there are a lot of people in san francisco that have really great ideas that have the work ethics, they just don't have those opportunities presented, so this has been huge lifeline i think for entrepreneurs and small businesses. >> this was a great program for us. it has [indiscernible] opening the site. we benefited from it and i think because there is diverse and different [indiscernible] able to be down here that everybody kind of benefits from it.

good morning. good morning everybody. this october 7th, 2024 rules committee meeting will now come to order. i am your chair supervisor shaman walton, joined by president peskin and soon to be joined by supervisor safaí as well. and we do have supervisor preston here with us this morning. our clerk this morning is also victor young. and i would like to thank james kawana from sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? yes. public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda. when an item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please line up to speak on your right. alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways.

email them to myself. the rules committee clerk at v-i-c-t-o-r-y o young at sfgov. org if you submit public comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and include as part of the file. you may also send your written comments via us mail to our office in city hall one. to be placed room 244, san francisco, california 94102. please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of october 22nd, unless otherwise stated. thank you, mr. clerk. and before we call item number one, i just want everyone to know we have a packed agenda this morning. so if you are here for an appointment, please be mindful of time and keep your comments about qualifications and anything you want to share with us this morning. to one minute and the clerk will have everyone on a timer. and with that, mr. clerk, please call item number one. yes. item number one is ordinance amending the administrative code to

require regular reporting of the board of supervisors by the department of emergency management, department of homelessness and supportive housing. department of public health and fire department concerning the efficiency and effectiveness of the city's street teams. thank you so much and supervisor preston, thank you. chair walton and vice chair peskin, and appreciate you getting this on calendar today. this ordinance incorporates various suggestions from the recent audit, which we commissioned with the full board approval of our city's street teams. and we had a hearing on that. and as you all know, the city dramatically scaled up our use of these teams in the wake of the 2020 killing of george floyd and the nationwide discussion about whether police were the appropriate responders to issues around homelessness, mental health crises, addiction and overdose, the fact that our city led the way in creating

these teams was a huge step in reducing the potential for escalation and violence, and ensuring that our first responders, for many situations, are those with the most relevant training on certain populations specific needs, especially those in behavioral health crises. and i know that our street teams, with the appreciation of the entire city, are going out every single day doing incredible work to engage with some of our most vulnerable neighbors and de-escalating difficult situations and getting people the care, the assistance and the resources that they need. as you may recall, the audit of the street teams did find several areas for improvement, not the least of which was the need for clear goals. data sharing among teams, and overall metrics for success. since the release of the audit, we have been working with departments to craft this legislation in order to ensure that the board sets out expectations on what data we

want to see, while also ensuring that the legislation is broad enough to allow some room for the teams to improve on their data collection and metrics. as their teams continue to optimize some of the relevant data includes goals and initiatives, metrics, milestones and accomplishments, information about street teams, structures, and the number of teams in the field. description of the types of shelter offers being made, and an estimate of the number or percentage of rejected offers by type. a summary of capacity constraints and information about how teams are data sharing. and i really want to thank all of the departments for not only collaborating with our office as we drafted this ordinance, but also for working on the first annual report, which has now been released, and colleagues should be in your inbox, and i believe up in the file on this item online, the first annual report as really as a sample to be considered

alongside this ordinance of what the departments are putting together to have the maximum transparency in particular. and finally, i want to recognize and thank dem director mary ellen carroll and her team, including lauren bell and olivia scanlon, as well as dph, hsh and the fire department for their engagement not only with us but with lauren and olivia in providing unified feedback on the ordinance. i have some minor amendments that are non-substantive that have been just distributed already, can describe after the presentation. in the meantime, i want to welcome through the chair director carroll for a presentation. thank you. director carroll. good morning supervisors. thank you so much for having us. for the record, i am mary ellen carroll, the executive director of the department of emergency management. thank you for

bringing us together today to review the highlights of the first ever san francisco coordinated street response annual report. i'm here today with members of my staff, as well as some of our core partners who contributed to the development of the report, including san francisco fire department, community paramedics, department of public health, and the department of homelessness and supportive housing. i want to publicly thank leadership and especially the frontline colleagues, for committing to coordinating our improvements in this area. we've we really have come a long way, and we appreciate appreciate everyone's efforts. when dm was asked to step into the street response role two years ago, we were able to leverage our own ongoing success in managing the healthy streets operation center or soc, and our success in activating the citywide covid response. not so long ago, de

siloing services for a shared goal is complicated very challenging in the city and very necessary in 2022. dm was the first emergency management department. we believe in the country to really take this kind of dedicated role in coordinating response to behavioral health crises and homelessness on the street, but since then, this work has become much more of a part of other emergency management departments across the country. i am in very close contact with many of the emergency management directors across the country, especially big cities and central to every one of our conversations is a hyper focus on scaling solutions to homelessness and behavioral health crises on the street communities across the country are struggling with affordable housing, low minimum wage, and

unaddressed behavioral health needs, making no excuse for the work that we have to do in san francisco. we also must continue to frame this as a long term solutions in a state and national context. a blend of local, state, and federal resources are needed to expand shelter, affordable housing, and residential and psychiatric care for people on the street and in in san francisco and the bay area for our coordinated response teams to be successful and for people in severe stress to get the help they need and permanently exit the street. we need expanded resources. we appreciate our mayors support and your support on the board for these expansion efforts that are ongoing. and we look forward to more in the coming year. finally, i just want to say

around this annual report that you have received and that lauren is going to present, it really is a comprehensive, comprehensive account of the coordination successes and those of the individual street response teams. meaningful coordination capacity really was built over the last year, and a half, and it's a foundation that we're working on to improve in the coming year. we need two things in particular to build on this foundation, and one is better use data to coordinate services linkages for clients. and the second is better use data to tell our collective impact story. data is one of our biggest challenges, but we are chipping away. we were able to provide a concise all teams data summary in this report, and next year's report will have even more robust data analytics on

the service levels and impact. so thank you again for bringing us together. we've been together, but to be able to present our togetherness to you, i'll hand it over to lauren, who really deserves honestly all the credit for being the one that is on a day to day basis. the convener and collaborator of all of our departments. thank you. thank you. director carol, supervisor preston and members of the rules committee. great to be here today. is it possible to put up the slide deck? thank you. perfect. good morning everybody. i am lauren bell once again. for the record, i'm the street response planning coordinator with the department of emergency management. it's a pleasure to be here today to share highlights from the first ever coordinated street response annual report. again, as director carol said, the product of contributions from all of our partners. thank you, supervisor preston, especially for continuing to support our

collective work and for creating spaces for us to highlight our approach, our services and our impact. our teams work incredibly hard every day, efforts that often go unnoticed against the scale of persistent needs in the city. but they are extremely deserving of acknowledgment. the annual report is quite long as it covers both our history and current progress. today's presentation will focus on coordination, successes and one specific bla audit recommendation related to shelter offerings and preferences. leadership from each of our partner departments is here to answer any team specific questions, or to answer questions about bla audit recommendations. before we jump into the progress, i'll quickly provide a high level overview of coordinated response for members of the public that might not be as familiar with us as mentioned, the four core city departments are emergency management, fire department, community paramedicine public health, and department of

homelessness and supportive housing. we collaborate at client system and policy levels with a focus on how to scale the impact of our work. we've muscled through some difficult conversations and we're still swimming in the same direction. a demonstration of an interdependence that is key to productive collaboration. again, very briefly, a quick overview for people who may be less familiar with us. we are a network of four departments, nine interconnected teams providing crisis response, rapid response and planned outreach with shared objectives to effectively address complex behavioral health needs on san francisco's streets, non-fatal overdoses and experiences of homelessness. first and foremost through an approach of dignity and respect of the people we are serving. and secondly, and very importantly, by maintaining a sense of urgency to connect people to essential and stabilizing services, a very, very short summary of our services includes outreach and

engagement, trust building, de-escalation, assessment of needs and involuntary holds, and referral and linkage to services as we discussed the progress of our work, we ask you to keep the people we serve, the complexity of their needs, the breadth of their trauma, and the difficulty of behavior change at the center of your thoughts. to help anchor this focus, a very quick client success a vulnerable person with significant psychiatric distress created a makeshift living space with cardboard and blankets near the curb of a sidewalk. the person exhibited erratic behaviors consistent with untreated needs. business, community members, city leadership called on us for help over a period of a few months, street teams outreached engaged and coordinated efforts. trust was built through consistency. eventually, a public health team was able to administer needed medication in the community, which was a huge win. the person showed signs of openness to

conversations about safety, wellness and services. the person accepted an offer of shelter and stayed inside for a short time, but unfortunately returned to the space on the street soon after. but teams kept returning to the known location on the street and supported the person's return to shelter. today, this person is transitioned from shelter to permanent supportive housing and is continuing to stay inside and manage medication with the help of long term case management support. our work is labor and time intensive. our teams can't force people to accept services, but through consistency and braided interventions, we do see results. in march 2024, we came before you on the heels of the b.l.a. all street teams performance audit that was completed near the end of 2023. to recognize the recommendations of the blue team and to tee up steps, we would take both as sf coordinated street response and as unique departments to make progress on the recommendations.

we are proud to be here today to confirm that coordination strategies that were presented just over six months ago are either active or in progress. the tiles on this slide represent each of our commitments, including how we will hold ourselves accountable to each other, city leadership and the public strategies that are active and implemented are the green ones. sustaining a legal framework for data sharing. continuing to centralize coordination efforts. successfully sharing and linking data across departments, resulting in front end user tools that will improve the efficiency of our work. these tools are a requested and completed by name client list, and the creation of an outreach worker tool that we'll talk more about in a moment. the strategies and gold are actively in progress, shared top tier goal and performance metrics. the ability to publish all teams data, which will be possible through the policy maker dashboard and public facing

website. lastly, and very importantly, also in progress, our efforts to improve our impact reporting dem continues to play a leadership role in tightening coordination efforts of san francisco. coordinated street response. we do this through operating the healthy streets operation center, a daily, coordinated multi-department effort and through strengthening system level inter-department coordination of services focused on a broader population of people experiencing behavioral health crisis and or homelessness, improved data sharing and linkage has truly strengthened our coordinated work. more to come on this at the foundation of all of our coordination, challenges and current successes is the ability to effectively share data through continuing to align around a multi-state, around a state multidisciplinary team and law that balances the protection of data with opportunities to streamline our data sharing for unified purpose, we are

effectively sharing allowable, critical data across all teams at client and system levels. this data sharing commitment by all departments and teams has resulted in our broadest coordination stride to date. the development of a back end integration or more simply put, an all street team's client database. as we know, data silos and proprietary client management systems hampered our coordination abilities. while some teams had access to some systems, the ad hoc access was far from a scaled solution. through data sharing improvements and using data science and data engineering, we were able to link data sourced from siloed client databases and create a back end data integration. again, this is the wall street team's client database. before continuing, i have to publicly thank the mayor's office of innovation team. stephen sherrill, and his team for their incredible partnership, the data linkage progress we have made in the

front end user tools that are being developed and designed are game changers for our work. this progress would not have been possible without their expertise and commitment. along with support from data sf and the department of technology, the all street teams client database can be thought of as a data lake of client and services details that can be pulled into an array of front end user tools that will improve our direct services. work with clients, and our ability to tell our collective impact story. one of the first successes of the database was the creation of a by name client list. while we're continuing to clean up the data in the database, we have a better understanding of the unduplicated number of clients that have been seen across teams in the last year. this by name client list allows us to develop a reinvigorated coordination effort called shared priority 3.0, shared priority 3.0 focuses on clients with extremely complex health needs per an eligibility criteria that was developed through clinical and

medical input. the current eligibility is displayed on the slide. while all clients are a priority for our teams, we share an urgency of expediting linkages to care for people on the shared priority list as their distress results in high utilization of public services and high probability of death by overdose or other cause data shows that several people on our current list have been seen over 150 times or more by ems and the broader array of street teams in the last year, with ems services being utilized, the most, we are more focused than ever, especially through the use of new tools to tighten how we coordinate services. the outreach worker tool was beta launched in late september and is being tested by a few select teams through october. the tool pulls by name, client list information and other encounter details into a browser based ap, where teams can quickly access key client information while they are doing outreach in the community. as the wireframe picture shows, teams will be

able to do a by client name lookup in the tool, and then we'll have access to key information like who the lead case manager is that person's phone number, how many overdoses or 5150 is the person might have had in the prior year? and what is the person's encounter history across all teams? the availability of this information is clutch. instead of needing to log into multiple client platforms, teams will have access to vital client summaries, information that helps to reduce service duplication and increase care coordination. efficiencies last week we had an early on success. a team that is testing the tool engaged with a client in the community who is on the shared priority 3.0 list. they used the outreach worker tool to look up the client during an encounter, and not only did they have easy access to the lead contact name, they were able to call the person directly from the tool. this resulted in real time coordination around the client's transport to identified service, and the teeing up of greatly

needed medication start teams will test this tool until the end of october, at which time the mayor's office of innovation will work with us to scale utilization across all teams. i know it's a big agenda, so we're getting close. currently, sf coordinated response teams outcomes can be viewed reviewed through team specific public facing dashboards, but it's difficult to fully appreciate the volume and diversity of all street teams. collective efforts and to recognize the broad based impact of our teams. because the dashboards are siloed. the policymaker dashboard, which is currently in development, will be a digital interface designed to provide you policymakers with cross teams, data, insights and visualizations, making complex data easy to view and interpret. in a similar spirit, we know the public also wants a better understanding of our efforts and understanding of our efforts and our impact. the public facing

website will also draw from the wall street team's client database and more effectively spotlight the unique work of each team while educating the public on our collective impact. we expect the first version of this website to launch by q3 of this year. one section of a mocked up version of the website is displayed on the slide. in our march presentation, we shared the top tier goal, which was agreed to by leadership across all teams. as you can see on the slide, it reads sf coordinated street response teams will work collaboratively to reduce distressing street behaviors with urgency and improve the quality of life of all residents of san francisco. this goal will be a guide star for our work. we're currently focused on finalizing shared performance metrics that will track distressing behaviors and stabilization outcomes. information that when aggregated, can illustrate a lot about our encounter and linkage successes and challenges. we'll have more to share on the

alignment between top tier goals and performance metrics. the policymaker dashboard, the public facing website, and impact reporting over the next few months, a full accounting will be provided in our next annual report as we fine tune the all street teams client database and our reporting framework, we've taken some first steps to share a very high level data summary of our efforts. please see the annual report for more detail information from the summary has been pulled by individual team reports. teams had nearly 80,000 encounters with clients last year. this includes some duplication crisis response teams facilitated the transport of over 6000 people both to the hospital and non-hospital settings like the sobering center and summarize rapid response efforts addressed nearly 80% of all calls from the public to the public safety non-emergency number, and 311

regarding the needs of people experiencing homelessness. and over 6000 people were linked to shelter and housing. while our teams are making an impact in san francisco communities every day, the needs are persistent. we recognize the hope or in some cases, the demand, that impact can be scaled. we will continue to tighten how we work together with the goal of moving the needle on getting people into shelter, housing and other supportive residential environments. i'm going to quickly shift gears to focus on one specific bla audit recommendation pointed at h and h h related to tracking shelter placements and client shelter preferences. please note that each team report in the second half of the annual report includes team specific mentions of progress towards bla audit recommendations. the bla request to h soc focused on documentation of shelter placements, and a request for tracking of client shelter preferences. information that

may be used to help us better understand what kind of shelter capacity may improve shelter uptake. h sox response to these requests are active. the team maintains a precise accounting of daily shelter placements as well. h soc and h. h piloted an effort to gather more information on shelter preferences, more specifically when a client being served by h. soc declines a shelter offer, the team inquired as often as possible about what type of shelter might have been preferred. a potential indication that the person may have accepted shelter if the preferred type of shelter was available. results showed that people favored non-congregate settings, while we while we will continue to explore ways to scale data collection around the preference topic through a long history of engaging with clients with complex needs, teams believe that the outcome will continue to be the same.

preferred placement will be non-congregate settings. in closing, we'll review some next steps in fiscal year 2425, we'll build on the data sharing and linkage foundation built last year. we will complete an operational plan that memorializes our coordination agreements, will validate data in the all street team's client database, and we will fine tune the front end user tools work that will improve our engagement with clients and our ability to provide collective impact reporting. thank you again, supervisor preston and members of the rules committee for giving us this space to put a bright line. through our comprehensive efforts, we are available to answer any questions. if you have any. thank you. supervisor preston. thank you, chair walton and thank you, director carroll and miss bell for the presentations. and really for all the work. and i just want to say that, you know, we had the hearing on the audit back in march, and it's

been a really a ton of work. i don't think any of us knew whether you when you all said you'd be, we're trying to do this report. by the time we had this hearing, i wasn't sure that would actually happen. and it has. and i think that the conversations coming out of the audit and the collaborative work have been really important. so there's a lot more to do. but but just do want to recognize all the all the work that's gone into this. a few comments just on the, on the substantive substantive issues here. one, just the last point you made, i think, is one that was elevated by the b.l.a. was elevated in the hearing. and i think is really important and just want to reemphasize and direct folks in this report to pages around 2020. let's see, 22 and 2223, which address this issue of what people accept. i think this is really the first time that we're seeing in a more systematic way, an attempt to address this issue of for people who are offered housing and services and who

don't take them, a question that we have always been trying to get more detail on, which is, well, what are people being offered that they do accept? what are people being offered that they don't accept? and i want to recognize there are some challenges. i find you know, from a supervisor's perspective, when we have an individual case and we try to talk with departments about it or teams, there's all kinds of walls of privacy that exist for good legal reasons in which they can't talk to us about what kind of medications they're offering someone, what kind of treatment facilities they're offering, this person, what the person said in response, what shelters were offered. it can often be very difficult to get that certainly impossible for the public and also often for, for our offices to, to get that level of detail which often holds the key to the answer of why did this person accept or not accept services? so gathering that data and now presenting it in this transparent way and in the ordinance that's before us

having that required as part of the ongoing reporting, i think is extremely important. and i will say, as suspected and what we know anecdotally through talking with folks there is a hierarchy of and i think all the teams see this. there's a hierarchy of what people will and will not accept. and i will just say, i think political leaders who are always putting out talking points x percent of people turn down services, i think do a real disservice if they're not talking about what services are people accepting, what services are people not accepting? because to director carroll's point, the challenge for all of us is to double down and resource the services that and the offers of shelter that are accepted. so we have more people accepting them. and i was just really struck by that chart on page 22 of this report to see again, i mean, so clear that non-congregate shelter non-congregate shelter, the acceptance rates are, are so

high when compared to congregate shelters where they are very lo. i did have a question of just what does it mean when we have like 120% acceptance rate? does that mean more people demanding it than exists? yeah. thank you for asking that question. there is a footnote in there to talk about in some cases, there are couples. it's not just an individual person. so in some cases, because that number is greater than the shelter offered, it's going to be bigger than 100%. but it has more to do with couples requesting shelter than any mathematical error. got it. thank you. so in the non-congregate, we're looking at from 56% up to 120% acceptance. and then when we're looking at the congregate shelters, that's kind of at the bottom of the list. that's between this one, i guess it's 7% and 28%. so you know, i think there's a lot of and then that's also reflected when in, in the efforts to ask

people who did not accept offers of shelter what they want to try to get at, what they would have accepted. and we see the same thing. we see 80% of them saying that they would have accepted non-congregate shelter while much lower for navigation centers and others. so. so i think that's really helpful data. i appreciate that being in there. and i think there's a lot that we, as policymakers should, should learn from the report. and that is part of the point. i also want to thank you for the summary. i think the data sharing between teams as we've discussed over the months, is, is absolutely an essential. and it's really encouraging to see the progress that's being made on that front. the, the just the one thing i did want to i elevated this at the last hearing and i just want to elevate again really the last point i want to make in our last

hearing there was a shift in the top line goals that we discussed what was before the hearing included specifically language around ensuring a path to stable health and housing as a top line goal that was stripped out of the language that came to the hearing as the top line goal last time, and it is still not in there. i have no problem with the current goal as stated, which is that coordinated street response system works collaboratively to reduce distressing street behavior with urgency and improve the quality of life for all residents of san francisco. that i think we can all agree that is a laudable top line goal, but it should include, like the prior version did, specifically saying and adding there, ensuring a path to stable health and housing for the folks the teams are encountering. i think that's really important language, and i'm concerned. so i don't know

if you can if you have any comment on that, can can we add that back in? and if not, is there a reason why not? we'll go back to kind of the planning table, especially with the operational plan development and continue to talk about it. we did recognize your last comment when we were kind of putting all this information together. i think where we're trying to really hit that mark is in the performance metrics that we will be tracking metrics that speak exactly to what you're requesting, but understood that that's kind of a tear down from the top tier goal. so we can definitely go back to kind of all of the leadership across the teams and talk about modifying that top tier goal. we understand it makes sense. the one that's in there was the one that was approved by leadership. so it felt right to keep it in there. but it's understandable your request. so yeah we'll go back to the drawing board that that would be great. and you know, sometimes these things are just words on a page and aren't that concerning. and sometimes they signal something. and i

think what i talked about in the last hearing and i want to re elevate here, is there are a lot of people in this line of work. you know, people have different in different teams have different goals. but there's a lot of people who have dedicated their entire careers to, first and foremost, the goal of making sure people who are sick or unhoused get health care and housing. right. and that is the driving. that is what gets them up in the morning, and that is how they define their work. there is a political reality we are all in, or a lot of the people who are on the streets don't have a lot of political voice. and the folks with political voice are the folks who are distressed, in large part by seeing various behaviors and experiencing various uncomfortable or unpleasant behaviors in the streets, because people are in that distress. what i am respectfully re elevating is that the shift in language here strips out the primary purpose of helping

people get the housing they need, and focuses only on the visibly distressing street behavior and the quote unquote, quality of life, which is a bit of a buzzword for, again, usually the experience of housed people seeing unhoused people in their community. what i'm saying, and really just can't emphasize enough, this should be a both end, right? we should be able, in the same sentence in our top line goals to center the acute housing and health needs of people who are in distress on our streets, and other people who are distressed by those behaviors in their community. so no need for further comment on it. but i will continue raising it and really hope the next time we see whatever the next iteration is, that that that is included in there. all that said, i want to just again commend you for all your work on this. thank you, chair walton, for, for and committee members for the time. and thank you again to all the folks doing

this very difficult work, especially keeping focus on that work in a, let's just say, rapidly changing and often charged political environment with a lot of a lot of noise from from all sides. so, yeah, thank you. and, and i the amendments we circulated, i won't read them all in the record. i will just summarize them briefly because they're really just two types. we remove provisions that are incorporated in other sections already and seem duplicative of other sections. after our discussions with departments. so those include various lines about staff vacancies and staffing and the services offered, which are already covered in other sections of the ordinance. and then the other one that that is of significance is we did change the timing of the reports to be an annual report instead of twice a year. again, that seemed to be the least burdensome, but

still provide the public and the board, the information that we need. so i have circulated those amendments and would like to move or have requests that they be moved after public comment. thank you so much. and we will do that after public comment. and do want to thank director carroll and coordinator bell for the presentations. and to all of the frontline workers. we will now go to public comment. and due to the gravity of items that we have on the agenda today and the importance of maintaining a quorum, public comment today will be one minute. so, mr. clerk, let's go to public comment. yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak on by the windows. each speaker will be allowed one minute. there will be a soft chime when you have 30s left and a louder chime when you when your time has expired, you can approach the podium. hello, my name is

liam mckeever. i live in d6 and i've been to some of these homeless sweeps. i haven't seen everything you've seen, so just one question i would have about this portal system is it also going to track and have like transparent? the people who have been offered shelter but their scoring system, the housing scoring system was too high for them to be offered shelter. that is something i saw happen here in district six, where a woman wanted to accept the offer of shelter, and then when the city employee looked up the woman's name, her housing score was too high. and so they rescinded that offer. so i would like that somehow addressed in this portal. thank you. are there any additional commenters on this matter? there is no additional comment. thank you, mr. clerk. seeing no additional speakers, public comment is now closed and i would like to move to amend the legislation that's proposed

by supervisor preston on the motion to amend vice chair safíi i safaí i member peskin, i peskin, i chair walton i walton i that motion passes without objection. motion to amend passes and then i would like to move amended item four to the full board with recommendation. yes. on the motion to recommend as amended. vice chair safaí safaí i member peskin i, peskin i chair. walton i motion passes and we will move this item forward to the full board. thank you so much, supervisor preston. and again, thank you for your presentations. mr. clerk, would you please call item number two? yes. item number two is a hearing to consider appointing one member term expiring april 27th, 2025 and nine members term

ending april 27th, 2026, to the sunshine ordinance task force. thank you so much and i will call individuals who are here that are up for appointment up by in the order that i have here and my notes, and we will start with seat one. dean schmidt and keep in mind we're doing one minute. good morning. members of the board, members of the committee. my name is dean schmidt. i am the appointed attorney for the society of professional journalists. i have greatly enjoyed working with all the members of the task force who are before you here today, and i just want to take my time to recommend that each of them

be reappointed. we've been doing good work. we've been improving the task force. i could give you details if you needed it, but i just hope that we can keep this team together because we're cohesive. we've got great skills in a diverse way, different types of skills, people in the media, people not in the media. thank you. thank you so much. dean. and now we will call up leila lahoud. good morning supervisors i'm leila lahood. i'm the representative in seat two. i'm the journalist representative of the society of professional journalists. i'm happy to be here today. i've served on the task force since 2018. i'm the chair of the compliance and amendments committee. it's an honor to

serve the community in this capacity. i take my work on the task force very seriously. i'm proud of the work that we do, ensuring access to public meetings and public records. i appreciate the time and energy that everyone invests in this work. my fellow task force members, the city staff who support our work, and those who come before the task force as respondents. their job isn't always easy and we don't always agree on the outcomes. but together, i think we're moving things in the right direction. i especially appreciate the members of the public who take the time to file records, requests and to file complaints when they think that things aren't being done in a proper way and they seek our help. it's so important that we give these cases our time and attention, not just for the individuals coming before us, for the individual petitioners, but for the others who will follow them. and hopefully we can help create a smoother path. thanks very much. thank you so much, leila, and my apologies for mispronouncing your name. next we have saul sugarman. hi there.

good morning, members of the rules committee. my name is saul sugarman. i am applying for reappointment for seat three of the sunshine ordinance task force. it's also a journalist role. and i've been a journalist in san francisco for 15 years, for the examiner, for the daily journal, and most recently for the bold italic as its editor in chief. my time on the task force feels somewhat brief when i compare it to many of my peers, but notably, i've served as a member of its complaint committee, where i have supported our chair, who you just heard from of that committee, in his measure that allowed us to resolve some of our complaints on the task force's consent agenda. so in this role, i think that it is greatly helped us to reduce our backlog and help us to better serve the public by not having to hear all complaints before the full board and if i'm

reappointed, my primary goal is to continue supporting greater transparency in local government. i also just aim to grow my knowledge and experience with the task force because, as i've said, i've only been here for a brief amount of time and i reiterate what has been said, that we do have a cohesive team and i'm grateful to serve with them. thank you. thank you so much. next, we have maxine anderson. good morning supervisors. my name is maxine anderson and i sit sit in seat five for the league of women voters of san francisco, the organization of which i'm a member. i, as well as you would like to be succinct, and i had decided i would be that way even before you indicated it should. this should only take a minute. so i will reiterate all the good things that have been said about our task force and the members on the task force and our

complete commitment to trying to make sure that we have in san francisco a transparent government that all the citizens of our city of san francisco can access. so with that, i will end my remarks. i would appreciate it if you would reappoint me to the seat that i've been holding for the last almost a year, and that's it. thank you. thank you. next we have laura stein. okay. well, good morning. i am reapplying for seat six and i will keep it short. i've advocated for people's rights to access for media information, for decades in various capacities, which i can answer more to if you're interested. as a san franciscan, i'm very proud of our sunshine ordinance that affords strong protections to those seeking government information. since joining the

task force, i've worked to make its procedures more effective and efficient, make the background materials more organized. i've also spearheaded the production of a data driven annual report that reviews our activities and decisions, as well as the state of sunshine in sf. was that my time or do i have a little bit more? we've got 30s okay. going forward, i'd like to see the task force reduce their turnaround time on cases to under 45 days, eliminate their backlog, and continue to produce high quality data and analysis that can help us improve the procedures and practices around sunshine. i would also like to do more outreach to diverse citizens groups on how to use sunshine, and to government respondents looking to develop best practices around sunshine. thank you for inviting me to speak, and i also brought copies of the executive summaries of last two years annual reports. if you haven't already seen them, thank you. thank you. matthew, i can pick it up. just leave it on the banister and i'll pick it up.

good morning, supervisors. my name is matt yankee. i've been serving on the task force since november of 2018, and i've devoted the majority of my professional career to public service, specifically in positions involving a high degree of public contact, public records, and government accessibility. i'd be thrilled to continue my service on the task force, along with my colleagues, and respectfully ask for your support in my reappointment. while the work of the task force can sometimes appear as mundane and tedious, it serves an incredibly important role for the city. not only has the task force helped uphold the principles of transparency, and open government has likely saved the city substantial money in potential litigation and resulting penalties. for exampl, the city of san jose recently paid out 500,000 $500,000 after santa clara county superior judge found that it violated the public records act. personally, i've been serving as the chair since 2022 and served as vice chair from 2020 to 2022. i've worked diligently to enhance our relationship with other key city departments, like the clerk's office and city attorney's office, and have worked closely

with the city's custodians of records working group in addition, i feel the task force made significant progress, becoming more efficient, thereby freeing members of the public more time and effective resolution of their complaints. thank you so much. next we have chris hyland. good morning supervisors. nice to see you again. nice to meet you, chair walton. members, supervisors peskin and safaí. nice to see you. and thank you for supporting me two years ago. i'm reapplying for seat eight. i've been on the task force 12 years, which makes me one of the, i think, the longest serving task force member. and, you know, in the absence of a database of best practices, i think it's important to have long serving members be a repository of our best practices and, and our institutional knowledge. and i'm happy to keep keep that moving forward. i will say, in the 12 years i've been here, i am the proudest of this team. this is a really good team that you have here all reapplying. we've

managed to do some things at the committee level to triage more fully. we're now using a consent calendar, and i'm proud to say our backlog is down to 32 cases, which has been unheard of in my time there. so i would ask your vote to keep doing this important work for the city. and thank you for your consideratio. thank you. david paypal. good morning, david pilpel. i rejoined the task force last year after serving off the task force for a number of years. you all know me and my long standing and deep commitment to city government and all of its complexity. i think now, given the state of the world, the country, the state and the city government, accountability and transparency aren't just buzzwords. they're incredibly important things that this task force deals with every day, every meeting on a very real

basis. i think the theme that you've heard from my fellow members, i absolutely agree with that. we have worked together effectively as a team, and i would encourage you to reappoint the incumbent members. thanks very much. thank you. and bruce wolf, we did get an email today. i did forward it to you that he's had he's unavailable this morning due to a conflict. thank you so much, mr. chair. i want to make sure that's on the record. and i do want to thank everyone who came in and spoke today, and also just everyone for your time, commitment and the work and also for your suggestions that you provided on how to improve the work of the task force. with that, we'll go to public comment. yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item, should i speak at this time? each speaker will be

allowed one minute. there will be a soft chime when you have seconds left and a louder chime when your time has expired. is there anybody who would like to speak on this matter? there are no speakers on this matter. thank you. seeing no speakers, public comment is now closed. mr. clerk, i'd like to make a motion to appoint dean schmidt to seat one. leila lahoud to seat two. saul sugarman to seat three. maxine anderson to seat five. laura stein to seat six. matthew yankey to seat seven. chris hyland to seat eight. david paypal to seat nine and bruce wolf to seat 11. yes, on that motion, vice chair safaí i have i member peskin, i peskin, i chair walton a walton i that motion passes without objection thank you motion carries

congratulations and again thank you all for being willing to continue to serve. mr. clerk, please call item number three. i mean, i'm sorry. please call items three through five together. yes. item number three is a motion approving rejecting the mayor's nomination for the appointment of avani jamdar to the public utilities commission for a term ending august 1st, 2028. item number four is motion approving rejecting the mayor's nomination for the appointment of joshua ahsha to the public utilities commission for a term ending august 1st, 2026. item number five is motion approving rejecting the mayor's nomination for appointment of stephan liverani to the public utilities commission for a term ending august 1st, 2028. there is a request that these three matters be sent to the board as a committee report. thank you so much, mr. clerk, and again, i do want to just thank folks for being willing to serve and keeping in mind that we have a long meeting this morning. i know sometimes folks have a lot

to say, and we have received your resumes. we have received information on you. we have received emails so we could keep our time to the minute. that would be much appreciated. and i will call you up in order of how you appear. and first is avni jamdar. thank you. supervisor walton. i am honored to be the mayor's nominee and to be considered for the position of commissioner to the puc for the environmental justice and policy seat. i am excited to serve in the commission because it builds on the work that i have done over the last 14 years in the environmental justice and climate sectors. i have lived in san francisco for over 22 years, moved here during my master's, and never left as an urban planner, i've been working in the energy and water sectors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create green jobs, and ensure an inclusive workforce in the green economy. my vision for the puc role is driven by my work on environmental justice, particularly on the energy side.

i'd like to see all enterprises in the puc advance more community and equity focused programing so we can create a diverse pipeline of workers and contractors, as well as serve low income ratepayers as a priority. i want to work on getting clean power sf to partner with other ccas in the region, address high electric rates and other utility rates and costs of electrification and decarbonization. with that, i will i think that's my time right? yes. thank you so much. next we have joshua ahsha. thank you. chair. walton. supervisors joshua say honored to be nominated by the mayor for the ratepayer consumer advocacy sea. began my career as a civil rights attorney. originally representing rent payers, tenants and fighting eviction cases. worked on. my first puc meeting was in 2007 with the late, great doctor espinola jackson, advocating for low income programs as well as

workforce working with groups like abu to connect ratepayers with jobs. i work in the labor movement now, advocating for ratepayer accountability at for profit utilities in terms of lowering bills and making more responsible investments in wildfire prevention. a lot of that work i've done with the city in terms of time spent as director of workforce development, helping folks to get jobs, to be able to pay their utility bills and others. i'm grateful to the labor and community folks who have submitted letters of support. look forward to answering questions around any of the topics of interest. i would very much be grateful to have your support and work with the amazing general manager team and fellow commissioners at the sf puc. thank you, thank you and steven leveroni. thank you, supervisors. i'm honored to have been nominated for the project finance seat on the san francisco public utilities commission. as a native san franciscan, a long time business

owner, community volunteer, and board leader, i know i have the passion and commitment and business acumen for this important role. i'm very excited and challenged by the opportunity to serve the energy, water and waste issues we face as a city and county are complex, and yet at the core, i believe that is san francisco's values of access, inclusivity, environmental responsibility, and stewardship, and sound fiscal policies that provide an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate leadership to the residents, businesses and other cities that we are managing and delivering these vital assets and services efficiently and responsibly, and with an eye on the challenges of climate change. thank you. thank you. colleagues, do we have any questions? i don't see anyone on the roster. i do have one question for everyone. obviously, this commission is very important, responsible for

our water and sewer system, responsible for powering communities and at times the department has a lot of infrastructure projects and community. and one of the things it's always important to me is making sure that the folks who deal with all of the issues and concerns, negative impacts on some of these projects, their community benefits, needs are, are met. how do you all feel about community benefits? and you can come up in whatever order you choose? well, i helped negotiate a community workforce agreement so very much in support of community benefits. i also support your expansion of the social impact partnership program to include more benefits as contract sizes increases. so i'm fully in support of benefits as much as possible. and i would reiterate same supervisor walton, chair walton, with respect to the importance of

community benefits as a way to further a lot of the things that make this agency unique in terms of establishing environmental justice policy, community benefits policies for more than a decade now, that as the ratepayer and consumer advocate on the commission, i would seek to ensure that those community benefits, full flow through and flow to the community. i think it would be incumbent upon me to maintain those connections with coalitions. the api council latino task force, mega black, other organizations that are specifically working with the community members that we seek to serve and seek to benefit. there's no maybe in some ways, some of the earliest benefits you can provide are benefits of work. and that's something i look forward to supporting through the project. labor agreements, local hiring policies, the hyper local approaches to contracting and full support of community benefits. thank you. chairman walton, i'm very, very much involved in the community and

wanting to continue that process with our contracts and going forward. i think it's very important, not just in community involvement, but also employment opportunities that might become available during for these type of contracts that we're giving out to the city. thank you. supervisor safaí. thank you. chair walton. one of the things that we often are confronted with when it comes to the puc is balancing the need for upgrading our aging infrastructure. we've done a significant number of projects over the last number of years that are continuously ongoing, and some of the things that supervisor walton was talking about in terms of impacting and benefiting the community definitely am strongly in support of the groundbreaking work that the puc did to establish project labor agreements that then created pathways for employment in partnership with city build for

people to get into the trades, but also historically disadvantaged communities that have been overlooked and forgotten and left out of the conversation. and our local business enterprises and those companies that are owned by women, that are owned by black, latino and people of color super important. and i think the puc has done a good job of incorporating that. but a lot of the work that's been done impacts ratepayers, and it disproportionately impacts those working families, those that are struggling to survive in san francisco. so i just want to just give you a moment to talk about balancing out the impacts of the increased cost of living in san francisco, the large amount of infrastructure projects and how it impacts ratepayers, something that we've been that we've been confronted with consistently. there's been a lot of conversations about certain work should work being done, how you spread it out and how the impact of those rate changes impact ratepayers,

particularly low income working families, middle class families, those that are struggling to survive in san francisco. i think we've seen a significant jump over the last few years. the head of the puc came in and asked for that in authorization, so i just want to give you a moment to respond to the impact that the work that you do has on ratepayers. thank you. supervisor safaí. that's an extremely critical issue. setting rates is a state level endeavor. so i think partnering with state agencies, whether it's the cpuc or cec, to create some conversations, dialog and maybe a task force around addressing rate hikes, particularly for low income customers, would be something i would be interested in working on. electric rates have nearly doubled in the last two years. it is really, really worrying, particularly as we go into electrification of all of our buildings. it's extremely worrying and something i

actively work on in my day job, and i would absolutely commit to working on that at the puc. thank you. supervisor. the puc, in its budget submission and the mayor's budget to the board, that you deliberate upon the number one first comment and section of that budget book was commitment to affordability. and i see that reflected in some of the lowest electricity rates. cleanpowersf rates are lower than pg and e you look at water rates, there's all sorts of incentives and other means of relief payment plans, other tools that are part of the puc commitment to affordability. i think as the ratepayer advocate, what i've seen in, in, in watching the last hearings throughout the year, there's a lot of report back to the commission from the general manager and his team about the fiscal elements, the operations, the impact to ratepayers. and i think in in, if given the opportunity to serve, i think it would be a opportunity to plug

in and continue to support that work and again, to continue to expand that connection to community voices, to bring those those real life impacts to back to the commission. but when it comes to construction, as you said, the project labor agreement at the sfpuc work that you supervisor have led citywide around project labor agreements, it's a model for the nation. and when you look at local hiring, because of the puc's work with city build and community partners, building trades and contractors, local hiring actually increases for overall local workforce, especially local apprentices. under the puc project labor agreement. so like i say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. help make it stronger, better and replicate it. as i mentioned, it's a complex issue. we do have the deferred maintenance and we have those things that need to be taken care of. but at the same time, i think being in the project finance seat, what i would be looking at really is one to

value engineer those contracts as best as possible. and yet including the affordability and then being able to look at it from a prioritization and then also looking at maybe the timing of our bonds and how we would get those in place at low rates and take advantage of accomplishing not only the construction portion, keeping in mind the community and affordability, but also making sure that from a, you know, holding all accountable and including the value engineering of all contracts. thank you. chair. thank you, supervisor safaí. and seeing no more questions, we will now call for public comment and just a reminder, we're doing one minute for public comment this morning. thank you. yes. members of the public who wish to speak should line up at this time. each speaker will be allowed one minute. good morning. my name is

geetha rao and i'm a senior director at enterprise community partners and we are a nonprofit that advocates for green, affordable housing. i'm also a resident of san francisco for 24 years, and i'm here to enthusiastically support the nomination of avni jamdar to the sfpuc commission. there are kind of three. i've known avni for about 20 years and there are three things that stick out. in terms of avni's leadership, the first one is with her experience in decarbonization of ne understands the details at the project level, and she lifts up what's salient, devises solutions, and then actually implements these solutions to achieve systems change. she works in true partnership. she works with people who who are at times at odds with each other, and she brings everyone along while having those hard conversations. and last, avni is steadfast and loyal, as evidenced by her 13 year tenure at emerald city. she was the first regional director and has built emerald cities to what it is today. so thank you for this

opportunity and looking forward to having you nominate avni. thanks. good morning, i'm sarah. my name is sarah treuhaft and i'm the director of policy and partnerships at the institute on race, power and political economy and a longtime san francisco resident. i'm here to support the nomination of amna jamdar to the san francisco puc as well. i've known avni for 20 years, and i have seen firsthand her deep commitment to public service, thoughtful decision making and expertise in equitable urban planning and environmental justice. avni is a brilliant thinker and doer who is passionate about building a more just and sustainable san francisco. through her leadership at emerald cities, she has a long track record of designing and implementing climate plans and projects that deliver real results for underserved communities. i believe her leadership,

dedication and innovative thinking would greatly benefit our community as we navigate critical issues around water and sustainability. thank you. good morning, chair walden, supervisors. my name is antonio diaz, and i'm with poder, an environmental justice organization here in san francisco. and i'm here to support avni jamdar to the san francisco public utilities commission in the environmental justice and policy seat. i've worked with avni for over 13 years through emerald cities. the board appointed energy efficiency coordinating committee and most recently the anchor partner network to advance equitable residential building decarbonization. and i have seen her commitment to work with various stakeholders government, private sector, community based organizations and labor with utmost integrity

and a collaborative spirit and with a vision for advancing solutions, especially those that benefit low income communities, communities of color here in san francisco. and i just want to say that i support her being named to the commission. thank you. thank you. david pilpel. again, my history with the puc goes back literally 45 years to when muni was part of the public utilities commission. i served with avni on the puc citizen's advisory committee. i found her to be a very thoughtful and important member of the committee. some years ago when we served together. i've worked with josh ahsha closely. when he served admirably on the commission on the environment, including time as the chair. i do not know. mr. leveroni, but it seems like he will do a fine job as well. i just wanted to note that this is a pretty

significant change in the commission makeup, and i hope that these new commissioners will look back to some of their predecessors, including andy moran, newsha ajami, ed harrington, many others, sophie maxwell to understand the puc and the breadth and depth of the water, power and sewer issues that they will now oversee. thanks for listening. good morning. randall de martini, executive director of the salesian boys and girls club, and i'm here on behalf to speak for mr. steven leverone. steven and i go way back. i've known him for over 30 years. not only is he very involved in a lot of community nonprofits, he's very involved with our salesian boys and girls club. so much so that when he was our board president, it was he back in 1995 that made the salesian, then boys club, the merge of the salesian boys

and girls club. so i can only stress that steve is a great leader in this city of san francisco. yes, he is also a native of san francisco, and i know he will devote all of his energy and time into the position of public utilities commission, so i highly recommend that he is very much considered for this position. thank you so much. good morning supervisors. my name is sheila bukta on behalf of mission housing to express our strong support for the appointment of joshua arce to the san francisco public utilities commission. josh has dedicated decades to advocating for low incomes of communities of color and labor rights throughout the bay area. he founded the bright line institute, which has been pivotal in promoting environmental justice. his work as a representative of laborers local 261 and various regional labor groups for the past 15 years has demonstrated a

profound commitment to social equity. his seven years as board chair of mission housing illustrates his ability to navigate complex challenges and lead initiatives that support affordable housing during critical times. we believe that with josh on the puc, it will be better positioned to meet the needs of all san francisco residents, and we urge you to support this nomination. thank you. thanks. good morning, supervisor, especially to our supervisors that just just attend. i'm here in the name of the late doctor espinola jackson. when i find out that our own josh was going to be appointed, and we was with great pleasure to be here and support because, you know that he's been there fighting with my mom, doctor espinola jackson. and thank you, supervisor, when you talked about the community benefit, because i don't see too much, i guess. can i take one of

day minutes? 30s you got 30s i'll have 30s. okay. thank you. so the community benefits. i'm glad you talked about that. we in our community need a safe haven for our youth job training that was promised the educational building that was promised. and we are the sinners of the mitigation that puc promised. when my mama was aliv, we never received that building, that educational building. so we're hoping that the ones that's coming forward, our speaker time, has elapsed. thank you. thank you. all right. now, are there any additional public commenters on this matter? all right. good morning. my name is

james richards. i'm the president of abu black man united. we're based in the bayview-hunters point area, and i'm here to support josh ahsha. ahsha to the commission. he's worked very hard and very closely with us in the community as he's he's just he's known he's very strong willed and he's wanted to the justice for all people. you know, he's fighting for us all. and i want him to continue his fight on every level. and i can say that the commission will be getting someone who is going to be strong willed, and he will be added to the commission and something to san francisco. thank you. thank. you. hello,

commissioners. my name is ashley rhodes. i'm also a member of the aboriginal black man united and a strong advocate for that organization in the bayview-hunters point community, primarily known josh for years now and worked very close with josh and the thing that is most effective with mr. ahsha is when it's a job to get done, he gets it done. and i know for all the work that we've done together in the past, that he would for surely be the right person for this job. not only that, but he walks the community. he comes to the community, and he's a part of the community, not just speaking, but actually putting pavement in the ground to make sure that things are happening. right. to hear the voices of the community so that the community can get the best that they need.

that's the kind of man that this man is. and he'll be very, very welcomed in that position to do the work that needs to be done. thank you. buenos dias. my name is roberto hernandez, and i am here because i believe in this. brother josh asked how many attorneys do you know come down to the neighborhood and volunteer their time? not once a year, not twice a year, not six times a year, but every single day. and not only in the latino community, but as my african-american brothers. i've been there when he's been in in hunters point. i've been there when he's been in the western edition. i've been there when he's been in sunnydale. he goes to all the places that nobody else goes to. deep in our community and at a time when utilities are rising and people

can't afford to pay utilities, if you pay utilities, you buy food. do you pay your rent or you pay utilities? those are the decisions that people are making. and with climate change, we need to address that. and he's the man that can help represent me. your time has elapsed. are there any additional speakers for these items? there is no additional public comment. thank you. seeing no additional speakers, public comment is now closed. and my apologies, mr. clerk, but i'd like to make a motion to excuse supervisor peskin as he has to report in another committee. yes, on the motion to excuse supervisor peskin, vice chair safaí i safaí peskin s excuse chair walton a walton i the motion to excuse. supervisor peskin passes without objection with member peskin being

excused. thank you. motion carries. and now, mr. clerk, seeing no other members of the board on the roster, i'd like to make a motion to remove the word rejecting and choose approved for each nominee and send to the full board as a committee repor. yes. on items three, four and five. there's motion to delete the word rejecting throughout the throughout the motion and recommend that as a committee report as amended on that motion, vice chair safaí i safíi i peskin. excuse chair walton i walton i that motion passes without objection with member peskin being excused. thank you. motion carries. congratulations, everyone. mr. clerk would you please call item number six? item number six is a motion to approve and rejecting the

treasurer. the nomination of greg wagner for a term ending june 17, 2026, to the treasury oversight committee. thank you so much, mr. comptroller. thank you. chair walton. supervisor safaí greg wagner, city comptroller. as you know, under section 5.9-3 of the city administrative code and consistent with the california government code sections on treasury oversight, the comptroller is designated the first seat on the treasury oversight board. so i am here to request your appointment of me to that board. if you do appoint me to that board, i can assure you that myself and my team will carry out the duties of that committee diligently and in the public interest. thank you, comptroller wagner. i don't believe we have any questions at this time for any questions for i object to greg wagner seeing

no questions or comments from colleagues, please call for public comment on this item. yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak. at this time. there are no public commenters on this matter. thank you. seeing no speakers, public comment is now closed. i'd like to make a motion to remove, rejecting and choose approved for this nominee and send to full board as a committee as a positive recommendation. yes. on a motion to amend to delete. rejecting throughout the legislation and to recommend, as amended, chair safaí. vice chair safaí. i safaí peskin. excuse chair walton. i will deny that motion passes without objection. thank you. motion passes. mr. clerk, please call item number seven. yes. item number seven. hearing to consider appointing board members. terms ending september 6th, 2027, to assessment appeals. board number one. thank you. so much. and

again, i will call in order of what i have in my notes. and also just a reminder, we have one minute. and first is adina gilbert. good morning. committee members. i was first appointed almost two years ago after retiring from serving as an administrative law judge at the rent stabilization and arbitration board for 24 years, and it's been an honor to serve at the board, and i'd be honored to continue with that. do you have any questions? we will let you know if we have questions after everyone speaks. thank you. so much. hillary winslow. i believe they submitted a letter they were unable to attend today. thank you so much. karina mitchell. good morning. hi. i am

currently serving on assessment appeals board one as an alternate for seat six. i'm applying for reappointment. i have had a i've enjoyed my time on the board for about a year and a half. i've been able to contribute and my knowledge and my time, and would love to continue to serve with my fellow commissioners. i think i can continue to grow and contribute to the board, so i appreciate your time and thank you for your consideration. thank you. paul bella. thank you. i'm seeking to continue my work on the assessment appeals board. i've been doing it for five years and 13 years appraising real estate here in the city. 23 year veteran teacher as a public school educator. and i would

like to continue, please. thank you. thank you. supervisor safíi do you have any questions for any of our nominees? no, i'll just say i appreciate your commitment to doing this. i think that all of you, having gone through the process myself, a number of years ago, it's important to have people that are objective and fair, that actually take the time to do the research and the work, and you have a great team to work with in the assessment appeals board. so thank you for your commitment to serve. thank you. supervisor safaí. mr. clerk, let's call for public comment. yes. members of the public wish to speak on this matter. just line up to speak at this time, i do not see any public commenters. thank you. seeing no speakers public comment is now closed and i too just want to appreciate everyone for your continued commitment to the work. and with that, i make a motion to send all names

forward adina gilbert, hillary winslow, karina mitchell, alternate paul byler, alternate to the full board with recommendation. yes, on that motion, vice chair safaí i safíi i peskin, excuse chair walton i walton i that motion passes without objection. thank you. motion carries. congratulations. mr. clerk, please call item number eight. item number eight is hearing to consider appointing five members. terms ending september sixth to the assessment appeals board. number two, thank you so much. and again just a reminder we have one minute to hear from our candidates. and i will go in order of what i have. first is louisa mendoza. good morning. assessment to the board. rules committee member of the public.

my name is luis mendoza. i've lived in this city of san francisco for over 35 years. actually, 37 years. i've served on the board for quite a long time, and it's really good serving on the board. i've enjoyed it working for the public. i've been educated at golden gate university, started as a property manager, appraiser for wells fargo, moved on from there to be a mortgage broker, real estate broker. and now i continue to run my own farm. thank you. thank you, nicholas goldman. good morning supervisors. i'm nick goldman, i'm an estate planning attorney here in san francisco. i would

appreciate your positive consideration of me for seat five on the arb. before i went to law school, i was in real estate and mortgage for three years. i worked on sales and purchases of both residential and commercial properties. so i have a grounding in the valuation of commercial properties. when i got out of law school, i worked in real estate law, various questions in real estate law, but mostly landlord tenant. and while i understand that this is not about landlord tenant law, landlord tenant law does affect the valuation of real property. also, i have no allegiance to any particular group in the city. for instance, when i was in real estate law, i belonged to the small property owners association in san francisco, apartment association. but since i'm no longer in that field, i don't belong to those organizations. so if somebody comes before me, they don't get any special treatment, right? so if you have any questions, i'm happy to answer them. thank you.

michaela domingo. good morning, chair walton, supervisor safaí and members of the rules committee. i'm michelle domingo, and i'm a candidate for seat six. i'm founder and managing attorney of ms. domingo law group, where an estate planning, probate and trust administration and litigation firm. through my practice, i work very closely with court appointed referees to ensure proper valuation for real property, and i'm also a certified mediator and have been mediating for 20 years. and oftentimes the trust and estates dispute involve real property. i would love an opportunity to serve and thank you so much for the opportunity. thank you. and i apologize for mispronouncing your name and the spelling. no problem was different. thank you so much. thank you, joyce lewis.

good morning, rules committee. my name is joyce lewis and i'm here seeking a reappointment because i served on the assessment appeals board from 2011 through 2019. and in 2024, i reconnected with alastair and gibson, the administrator who invited me to reapply. i'm a licensed attorney. i'm a licensed public health nurse. i also have a license in real estate as a salesperson and it's a wonderful opportunity to serve the city and county of san francisco and we serve a very vital function to equalize taxes

so that we can maintain our city services, our city parks, our city neighborhoods. and i'd be honored to be reappointed. thank you. thank you. and claire irvin lee. good morning. my name is claire irvin lee. i was born in san francisco, currently live in pacifica. i'm a licensed attorney. i retired from the state of california. various departments. you have my resume and i retired in in 20. i'm sorry, 2018 and that was fun for a couple of years. and then i went back to work as a retired annuitant for the california public utilities commission, where i worked as a an

investigator internally investigating complaints about eeo matters and mostly from employees internally, although there were some members of the public that had issues as well. i wrote neutral reports just no no bias towards one or the other and i that position ended in may of this year and i would like to serve in a position where i could be of help to the city and county of san francisco. thank you so much, supervisor safaí, do you have any questions for anyone seeing? no questions. we will now go to public comment on this item. members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak at this

time. there are no public commenters on this matter. seeing no speakers public comment is now closed. mr. chair, i would like to make the following motion to appoint luisa mendoza to seat one. nicholas goldman to seat five. michele domingo to seat six. alternate joyce louise joyce lewis to seat seven alternate and clare irving lee to seat eight alternate. yes on that motion, vice chair safaí safaí i chair. walton i walton i. that motion passes without objection, with member peskin being excuse. thank you. motion carries. congratulations to everyone. mr. clerk, please call item number nine. item number nine is hearing to consider appointing one member term ending september 7th, 2025. two members term ending september 7th, 2026, and two members term ending september six, 2027. to assess

an appeals board number three, thank you so much. and i believe we have one applicant, mark dic. i apologize if i mispronounced your last name. no, you got it right. thank you. good morning supervisors. thank you for considering my application for reappointment for assessment of appeals board three, seat five. my name is mark dickow. i have been a licensed realtor since i was 18 years old. i'm a second generation realtor. i've practiced real estate in san francisco for the past 15 years, and been a real estate broker for 11 years. here in san francisco. i would appreciate to continue on the assessment appeals board. i just finished my first year and some months and see the need for us to serve and get through these cases and would like to continue to do so.

thank you. so much. thank you. i don't see anyone on the roster for questions or comments. mr. clerk, please call for public comment. yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this matter should line up at this time. my name is luisa mendoza. i would like to in regards to my fellow commissioner mark dickow. i would like to say i've been it's been a pleasure working with him. he brings lots of knowledge to the table on the assessment appeals board. even though our work has been mostly via zoom, it is really been a pleasure and i would like that he be reappointed. thank you, thank you. are there any additional speakers on this matter? there are no additional

speakers. thank you. seeing no additional speakers, public comment is now closed. mr. clerk, i'd like to make a motion to move the name mark dickow forward for seat five. yes, on that motion. vice chair safaí safaí. chair. walton. i deny that motion passes without objection. with member peskin being excused. thank you. motion carries. congratulations, mr. clerk, do we have any other items before us this morning? are there? there. sorry. my apologies. i just want to confirm that the item three, four and five were sent out as committee reports. correct. okay. thank you. there are no additional items on today's agenda. thank you so much. and we are adjourned.

good morning, everyone. thank you for being here. i appreciate the presence on a sunny day like this. a week ago friday, the federal

district rules in the simon case that the sheriff's department can no longer allow a standard search condition for pretrial electronic monitoring participants. i'm here to announce that we'll be filing an appeal with the ninth circuit court of appeals. our office has tireless worked with partners to reduce the population in the interest of criminal justice reform. as sheriff, i have had the difficult task of running a program that strikes a balance between public safety and ensuring the constitutional rights of the accused. i'm extremely disappointed by this recent ruling of the federal district court. the ruling failed to see the value of the monitoring program that allows annen incarcerated individual often violent in a community that allows them the chance to succeed while they

wait for their court to deal with their criminal matters. no one should have to deal with this. this is a behavior that compromises public safety. for that reason, from the onset of this case, our office and the city attorney's office has made it clear that we could not run this program without this condition. in fact that condition allows us to form the accused right by the 4th amendment with legal notice for their participation in the program. the move that keeps everyone safe provides a tool to keep violent offenders in jail. as a result of this decision, judges have fewer options available for criminal

defendants. this places an undue burden on those defendants that would not otherwise have the means to have bail from incarceration. we are prepared to deal with the effects of this order and the effect on the justice system including the population and the opening house for the incarcerated. in closing, the appeal in this case creates for the city a protection so we do not move backwards. i would like to bring the mayor to the podium. >> thank you very much. i would like to thank you, our sheriff, and so many deputies doing to help to contribute to the safety of our city. overall what we have been seeing as a result of working together,

crime is continuing to decline. san francisco is a major city and things will happen. we need to be sure we have the tools we need to keep the public safe. i want to appreciate not just our sheriff department, but our police department, our district attorney, our city attorney, our federal and our state partners because we are working hand in hand to combat what we know has been a very challenging time on so many levels. the biggest difference we have now as a result of our partnership is the fact that there is accountability. and accountability is a big part of what the sheriff department does. when providing people with ankle monitors and allowing them to go back on the street while they await trials and deal with challenges for the arrest in the first place, it does give us an opportunity to provide an important reform tool that gives people second chances and works

with the community. the fact is, when our public safety officials, our sheriff deputies or our police officers are out on the streets like places on the tenderloin and other neighborhoods and they encounter these individuals they need to be able to do what they have always done, ensure they do not have weapons on their persons before they go through whatever process they need to go through to make a decision as to whether or not someone may need to be rearrested or returned into custody or whether or not they can go about their day. i have heard directly how this decision has impacted officers in the tenderloin community. we have been working collaboratively along the drugs that play havoc on this neighborhoods and we can't do this job efficiently and this is

a problem and especially to do the things we need to do in san francisco and to ensure this city is safe for everyone and we continue to enforce what is important in our criminal justice system. we hope that we are able to move forward with this and wholeheartedly support the sheriff's decision to ensure that he can do whatever he can to protect the deputies that are the ones that are supposed to go out to these individuals wearing ankle monitors and as well as the police department so they can go out and we hope this is reversed so we can keep doing what we can. at this time, i would like to introduce you to our district attorney. >> thank you, madam mayor, thank you sheriff.

not only am i the district attorney at this time, but for many years, i have spent every day coming into this court house to handle cases, unlike our last two district attorneys here in san francisco. i have seen firsthand what the electronic monitoring program is and how vital it is that we have a warrant less search condition as part of that release so the sheriff's department and other law enforcement agencies can ensure that those individuals who have the privilege of being out of custody and on that ankle monitor are abiding by all of our laws, and so they are not out there committing more crime in san francisco. the court's ruling as you just heard has completely hampered the sheriff's department ability to completely make sure that that program is enacted safely. that is why we are here today. critics may say that once you are on that monitor that you

should be allowed to be freely but that is not a right. the court has at a rate that is extraordinary and reckless put people on those ankle monitors who we know have continued to sell drugs in our city, continue to commit violence crime in our city. the sheriff's department and other law enforcement agencies need to have that ability to curve that behavior. to be sure if they encounter someone when they are in a neighborhood they shouldn't be in, to be sure they have a right to search to make sure that they do not have narcotics or weapons to continue to enforce and make sure that this criminal behavior can be addressed appropriately. at this time, i stand behind

everyone that you see here. and unfortunately that means people will be incarcerated because they will not have this option. the other thing is waiting to see how the court responds and whether or not they place people on private monitoring that is less effective than what the sheriff was doing. we will be watching very closely from my office standpoint whether or not the decisions continue to be made in this courthouse that do not promote the safety of our public here. again, it is unfortunate that we are in this position, and we will continue from my office advantage point to do what we can to articulate to the court what needs to happen to keep this city safe. i will go now to our city attorney david chiu. >> thank you very much. let me first start by thanking all of our incredible partners

when it comes to public safety including our mayor, police department and sheriff's and district attorney. i saw how important the work they are doing and the risks they are taking to do this. i'm very disappointed in the recent ruling in the case. the court's decision was unfortunate. it does not comport with the practical issues that the sheriff's department must do every day to keep the communities safe. let's deal with the real fact of the matter. the fact is that many enrolled in the sheriff's department pretrial program are facing serious and violent charges. for example, superior court judges allowed all in the case to be released in custody of the

program when they are dealing with family members that led to charges of family domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon and many creams. these are voluntarily agreed to by defendants. they allow sheriff's to search persons, properties, cars or homes, conditions to require public safety and officer's safety to determine whether a defendant is abiding by conditions of release. we are talking about guns, drugs, stay away, electronic, contraband conditions. these conditions also allow the sheriff deputies to conduct safe home checks which are critical to ensuring that there are no weapons, crime victims, contraband or illegal activity taking place at the home of the defendant. as you can imagine, these are particularly important in domestic violence cases and this is clear to public safety.

as the start of the case, he and our officers made it recently clear that they can not administer this program without this condition. given this recent federal order, the sheriff's department can no longer run the program to protect the public, and deputies. he has put these deputies in an awful position. if they are having to conduct home checks, or search, that does not promote public safety. we will be filing an appeal from the judge's order which limits the options for state judges and limits the time in our community and increases the jail populations and will not keep us safer. we are going to continue to enforce these actions to allow us to continue to ensure public

safety, but the most prudent path is to stop enrolling in this program. back to the sheriff. >> at this time, i also want to recognize our chief probation officer is here in support of our efforts to make sure that we keep san francisco as safe as possible. at this time, per the request in regards to the issue that we are talking about. >> about current enrollees continuing in the program. >> unless they are encountered for consideration by the courts. >> housing? >> we have opened up two additional dorms in response to the increase of our population in the past year. we anticipated increases not just based on this decision, but

also in anticipation of whether or not certain propositions are about to pass. the continuing efforts, our public safety efforts, also will lead to additional increases in our population. so we had two dorms that are available to be open to accommodate the challenges we may face as a result of this decision. each dorm has 60 beds. >> yes? >> [inaudible] >> so, it is still the judges determination on all of these cases on whether or not somebody would avail themselves of this program. we operate on court orders.

the court orders to put people onto these programs. that is part of the issue. it's not just the serious violent offenders as you recognize, there are 200 out of the 400 that have past serious felonies. the felonies also contain charges and cases where other than by name only are serious. domestic violence, for example, mentioned by the city attorney, that's considered a felony, but we have still people on electronic monitoring on those cases and those are the individuals who are in the current case. >> to the district attorney, what does this mean for your prosecutors as they are now dealing with the arraignment process. what are your options in terms of figuring out, what this

actually does is make it more difficult for the courts and their analysis. in many of these cases we have actually requested detention, but yet this is being used as a less restrictive alternative. now the court will not have the option of this less restrictive alternative and with complete release or detention. our position will always continue to be that we advocate what we believe what is best for public safety. that will not change. i want to point out something that while 50% may mean violent felonies, we have a huge amount of people on ankle monitors dealing fentanyl. they are people who we often see back and oftentimes are carrying

weapons and other drugs they are selling. these sheriff's deputies and the police still need to be able to ensure they are in compliance and they are not committing more harm in san francisco. you can't just look at the nature of the charge, you have to look at the conduct and what harm is having in our communities. >> yes? >> i believe the question was what the timeline would be for the process itself? >> there has already been discussions and argument september 10th and waiting for a ruling on the ninth circuit and waiting to hear what is decided.

i have heard of other monitoring programs in other counties. >> san francisco's process in terms of our ankle monitoring program, we have this program and the individuals in other counties would otherwise be incarcerated or not out on an ankle monitor. >> what is important as you hear about this as you hear us ask about a warrant condition is to emphasize that these defendants have agreed to these conditions to be released into the community. that somehow we are violating their constitutional rights when they fully consented

to this is not appropriate. thank you for that. >> [inaudible] >> the decision itself and i will defer to the city attorney for that. there was an injunction imposed on us and the judges order references a violation of that injunction by continuing the searching. i will let the district attorney answer that. >> i'm sorry, could you repeat your question? >> [inaudible] >>

two things i want to say, i'm going to ask the sheriff and the attorney. the sheriff has a right to determine what the conditions of the program he is going to be implementing and in this case, he decides to protect the public and as well as the safety of the deputies. without this search condition is not workable. i'm going to ask alex to fill in the blanks of a good portion of your question. >> the two points to make.

i think the first is as some of the other speakers have highlighted, each time someone is placed in the electronic monitoring program, the superior court judge reads the agreements and conditions and this is a court order and the defendant an agrees out loud to the court to the judge represented by counsel and signs the court order. the second issue is that there is a deputy and public safety issue here that is uniquely within the purview of the sheriff and the importance of this city. in one of the cases that was highlighted in the district court record, someone who is on the pretrial electronic monitoring program had guns and ammunition in his backpack. because he knew the deputy approaching him could search that backpack, the defendant

dropped that backpack and ran away. we don't know, we can't know that without that search condition, the deputy who was approaching that defendant would have gotten shot, but instead the defendant knew that the deputy could search the backpack and dropped the backpack and ran and the deputy was safe that day. >> if there are no further questions, i thank everybody for being here today. i thank our criminal justice partners for being here today and we'll continue to do the work to keep our community safe. thank you.

>> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of san francisco. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> i'm one of three owners here in san francisco and we provide mostly live music entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and it's not a big menu, but we did it with love. like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. for latinos, it brings families

together and if we can bring that family to your business, you're gold. tonight we have russelling for e community. >> we have a ten-person limb elimination match. we have a full-size ring with barside food and drink. we ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar. we're hope og get families to join us. we've done a drag queen bingo and we're trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. this is a great part of town and there's a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. there's a popular little shop that all of the kids like to

hang out at. we have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and it's exciting. >> we even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. it's in the san francisco garden district and four beautiful murals. >> it's important to shop local because it's kind of like a circle of life, if you will. we hire local people. local people spend their money at our businesses and those local people will spend their money as well. i hope people shop locally. [ ♪♪♪ ]