to thank michael lennon from the bureau of street use and mapping for answering my previous questions regarding the street inspection repair program. thank you, mr. lennon, for doing that. do either of my

colleagues have any new business to propose today? commissioner wolford? it's not new business. it's not new business. but i did want to comment on the extraordinary vibrancy that we see returning to san francisco as someone who both lives here and works here to see the energy on the streets, frankly, the cleanliness of the streets and to work. i work downtown and to see concerts happening and street night markets happening. it really is just an exciting time to be back in san francisco and to be a san franciscan. here, here, commissioner zombie. yeah, i just wanted to just add my request from earlier to the new business section about explaining explaining the report that we get about. yes, thanks. okay. and i would like to agree with the commissioner wolford doing a great, i've seen i see all the trucks coming around

public works and just, you know, makes me feel good every time i see them just pull over. you know, we're getting the 311 calls. that's true. but i see more proactivity from the team. so i'd like to commend the public works team on their work. thank you. secretary fuller, please open this item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item eight, new business initiated by commissioners. you may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, press the raise your button. raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. okay, mr. brightmore, go ahead. your time has begun, to the best of my knowledge, this commission has yet to receive a report from the mta on its biking and rolling plan. recently renamed, was previously called the active communities plan. it is a curb to curb mobility plan because

the mta's purview is within the streets, it is lost on me as to why the department of public works is not also included in that, or why a second phase of the project has not already been started to be imagined. that would include the sidewalks, especially as this commission is able to sign five year contracts for sidewalk maintenance with virtually zero public input. meanwhile, we can have a years long discussion about mobility in the streets that costs millions of dollars and has again, excessive public input, all while we wait for these departments to act and take measures to save people's lives. i have asked previously for this commission to request that the mta come and present on its biking and rolling plan so that we can understand as as group here, what is being done to

further non-automotive mobility. that request has not been met. i wonder if this is just falling on deaf ears, or if there is a reason for not doing so, or if we can amend, new business at any given point in any of these meetings that i will continue to show up at in the future to make sure that that report is being given on a quarterly, if not monthly basis, so that the department of public works can understand what is being done in the streets. and so that it can make further recommendations within its own department to make life more habitable. because as we know, not everybody who needs to move around in the city is using the street. some people rely on the sidewalks. and as i continue to show, these sidewalks are hostile. thank you. thank you. and that is our last in-person speaker. and we do not have any callers at this time. so that concludes public comment. thank

you. and we will not need item nine. is that correct, secretary. that's correct. item nine is not necessary. all right. we have two meetings coming up that unfortunately i will miss. our next meeting is scheduled for monday, september 23rd at 9 a.m. back in our regular room of room 408, there is a chance that meeting will be canceled if staff does not have any contracts to bring to the commission. so i just want to give everybody a heads up that that's a meeting in pencil, so to speak. more likely is a meeting on the next meeting on october seventh, and at that meeting, we may have a new commissioner to welcome. i'm sorry. i won't be here to welcome her myself. she still needs to get through rules in the board of supervisors. but we haven't heard that that will be a problem to date, so i won't see you all until later in october. but my colleagues will see you earlier. thank you all very much. it is 1017 and we are adjourned.

♪♪ >> san francisco! ♪♪

>> this is an exhibition across departments highlighting different artworks from our collection. gender is an important part of the dialogue. in many ways, this exhibition is contemporary. all of this artwork is from the 9th century and spans all the way to the 21st century. the exhibition is organized into seven different groupings or themes such as activities, symbolism, transformation and others. it's not by culture or time period, but different affinities between the artwork. activities, for example, looks at the role of gender and how

certain activities are placed as feminine or masculine. we have a print by uharo that looks at different activities that derisionly performed by men. it's looking at the theme of music. we have three women playing traditional japanese instruments that would otherwise be played by men at that time. we have pairings so that is looking within the context of gender in relationships. also with how people are questioning the whole idea of pairing in the first place. we have three from three different cultures, tibet, china and japan. this is sell vanity stot relevar has been fluid in different time periods in cultures. sometimes being female in china

but often male and evoking features associated with gender binaries and sometimes in between. it's a lovely way of tying all the themes together in this collection. gender and sexuality, speaking from my culture specifically, is something at that hasn't been recently widely discussed. this exhibition shows that it's gender and sexuality are actually have been considered and complicated by dialogue through the work of artists and thinking specifically, a sculpture we have of the hindu deities because it's half pee male and half male. it turns into a different theme in a way and is a beautiful

representation of how gender hasn't been seen as one thing or a binary. we see that it isn't a modest concept. in a way, i feel we have a lot of historical references and touch points throughout all the ages and in asian cultures. i believe san francisco has close to 40% asian. it's a huge representation here in the bay area. it's important that we awk abouk about this and open up the discussion around gender. what we've learned from organizing this exhibition at the museum is that gender has been something that has come up in all of these cultures through all the time periods as something that is important and relevant. especially here in the san francisco bay area we feel that it's relevant to the conversations that people are having today. we hope that people can carry that outside of the museum into

their daily lives. francisco. lives. >> my name is fwlend hope i would say on at large-scale what all passionate about is peace in

the world. >> it never outdoor 0 me that note everyone will think that is a good i know to be a paefrt. >> one man said i'll upsetting the order of universe i want to do since a good idea not the order of universe but his offered of the universe but the ministry sgan in the room chairing sha harry and grew to be 5 we wanted to preach and teach and act god's love 40 years later i retired having been in the tenderloin most of

that 7, 8, 9 some have god drew us into the someplace we became the network ministries for homeless women escaping prostitution if the months period before i performed memorial services store produced women that were murdered on the streets of san francisco so i went back to the board and said we say to do something the number one be a safe place for them to live while he worked on changing 4 months later we were given the building in january of 1998 we opened it as a safe house for women escaping prostitution i've seen those counselors women find their strength and their beauty and their wisdom and come to be able

to affirmative as the daughters of god and they accepted me and made me, be a part of the their lives. >> special things to the women that offered me a chance safe house will forever be a part of the who i've become and you made that possible life didn't get any better than that. >> who've would know this look of this girl grown up in atlanta will be working with produced women in san francisco part of the system that has abused and expedited and obtain identified and degraded women for century around the world and still do at the embody the spirits of women that just know they deserve

respect and intend to get it. >> i don't want to just so women younger women become a part of the the current system we need to change the system we don't need to go up the ladder we need to change the corporations we need more women like that and they're out there. >> we get have to get to help them. >>

welcome to the august 9th, 2024 regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. today's meeting is live cablecast on sfgovtv two and live streamed online at sfgovtv. org slash ethics live for public comment. members of the public may attend in person or may participate by phone or the webex platform, as explained in our agenda document. clerk can you please explain how our remote public comment will be handled? public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. each member of the public will be allowed three minutes to speak. for those attending in person, opportunities to speak during the public comment period will be made available here in room