good morning and welcome to the december 9th, 2024 rules committee meeting. i'm supervisor shaman walton, and i'm joined by supervisor aaron peskin and soon to be joined by supervisor ahsha safaí. today's clerk is victor young, and i would like to thank susan enos from sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting live and to make sure that we get the information out to the public. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? yes. public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda. when your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please line up to speak. 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 is included as part of the file. you may also send

your comments via us postal service to our office in city hall one doctor carlton b goodlett place, room 244, san francisco, california 94 102. 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 december 17th, unless otherwise stated. that completes my initial announcements. thank you so much. mr. clerk, would you please call item number one? item number one is an ordinance amending the administrative code to end certain quarterly reporting requirements by the mayor's office of housing and community development to the board of supervisors and the mayor regarding development of 100% affordable housing and to establish new semiannual reporting requirements. beginning july 31st, 2025. thank you so much. would you like to say anything first? supervisor roanoke and supervisor ronen is also joining us this meeting. good morning. i believe we have

a presentation just a short presentation. good morning. i'm sheila nicolopoulos with mayor's office of housing and community development in 2018, permitting was a significant barrier to affordable housing. the city had fragmented, permitting systems that were delaying important, affordable projects. so in response, supervisor ronen brought forward legislation that required reporting quarterly reporting from ocd that would increase transparency around where permitting was causing logjams and development of affordable units. that legislation became administrative code section 109.3 that requires most cdd to report every three months on four areas. the report must include one. a list of every 100% affordable housing project that is applied for approval of permit or other city authorization from dbi public works fire department, mayor's office, and disability or the planning department. two information regarding the financing and financing related deadlines for each 100% affordable housing project. three any approval permit or other city authorization, each

100% affordable project is waiting to receive from the department or office, and four the date of any application and current status of each pending approval permit or other city authorization for 100% affordable projects. since these requirements were codified six years ago, permitting for affordable housing has been streamlined through ministerial approvals under state bills like ab 2011 and sb 35. creation of a central permit center, creation of an online database, appointment of the director of housing delivery and other efforts. permitting is no longer the issue that it was, fortunately permitting for affordable housing is now an efficient and coordinated process. it now takes less than five months to complete, permitting compared to more than 13 months a few years ago. working with supervisor ronen mohcd developed the legislation before you today. it will remove the requirement to report on permit status and require reporting every six months instead of every three months. we are confident that this modification will continue to provide useful information to decision makers and the public, while reducing administrative

costs, and i want to highlight two places where you and the public can find reports and data about affordable housing production. one is most cities web page for reports and plans, which has our annual reports, the annual performance and evaluation reports required by hud, the five year consolidated plan action plans, and all of the reports that are required by the board and the second i want to highlight is our mchd affordable housing dashboard. that's a mapping tool that provides current data about complete and pipeline projects. this mapping tool, you can sort by housing programs, supervisorial district, neighborhood construction, status development and type and more. so those provide both of those provide lots of resources on reporting. thank you for your time and i'm available for any questions. and oh, do you want to do a quick can we bring up the screen again. we were just going to give you a quick look at what the that dashboard looks like. right there. so this is

our dashboard website that's available to everyone. and that's where you can do all of the sorting by different categories. and then it'll generate a map and it'll generate a list of all of the projects. thank you. thank you so much. i don't see supervisor ronen. sure. i just wanted to thank the department for doing the quarterly reporting for all these years. it has been very helpful to figure out where there are roadblocks in the way of allowing affordable housing to be built faster and the most efficiently in the city. i know pga, for example, historically has been a real big delay problem, and we were able to, you know, figure that out by by watching these reports. and as supervisors intervene where we thought were appropriate. but it it makes sense to me that we do this only twice a year instead

of four times a year. now that it's been in effect for a while. and now that we do have more streamlined regulations. so i thank you for the work and i'm happy or am proud to be a co-sponsor. thank you. supervisor ronen. it is nothing wrong with being more efficient. i will now call for public comment on item number one. yes, members of the public wish to speak on this item should line up to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any speakers who would like to comment on this matter? there are no speakers. seeing no speakers, public comment is now closed and i would like to make a motion to move this item forward with a positive recommendation to the full board. supervisor peskin, are you trying to speak? no. would you like to send this out as a committee report? yes. as a committee report. thank you. on the motion to recommend as a committee report, vice chair, safaí safaí, member. peskin, a,

peskin i chair. walton i walton i that motion passes without objection. thank you. motion carries. mr. clerk, please call item number two. item number two is an ordinance amending the administrative code to change the sunset date for the mental health sf implementation working group from september 1st, 2026 to the effective date of this ordinance. thank you so much, supervisor ronen. yes. thank you. colleagues, this item just had to sit for a week when we made the amendments last week. just to remind you, we are sunsetting the mental health implementation working group as soon as this ordinance goes into effect and in our next item, we are going to conduct a hearing to learn about all of the positive implementation of

mental health. s.f. and what is left to be done and how the system has changed since its implementation. so i would request that you would move this item to the full board as a committee report. thank you. thank you. so much, supervisor ronen. and i don't see anyone else on the roster. mr. clerk, would you please call for public comment on item two? yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak at this time, each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this matter? there are no commenters on this matter. thank you. no speakers. so public comment is now closed. and mr. clerk, i would like to make a motion to move this item forward with a positive recommendation to the full board. as a committee report. yes. on that motion, vice chair safaí safaí i member. peskin i. peskin i chair walton i walton i that motion passes without objection. thank you. motion carries. mr. clerk, please call item number three. yes. item

number three is a hearing to discuss the progress, successes and provisions left to implement of the mental health sf and requesting the department of public health behavioral health services to report. thank you, supervisor ronen. yes. before doctor cunnings begins the report, i just wanted to publicly thank her. thank you, doctor kunz, for really making the difficult decision of leaving new york, where you led the behavioral health department for so many years and taking on the major, major challenges we have in san francisco. and i believe and have seen very closely that since you have gotten here, the department has improved its behavioral health system tremendously. and, of course, that has to do with your incredible staff. but in my

opinion, it also has to do with your incredible leadership. so i just wanted to thank you so much for all your work, and it gives me much calm to know that you are here leading our behavioral health system and with your incredibly huge heart and concern for the people suffering so dearly from mental illness and drug addiction, but also your vast knowledge. having been in addiction specialist physician for so many years and just being an expert in this, this area, we're very, very lucky to have you. and i'm so grateful for all your work and with that, i'm excited to hear your presentation. well, thank you very much for your kind words. supervisor ronen. i really and my team really appreciate hearing that. i want to thank you and this the entire board of supervisors. chair walton, supervisor safaí.

president peskin, we are very grateful for the leadership of this body and enabling us to move forward in the many ways that we have. i'm very happy to be here to share an overview of mental health. s.f. what has happened and our implementation timeline. i want to particularly highlight our office of coordinated care bed and treatment expansions. follow up care for street encounters, and end with both. some challenges, as well as what we see are opportunities and upcoming implementation. and before i start, i do also just want to acknowledge that the opportunities that the city has given the health department, along with our other sister city agencies, to really tackle decades long disinvestment and decades long policy challenges

at many levels of government, has been extraordinary and not done. so. this is what where we've come and hopefully a little bit of where where we might go. so as as you all know, mental health sf was legislated in 2019. it built upon existing behavioral health services and programs in san francisco. the priorities, as you can see on the top right, were of people experiencing homelessness with serious mental health or substance use diagnoses. the key components of msph included the office of coordinated care, the street crisis response team, a mental health service center, an expansion of new residential care and treatment or beds, mental health sf facilities, importantly, are primarily funded through the voter supported our city, our home or

proposition c. i wanted to share this graphic with you all that describes our implementation timeline, which you can see on the left starting in 2020. launched launch of street crisis response team. the beginning of bed expansion in 2021. we began to expand components of the what was named as part of the mental health service center and specifically expanded pharmacy hours, continuing to expand residential care and treatment or beds. 2022 we launched the office of coordinated care, as well as additional components of what was named as part of the mental health service center, specifically, drug sobering. what became known as soma rise. in 2023, we launched as part of the office of coordinated care, something called the best neighborhoods street care team

teams. further expansion of the elements of the mental health service center, specifically the back, which stands for behavioral health access center hours. this year, we were very focused on ongoing bed expansion and still to come as further work of msph is the mental health service center, including identification and acquisition of a site and our what we are now calling our stabilization unit or csu crisis stabilization unit, with ongoing work to continue to optimize our residential care and treatment availability. transitioning. now, i want to first highlight at a high level, some of the key accomplishments of msph. we have added approximately 400 new residential care and treatment beds we have created. as you just heard, the office of coordinated care to deliver centralized access to care and strengthen coordination of care

for priority populations. this, i just want to note, is an entirely new function for the city. we fully implemented citywide 24 over seven street crisis response team with the fire department and department of emergency management, and we added as that team evolved, the expanded follow up teams to enhance care coordination. and we have been working tirelessly. i think it's fair to say increasing access to services envisioned for the mental health service center, including increasing pharmacy, buprenorphine clinic availability and walk in hours. next, i want to transition in some more specificity to what we have expanded in terms of residential care and treatment. as i just mentioned, we've opened about 400 new behavioral health beds that were conceived of and planned under a mental health sf. and you can see the timeline in front of you,

starting with a managed alcohol program in 2020, psychiatric respite that is the hummingbird valencia program. additional lock, subacute treatment beds 2022 marked adding additional psychiatric skilled nursing contracts, a dual diagnosis transitional care program in partnership with the probation department at the mina, we opened additional residential care facilities, a drug sobering site and additional mental health co-op housing that is longer term care for people with mental illness. 2023 marked our opening of many residential stepdown beds, also known as sober housing or recovery housing. additional residential withdrawal management beds and 2024 so far, we have partially opened our dual diagnosis residential treatment. just as a note, this is for people with

both very severe mental illness and substance use disorders. women's transitional housing, mental health, transitional housing and more of these projects are in progress for early next year and specifically our additional projects include our stabilization unit, additional dual diagnosis treatment, expanded residential care facilities, and transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness with behavioral health needs. we have future plans and what i'll want to just start out by saying is our additional planning was using a bed modeling approach that was done using pre-covid data. that initial bed optimization study, as we have been calling it, informed that first swath of plans with gmsf,

along with sort of key informant key expert input in the last year, we have completed an updated bed modeling study, not only are we have we redone that study, but we are also have built capacity for us ourselves as d.p.h to repeat the study on an annual basis. so right now, using that updated study, and you have heard this before at our bed hearing, we estimate we need about 50 mental health residential treatment beds. we estimate between 55 and 95 locked subacute beds, also known as mental health rehabilitation center or lsat. we estimate that we need between 20 and 40. what we are terming behaviorally complex therapeutic settings. these are. these are to meet the needs of folks that have been for us, difficult to find

appropriate placement with high level, for example, of traumatic brain injury or medical physical health needs. we believe that we need additional 8 to 10 residential withdrawal management beds, including those with serious medical needs and additional residential stepdown aka recovery or sober housing. as i mentioned, i sort of mentioned most of this in my prior in my comments on the prior slide. we have strengthened mtss have enabled dph to strengthen our infrastructure and systems to address ongoing residential care needs. we have dedicated, experienced analyst capacity now and leadership for new bed projects. we have the capacity to assess bed needs in an ongoing fashion. the bed procurement legislation approved by this body will help us acquire in the future, and we've

obtained a significant amount of state funding in excess of $70 million to help with behavioral health infrastructure projects. these systems have enabled us to open additional residential care sites and will enable us to continue to do so as needed and apply specifically for significant amounts of state funding under the behavioral health bridge housing funding. and as you recently heard, the prop one bond projects, the application for which is due very soon. turning to the specific initiatives, i want to highlight work of the office of coordinated care. and again, i just want to reiterate this is capacity, not held by the city. previous to msph and to my knowledge, if it exists in other jurisdictions, it does so in extremely sparse ways, very ad hoc, not incredibly systematize. we launched the occ in 2022 with a staff of one. i would say the

occ provides access to behavioral health services and strengthens coordination of care for priority populations. these priority populations include the following groups. people leaving the hospital or jail. people who receive behavioral health crisis services or involuntary holds i.e, a 5150 people experiencing homelessness. people with high utilization of multiple systems, high behavioral health needs, and people served in shelters, navigation centers, and permanent supportive housing. the occ has two main types of programs. access programs access and eligibility and care coordination. the central access and eligibility services include services that you know about that have existed for some time in the city, but they are now centralized. bal and back. we have expanded hours of back now running seven days a week for access to behavioral health services. we've also centralized under this eligibility and

medi-cal enrollment to have this be a seamless part ohowe work with lk coming into care. this is a long slide, but it reflects the amot work that is happening in the care coordination side of theffice of coordinated care. we have two ndof overarching services. one, we have a triage team which manas referrals and then syemically tracks and ensures connections toar we also have follow up teams. the follow up teams have specific area of focu these include the care management teams, bridge and engagement services team, and a further team, best neighborhoods, which is based in neighborhoods working specifically across the city partners and with neighbors and community members. we have shelter behavioral health care permanent housing advancedm

inal services. working with our colleagues in the physical health side or ambulatory care pa of the department together to work on providing behavioral health coordination, coordination and medical services to people in permanent supportive housing. some of the key outcomes that sharing with you on this slide. i won't read through all of these numbers, but i will say that we have served more than 8500 distinct individuals in fiscal year 2324. we have hired in the occ more than 45 new d.p.h behavioral health clinicians, case managers and staff. you'll see that in best care management, we have worked with more than 400 distinct clients in this past fiscal year, and best neighborhoods has had more than 9000 engagements and more than 1300 direct connections to

services. and again, just to reiterate this was capacity that did not previously exist. turning now to the streecrisis response team and the evolution of the best neighborhoods team, you all will remember during the pandemic, thetreet crisis response team were skirt launched. it aimed to offer rapid trauma informed care through teams responding to cas about people experiencing a behavioral health crisis. it was launch as a pilot in partnersp with the fire department, and has been since scaled to 12 teams, operating 24 over seven across san francio. it diverted about 97% of eligible behavioral health, 911 calls from a police led response. this is really a great accomplishment. in march of 2023, the team, the skirt responding teams were reconfigured and the and part of occ took on the follow up work

from those skirt teams, as well as proactive and ongoing work in the neighborhoods we called that team or those teams best neighborhoods. the team includes a psychiatrist, clinicians, behavioral health clinicians, health workers, nurses, clinical supervisors, and peer outreach specialists. the goals of these teams are to bridge people into care, providing time limited, focused phase interventions. engage people living on the street, in particular who have highly complex needs, and to follow them and engage with them longitudinally. the teams are place based, so the idea is here that by working in assigned neighborhoods six days a week, the intent is for team members to develop community responsive relationships and interventions. so we have capacity now when community members get in touch

with us, for example, or business owners, to directly feed that information to teams who can be responsive and work with folks in the community. the teams right now are for the gold team was the first to launch, along with the blue team in march of 2023. in, we lost. we launched the citywide team. who who is available for the whole city and we launched the last team, the purple team that focuses on bayview and ingleside. just this last june. turning now to theental health service center and service expansions associated with the mental hlth services center. sos you know, supervisors, whilsite acquisition for the mental health service center continues, many of theey services envisioned for mental health service cter are bei met through preexisting expanded services and new services. and

you canee them here. in tal, we've added 70 service hours per week across these rvices, enabling us toee more clients access. so, for example, more than 1700 people vised either the behavioral health access center or thbehavioral health pharmacy just during the expanded hours in fiscal 23, 24. under msph, we have taken theons opportunity find identify other ways to expand flexibility and access to our services. you can see these here. we've creased availability specifically of on demand telehealth treatment, to 16 hours a day for people who use opioids. we have se we have offered evening service navigation with our partners, code tenderloin. as a consequence, we have, we believe

we have seen a 32% increase methadone treatment admissions and a 46% increa in buprenorphine prescription filledt our pharmacy this year compared to the same time period in 2023.nd then finally, we have seen a 35% increase in residential treatmentdmissions for substance use in fiscal 2324 over the previous fiscal year. so both looking forward at our challenges, opportunities, undone work, and our and our thinking about that. so much has been accomplished. and i really want to acknowledge the incredible d.p.h b.h.s team, both within dhs, but also really across the department. our colleagues in human resources, in real estate, in operations

have been extraordinary. supporters of the very important content work being driven by dhs. so next steps for m.h.s. msph envisioned, as you know, the office of private health and insurance accountability. this is an area that we've not been able to tackle. we don't currently have funding identified, and at the same time, we know that having behavioral health access to people with commercial or private insurance is extremely important to our city workforce. while we have seen enormous hiring successes and enormous changes in our operations to identify candidates and get them hired, there is a nationwide shortage of behavioral health professionals, especially behavioral health clinicians and case managers, and we are conscious that we are competing with our colleagues not only across the bay. but really this

is a national issue. we are pursuing a number of staffing improvements, using recommendations from the controller's msph staffing and wage analysis, and will continue to work on that funding needs to be mentioned. the revenue from the prop c business tax used to fund the implementation of msph is volatile and below dfw's spending plan by about 30 to 40% annually. we have sustained or in the near, near and medium term sustained plan programing by relying on one time reserves and this will continue to be a challenge. some both challenges and opportunities. real estate acquisition is continues for us to be an area that we work on. there are lengthy timelines to acquire, renovate, construct sites. we are incredibly grateful to the board for its

competitive solicitation waiver for bed procurement, additional building purchases are in process for the upcoming year, including an additional residential care facility. both challenging and huge opportunity. we launched within behavioral health epic, which is the common electronic health record of d.p.h. we launched this in may of 2024. we are on a pathway to improved integrated data and analysis, and this presents enormous opportunity, though it has been certainly a large hurdle to come to the other side for this body. federal confidentiality laws limit integration of substance use services into a single data record, and this will continue to be an obstacle until those laws change. for us, having full integration. i want to make you also aware that we are we are

always operating in external contexts that shape our work. first proposition one from the from the state is providing opportunities for further expansion under the bond act. and that has been enormous. and we were ready for that because we had good data, a good assessment of need, and we were able to act in the very, very constrained timeline that the state has presented us. we are also in the process of evaluating the requirements under the behavioral health services act funding. so you'll know this as mental health services act. this is state money that comes to the county. it has a new allocation requirements that will need to be implemented by july 2026. so we still have some amount of time, but this may require shifts in what we fund and how

we fund it. medi-cal reform specifically, cal aim is driving many other system wide change in behavioral health. and there i'll call your attention to specifically the work that we are doing across the department around connecting people who are incarcerated with services upon discharge. there are enormous requirements that are coming with this, but enormous opportunities to do better coordination and care. as you also know, overdose is really has been a crisis for us nationally, statewide and in the city. we were fortunate to be able to begin a number of our opioid responsive projects with mh, sf and prop c funding followed with mhsa funding and then settlement dollars. these programs have enabled us to respond by increasing access, increasing accessibility of a

number of high impact services. but there's a lot of regulations in particular around methadone that slow us down. and we are trying to take advantage specifically of a new state law, ab 2115, that will enable us as a city and state to come in line with the new federal flexibilities. finally, just want to highlight a couple of msph specific programs that are coming. mental health service center. we are undertaking site acquisition in part financed with state infrastructure dollars. we are constructing our stabilization unit with intent for it to open in 2025. we are continuing to expand dual diagnosis treatment, expanded residential care facilities and

transitional housing for unhoused people with behavioral health needs. some of that has been funded with our bridge state funding as well. and regardless, we for all our programs, we are continuously doing quality improvement, refining both our. programs and our and assessing our metrics in order to get better. just to say thank you, i'm joined here with a number of people from my team and some who are not here. i just want to very quickly name them if that would be okay. heather weisbrod, who is first director of office of coordinated care, could not be here. eunjung kim and david padding david is here who co-led our new beds and facilities team. chet valentino, our director of data and analytics. and then from the occ team who are here, karen lancaster,

maureen edwards, robin candler, who are leaders in the occ, kelly kirkpatrick, who has been our lead administrator and operations for msph. and valerie kirby, who has importantly served as our department liaison to the implementation working group. there are many, many more to that. i have not named, but we are very all grateful to be here. thank you, doctor koonings and thank you to your team as well. supervisor ronen, thank you. you know, i just want to start off by saying how extraordinary it is, the amount of work and the amount of progress that we've had in the past five years, given that we were basically delayed a year or more in implementation because of the covid crisis. and then on top of that, having the fentanyl and overdose crisis has thrown a wrench in the works. and, you know, we had a the experiment with a tenderloin center. i you know, that's a whole other topic

in and of itself. but that took the bulk of your attention, i know, for an entire year. so to think we've really only had sort of three years focused on implementing mh msph. it's just it's really extraordinary what what the team and you have been able to accomplish. so i just wanted to start out by giving you my immense gratitude. i wrote mental health sf because i was so frustrated by hearing after hearing at the board of supervisors and the street conditions that i saw in the mission, where it felt like a hamster wheel of individuals that were suffering so greatly from mental illness and substance abuse, usually both would just kind of go from the emergency psych services to

jail, back to the street, maybe to the shelter, then to the street, then to jail, then to emergency psych services. and it was just it was just nobody was getting better. no, there wasn't coordination in the treatment. we didn't we didn't have much data available to us. most of the records were inputted by hand. and so you couldn't even get access to any analysis of where was the problem in the system that we needed to correct in order to create an actual system of care, instead of a hodgepodge of services? and i just remember having hearing after hearing that were so incredibly frustrating because we couldn't the right hand wasn't talking to the left. we couldn't get the information we needed as policy makers in the city to even begin to put together a system of change. and so we sat down for a good year

with people in the field, people who were doing the work. and we said, imagine money wasn't an object. imagine that you could start from scratch. how would you reform the system and we put together mental health. s.f. with that, with the, the, the different components of it and to see it continue to come true to a great extent, and to see that it's going to constantly evolve because this is the one of the hardest issues that we have as a country working. you combine mental illness with drug addiction with homelessness, and it's extremely challenging to solve. and one of the most expensive cities in the world. so i just cannot thank you enough. the whole team for the extraordinary work, for your, you know, dedication to really, really understanding the legislation and bringing it to

life. i mean, that does there's especially with legislation like this that sets out a policy systems change and is so big in in its nature, it could its implementation happens or doesn't based on the buy in of the department. and, and the administration in charge of government. and so it was a very highly political process getting mental health support passed. six years ago, we were able to reach consensus on it. we had all 11 members of the board of supervisors and mayor breed buy in to the vision. but but actually seeing it become a reality was never a given. and so i have to say, this is one of the proudest, my proudest achievements having, you know,

sort of guided this process and put it together. but i haven't done the hard work that you all have done day in and day out, in the streets, in the jails, in the shelters, in the hospitals, in the, in behac, you know, making sure that that individuals don't fall through the cracks. so again, my just extreme gratitude. i'm excited by what's more to come. i'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details. i think you provided a really, really good overview of what's happening, and i mostly just wanted to have the chance since i'm turning out to sort of provide a summary of what's happened, and then also to make sure that the implementation working group is able to end with a real feeling of satisfaction, because that work really has produced a, you know, one of the better systems

that we have in this country, if not the best when it comes to behavioral health. so thank you so much, and i really appreciate the great presentation as well. thank you. supervisor ronen. supervisor safaí, thank you. supervisor ronen, for all your hard work. i know this began right when you came into office, and here we are eight years later and we've made some progress, which is an accomplishment when you're dealing with, you know, in many ways a very entrenched way of thinking and bureaucracy. and i agree with you. very happy to have doctor cunnings and such a wonderful team of people, kelly and anna and the tremendous work that they've done to help to advance this, along with all the other people that you mentioned. the one thing i just wanted you to say, just a tiny bit more, and i know we have a long agenda today, but i do think it is important because governor newsom spent a significant amount of political capital, energy and money, along with the legislature, to pass reform of prop one to open up a whole new bevy of potential dollars to create new facilities. and i know that from sitting on the budget committee, we do have

contracts that are out of county. many of them are locked facilities. and i know that then there ends up needing to be stepped down residential facilities. so i just want to give you an opportunity to just say a tiny bit more about what prop one could do for the mental health delivery of services, and also opening up more residential and treatment facilities out of county. and i'm sorry i didn't hear in county or out of out of county, out of county or both or both. definitely. i want to hear a little bit more about out of county. so prop one has provided prop one. bond specifically has provided the county an enormous capital opportunity to think big, go big. specifically, that bond funding allows is very specific. at the same time, it is only available for medi-cal reimbursable services plus locked, subacute or mental health residential mental health

rehabilitation center. both are available, but for example, what is not eligible is recovery housing. just for example, what is not available is transitional housing. that is not medi-cal reimbursable. so there are some constraints to those bond dollars. we applied for a total of six programs, and kelly kirkpatrick has been holding the baton on that application, which is due this week. we will not find out about the results of our application until may, and money is not available until next summer. and what is the application? the application is for the six projects that include. i may ask kelly to come help me. the application is for approximately 100 new locked subacute beds. really trying to meet the unmet need of the city

demands. it is. do you want to come up? i'm going to ask kelly kirkpatrick to come help me with the other four. hi, supervisors. kelly kirkpatrick, director of administration operations for mental health, sf. as the director has mentioned, we are applying for additional funding for dual diagnosis treatment beds. 16 additional beds, a project on seventh street. we are applying for funding for psychiatric emergency services. that funding is eligible under the behavioral health portion of prop one bond. we are additionally applying for funding for the mental health service center for capital improvement, funding for a potential site as well, and additionally a project to expand additional residential treatment, substance use beds. about 40 of those in our project

slated for treasure island that already has residential step down. so we would improve the continuum. so we are applying for, i think it's about $140 million of projects. we'll see what the state awards us. this again is for the behavioral health portion. so there's $6.4 billion total under the prop one bond projects, 4.4 billion for behavioral health projects, 2 billion for permanent supportive housing for people with behavioral health challenges. that's being administered under homekey plus, which h.s.h and mchd in partnership with us, are developing proposals that rfa was just released about a week ago. thank you so much. thank you, mr. chair. thank you sir. thank you. and again, thank you, director cummings. i do just want to thank supervisor ronen for all of her work to coordinate mental health services. with the myriad of issues that we do have here in the city. it was a heavy lift getting to this point, and i know we still have a lot of work

to do, but i know there's a lot of hard work going into mental health, sf and of course, obviously to realize the dream, we have to get the resources. and so we are going to continue to commit to the work of mental health sf. i do just have one question. when we look at the challenges and opportunities slide around data modernization. can you just talk a little bit more about the confidentiality laws that limit the integration? yes. happy to. and just want to extend my thanks also to you all. i mean it really is this kind of work can only happen in my opinion, through lots of political and department level leadership. and so we have very much directly felt supervisor ronan's influence, as well as all of you to really to sort of

carry out the promises, federal confidentiality. so there is a federal confidentiality law that is known as 42 cfr part two. that is a specific confidentiality law related to substance use treatment. when a program holds what is called holding itself out as substance use treatment, we need to get special consent from patients or clients to share their medical information and to share their medical information. in the case of epic, with other parts of the health system. so it is possible that somebody would consent for treatment for their substance use disorder, but not consent to have their information shared in other parts of the health care system, like their primary care doctor, or like their

gastroenterologist. for example. and so if the person says, no, thank you, i want to get help but not want my information to be shared. but these other parts of the health system, we can't have the information all in one electronic health record. we have to partition it. got it. that may be more detail than you wanted, but that is something that we are really struggling with. no, i definitely appreciate the response. thank you. supervisor peskin. thank you, chair walton. and i said it at a couple of other meetings, but i really wanted to say on the record again, that i am very proud of the work that supervisor ronen, as a member of the board of supervisors, has stuck to now for more than a half a decade. and to the team led by you, doctor cannons at the department of public health for making, i think in the 20 some odd years that i've been in

and out of this building, the most progress on this very, very complicated, very tragic, very expensive set of issues that i've seen. and i'm particularly proud because that push actually did not come from the chief executive's office. it really came from the board of supervisors. and i just profoundly want to thank supervisor ronen for sticking to it through two terms to the end of her term and to all of you for bringing it to fruition and sticking to it. thank you, president peskin. mr. clerk, let's go to public comment on item number three. yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak at this time, each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this matter? there are no commenters at this time. thank you. seeing no speakers public comment is now closed. supervisor ronen, any closing thoughts or anything? then i am

going to move that this hearing be heard and filed? yes. on that motion, vice chair safaí safaí member peskin a, peskin i chair walton i walton i that motion passes without objection. thank you. motion carries. thank you so much. supervisor ronen. mr. clerk, would you please call item number four? yes. item number four is amending the administrative code ordinance, amending the administrative code and labor and employment code to move certain employment related provisions, including, among others, certain prevailing wage requirements, apprenticeship requirements and hours and days of labor requirements from the administrative code to the labor and employment code. thank you so much. supervisor safaí. thank you, chair walton and i'm going to be brief. i know we have a long agenda today, but i just wanted to take a minute or two to say, talk a little bit about this legislation and hand it over to director mulligan. really want to commend him for his tremendous work working with

my office through two legislative aides, first, with bill barnes and then jeff buckley and our city attorney, david hostetler. for all his effort for putting this piece of legislation together. colleagues, if you remember, we made san francisco the first city in the nation to have its own standalone, comprehensive labor and employment code. back in january, it covered things like lactation, access it. it worked on all different aspects of our labor code. what it did not get in there this time. and this is trailing legislation, is our prevailing wage laws. and so it consolidated 40 existing labor laws, including some of the city's most and in many ways in the country's most progressive and pro-worker policies into a single accessible labor code that we're all over the all over the city charter and ordinances. this move is designed to simplify public access. it's truly good

government and worker protections and better enforced wages and benefits. and i would imagine, based on the information that director mulligan has given us, people average approximately 30,000 visits to the office of labor standard on on a monthly basis, which is extraordinary. so there's obviously clear public demand for easy access of information. so this legislation will not only meet this need, but significantly enhance worker rights and protections. so just want to thank director mulligan again asked him to come up and say a few words and then also let colleagues know we did have some other substantive amendments, but we're not going to introduce those today. i'd like to duplicate this file and send the duplicated file over to the budget and finance committee. my co-sponsor, supervisor chan, is going to take up the new piece of legislation in the upcoming session. so she will work on

that. and those amendments will be heard then. but so i'd like i'd like to duplicate the file and send that duplicated file over to the budget and finance committee, and then we can vote this legislation out today as a committee report, if that. mr. chair, through the chair, director mulligan. thank you. chair. walton. president. peskin. supervisor. safaí. as noted, this is trailing legislation to the landmark labor and employment code policy that was established last january. again, that was the first labor and employment labor code, municipal labor code in the united states. a testament to the 40 plus different labor laws passed by the board of supervisors and by voters in san francisco. i think the importance of it is that the labor policies were all over the police code and the admin code.

this consolidates it into one location. easy reference for workers, for employers, hr professionals, and also city policy makers and city staff enforcement staff. the reason the prevailing wage was not included initially is because there were some modest changes necessary before the transfer. all of the other labor policies that were transitioned over to the labor and employment code were basically cut and paste. there was no text changes, but there were some minor changes that were necessary here. basically, for the sake of clarification and consistency. but again, i commend the board of supervisors. thank you. supervisor safaí and the entire board for your dedication to labor policies in the next few days, you will be receiving copies of the office and labor standards enforcement annual report and again, thank you for this matter. thank you. thank you, director mulligan. seeing no other comments from

colleagues. mr. clerk, please call for public comment. yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this matter. should i speak at this time? each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any speakers on this matter? there are no public commenters on this matter. thank you. seeing no speakers public comment is now closed. supervisor safaí, what is your wish to send this to the full board with a positive recommendation? thank you, mr. clerk. on that. yes. just to clarify, this matter will be duplicated and referred and the duplicated file will be referred to the budget and finance committee. and on this original matter, we will there is a motion to recommend it as a committee report on that motion. vice chair safaí i safaí member peskin a peskin i chair walton i walton i thation passes

without objection. thank you. motion carries. mr. clerk, please call item number five. yes. item number five is an ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the office of citywide food coordination within the human services agency, charged with coordinating citywide efforts to address the food insecurity among san franciscans, san francisco residents preparing a food security report every five years that examines the scope of insecurity among san francisco residents and seeking the input of community organizations and other city departments to inform the food security report and the ocfc efforts, and resolving the food security task force. thank you so much, mr. clerk, and let me just say on this item, i think there's some components in here that might be useful for us as a city, but most certainly want to make sure that a change like this is vetted and worked through with community and make sure that community and the department can be on the same

page as to how best to move forward. so i am going to motion to table this item. there was going to be a presentation from the department of human service. but unless susie smith, who is representative, wants to come up and say a few brief words, there's not it's not going to be a necessity for a presentation today because i hope my colleagues will join me in tabling this item. but if you want to say something very briefly. thank you. chair walton susie smith, deputy director for policy, planning and public affairs at san francisco human services agency and i just want to say that i think part of our interest in moving this forward at this particular moment is knowing that we have a federal administration that's going to be very much against the safety net, and we wanted to be unified as a city to be able to coordinate and advocate

together. and i think the only other piece that i want to mention is that we did take a number of amendments from community, and we built into the legislation several opportunities for community engagement and presentations and convenings and community research. so this for us was not the end of a community process, but the beginning of a community process to really coordinate and advocate for food security and justice in the city. thank you. and it'll be great when community and department come in here together singing kumbaya. i appreciate that. thank you. with that said, we will take public comment on the motion to table this item. yes, sir. members of the public who would like to provide public comment on the motion to table this matter. i know the motion is to table, so let me know if i don't speak to that. i hope i do. good morning. my name is honest charlie bodkin. i'm a resident of

district five. in 2019, the task force reported that 1 in 4 san franciscans are at risk of food insecurity. since then, according to the 2023 biennial food security and equity report, the mayor and this board have cut from the budget over $32 million in food related funding, including millions slashed from the sf marin food bank, one of the city's most vital food resources. compounding this was the ending of the emergency food programs provided during the pandemic. the federal level and the need for food assistance remains high. i understand the very real concerns of the budget deficit and the choices this board must confront, but it's unclear what the need is for a new coordination office. while existing programs go underfunde, what additional overhead will this office create and how will it improve food security in a tangible way, given this ordinance does not have a co-sponsor from a supervisor? i

believe we must also ask whether this change is aligned with the incoming mayor's priorities. i also encourage the board to carefully consider how this restructuring will impact the city's ability to meet food needs, and these are some things that i hope you consider during your tabling. thank you. thank you. good morning. committee chair, president and supervisor. as you know, my name is marshawn tadman, associate director of policy and advocacy at the san francisco marin food bank. i would like to start by saying we hopefully respect everyone up here and all the work you do to serve the community. we commend the efforts of the creation of the food coordination position, but we also feel something of this magnitude should follow the established and agreed upon process set forth in the recommendations document. sunset in the san francisco food

security task force and the normal process of the participatory process in san francisco. unfortunately, we must oppose this legislation, and we second that you table this legislation. participatory process was not undertaken, a budget analysis was not completed. and this is absent from community input. and to be candid, this legislation is being fast tracked before a new mayor take office before the holiday season start. our ask is simple more time is yielded for people to analyze this legislation, more community involvement and input should be paramount to the process. per the county process, and that we should continue to this work in the new session so we can have ample time to listen and explore the pros and cons of this legislation. so i second that we table this to the next session. thank you. hello, supervisors. i

wanted to also just bring back context because i'm hearing from community as well. is that the civil grand jury report stated that the food security task force was duplicated and the mayor's office issued a letter to this body. it stated that they would not move on any of the civil grand juries recommendations, and that she put out an executive order for this to be more of a collaborative issue, and in more so, president peskin's prop e that passed all of this has been done that we understand that the city is in a budget crisis and that you're maybe purging some resident commissions, but the food security task force should not be that one. the food security task force has been

around for 20 years, and its origin is in the southeast. it was founded by supervisor sophie maxwell of district ten, for which chair walton serves. supervisor safaí was the legislator of this bi annual report, and at the time i was his aide that worked very closely to get the information that's in the bi annual report that we have here for real data that we could use in the community. and we need to also think that this is not also a goal for the human service agency. it is a public health goal. we not only want san francisco's to be healthy, we not only want them to be full and not sleep. one night in this city hungry, but we want them healthier. and this is all from the movement of healthier school lunches and everything. and there's many organizations here from the southeast. some of the poorest sides of the city here in opposition to this. and i just commend you, chair walton,

and the rest of the body of tabling this to make them come to the table and talk to us, and we will be reaching out to the new mayor. hello, committee. my name is haley nielsen. i'm with farming. hope we are a food security and job training nonprofit and we are part of the food and agriculture action coalition towards sovereignty. and one thing that we know about this city is that we have one of the highest densities of michelin stars in the world. food is a huge part of our culture, and yet we're majorly behind on coordinated food efforts to ensure that everyone in our city has equal access to food. the food security task force has been around for 20 years. that's all correct. they have been for the last year, working with the subcommittee to figure out what should be next for the food security task force

and an office of food coordination citywide office was one of those recommendations. that recommendation has been a year in the making, and it has included community at every step of the way, so that this process maybe didn't have community in the last few weeks, doesn't mean that that process wasn't taken into account when this legislation was created by the mayor's office. there's a whole report about what the food security task force did recommend on coordinated food, citywide food access. so i think it's really important to keep that in mind. and we don't know what's going to happen with the next mayor. as people are saying, we don't know what's going to happen with the next board enshrining an office like this means that food security will be at the top of the mind, and who knows what the food security task force will be. it's sunsetting in 2026 anyway. so this would be enshrining food in san francisco. and i think it's really a disservice that

we're not passing this. good morning supervisors. my name is jade and i'm with the food and agriculture action coalition towards sovereignty. and i'm here to express my disappointment that the legislation to establish an office of citywide food coordination will not be continued. other major metropolitan areas like new york, boston and los angeles county already have dedicated offices on food policy and coordination, and they have already demonstrated success in addressing food insecurity and engaging community and adapting to challenges such as federal policy shifts and climate impacts. san francisco's office of citywide food coordination could have been the city's critical step forward to a similar infrastructure, but instead we are passing up this opportunity to protect existing investments in community food programs, leaving us vulnerable to local and federal administrative changes. and for what every passing this up for?

what's the plan? instead, how will we prepare ourselves for the threats outlined in project 2025? how will we ensure we're able to feed our neighbors in the face of an $876 million budget deficit? budget shortfall? we've been asking for an office that would break down silos within city government and an office with teeth that could influence policy and finally develop a long term food strategy. this office could have been that step in that direction, but now it's dead. so again, i ask, what's the plan? good morning supervisors. thank you so much. my name is shakira assembly. i'm here on behalf of booker t washington. we serve about 2000 folks every week and also on behalf of facts. and so today we were supposed to hear about an office of food coordination for san francisco. and i want to amplify my colleague's comments on this is a missed opportunity to be more responsive, organized and coordinated in our food security investments, which are now at risk to the tune of $30 million

in our san francisco city budge. it's also troubling, given the future and inevitable attacks by the trump administration, when our social safety net will be attacked. so that's medicaid. snap, our national food programs, and a community task force with a sunset date without any teeth. and now it's lost. its major staff is not going to be able to be responsive or hold other city departments accountable. and we also agree with our colleagues and our community members that hsa needs to be better and more inclusive with community engagement processes and intentional, including voices from our black, indigenous, asian, pacific islander and latino communities. it's important that we can also understand that this office would be a bridge to a bigger and better solution, which would be a san francisco strategic plan for food and also a true office of food and agriculture like we have in philadelphia, denver, new york city, and other major metropolitan areas. and so that's my question as well. what

is the plan? what will we do? i want to thank each of you sitting in front of me who have worked hard to invest in food security in your specific districts over the past several years, but we may not have any time. so thank you. good morning. my name is katie jackson. i'm the chief nutrition officer at project open hand. i want to just commend my colleagues for coming up here and speaking this morning. i think it speaks to the fact that the community is very interested in this topic, and i appreciate the idea of creating an office within the city. i do want to just encourage the idea of leveraging the years of expertise on the food security task force as a tool for that office to use going forward. so now is not the time to ignore or shy away from the food access issues that we have in the city, but to keep them front and

center. thank you. good morning supervisors. president peskin shamann safaí. thank you for allowing us to be here. i want to start by saying a very famous quote, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere by doctor martin luther king jr. what i stand here representing as a san francisco african american faith based coalition, as we are serving almost 900 households a week and our upcoming feeding 5000, which you all have participated in. so hunger and food security is very important to us. what troubles me is that hsa is fast tracked this conversation and that all of the communities that people have said they have talked to, we were not talked to, and we touched lots of households. i reached out to our pacific island task force, our latino

task force, our bayview community advocates. they were totally unaware of this going on. we heard of an announcement on wednesday at the food security task force and then already on an agenda here today and on an agenda tomorrow with the board. what's the hurry? if you're really concerned about all of us, then let's all of us come to the table and have authentic, transparent conversations about hunger and who all is impacted. it's impacting us all from. as i heard our sister jeffrey say, from our health and our wellness to every part of our being, we need this delay. it's not about the new mayor. it's about what's right and what's fair and what's just. we have a strong voice in this community and it has not been heard. so we're asking, please delay this to give us all ample time to talk about what's real, what's effective, what's feasible, what's respectful so

we can be authentic to the populations we serve. we need your delay so we can all have a voice and that it doesn't just affect a few, but many. thank you. are there any other members of the public who would like to provide public comment on this matter? there are no additional commenters. thank you. seeing no other speakers public comment is now closed and i do one. definitely want to thank everyone for coming in today. i think that there is an opportunity for us to demonstrate what this office could look like with coordination could look like, but most certainly it has to happen with the involvement of community. and we know best policies are adhered to and of course, created when everyone comes in on the same page and talks about how excited they are about how we move things forward, that's not the case right now. but most certainly the plan is to bring everybody

together so we can come up with something to where we're all in here on the same page. so with that, i want to make a motion to table item number five and supervisor safaí, my know, you said everything. yes. on that motion. vice chair safaí i safíi i member peskin, i peskin i chair walton a walton i the motion passes without objection. thank you. motion to table passes. mr. clerk, would you please call item number six? item number six is a hearing to consider appointing one member. term ending march first, 2025, to the sheriff's department oversight board. we have one seat and two applicants. thank you so much. i know we have one seat and two applicants and just want everyone to know, not only just for item number six, but also item seven eight, nine. when you come up to present and talk about your credentials, everybody has two minutes to do that. this is going to be a

pretty lengthy meeting, so just wanted to make sure everyone knows and understands that. and i'm going to call for item number six. the candidates and applicants up as they are presented on the agenda. and first we have estella ortiz. thank you so much. good morning. supervisor walton, supervisor safaí and president peskin. first, i'd like to thank supervisor walton. thank you for creating the office of inspector general and the oversight board to build transparency and accountability in the sheriff's department. my name is estella natalie ortiz. i was born and raised in san francisco, california, specifically the mission and the bayview district is where i grew up. since the age of 12 years old, i have had to visit family that was incarcerated inside the sf county jail for my brothers, my sons, dad, and friends. i grew up with. seeing black and brown men be put in jail has impacted

my life greatly. i have sat front row as a witness to the mass incarceration of black and brown boys and men. through all of this, i chose to be resilient and proactive in getting to youth and child development work to prevent my community from falling victim to the system. i have dedicated my life to serve, teach, and empower young women and men to and expose them to life outside of our hoods. advocating for literacy support in the schools at all grade levels to combat school to prison pipeline facilitated violence prevention groups inside of middle school high schools, youth creative arts as a form of healing, past traumas and constantly providing resources to youth needed. i've co facilitated groups in the bayview district fathers groups in the bayview district to fathers impacted by the justice system. i am currently working as a family case manager and shelter at a shelter and have advocated for clients who have been arrested for over 15 years as a community provider volunteer, i have worked to provide an off ramp from system impact. this work has been

focused on supporting survivors who find themselves trapped in the criminal justice system. my work has brought me close to children who have been incarcerated, parent and family member. unfortunately, i have met young people who need interventions to help disrupt cycles and push them out of schools and safe environments and into systems of state supervision and incarceration. i am deeply committed to enhancing the public safety and accountability within the sheriff's department. i believe that amplifying voices of marginalized communities, particularly women individuals who have been system impacted, we can work towards more equitable agency. thank you so much for this opportunity. thank you. and i know we have another candidate, mr. neil hallinan, who is actually in trial. and so he is unable to attend this morning. so we will go to public comment. yes, members of the public who would like to provide comment on this matter can line up to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two

minutes. good morning supervisors. my name is joshua jacobo and i'm here on behalf of the latino task force reentry committee. i serve on the reentry committee as a co-chair and on behalf of the committee, we strongly support mister ortiz for this seat. miss ortiz is the ideal candidate to represent the community perspective on such an important committee. her collective? yeah. her collective experience of the interpersonal nature of being system impacted and dedication of work and collaboration over the years with community to make make her the right candidate for this crucial committee. we look forward to continue working and collaborating with this, with this committee. and lastly, we have mission street vendors association present and echoes our message as well. thank you for your time. are there any other speakers on this matter? there are no no additional commenters, thank you. seeing no other speakers public comment is now closed. i do just want to say that this our sheriff's

department oversight board is a very important body here in the city recently, really just getting up and running the board is going to be tasked again with picking another inspector general, as we just had a current resignation. so there's a lot of work ahead of us to make sure that we're working with our sheriff's department to address issues that are happening in our jails, and i am excited about both candidates, because there's a level of experience that is important and needed on this body. but i do agree with this being the time where someone like estella ortiz should be serving on the sheriff's oversight board, not just your advocacy and the fact that you come from community and you've worked across different communities addressing so many different needs and issues with our communities. but i'm also excited about the fact that we have young people willing to

serve and willing to step up, and having the credentials to do so. so i want to move that. we appoint estella ortiz to seat two of the sheriff's department oversight board. yes. and we can do this as a committee report. this one was not listed as a committee report. okay. so on the motion to recommend miss ortiz to seat two, vice chair safaí safaí member peskin a, peskin i chair walton, a walton i. that motion passes without objection. thank you. motion carries. congratulations. mr. clerk, please call item number seven. item number seven is motion approving. rejecting the mayoral nomination for the appointment of joanna goodman to the board of appeals for a term ending july 1st, 2028. thank you so much. is joanna here? thank you. are you going? you have two minutes. sure. hi, i'm joanna

goodman. i'd like to share that my three year old daughter just had two seizures in the past 18 hours, so it's not easy for me to be present here with you right now. i want to thank you for being present with me and taking the time as the year winds down, to consider my qualifications for appointment to the board of appeals. i've lived in san francisco since 2007. i love this city and i am excited about the possibility of contributing to it by serving on the board of appeals. i've spent many years in government at the california public utilities commission as an analyst manage, commissioners, advisor, and administrative law judge. and i've learned that laws and regulations have profound impacts on people's lives. i've also seen how they don't always work for those who need them most, like the woman who called me in tears, deathly afraid that

her power was going to be cut off. her hiv positive son needed that electricity for his medical care. i also saw our programs deny free appliances to low income families for well-intentioned yet curious reasons, like claiming that a washing machine on the second floor of a building is a safety hazard. i believe it is crucial for government to listen and to use its power thoughtfully. if appointed to the board of appeals, i will help san franciscans navigate our city's processes within the confines of the law. as a judge, i received extensive legal training and across my government service, i learned how to engage transparently with the public balance. conflicting policy priorities, and collaborate to find solutions. i know that sometimes laws don't feel just especially in edge cases. while it remains essential to uphold

basic rule of law, i appreciate the role of the board of appeals in shining a light on those gaps and inviting legislative remedies. finally, i bring years of civic engagement and commitment to building effective organizations. as a sierra club san francisco group executive committee member, board member at the bicycle coalition, and more. i also speak intermediate spanish and beginner cantonese and russian, reflecting my desire to authentically connect with people from all background. thank you again for considering my qualifications. i respectfully ask that you send my nomination to the full board of supervisors with the recommendation for approval. thank you. thank you, miss grubman. mr. clerk, we will call for public comment on item number seven. yes. members of the public who wish to provide comment on this matter can line

up to speak. at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. thank you. my name is raynell cooper, speaking in my own capacity. thanks to the mayor for nominating joanna. and thank you to the chair and the committee for hearing the nomination. i serve on a nonprofit board with joanna, and i've known her for several years and known her to be a great candidate for this position. she's a former public servant, so understands the role of government in serving people fairly. as someone who works in public service myself, i understand that oftentimes, oftentimes it can be hard to separate yourself and separate your own opinions from what's right and what's fair. but it's a muscle that you learn doing this work. and i think it's something my experience with joanna, i know that she's very good at at taking in this input, taking in what she hears from the public and being very deliberate in her decision making. she also asks a ton of questions, more than really anyone i know in terms of talking about policy, talking about the issues of the day and the issues of the city. and i

think that attitude of questioning and trying to get to the right place and trying to get understanding where people are coming from is, is going to be extremely valuable to have someone like that on the board of appeals and she definitely doesn't come to an opinion until she's heard, heard, done all the research and heard everybody out. finally, i think she's got, as she mentioned, just this great joyful exuberance for the city and for serving the city and a love for the city. and i think we need more, more folks with love for the city in roles like this. so respectfully ask you to send her nomination to the full board for approval. thank you. hello. good morning. my name is owen velez. i'm here to speak on behalf of my support for joanna, for the commissioner of the board of appeals. i've known her and her family for the last three years. i run me and my wife, we run a child care

home where we've cared for her daughter for the last three years. she's always been a very active member of our community. she's always raised up issues that affect family and children in the city, within our community, and has always gone the extra mile to take time to make sure that we and the other members of our community are informed about the things that are happening in the city and their rights as citizens and voters. she's always willing to, like we said before, always willing to listen to all sides, and has a very comprehensive approach and being a member of this community also for the last eight years, i understand the need for centering the needs of children and families as they inform policy. the standard that is required for a society to serve the needs of the youngest

and most vulnerable members of our community. it benefits really everyone, all the way across the strata. and i myself. i'm a former vice chair of the child care planning and advisory council, so i've been involved myself and i believe she will be a truly an asset for everyone in this position. thank you. good morning supervisors. my name is anthony colbert. i'm here in my personal capacity. i'm assistant chief judge at the california public utilities commission right across the street. i've worked with joanna since 2015, when she was on advisory staff with me on our proceeding for low income individuals, for energy, for energy programs. i also supervised her when she was

an administrative law judge in 2020 and 2021. she brings, as the previous two speakers said, i think what you need on the board of appeals objectivity, curiosity and a belief in process. so i've seen her do this firsthand in the advisory role and the judge role, and i believe she would be an asset to the board of appeals. and i urge you to move her nomination forward to the full board. thank you. good morning, supervisors. my name is charles whitfield, and i'm the chair of the san francisco sierra club's executive committee. i'm here today on behalf of the sierra club to state our support for joanna goldman's nomination to the board of appeals. joanna is

a fellow sierra club member, and she joined the sf group executive committee at the beginning of this year. from her very first meeting as a committee member, joanna impressed me and all our colleagues on the committee with her attention to detail and her collaborative approach to decision making, including an instinct to talk through disagreements and make sure all parties feel heard and understood. whether or not we reach consensus. since then, joanna has sustained these practices with apparently boundless energy and shown a welcome focus on aligning our organization's processes with our goals. the sierra club believes that these skills and attributes, which have made joanna an invaluable member of our leadership team, would also make her an excellent commissioner on the board of appeals. and we urge you once again to support her nomination. thank you. thank you. good morning supervisors. my name is vijay raghavan. i live in the inner sunset. i'd like to briefly express my support for joanna goodwin's nomination. she is, of course, deeply qualified as many of the other speakers

have mentioned. i just want to briefly add that just based on my interactions with her over the past few years, she would make a very compassionate and thorough and fair member of the board of appeals, and i support her. thank you. good morning. committee members cyrus hall live in the sunset. i want to speak very briefly about my support for joanna goldman. i've recently gotten to know joanna when i worked with her on prop l this past election cycle. her dedication, her passion, her breadth of knowledge around policy, all sorts of policy, both transportation, housing, environmental impressed me greatly. and the board of appeals needs a steady, even handed member like joanna to bring all of that. plus her objectivity, her desire to collaborate, and a belief in the power of positive process. i'd

ask you to move the nomination to the full board. thank you so much. good morning, alan burdell, district eight i'm a small business owner and 30 year resident there, and i just have a brief comment about why we're here, reviewing these nominations from the mayor and for this particular position right now, it's a very important board of permit appeals. the voters said no to mayor breed. okay. she's gone. so why are we entertaining her nominee here? this is a big middle finger to the voting public. setting aside the qualifications of this person. i don't know this person. okay. thank you. are there any other speakers on this matter? there are no additional speakers. thank you. seeing no other speakers. public comment is now closed. i do just want to say that i am always grateful

and excited for someone wanting to step up and serve. i think that it's very important to have folks who want to be in leadership roles, folks who really care about our city. and so i want to thank not only miss gutman, but all of the folks who have been appointed today. i also am of the belief that the city had an election, and there was a mayor who was voted for, and i think that mayor should be afforded the opportunity to make appointments per their duties and one of their mandates of the charter. i also just want to say, i don't want to set anyone up to be in a position where they may be removed by a new mayor, so i just encourage folks to continue to want to serve and to have conversations with the new administration. but i can't in good conscience support an appointment, and the qualifications for me are not even issued. but i know that the

city did elect a new mayor. so i'm going to motion that we move this item forward without recommendation. supervisor safíi yeah, thank you. chair walton and i concur with your comments this morning. i don't intend to judge any of the applicants. i think many of them are. and i've actually worked with one of the applicants before as the chair of the rules committee, and believe that they're immensely qualified. but the timing of this is it coincides with the change in leadership from the appointing authority. and these appointments would last far beyond the transition that's about to happen. so i believe that all all three of the commissioners today should resubmit their applications to the new administration and look forward to working with them. and i will support the chair's motion to reject as well. thank you. i would just add so yeah,

these appointments would last almost to the end of the new mayor's administration. so i concur with that. sounds like all three of us at this moment of transition are on the same page and in some ways concur with the last public speaker. but i would respectfully suggest that rather than sending it without recommendation, that we send it with a recommendation of reject. right, right. let me change my motion. i do agree, a motion to reject. yes, i believe we will need to amend the motions to delete approving throughout the motion to effectively make the motion reject the recommendation for appointment. correct. mr. clerk? yes, on that motion, vice chair safaí safaí. member. peskin a,

peskin i chair. walton i walton i the motion passes without objection. thank you. motion seven i mean item seven. motion carries. mr. clerk, please call item number eight. yes. item number eight is a motion to approve and rejecting the mayor's nomination for the appointment of sarah barge to the municipal transportation agency board of directors for a term ending march 1st, 2027. thank you, miss barnes. good. good morning. supervisors. thank you. my name is sarah bars. i'm a transportation professional, and the mayor's nominee for the sfmta board seat vacated by amanda eken. i'm a mom and a district seven representative to the sfcta citizens advisory committee. my family leads a truly multimodal life here in san francisco and in my free time. i am very active in my

community in sunnyside. for the past decade, i have worked in transportation in both the public and private sectors. i graduated from uc berkeley in 2015 with my master's in city planning and a concentration in transportation planning. i have worked at the city of oakland, the sfcta, the mtc, and now i work with transit agencies around the world in my role as a product manager for transit payments at apple, i would like the opportunity to bring my community passion and my professional expertise to the sfmta board. if appointed, i have three top priorities one. the agency's fiscal crisis, two making our streets and busses safer for everyone, and three building trust with the diverse communities of san francisco. since i became a parent, safe streets advocacy has been my focus with my volunteer time. while i have been an advocate, i am not an ideologue. i have worked in this field for long enough to know that there are

usually several possible options to a transportation problem, and community support is a critical element to any street change. the city charter calls for two members of the board to have the board. the sfmta board to have professional transportation experience. and much like amanda aiken, i would be honored to contribute my professional experience and expertise to this board. i ask you to please consider my qualifications for this position at face value and not delay this decision. sfmta's needs a full board to help the agency face its significant challenges. thank you very much for your time and i'd be happy to answer your questions. thank you, mr. barnes. we will now call for public comment on item number eight. members of the public who wish to speak on this matter should line up to speak at this time. each speaker will be allowed two minutes. thank you. supervisors. my name is peter belden and i live in district ten, and i'm speaking

today as the political chair for the sierra club in support of the nomination of sarah barres for the sfmta board. two reasons that i'll highlight one. sarah has a strong commitment to sustainable transportation, which is critical in the fight against climate change. the city has declared a climate emergency, and i and i think many residents of san francisco believe scientists that we truly have an emergency. and so we must act to seize this opportunity to appoint someone who's so committed to sustainable transportation and would serve for four years. and this is also about clean air. we probably many of us remember that day recently when the sun didn't come up and the sky stayed orange, and just two nights ago we were going to go out to downtown san francisco, my wife and i, for a date night. we looked at the aqi and it said over 150 unsafe for all groups. and so i think that fighting climate change, taking that action for cleaner air really is urgent. and then the second reason, as sarah mentioned, she's a transportation professional, which i think makes her a great fit for the

job. the last thing i'll add, just in a personal note on a separate topic, because this is the most wonderful time of the year, i would encourage folks to check out super bowl supervisor walton's book from juvenile hall to city hall. and the reason i mention that is we're just here in a professional capacity, but it just gives you some depth and some background of someone. so that's an aside. but back to the topic. the sierra nevada strongly supports sarah's nomination for this board. thank you. good morning supervisors. my name is janice park and i'm a resident of the mission district. i've worked in public transportation across both public and private sectors for the last ten years, including at sfmta. i went to uc berkeley for my master's in city and regional planning. that's where i met sarah bars. i followed and admired her career since then, and i, as a resident of san francisco, fully support her nomination. sarah has proven proven dedication on improving the transportation system in san francisco. her passion,

expertise and tenacity is unparalleled and we would be so lucky to have her on the board of sfmta. thank you. hello, my name is zach brown. i'm a resident of district eight. i've lived in san francisco for almost 12 years now, and i'm here to speak on in support of sarah. i've worked in the transportation area at a at a firm working on fair payment for transit systems across the country. and so i've worked with sarah, both at the mtc and at apple, and she's extremely qualified in the transportation space, and i can't think of anyone more, more qualified to navigate a lot of challenging bureaucracy at large organizations and moving them forward in very innovative ways. i've also had the ability to work and see what sarah has done on a community level, supporting safer streets, working with families with children to make san francisco a safer place to

live. and i walk and bike and take muni all over the city. and sarah sarah's work to make the streets safer and more livable in the community, and also on a professional setting with mtc and apple is really unparalleled. so i think she's a phenomenal choice, and i and i look forward to seeing that. thank you. good morning supervisors. my name is bob esfandiari. i'm here just in my personal capacity and as a capacity of a friend of sarah's, whom i've known for several years now. i first got to know her when she hosted some seamless event and pulled me into the massive push to try and get our bay area regional transit agencies to be better about coordinating payment and so on, and so forth. i was going to come here and speak more directly to why i like sarah, why i think sarah is a phenomenal person, why she's dogged about demanding and understanding, like what is the most effective thing that we can be doing to actually achieve

results? but based on the comments from the last nomination, it seems like this is a foregone conclusion. so all i'll say is this people know when a principal is touted. that is, maybe you actually deeply hold this principal, i don't know, but we all probably also are desperately hoping that president biden jams through as many appointments as he can right now, while he can before the next president comes in and so, i don't know, i feel like i don't fully understand whether you all think the next mayor should have a chance to nominate who they want, or whether you just don't support this nominee for some reason or something else. i just find it disappointing and i feel like it's inauthentic and i'm saddened by it. so i'm hopeful that my friend will get a chance before the new board. and with the new mayor, if she's able to get in front of him. thank you.

good morning again, supervisors. my name is sri vijay raghavan. i live in the inner sunset. i support sarah barrett's nomination to the mta board as a former wheelchair user and spinal cord injury survivor who still faces some difficulty walking and especially crossing some of our streets. i hope we're all in agreement that vision zero will continue to remain the policy of san francisco, and based on sarah's support for safe streets, i hope there's no need for this confirmation to be delayed. thank you very much. hello once again, cyrus hall. i stand to speak in favor. sarah barr's appointment as sarah talked about her experience. she's worked in transit and urban policy since 2010 and includes time in paris, one of the cities that is leading the world in

sustainable transportation solutions and transformation today. she would come to the board with a master's in planning and work across the region, including in oakland, our own sfcta and regionally at mtc. i've worked with sarah on a number of issues, including public transit funding and making streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists. her expertise has always shown through, and i want to mention one experience that she did not bring up when she was talking about her experience, and that is being one of the founders of seamless bay area, who has worked tirelessly on the regional level to advocate for better public transit, healthier public transit, transit. that's easy to use, that's actually affordable, where when you change transit systems, you don't get nickel and dimed by the agencies. and bringing that to the board when we're in a moment of critical financial crisis is important. this is one of two positions on the board that has to have transit expertise, and it's vital that we have someone who understands

the regional landscape as we seek funding, both regionally and at the state level. we do not have time. we do not have weeks to wait. those issues will be resolved over the next six weeks, both regionally and at the state level. and we need someone like sarah in place during that time. i would urge you to move this, whether with recommendation, without recommendation, or for a rejection to the full board, for full consideration of the entire board of supervisors. thank you very much. good morning ellen. adele, again, and i would just repeat my last comments simply that it's just reject this, please. today this mayor was voted out. we need the new mayor to make the appointments recommendations. thank you. are there any additional speakers for this matter? thank you. seeing no speakers, public comment is now closed and i do just want to state that. miss

barnes, i think you have an amazing resume and your credentials are great. however, you can refer to my comments from item number seven and i move to replace approving with reject for item number eight. yes. on the motion to amend in order to amend the motion to reject on that motion, vice chair safaí safaí member. peskin a, peskin i chair. walton i walton i that motion passes without objection. thank you. motion carries. mr. clerk, please call item number nine. item number nine is a motion approving or rejecting the mayor's nomination for the appointment of james bain to the police commission for a term ending april 30th, 2028.

you have the floor. mr. okay. thank you. i'd like to thank the opportunity for coming here today. i understand the board's position, and i know the board is aware that my nomination is a replacement for somebody that resigned from the commission after the election, and it was a term that was initially appointed by mayor breed during her term of office. so it's merely the completion. i completely understand the board's position on that. having said that, when i first got the opportunity to serve on the police commission, i wanted to focus my efforts on the tenderloin district. it's not just the fact that his most dangerous area in san francisco, it's not just the fact that it's hurt. in san francisco's convention and tourist industry. it's not just the fact that its streets are filthy. and it's not

just the fact that san francisco's most vulnerable residents, including many children, live there. what is the most important fact is that too many people are suffering and dying of addiction. as a native san franciscan, i've always been familiar with the tenderloin. but what i have become intimately familiar with it was when my wife started working as a public health nurse at the tom waddell clinic. i saw the great work that the city of san francisco was doing. my wife, maureen, has since retired, but she continues to volunteer at the healing well, a nonprofit group that helps people in the tenderloin. the important, the important observation that many of i have noticed is the under deployment of police resources in the tenderloin. the under deployment was made apparent to me one friday evening when, on a ride along with sfpd, as i had done on a number of occasions, i observed two incidents, one

involving a mental crisis incident crisis at an sro and the other a potential domestic violence violence altercation occurring in another part of the district. the sergeant i was with told me that evening that as a result, there were not any police units now operating on the streets of the tenderloin on a friday night. san francisco, despite what many outside observers say, is one of the most safest cities in the united states. but the tenderloin is not safe. the police commission has no authority over deployment of police. the police department cannot solve alone solve the problems of the tenderloin, but they cannot play their role unless they are properly deployed there. as we approach the new administration in washington, i've had the privilege of representing a number of former addicts who face deportation proceedings. all of them have told me of

their struggles. the next four years are going to be a challenge to many san francisco residents who are immigrants. i believe that i can stand as an example to our immigrant brothers and sisters that one of their police commissioners has devoted his entire professional career to helping them. thank you. thank you so much, mr. byrne. mr. clark, would you please call for public comment for item number nine? yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this matter should line up to speak at this time. hi there, alan burdell. again, i would just say that i support the argument that commissioner byrnes just made. that would give you a reason to put him through today, and i appreciate commissioner byrnes for his work and i totally agree with his rationale. so thank you. are there any additional speakers on this matter? i do not see any additional speakers. thank you. seeing no other speakers, public

comment is now closed. mr. clark, i'd like to repeat the motion for items seven and eight. yes, the motion is to amend to delete the word approving in order to make in in order to effectively make the motion, reject the mayor's nomination for appointment on that motion. vice chair safaí safaí. member. peskin a, peskin i chair. walton, a walton i that motion passes without objection motion to object i mean to reject passes. mr. clark, do we have any more business before us? there are no additional items on today's agenda. thank you. we are adjourned.

meter. >> hello, i'm captain tom the coordinator for the san francisco fire department. this oversight is the three and 4 anniversary of loma linda earthquake i want to go over a few things to help you preparation building a supply kit and supply kit does is not

have to be put together all at once take your time on the website have a list of recommendation and have enough food and water to feed your family through three to 5 days and purchase the fire extinguisher if you have an extinguisher at hand will stop a small fire from being a by fire it is simple to use check the gage make sure it is charged and then repeat the word task task stand for pull to pin aim the novel and screws the trigger and successes to the because of fire the last recommendation to look at the gas meter electrical gas lines cause fires in the loma linda earthquake and we want to show you how to turn off the gay

only turn off if you hear gas or hear hissing and coordinator nathan will demonstrate how to turn that off. >> with a whenever i'm going to turn it over one quarter turn. so in on holler orientation in turn off our gays meter don't turn it back on get a service call from

welcome to sfgovtv in person i am jeremiah estep. your host today. and we are here at the united players clubhouse. and we are celebrating their 30th year anniversary of serving the community, specifically the south of market here in san francisco. and united players is a san francisco based youth development and violence prevention organization and i'm very happy to be here to talk to rudy and the rest of his staff. so let's introduce ourselves. hi. my name is vanessa. i'm one of the program managers here at united players. hi. my name is brandon jackson. i'm a program coordinator for middle school.

hi. my name is maria fabia. i'm a k-2 coordinator and i'm rudy corpus, better known as the gorilla pino, aka rudy valentin. i'm the edd of up. cool, cool. so can you tell us your journey and mission, how you got involved with united players? so originally when i started united players, it wasn't even something that i thought about doing. it was it just all kind of happened organically. i was hired at a nonprofit organization in san francisco called bernal heights neighborhood center, which is in district 11. i got hired as a filipino gang prevention counselor, and so my mission was to go find the filipino gang members, right? in that district 11. there's 11 districts in san francisco. and so i knew who they was all at. i'm born and raised in san francisco. i was appointed at lifestyle, so i knew they was all that went to balboa high school, which is in district 11. in 1994, it was off the hook. and so upon being up

at balboa, sure enough, they're all there. big fight ensued, right between different ethnicities. and from there, nobody was able to learn because of the violence that was going on. between the big fight between filipinos, blacks, samoans and latinos. so myself and several other people, andre alexander, right, shouts out to andre alexander. he was the coach of the football team at bao. there was a brother named late. you remember late big samoan. excuse my language. around six four. you know what i mean? from frisco, north beach, one of my partners. he was a hall guard. and he had, you know, a lot of good credibility with the youngsters that was up there at bao. and so at the time there was a filipino principal, their name was mr. montevergine. she was looking for solutions and the police couldn't stop it. nobody could stop it. so i got what all those dudes, they was able to come in the room they

wanted to meet. and from there they wanted to make a club because they came up with all the solutions and the answers to stop the violence. the kids did. the youth. and so they said, hey, we should name this a club. this is our this is in october of 94. and i gave the power to the people. i said, what do you guys want to name the club that we got right here? because everybody was getting along in the room, you know what i mean? and so united players up october 1994 was born. and that's how the name came. and so boom, fast forward. we're here in 2024 in october. so they're celebrating 30 years 30 years. yeah yeah. worldwide baby. yeah it is worldwide. you have so many people supporting you like kaepernick and yeah steph curry everybody right. they they they yeah they they they all seen i believe the spirit of what we do and what we're about you know

which is based on love. everything that we've been doing from day one way back then. way back then we was at balboa high school. right. so i met that guy at balboa. right. these two sisters right here from the neighborhood that i'm from, you know, i ain't from district 11. i'm from district six. born and raised south of market tenderloin. and so all over the world. and people saw that the love that the youth. right. yeah. who were involved in it, spread it. and you know who don't want to get no love. yeah. so they all part of it i'm thankful. yeah. that's dope. so how did you get involved? well, so i'm born and raised here in south of market area. so, you know they had the rec center over there. and so that's where all the youth would come and just gather. just everyone from the hood, you know, would just play basketball, you know, meet up, hang out after school. so i was in the third grade and i joined basketball for the first time. i was garbage, like totally garbage. didn't like i

was not the best, but i had this mentor named tim and he. really. yes. and he really motivated me and kept me focused and really kept me in the game and say, like, you know, keep going, keep practicing. you could do this. so by the time i got to fourth or fifth grade, you know, i was balling. yeah. you know, and so without his guidance i wouldn't have made it you know that far in playing basketball. but you know rudy he's like the neighborhood hero. he's at the rec at the rec. you know he chopping it up with everybody. and you know he just made everyone feel welcome. and that that was even before there was like a headquarters to even be at, you know. so it was just the rec. that's a public place to be. and so, you know, he just built community there. and, you know, i just felt at home and you've been there ever since, and i've been here ever since. and she's still balling. she's still balling. and yeah, we got to play ball then. so and you started when did you start? i started in sixth grade. i

started going to bessie carmichael for the first time. i didn't know anybody except for like my neighbor. and then i got introduced to united players by bqe. he was my mentor. may he rest in peace as well. he really introduced me to this. he pushed me out of my comfort zone because i was very much like a loner. didn't know anybody, i didn't i wasn't very open to being social with other people. but when i came here, he was like, go introduce yourself to everybody. like left me alone to go introduce myself and i did exactly that. and i mean the rest is history. it's like super fun. everything's cool. so i love it. and you've been with him since how many years now? i don't know, i think maybe 2009. that's amazing because that's when i went to sixth grade. yeah, she was a participant and now she's a staff. yeah. but just just real quick, thank you

for bringing up e. so eric, eric also is one of our staff who worked with us, who passed away, and tim was a mentor of mine. these are all filipino cats that we're talking about, the south of market. we're in here has over 120 year history of filipinos. so as you can see, right, it's filipino too, right there by heart. it's black, filipino, black filipino. you know it's filipino. we was black before we came right. but but but everybody they mentioned is actually been a part of the fabric with the love. tim was love, eric was love. and that's all they did was give out love. and look what we got here now. love, love. all right brother, when did you get involved with. i was at bell back in. oh four, and rudy wanted me to be a part of up. but unfortunately, due to, like, the gang culture i was a part of, i couldn't. because basically the people that i really didn't get along with was already in u.p. so it was kind of like i couldn't be a part of

up even though i wanted to. but due to stuff that transpired, i was just like, i can't do it, i can't do it. you know? and then how did i end up getting the job here? shout out to my mentor, mike brown. may he rest in peace. i got a call from mike brown. he asked me, was i open to working with kids still? because i was working with kids over there in my neighborhood and i said, yeah. and then he was like, call this man named rudy. and i was like, rudy. i'm like, i only know one. you know, one rudy in the city. so i happened to call rudy and then did an interview, and then i got hired down here, and i've been here for 12 years, and it's a blessing. it's a blessing to work with kids. you know? you a blessing, bro. to be a part, to just be a part of a positive environment. yeah. coming from a negative environment, to be a part of a positive environment is a blessing. yeah. you want to talk about that negative environment. negative environment was just growing up being a part of a neighborhood, you know, doing things to feel accepted. you know, not getting the right nurturing love at hom. so you step out your comfort

zone to go get it from friends or you know, to when you just want to be loved, bro. it don't matter what environment you're in. it don't matter if it's positive or negative because love can come from either environment. it's about what environment you choose that you feel like you can succeed in. and at the time, me being a negative thinker at the time due to my way of living, due to my environment inside my household, i chose a negative environment. yeah. so how did you what attracted you to want to come to up at that age? because it's hard for teenagers at times. it just seemed like a fun thing to do. like if i could, if i could go back in time, i think i probably would have been a part of up. but it was just like, you know, when you have to go there and then you still have to go back to your neighborhood and they're like, oh, you was over there with them. like, what are you doing hanging with them? like, you know, that type of stuff. so it was just more like chose a side as a kid. as a kid, i chose a side. and it was like to where i was from. but when you, if i can take it all back again, be honest with you. my message to the kids, it's okay to be the kid that get along with everybody. yeah. that's right. like, you know, it's okay to be that kid to be different and you can get along with everybody without choosing a side that's real. yeah. hey, i

just want to add this right. and it's based on a true story. brandon, when i first met him, didn't really want to be a part of anything but what he was doing. and he was caught up in that negative cycle right of the turf life, that death life, that money back and murder life. it was arrested development. but growing up now, you know his mindset has changed. he really wanted to get with our organization. when he was at bal, i used to try to get at him, but he was hardheaded, you know what i mean? he'd be in the gym shooting three pointers for money, you know what i mean? he was gambling and that's how i would get with him. i'll stand over there with him and chop it up because i come from the same cloth. yeah, but he was one of them youngsters, man. if he would not get involved in something, he'd have been dead or in prison. yeah, with that elbow. yeah. and look at him now. yeah. look what you mean. helping out the kids from neighborhoods that he had rivals from? yeah, on my mama and she in heaven. so, you know his his his mindset has changed. and, you know, i'm really proud of all three of them. what they stand for and what they do for

the people. yeah. is it because up is very relatable like rudy as opposed to other teen groups? you want to explain? yes. you know, you don't see too many people who look like you, who you know, talk like you, maybe dressed like you that are like walking a positive path. right? sometimes a lot of people are just like, you know, like, who can i look up to? right? and you know, kids, we embrace, encourage kids to take pride in their individuality. right. and sometimes kids are just lost and they don't know. they don't have any guidance. they don't have that guidance at home. i was fortunate enough to have two parents, you know what i mean? but not a lot of kids, you know, in this world have that, you know, or they do have two parents. one is just don't have the time or attention to give their kids and so i feel like we fill that void for them. you know what i mean? is it because the community is i mean, it's the parents are too busy workin,

so sometimes they kind of not around their children sometimes. so they don't have like, that kind of loving upbringing at times because they're so on that grind and hustle. yeah. my parents were on that grind and hustle. i felt like there was some gaps that i felt like they didn't feel for me. but then growing up, i also understood what they were like hustling for. that's right. and so and so like i've accepted that as i've grown older, but with some kids, you know, some kids, they have parents who, you know, who are like, you know, who are on drugs. you know what i mean? who are absent, who are not there. you know, some people are raised off love and some people are raised off survival. right? and so really, they're, you know, it's just kids trying to navigate their own lives. and sometimes they don't have that with their parents or their guardians or, you know. yeah. and that's where you, sharp girl stay sharp. big facts. yeah. and that's where up comes in. you

guys bring it out. you guys are the bridge that brings the families together. and you guys are kind of. well, you look at the name we're uniting players, right? and all players is people who are coming together who are doing something positive, productive for their people in the hood. right. you got united players and you got united haters. some people don't want to connect and get together and that's cool too. that's a part of life. yeah. but we choose man to live. we'd rather live than die. see, our whole thing is based on making it fashionable, making peace fashionable. right. and as vanessa was speaking, you know, most of us filipinos, we grow up right. i'm first generation, our parents, the way they show us, they love us is they out there grinding? most of them don't tell us they love us. they just do it. and you don't understand that. you know what i mean? till, like you said, you get older, then you realize why they was doing what they was doing. because my mom and dad, you know, they grow up. they ain't never told me to this day. and they both of them, you know, passed away. they didn't say it out loud. right. and so you won't love if you ain't hearing it. you going to find it

somewhere. yeah. so i was not i was even on the sidewalk on the porch. i was on the street at an early age. but all that time they was showing it by their actions. and now that they're gone, i understood. and now i know what they love was the way they was giving it to me. that's all filipino people was raised. that's true. my parents, my parents were like that too. but you said it very well, though, and that's why i felt you. that's real talk. thank you. yeah. with that said, how has this program evolved over the years since you started? i'm going to let them answer that. sure. so how has it evolved since you were evolved since you were a student and now you're a teacher? it's evolved a lot. like when i was younger, i wasn't, like emotionally, like prepared or like, knew what to do in situations where like, i was like lost or going through some things. i feel like now in the program, like we have us having training with the trauma based intervention or trauma

based relational intervention. yes. and a lot of letters on yeah, it's tbri basically in other words, what is that? can you explain like it's like a trauma based where like you, you're like repairing the bond that you have and like learning to like navigate through those emotions instead of like suppressing them or acting out against them. and i just feel like that is very helpful in today's like, age with the kids that we do have. and it's like a life skill that we're teaching them to take along the way. so they're not like acting up, acting out anywhere in the world. they can at least do it here with us in a safe space where we know how to, like, help them and give them like resources. and i think that's like the major change that i've seen so far. and, and the community outreach that we do,

we i mean, we did community outreach when i was in middle school, but i feel like we've, we've do we've done more now. yeah. and like even during like the pandemic, we were serving like the seniors. we were serving like the senior graduates, like when they couldn't walk the stage. we did a drive by. i think it's changed a lot in like a positive way. yeah. do you want to talk about the mental health part of it? to me, the key of our mission is to help them identify emotions and feelings, because if you can't identify emotions and feelings, if you can't identify it, it's like, how could you control something you can't identify? yeah. you know, and the key is that if you can get the kids to identify it, the younger they are, the better off they will be in the future. you know, it's kind of hard when you get when you get a high schooler and try to restore morals, identity, self-respect and stuff of that nature. you know, like it's kind

of harder. so to me, what i identify doing this work is if we can get installed in them at an early age, the better off they will be when they become adults. say that, then say that then. and can you explain, like the changes you've seen in the kids you got in the beginning to how they became later adults? yeah. so i just want to go off on what rhia was saying about trust based relational intervention. so that is a trauma informed approach to vulnerable youth that we serve who experience adversity and trauma in their lives. right. and so that consists of three main principles. that's empowering. connecting and connecting. so with that, that's our investment into our youth is taking delving in deeper into their lives. right. trying to trying to identify like why they moved, the way they move, why they talk, the way they talk, why, you know, learning about

their upbringing. right. and then identifying those factors, like brandon was saying and then being able to nurture those, nurture them where it's needed, you know, meeting them where they're at. and then you know, being able to transform their lives to where they can be better people, you know, into the world. and so i feel like when we instill those factors like risk, respect, you know, integrity and all that, when we see that translate into our kids and they're showing that and they're ending up teaching their siblings and, and showing you know, you see, you see something that you teach someone and they're actually, you know, putting it into action that's that's rewarding. like, you know, that you're doing the right thing and you know that you're staring them in the right path like beautiful. and man, i love my staff. i love y'all, you know what i mean? they are frontline soldiers, boots to the ground. and they deal with this

every day. yeah, right. you guys articulated it so well. and what y'all just said. you imagine us when we all grow up. we was taught not to cry. we was taught not to express how we feel. right. and when you grow up, you got to express what you feel. and you say, right. and if you do right, you get your ass whooped. you better not cry right. and so if you really think about it, man, our people, our black people, our brown people, way back in the days, we was the ones who cultivated all this, but it was kidnaped from us. and now, you know, you have people who are putting it into letters. but this is something our people always been doing from day one. it just got kidnaped. and so this is really natural for us to give out love and to give it back. yeah. and love ain't no soft word, you know what i mean? it's really spelled no. right. and so the things that we're that that we're learning, i'm still learning it and that they're learning, we're learning from

getting trained to teach these young kids who are growing up in a world full of hate. yeah. we winning. and you. right. that is what we have to do. install those values again because we ain't got them. and this is raising our kids. that's true. you dig what i'm saying? and whatever they scrolling through and they seeing. right. it's the soundbites. yeah. right. what do they call that when you go through there and it keeps coming back. the ads the algorithm. algorithm. no, the algorithm algorithm. right. if you're watching fights all the time and i like fights, but i know it's entertaining to me. i'm asking the little kid who's getting and he's seen it. that's all he's thinking, right? and as in brandon in your head, it's true. it's true. and so it's important that these letters that were taught that's already in our dna from way back in the days in the philippines or in africa, right, or whatever country you come from, or people been having this installed in them. that's why we're receptive to it, you know what i mean? and so when we're learning, we teach this. it's our duty. it takes the hood to say the hood. it takes us to teach our people the

truth, right? with the spirit of everything that our people, where we come from, for us to get by. because this world, man is toe up every day. it gets worse and worse. turn on the news. you see it. you know it's full of hate. and so man, i love what y'all do. y'all frontline soldiers. hearing them speak like this, i ain't used to seeing them speak like this. you know what i mean? yeah. now spitting game like that. that's why i talk about making peace fashionable. right? yeah. we making. we really making it happen in real life. and so man. and that's what makes us so, like, genuine and pure. because even us, we're still dealing with our own trauma, still trying to heal from it. and, you know, but at the same time, you know, we're helping others. we'll help. we're helping you deal with their own traumas and also helping them heal. and so i feel like that that feeds off of each other. and so, like, you know, heal people, heal people who say that, then what? heal people, heal people, man. healers need healing. man. my brand is coming out soon, y'all. y'all go cop that i ain't lying.

you know the crazy part is, yeah, the kids feel like they need us, but they don't know we need them more than they need us. ooh, beautiful. yeah. that's fire right there. true. i'm gonna explain. it's just like we can be having a bad day. but when we come to work, the kids uplift us. the kids, like, you know, take us out of a certain mode and put us in a higher spirit. yeah, spiritually, it don't matter if we play with them, if we laugh with them. play a pick up game of basketball or just crack jokes with them. it's just the interaction you feel me can take our mind off something we have going on outside of work, you know? and then it just put us at a peaceful place. yeah, yeah. kids is medicine true? true. we got we got cats who are coming home out of these penitentiaries who've been going 25, 35, even 45 years straight. right. and they're coming back and giving to our community. but what they fail to realize is what brandon just said. the kids is actually bringing life to them. their medicines to these cats. right. and so, yeah, man, you know, shouts out to all them young

kids out there, do you want to talk about big kid? do you want to talk about that program you do with visiting the juvie juvenile juvie? and you can speak on that. oh, so, so what's big for us is we have a reentry program, right? and right now we have we connected with the justice department at at juvenile, and we got two we got two caseworkers and both the caseworkers are lifers that came home from doing a lot of time in jail based off of making a rational decision, not being able to control their emotions and their feelings. so i think it's kind of big. when we got lifers coming home to connect with the kids in juvenile, and they don't just connect with the kids in juvenile, they come to the they show up at the middle school, they show up at the elementary school. they go to high schools and talk. they go to city college and talk. and it's just like, you got to kill the pipeline, man. the elementary to the penitentiary pipeline has to be killed. and the only way to kill it is people that actually been through it. because the people that been through it know how to kill it, know how to attack it. it's like a tree. you look at the branches and you think,

those are the problems? no, it's the root. what is the root of the problem? and that goes back to tbri being able to help people identify and control their feelings and emotions. yeah. so how did you guys start that program where you go this partnership with like the different jails to be able to talk to the inmates and change their lives and stuff like that. how do we start that? yeah. how do you start that was locked up in there with them. right. and so you know, that's our people. you know what i mean. and accountability is very important. you cross that line. and like beretta said back in the days you do the crime, you do the time. i come from that school. and so a lot of guys who are stand up cats who come home that we know who we've been incarcerated with, right, or we go back in there and we talk to them. they know about what we do because, you know, the streets is really inside them penitentiaries. so they know what's happening out here on the ground and they see all their people. right. who's out here putting in work? that's why i always take pictures, you know what i mean? with all the homies, when they come together

and we're talking about cats. when brandon was mentioning the two dudes, you're talking about a adamu and a kiwi. them dudes, man. when enemies. wow, right. and they're not even from out here. they're from southern california. and so we get all these guys together, north and the southerners, others, right. blacks, whites come together and they take pictures and it spreads everywhere. and so people want to be a part of something that's working. that's winning. yeah. they want to be a part of this player stuff. you know, it's that medicine man. yeah. yep. it's free to shoot. you pay for that. no it's free. come on man, how it's going to be on a shelf in a minute. diversify your portfolio man. that's what 40 taught me. how big is up at this point. shoot. tell them about it. how big is up at this point. how big is you p0i mean we have a headquarters here. i mean what do you mean how big. like it's worldwide, right. like you have philippines. you have other places. yeah. one in new york,

one in the philippines. am i missing any we in africa? yeah. you know what i mean. hawaii, baltimore. south. south bronx. yeah, yeah. how does that make you? good? god is good. god is good. how does that make you feel to see it? like, start from balboa to 30 years later? yeah, man, it feels really good to know that, you know, what started from the people, from the youth has blossomed and blew up, man, to go everywhere around this world and to touch people. yeah, yeah, it's amazing. that is amazing. and you're doing god's work and like. but why do you or why do youth join gangs anyways. i mean it's different now than it was back then, but it's almost the same. like, why do they join like, gangs? i mean, to be accepted. yeah. to be loved. it's more about acceptance and love. i mean, i can't speak for like as a whole. i can ask you, i can tell you why i did it. it was because i didn't feel loved at home. yeah, my daddy did. 16 in the state.

my mama raised four kids by herself, and i had the type of mom that go to work, bust her butt, come home, pay the bills, and it's like, have my house clean. but it wasn't like helping me go over my homework. it wasn't like the nurturing, the nurturing part didn't didn't come. you know, i love her to death, but the nurturing part didn't come. you know? so i ran to the streets and didn't get it there either. yeah, truth be told, didn't get it there. but that's what i was looking for. yeah. acceptance and love. you feel me? yeah. and i think a lot of kids just. it comes from making rational decisions. like, it's like, man, i don't feel the love inside the home. so let me go try to get it out here. and the whole time when you're out there, you're getting manipulated. you know, it's like manipulation is heartache. it's losing friends. it's bullet holes. it's doing stupid stuff. it's jail. it's like, you know. yeah. but to piggyback off what you said, i think it's just acceptance and love. when it comes down to it, you want to be a part of something? yeah. no matter if it's positive or

negative. just wanting to be a part of something. yeah, yeah, yeah, they definitely just want to have, like a sense of belonging and like feeling like they have some purpose. like if you ask the kids right now, like, you know, where do you see yourself or you know, what's your future like? all of them just want to, like, get money and like, you know and have and like have a good life, good, stable life. they just want a good job, you know, have a house, whatever they had, have food on their table. really. that's all what they really wan. and so we try to strive to, you know, push them to their highest level. you know, some kids will say like, you know, i'm only going to make it to high school. but with us being here, like, you can go to college. yeah. you know what i mean? like, you can be bigger than that, but but it's just the simple things that they want, really, is to just be able to, you know, have a good life. yeah. that's true. and how do you explain to the parents or tell them what the signs could be, if that these kids want to join gangs or anything? i've never been in a situation where a student would want to join a

gang, but if it ever had to come down to that, it would just be a simple. it would be like a check in and like, show them like that. the actions that they're taking where it could possibly lead. and you know, and like the resolutions that we could do to prevent that type of stuff going down that road is very is very dangerous. you you never know what's at the end of that road. and, and your life could be cut short when you, when you do those type of things. and i definitely think it's just, just that extra support and the extra, like love and showing that there's a positive side instead of having to join like a gang for just a sense of belonging or, you know, i think they also probably joined for like protection or like, like he said, like no love there. and they find it out there, but it's really not real love. it's just for that moment. yeah. and i

think that's the best way we could do it. just set up a plan and maybe take them out and see a different world. other than, you know, the street life. yeah. what other effective strategies do you guys have for to help the youth stay out of trouble? like, maybe it's not gang. maybe it's not gang life. maybe it's like, yeah, go ahead. just helping them identify their self. a lot of kids like when you when you're in middle school, high school like you lost. like you're trying to find your own identity, you know, and to interact with them. it's like it's more it's just having a conversation. it's one you being a mentor or you being older. you open up to them and get them to open up. it don't matter if it's like just a quick check in. if it's a i'm coming up to your school bringing you lunch, or if it's after school and we're running a boys group, or we run a boys group at at school during school hours, it's just as far as just checking in, helping them identify their self, you

know, and letting them know like you're not alone and you're not the first person that's going to deal with this issue, nor will you be the last to deal with this issue. so when it come up, we help them deal with it. so when they come up and you become in high school and you see a peer dealing with it, you can help them and walk them through the process. yeah. is it and it's not like it's like kind of like a 24 hour job, right? oh yeah. we get calls at night too. when we're at home i get i get calls, i get like for therapy, like i'm gonna get real for therapy. a lot of kids, y'all gonna laugh, but they call me at nine, 10:00. tell me. jump on the game. let's play madden. let's play twok. like that's therapy. yeah, yeah. you know, like that's really therapy. that's the fact that they feel comfortable even calling you after hours and telling you, come on, let's jump on a game. let's play. yeah. you know that. to me that's a form of therapy. you know, it's like. or if they just calling it can be calling like, man, i'm dealing with the issue. it's 10:00 and i'm dealing with an issue. or could you uber me here? i'm stuck. i'm stuck outside. could you uber me here or. i'm at home. i ain't got no food. could you. could you uber eats me some food, like all that is therapy, bro. and it's comfortability. i want the

kids to be comfortable to call me because we're humans. we just don't deal with a 9 to 5. a 9 to 5, okay? it intensify after 9 to 5. i learned that from big dog because after 9 to 5, when the sun go down, that's what it's lights, camera action. yeah. real talk. that's community. big facts. community. right. 24 seven 365 baby. yeah. so speaking of community, like how have you worked with like, the city, were you working directly with the city to help keep up alive or working within that partnership with the city to help you guys with your program? so what i learned doing this work is it's important in anything you build is relationships. yeah. right. and so having a city relationships is important. they can get you in places and doors where you can't get right. i used to hate the police and i had a reason why. but now some of the police, i hold them accountable. when we work together because they work for us. just like, you know, our

whole thing is about safety and prevention. of course you're going to need them. it's diplomatic to have them at the table with you. right. and some of them dudes who i met now were officers became cool. you know, some of my best friends. the chief is my partner. yeah. yeah, you know what i mean? and so i learned about relationships and having to build in order for us to get what we need to get, especially in the neighborhood and area we're in. it's important to have those relationships. yeah. you know, i'm trying to build bridges, not walls. yeah. you know, and at the same time, if there's city departments or people who are funders who are not with the mission or our movement, they're not going to miss them altogether. man. like the hiv virus, bro. yeah. you know what i mean? yeah. i'm for real about what we do. we are not no sellouts, you know what i mean? we are for real. we are here. our boots are on the ground. you know, we make sure. i make sure as an ed, no matter if it's the mayor, the supervisor, whoever everybody's being held accountable because we are the people we elect them to work for

us. you understand what i'm saying? and so i want to make it real clear, you know what the city departments and all them who's in action, they're all part of that chess board that that's on the table that we all need each other to make things work. yeah, i mean, they collab with you. they do. they collab with you when you do the gun buyback program, you want to talk about the gun buyback program? sure. i mean, the gun buyback was started 2012, i believe, when sandy hook happened. right. and so y'all know sandy hook or anyway, from that point, there was people who wanted to figure out how to get rid of guns without having to go into all the red tape. and so the first monday that i had was able to get didn't even come from the city. it came from dispensaries in the neighborhood and district six. we got the most dispensaries, and they was willing to put their money up. and so we got that. but when it started working, we had to build relationships with certain organizations to make it happen. i can't just get a gun. you pull up and give me a pistol and you know, i'm an ex-felon. i can't i

can't even own a gun. and so i had to get the right, proper people to do that. who was there? it was the gun range people from sfpd. so they jumped on board. i got the mamas who lost their kids to gun violence. right? i got ex-felons who did life sentences. we got the youth. we got all the pieces on the table to make it work. and now we've been getting over thousands of guns off the streets and destroying them. yeah, the number one killer right now in america for 19 years and younger are gun violence, suicide. right. domestic violence, black on black crime. brown on brown crime. a lot of people don't even know, man. how y'all was talking about the regulate their emotions and their feelings. right. first thing they do is go pick up a gun. they don't even know how to have a conversation with a woman when they argue and they just knock down, you know, and the number one rate of people growing, you know what culture is demographic is asians. is it. yeah. because, you know, a lot of asians are getting robbed. that's true.

they getting beat up. so they going to buy guns to protect themselves. get a gun. get a gu. protect yourself. they get the gun. but no. nobody tell them man. you got to put it in a safe lock. or when you get mad how you regulate your emotion, your feelings and guess what? when they get mad, they go right over and get their pistol man, go kill their wife, or they go to work and kill everybody at their job. yeah. so the high rate man of asians then rose up from gun violence, even though you're buying the gun to protect you and your family, you actually destroying your whole family and your community. wow. you know, so that's where the mental health comes in. like y'all doing the social emotional learning how to regulate everybody. we're all humans. we going to feel something. but how you going to deal with your feelings and your emotions when somebody makes you mad? yeah. you know how to go man. you know girl get you mad. your wife get you mad or your kid get you mad. you mad. you didn't worked all day. you upset and you, man, i'm going to go get my pistol. look at road rage, man. people going crazy, man. they follow you all the way home. you know what i

mean? and so? so it's a real high of mental health going on right now. that's true. do you want to talk about how how violence has evolved from. i feel like it was what was different because we're almost the same age, like physical and still physical, maybe. but now i feel like it's more mental. you want to talk about that? yeah. so yeah, i mean, you know, mental health is it's different because before you would just fight it out. so i don't think they do that no more. i feel like just it's like more mental. you make fun of each other, then everyone will gang up on that one person. it just messes up the bullying. the difference, the difference between the two is back in our day, right? like it's bullying, but it's only like 4 or 5 people. so if we fight only three, four people, this before the phones and stuff. yeah, yeah. only three, four people. then it's word of mouth. yeah. it intensified due to cyberbullying is i can be picking on vanessa, but now 50 to 100 people seen it. yeah. you feel me? then word of mouth spread and then a video. go viral, you know, and then it's like, okay, now back, just go

back to the tbe trying to identify emotional feelings. so now, i mean i'm more embarrassed because now you post a video of me up, now everybody can see a post of just one high school seeing it, and it's spreading through one high school. now, all the high schools in the city can see it because it's a video posted. right? so then that intensified the hurt, the anger. and then it's more like, man, how could i go get even how could i, how could i go get my lick back, you know, opposed to back in our era? it was just hard. we fight, we squabble. word of mouth. who won? he can say he won. i can say i won, but it's no. and it's just. all right. it gets swept under the rug. and then. and then you got a gun. you got access to guns where they're everywhere. you can make them off the computer. now. you got ghost guns, right? yeah. and you got war weapons. now you ain't got just regular the 38, you know what i mean? with the five bullets in them. you got something, man? with a clip in it and a switch, and you pop that thing, man. you gonna knock everybody down in this room with one squeeze of the trigger, right? but i want to be

real clear, though, jeremy. i am not against the second amendment. you got the right man to bear your arms. if somebody man runs up in your crib or harms your family, you got the right to protect you and your family. by all means. i'm not trying to say i'm getting rid of all guns. if i had a wand around this world and could do it all at one time because america got more guns here twice or triple times than we got people, i'd do that. but the reality is there's guns everywhere. that's true. you might be sitting on one. yeah, i might be. yeah, i feel i feel something. so for y'all like how has the experience of working. like what will you take with you for the rest of your lives working here and being a participant? would i take with me for the rest of my life, your life long lessons? i mean a lot a lot. you know, standing on your principles. you know, being true to yourself, you know, not selling your soul. you know, just being standing on your toes. you know, standing on your

ten toes, spreading love. just moving with the spirit of love. always like not operating off your ego and your pride and, you know, just spreading awareness and just being mindful. yeah. how about you? you. i'm a firm. i'm a firm believer of you're a product of the environment you choose. so by me coming over here, it was more of the family environment. i enhanced. i embraced it because i didn't have it growing up. you know, to a certain extent, i didn't have it growing up. so it's more of like the family atmosphere of it. the, the, the it takes a village to save it, to save a child like, you know, to raise a child like that's real. like, you know, because it's like when you're out there, you you can, like, get cold hearted because you're living in survival mode, not off love. you know, when i came here back in 2012, it was more like, damn, this is a nurturing environment. this is love. like this is love. this is

where people going to hold you accountable. people going to call you on your stuff, people going, people want what's best for you and people going to push you to do what's best for you. the key to it is pushing you to do what's best for you as a staff. if y'all pushing each other to do what's best for you, it ain't no doubt in my brain that we're doing the same thing for these kids. yeah. you know, and at the end of the day, those who control the kids mind control the future. it ain't no doubt in that hell. it ain't no doubt in that those who can control the kids mind control the future. rap songs and stuff that they listen to at times they control the kids brains and you see what the kids do. gang culture, pick up guns, shoot guns, ride around in groups, you know, and do that type of stuff. so i just feel like as far as here, what this has done to me, family atmosphere helped me stand on principles. morals helped me gain confidence in myself. not just in the kids, but confidence in myself and actually pushed me to actually want better for myself. my kids come to the program with me. it was beautiful, like, you know,

like beautiful. my kids come here with me. of course, if i, i would, i would always want my kids to be a part of something positive. you know? and due to the fact i made the wrong decision by not in high school, by not choosing it ain't no way in hell i'm going to let my kids do the same thing and make the same mistake i made. fax. that's beautiful. big facts about yourself. i think they all had such amazing points and i agree with that. i, i definitely also want to say like empathy and compassion. i feel like like everyone goes through some things and like, and that's oka. and just continuing to move with the spirit of love through everything. and, and that's, that's really it. and speaking of the spirit of love, how does religion play a part in if any? and you guys rule? i feel like that religion and believing in

something within this kind of like community always is very strong. i feel like it don't matter if you pray to allah. it don't matter if you prays to god. it don't matter what god you prays to because to each his own. but it is a god. you feel me? it is a god. and god woke us up this morning. god put us all on the same page and god bring us together collectively every wednesday to have staff meeting here based off for the kids. it all comes down to for the kids, you know, and spiritually. spiritually, you can feel the vibe. you can tell when somebody's vibe off based off body language, based off being able to read the room based off, oh, he acting different today. now let me go reach out to him. yeah. hey. how you doing today? you need help. you need a hug. you straight? how can i help you? i can tell your vibe off. and when you do a staff member like that, or even with the kids like that, that just let you know you're loved. yeah. feel me? so when you pay spiritually, it's just about being loved, you know? and that's going back to what we talked about before.

everybody want to be loved. people make decisions based off of wanting to be accepted and who don't want to be accepted by love. yeah, i'll speak on that. like difficult times. and how does religion like it seems like people go through really difficult times become really closer to god. yeah. so to me, religion is a terminology and word that i feel is something i can't relate with because i've been through a lot of different religions, whether it was raised as a catholic or went to the kingdom halls, or even studied with the noi. right? i believe it's about a relationship with a higher power. like you said, there is a god. jesus christ is my lord and savior, straight up 100 million. that's who i accep. and to each his own. like be said, you know what i mean. some people serve man, you know, the moon or the sun or the devil as

my savior, jesus christ, i believe man that's. and i know for a fact that's what put me in a position where i'm at now with my purpose on this planet. and i'm very honored. i'm very honored that i'm very that i'm in a position i know where my purpose in my life is because you got to have direction. yeah. and it gave me life. it gave me direct. this is my life. saved my job no more. yeah. this is my life. all day, every day. you know what i mean? yeah. 365 24 seven. i live it, i breathe it, but i thank god every morning when i wake up and at night before i go to sleep. and many times in the middle, you know what i'm saying? and thank him and honor him when it's good and when it's bad. yeah. and so from the beginning, when all this transpired, you'll be surprised what i have seen god done to evolve the evolution of what up is now, you know, i'm a cat from the south of market who come from the trenches, who now has

an organization. i used to. i used to be the leader of my gang in this neighborhood. we had a little gang, man. we were colored like this burgundy with skulls on the back. little kids all coming up. but i was the leader and i always ran. i always led with passion, you know what i mean? and i always led man with that spirit. yeah. and to this day, even when we started back october in 2000, i mean, 1994, we always prayed with all the thugs. that's who jesus was with. he was with the thugs. he was with the killers, the robbers, the steelers, the prostitutes. that's what the whole bible, the story is. bible basic instructions before leaving earth. that's the manual of life. and that's what he did, man. he gave the spirit to the thugs and all them. and they wrote that book the best selling book that's out that is free, that most people don't even open. see, we all guarantee one thing in life with two, pay your taxes. and guess what else to die? because while death, life

has no meaning. and if you do not have that spiritual food because you got people walking all around there, you see it. they alive, right? but they're not living. you have to have some spiritual food in your life because man can't live on bread alone. man, y'all got me sound like a preacher up in this camp. you know what i mean? but all the way from the beginning, jeremy, we praying in. and to this day. what do we do when we have our wednesday meetings? we pray in and we pray out. come on, man, it's always been god, god, god, the biggest gangster on this planet. because what's his name? start with b jesus christ g. god. yeah. that's why we're. that's why you're so blessed, rudy. and you're so blessed to have you. not a place i'm blessed, you know. and prayer really works. god is real. i've. you know, i've prayed. i don't go to church, but my relationship with god is what's important to me. my relationship with my ancestors is more important to me. but

like i've seen my prayers manifest into real life, and so just having that faith in god just keeps me going and keeps me blessed. amen, amen. you ain't sitting on a gun. you sitting on a bible because this is actually what we have. our service in this room. yeah, i can feel it on my mama. she in heaven. and speaking of that, like so, uncle rudy, how much has uncle rudy made an impact in your lives? i ain't uncle hold up, man, i ain't that old yet. hold on. i still outrun everybody in this room. i hear people call you uncle rudy. so i'm. yeah, i ain't gonna. i'm gonna say he touched more lives than you can imagine. more lives than you can imagine. and mine based off just being there for me, giving me opportunity. give me a second chance, you know, to work with kids, you know? and me working with kids helped me regrow my heart. so i don't even like

adults. i'm a kid. i don't like adults. adults are manipulative. adults are conniving, and adults can can be very misleading. as far as kids, i feel like the kids can't do no harm for me. the kids can be corrected and i feel like it's a blessing. he gave me opportunity and i took it and ran with it, took it and ran with it. i'm forever blessed and, you know, just just having a positive person in your life, you know, you can be feeling down and you can go have a conversation with him. you're gonna leave out that room with high spirits. you feel me with high spirits? yeah. he's just based off the message he give you. yeah, he helped me a lot. he helped me a lot. and i'm very grateful. it's beautiful. far from appreciative. far from unappreciative. yeah. it's beautiful. yeah. yeah. uncle rudy, he's always be speaking life into me, into everybody. and i feel like, you know that

that really does take me to a higher place when i feel really down and stuff. and i feel like, you know, you give everybody an opportunity to, like, reinvent themselves and to be able to, you know, be a brand new person every day. and that, like you, you don't even like, look at the past of, like, who you used to be or who they used to be. you just see the greater good into people. and i feel like, you know, everybody's here for a reason. and you see exactly why. and like, yeah, like you've just been there. you be there when i'm down and out when i'm up and happy. even my mama call you sometimes, you know, you know it's all love all the time. you got the flip phone flip i want that call. yeah, yeah, i like that. thank you. thank you for your kind words. awesome. beautiful. so, i mean, what

would that said? like seeing how many lives you change. what are your what is your hopes for the future of united players? and do you have any other upcoming like works coming in like more partnerships with like what do you what's your hopes for the for up 30 more years to eternity for life by more buildings, by more buildings, maybe have our own recreational center one day so we can have our own creator up high school. oh yeah. you know how to play high, higher. that'd be cool. take a more global. that's right. yeah. wherever god takes us, that's where we're going and keep leading. so what i've learned from this, this conversation is that there is a definitely there's a definite future for the youth with you guys as the leaders and the of our community, especially soma. and you're in good hands with rudy. i wish they had this when i was

young. they didn't have that when i was growing up in in the east bay, like near richmond, vallejo, hercules. i mean, we had a lot of gang violence, and i had a lot of friends that were also, like affected by gangs and didn't make it out of their their teenage years. so it would have been beautiful to have that. so i'm so thankful that just for our community and for just for life, that we have something like up, because we didn't have that growing up. and to know that there's an organization like this that's going global, it's being recognized by everybody. yeah. and you're saving lives. i mean, there's still people that are going to fall through the cracks, but you guys are doing your very best to catch them. and so i'm very thankful to have learned from each of your stories here from everybody. definitely feel the love and just thankful. next time we do this, we'll have like a lechon and lumpia. we'll do a dinuguan. thank you for having us. yeah. thank you, thank you, thank you for letting our voice be heard. yes. let me phrase it that way. yeah, well, thank you for being

a voice for the community. it's beautiful. so. yeah. thanks again. for. >> we do in a way which is exciting engaging-the idea is bring the stories to life, because they are so relevant to the questions we all are

asking today about where we belong, who are we, who do wree want to be. we wanted to be do something about food, because it is such a wonderful entrance. to get people to think what are these cultures, how did they come about and how do i relate to them. we can't live the idea [indiscernible] >> there is hundreds if not thousands of immigrants kitchens and we wanted to show how immigration from 1849 through now the different dishes bought here and how it shaped the culture of the city. . not the thing we have to sit down and read for hours and hours, but you get a 2 and a half minute story and the feeling you can eat those foods and never get a dish the same way again. you have the context. >> we decided to set an journey

across the city. the result is [indiscernible] >> san francisco is a place where there are so many different immigrants communities. we are a sanctuary city, a welcoming place to be and the melting spot is a great to get out and explore the city, the history and how we got to have some of the best cuisine in the country and maybe even the entire world. >> my mother and myself and two sisters--we had to leave quick. my mom had one hour to pack and gather her things and gather her kids and head to the airport and evacuate. we found ourself in san francisco. my grand mother was already here. that is why san francisco was

the destination for us. it goes back to my grand mother and who loved to travel and she was also very afraid of the war going on in vietnam. she came to san francisco and she kind of fell in love with the sitdy. city. she visited the italian deli by oakland beach because she loved the beach and met the owner and the owner told her that this place is for sale and she decided this is her opportunity to stay in san francisco and her dream to be a business owner and open a restaurant. >> i was born [indiscernible] i graduated from a french program culinary school, then i [indiscernible] at that time, we had college of

san mateo in the back yard and had a program for foreign students and we got together and went to the american embassy and this woman welcomed us and she gave both. it is not [indiscernible] and then after that i got accepted and [indiscernible] ended up in san francisco where i had friends so i came to college of san mateo. from there, i transferred to chico state college, so i graduated there and that is when my culinary adventure started. i love cooking and also remind me of my childhood mptd >> my father had a dream and grit and determination. worked very very hard. to me, food is one of the most

readily accessible to understanding a culture. i don't think many people have the opportunity to travel to armenia or lebanon. we are lucky in the city, the abundance of asian cuisines and [indiscernible] restaurants are in many ways an opportunity to engage with another culture through food. >> my grand father had his backyard you name it, we had it. [indiscernible] but my grandma's cookie the memories of the [indiscernible] very powerful. when you channel these memories there is a image because it is a experience all 5 senses get if to it. i think that is why city is so

important for immigrants. the first thing you [indiscernible] we got to eat. you got to nourish the body and you remember and i went from memory really. >> i remember my grand mother telling me stories that when she first opened in 1971, people really didn't know much about vietnamese food and she started selling the italian deli food and half the food and half vietnamese food and she stands in the corner trying to pass samples just to lur customers into the restaurant and try vietnamese food. i think when you enter a new place and you have your family and you have each other and food is what holds your family together. at least for my family for sure, that is the time we get to enjoy

food, make connections, bond, sit together and be together. i just remember my grand mother and mom working hard all the time and once a week we would have family dinners. we gather and she would cook the food. all the kids we always look forward to that. my grand mother coming in 1971, she brought vietnamese food in san francisco. we are one of the first vietnamese arrest raunt restaurant in san francisco. >> for san francisco to have this map and look at all the people who came here and made things you can only find in sf. we are the place to get a

mission burete. burrito. that could be overlooked and not seen [indiscernible] >> important because it highlights the san francisco, the diversity for each restaurant and each spot on the map to share their story through food they serve to diners. i think it is special way to highlight the welcomeness and the [indiscernible] san francisco community is bay area has. >> it is one of the project that is so uniquely san francisco that speaks to the long history of immigration and cuisine the city has been known for. the melting spot allows the small businesses that have been around for a while to really shine with their own

unique stories and flavors and so we really love it. the ecosystem in san francisco is very unique and very welcoming of immigrants and immigrant initiatives. san francisco choice to honor us with the legacy business recognition really shows their support of small local businesses. >> a legacy business is a business that has been around and open in san francisco for at least 30 years. legacy businesses are the most foundational businesses in our neighborhood corridors. they provided services and a place for community to gather for often times for generations. they are really part of the culturally fabric that makes san francisco neighborhoods so unique. >> the idea is take what i think is [indiscernible] about immigration, about belonging, about some of the amazing

history of the city. [indiscernible]

>> [music] you are watching golden gate inventions with michael. this is episode exploring the excelsior. >> hi i'm michael you are watching golden gate inventions highlighting urban out doors we are in the excelsior. pickleball. let's play pickleball! pickleball is an incredited low popular sport growing nationwide. pickleball combines tennis, bad mitton and ping pong. playod a bad mitton sized court with paddle and i plasticic ball. starting out is easy. you can pick up paddle and balls for 20 buck and it is suitable for everyone in all skill levels you see here. the gim is played by 2 or 4

players. the ball must be served diagnoty and other rules theory easy to pick up. the game ends when i player or team reaches a set score 11 or 21 point bunkham win bright 2 pickleball courts are available across the city some are and others require booking ahead and a fee. information about the courts found at sf recpark. org if you are interested in playing. now i know why people are playing pickleball. it is so much fun you play all ages. all skill levels and pop on a court and you are red to g. a lot of fun i'm glad i did it. all right. let's go! time for a hike! there is i ton of hike nothing

excelsior. 312 acres mc clarin the second largest p in san francisco. there are 7 miles of tris including the there was fer's way this spreads over foresxeft field and prosecute voids hill side views of the city. and well is a meditative quiet place in mc clarin p you will siendz labyrinth made of rock:now we are at glen eagle golf course special try out disk golf >> now disk golf! so disk golf is like traditional golf but with noticing disks. credit as the sport's pioneer establishing the disk ballsorption and the first standardized target the disk

ball hole. the game involves throwing from key areas toward i metal basket. players use different disks for long distances driver, immediateerate. mid range and precise shot, putters. players begin at the t area. throw disks toward the basket and prosecute seed down the fare way. player with the lowest number of throws the end wins the game. disk golf at glen eagle cost 14 dollars if you pay at the clubhouse. there is an 18 hole course this is free. du see that shot? i won! am i was not very good now i have a huge respect for disk ball player its is difficult but fun. thank you for joining me in the

excelsior this is goldenate adventures. >> my name is andrew england the owner and collector at real old paper. i'm a native to the bay areaismt grew up in oakland, spent high school years here and lived in hawaii about 10 years. moved back shortly. been in san francisco proper now for about 8 years. when i realized i wasn't a dealer anymore in san francisco, i found openings and decided to opening my own store in north beach in 2016. north beach was a great place to start. i got a neighborhood feel from it. i got involved in the

community, but as far as business turnover, fisherman's wharf is 2 fold, 3 fold because there are so many more people here. we have been here going on 3 and a half years. i started as a hobbyist. i started collecting movie posters in high school. not originals. just favorite. when i mouved to hawaii there was a gallery that specialized in viptage posters and that taught me about the variables beyond movies and that is where this is my career path and what iment to do. i with irked for them for 8 years, took a portion of pay in store credit so i built a collection basically and turned it into a brz. business. hobby turns business and forch int. i got bitten by the poster bug it spiraled out of control and i needed to a store to outlet my collection.

san francisco has always had a viptage poster dating with 1970 with chicago new york and paris san francisco is a city with a area to buy vintage posters so people appreciate the time capsule and history. all are vintage. most in the store is at least 40 plus years old, some back to the 1800s so we have some 140 years old. they are advertisement,b war propaganda from world war 1 and 2. movie and with travel posters and alcohol and tobaccos. thin pieces of paper meant to last maybe a mujt or 6 weeks. the lowest point was the pandemic. having to close the gallery so i didsant have a web store biltd or outlet and barely a instagram and told all the customers don't buy on line. can't be sure they are

authentic or true colors or size or condition. it was very frustrating. it was a struggle until this opportunity presented itself and when i moved into this location on the wharf, there was stilbodyhere yet. we hadn't officially reopened but i rolled the dice, spent everything i had left to build this place out, and give it one last shot. it worked out very well. it worked out very well. >> here we have the 1971 for the fight. ali and frazier first meeting. the one first professional loss. there is a lot that appreciate the story and understand the esthetic and message and nuances within the graphic. the champagne [indiscernible] wonderful piece. it carries both styles. it has the [indiscernible] in his garb. he has shoes and fits the earlier periods, but done in the style

of art deco and that is what we offer and part of the experience knhing into the store. we will walk through the purchase and explain how we preserved it, what are the imperfections and what does the imagery mean. you have the older story and the newer story, pasted over the top. we will give you all that information. about everything. it may not be your favorite piece until you heard the story. i are think i always had in the back of my mind a second location outside the state. i dream is tokyo, but i do a lot of consulting in las vegas with pon stars group so thought about opening a shop in las vegas. we like to branch out at some point. we are from here and where the company started and where we'll stay, we may just also open another store. i love being here. this is where my family is, this is where i was raised and not ready to leave that behind cht yes, people are looking for this store and there are fewer and fewer store fronts, brick and mortar like ours that outlet

this thing. we offer the experience. i think it is very desirable collective subject matter because we are less and less acustoms. you can pick it while looking at it. examining the flaws and scale and color. you know what you are getting because you get that exact one. poster art is my area of expertise and i have affinity for. poster art especially they are not meant to last are under appreciateated. real paper, the vintage gallery is 777 beach street, tuesday-saturday 11-5 and monday 12-5. you are watching san francisco rising with chris manor.

today's special guest is sarah phillips. >> hi, i'm chris manors and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting rebuilding and eare imagineing the city. the guest today is sarah phillips the executive director of economic workforce development. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. let's talk about the city economic plan and specifically the city's road map to san francisco future. can you give a brief overview and update on progress? >> absolute e. in february 2023 mayor breed released the roadmap comprised to 9 strategies to move the city forward understanding there was structural and lang lasting changing by the covid

impact. 134 were shorter term impacts how people using transit downtown and coming out and are using small businesses, some of them remember long-term structural impacts. the way we work. how often we are in an office and how much office space companies who had headquartered in san francisco need. some of those were structural impacts how we stop. there has been a long-term change as online shopping takes up a greater share how we performs and covid-19 took a shift that would probably take 10 to 15 years happen and collapse what happened ofern the timeframe to 2 years so saw structural impacts how people shop. we have seen a lot of progress rchlt we are 9 months in and significant things we have seen is efforts creating permitinant services and homes for people experiencing homelessness is dramatic.

we increased the number of shelter beds dramatically and take-up of the beds dramatically, and there is more work to do. on the safety side there are exciting things that happened. we increased our police pay among the highest in the bay area which is a important thing for recruitment. police recruitment across the country is down so recruiting the best we can means we need to give a high pay set. august the highsh return in graduates. we see 75 decrease in retail theft and 50 percent reduction in car break ins which is quality of life crime san francisco experienced so there is real progresses we are seeing on clean and safe sides. one thing important in the mayor roadmap we are not trying to get back to 2020 vision.

i think covid showed having a downtown with people sitting at offices isn't the best downtown it can be. i think it is a opportunity to bring 24 hour life use downtown. >> music and concerts is a great way to bring people to a specific location. golden gate park we had lots of events in plazas throughout the city. can you talk about those and if there is upcoming events too? >> i think you touched on something key to the mayor road map. for san francisco and particularly san francisco downtown to move forward and be successful as a great american city, it is about bringing people together because they want to be together not because they center to be together and music is a strong part that. the planet concert sear ries coming up and happening throughout the city not just

golden gate park but downtown locations are a great example. there are smaller examples as well. the landing at--is a new plaza we constructed in the mayor roadmap where two streets come together akwraisant to a couple restaurants closed to cars in daytime, chairs and seating and throughout the week they have lunch time and evening music to bring people together after work. they participate in that. something we are working on setting up for next year which is really exciting is our sf live program and that will bring a full 2024 concert series where we match local venues bringing their work and partnership to useian square, music center plaza and embark cadero. we will be able to announce

concert series through the sf- >> you mentioned vacant to vibrant, that program has a lot of attention lately. can you talk generally what exactly that program is? >> yeah. so, we opened a program where we put out a call for landlords willing to offer groundfloor space for free for 3 to 6 month jz small business or storefront operators who had a proposal what they would do for 3 to 6 months. it is pilot. we had a incredible amount of interest. we had--i'm forgetting the number of landlords, but more then we expected because we are in a place where commercial real estate understands they need to come to the table to help make our groundfloor lively and resulting in a transition where the groundfloor is seen less as a money making operation, but

more as a leader to lease upper floors. if you have a active ground floor yields better on the other 80 percent of the building you are trying to lease. that was great, a lot of cooperation scr over 700 small business or operators responded to that call. it is pop up. there is no intention this would result in forever small businesses, but there is certainly a hope and i think what we are hearing, i don't have the final data, but there are 17 activators in 9 different spaces, some are colocated, which is why the difference, and out of those 9 spaces that are being leased for free, now 7 of them are in discussions for long-term leases so the spaces continue. it is the program. we are hopeful to have a second and third traunch and hoping to pilot in other neighborhoods with other partners. it is not an inexpensive program because there is a lot of capital that goes into

popping up for short amount of time but what we are seen is they visit the businesses, the businesses are successful and san francisco want to support this activation so hopeful to expand it. >> that's great. can you talk a bit about why piloting programs and testing things is so important? >> absolutely. you know, i would say not only the important generally but important in san francisco specifically. the benefit of pilot programs in the reasons they are really important here is, it allows us to try something and say, there may be consequence but let's understand those in real time rather then waiting to start a strategy while we think about them on paper and if they are too great we can modify the program as we go. mta has absorbed the strategy whether a bike lane or other to figure how best to use the street? is this working? is it working for bikes and

cars and buses? maybe not, let's switch it around and pilots have been important to oewd to our office particularly because we tend to have the ability and the mayor's support through the budget process to pilot things through request for proposals or rfp process where we can put out a small amount of funding, try activation and small public plaza, see if it works and i think the benefit there is, if it doesn't work we tried it and had the benefit of seeing real time and when it does work, we are able to uplift that and move into a permanent strategy and that is where our agency turns over something we piloted to another agency because it is part of the city operating procedure. pilots also give people hope. when we have the short-term whether it is physical public

plaza or activation that shows change is possible and allows them to vote for what they like. >> lastly, in lith light of the current ai boom, do you think there is a way to leverage those new changes to take a bunch of san francisco's status as a tech hub? >> i do, i think they work together. san francisco right now has a strong vacancy problem in our office space. and there is a back-story to that. our zoning downtown has not prevented other uses, in terms of permitting uses of the multi-story building has been open including allowing residential but we put other barriers, cost and code barriers et cetera and what happened also during the height of our preevious boom is that, the amount that tech companies were willing to pay for office

space bid everything out so we-without intentionally zoning a single use downtown, we de facto became a single use downtown and thereat is the opportunity you are pointing out. now because downtown was so convertible from work from home, particularly as tech based downtown was and how much companies put at the market in the office spaces we are seeing high vacancy now, all most 30 percent so there is lot of square feet but that presents a lot of opportunity. we have the ability to absorb expansion of the tech industry we are so strong at. we have seen over 800 thousand square feet of ai space leased just in 2023 alone and there is still more demand out in the market, more ai companies looking for space so that is a growth spot absorbing some of the vac ancy. the opportunity too is prices

for downtown lease s have also dropped and that opens up a breath of opportunity to a breath of companies that were priced out in 2018, 2019, 2020. san francisco has always been great at starting companies and allowing them to grow here. when our prices are too high it prevents that growth so now we are a super fertile ground for more start ups and invasion on the smaller end of the sector because they can come and enter our market and we have the space to offer. to talk about san francisco's assets and the leveraging that, we sit at the epicenter of really great university and educational institutions. we are between uc berkeley and stanford. the graduates produced just from those institutions alone stay in the bay area and want to rise up and work here, provide a real opportunity for the start ups to build their companies and companies to grow here so we confident we will absorb a certain amount of office space with ai tech. with that, we are interested in

increasing our human capital growing graduates. downtown university is something the mayor is open to pursuing and we are in conversations with uc berkeley we love to have as a partner in our downtown and then residential conversions are a great partner to that. as we build back the office space, people will want to live downtown again and we have a number buildings that can be converted to residential. the costs are high. mayor breed and her partners on the board made significant changes to reduce the costs. we waived fees for change of uses in the downtown area. there are code changes that will make the conversions easier. there is a ballot measure on the march ballot that will attempt to reduce costs for those as well. it is ongoing process and none of those changes we talked about absent ai growth downtown, but institutional growth downtown, arts growth

downtown and residential conversions downtown are long-term changes so one thing i want to say recollect i do think there is a opportunity per your question, but we also need to be patient because what we are talking about is is a real shift to the make-up of the downtown since from the growth it has been starting at since the turn of the century so that isn't a 2 year change, that is a 10 year change and we center to watch as it goes. >> thank you so much. i really appreciate you spending the time here today and your creative vision and positivity, so thank you so much. >> thanks so much for having me and hope you all downtown and shop. >> that is it for this episode. for sfgovtv i'm chris manors, thanks