Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240713

Included should be submitted to the clerk. There are eight supervisors in the chamber. We are now convened as the special meeting of the board of supervisors. Call item number one. A motion for an election to be held and an ordinance amending the business and tax regulation on persons keeping ground floor commercial spaces and commercial districts and for neighborhood commercial [indiscernible] thank you very much. Supervisor ronen . I am happy to make a motion to move this. Great. Thank you, chair fewer, members of the special budget and finance committee. I dont think i have ever been more nervous to talk about something given the amount of work it has taken to get to me. First and foremost, thank you again on behalf of supervisor peskin. His regrets for not being able to be here today. The letter in the legislative file speaks to that. For members of the public, by way of brief background, this was last at the budget and finance committee and we made a number of amendments based on feedback from stakeholders as diverse as the chamber of commerce, to merchant groups, the members of public and commercial brokers who we spoke with. We spoke with supervisors who have expressed concerns. Those amendments are geared and making sure this will not be affecting individuals and landlords. We are trying to do the right thing to activate our storefront so in order to do that, we inserted additional exemptions for vacancy. For instance, if the department of building inspection is continuing to consider a permit application, the property will not be vacant from the time of application to issuance of the permit. And for a year after the issuance of that permit, so you can engage in those actual improvements and improvements to your property. We have proposed a deadline for the City Planning Department to act on a conditional use authorization. If that conditional use is not decided one way or another within six months, the property would not be assessed in that tax year. We have done other things to accommodate concerns, most recently we amended to provide that if a tenant goes out of business with additional time left on a lease, that they are not going to be punished for the additional remainder of that lease and the tax cannot be assessed for the remainder of that lease. We have amended to provide a two thirds threshold for amending this at the board of supervisors , provided it is consistent with the intent of the measure, and to the extent that there are outstanding concerns or unexpected anomalies in the way this is implemented down the line. I think that this should provide some comfort that we can amend to improve and make sure this tax provides its function. I want to thank the Small Business commission. The office of Small Business director for their wholehearted support of this, which is actually the end result of a lot of work with the department and the commission to accommodate concerns that they had, again to the stakeholder commute community, i would also like to thank cosponsors ronen, walton, and haney, and as a final statement, commercial rent control requires an amendment to state law and i truly believe this is the most powerful and effective tool that we have to stabilize rent for existing Small Businesses. For perspective Small Businesses that need more leverage to bring those rents down, and to engage in lease negotiations, and ultimately to try to get these vacancies along our most vibrant commercial corridors built. I am available for questions. Thank you very much. Would this be a good time to make a couple of comments from the conversations we had . Yes, absolutely. I had good conversations with the sponsor. I just wanted to put on the record i know that the timeline of everything is condensed because for many different reasons, but we dont have time to make any additional amendments now before we would put it on the ballot, but i want to talk about some of the things that i thought were important in terms of the conversation that can be considered either internal legislation because of the timeline that we had to get this on the ballot. One of which is more of a technical thing as we are calculating the tax, the way that the legislation talks about linear footage along the public rightofway. I wanted to ensure that we are also not including an ingress or egress that is not related to the business itself. Often times our commercial storefronts on public rightofway his have a walk up to an apartment above the business. It has nothing to do with the business so we want to ensure it is clarified in the legislation that the tax is not being applied to the business for a space that has nothing to do with the business. We will work with the project sponsor on that. Secondarily, and this is a lot more important to me as well, is that one year construction period. Understand that the allowances that are made in this legislation to discuss the permitting, conditional use, so on and so forth, with the businesses, for instance, in my district often are not always fully capitalized. Or always not coming with everything that they have to the table. And often that means slightly longer construction period, or sometimes disruptions in that construction period that are or not the intent or the fault of the Small Business itself. And talk through that with the project sponsor for the sponsor of the legislation. There are a few realworld examples in my district where either the business partner, one of the Business Partners walked away from the field temporarily and they were able to find new capital to finish the project, or simply they were waiting to have the savings enough so they could finally finish the work at hand. And in each scenario took a little longer than a year. My request would be for the sponsor of the legislation to consider an 18 month period for construction. I think that would be more fair. Anything beyond that, then i understand it would make sense for the consideration of this to take place. I probably should have started by saying, in particular in my district, i look at this from two different ways. From the perspective of the people in the neighborhood that are frustrated with the high levels of vacancies, and i think we have one of the highest levels of storefront vacancies in the city, we have worked aggressively to come up with legislation to work with the city, to work with the Small Business community, to work with landlords, to aggressively change the process by which businesses can open up. We went through a permitting process where many of the businesses, if they are principally permitted, would be allowed to go to overthecounter permits. I think it would be healthy as part of this conversation with this ballot measure to have that conversation. I know that myself and supervisor tang did that jointly , but theres other parts of the city that also have those barriers. And im talking about if you are going for a change of means or the use, in many cases that have not been permitted prior. And in our district, these were not allowed on ground floor. We change that is part of our process, and now there are two or three arts organizations that have co located and opened up, which is added to the vibrancy of the commercial corridor, as well as the vacancies. At the same time, some of the businesses that were going in that were occupying spaces that were a different use did not have to go through the cumbersome process of neighborhood notification because we knew in the end it was a principally permitted business. I think it would be helpful to have a parallel conversation on this ballot measure. I think it would be something that the Small Business community would embrace, and i think it would be a complement, not of any contradiction to this legislation. So i am cautiously supportive of this legislation. I think the intent is to change the balance of power with the negotiations between Small Businesses and landlords and i think that is a good outcome. I think it is intended to aggressively deal with our vacancy and i think, as the project as the sponsor of the legislation has said, the intent as we wont collect any of this tax, that we will occupy these empty storefronts, and i think that is also very important. I am cautiously optimistic and supportive of this, but i would like to see a few changes that i have asked for incorporated into the legislation, and then also that we have this citywide conversation about streamlining the permitting process for Small Businesses because i think all of us have heard over and over again from our small merchants and businesses that they want San Francisco to be more friendly and more able to open up Small Businesses in a fast manner. So i think that is important. That does not mean completely remove any neighborhood input, what it does mean, lets have this conversation if we are going to create a tax, we should also talk about creating less barriers to opening up those businesses. That is it. I just wanted to say those few things and incorporate into the record some of the things that i had talked about with the sponsoring of the legislation that we would like to see incorporated into the discussion , into the final piece of legislation. Alternately that would trail this ballot measure. Thank you very much. Supervisor haney . Thank you, chair fewer. Congratulations and thank you to supervisor peskin for your years of work on this legislation and extraordinary leadership in bringing all of the stakeholders together and taking the feedback and amendments. This is obviously something that is critically important to everyone in the city, to all of the districts that we represent. District six has the highest vacancy rate and it has severe impacts on our neighborhoods when we have so many vacancies. Obviously our Small Businesses are struggling and i feel like every week i hear about a business that is closing or being pushed out because of rent , and the way that we can figure out a whole policy agenda to be able to better support them are critically important. It is also, for district six, it is an issue of Public Safety when you have corridors we have so many vacant buildings and vacant stores, and you dont have a lot of activity. There are without people Walking Around her people coming in and out, these are areas where we have a lot of other bad activity that is happening. I hear a lot about areas where we have vacant stories that other suspicious activities are happening there. If we can have more positive things happening, that adds to the quality of life for everyone this is one of the main things we need to do. I appreciate theres more about how we can facilitate speedy approvals and provide a relief from fees. All of that is so important. And also, in my district and other districts, theres also a lot of feedback about how we can address some of the other challenges that Small Businesses face relating to homelessness and Mental Health crisis. All of these things together with this vacancy tax will help to create an environment that is more friendly for not just Small Businesses, which is very important, were more healthy and vibrant neighborhoods generally. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you very much. Supervisor brown . Thank you. Just a couple of points. I definitely agree with supervisor safai that probably the 18 month period is probably more reasonable. I also really want to look at the size of the space because i will take, for example, in my district. They have larger spaces, and they do not want formula retail, but they also have a moratorium Liquor License moratorium, so why restaurants could actually come in, have a Liquor License, and probably take those spaces, they are not going to do that. There is no way for them to even get a beer and wine license and restaurants have a hard time making it without be a and wine. When we are looking at having a taxation on certain corridors like that one, we need to look at the details of it. No formula retail, and then no restaurant that could have beer and wine, then what do we do with the larger spaces . I think that is kind of unfair for landlords that if we are restricting them, then how do we work with these landlords to make sure that there are options for them to get people in, and also definitely streamlining. That is really important. Theres so many of those spaces where ive talked to landlords and they want to rent, but when people come in and they find out it might take them two years to open up, they just do not have the financial ability to do that i think those things have to be in conservation as we move forward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Supervisor walton . Thank you, supervisor fewer. I want to make a few comments in terms of what we are attempting to do for Small Businesses. We definitely understand the issues that exist and how hard it is for Small Businesses here in San Francisco. Supervisor fewer and i are currently convening and talking with our Small Businesses in a working group. One of the conversations is about streamlining the permitting process. I want everyone to know we are listening to our Small Businesses and we are working towards a solution. It is also very real and some of our corridors. Some of it is due to irresponsible landlords and the decision that they make. If you are working hard to get businesses into your community, if you are working hard to get a broader investment in your community, nothing is worse than businesses and potential businesses looking at blighted communities and seeing empty storefronts and vacancies on some of our commercial corridors so this Initiative Ordinance works to address that and i just want to thank supervisor peskin for taking the lead on that, and everyone else who cosponsored so this could be on the ballot. Thank you very much. Lets open this up for Public Comment. Would anyone like to speak on this item . Good afternoon, supervisors. First of all, i want to thank leigh hepner for coming up. He was also at the Council Meeting last week. I also appreciate the fact he understood some of the recommendations. There had been amendments made to this legislation. Not all these landlords are bad actors. Most of them are really good. Some of them have only increased their rent annually. But then you have the ones who are really determined to keep their place is empty for years and years and years. Something has to be done. How long can we put up with this it doesnt impact all your Small Businesses in the area. Also, there are less people on the streets. It will make it safer. We have to look at the characteristic approach. We need to have a character. Why is it only that some can do that and others cant . Lets make it apply to every Small Business that wants to open this city. A conditional use hearing, up to nine months, if not more than that, plus the cost. It should be must much less than that. Formula retail, fills coffee, a local company. Born and raised in the city. They want to move into a place, they have to wait just like everybody else. I think we can look at that. Once again, i do think this legislation is good, but the time element of the supervisors that they pointed out can be a problem. On the whole, it is really good to see this moving along. Thank you for all your hard work thank you. Next speaker, please. We are a local San Franciscobased company that specializes in street retail. I had been attending a number of these meetings. I attended the last Small Business Council Meeting where supervisor peskins aid was testifying what this ordinance is, and the question was asked, county vacancies are there . And supervisor peskins aid it says he thought it was around 3,500. The Small Business council head said, i think it is more like a thousand, maybe 500. The reality is, the report im providing to you is what commercial Real Estate Brokers used to find property, all the information. It is available on a subscription basis. The reality is, step one, knowing what your vacancy problem is is to know how he vacancies you have. Today we have only 148 buildings that are actually vacant, with 323 Spaces Available in the m. C. Zone. All other vacancies are currently under the permitting conditional use process. If you look at the report that i gave you, you will notice that when a property becomes available, it is a 14 month process before the space gets least. That is clearly falling to the problem of how somebody needs to get a permit to get through the process. It takes time. It is not just formula retail. The reality of formula retail needs to change because 11 stores is no longer a big business. To be a big business, you need hundreds of stores. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hello. Storefronts maybe reducing potential sales sales and subsequent sales tax revenue and the proposed excise tax on empty storefronts might encourage competition in marketing. Such properties resulting in the potential increase in business formation and possibly more favorable lease terms and resulting in the collection of the excise tax on property which remains empty. And excise tax may also have the opposite effect, driving up rent while making it harder to market a property if the ordinance amendment were to pass. Exempting nonprofits from the excise tax may equip such organizations with a competitive advantage providing that such spaces are least or sold on favorable terms, however, the added pressure to fill the space undermines the justification for the assumed process of the excise tax to begin with. The old bank belonged to a nonprofit in the field of healthcare, but it has remained sheltered, shattered, and empty as an eyesore in the neighborhood for many years, absolutely littered with graffiti. Exempting nonprofits from the excise tax does not sound like an equitable a reasonable idea. It undermines the intention of the ordinance amendment for an indeterminate period. Successful business also attracts cereal vandalism. I will stop there. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. I am the president of the Entertainment Commission but today im speaking as a civilian and a Business Owner in San Francisco. I commend supervisor peskins office and the board for taking a look at how bad actor landlords are affecting the urban life that we have because empty storefronts to affect their neighbours and Small Businesses do suffer from that. I am cautiously optimistic that this might be a solution for compelling the bad actors to act however, i am also a little bit nervous about this and im happy to leads that it is being proposed with the ability to trail amendments. Im asking everybody in this body to really try to game out all the way is that this could backfire and affect Small Business in an adverse way. I think if we do do that, this could be a very solid piece of legislation solid tax to pass that would help. The other thing i would ask while i have your ear here is to take a long look at what policies that come from city hall specifically are causing vacancies in our corridors. Theres a myriad of ones from the inability to open a youth places due to a new places due to permitting process that is frustrating and difficult to manage, and also from just the overwhelming cost of doing business for Small Businesses in San Francisco as compared to other cities in california. I think, i keep saying this, but they are against us and we are being forced to have less ability to compete with business than ever and i cant say this enough. What is more progressive than supporting Small Businesses over big businesses . Right now it is completely flipped on its head. Im hoping to meet with each of you coming soon to go over ways that we can address that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Any other speakers . Public comment is closed. Colleagues, any comments or questions . I also just want to add that i think this is a positive step, but it is just one piece of it. We i agree that that we need to streamline permitting, and also, how to get a helping hand in getting tenants. This is just a small piece of it i feel like it is not the whole package, but it is a really good direction. I would like to make a motion to send this to the committee report. So moved. We will move this to the november 21st board meeting. Can we take that without objection . Thank you very much. Is there any other business before us today . This business meeting is adjourned. Good afternoon. We will now be convening as the full board for this november 21 st, 2019 special meeting of the San Francisco board of supervisors. I havent seen my colleagues in this room for such a long time. Welcome back. Madame clerk, please call the role. [roll call] mr. President , you have a quorum okay, thank you. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] on behalf of the board, i would like to acknowledge the staff from San Francisco government tv who record each of our meetings and make the transcripts available to you to the public online. Madame clerk, are there any communications . Yes. We have received communications from supervisors mandelman, peskin, and stefani affording the board of their actions and requesting to be excused from todays meeting. Can i have a motion to excuse the supervisors . Made by supervisor fewer and seconded by supervisor walton. If there is no any objection . The three are excused. Plays call the committee report. Item number one is a motion ordering to the voters that an election will be held on march 3 rd, 2020 and an ordinance amending the tax regulation code an administrative code to have the excise tax on persons keeping ground floor commercial space in certain neighborhood commercial districts and certain neighborhood commercial transit districts vacant to find assistance to Small Businesses and making appropriate findings. Okay. I was listening to the last meeting and i didnt chime in then. I will Say Something now which is i want to thank the author of this legislation for bringing this forward. We have been grappling with this issue for years. We have tried Different Things and it seems like nothing has been all that effective. There is a legislation that would allow for any of these storefronts if you wanted to change from the commercial Retail Business to put residential there. If it is designated for family shelter owned business, which is still a commercial usage. And we have not shown much results. It was an approach. So here we go. Without objection, madame clerk, there is a motion and we dont have to have a second. Madame clerk, please call the roll. On the motion to approve. [roll call] there are eight aye. Okay. The motion passes. Right now, one last thing. Lets go to Public Comment. At this time, the public may address the entire board of supervisors for up to two minutes with items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. Public comment is not allowed when an item has been previously come subject to Public Comment at a board committee. Any Public Comments . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Colleagues, that brings us to the end of the agenda. Madame clerk, is there any further business before us today that concludes our business for today. We are adjourned. Happy thanksgiving break. Hello, everyone. Nice to see you all tonight on the 20th annual transgender day of remembrance. This has always been a very heavy and very important day for myself. This is the 50 15th to 15 th time that i have been participating in this. I work with the office of transgender initiative. Our office is the first trans led Government Office in the country. We work with Community Members to advance policies, programs, and equity for transgendered and nonconforming communities. That is why we are here today. This is such an important day. Today, like as we have been paying attention to a lot of videos and a lot of speakers throughout the day about what people are saying. And one of the things that is so striking about this day, that i know a lot of us can see when we see the signs that we are carrying, is that of the 26 transgendered women that have been killed this year, 24 of them are black transgendered women. And with that, there was a speaker earlier today, a performance artist and poet named miss mojo who asked, what do we do when two black transgendered women are getting murdered every month. What do we do . And thats a really important and hard question for us to answer about what we can do. And in that, i wanted to take leadership in trans women of color and what they are saying. And one of the things Racquel Willis is a amazing editor at out magazine. She wrote a post today but all the things we can do. And one of the big things is investing in our communities. Investing in our leadership, putting resources in these organizations, and particularly with black transgendered women. So with that, kicking off transgender day of remembrance is importance to center that. I want to invite leaders to come and have a word about the day who have been part of organizing this event throughout these past few months, and who are doing it doing important work in our community. Without further ado, i want to invite Akira Jackson who has been doing incredible antiviolence work and doing incredible work in getting people housed in San Francisco and making sure that people have a safe place to stay. Welcome to a cure acura jackson. [applause] welcome, everyone. I love you, too. The only way to beat hate is with love and the only way to love is to be together. That is why we are all here today. Daniel castro, one of the founders of the coalition, that is one of her words today. It has been almost five years since gabriela to jesus was murdered. The founders, the leaders, and the family stood here at city hall calling out for support from our city officials and allies to end the genocide of transgender women. This coalition assembled here for a dianne on february 10th, 2015. Leaders such as genitive jackson , the executive director of transgender [calling names] [calling names] just to name a few, sit in solidarity for all of our fallen sisters. That demonstration still resonates today. Since then, the coalition has dedicated the mission in addressing systems of oppression , but not only calling out to those who perpetuate acts of violence, vertebral, emotional, and or physical, but we hold them accountable. The vision of this coalition is safety for trans women in a world free of Prison Industrial Complex and state violence. Currently, project coalition has taken responsibility in providing training to Housing Service providers. We are aware that 70 of trans people in shelters experience harassment, one out of two trans people are homeless, and that trans people are 18 times more likely to experience homelessness. Last monday, project coalition launched the hour trans home citywide Media Campaign on the munimobile buses, which features a staggering findings from the experience of trans people seeking shelter. Campaigns such as this have been one of several projects that the coalition has produced, in addition to addressing the immediate issues of trans and gnc folk. Issues such as advocating and supporting individuals experiencing eviction, threats to citizenship, support in the legal gender affording document, and work permit providing gain voles gainful employment, leadership development, and Community Mobilization and correspondence. Sins mayor london breed maida stands in ending homelessness, she has made it evident to include our trends and gnc community. The mayor accepted are ask in providing trans Inclusive Housing and trans rental subsidies. As it pertains to this project, we are providing expertise in developing Impactful Solutions to inform this project so it maintains the integrity of the true project. We want to keep people housed and improve Housing Services. [applause] furthermore, as we observe this day of remembrance for those that were brutally murdered because society has no values for our lives, let us also take a stance today to tell these individuals that the whole system of oppression, and those that could give a damn about our lives and our future. Not one more. [cheers and applause] thank you. This is also a big moment for San Francisco and we are so excited to welcome you here. I know this is a big deal and we think it is incredibly important and because of that, and to mark the importance of how this is for city hall, mayor breed has joined us today to say a few words. [cheers and applause] thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all this evening on an occasion that we know is very difficult for so many people. I grew up in the city and i grew up in a community where violence was normalized. Gun violence in particular took away the lives of so many people that i loved, so many people that i cared about and sadly in this country, we see that we have still not done enough to address what is happening with gun violence and how it is important to make sure that this doesnt continue to happen in this country. The same, sadly with so many incredible people in our Trans Community throughout the country the loss of 26 lives in just this past year, and unfortunately, disproportionately again, africanamerican women who are victimized just because they are being who they are meant to be. It is so unfortunate that every year, when we come here, we come here as a day of remembrance, but we also sadly have had to add more people to the list. It is heartbreaking, but i am also excited about the future because so many people are here, so many people are paying attention. So many people are advocating and pushing and fighting and are not giving up on the need for change in this city and in this country. There is no reason why anyone should have to walk anywhere in fear of being victimized for any reason. That is why we are here today. We must remember because we have to rededicate ourselves every single time to a Better Future so that there is not one more person that we lose to violence in any way. I want to thank the Trans Advisory Committee and the advocates for continuing to push for the kinds of policy changes where in this city we are making historical investments. Our trans home s. F. , so many incredible investments in the arts and our trans Film Festival continuing to make not only the financial investments, but the changes to policies and being an example for the rest of the world to follow. We are doing this because we have incredible leaders and incredible people who continue to advocate, including Claire Farley, who has been an amazing advocate for change in this city [applause] tonight, in honor of those who are no longer with us, city hall is lit up in the color of our transgender flag. This is a way to make sure that this city knows how important this day is, how important the people are that we have lost and that their lives are not forgotten and that as a result, we are committed now more than ever to make sure that the change leads to the results that we all want. Not one more ever. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much for those words. My name is naomi right. I may block transgendered women, unapologetically black, unapologetically trans, and unapologetically a woman. [applause] i dont have an elaborate speech today. When i was asked to speak was asked to speak about what it means to me. So i will do just that. As a woman of black trans experience, i am using it to make a way this fight did not start with me. I think about the marcia p. Johnsons, miss billy cooper, the amazing team that stand behind me and stand with me that have been in this fight for a long time. I am reminded of the beautiful souls who have helped pave the way for women like me. I am reminded of my siblings who dont have access to the education i have had. I am reminded of my friends who dont have access to basic necessities such as gainful employment, healthcare, trans inclusive healthcare, and so much more. At the same time, i think about the janets of the world, the laverne his of the world, and i think about all of the potential that has been lost and all of the potential that still exists. I think about the potential of myself, i think about the potential of everyone on this stage. I think about the potential of everyone in this audience, and they really invite as today to use this space as a way to celebrate the lives of these women and to celebrate the potential of our community. Thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you. [applause] [speaking spanish] sorry. I would like to start honoring all the beautiful trans people who are presented here and say to you that [speaking spanish] we see you, we feel you, and we honor you for the great gift you give. I want to say, in the name of the organization, thank you to all our trans siblings who we are honoring here today. The lives of those who were silenced by the hands of violence and bigotry. We are here to raise the awareness of this violence epidemic against us, against trans people. We believe in healing, in restorative justice, in peace and love and our communities. So we work hard to prevent violence, but also create action and awareness because awareness is a daily practice which is reprised by human responsibility those who are facing the face of violence. If you are a nonna trans person who is proud about [indiscernible] you can start knowing about us, more about our stories. Know about our lives and learn from us who we are and what challenges we face in our daily basis. Sometimes i hear comments justifying the violence and murder of trans women. [indiscernible] and forgetting that the only responsible person of a murder is the person who causes harm and kills her, him, them. There are many ways to kill someone. You can deny them education, and they wont have the skills and tools to get a job. You can deny them Job Opportunities and they will need to put themselves at risk to get food and basic needs to survive. You can deny access to the community, and this person will be isolated and causing emotional and spiritual harm and make them more available for any kind of violence. [indiscernible] we are honoring the 22 trans sisters whose lives were taken away from us from their families and community, but also remembering those trans siblings who are fleeing their countries to seek life and find death here we honor a trans sister from honduras and a trans sister from el salvador. We also honor the life of those trans siblings around the world who hatred took their lives away and make us realize that this epidemic is growing. We can and we need to do better. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] [cheers and applause] thank you so much. Next i want to welcome icon, mother to many, founder of trans life, pride grand marshall, miss billy cooper. Hello, everyone. I would like to say that i am so honored to be here. I would also like to say we can never forget remembrance and resilience and black trans excellence and black trans equity and black trans equality. As i stand here, h. And every time a trans woman is murdered or a trans man, that takes a little part of me away. I am 61 years old and also as i stand here on the soldiers shoulders of many trans men and women, i just want to say, it is also about respect. It is about respecting Human Dignity and human consciousness and human life, and it is horrific and its horrible that the United States of america treats people the way they do. The Life Expectancy for a black trans woman is 29 years old as we stand here. I am 61. I am so lucky to be alive. I am so very lucky and grateful and honored to be here living in San Francisco for over 35 years and being a Community Activist and fighting for transgender human rights. The rights that we have been neglected and denied for many, many years, and my black trans sisters and my latina sisters should have not been murdered, should have not been subjected to i. C. E. , to all the police, to all the brutality and to all the inhuman treatment. I would like to say, to all the senators and all the congressmen and all the state representatives and all the mirrors and the governors and to that Little Orange haired man a living in the white house, i just want to say, your time is limited. You have to answer to someone, too. Give us our rights that we deserve. I am tired of begging for the scraps off the table. I am tired. We have to realize that we have to vote because every vote counts and we need to have some transgender congressmen and representatives and senators and we need the first transgender president of the United States. I am is billy cooper. We are still fucking here [cheers and applause] with that, thank you so much miss billy cooper. Thank you so much, everyone. My name is Claire Farley and i want to thank you all for coming out. You really represent what makes San Francisco great and we cannot do this work without our allies. Thank you to mayor breed and thank you to all of our amazing, amazing speakers. It is an honor to serve you and i look forward to the rest of the work we have ahead. Now lets march over to hastings thank you. [cheers and applause]today. clapping. ive been working in restaurants forever as a blood alcohol Small Business you have a lot of requests for donations if someone calls you and say we want to documents for our school or nonprofit ive been in a position with my previous employment i had to say no all the time. My name is art the owner and chief at straw combinations of street food and festival food and carnival food i realize that people try to find this you dont want to wait 365 day if you make that brickandmortar it is really about making you feel special and feel like a kid again everything weve done to celebrate that. So nonprofit monday is a program that straw runs to make sure that no matter is going on with our business giving back is treated just the is that you as paying any other bill in addition to the money we impose their cause to the greater bayview it is a great way for straw to sort of build communicated and to introduce people who might not normally get to be exposed to one nonprofit or another and i know that they do a different nonprofit every most of the year. People are mroent surprised the restaurant it giving back i see some people from the nonprofit why been part of nonprofit monday sort of give back to the program as well answer. Inform people that be regular aprons at straw they get imposed to 10 or 12 nonprofits. I love nonprofits great for a local restaurant to give back to community thats so wonderful i wish more restrictive places did that that is really cool. It is a 6 of nonprofit that is supporting adults with autism and down syndrome we i do not involved one the wonderful members reached out to straw and saw a headline about, about their nonprofit mondays and she applied for a grant back in january of 2016 and we were notified late in the spring we would be the recipient of straw if you have any questions, well be happy to answer thems in the month of genuine we were able to organize with straw for the monday and at the end of the month we were the recipient of 10 percent of precedes on mondays the contribution from nonprofit monday from stray went into our post group if you have any questions, well be happy to answer theming fund with our arts coaching for chinese and classes and we have a really great vibrate arts program. We we say thank you to the customers like always but say 0 one more thing just so you know youve made a donation to x nonprofit which does why i think that is a very special thing. It is good to know the owner takes responsibility to know your money is going to good cause also. It is really nice to have a restaurant that is very Community Focused they do it all month long for nonprofits not just one day all four mondays. We have a wall of thank you letters in the office it seems like you know we were able to gas up the 10 passenger minivan we were innovate expected to do. When those people working at the nonprofits their predictive and thank what straw is giving that in and of itself it making an impact with the nonprofit through the consumers that are coming here is just as important it is important for the grill cheese kitchen the more restrictive i learn about what is going on in the community more restrictive people are doing this stuff with 4 thousand restaurant in San Francisco were doing an average of 6,000 a year in donations and multiply that by one thousand thats a lot to. We call this meeting to order. And i apologize for my voice. Please call the roll. Good afternoon. This is the meeting of the San Francisco commission on the environment. The date is monday, november 25, 2019 and it a special meeting. The date is november 25, 2019, and the time is 5 05 p. M. A note to the p