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thank you celtic voices f the beautiful performance. and now i'd like t ask hilda cassin to come forward. >> hilda is president of the united irish societies of san francisco. >> thank you, joe. thank you, joanne. i just have a few remarks. i'll keep them veryi'll doat i'md. i just want to say that i'm than for being here. i'm very honored to be the new president of the united irish societies. liam has left me with big shoes to fill and ane yl know that our

matt dorsey who is a parish member of st prick's will hosting our after ceremony event down in his office. so please make your way down there. i was in there earlier. i noticed that they have a very cool guinness ficture machine. so i think there probably will be a line for that. let me sneak in and grab a pint. just wanted to say thank you for everybody. this has been a big honor for me. i'm very grateful to mayor laur, to our lord mayor boyle ,michael penny colter. there's so many people i can't thank you all. i mean it would be i would just individually thank everybody. dermot, our chairman of t co sister citie very appreciative so that's my day for you. goodbyej0wh.

>> thank you, hilda. and before moving on from unitedrish societies i would like to acknowledge also liam frost, former retired s.f. pd neighbor of mine and literally made a citizen's arrest yesterday andd s our neighborhood. nk y y you've done. and befe asking our next thout also recogning mr. dermot philpott. dermot, you and my father were friends and i know mayor leary allude to 41 years ago the establishment of the cork sister city committee and the many trips that you took and you and then mayor feinstein initiated that committ so thank you and i love big city small town stories. theresa, your daughter and i went to high school together mercy high school class of 1982. so welcome. >> it's always such a pleasure cork sister city comee isng the

board member jim herlihy. thank you joanne. mayor laurie lord mayor boyle consul geralmith a chief of protocol penny colter. and ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming today to the annual flag raising. it's become a san francisco institution and it's our semiofficial kickoff of the saint patrick's week. celebration. so thank you for joining us. little little bit of history about the sister city. in 1984, then-mayor dianne feineinle t tweean francisco and cork. san francisco actually has 19 sister cities and the cork sister city ones to be created 198. then maynein l delegation of 200 san franciscans to cork. you can imagine what a party

that w and in fact dermot was on that trip and i think kathleen was on the trip. so it was a terrific a terrific occasion. since that time thean francisco cork sister city committee has continu to broaden and deepen our relationship. we've had all kinds of exchanges over the years ranging from edution, business investment, arts, culture, law enforcement, fire department, etc.. we're looking forward to having our new m. i was going to say lord mayor, our new i won't givou that promotion yet, daniel. we're looking forward to o ma danie lurie leading a delegation from san francisco following in the footsteps of former mayor dianne feinstein next year and again stay tuned where hopefully we'll do it in the early part of the year.

but i hope i didt lethe cat out of theag.emz mr. mayor. in closing, i want to recognize that we have a we have the lord mayor dan boyle here with us today. he brought a delegation from cork. they have been visiting with the chamber of commerce, the bay area council down the peninsula, apple, netapp, etc. . that investment is a two way flow. we have a lot of bay area companies who've made their way to cork ireland and to ireland as a whole. but as consul general smith mentioned, we also have much irish investment into california from ireland. let's keep that in mind also. and again, mayor boyle, we appreciate the continuing tradition of having the l mayor of cork come every year and this has been going on for about 6 or 7 years now to raise the irish flag, iri tricolor here at city hall and to rd all san franciscans and of course oedatck's day everybody'sn san

francisco that san francisco has very deep and real roots in iland. and again, we t you f your your successful delegation, your successl visi ae look forwa in cork withr lori next year. thank you, lord mayor. thanks everyone for your attention. we're getting close to our irish dancers but we have one more speaker and that is our honored guest, theord mayor of cork, lord mayor dle. >> welcome. welcome. yeah. mayor lori. gener tommy smith, chief of protocol penny colter, fire chi mmbers of the board of supervisors, particularly members of the san francisco caucuses, our committee and very particularly garrett philpott and grandshal

members of the cor delegation and friends. it's a huge privilege for me to be present here today on a day like today we can think of the generations of irish people who have come to san franciscond become part of san francisco story and who have raised families he who have worked careers here, who have made the city what it has become. and as visitors from ireland we are very conscious of that story and we're very proud of oserations that have followed the i generations who have come to the san francisco. i have the privilege of being the first lord mayor of cork to have been born in the united states. i was born in chicago. i didn't have much say in that decision. it was a circumstance that was brought about by my parents but my family history is is not that unusual compared to many people in this room and i suspect in this city.

my mother came from ck. her family actually lived on the main street of cork st paick seet. my father was an islander from donegal and fate would never have decreed that they would have met in land b they meetn the united states and myself and my sisters were a result of that meeting and that shared love. so part of me will always be american but most to me will be cork and irish and on on a day like today it's that that shared history we have that has been at the strength of the relationship in particular between san francisco and cork as already been mentioned. it's a formal agreement between sister cities that has existed now for 41 years and that first agreement was signed by then mayor dianne feinstein and then lord mayor dan wallace, both of whom have gone to their attorney awards in recent

times. dan wallace sadly have has passed away just a number of weeks ago and i would like to remember their particular individual contributions to the establishment of the relationship. but today is a time for some formal words. but it's a more time for enjoyment of who we are and what we share together. and the biggest privilege i have in leading a delegation from cork city and for those who are part of that delegation6 is an is experiences events like today but more particularly the welcome we've received over the course of the week and the poten we believe for the deep affection and relationship we already have to become stronger and better in the deco follow. thank you for your courtesy. thank you for the kinship that we share between our cities and may we have many more occasions like this as we honor each

other and our shared bond. >> thank you. apeciate it.ord mayor doyle. and now tolose t program. i think this i everyone's favorite part. i'd like to introduce the dancers from the murphy school of dce following the performance, i'd like to invite you to stay behind for our reception and there might be a little something down the hall with supervisor dorsey as well . thank you again. happy st patrick's day. i hope to see you out on the 15th at the parade

today

i grew up with salvadorian cuisine mixed with american cuisine, and grew up cooking with my grandmother. as i grew older, i really found a lot of joy and fulfillment in cooking and coming up with my own recipes. once i got into the fire department, it was a really easy transition to cooking on a daily basis. my mom said, if you love to eat, you will know problem learning how to cook. it's like cooking for your family especially since this is

a blue collar job and regular people food. that is a lot of things that go on into preparing firehouse meals. we pay for our own meals. we go, we shop and we spend divided upon the amount of people in on the meal. in the morning, there is a sign up board and you can sign up for lunch and dinner. my name is figueroa and at station 5 is pillar. when we go in typically, we sort

of span out in our meals situation and whoever is cooking dictates to what we are going to eat. we are going to take care of the pasta, bread, heavy cream, eggs, a pound of butter. three polish killbasa and onion and garlic. >> you have a lot of people hustling.

>> we are doing this technique on the chicken where we are going to cook it in high heat for about 15 minutes and turn it down. we started at 425, and dropped the temperature at 375. >> my name is oj leonardo, a firefighter first, always, for the city and county of san francisco. >> it's unique. one of the few houses where the officers cook. they are on the cooking detail. so cooking is a big part of our tradition here in the fire department. when you cook for your folks, you are showing how much you care for them. you don't have to be an excellent cook, just show that you care. when you are at home, you put whatever you want together and people will eat it. there are no rules. in the firehouse, it's a different story. now, whoever is cooking, the

first thing we ask is, no. 1, are there any diet restrictions because one of my firefighters is kosher and vegan. here at 12, we make sure that everyone eats. >> when i'm planning my meals, i tend to weigh it, i guess is the best way to describe it. i don't make a list, i don't typically go from recipes. i will sort of go into the rolodex in my mind and think of what possibilities i have depending on if it's cold outside, if it's hot, do you want to barbecue, do we want a soup, a salad, go light, heavy and decadent. when i first came in, i had some experience in

cooking. i think the big difference for me was knowing how to cook for many people and how to shop. that was a pretty big deal because i had no idea how many chickens to get to make roast chicken for 11 guys. luckily, i had some really cool people help me along the way. when goaledberg, who was a staple here at station 5 was we me the first day that i cooked and he said, look here kid, you are going to be all right. we are getting this many salad, chicken, pasta and you will be all right. don't worry about it. he was throwing things in the shopping cart and i could barely keep up. i thought how is he going to turn all this for a meal for the

guys. that's really where i had to wrap my behind around this is how we do it here. lloyd, and all the people here at 5, when i first came in were nothing but helpful when it came to that and everything and parting knowledge to the next person, the next generation is being part of being in this fire department. they for the most part know and every once in a while something new. >> when we get dispatched to a call, we'll put everything on hold and will do whatever duties we need to fulfill and then we'll come back finish cooking and go on with the day. >> the biggest challenge for me

is to make sure that i have a meal that everyone likes. that's the biggest scare. if they don't like it, one guy is on the phone calling for pizzas and the rest are scraping their meal. that has happened. it's really important to pass on traditions. station 5 is famous for setting up the linen, the cloth and tradition. once you have caesar in the firehouse, you won't have it again outside the firehouse. >> i'm filipino and had my grandmother in the kitchen. we learned how to cook because we were always helping my mom in the kitchen. my mom never measured anything,

neither my grandma and i had to always watch because when they turn their back, that is where they made their move. now with cooking, i use simple ingredients and let them speak for themselves. >> i think there is something to be said about coming together and sharing a meal. there is something that happens, some kind of magic that happens spinning across the table. you know, it's a moment where everybody has something in common. the next thing you know people are talking and engaging and there is a sense of community, and that's important whether it's in the firehouse or outside of the firehouse. that's why it's important in my family that we eat together. >> the biggest thing that the food that i cook for them and we do together is to show how much

you love your fellow firefighter. that's our bond. we do it through food. it's more than just the food. i remember we had two of our firefighters pass away in a fire that turned into something. we were together at that moment, and we were able to talk about them and think about them before we started our meal and during our meal. and we would just sit there and just be together and have a moment. in the end, being a firefighter, is all about people. if you love people, this is the job for you. if you see people in need and respond to people in need, and then you are sharing meals with your fellow firefighters, it's a people business. so, that food just makes that bond even greater.

if you are eating, you are paying. so all of you guys, i hope brought enough money to pony up. [ laughter ] oh, this is something. i told you, who needs to measure. [ laughter ] in the fire department, everyone is willing to help. you have to bring your a game.

fire department ems at station 49. i was born raise in the oak land my dad is mexican my mom is black i was playing soft ball this hayward and directly behind our soft ball field is an empty field. and almost every day at practice i saw this tiny woman leading the big people in work outs and eventual low i look in the and found out she was teaching how to do physical trin to get people red to work in the fire department. that peeked my interest. the oak lan fire department was the first fire department i did. i did a firefighter one training program there.

that got me into fire whim start the paramedic school i went to city college and fell in love with the city. i did nile internship at station 49. it was wonder. . i learned the san francisco wave doing things. like the wild, wild west, every day. i loved it was a family environment here. that made mow say san fan fire department, that's i didn't want to be. i avoided science my entire education up to becoming a paramedic. i failed my first time taking my emt registry. i hope well is nobody out there that gets discouraged if this happens. you have opportunity to take again. i d. i came back. took it, passed and continued to paramedic and pass the my registry the first time. being a woman in the fire department i am a minority here. a minority in multiple aspects.

i'm a woman. biracial i'm the only black woman paramedic in the ems position. it is insane and i hope i encourage other women to join this profession that does not represent the city of san francisco. i love to show up on a scene and i can see the comfort in member who men looks like me or my family members they see me and they are comforts. i hope there are women that see me and see themselves in me and know they can do this job limp i have a 20 month old daughter at home. i would like to teach my daughter it is okay to say no as a woman and have and voice that opinion. and i did a good job of that already.

>> i really hope that anybody considering this field schedule a ride along. go to your local deputy or knock on an ambulance window can ask to schedule a ride along. that is irrelevant how diit my first couple ride alongs i saw things that blew my mind and said, that's what i want to do with my life. [music]

>> my name is alan schumer. i am a fourth generation san franciscan. in december, this building will be 103 years of age. it is an incredibly rich, rich history. [♪♪♪] >> my core responsibility as

city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. i am also the tour program manager, and i chair the city advisory commission. i have two ways of looking at my life. i want it to be -- i wanted to be a fashion designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it aant ttle between both. i ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn, big changes, and now i am here. the work that i do at city hall

makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the garment industry. i had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents. it is almost like an extended family. i have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. she was a dressmaker of the first order. i would go visit her, and it was a special treat. i was a tiny little girl. i would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time, girls did not wear pants. the garment industry had the -- at the time that i was in it and

i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. you will see the predominant designers, owners of huge complexes are huge stores were all male. women were sort of relegated to a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. there was a woman by the name of diana. she was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. she classified it as a third i. will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of san francisco, and was

the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. i believe he has not a third eye , but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. >> the board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. jeffrey heller, the city and county of san francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. >> to impart to the history of this building is remarkable. to see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you start talking about this

building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face. with children, and i do mainly all of the children's tours, that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can start talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of san francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor. >> at times, my clothes make me feel powerful.

powerful in a different sense. i am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me. usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the look, or sometimes the complication of the look. i have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit? retirement to me is a very strange words. i don't really ever want to retire because i would like to be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing honor of working in the people's palace. you want a long-term career, and

you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving to someone or something you're then yourself. follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way.

all right. >> all right. well, good morning everyone. we're going to get started. welcome to the our city our home oversight committee. it is tuesday, march 4th, 2025 and we're going to call this meeting to order starting with roll call. >> thank you, chair williams

vice chair de antonio is on the way. >> member freedom book here member haddix sent member jackson here member preston here member shifrin. >> absent member martinez here member walton here chair williams here. >> thank you. you have a quorum. all right. thank you. so we're now going to do our material on a land acknowledgment. so we acknowledge that we're on the unceded ancestral homeland of the rama to challenger who are the original inhabitants of san francisco peninsula as indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions the rama to challenge we have never ceded lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as a caretakers of this place as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory as guests we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the martyrs community and by

affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. thank you. all right. so we have a couple of general announcements before we get started. i just want to state about excused absences so members may not have more than three unexcused absences for regular meetings within a six month period. if you know that you will miss a meeting please either contact the controllers office staff are mentioned at a prior meeting so the committee may vote to excuse the absence. we also have announcement on public comment so members have an obligation to allow two minutes to public commenters and they should not interrupt unless necessary to prevent harassment or violence. and we also have the good government guide for folks that we can distribute around that people want to read about that. all right. >> so we'll get started with i'll turn it over for public comment. >> thank you. members of the public who wish to provide in public comment in person, please line up at the podium now members of the public who wish to provide public comment over the phone please call (415) 655-0001

enter access code 26644202198 then press lb and then lb again dial star three to line up to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments . each person will have two minutes to speak before moving on to in person and over the phone public comment we would like to acknowledge receipt of a written public comment sent to the our city our home email inbox from michael taylor. this message has been shared with and reviewed by the ocho oversight committee members. we will now begin with in-person public comment followed by a public comment over the phone. >> for the record there are no in person or over the phone public comments. >> this concludes the public comment section for this agenda item. >> all right. thank you. so we're now going to move to item three the ocho fund revenue forecast. i'm going to turn it over to

radhika. >> okay. can you bring everybody. and thank you again for making the time for this special meeting. we have a couple of important by related presentations today. the first is about the revenue forecast or the most recent revenue forecast that we have for the ocho fund. and typically the bad team offers this presentation which is the comptroller's office budget and analysis division. but i'm presenting their information today so i'd be happy to take any more detailed questions that you all have and take it back to to that budget

analysis division. but hopefully the presentation should cover most of your questions and great. so why is revenue forecasted? the city projects revenue at various points throughout the fiscal year. so this is just the most recent update that we have. and that happens several times between january and june. and these revenue projections are really important for budget planning. this is our opportunity as a city to align spending with where we think revenue might come in. and that also applies to the ocho fund. >> so a city department so that sage h will use this forecast to create their budget proposals. meaning aligning their expenditures across the various service areas to the projected

revenues for the next two years. departments will then submit those budget proposals to the mayor's office in march. we are officially in mare phase of the budget process. and and that's the sort of context of what is going to happen with this information. >> so just to sort of regroup on how this forecast fits into your process currently many of the liaisons are meeting with department partners to sort of get a program in fiscal understanding for each of the service areas. at the committee meeting later this month in march, departments will present that budget proposal that i had just mentioned that they will have shared with the mayor's office. so the departments will come and present that proposal to you all the committee and then a month after that at the april meeting. and liaisons will come together

with you all the other committee members. and that will be when you all make your budget and policy recommendations about those proposals to inform the mayor's budget which will come out in june on june 1st. >> so just as a reminder, a lot of that decision making happens in may. so we'd like to get all of your recommendations over to the important stakeholders by the end of april allowing time for any of those to get factored into the final mayor's budget that comes out on june one. >> and then after june 1st we go into the board phase of the budget. and so once we have a sense of what the mayor will propose, the committee will regroup and figure out if you all want to make any recommendations to inform the board's process of the budget process which then makes the budget final in july . >> okay.

>> so what are all the considerations of this forecast and just forecasts and general forecasts are of course just our best thinking at one point in time. we won't know how much actual revenue comes in until after fiscal year end in september. that's when the city sort of tallies the real revenue that will come in. so this is a projection. you probably have a pretty good sense of this but the economy is coming back but pretty slowly. and the growth rate assumed in this forecast is 3% annually and office vacancy which of course is a big part of the city's economy but also particularly related to gross receipts peaked at 35% in 2020 for muni part exits. this is all sort of these are all indicators of business

activity and muni and bart exits in downtown are increasing. >> and of course as always a reminder that our business taxes are really sensitive to national and local economic conditions. they are increasingly complex and very volatile. we all know that high interest rates have had a particular lower impact on the startup ecosystem in san francisco and of course remote and hybrid work. and our primarily driving those high rates of office vacancies resulting in lower gross receipts. >> and of course there's an increasing number of disputes over the city's business taxes. so i'll talk a little bit more about how litigation impacts revenue. but there's just a lot of disputes over it.

overall, the city's business taxes and homeless gross receipts is not immune to that . >> you all heard from our treasurer tax collector at the last meeting about proposition and that passed in the fall which has made significant changes to our business taxes including the homeless gross receipts tax which funds our city, our home and the fund. >> and these are all sort of what we think should happen based on the changes that proposition m will be implementing. and so of course there's been a shift from payroll to sales and ostensibly that should reduce the revenue risk associated with a business leaving. >> in addition there's a sort of reduced threshold exemption threshold which means that we are projecting to add an

estimated 400 additional tax payer additional taxpayers and you all probably remember just from multiple presentations before that a very small percentage of taxpayers were previously paying into this source which made it highly volatile. so hopefully our projection of increasing the additional tax payers will come to fruition. >> and in addition and the filing extension has been moved around from april to november. this one is a little bit of a question mark because this sort of shifts the money that will come in across fiscal years. >> so not exactly sure where this will land but it's likely to cause some additional revenue uncertainty which might eventually have an impact on how we project revenue for the fund.

>> and then just to acknowledge the risks to this forecast, of course we won't know the full sort of force of prop and the impact until november 2026. so we're quite a ways out from that and almost gross receipts tax is progressive which means that the more groceries seats you have the more you are taxed. so that means that individual taxpayers can have a pretty significant effect on revenue. now again, prop m is trying to stabilize that by adding more tax payers to the base but it's still likely a risk. and then litigation which is what i had mentioned in the previous slide. >> so the city holds back revenue to account for litigation risks. >> so that means that as the risk of litigation is increasing as suits lawsuits against the city are

increasing, that means less revenue is actually available to the fund. and this is a citywide practice but particularly salient for our city, our home. >> having said that. >> so we have the forecast that really covers the next five years. >> but i think the first two years of that forecast are most pertinent to our budget process given that we are now in the budget process for fiscal year 2526 which will be next year. and fiscal year 2627 which will be the following year. and you can see that revenue is around 300 is projected to be around 325 million for the first year of the budget and 336 million for the second year of the budget. just if you could keep those numbers in mind as we move forward in the presentation, i'm happy to refer back to them

but roughly approximately 330 million. >> so how does this forecast compared to previous years? >> so this i think is a really key takeaway from this presentation and here we are showing you in the budget starting from 2021, the first full year of the fund where we projected and therefore budgeted $335 million. and the actual revenue that came in so that september timeline that i was mentioning earlier that we won't know until we fully created an expenditure plan and came in at about 279 million creating a gap of $57 million the following year.

again, based on the projection we budgeted 313 million. >> so we're sort of aligning to expectations a little bit more . and that year the revenues came in at you know, $248 million creating a $66 million gap. >> so these are really big jumps and really are sorry really big gaps. and when that happens, when less revenue comes in than we budget because now we've created a spending plan based on that projected revenue. departments have to rely on program savings that you'll hear about in the next presentation and reserves to help fill the gaps so that we don't cut programs that have already been put in place. >> and so that's sort of what's happened historically early last year was the first year that we had a slight higher

revenue come in than we projected by about 5 million. but you all can imagine the sort of structural deficit that this has created in the fund. >> so we have budgeted for this current year that we're in 274 million and i'll talk a little bit more about this in the next presentation. and the current projection is saying that will land somewhere in the 268 million ballpark. >> but of course we won't know that until september. >> so there's a chance it could be a big swing. there's a chance it could not be but at best fiscal practice of course is to be prepared to make sure that there are other funds available so that we are not having to make any cuts to programs. >> so how to think about this forecast as you all are getting

ready to make your recommendations? just some historical context. so i showed you all that table. and that really speaks to when departments created spending plans. >> we thought that revenues were going to come in around 330 million each year and actually continue to grow and that was the sort of assumption . and now we all have been working departments you all to implement those plans. that means a majority of those program teams that the committee created through the investment plan etc. those are in progress. those are ongoing programs that the fund is carrying. and of course since 2020 this is true in so many other facets of business that there's been significant cost growth. there's just operational across

cost growth across every facet of the work that the city does . and so we haven't been able to sort of catch up to that because we haven't even had revenue come in to where we thought spending was going to be. so we haven't even begin to sort of catch up on the cost growth. >> so to date when revenues have come in much lower than projected levels, it's created shortfalls that departments have bridged with just one time solutions. that means that whenever there are program savings in one year or reserves that a department is able to set aside, they have used that money to bridge that gap. again, as a reminder this is the first time that we're projecting revenue to come in. you know this this projection says that revenue might come in at that 330 million level. but again, we'll have to kind

of wait to see what that what that looks like in september. >> so really the thesis is until revenues consistently catch up to the spending plans and increase to sort of align with the cost growth that the city has experienced in doing business over the last several years, departments will have to continue to rely on savings on program savings and reserves to make sure that those programs remain operational. so something for you all to think about as we kind of get into the recommendations process. and that's it for me. >> thank you so much, rod. we're going to open up for committee discussion. any questions or comments? all right. remember freddie mac? >> yeah. just on the comparison year to year the.

just wanted to note that the projection the project the projected revenue in 2324 is about $20 million less than the actuals in 2324. and in all of the you know, other kinds of things that we've seen, we were projecting growth in the fund after the dip during the during covid you know like a lot of this stuff is like coming out of covid where we had those big dips and so i was just wondering if you had anything to add on on the the thinking there. >> sorry. remember freddie mac i'm not following the projected income in 2324 was $20 million less than the actuals in i'm sorry and 2425 is 20 million less than the actuals in 2324. and so and i had thought we were kind of more on an upward spin so i was just wondering why the projected is so much lower than the actuals in 2324

for 2425. >> yeah. i can't speak to any further detail than the sort of inputs i described and these are all economic factors and so just what was true in september of 2024 is not necessarily going to be the same set of factors that are also true than when we make the projection for the following year. so a lot can change. and as you all are probably tracking the news just in the last few months our economic picture has drastically changed. >> so that's that's the level of which i can speak to if you'd like for additional details i'll have to go back to the budget and analysis division to tease out the exact differences. >> but these are just a few months can make really big changes can can have a big

impact on how we think about what's going to happen to the economy. >> yeah. and then in the the so in you're saying in november of 2025 we're going to have the actuals for 2420 5th september 2025. that's right. so when we budgeted that 274 that was last year in july. so july 2024 that kicks off july 1st is the start of the fiscal year. >> so we made that determination about the economy, about almost gross receipts then and we won't know exactly how much revenue will come in until september of 2025. so yeah, there's a big lag in when the city has to budget for through the budget process. and then when we realize that revenue.

>> yeah, i just want to make the comment that you know we and i appreciate like being you know being careful about this and looking at these you know, early years where it was projected way over at the same time kind of balancing that with the fact that there's like emergency situations that people are facing on the streets and kind of a consistent underspending of the fund. and so it's it's i mean one could say we've been maybe a little too careful given the level of need that's out there and you know, part of that is just been you know, the first two years of the fund we weren't able to spend. and so you know, we collected gross receipts for those first two years and then in 2020 did like an emergency mid-year sort of, you know, intervention that was very kind of covid focused and we had like we supported the sip hotels and did a whole bunch of stuff and tried to get

resources to underserved communities like the bayview, etc.. and so just kind of thinking forward, you know, we may want to think about a fall like supplement if the revenues come in much higher once we get the actuals and then we have money sitting in the fund, maybe there's ways to kind of expand resource. i know that that would have to go through the board and the budget process and all of that but but i just it's like we want to be careful and not overspend but we don't want to have money sitting there. so yeah, just wanted to kind of kind of make a note about that and i think you know the forward projections are looking really good and and like there is a lot of unknown with you know a lot of tinkering with the economy that's happening right now in probably very irresponsible ways. so of course there's a lot of unknowns but i think with the diversification of the fund and

a lot more people paying into it that that helps us as well. and so yeah, things are just anyway just wanted to make those comments. >> yeah. i just want to reiterate one thing member feedback when i talk about on this slide that departments relied on program savings that is the underspend that you're mentioning. so it is through that underspend and through reserves that departments were able to bridge that gap. >> so just want to align on kind of vocabulary here. oh well there's program savings but there's also the one time money that was that has been sitting since the beginning that has you know i mean if you look well we'll go into the next slides but when we have a poor amount of money when we have $700 million in the fund in our annual income is roughly 300 million. that's obviously there's a lot more money at play there. so just wanted to but we'll get into those details.

but if there is money that's sitting there i'm not talking about just underspending on the program. i'm talking about other like what's in the fund or generally. yeah. thank you member friedman any other committee discussion? i wanted to add my self to this talk with the folks had member walton all right i just want to i mean appreciate this and then as we look forward i remember earlier this year we had budget projections that also looked at the following two fiscal years where there were shortfalls. and so we want to keep that in mind in terms of what we've generally focused on the fact of keeping programs going that are productive and vital. so i don't disagree member frydenberg with what you're saying but i also know that we've had these projections that say following 25, 26, 26, 27 the next two years there were quite large shortfalls when we start looking out that far.

so and that was the fact that the departments were using savings and one time money to fill gaps for the 2526 and 2627 years. so i think we have to take a longer view than just what the budget cycle is for two years just to make sure that we're not faced down the line with having to consider which vital programs we can't afford to continue. so it's a balance of those two things getting the money out and useful and looking at these programs where we want ongoing and long term productivity. >> yeah. thank you. remember walton and for you and for the rest of the committee the departments will speak to the magnitude of those cliffs and when they are projected to sort of impact in in the coming months both through liaison meetings and then through the presentation that you'll hear at the end of the month.

>> thank you. member preston i just have a question on that. so when we were looking forward at some reductions in receipts, did were those numbers taking into account prop m and what reductions are you referring? well the shortfalls in the no because prop m just passed. >> yeah. so we might need to get that re bill so the latest projection accounts for prop m but that was one of the inputs that i mentioned. but of course we won't know the full impact of prop m because there was an implementation process, right? the business community needs to learn how to pay into this tax and so we won't know the full impact of that until november 2026. so again that's another sort of lag to consider. yeah, but that assumption is sort of built into this current

forecast because we created the city created this forecast after the passing of prop m in november. >> yeah. >> remember walton did you just speak to the that's why we need to look beyond the two year budget cycle because with that information sort of becoming clearer and clearer as we move towards november of 26 we'll know better what to do. so we just have to be both aggressive with how we use the money as effectively as possible and thinking long term . >> thank you member walton i'll just jump in here and wanted to make a comment about staff capacity because i know in the earlier years that's something that came up as to why funds couldn't get out just in terms of staffing within the department just to be able to carry out this large influx of dollars that are being injected into programs and i don't know if anyone can provide an update on that like where h. s h is in terms of increasing their infrastructure capacity

to be able to take on this program because that came up significantly in the earlier years and i can't speak to that directly. chair williams but departments are here as we kind of talk about the mid-year report today and yes, staffing has been an issue both in the city side but also on the cbo side. so capacity to consider on both ends. thanks for raising that. >> thank you. is there any further discussion? i know we have our next item if there. we'll get into more of this. >> all right. so i think we'll go to public comment. >> members of the public who wish to provide public comment in person please line up at the podium now. members of the public who wish to provide public comment over the phone, please refer to the instructions posted at sfx gov slash o c o h. wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. each person will have two minutes to speak.

we will begin with in-person public comment followed by public comment over the phone. >> for the record there are no in person or over the phone public comments. this concludes the public comments section for this agenda item. all right, so we'll transition to item four which is the ocho fund fiscal year 2425 mid-year update and i'll turn it back to robert. sorry i'm running the show today. >> great. well, hopefully a nice seamless transition into talking about the mid-year update. and just as a reminder, we're in fiscal year 2425. this update represents where the fund sits after the first six months of spending and as well as departments do an exercise of projecting what their spending will look like for the second half of the fiscal year. so i'll get into it.

>> so we'll talk about the sort of as spending ability which represents the revised budget. and we'll talk about expenditures and projections at the fund level. and we'll dive into some details of each of the service areas spending and balances. we'll talk about reserves in the fund as well as potential risks and policy environment which will sound quite familiar to the presentation that i just gave. >> and there is a glossary as part of the presentation and i hope you all have a copy in front of you. and please feel free to refer to this. there's a sort of a lot of information in here so and happy to clarify at the end. >> so please to let me know. >> great. so the revised budget in the

fund is $785 million. and this represents unspent budget from prior year as well as that 274 million that was budgeted last year. >> and so this represents the total authority that departments have to spend ocho dollars. >> and again, just as a reminder we budgeted to 74 we're looking at 268. >> i don't want to i know i've hammered in this point a bunch but so far the projection is really based on the economic factors we talked about as well as tax payments that have already come in so far what's pending? and of course the litigation and claims that this particular source is facing.

>> so and sorry this hopefully it's a better view on your screens and but at the fund level departments have spent i'm sorry before i get into the details. and the way that the presentation is organized is that there's a chart for folks that want to read a chart. >> there's a table for everybody that wants to read a table. and then there's a text slide for everyone that just wants the takeaways so choose your flavor and process the information as you'd like. >> so feel free to kind of flip through your physical copies as is most helpful to you. >> all departments have spent about $167 million in the first half of the fiscal year. that's primarily driven by permanent housing which is our largest service area. it's where most a large share

of the funding goes to permanent housing based on those percentage allocations. and so that's sort of in line with that. >> and the departments are projecting to spend an additional $247 million in the second half of the fiscal year. and we'll talk through the details of that. >> there is $99 million in what are called obligated funds. >> and these are earmarked funds for future use and in particular this new 100 million is earmarked for the safer families program that was part of the budget process last year. it's a plan to provide emergency shelter and rehousing support for homeless families in san francisco as well as take housing expansions within permanent housing. so these are earmarked dollars for future use for those two buckets say for families and

housing expansion. >> the fund includes about $158 million in reserves and that money is really to address gaps between revenue and expenditure was the projected remaining balance of 115 million represents one time program savings and is primarily driven by the mental health acquisition fund. about half which of course is a pot of money that is intended to support acquisition for the mental health service area sort of ongoing excuse me. and when you say acquisition do you mean facility acquisition? okay. >> so we'll get into the service areas starting with permanent housing operations. >> here are the expenditures.

those are driven by of course ongoing services and operate ins for the nine total permanent supportive housing sites that the ocho fund supports. in addition, as you all heard through the annual report in the liaison meeting so far this is also due to the scattered site housing program expansions and that hhs is leading. and of course i talked about sort of operational cost growth but this is a particular example of increasing costs for capital and rehab job costs for sites. >> the balances in permanent housing operations are driven by the fact that the department received state homekey dollars for two sites 685 alice and 42 otis. this means that money that was previously programed in the fund because the state and the

state awarded the city funding for those two sites. that frees up elko funding for other uses. >> and there was a mid-year opening of 1174 folsom street and as well as 42 otis street both sites for a day. that means there is only partial you're operations for both of those sites. >> in addition there is ongoing program implement ation of several housing programs which means that not all of that funding will get spent in this current fiscal year. >> the obligated funds that i've already spoken to are mostly in one time are mostly one time funding for a day and families for rapid rehousing and shallow subsidy expansions that will be spent over the next 3 to 5 years.

>> if we want to look at the population view, this view shows very similar information but breaks out that program level information by population and shows that most of the projected spend for the rest of the year is within adult programing. and of course obligated funds are only for youth and family. as i mentioned earlier and balance of course is also primarily driven by adult programs which is the largest allocation within within permanent housing. >> so it aligns with that. moving on to mental health operations. expenditures for mental health operations as are driven just by the continued expansion of beds, mental health, substance use, residential care and treatment beds. and there's ongoing operations of course for the behavioral

health street response and outreach teams. that department opened a 33 bed residential program for justice involved women her house in early 2024. that's driving the spending. and of course the facts program that we have been talking a lot about now serves as site based sites and will offer expanded behavioral health services through a cbo partnership later this year. >> in addition, the department has added several staff to expand case management within mental health substance use disorder and tae programs. the balances in mental health are the unspent acquisition at facilities acquisition funding that we were talking about. and this includes projects that are under negotiation which include the addition and relocate portion of treatment

beds and a new service center. >> moving on to homelessness prevention the expenditures in prevention are primarily driven by the fact that there is full implementation of programs including s.f. erap which is the s.f. emergency rental assistance program problem solving as well as eviction prevention and housing stabilization programs. in addition, programs that were previously funded by other time limited sources and primarily around eviction prevention are now leveraging funding. >> so that's driving the expenditure. the balances here are pretty small and mostly driven by some underspend in the emergency rental assistance program as well as some case management programs. >> the obligated funds in

homelessness prevention are the one time funds that are necessary to bridge the structural gap between the available revenue as well as the expenditure plan for problem solving. and this is hopefully familiar to folks on the that have been on the committee before this year. but the department is here to talk a little bit more about that if there any questions. >> for shelter and hygiene the expenditures are driven by navigation centers, emergency shelter and case management for justice involved adults programs that are fully operational and projected to spend their entire annual allocation. the department also opened a new cabin site in the bayview the commons. there are demobilization costs here for the kendall steak vehicle triage center that closes in march, but there are

ongoing costs throughout the remainder of the fiscal year to demobilize that site. there's also in progress the one time expansion of the temporary hotel vouchers for families. and then the obligated funds in shelter and hygiene are the continued expansion of those vouchers into the next fiscal year of fiscal year 2526. the department will continue to expand those going to reserves. >> there are four different kinds of reserves that are laid out here for you all. >> there's the funding that's on mare reserve which was a policy choice made during last year's budget process by the mayor's office. there is unappropriated revenue reserve. this is the revenue that in the previous presentation i had mentioned to you all came in higher than projected.

so it has not actually been appropriated through the budget process. so it's sitting in an unappropriated revenue reserves sort of bucket. >> there's the f y 26 reserves. >> this is the funding that was budgeted last year during the budget process to address those f y 2526 shortfalls that member walton was mentioning earlier. >> so last year during the two year budget process departments created a budget for f y 2425 which is the year we're in right now as well as 2526. and just to talk about the budget process for one second, we'll come back to that f y 2526 budget again as part of this this year's process. so during the process last year there were shortfalls in the fund. and so and there was funding that was budgeted to address those shortfalls and that's the

reserves for f y 26. >> then there are department reserves. these are the unspent funds from prior year that are put on reserve to protect programs against shortfalls. again, kind of going back to that previous presentation when i was mentioning the tools that departments have available when revenue comes in way lower than projected, this is one of those tools. so in terms of the context and implications, we all know that there's a structural deficit in all service areas of the fund which means that the spend plan that we created the annual spending in the fund is much higher than the projected annual revenue. >> historically i've already mentioned to you the volatility that the projections themselves have caused in the fund. >> and so to date departments have relied on these reserves to keep programs running.

and so in the upcoming cycle at the funding that's on may, a reserve can be used for this purpose if needed as well as the use of the unappropriated revenue reserve will also be a choice for the mayor's budget. and then just to reiterate the risks and the policy environment that we're in because a litigation affects the revenue that comes into the fund. this is a big risk and there's a pretty good example here that gm sued the city for $40 million of gross receipts almost gross receipts tax and lyft sued the city for $48 million. so you can think that that is $88 million that needed to be paid out to or i don't know that it was paid out exactly.

i don't remember but that the revenue had to be held back for that amount of money when the litigation was happening. and again, there's slow economic recovery and office attendance in the metro area is still only half of what it was the pre-pandemic and very little increase in the past year. and again structural gap between the spending plan levels and revenues collected and savings reserves those are the tools that the departments have available to them to fill that gap and avoid any program cuts. and i'm happy to answer any questions about the presentation but the departments are also here to help answer any questions that you all have. >> thank you so much, robert kirkwood. if hca staff is here, could they refer to the question i asked earlier about staffing capacity if that's possible. hi. good morning. yeah, good morning, christine

ryan, budget director at ihs h. we have been staffing up so i think that our past vacancy rates i don't have them in front of me but they are we've been able to fill a lot of vacancies. i will say at the same time we implemented a lot of new initiatives which we were able to receive some support staff for which is amazing that we're getting staff to help with the expansion that we're doing. but because of that expansion it does mean that we end up with similar vacancies as we promote from within and other things. all right. and i think you should probably stay there because i'm sure the committee has other questions for hca. >> so i'll open it up in bulk. yeah. i was wondering if for the housing liaison meeting we could get a break out of the type of housing by population with that same and thank you so much. comptroller's office and hca for all the work on it and my

city for all the work on this. this is i love the visuals by the way. yeah. but just wondering if that would be an easy thing to do. i'm not trying to overburden i know you guys are so busy i'm not sure i understand the question. >> you want the breakout of housing by population and in separates in the so on the slide that has the ocho fund expenditures and projection that has actuals projected obligated reserves and then the year end balance we've got it for all of the housing and then we've got a breakdown by category but we don't know like for family or for adult like that 20 million of projected remaining if that's in support of pch or scattered site or you know the different types of housing. i think that would be really helpful because then we can kind of see what what's going on there a little better. >> yeah, i think that we were

planning to present on the budget and kind of explain what our gaps is that gaps are because as a part of kind of this available balance i mean we can tell you what categories it's in but it's really going to be balancing across the entire authority because that's where we have the gaps at the authority not necessarily within an activity. so i think we can provide that support. but overall when we go over the budget in our liaison meetings we were really planning to present the overall revenue and expenditure plan deficit. what that amount is and then show you that the reason we have these available balances and reserves are to help us bridge that gap in the future years. >> okay. is it possible maybe to get it from the if not at the liaison meeting before the liaison meeting to just get this graph fully broken down? i don't know if that's a huge hassle or not. >> member feedback we can try

to talk offline about that but i think the point is that there is $20 million available at the at the housing sort of service area level or the you know the full balance that's available is 32 million across housing and not necessarily tied to specific oh yeah i know we can move it around for sure but i still think it would be helpful to kind of see because if for example one of our interventions we have a particularly larger end to the year for example scattered site maybe it's a situation where we end up at the end of the year with a lot of unspent funds because individuals are unable to find landlords to rent to them or maybe it's you know it just it just kind of informs our decision making and kind of kind of shows what the i'm not meaning to create but if it's a hassle then i think i think let me let me see how the data is structured.

>> okay. anything i think we can speak to like you're right scattered sites does have underspend. i wouldn't say it's necessarily always because of the intervention structure but you know every year we've invested in scattered sites and i think that the projections and how fast we've been trying to grow the program has actually led to a lot of that underspend, right? >> and so there's things like that helpful because like if we wanted to move money over for if we're saying okay we've got unspent money and adults and scattered site is working fabulously and all the money that we allocated is totally done then we think okay then maybe some of that money should go to scattered site because you know but if scattered site has a whole bunch of unspent money maybe we think well moving more money into scattered site may or may not make sense anyway so i just think it kind of helps inform what's happening there and and then you guys of course you know know the reasons why which may or may not lead to whatever

decision but yeah so i think that would be helpful but like i said i'm not trying to create more work but if it's an easy thing to do i think it would be really helpful and then i think yeah that's oh well one other question and i know that a lot of the prevention piece is in the mlh cd side. i'm wondering because we've been hearing a lot from community about the loss of problem solving funds specifically for well on a couple of different things but i'm going to speak to this one particular thing problem solving funds were used effectively to keep families who were approaching the homeless service you know, sites in their housing because they had homeless prevention funds to just kind of pay rent for three months and they were able to stay where they were at. i've heard that a lot from the

family providers maybe the same case in single adults and early this year the prevention funds kind of went kaput which people probably may or may not be aware of. but i'm just wondering on the intersection there if for example if there was money in the prevention category for targeted homelessness prevention, i believe some of that money is going through mhc d but was any of it going to problem solving or is there a way to kind of connect those those systems? >> yeah. so we do have problem solving in our budget. you're right it was very successful and so we've we've spent a lot of the money. i think that one of the things you might remember is that problem solving was never funded ongoing in our budget. it was funding as a one time investment in i believe f y 21 and so we've been able to sustain a $10 million annual investment in problem solving through underspend from things

like most cd's work orders when they had additional funds that they were able to utilize and didn't have to rely on so that money would come back to us, we would use that to kind of balance problem solving but as we talked about during the budget process last year, some of those one time funds that mo cd had been utilizing for their srf erap and prevention programs have gone away and so we fully expect most cd to be reliant on their prop c funding now that leads us to this structural shortfall in prevention and that makes it a lot tighter on something like problem solving that was never actually built in as something that could be supported by revenue in the beginning. so all the numbers that we kind of are showing for problem solving and the investment we've been able to sustain is above and beyond what we actually have revenue to cover . we haven't been adjusting that number. sometimes when we have one time

underspend we're able to make additional investment but it's on a one time basis for problem solving and it's one of those categories that you know as we have one time underspend it's easy for us to put it into that because it's not something that necessarily has to be sustained ongoing it can fluctuate. >> yeah, yeah. i think that would be an important part of the and i'm sure you all are thinking about this but an important part of the prevention conversation if there's you know the more significant savings it's really tight but more significant savings in case management and maybe that could be moved those monies could be used for you know, scooted into the category of targeted homeless prevention. >> yeah. thank you so much. >> thank you member of freedom park and i'll just second a member of freedom comments in terms of when we're making these decisions having some of that additional information in terms of what's happening with the programs if there's a building not to scale up definitely want to know that and just so we can definitely inform our thinking. so i really agree with that.

anything else from members before we go to public comment and i have a vice chair dantonio i know we probably won't have time to answer them but maybe like over email or an okay so can you can you hear me ? i think if we can maintain quorum we have a couple of minutes it was just a quorum issue so oh go ahead vice chair okay cool. one question i had a couple questions but the first one was are the legal fees covered under the fund administration or like what bucket is that going to you're talking about the litigation. >> i'm talking about no. that money is held back from the fund just in general from all the fund category. >> correct. so before the funding becomes available it's held back by the city. >> got it. and so yeah, that's what is very closely watching the litigation risk. okay. yeah. what is the like average amount year over year so i don't know and i'm not sure that we could

know that because a lot of that information is confidential so we don't but we don't project how much like we think will go towards litigation of the projections. so when the budgeted analysis division gave us the forecast they are accounting for litigation in that for can we know how much that is? >> i mean we can backtrack with math but it would be helpful if i could try to figure out maybe like a magnitude and as a yeah kind of like to you would have in like a ten k or something. >> yeah, yeah. okay then my other question was around if we could also get a projection of like the accrued interest year over year for the reserves. i'm also curious on this kind of falls into what member freedom park was talking about around emergency rental assistance. i think you mentioned that there was an underspend and i

think is see rental a small amount of underspend. >> let me and i think you shaking your head no yeah because i know that there is there was a very cool program that most ed had described to us around prevention. if you try to access the funds a certain amount of times they would just give you a subsidy and there was like a waitlist for that subsidy. so i'm wondering if there is a waitlist how do we have leftover funds? >> and i think that's a really great program that i'd like to expand next year. >> so i just want to hear a little bit about that. welcome, director hill ellen hill director of housing services. so and the most needy side in terms of emergency rental assistance we expect to spend down our local funds entirely. we also do have i mean again s has their programs to i'm just speaking about mostly we did have we did have some revenue that continues to be coming in a few little

remaining droplets let's put it that way since considering the big pot that's been going. so we're still putting in a few things as we've recovered some money. we also have some other you know, federal dollars are a little bit iffy right now. so let's just but we do have some federal dollars that are probably not going to get spent within the time frame that federal dollars need to be spent. so we are earmarking some money for next year toward emergency rental assistance to increase the amount of money we have just as a backup plan because we know by the following year we need to spend that money. we currently have the money so we need to spend it. i don't like to give money back to anybody not internally within the city that's fine but like federal government n no return. so i said that publicly but in terms of subsidy programs in general because most of our subsidy programs are actually ongoing general funds and not local a few the sro one has

some local money in it but not all of them do in general right now they're all flat. we are not adding folks in the way what we're doing just because we don't want to get into a situation where we're giving somebody an annual subsidy and we don't have the money to continue to do that on an annual basis are subsidies. there is rent increases that happen as well as different kinds of moves people need to move because of ada or something like that. so we'd like to keep a little bit of a buffer to be able to respond to the needs of the households are getting subsidies. we do see subsidy programs in general as a path forward and we do want to as you described when folks have run into a problem with say a landlord and be able they're getting rental assistance are just not able to stabilize, we would like to move them someplace where they can be stable rather than having them cycle through the homeless system. so that is a part of the strategy that we work very closely with hca on. but right now with sort of the way the budget is within the city where we're trying to be very strategic with those types

of ongoing programs because we don't want to create instability within the folks that are currently receiving them. i hope that makes sense folks. it's not a complete answer but it least gives you a little general idea. know those folks are nodding so i'm feeling like that that might be good. thank you so much. i had one more last question or just more comment or question comment just about the mental health acquisition reserve fund if we could get a little bit i know for negotiations we can't get too much information but if we could get information around like what kind of programs we're looking at funding, what kind of beds, what are the subpopulations, what are the treatment centers that are under negotiation for that? >> i think it was like 30 million or something sorry. vice chair you said mental health acquisition reserves or sorry yeah mental health but it was maybe it wasn't reserves. >> it was like the light blue

56 million where can you go to the other chart like yeah which chart? >> the color coding what's are you looking at? >> what's the title of the slide i can oh i don't i don't even have the the slide in front of me. >> hold on one second i'll tell you what slide i think it's slide eight so yeah what is what is this the projected year end remaining balance that's under negotiations like what kind of sites are those? >> those are all the treatment beds and the additions and the relocation of them. and then there's a new health service center that is sort of in negotiation. >> okay. >> do we know how many slots like how many beds? >> i don't have that information. i'm not sure if it does. but we're also at time so maybe something i can flag. >> yeah, that would be good. i would just like more information on that. >> sure.

thank you, vice chair d'antonio at this time we're gonna go to public comment members of the public to wish to provide public comment in person please line up at the podium now members of the public who wish to provide public comment over the phone please refer to the instructions posted at sfd gov slash oc0 wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. each person will have two minutes to speak. we will begin with in-person public comment followed by public comment over the phone. for the record there are no in person or over the phone public comments. this concludes the public comment section for this agenda item. >> all right. thank you so much. i'm given this a special meeting. i'm going to table the future agenda items and just move us to adjournment. >> it is 10:06 a.m.. thank you everyone to you. thank you

. s.f. gov tv san francisco government televisionnnnnnnnnnn cuisine mixed with american cuisine, and grew up cooking with my grandmother. as i grew older, i really found

a lot of joy and fulfillment in cooking and coming up with my own recipes. once i got into the fire department, it was a really easy transition to cooking on a daily basis. my mom said, if you love to eat, you will know problem learning how to cook. it's like cooking for your family especially since this is a blue collar job and regular people food. that is a lot of things that go on into preparing firehouse meals.

we pay for our own meals. we go, we shop and we spend divided upon the amount of people in on the meal. in the morning, there is a sign up board and you can sign up for lunch and dinner. my name is figueroa and at station 5 is pillar. when we go in typically, we sort of span out in our meals situation and whoever is cooking dictates to what we are going to eat. we are going to take care of the pasta, bread, heavy cream, eggs, a pound of butter. three polish killbasa and onion and garlic.

>> you have a lot of people hustling. >> we are doing this technique on the chicken where we are going to cook it in high heat for about 15 minutes and turn it down. we started at 425, and dropped the temperature at 375. >> my name is oj leonardo, a firefighter first, always, for the city and county of san francisco. >> it's unique. one of the few houses where the

officers cook. they are on the cooking detail. so cooking is a big part of our tradition here in the fire department. when you cook for your folks, you are showing how much you care for them. you don't have to be an excellent cook, just show that you care. when you are at home, you put whatever you want together and people will eat it. there are no rules. in the firehouse, it's a different story. now, whoever is cooking, the first thing we ask is, no. 1, are there any diet restrictions because one of my firefighters is kosher and vegan. here at 12, we make sure that everyone eats. >> when i'm planning my meals, i tend to weigh it, i guess is the best way to describe it. i don't make a list, i don't

typically go from recipes. i will sort of go into the rolodex in my mind and think of what possibilities i have depending on if it's cold outside, if it's hot, do you want to barbecue, do we want a soup, a salad, go light, heavy and decadent. when i first came in, i had some experience in cooking. i think the big difference for me was knowing how to cook for many people and how to shop. that was a pretty big deal because i had no idea how many chickens to get to make roast chicken for 11 guys. luckily, i had some really cool people help me along the way. when goaledberg, who was a

staple here at station 5 was we me the first day that i cooked and he said, look here kid, you are going to be all right. we are getting this many salad, chicken, pasta and you will be all right. don't worry about it. he was throwing things in the shopping cart and i could barely keep up. i thought how is he going to turn all this for a meal for the guys. that's really where i had to wrap my behind around this is how we do it here. lloyd, and all the people here at 5, when i first came in were nothing but helpful when it came to that and everything and parting knowledge to the next person, the next generation is being part of being in this fire department. they for the most part know and

every once in a while something new. >> when we get dispatched to a call, we'll put everything on hold and will do whatever duties we need to fulfill and then we'll come back finish cooking and go on with the day. >> the biggest challenge for me is to make sure that i have a meal that everyone likes. that's the biggest scare. if they don't like it, one guy is on the phone calling for pizzas and the rest are scraping their meal. that has happened. it's really important to pass on traditions. station 5 is famous for setting up the linen, the cloth and

tradition. once you have caesar in the firehouse, you won't have it again outside the firehouse. >> i'm filipino and had my grandmother in the kitchen. we learned how to cook because we were always helping my mom in the kitchen. my mom never measured anything, neither my grandma and i had to always watch because when they turn their back, that is where they made their move. now with cooking, i use simple ingredients and let them speak for themselves. >> i think there is something to be said about coming together and sharing a meal. there is something that happens, some kind of magic that happens spinning across the table. you know, it's a moment where

everybody has something in common. the next thing you know people are talking and engaging and there is a sense of community, and that's important whether it's in the firehouse or outside of the firehouse. that's why it's important in my family that we eat together. >> the biggest thing that the food that i cook for them and we do together is to show how much you love your fellow firefighter. that's our bond. we do it through food. it's more than just the food. i remember we had two of our firefighters pass away in a fire that turned into something. we were together at that moment, and we were able to talk about them and think about them before we started our meal and during our meal. and we would just sit there and

just be together and have a moment. in the end, being a firefighter, is all about people. if you love people, this is the job for you. if you see people in need and respond to people in need, and then you are sharing meals with your fellow firefighters, it's a people business. so, that food just makes that bond even greater. if you are eating, you are paying. so all of you guys, i hope brought enough money to pony up. [ laughter ] oh, this is something.

i told you, who needs to measure. [ laughter ] in the fire department, everyone is willing to help. you have to bring your a game. forward/hospitality. >> heart of san francisco an aide so important diverse culture in the name for remarkable individuals like carlton b goodlett a man wheeg legacy is at the iconic lashed

not just a man of intelligent his journey was far from san francisco good had studies earning a mountain lake cut off road in child psychiatric a city that is is campus for staff's contributions a city with a very different place when dr. good let was around and you would see him on streets like the fillmore and what he did he mrs. minority healthcare to people who that did not have insurance or an ability to pay for that. >> dr. good working hard around city hall meaning he would load boxes with people and

they would go to san francisco state mainly and other places as well and protest these unjust treatments and unfairness of their system. >> dr. good was a america civil service activity with naacp and protested for the discriminations against blacks and public transportation and public housing and the reporter as most people come into the building today don't know who he was was district attorney know that not only was a physician, a activity but also an incredible cardplayer. in his spare time. >> and the won a number i

published and the also ended edited another newspaper wells fargo willie brown and dr. good had a close relationship in the early 90s several groups got together to his own dr. good and put together petitions and worked very, very hard to have the official address changed. >> dr. king's day of the celebration is in january, i got to call from mayor brown which i've known for in many, many years to ask me to change the street sign this is remarkable. okay. >> in january of 1999 right after the building reopened,

mayor brown and i went outside at that moment it was still cold street we shut down the word on the sign that read polk. >> put up the sign that said number one, dr. carlson carlton b goodlett white. >> i think that he earned a certain place in respect of all poem he was just a remarkable individual. unfortunately, we didn't live long enough here to see the street sign

♪♪ ♪♪ i'm shawn quigley the founder of paxton gate that's where we are here on ra11sia street. >> it started more of a quirky gardening store. we leaned in this quirky side over the years and started with insects and learned how to hydrate them and symmetrical or natural poses. which then went into small taxidermy. i saw interest in the oddity side and purposely expanded that

to more of a natural side oddity store. this is interesting mechanical parts in the beetle. african porcupine is cool. they look at their eyes. i grew up on what many call a farm but it was in the to us. we raised animals it a garden i was involved with plant. had a rock collection. collection goes from your basic house plants to an air plant. avoid this term people happening they survive on air alone they do need water. i went to school for business here and finishing up at sf state. and this idea fell in my lap and masterfuled my interests and i learned a lot over the years. i like to view it as like a

museum experience. rather hahn sales people they might be like dossants they are not hard selling you but more conveying informing or knowledge about the products. teeth, that's the giant shark that would get up to 60 feet long. we are launching class we did them before the pandemic. a bunch of hand's on learn to do things classes that we are getting around to relaunching. this is our insect spreading kit. inside is a striped needles, forceps, instructions and the other tools you need to take up the hopy of spreading insects. had is a prize to many people is 80% of the stuff we get is from

vendors or merchants. people think do you tremendous finding these. i don't get to do this. that is a still born kitten that had one eye. the most common question is, is it real. almost everything is. we have replicas like the sabre tooth tigers and things that would be present low expensive to procure and sell or illegal we'll do replicas we have, lot of real stuff. ♪♪ . my family comes from the

southern gospel church tradition my parents from texas and that also inform the music and the kind of energy in the art form of soul and gospel tradition to the ship so my shoulders away the streams how long has each one gone? take my blood is worth more than being a long way. >> my grandmother was the voice of like marshall texas ruby mae watkins and what we have on embers of the gift that she possessed. so my father he was blessed with the gift and he transferred down to my sister and to myself. and so i've been carrying it forward. >> we are aware of your fear and exhausted from having to hide who we are but pretending that we're lust won't make you stronger in the end.

>> i grew up in bill chapel c m church in bayview hunters point . we had jimmy on the jimmy williams as the choir director and he was hard. he was he was, you know, getting that people who were not delivering on time. so i made it my business to make sure he didn't get at me. so i wanted to complete my assignments, hit my harmonies, do my solos and it was also helping forge a certain level of of of toughness and ability with this natural gift, you know, so all these different things went into what made me want to choose to make music in a certain direction because a lot of the music that i make has community and spirit involved in it. it's a bit of a mystic ministry that i'm borrowing from this omniverse and doing my best with putting it to song with maybe a new chord change or a different kind of beat, you know and boom on the other side in the world of the song in

san francisco in specific as a musician i have been responsible for putting some paint where it ain't as we like to say if i don't see enough artists being elevated or platforms welcoming people who create the kind of work that i create then i will start the festival rebel soul festival acoustic soul festival ran for years at the jerry garcia amphitheater. we've done some things over at what was yoshi's at one time we produced events over at the s.f. jazz center at moet at moma. the list goes on because i'm not just an artist who's out here saying hey, would you please listen to my demo? i'm actually someone who's going to go corral the audience, get the other artists lined up, produce the events, sell the tickets, go find sponsorships, bridge partnerships with community partners. it's a it's a process but when it comes down to delivering that heartfelt so that classic good feeling music or that modern day twisted avant garde approach to jazz, blues, gospel

rock and roll hip hop there's no real boundaries. it's just good music and that's what we're responsible for. so what the music scene in san francisco you've seen and heard my word possibly on those stages i've played all over this city and i continue my wife and i started the people's garden and basically had this point where we now have created the stage for other artists to get up and make sure they have a platform for their works to be seen and heard and for them to get a respectable coin in the process. it's easy to to look at the talent in the music talents as if that's not something that you should pay your money for. so as opposed to just talking about it or making complaints we are creating opportunity. so my impact on the city of san francisco we'll see in time what that may or may not be but as of right now i'm not looking for residual or reward for effort. i'm constantly making waves because that's the only way our surfboards can rock 25 years to

life and he's gone where he is now and who's going to help take care of home model? >> well, the something to the core look, will she know your will then just take her all in some no oh well to the world you might be one person but to that person you might be the one who you are somebody's super star somebody's super star you are somebody so you

are somebody super you are is somebody super super star . my ceo response on and mayor daniel our new mayor as of november fifth kerry my wife who's also here we've been 33 year. >> san francisco native so maybe not quite as long as you

mayor but we've watched this city over the years and i don't know if i've had as quite as much optimism as i have today. for a couple of reasons. one is because i'm part of a great bank. but secondly and we're investing in san francisco but also because of daniel leary somebody we supported and felt very lucky to be part of his campaign and his strategy for san francisco going forward. so thank you all for being here today. we're going to have a quick half an hour hopefully a little time for a couple of questions and we'll cover a few topics. so maybe a quick introduction. mayor leary about why you decided after after having done so much for san francisco, you decided to take on this big role as mayor of san francisco . well, it's well, first off, thanks for having me. it's good to see a room with a new group of people focused on investing in san francisco. thanks for your leadership on this and we look forward to being a good partner to you all and you know, it started with the fact that i was walking my kids to school in the mission and i couldn't explain to them

what they were seeing on the streets. i come from you know, close to 20 years running something called tipping point community a poverty fighting organization in the san francisco bay area working on housing and homelessness issues, education, job training, early childhood and and yet what we were seeing on the streets is is unacceptable. it's still is unacceptable. this morning i got out my car and with my the detail that i go with like try to get somebody off the ground to what's in a state that it's just unacceptable for him and it's unacceptable for our parents to be walking by those people. we got to get them off the street and in the help that they need and i just felt like our leadership had failed here in san francisco. and so what i'm excited about is it's a new day. we were just talking before we came on stage we have a board of supervisors that is working collaboratively with us.

we are bringing them in instead of it being an adversarial relationship which it has been for many years now it's one of partnership understanding that we have one job and that is to get results for the people of san francisco and to stop bickering about small things and a focus on common sense public safety getting people off the street and then making it easier for our small businesses and big business to thrive and we're off to a strong start but we've got a lot of work to do and look forward to partnering with all of you in this room to do that. >> so bruce, why don't you talk a little bit about our investment in san francisco and how that's grown over time? >> sure. so thanks again for being here . >> much appreciated and for everybody turning out today. we saw early on that you know the obvious that california's a really big state, really important state and on its own it would be the fifth biggest gdp economy in the world. and so we try to figure out how

does an east coast bank like citizens not plant a flag out here and actually start to build up a presence? and so we had some commercial banking teams here. we did a small acquisition in l.a. of an m&a boutique and then the opportunity to talk to mark back in 2021 about bringing amp under the fold and having exposure to some great sectors of innovation around overall technology emerging tech companies, healthcare companies, fintech companies to plan a nice big flag and give broader capabilities around equities and equities research to the rest of citizens. so that was really the start of it. i'd like to joke with mark that his timing was impeccable or not so much since we did that deal we haven't seen a whole lot of deal flow in terms of ipos but that's coming i assume every year this time of year you say this is the year so hopefully this actually is the year but you know you have to

be opportunistic and then when first your public failed we try to get involved. we were invited in to bid on the whole bank. we saw that as a great opportunity for us to take on all of first republic but in particular the wealth and private banking expertise that they had become famous for. jpmorgan is a little bigger than us so they won the bidding but actually the talent didn't really fit into that jpmorgan model very well. so we were successful in securing a lot of the talent here in san francisco and out on the peninsula along with three big teams on the east coast in boston, new york and florida. and so that was another augmentation of the presence to the point now where we have over 300 people in california and we're i think really well positioned to serve the innovation economy, to serve

entrepreneurs, business owners, middle market companies. we really want to be the bank of choice because i don't think the big banks do it so well here and i think the banks that were doing it well didn't make it ultimately. so there's a void. there's some white space for somebody like citizens to come and bring our brand of banking and really serve the market well. >> i'll just quickly follow up, mayor, what makes san francisco a great place to do business? >> well, i mean there's no more beautiful place in the world. there's no better place in terms of that being the ai hub we got cal, we got stanford, we have one of the great medical institutions in ucsf. you know we have such an educated workforce here and when we're at our best this is the greatest city in the world. you know? don't get me started on our restaurants and our museums and our just our cultural brand is better than anywhere else in

the world. and so if we can once again sorry to sound like a broken record if we can have safe streets, if we can have our behavioral health crisis under control if we can we announced permit s.f. where you can have permitting reform to make it easier for small businesses to get up and running for housing to get built we have to make it more affordable so we have our challenges. >> but if government does its job, if we do what we know we are capable of doing with some common sense approaches then the business world can take off our our restaurant tours, our bars or restaurants are small businesses can thrive and we can invite business back to san francisco and say we're open for business again which we are. that flywheel starts going and there's no better place to be. >> well i'll point out within a ten minute walk of here some of the company's champions taken public over the last 2425 years uber, crowdstrike, snowflake

airbnb workday docusign all companies we use every single day are within a ten minute walk up here that the mission district there was some stanford study showed like 267 unicorns were created in the mission district over the last ten years. i mean literally there is no better place to start a company on the face of this planet. and so once again we lost some of that. we took it for granted over the last six seven years. i do not take it for granted. my administration does not take it for granted. people can pick up and move. we we lost, you know, stripe and square not to texas or to new york or to florida. we lost them, you know, one mile south of our border. and so we get not none of those taxes and so we have to be smarter about it and we will we'll get there. >> so bruce, i'll use that tech theme about the private bank and why you chose that

opportunity and why we really leaned in here at citizens so say that tell me about the tech economy in here. >> oh yeah we at the private bank are doing well we need to do to promote that and be part of the growth of ai and also the tech innovation hub. >> so we have great relationships with all the companies. witness the turnout today from different companies and investors and so you know, i think there's a there's a huge amount of interest in the innovation that's occurring and it's pretty widespread. >> it's so you've got ai, you've got data management, you've got cyber, you've got cloud. i have my head of it right here. am i missing something embedded fintech that we're talking to some companies that we can embed into our offerings to our customers and so you know, that really has been the driver of huge wealth creation in the region and so we want to have services that we can serve the entrepreneur as are seeking

access to capital or liquidity events and then but also to manage their affairs and structure their assets to the next generation appropriately. >> so there's you know the effort here has been to be able to bundle all that together and take a holistic view of the customer. >> well now that we are in new space at one on cal and i have the private bank right next to me i'm seeing that every day and the coordination with the private bank and the investment bank and a big bank like citizens is real. what i'll also say is we're investing in the city so i guess my question for you is what do you need from us and what do you think tech can do? i was here for the semiconductor revolution. i was here for the internet revolution. we've been here for the cloud revolution again all within walking distance of this building. so i guess my question for you, mayor, is how do we help promote that with the framework that you're trying to create? >> well, i just i would just ask all of you to be engaged and you know, your customers and your clients to get engaged

in san francisco's, you know, renaissance or rebirth or whatever term you want to use. we are a city on the rise. the more you can tell people hey, the streets are getting better, you have an administration and a board of supervisors that's focused on getting results for the people of san francisco again making sure that you get engaged in our local schools, our libraries, our arts and culture institutions making sure that your clients know about opportunities. i mean as simple as you know joining a neighborhood clean up on saturday mornings i'm doing them like once a month. we had 100 people join us and we went up and down van street two weeks. >> so i know that sounds small but it starts with doing one little thing if each of us do our little part there's the sky's the limit for our city. and so just making sure and then the companies you know i'm talking to ceos every day about how do we get their employees

and their workforce engaged in san francisco again, you know, in the 20 tens you know, i talked to companies like visa and it became a recruitment tool that their employees could get involved in the community. it keeps you grounded in what's going on in your neighborhoods and in your communities and that helps your workforce. so i'm going to push your ceo to do the same with all of you and you all push that down to your clients and then once again it becomes a virtuous cycle. >> yeah. bruce i was really impressed when i joined a little over three years ago. it's not just lip service services and we we invest in communities and we invest in people and i guess maybe you can lay out a little bit about that framework. >> so at citizens our credo is focused on what we refer to as the three c's some really doing a great job for our customers, being a great place to work and build your career for colleagues and positively impacting the communities that

we serve. last year we volunteered 250,000 hours as citizens colleagues we volunteer on serve on over a thousand nonprofit boards. >> we give treasure as well. we gave about $10 million to workforce development in particular has been something we think banks are very well-suited to do in terms of convening you know, the companies and understanding what their needs are in terms of skilled labor and working with community partners and government agencies to try to bring people up the economic ladder and get them the skills they need to be successful. so lots of things that we do we've just we're going to we're going to build that into our dna here in california as well. i think our champions and action program comes to each of our markets and looks for who are the tippy top nonprofits that are making an impact in the geography and bay area

creative is somebody we selected as our first partner. they're going to provide mentoring and mental health services and reach about 14,000 people in 2025. so that will be the first of many grants. and then as you know, mark, we also sponsor a lot of arts and different types of events that is so important to the culture of this city. >> right? and it's true and i can say honestly as somebody who's experience that it's not just lip service. it's something we really live that credo every day. >> so that's why i'm here. that's right. there was just lip service, right? >> yeah. and that's a really important point here. i mean when i called top to net and i called a couple of months ago and i just said there was no hesitation there was no and that said like you said what do we need to help you thrive? >> and i've been here 30 years. >> i've never heard that. yeah, what i've heard is well you know yeah, it's a new day and it's a new day like we want you here we want all of you and

we want your customers doing well but that that the city needs to do well for and it's it's it's symbiotic yeah yeah what i what i enjoy about your remarks too is the sense of urgency so there's a moment in time when we got to get after it and you've got a lot of tailwinds from the tech sector and ai and things that if you can capture those and then improve the quality of life issues it can be very, very powerful where we're closer to to being back than most people realize. and the one thing i'm going around it there's there's a narrative out there about our city that is propagate by people that haven't been here for years and that just want to hate on our city and i'm tired of that. the people who live and work in this city are going to be the ones that determine our future and it's bright and it's on the rise. >> and you're right, i like like there's 14 minutes 42

seconds and when i leave this room we got to go rush and get back to work. >> yeah. yeah. there's challenging times i often say nobody goes into politics like nobody goes into banking who's a pessimist. >> those are two bad jobs to be a pessimist. so we sell hope every day as a banker and bruce says it well and and i'll quote him here without him knowing he says it's a noble profession and then there's snickers and there's little giggles and all that. but no, we're taking little company and we're making big companies and we're endowing you know, making resources available. so my question with all those challenges that we both face and i'll get to both of you what makes you optimistic but as well realistic about the challenges we all face because big cities face challenges. >> me first start with you mayor. >> you just you just have to go to one of our small restaurants and see these entrepreneurs

knowing that you know, we just sat down with a bunch of restaurant owners all of you of if you're from san francisco you've all even if their restaurants and before covid they were the medium profit was 6% now it's like point 1% and you still see people starting restaurants because they their whole heart and soul is into it. >> so you can go to, you know, a place like four kings like in chinatown and you just there's this great vibe like north beach i was there a couple of days ago and the vibe is is the vibe is good in our city and and that's what gives me hope and optimism and then you flip it and we have a $140 million budget deficit and it's more like a $1.1 billion budget deficit because we're owed $260,000,000,260 million by fema for money that we spent and i don't think we're getting that. so we have to be realistic. but you're right.

there's i'm an optimist and i believe that san francisco is the greatest city in the world when we're at our best. we've been through downtimes before and we've always come back and this time will be no exception. i just want to get there quicker. >> bruce yeah, elevate a little bit and kind of look at the whole country and then come back to san francisco. >> but you know the big cities have had their challenges over the last 5 or 10 years new york is one of those cities as well. >> but we you know, as a northeastern bank we did not have a big presence in new york city and we need to solve that . so four years ago we acquired two banks, hsbc's east coast branches and then also investors bank to get 200 branches in new york and a million people there with the expectation as tough as that

things were in new york that this city's don't stay down forever they have great romita morial and people step into the void and ultimately there's course correction. >> so similarly when we looked at california huge economy you know san francisco not doing so great but ultimately that'll settle itself out and so there's these sign always things go up and things go down if you make the investment when things are down you just expect things will improve. so very great to see you here. i haven't totally sorted in new york yet but i think that's also going to be on the mend and you know, we're also look down at florida and as another big state and a big economy and a lot of our northeastern customers have second homes down there. >> so we're making a big investment there. so we need to kind of elevate and look at who we were historically and then where's the action across the country? where's the dynamism and you

know, california and san francisco just being the innovation center of the country is a place you can't miss. you've got to be here. so i'm optimistic that under your leadership and kind of the power of the forces that pushed things to self-correct that our timing is good. >> yeah, right. you just said he just said you got to be here. yeah. and that that people say what are your goals for four years and i say by the end of our first term everybody around the world is going to say you got to be in san francisco. >> yeah, right now it's not so sure for years they'll be saying what you're saying. i think you have a really good point mayor. the most of the people who criticize have not set foot in san francisco and like you said, big cities do have problems and even that small example driving to work and seeing somebody and making them feel that the city cares. so it starts with that. it starts with our kids and it starts with our block by block and community by community. i have time for a question or

two and i did want to save a little time for that in the back salesforce. mr. eric can you give us a quick update on police hiring and the morale in the department at this point since you've been on the ground? >> i i police hiring and morale i think we you'd have to ask them i think it's has has really increased you know we are focused on fully staffing our police department we should be around 2000 officers we're below 1500 but we did have an academy class that started in january 55th recruits. it was the largest class in six years or seven years. now we got to make sure that the attrition rate is stronger so we're working on that. we got to hire faster. we got to use technology to in between because it's going to take us a few years to get back to full staffing. >> but here's what i will say our crime stats are at like ten, 15, 20 year lows right now

we are doing well. it is the feeling of safety that we have to attack and that's where the behavioral health crisis comes in. we have to get people off the streets and into more mental health and drug treatment beds. we just pass this fentanyl state of emergency ordinance a 10 to 1 vote by the way, that allows us to go stand up 1500 shelter beds, more mental health, more drug treatment beds, higher police officers and first responders more quickly. i think the morale has vastly improved over the last couple of months and we're focused on making sure that we allow police to do their job always with police oversight. but we want to enforce the law . and if you are dealing drugs in this city, we are coming after you and if you are using drugs we're not going to allow you to use drugs on our streets anymore. we're going to get you the help that you need and get you into mental health and drug treatment. that's we have a long way to go on police recruitment but we

have we're off to a good start but it's going to take us some time. >> question please. on the topic of sense of urgency, how much control does the mayor have versus the supervisors? >> what is in your control versus having to work? >> so it's a great question. i got this on the campaign. there was a lot of people that said all the board of supervisors have all the power. i was never one that believed that you have this is a strong mayor system. the power has been chipped away over the last 20 years for sure. but this is why i walked in. there's 11 supervisors or 11 city council people here in san francisco and i stated from the beginning that i wanted to work with all 11. i didn't want to just try to get six five votes and so i asked for more power around the central state of emergency issue and we got 10 to 1 unusual we just had a a new bill that was passed to convert office space into residential. we got a92 vote to make it

easier to do that. so we've changed the narrative in terms of how we work with them. >> but the mayor has power. i'm going to lean into it. >> the supervisors have oversight and we have 130 commissions and we got to get commission reform under control or we have to have commission reform. but you're not going to hear me 2 or 3 years from now saying oh, the supervisors you all can point the finger at me but i may have a good working relationship with the supervisors the first time you've seen that in six years and i don't remember a lot of ten 192 in the last number of years in san francisco the sky is blue would have been six five. >> yeah that's right. >> that's right so it is and it is a new day. yeah i got time for one more question if anybody has a question if not ally group yeah exactly. >> i you know i'm going to have one more question and i'll leave you some time to say we

hear a lot about i you've had a lot of people in the air world support you and they've been very supportive of back to work back at your office. can you talk a little bit about again we saw the semiconductor revolution show the software revolution which are the internet right here. tell me a little bit about how you think about that, how you think about that, how that helps san francisco. >> well, actually the ai companies have been back to work. you know, whether it's anthropic or open ai or salesforce i mean they they are either in for or five days a week. we just came out with a back to office requirement of four days a week that will be instituted in april to be fair to our our great city hall employees and departments who work tirelessly each and every day you we have 32,000 employees. 70% of them are in five days a week. so let's let's have that out there. but the other 8 to 10,000 are back one to maybe three days a week. so we're upping that to four.

we're in talks with all of them. i think it's important for us to have, you know, forward facing people at government delivering services to people. it's i'm not talking about you know, i don't think it's my job to impose that on the private sector. you all get to make those decisions. but i believe that we need to lead by example and that was the reasoning behind the office the return to work policy. >> and bruce, we you spent a lot of time i know you're going back with michael but can you talk a little bit about our investment in technology and our investment in ai and how we see that changing our bank? >> yeah. so it's very exciting and people say wonder is it overhyped or is it real? i certainly think it's real the potential to be game changing in terms of how work is organized and how productive your colleague base can be. so i think though in a heavily regulated space like banks it's a little bit kind of walk before you run and make sure

that you're kind of got the right governance and oversight on this. but we've already last year we had three very powerful use cases that have yielded some real benefits and i think we're going to we're going to push that up to about ten more this year. we've got really good data organization and we've got a team that's working with the businesses to prioritize the things that will have the biggest impact. beyond that we're trying to push out licenses like copilot to the kind of broader companies so people can start to get familiar with the tools and start to benefit in their daily kind of work life. so anyway, it's very exciting and i think again a lot of the companies now that are here at this conference are involved in that whole effort and helping to organize data. there's lots of subsectors within the big ai umbrella that companies can kind of find their niches and really grow

very successful companies place there. >> how would you like the tech community to engage with you? how would i like the tech community to engage with us? this is a good start. we have, you know, roundtables. we want to know what you know our employers need in terms of clean streets, safety and security, public transportation muni is a huge issue in terms of we have a huge budget deficit with muni. we need to get that under control because we need all of these companies to be able to have their workforce move efficiently on public transit and call us. we are open i would give out my cell phone number. >> this is a big group but we are very easy to get a hold of. he knows how to get a hold of me any time and we want we want feedback. we want open lines of communication.

if there's an issue that a company is facing we want to hear about it. and so don't hesitate to pick up the phone. we got members of my team here . we want you to know that san francisco is open for business and that means that you all can get in touch with us and and we're open. >> that's great. so i think we've heard a lot, mayor and i appreciate about why san francisco i want to close with bruce and i spent every day thinking about why citizens in california why citizens in san francisco but i'd love to hear from you, bruce, about that and about what we're building and trying to build something special out here. >> yeah, well thanks for going to me last but again i just that the caliber of people that we have here the entrepreneurial wisdom from our jmp folks and from our private bankers matches the whole dynamism in the california economy. so i just think we're we're doing it in a really joined up way where we can provide total

solutions for folks with the best caliber folks and we're still working on some of the build out of white glove service levels and things that first republic spent years perfecting. but i think we're making good progress on that. and so if you have the talent and you're committed, i think we're going to meet success and help push this economy and benefit from it. >> and i'll let you close i will say i say it all the time nobody americans love to kind of hit hard on things that are going wrong but nothing america loves more than a resurrection story. >> nothing more. >> no talk about that. oh, everybody you know around the world people love san francisco and they want it to succeed. and so let's start with that and then we're going to do the basics on our end and i'm telling you san francisco is on the rise. there's no better place to do business and i look forward to working with all of you and your clients and your customers because we're coming