oh, co-chair blacksten. >> co-chair blacksten: yes, very good. thank you for that presentation. that is excellent. i wanted just to draw your attention for a moment to service animals. i have a service animal, i'm visually impaired. now when people come in with service animals or emotional support animals -- first off, is your staff trained on how to work with people who have these animals? and do you require people coming in to show certification that their animal actually is there to provide -- to serve as a guide dog, or emotional support? in other words, do you make sure is that it's for real that, that their animal they're bringing in? >> with regards to whether our staff are trained or not, at this point a lot of the staff are not trained. a lot of them are unaware of the policies, so that's why we're trying to advocate with the higher ups at dph, so we have the resources to provide training across our system for both internal dph staff, as well as our contracted providers. and in fact, most of the issues have come from the contracted providers who, you know, they just --

we have one more council member, council member blacksten. >> co-chair blacksten: yeah, thank you for coming. i really appreciate that. i've been following the work that you've been doing now for a couple months. i know that the age and disability friendly work group is working extensively with you and it's encouraging that daas is very much in support of what you're doing. quite impressive that you've got five -- you had five focus groups talking to the disabled leaders in the city, that is all great. just two quick comments. one of the passions that i have centers around service animals, because i do have a guide dog. so i would recommend that as you go forward, you include a discussion with people who have guide dogs or disabled folks that have service animals, because that's a very, very important part of the disabled culture and arena. the other thing i just wanted to touch on lightly. i know funding is ultimately going to be a real important aspect of this. yes, i know you're in the very beginning stages. you know, you've got to put our report out first and then there is a whole

co-chair jim blacksten? present. council member tatiana kostanian? absent.ouncil member alex madrid. >> present. council member sally coghlan mcdonald? >> present. council member orkid sassouni? present. council member helen smolinski? >> present. council member kate williams? >> present. item 1. item 2, action item. reading and approval of the agenda. item 3, public comment. items not on today's agenda, but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. we welcome the public's participation during public comment periods. there will be an opportunity for public comment at the beginning and end of the meeting, as well as after every item on today's agenda. each comment is limited to three minutes and the council will respond to your comments following the meeting if you provide your contact information. you may complete a speaker's card available in the front of the room. approach the microphone during public comment or call our bridge line at 1-415-554-9632, where a staff person will handle requests to speak at the appropriate time. item 4. information item. co-chair r