Transcripts For SFGTV Public Safety And Neighborhood Services Committee Meeting 20240713

Good morning, everybody. The meeting will come to order. Welcome to the january 9th, 2020 regular meeting of the Public Safety and neighborhood committee. Im raphael mamdelman. Supervisor walson is not able to be here as hes attending a joint powers Board Meeting and to my left, supervisor hainey stepped. I want to thank sfg tv for staffing the meeting. Please ensure youve silenced cell phones. Files should be submitted to the clerk. Items acted upon will appear on the january 28, 2020 agenda unless otherwise stated. Before we go to the first item, ill make a motion we excuse supervisor walton. Mr. Clerk, please call our first item. Number 1 is an ordinance amending the health code by amending the sugar sweetened beverage to update the findings and purpose, revise the definition of advertiser, reduce the warning size, move modifiede warning text, remove exemptions for certain types of sugar advertisements. Natalie g. , welcome. Good morning. So a little bit of background information. The citys sugar sweet and beverage ordinance was introduced by supervisor scott weiner and unanimously passed by the board in 2015. But because of a subsequent lawsuit and a ruling against the city at the ninth Circuit Court it prevented the ordinance going into effect. We introduced the revised revision last september to incorporate more feedback on this legislation. We know that theres been countless studies connecting these beverages to weight again, obesity and type ii diabetes and theres been numerous studies showing that these large Beverage Companies specifically target their advertising to communities of colour creating more health despairties. Theres been studies proving that labels are an effective way to provide the Community Information for them to make their own healthy choices. In fact, ucsf has done numerous focus groups in the bayview, mission and tenderloin to ask what the community wanted from a Public Health perspective and the top request was to have information on warning labels about the health risks so that people can make their own informed choices. This reading introduced versions incorporating the following seven changes with input from the committee. Number one it updates the ordinances statements of findings and purposes with more recent information about weight gain, increasing the risk of obesity and type ii diabetes and these finds are about Health Literacy and helping the public to make informed choices. It defines the definition of an advertiser of those selling sugar sheetenned organizers and excuse people in the business of placing, installing or providing space where the displays such as Business Owners of a small mom and pop shops and it reduces the total number of advertisement and number four, it modifies the text to the required warning to say San Francisco government warning, drinking beverages with added sugars can cause weight gain and increases the risk of obesity and type ii diabetes. Number five, it adds a Language Access component as part of the equity lense, requiring official translations of the warning labels in the top San Francisco languages such as chinese and it limits certain types of sugar beverages. We had a provision about any ads about december 31, 1985 were exempt and we took that out. And we are excepting ads that have been in place 50 areas or more. The cocacola billboard sign off of the i80 freeway and lastly, this revises the ordinance enforcement allowing dph to administer ordinances to pursue civil enforcement. We have medical professionals such as sf medical society, Health Organizations and expect groups all on board with this legislation. The Youth Commission just voted unanimously to also support this. So happy to answer any questions and hope you all can join on a positive recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. I dont see any comments or questions from my colleagues so well go to Public Comment. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this item . If so, come on up and line up on your right, our left. Speakers will have two minutes. We ask you state your first and last name clearly and speak to the microphone. If you have prepared written statements, leave them with the clerk for ad admission file. In the interest of time, speakers are advised to avoid repetition of previous statements. Come on up. When it comes to sugary beverages, the possibility of substitutes are greater now than ever. The Beverage Market is all steadily saturated with flavoured, unsweetened products, the majority of which are sold in recyclable aluminum cans rather than the plastic containers and theyre increasingly gaining shelf space. So trends suggest consumer taste and beverages have been shifting in a halty direction and culturally obesity is less popular today than a mere decade ago so gym memberships have risen significantly over the intervals. However, attempts to compel marketers or emergency engaged in specific language regarding sugary beverages may be an uphill battle and are you looking at all beverages, sugary beverages or specific sugary beverages . Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who would like to speak on this item before Public Comment is closed . Seeing none, Public Comment actually, well invite you back up miss gee, seeing no comment from members of the public, comment is closed. Miss gee, come on back. Earlier i said the mom and pop shops so the provision exempts installers of the signs, not the owners of the business. So i just wanted to clarify that. Ok, thank you. If there are no comments or questions, i will move that we forward this to the full board with positive recommendation. We can take that without objection. Congracongratulations, miss ge. Mr. Clerk, the next item. Number two is a hearing on the city and county policies as it relates to trash cans and pickups in addressing litter. Supervisor hainey, this is your hearing, take it away. Thank you, chair and thank you supervisor, stephanie, for having this hearing at the committee. I want to also recognise and thank all of the folks here in the room who do this work everyday. I think its, obviously, a very challenging and often thankless job to be out there making sure our streets are clean, that litter and trash is taken care of and, especially, at a time, i think, where this issue is often in the media, and getting attention, im sure it puts a lot of attention on you all and the folks out there. So i want to extend my appreciation to the folks here and also to the employees that are out there right now. I saw them on the way here and just do tremendous, very difficult jobs and we appreciate them. So today, were going to talk some trash. Im sure in this room, thats not a joke you havent heard before, but i just want to take my shot at it. You know, you thin i think for e reason for this hearing is pretty obvious and clear. We have a huge problem with trash and litter on our streets. Thats true all over our city. Its especially true in the district that i represent, Downtown South of market and the tenderloin, particularly. This is something that comes up from residents, workers, businesses and as i mentioned, the national, International Press and here in San Francisco in a city that is among, if not the most innovative place when it comes to technology and progress, it continues to me to be deeply concerning and in some ways mind boggling that we havent been able to solve this problem. It seems to me there are practical, commonsense solutions, proactive loose solus that caif we Work Together. This specifically will be about trash cans, both the public cans and the private cans, dumpsters and to shed light what the cities and partners have been doing to address trash and litter on our streets and to get an update on a new policies and strategies to address this ongoing problem. For me, and what ive seen and what ive heard and experienced in the last year and before that, this comes up all the time and a couple of things i want to highlight before we jump into the conversation. One is, there are parts of my district, at least, where we can walk block after block and not see a city can. And thats something that i hear about from my constituents and deeply concerning and confusing to me as to why thats a reality that continues to exist. On top of that, we often see, in my district, both city cans and private cans either being broken or busted open or trash and litter that was clearly previously in a city can or a private can making up a lot of the litter on our streets and sidewalks. This ithese are conditions thate unacceptable for people to live and work in. It seems deeply unfair to the employees themselves who are having to pick up after, basically, broken infrastructure and having to respond in a reactive way as opposed to having trash stay where i think it belongs, which is in the trash can to begin with. I did a fixit walk along the embarcadaro with a number of the departments and neighbors and we came across, first of all, not enough city cans, but the city cans that we came across were actually more likely to be broken than functional. They were, in many cases the gate was swung open or the trash was pulled out. That creates problems for people who live and work in this area but also creates a lot of cynicism and a culture where people dont believe theyre supposed to throw things in the trash because the trash cans themselves dont work. So this is a reality that, i think, is fixable, that there are solutions to. As a city, we started to fund and put out more sort of total containment bins with big belly style cans and i want to understand how that fits into our strategy to address this issue. So the three things, the guiding questions that i had for the city departments and the folks who are here are what are thecies where we are placing city cans, the types of cans were using and why. Secondly, how can we prevent trash from being spilled on the street from city cans and dumpsters and how do we ensure buildings and businesses are signed up for and receiving adequate service . And this is something that the department of Public Health will speak to. I want to say at the outset, i dont want to just ask questions but offer solutions which ive tried to do and weve been working closely together doing my time as supervisor. I want to appreciate dpw and oewd for your partnership on that. There are a set of thank thingsm asking for. If this is not the right approach, i would love to hear why we are not doing these things and why we cant. The first thing, there seems to be a need to have a trash can on every corner. In the tenderloin, south of market, downtown, it is astounding to me that with the attention and the realities of trash on the ground, that we wouldnt have an adequate a lot of trash cans. Theres a mythology and i want to talk about this and i dont know how true this is, that the city has pulled away tons of cans over time and people bring that up a lot in the community. Secondly, as i believe we need a new trash can design for our public cans. For these cans to be as likely to be broken open as functional is completely unacceptable and so i want to hear about what our plan is to either fix or replace the ones that are out there. Third, i want to understand the standard for where public cans go and what sort of transparency there is around that. Seems to me that theres not a formula for where the cans to and why theyre there and when. They can be pulled out or put away based on complaints. I dont feel thats the best way to do this. Fourth, how were going to secure dumpsters. There need to be much stronger locks on dumpsters. There are places where trash is pulled all over the street. Fifth, how woul well roll out r bins and coordinate pickup schedules which is beginning to happen in the tenderloin and i want to appreciate the work that recolocg is doing and how to extendeextend that across the cd a plan for how buildings have correct and adequate trash service. Peoples are residential and the people who live there dont have adequate trash service and end up dumping their trash by the city cans. That seems to be a solvable problem and will take a plan to address it. So those are my ideas and what i would like to see, but i would hope that we can talk about what your plans are and how were going to really keep trash where it belongs in the can and make sure cans are available and ensure we have cleaner, healthier streets for all of our residents, not just those in district 6. So to address those issues and questions, we have representatives from San Francisco public works, recology, department of Public Health and oewd and i think were going to start with jeremy spitts from public works. Good morning. Thank you, supervisor hainey for giving us the opportunity to discuss the citys public garbage cancer. Cans. And also, i we had the same joke. [ laughter ] i knew somebody would use that. Theres only so many. [ laughter ] so we were asked to provide just a basic overview of whats out there on the streets. Public works maintains almost 3500 cans, about 1,000 are the oldstyle concrete cans with the rest being the renaissance cans which is, i believe, just the vendors name. They were first installed in 1977 and i found a mayor of, then, george masconey installing one and i thought that was fun. Since theyre reaching the end of their useful life, were phasing them out and weve been phasing them out, actually, over the last ten years and almost done phasing them out and we should have all gone and replaced within this fiscal year. Were currently replacing about 40 a week with the vendor that installs and replacing them with the renaissance cans. In addition, theres two kinds, mainly two kinds on the street of these solar smart cans. The first that everyone is familiar with is the big bellies and theres about 150 or so big bellies out there. They are not maintained by the city. They are maintained by cbds or neighborhood groups or private organizations because they require a higher level of maintenance than the city is really able to offer. The other one, since there is so much interest in these kinds of cans, the city has piloted an alternative to big bellies that we thought might be a little bit cheaper and easier to maintain called the pel or pell solar smart can which is similar and theres about 30 of those in the city at the moment. And you had asked about our procedures for can placement. So we do have a procedure. Its procedure 1651 and i can read it. Its not very exciting, but as most of our procedures arent exciting. Liberal receptors should be located near schools, business districts, bus stops and platforms. Requests from the public to add or remove receptacles are investigated by street environmental supervisors before any action is taken. Placement includes dog parts, community stairs, navigation centres and other locations requested but the public and elected officials. So its not a hard science. We get a lot of requests from difficuldifferent people to putn different places. I think thats a lot of my job as the Government Affairs manager and for the department to shuffle garbage cans around. Theres a request to install them and the next week from a different constituent, i get a request to remove that can, so its all over the place. Problems. So as you eluded to, there are some problems. My photos . One of them might be, yeah. [ laughter ] i think that one might be so challenges. So theres three main categories of challenges. The first one is overflowing cans, and the second one would be Illegal Dumping of household garbage or bad behaviour and people just using the cans as a suspecspot to dump because theyw someone will comeby to pick them up and then theres vandalism, breaking in to get to the garbage recyclables inside or just because they like breaking things. Weve provided kind of a snapshot of the Service Requests for the city cans over the last year. So we get two main categories of Service Requests for city cans through 311. The first one is for overflowing cans and the second one is for damaged cans. So this is a snapshot of both requests in the last year. So theyre where you would expect them to be. So here is broken out by district and we get the most in district 9 and district 3 and we, in total, over the last year got about 13,000 requests for overflowing cans and about 1,000 requests for broken cans. For the citys 3500 or so cans. Its important to note that the system, the 311, doesnt distinguish between overflowing cans and Illegal Dumping. So this is representative of both. So if somebody on streets sees a bunch of trash around the streets and takes a picture and sends it to 311, its somebody who has dumped trash around the can. Can i ask a question if. Absolutely. Is the response the same to overflowing and Illegal Dumping. Yes, response is the same. I think those requests go, actually, to our part of ecology and they are out there within, i believe, two hours. So we get to those pretty quick. So this is not a new problem. We have some photos. I was flipping through old annual reports and these are from 1968. Since the city is so quick in picking up trash, people have kind of back to accept it. Theres almost a perception that its maid service for the city. So people dump their trash out there, its gone within a few hours and people just doing it. So this has been a problem in the city for a long time, both with dumping of cans, dumping in Industrial Areas and dumping of used appliances and theres many initiatives that the city has done to try to provide outreach and enforcement. The city has passed mandatory garbage and recycling and composts since they were taken and we do all sorts of outreach and the problem definitely persists. So what is the city doing to combat litter in general . So its not just about garbage cans. We have our own cleaning crews that go out. Weve created different types of cleaning crews, up and above the cleaning crews. An important one is our corridor ambassadors, sweeping up and keeping an eye on garbage caps and topping them off when they get too full. We have an outreach Enforcement Team that does outreach to merchants and they can write tickets for peoples bins being overfilled. We have antilitter campaigns. We have Strong Partnerships with nonprofits like the cbds and also very Strong Partnership with ecology. We are embracing new technology and ill get more into that a little bit later and we have a new antilegal dumping campaign that well be launching on saturday at our Community Queen team in chinatown, which our 20th anniversary so everybody should come to that. It will be a great event. We also work closely with our partner of ecology who you will hear after us and encourage them to do everything that they can to help keep the city clean. One initiative specific to public trash cans that were excited about is a fairly recent grant programmgrant program. So the community center, they have staff and they actually steamclean every public garbage can in the city at least once a month with the kind of higher density areas and more commercial areas getting their cans cleaned biweekly and some more than that. The sso i passed one of their ts on the way in thissing morning and theyre out there all the time cleaning cans. One lowtech solution weve seen success with is you mentioned supervisor, that the cans are often broken and so, this type of can, the renaissance can, weve been ruling that out for ten years. The vandalism has increased and weve been working with the vendor to make the hinges stronger and our metal shop repair crews have been going out and doing spot repairs, preparing hundreds of cans that are less likely to be broken into. Thats kind of a lowtech solution. As far as higher tech solutions, we have a Pilot Program that we are currently in the midst of expanding for installing sensors in the citys cans. So the sensors collects data every 15 minutes and they also can detect tipovers, door issues and missing liners. Its sent to alert and they can service it before the can overflows and then alerts from damaged cans are sent to public works to go out there and repair them proactively before theyre reported to members of the public. And this was a Pilot Project that we entered into with the Mayors Office of civic innovation in 2018. So we started off with 48 cans, kind of distributed it throughout the city to test them out and see how it would work on street. Were in the midst of expansion to 700 cans in the city, so a good percentage of the cans will have sensors in them. We have the sensors installed in 700 cans and were working with the department of technology to build the system that will allow us to manage it. So that should be coming online within the next couple of months and were excited about that. The overall goals of the project are to reduce the number of Service Requests related to city cans, to be proactive rather than reactive, jobs to advise placement of the city cans to get good data on where theyre being used and where theyre not used. To remove all processes of the city cans, because they all have gps and to develop more optimized routes with recology for route pickup. Finally, were working on the next generation of the citys trash can. So we have engaged with our local, industrial designer through an rfp process and were in the process of a new Schematic Design and were getting feedback from recology and or own streetcleaning team. The new design will address following issues as kind of guiding principles. Right now its difficult for ecology drivers to pick up the trash can liner and the new line will have a rolling toter, much like the residential cans. To address overflowing trash, the new designs will all incorporate the sensors that i spoke to earlier so that the city or recology will get a notification when theyre 75 full. It will continue to have a recycling top to try to discourage scavaging in the interior of the can. It will be more durable, capable of handling street abuse and needs to be graffiti abuse and much stronger locks and hinges then we have now. There are kiosks and bar canopies on pacific plaza. The next step for this process is that the designers are working on honing in three strong design options. We will prototype the three, making several of each, placing them around the city in strategic locations and we will Seek Community input on the new designs and track data from 311 and we will take the three designs to the Design Review where we will be able to have a public discussion about the merits of the designs and we hope to reach that early this summer in 2020. So thats all i have. Im available for any questions. Im also joined by peter lau who oversees all of the citys trash cans supervisions. I appreciate this. I have a few questions. So the first is that its great the concrete ones will be replaced by the end of this fiscal year. So theres still a thousand out there right now and those will all be replaced. Were doing currently 40 a week, yeah. I see more problems with those. Right. And we are working with the vendor for the renaissance cans, so they should be stronger Going Forward. The new ones that are getting installed and replacing the concrete cans should be hopefully more tamper resistant. In terms of where trash cans go, the general order, the order that you laid out, it seems to be to be incredibly vague and general and inadequate for clarity of where these cans should go and it also seems to be to be, actually im not telling you how to spend your time but the idea of you as a Government Affairs collector of work, youre spending so much of your time on responding to pulling away trash cans and putting them out there, that it doesnt seem to be to me to be the best way, in a clear way based on need or based on certain distances. I mean, ive brought up in the designing that our city is not the same as every other cities but in many other cities, theres one on every corner in dense areas. The tenderloin and south of market in some cases dont have anything close to that. There are some areas, partly because maybe somebody complained about one, but it has to be within context that may leave an area with only one more two blocks. In these areas where theres a high need, there needs to be x amount of feet or yards. Why dont we do it that way. So i work with supervisors all the time who have specific locations they want to install cans and we can definitely install them. I want one on every corner. [ laughter ] if its that easy. It shouldnt be that difficult. Ill look for a noncomputer. Noncompeter. Just as a general thing, thats problem not the best way for this to be done. We see problems with city cans and there is dumping, especially in more dense areas. So chinatown and the mission and the tenderloin, like if people dont have sufficient Garbage Service, people see a city can and use this as a dump spot. So we have Corner Stores and residents who come to us and be like, as soon as the city can came here, i had to sweep up my sidewalk many more times and were sensitive to that and we dont want to the city cans arent always the answer. We can install them wherever you want them but thats not always the answer in making the neighborhood cleaner. And it seems to me we should havemetrics of where they should be generally and under some certain situations, you might take them out but there should be a sort of more objective policy where they go. If its totally subjective, their ripple effects and consequences when you dont have them in certain areas and its jusunpredictable for the neighborhood. I think if we had it our way, we would have them at bus stops in your schools, the areas that are listed. We would have a trash can at every bus stop, a trash can at every school. In dense commercial areas, we could discuss having them more frequently, such as on every corner if thats whats required. But we get a lot of requests for trash cans to be installed and removed and we have to be responsive to that. So thats kind of why its become a little bit of a jumble of a policy over the last many years. Just as a general thing, i dont think we should make this policy based on complaints and for a variety of reasons somebody might not want something where they are and thats their opinion. But for the neighborhood and people walking by and for the best practises for clean streets and sidewalks, that seems to be how we should be making the decisions. Its very concerning to me thats not the way its done. One other thing and ill pass to supervisor stephanie, the renaissance cans, to me, they seem to have a lot of problems with also being regularly broken and im saying broken but sometimes theyre not actually broken but opened up. And i think when you walk around the neighborhoods and you see that all of the time, it adds to a sense of kind of cynicism and just a feeling that your neighborhood is just, you know, not taken care of. So you said theres a way to kind of really fortify those cans. Yeah. How can we do a lot more of that, where its most needed and be confident that those arent, in the interim, until we have a new design that wont be the reality of all of our neighborhoods . I think its tough to completely design our way around this problem, which is why in our department, we would like to see some focus on behaviour, as welwere doing a lot of work and weve done a lot of work already. Weve spotwelded, i think, hundreds of cans is the number ive been given. The new ones from the vendor are stronger, as well. Thats something were definitely focused on. Another request i would have, if there are stronger ones, they should be put in places where were having these issues. They should be put in these neighborhoods where were seeing them broken open all of the time. From what ive seen walking here today, thats not the case. Those ones in those areas are constantly broken open and it affects quality of life and it affects trash on the street, but it leads to a lot of feelings that your city doesnt work. Right. Sometimes people become so used to seeing it, they dont report it and we dont know about it. So its important that we encourage people to use the 311 app and report those things and we will go out there and make the cans stronger. But if the cans are broken everyday and people walk by it because theyre used to it, well hear about it from cyc if they get to it every month but the more we know about it, the easier it is to track and address it. Supervisor stephanie. Thank you, supervisor hainey. Thank you, jeremy, tor being fog here today. Just how you said a trash can is taken out because of Illegal Dumping, to me it seems were letting those engage who behave in bad behaviour dictate or trash can policy. Im wondering, what are the consequences of the Illegal Dumping is does anyone ever face them in the city . Absolutely. Both public works, recology have inspectors and when we get complaints around Illegal Dumping, they can do a garbage audit in the area and they often do. When we find somebody without garbage, i think that the remedy that is most often i dont think they get a fine, but dph can go ahead i think dph is here to speak to that in detail but they can start Garbage Service for them and pay a monthly bill and get cans delivered and get adequate service and recology will make sure they have enough service for the number of units in the building, things like that. But its definitely a huge problem and its very time intensive to go around, but the city and recology all are focused on it and its something we do a lot. Of the pell trash cans, there are 30 and half are in my district. I believe in trash cans that people cant actually dive into our animals cant get into that are more difficult so that trash isnt everywhere. And i just dont understand why we dont have those type of trash cans all over the city. When i did a Facebook Post or social media post about them, so many people said, how can i get these in district 7 or how can i get these in my area . I dont understand why we dont have formty in trash cans and why we need a different prototype and why we cant just focus on one particular type of trash can that is particula is. Well always have the Illegal Dumping issue and can be taken care of but why cant we focus on one type of trash can . The two are rather expensive and we dont necessarily think theyre needed everywhere. But how expensive is it to continue to go out to all of these calls . I mean, this trash is everywhere. Right. Everywhere in my district, everywhere i go in the city. So i mean, have we done a cost analysis. And i know its an investment but if its an investment that works. Have we looked at the complaints that we receive after we install is pell trash can or different type of trash can . Have they g gone down . Is there spilling out of the trash cans . Are we looking at that. We are looking at that right now. I dont have an analysis right now. And i think maybe some of the cbds can speak to that, as well. Another issue with them, they require a higher level of maintenance, as well. So if something does break on a pell or big belly, its more involved. One of the pell trash cans we have piloting right now in the u. N. Plaza have the solar plaza ripped out and thats different than replacing a lock on it and more involved. And other cities that have done citywide rollouts of smart cans and more complicated cans have seen, like, really bad issues with maintenance because the city is just not able to keep up with keeping them all in functional order. I think philadelphia is an example that we saw where the they had big bellies, not pell cans, that were just trashed for lack of a better word. And so it has to be a balance, i think. So you mentioned philadelphia and supervisor hainey mentioned cities where theres many more trash cans and i was just in new york and i had the same experience and obviously i didnt count them. But how do we compare to other cities . Have we looked at that . I havent been able to find anything concrete. I know as supervisor haney eluded to, in 2008 or 09, the mayor removed a lot of the citys trash cans and there was an analysis that shows the city had two or three times more than comparable city expos cities. I think the effort was to get us more in line with comparable cities, but i havent been able to find information as far as comparables yet but i can continue to look into that. I would also note that many of the cities, worlds cleanest cities dont have any trash cans. Tokyo, i think, from what ive seen removed all trash cans in the 1990s when there were threats of terrorist attacks because people take responsibility and take their trash home and dont throw it on the street. Ok, thank you. I mean, my thoughts are, i think, somewhat similar to my colleagues but i want to delve into this. You dont want to say it because its not your job to say it, but what i heard you say was that if it were up to the department, there would be a trash can at bus stops and schools. And thats because youre not convinced that additional trash cans actually make the streets cleaner. Right. Its got to be a balance. So they need to be in areas where there is foot traffic, where people maybe have togo containers theyre throwing away. Theyre not intended to be a catchall for everybodys garbage. Theyre intended to be for newspapers and togo cups and things like that. So thats why the city has public trash cans. For small items of litter to be collect. Often when we have trash cans everywhere and when we have dense neighborhoods that dont have adequate Garbage Service, they become dumping grounds and make the neighborhood more dirty and thats what weve seen over the last years. We have an intention what the department believes is the backt practise and what the city has represented by elected officials think we want, which is more trash cans. And that leads to this incoherent put them in, take them out, respond to officials demanding another one or responding to those taken out. I agree with supervisor hainye. That doesnt sound like a sensible way of managing a trash can policy. But i also think, you know, its important to kind of delve best practises and is a trash can on every corner. Intuitively, that would seamless trash on the sidewalk. Youre saying i hear you saying theres a counterintuitive argument saying that doesnt lead to less trash on the sidewalks and seems the need to be hashed through. And the removal and was that driven by the new administration trying to remove trash from sidewalks . And did it have a positive impact on that . And what happens when a trash can goes in . Does that make that area necessarily get worse . So i would be interested in all of that. And then when you say big bellies supervisor hain earthquakes waey wassay it and e expensive are they . You pay monthly and if we did big belly for all of the cities, 3500 cans, it would be Something Like 7 million a year in rental fees. Because we dont just buy them . Well, the last time we looked into it, you did not have the option to buy them. You had to rent them, but that may no longer be true. I think oewd is here and they have more knowledge. Since we dont deal with them directly, i dont have that information. Is that the same with the pell. The pell cans you can buy which is one of the reasons we wanted to pilot those versus the big bellies and they are also much more expensive than the standard can. I think that they are Something Like 6,300 to purchase. I would presume that the vandalism issues, you know, big bellies affect pells, so are we see them get ripped out . So far its been pretty good. I think about a year that wevee had them out. We had 15 and we installed 15 in supervisor stephanies district. Well, well, well. [ laughter ] she paid for it. Yeah. [ laughter ] so of the 15 we had, we had one act of severe vandalism and amounts of graffiti on them, as well. So it hasnt been too band. Bad. Also, we put them mostly in u. N. Plaza where we have staff constantly to keep an eye on them. So when theyre in the wild, they might be less likely to have somebody keeping an eye on them. Ok, thank you. I dont think we should be making this on where they are. There may be people using these and theyre punished as a result of a handful of folks putting out by those city cans. I dont understand the logic of it, because is the logic of it that we didnt have that can there, that people wouldnt illegally dump . My sense from living in one of these neighborhoods, where there is a lot of trash sometimes put next to city cans is people would put them on the sidewalk or they would put them next to somebodys recology bin or put them on the corner. So i dont think that having city cans is the cause of Illegal Dumping. And certainly, especially, when you dont have enough, the cans that are out there intend to look like theyre part of the problem. But part of that is that they only have one and hardly any others and that ends up being the one place people are putting the things. But i dont think the cans themselves are causing the Illegal Dumping. I dont think that it stops it when you take them away, that this stuff is put somewhere else. And so, i do continue to think that, you know, we need some better metrics and standard practises here on where these should go and it doesnt make sense for them to be pulled away and put out based on complaints and things. That doesnt seem to me how we should organize a city policy. And you might put one out one year and the next year, you take it away and then you put it back. Based on who called you that month. I mean, thats completely unreasonable in my view. Lastly on the new design, you said well have the civic part. What is the actual timeline and what would it look like to put out an entire new design . Are we talking about you said it tooktin year took ten years e concrete ones. Are we talking about we wouldnt have these new ones out based on the basic designs until 2030. Weve been rolling out the renaissance cans for ten years and for a new can, we can start in an area, like your district that is seeing a bigger need. So we could be it would definitely take a number of areas. Theres a lot of cans to replace, depending how much funding we receive to do it. If we got a big push and big chunk of money, we could do it quickly. So it is definitely up in the air. But we could do it, potentially, in fewer than ten years. I do think it is interesting and there are a number of cb ds here they are choosing to put out the bigbelly style regularly and theyre experiencing positive feedback and a Strong Demand for that. And so theyre doubling and tripling down on that. I think we have this growing were supportive of that and were supportive of the cbd having the big bellies because they are able to give them a level of service and maintenance. They have Community Ambassadors that are Walking Around and scrubbing off the graffiti, keeping them clean, making sure people dont jam stuff into the hopper so it gets stuck. But in areas that we have looked at for citywide rollouts, its been tough to keep up with that level of maintenance. So were very supportive. We think its good. It just seems that if we continue at this rate weve seen in the last couple of years and we have hundreds and hundreds in the next couple of years of the big bellies, thats oewd cbd thing but becoming a central part of how we deal with trash in the city and yet dbw is opts out of that. It seems to be, especially as it grows, to become a bigger problem i woul. I would love to see a standard practise and the ones in areas where we have a lot of problems with them broken open, because they are pulling trash right out and those are spilled over and on top of that, you walk around the neighborhood and see these broken everywhere. That leads to a lot of cynicism and frustration with our ability as a city to deliver basic services. Supervisor stephanie. What is the Response Time to a broken door, lets say, in a commercial district . I do have that. So overflowing cans two hours and damaged trash can is three days. We try to get to it faster but thats the average, yeah. Thank you, jeremy. I appreciate. Are you good . Im going to ask now if recology will come up . I believe john porter, the Vice President and Group Manager of recology San Francisco will be presenting. Thank you. I had a power point. Good morning, supervisors and thank you for opportunity to speak to you today about the topics that supervisor hainey had mentioned. Were covering city services, waste, city cans and so, just briefly, recology, weve been working in San Francisco for nearly 100 years and we have over 150 customers in the city, including the city cans that were collecting everyday and we have operations running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are numerous cbds here today and this is just a subset of our Many Community partners that we work with every single day in keeping San Francisco clean. We focus kind of on the tenderloin area since my colleague, operation supervisor karim saber will be talking about a pilot that were running in supervisor haineys district. City can collection, every city can is touched at least two times a day and the first pass is collected by our traditional trash collection routes which Service Residential and commercial customers throughout the city. Second pass is performed by a dedicated city can collection route. And then, based on demand, city cans can be collected three or up to four times a day, depending on the situation. We also meet with the department of public works weekly to talk about cans that have had overflow conditions nume numeros times in the past and discuss whether or not it makes sense to increase the frequency of the can or the timing of our collection, meaning if theres a hightraffic area because the school lets out at a certain time, it may make sense to make sure that cab i can is collected before the school lets out. Were awaiting that program that jeremy referenced, the sensors in the can and were hopeful that nord sense technology will unable us to proactively manage our collection times and also potentially dynamically route our collections so that we can predict when a can can is overflowing and we can get that before that occurs. The picture here is frank hansen, recognised by the board of supervisors for the efforts in the city of San Francisco. And in addition, we perform city can repairs on the concrete can, the can on the left, which is referred to as the barney rubble can. So those doors are repaired within 24 hours on business da days. The concrete cans, we replace the liners which is that green garbage can you see inserted in the receptacle there. Cart, recovery and replacement, we get around 47 missing carts a day in San Francisco and we pick up around 22 missing sorry, abandoned carts per day in San Francisco. This is, obviously, a very difficult task because when customers go out their recycling and trash or composting can, they dont have a place to put their material. Needless to say, very anxious about getting it back. So we do our best to get that can back to them within one collection week, before their next collection so they have an opportunity to get their service and were proud of that service that we provide our customers and lastly, we know that in most cases, these missing or abandoned carts are not the responsibility of the customers and so this service is provided free of charge. I will talk about the cleanstreet cart. This is a San Francisco specific cart that was designed by our vendor toter. This cart was, you know, created out of a necessity and we have a lot of people that will rummage through the cans, also. San francisco is a hilly place, a windy place and material can get on the street. So everything we can do to prevent them, weve been working on and the product that youll see here today, the one on your right is a traditional locking container. This locking container comes at a charge to our customers on a monthly basis. It also requires our customers to maintain a key, as well as our drivers which, you know, is an inconvenience. Lastly, this particular master lock has become ubiquitous and sometimes theyre able to gain access. Ill step away from the microphone momentarily to show you this particular lid. As you can see, that lid is not rigid and allow someone to reach in. In addition, the hinge on the back, when people want to tamper with this cart, theyll saw the hinge off and be able to gain access to the cart that way. Whereas in the new revised cart, we have a more rigid lid. In addition, this does not allow our drivers to maintain a key. Once the driver locks it, the only way this car will open is when the cart is serviced, with an exception of someone making efforts to get inside. This is not a Service Since we dont need to maintain that key. Its more robust in terms of its design and its ability to prevent people from gaining access. Now im going to anticipate youll have several questions about this. Before i take questions, i would love to give karim saber an opportunity to talk about the Pilot Program in the tenderloin. I asked him to speak today because i thought it would be disingenuous for me to take credit for all of his hard work. So he is the expert working with the customers every single day. What ill do now is turn it over to karim and come back to see to you have any questions for me. Great, thank you. Thank you. So john touched on these. We call them the cleanstreets carts and work with a manufacturer to meet the specific needs of sanfrancisco residents. So just to go over a few of the points again. Theyre much more heavyduty, steel enforced hinges so they cant be cut off. It has the builtin mechanism rather than the separate lock and sometimes customers forget to lock them on and so this is more secure. Its sealed all around and even if its knocked over on to the street, the contents of the cart wont spill out. And then just to talk about how its withi been saving our custs money since our drivers dont need a key. In 40 or so customers, weve been able to save them over 4,000 a month. Its a substantial savings to them and saves drivers a lot of team to unlock it and relock it again. So far weve had a lot of success with these and weve been speaking with the customers to get feedback with them and these are the ones in the tenderloin and they do a good job of keeping the area clean. The number one question that i get when speaking with customers is, when will we roll these out to the black carts, as well. No issues with anyone getting into them. We havent had any in the tenderloin lost. Weve been doing well with them. This, in conjunction with our other project that were doing, the time collection in the tenderloin, has been weve been seeing really positive results. The streets have looked a lot cleaner. So what weve done is we have switched our tenderloin drivers from switching at night at 7 00 p. M. Until morning collection time so the carts arent out on the street all night. Weve given customers a twoto threehour window. We know when theyll be there and we would like them to come out at the beginning and then have the opportunity to bring them back inside once they are serviced. We started this on december 16th and ive been reaching out and working with customers to make sure theyre aware of the time window but also that the window is working for them. We have had to make some adjustments. For example, the tenderloin housing clinic, the elk hotel on eddie street. Theyre janitors come in at 8 0. We sequenced the drivers routes to make sure they would arrive at that location at 8 30 so they dont have to have it out right at the beginning of the 7 30 window. Im in the streets everyday speaking with customers, collecting data, taking pictures. Were very hopeful and weve already seen a lot of impacts and cleanliness in the tenderloin and every week as we work with the customers and get them to be aware of the time windows and help tweak it so their carts are not on the streets all night, we think well see more positive results, as well. Thanks, karim. So, first of all, thank you for being respond s. U. Vive. I know this design and the concept around the pickups was reformed by what youre seeing out there and heard from folks out there doing the work but also from customers and i just really want to appreciate you all for being innovative, for really trying to solve this problem and i do think that what has been put forward in this Pilot Program in the tenderloin has already had lots of great feedback, is really designed to address the issue and, so, i appreciate all of you and noel, who has been a great person on it. The main thing i have around it, what were hearing, when do we get them to the other types of cans, the black cans, in partly particular and when will they be expanded. Thats the main question and what will it take to get there, whats the timeline . Because i just think they are really addressing one of the bug problem is them being broken or taken away. These are much harder to take away. This is a pilot and we like doing these as a test. The reason is these are a capitol investment. These are more expensive than the locking container for the reasons we described. Also, the Pilot Programs have been high touch. So in the hayes valley and tenderloin, supervisors have been going door to door, working with the customers, explaining to them how the locking mechanism works and how to lock the container, making sure the lids are entirely closed and ensuring that they know about their hours of collection. And that approach is a little different to scale, as you can imagine. We just dont have the number of supervisors to do that. But we do have a thousand additional containers. First pilot was 50. The second pilot was 100. Now we have 1,000 additional containers to roll out into commercial corridors. And high traffic areas where traditionally you see more litter. And were currently work on a plan that, i think, makes the most sense. Based on the current design of the can. So this particular can is actually a little too wide for most Service Entrances and so we need to find an area where it will fit. The mission district, in particular, they have narrow doors is this can may not work for that area and were working with the area to make a more narrow version to work across sanfrancisco. So were in the process of identifying the next area. I think were leaning towards market, midmarket area, market street, Mission Street, that corridor, just because it may work best in that area at first. [ laughter ] i know youll vote for that. Your colleagues may disagree. But i can promise you well continue pushing this. So i hope by the end of february, all 1,000 cans will be delivered and then the vendor has promised us april delivery on the revised version with a narrower base so that will work in most districts. That is just the blue ones . This is blue for now and maybe ill talk about why blue. This is the area where we see the most tavernerring. Tamperin. A lot of paper and that will fly away once the lid has been opened. Whereas compost is heavier. Also, people that are scavaging are looking for cash redemption value or crv, aluminum cans, plastic bottled, et cetera, and so by kind of containing that material, keeping that material in the cart, we prevent a lot of litter, as well. There is a plan, if this is successful, to expand it to the trash cart. I dont believe there will be a need for an organic composting cart but well reassess. Were trying to be flexible and work with the city on what makes the most sense. I just would say that it does seem to be to be a need on the black ones. You know, as you said, often these are gone through because people are taking, for the recyclables, but as that suggests, theyre taking the things, in many cases. As the black ones and things, if theyre opened up and such, its litter and trash. So i mean, im sure thats something were seeing and thinking about and iterating on. Supervisor stephanie. Thank you. I just want to make sure i understand how the smart lock works. If recology doesnt have a key i dont understand how it works. The action of the truck listing the cart will unlock the lid. We like to keep our trash magic secret. [ laughter ] why wouldnt we do that on all of them, then . Well, because we just thought of it not too long ago. [ laughter ] because i would say a lock like this has been out for awhile. Really gotten the pressure from the city, seeing the need of this really inspired us to make it work for San Francisco. So need, necessity creates innovation and thats how we got to where we are. Thank you. Dumpsters, we have a lot of issues with dumpsters, as well. Theyre obviously already fortified but for some reason some of them are regularly opened up and stuff taken all out and in certain areas, i know market and south of market area, southbeach, it can be a huge issue when you have dumpsters there that are constantly pulled every which way and how will we find a similarly, innovative Smart Solution to stop that from happening . Were working on karim . [ laughter ] its too early to talk about details, but i think a combination of time collection that maybe a mechanism like this would be something we can work on. Supervisor stephanie. Another question i have is about the cardboard that is left out. I did merchant walks in september with our hot team and with sfpd just to take a look at how my commercial corridors looked in the morning executive i know a lot of the businesses put out cardboard from unpacked boxes alongside their trash cans and in the morning, they seemed to be strewn about. Im wondering if you could talk about the methodology about the cardboard refuse and if you see we can better that in any way. I know that a lot of times, individuals use some of that as bedding, which is sad in its own rite, but at the same time, it seems to be all over the place in the merchant corridors. This is another complex topic but over the last year and a half, china closed its doors to most recyclables, including curbside cardboard. Previously that commodity had a value and we would buy it back from independent hollers. The nickname is like a mosquito fleet. People would come by and collect it out of a commercial corridor and bars and restaurants leave it in front. That commodity went from 140 a ton down to, i think, 30 a ton. And so now the value of that material no longer exists and these independent hollers are no longer picking under the up the. It came to a head three to six months ago. At that time, we suspended what we call our extra cardboard charge. Typically its around 15 for a container sized load of that cardboard to cover our costs to collect that material. And now in january, we brought it up to 5 and well assess how that works. But we realized that we have to work with all of our customers. So were this the process and ive already contacted roughly 500 customers. Were calling each one, letting them know that over the last three months, university had excess cardboard. If you continue to have excess cardboard or if this is a regular behaviour of your business, its far more economic caeconomical to subscribe to the service. Because we provide customers a discount for the recycling volume. If you have a oneoff extra, there is to discount for your recyclables in that scenario. So were in the process of contacting everyone across the city that does experience more cardboard so we can get that containerized and so it wont pile up or fall over like you kind of described. Great. Well, thank you again for this and for bringing an en it in anr your staff and partnership and especially to karim. I had the opportunity to go out with them and other folks and i learned a lot in terms of both some of the things that can be done, but also just the extraordinary work that you all do and the tough work. As i mentioned, i know that dpw workers, as well, so thank you again and please extend our gratitude for your hard work and their hard work but for these great ideas, as well. We appreciate it. Im looking forward to the dumpster thing. All right, so i think the last two presenters should be a bit quicker. We have folks from the department. Public health, veronica slatingren. Im veronica from the department of Public Health and i oversee one of the programs i oversee is the Solid Waste Program and im here to provide you with some of the overview and also here to answer some of your questions. So we play different roles under this program and one of roles is we are the local Enforcement Agency certified by the state to enforce state regulations and that authorizes us to regulate solid waste facilities like the transfer stations in San Francisco, as well as the refuse vehicles by recology. So we license the collectors. And also, what we do is we also enforce the local health code in the ordinances, specifically the Health Code Article 6 and what that does is we are authorized to mandate refuse service in residential properties, as well as commercial properties throughout San Francisco and if they do not have services, we can initiate service, as well as woralso doenforcement actions te services for places with Inadequate Services. So that program specifically is called the mandatory refuse Service Program and we call that mrs. So for us, a monthly basis, we have a systematic workflow that we work with recology and they refer cases of the mrs cases and mostly, we prioritize places with no refuse service. And a lot of these cases are no services. And roughly around a monthly basis, we get about 60 mrs cases a month. I was asked to provide data. Also what happens, outside of the recology referrals, we get complaints directly from the public or 311 and also referrals from the dpw and also our internal agency, the program, the Healthy Housing Program that enforces the nuisance code which is article 11. What they do is they inspect apartments and hotels and within their article, they also ensure they have adequate services and no nuisance related to garbage. One had to do with illegal turn dumping and when we did our investigation, we couldnt find any evidence so that was abate. When were saying complaints that we deal with, were dealing not only about Inadequate Services but that this includes mispickups, no service, inadequate service, no service to the bins and inadequate dumping. Based on the data we have, we didnt really get a trend that there is an inadequate Service Issue throughout the city, but we have been approached by different sources including the districts, as well as dpw, that this is a problem in the city. Around may of 2013, we met specifically about chinatown with dpw and recology and i think theyre having similar issues in the tenderloin where this is a mixeduse building with the commercial and Residential Property and theyre not getting the adequate service and weve been approached by Supervisors Office in district 11 in july of 2019. What we had decided to do is we needed to get together all of the stakeholders that are involved in the refuse of service in the city and we form lated a work group in october of 2019, which includes our agency as well as dpw and department of the environment and recology to figure out a longterm solution to this problem. So thats kind of the highlevel summary of where were at and im happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you for the presentation. Definitely when ive talked to folks about this and it sounds like theyve communicated this to you that there is a sense of buildings that have mixed use, commercial on the ground floor but has residential above and that are basically registering as a commercial service and so getting inadequate service for the people who lou there and as a ly may be engaging if Illegal Dumping because they dont have anywhere to put their trash. Right. So you said theres sort of a growing understanding of that and there might be an opportunity for a longerterm solution or a way to address that. How are we planning to go about doing that, specifically. And thats what were kind of looking at right now. So i think one of the loopholes of this system that we have in place right now, when we say when be mandate services with no services, we default them to describe to a minimal level of service and minimal level of service for a residential properties, which are strictly singlefamily homes or multifamily dwellings, which is apartment, such as apartments, there is a specific minimum requirement thats set by the rate hearing which is set by the department of public works, i believe, through their rate hearing process. And we default to that. For commercial properties, there is a set minimum, but all they need to do is meet that minimum requirement and if its not a requirement from the city. In the cases of mixeduse building, we realize that when you have a mixeduse building, a commercial property and on top of that, they have either apartment complexes and then they would not recology would allow them to link accounts with the commercial and residential and they will be subject to a commercial rate. I think thats one of the things we have to look into because i personally dont know the history of how that happened. And i think that seems to be the case. And so, we were trying to figure out a shortterm solution, whether or not we have ways to mandate these properties with residential buildings to subscribe to the level of service that normally what they would normally be required for the residential apartment complexes. I think we wanted to make sure that we are taking evidencebased approach. So were collecting a lot of data. So when we were approached for the fortunate issue, we are looking at all of the addresses that are allegedly having these issues and looking at case by case to see wha what the proper level of service would be. Im imagining this would be the case in the tenderloin and not having data for tenderloin, i cant speak to it specifically, but lets say that we come up with some formula to say, oh, you have four units and you need to increase your service to that level. But a lot of these places dont have the theyre not structurally equipped to hold these increase their bins and weve realized that there is a program with the department of environment where if they have been waived to have no compost bins or recycling bins and a lot of these cases were, i think, approved because they didnt have space issues. So we needed to kind of look deeper into that. So through our work group, thats something that were heavily looking into. And so i think thats all i have for you at this point. And the sro buildings, i know, have been a particular issue what sort of service is required there. Yeah, thats another thing with the sro. Sro is considered a commercial building and not a residential. So what would make, i think, our job a lot easier is if there was a policy, set policy standard, you know, through the ratehearing process. If we redefine sros and they are required to have a certain level of Garbage Service, then it will make our job easier to mandate. But because thats not set in place, what we have to do is we have to work with these cases, casebycase individually and well have to have our investigator go out there and correct the assessment and work with recology and see what will be the adequate Service Level based on their history and then we will also have to look at space issues and see whether they can accommodate it. We cant have a solution if its not practical for them. Thank you, appreciate it. So our last presenter, we have jorge rebus from oawd. I have a short power point. Good morning, supervisors. Im with the office of economic and Workforce Development and im here to talk briefly about our Pilot Program. This Pilot Program is administered in partnership with the fixit team. We have received funding for the past two fiscal years. We normally solicit proposals to a former rfp process which our Community Base will respond to that rfp and make those awards. The mayors fixit team coordinates closely with the cbo that receive that award and the smart trash can company, most cases have been big valley and recology and related departments. They administer between the city and cbo. So the first time we received funding was in 1819. As you can see, we highlighted that it was an investment of a little over 160,000 which allowed us to pay for the installment and first year lease of 49 cans. Four will be installed this year. You can see the list that were awarded with those resources. And in 1920, we received more resources. They added back 460. The 410 will allow us to install 56 cans and pay for the secondyear lease of the previously funded trash cans. And with the addback, well be able to pay for the installment of the first year of 52 new cans. We recently made awards for those resources and below are listed the cbos that were awarded. Most of the time, the awardees have been cbds, but we are working with them closely with two merchant associations and actually, the north beach citizens in north beach to help install these big valley trash cans. Here are some preliminary findings. The data sources, 311 information, working closely with our fixit team, as you can see, the locations where these cans have been installed, weve seen a reduction in calls for overflowing of trash cans or the elimination of calls completely for service at those sites. Some things to highlight in the tenderloin cbd, big bellies, over the past 17 months, close to 20,000 gallons of water have been sorry, trash has been collected and the average volume is about 231 gallons a month. And the highest performing is turk and jones. And just quickly, some observations, highlights, we are noticing we need a strong communitybased partner. In this particular model, it has the capacity to operate and work very closely with the big Valley Company to maintain those trash cans. And the other lesson, we need ongoing funding to continue this pilot. The funding right now allows for the installation in one or twoyear lease. Leasely normally go one or two years and weve invited some of the cbds to share their underground experiences and ongoing maintenance and i they e here if you have particular questions. Thats it for me today and im available for questions, as well. So lets open up this up for Public Comment. I will remind people that Public Comment is two minutes. If you have written remarks, leave them with the clerk and we ask people try to avoid repetition to previous statements and you should not applaud or boo for things that you like or dont like. Good morning, and thank you for calling this hearing. Thank you supervisor for acknowledging the work that all of the workers do everyday to keep our districts clean. Its tough to see in the media, you know, all of the criticism and they work hard so thank you for that acknowledgement. I was asked to come and talk about the big bellies in particular. Quick history, back in 2013, some of our staff did research into best practises on how to keep our districts cleaner, particularly around trash management and garbage receptacles. Big belly rised to the top. So we did a pilot in 2016 with five cans. And we received incredible feedback, positive feedback from our businesses. The locks, we had to change them bicycle locks and theyre stealing our cigarette containers for some reason, the cigarettes and containers and we chained those down and thats helped. So you get a 30second warning, but we ask that you use that time to wrap up so that when the final buzzer goes, youre ready. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. We where picking up trash from city cans and we were looking at solutions for that. We also noticed that a lot of folks are pul pilfering out of y cans. So in 2017, we decided after some research to go ahead and invest in big belly cans so we did a pilot of nine cans at that particular time and we received very positive feedback from the community. The units are contained. What we like, they are pilfer proof as well as leak proof. We had a problem of staining around city cans. What eve learne weve learned, l dig and there will be coffee cups or soda cups and theyll empty them out. In the big bellies, we noticed theyre cleaner because theres to leakage or opportunity to do that. Theyre smart. Weve talked about that, about picking them up when theyre full or becoming full. And because weve had some good positive feedback, we expanded the number of cans in the neighborhood to 22. We installed 13 more as a result of the grants and in apri in ap. We had one taken out by a car and it was destroyed by a driver. We have had some challenges with maintenance issues. Vandalism such as graffiti which is not a big deal because we have teams to take care of it. Weve had breaking locks and we replaced the locks. We had one of the solar panels stolen. So theyre not Maintenance Free but weve been able to handle that and we appreciate the citys efforts in looking at this. We think this is a good model. Thank you, next speaker. Good afternoon. Im the executive director of the Community Benefit district. As my colleagues have spoken, the benefits of the big bellies in japan town has been great and weve been working closely with dpw, recology. I hope to continue that from here on out. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Im Garrett Mitchell and i run the clean and say program. I first want to say thank you to supervisor hainey and to recology for being good partners to get this implemented, as well as the fixit team. I just want to show my support for these cans. I think the two most important issues that we faced was overflow. Theres a presentation by public works that provided some Service Staff on calls to 311. One of the things not on this is the amount of overflow stats that cbds collect. Our data does not go into the 311 system. We end up topping trash cans everyday and that doesnt go to the city data. So these big bellies allow us to be able to have a secure receptacle thats not being able to be broken into. One of the other things, i know the supervisor mentioned dumpster locks and i tweeted out a picture yesterday of someone who broke into a dumpster and littered the sidewalk with trash. One of the issues is recolgoy comes and cant collect the crash. It would be great for a requirement for commercial buildings to have locks on dumpsters. Theres not enough staff to perform that enforcement. We can provide that information to the customer, but without an enforcement mechanism, theres not any way to make them change. Thats all. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Good morning, supervisors. Im tracy everwine, on behalf of thive vic cbd. I wanted to say on the matter of cans, the big bellies have been the most transformative thing for our district. We need cans that do not leak, that are much lets easy to break into and we really appreciate the curb appeal of the big bellies we admire union square cbds program to secure sponsorships on the cans. So we hope to do more of that to afford more cans Going Forward, but right now, they have our logo emblazenned on them and helps to enhance the look of the district overall. We have less than 20 cans both in midmarket and civic center. We have the mayors fixit team and the Community Challenge team. So thank you very much and we hope you will continue your support so we can have more in the future years and we are also taking on much of the maintenance of the cans and budgeting for that annually. With regard to large debris, we need exces access to faster picp and dropoff points. Its important to get mattresses off our streets and thick thingd as weapons or things to break into cars or homes. Thank you for your support. Thank you. Next speaker. Theres someone named frank picking up city cans and we appreciate our City Partners and we especially applaud the efforts of recology for the efforts. Thank you for the new toters. Were excited to hear the public works is working on a new city can but we would urge public works to make it a design requirement to prevent trash being pulled out of the cans. We spent a lot of the resources picking up trash two times or three times as people pull the trash out of the cans and spread it around. Thats one of the things people like the most is theyre fully enclosed and tamper proofed. They have been respected under incredibly difficult circumstances with minimal vandalism so far and i would note that although it is true the lease terms on the initial few cans were 200 a month, in negotiations about rolling out a larger quantity, were discussing numbers closer to half that amount and i think there is space as we lease more cans to get a much better deal. We look forward to working with recology to think about tools to integrate our big bellies with their systems. There are related garbage collection fees and the garbage men were happy they didnt have to leave the curb site to withdraw with the nearly empty trash cans and the Billing Office wasnt particularly upset either. They were flexible. However, eight months later, it was adopted citywide with the practise on the peninsula and the garbage bill returned to the normal rate, unfortunately. I wanted to comment that there are tons of mailboxes that can translate into trash receptacles with intrusion and should i carry advertisement. They neednt look so dumpy. They have that in vienna, for example. Ive already expressed my views regarding Public Access to something ive requested, the periodic placement of debris boxes and neighborhoods on a rotating bases, free of charge for public use to the neighborhoods. Because when people place Household Items such as sofas in front of their property, the cushions often end up in the underpasses, for example, going into the individual household. Also, is it for the state to shift deposit returns on recyclables such as bottles away from consumers and towards recyclables to subsidize the costs since the bottles have little recyclable value. So it would serve as an added inu incentive. Added incentive. Any other people like to speak . Seeing none, public item is closed. Thank you, chair and supervisor and thank you to all of the departments who are here and presented and for your hard work and to recology, as well. I want to acknowledge all of the cbds who are here for your incredible work and for sharing what youre seeing on the ground. Youre seeing firsthand. There were potential issues that there have been concerns related to them and i think they should take them in terms of how we make policy in making sure we are continuing to extend those in areas where theres a high need. I want to reiterate a couple things in closing. I want to thank honey m mahogany in pulling this together. I believe we need a clear plan of action and more standardized policies when it comes to city cans. It does not make sense to me that we take away public trash cans and pull them out based on requests and in some cases, pulling them and pulling out and back and forth multiple times over the course of a few years. This is unpredictable for residentingresidents and busine. These are public goods and we need to make sure people have the opportunity to do the right thing and throw their items away in trash in high traffic areas where theres people Walking Around in my district and im sure in parts of district eight, we should have many more public cans in my area. I would like to see them closer to every corner. We need trash cans that work and both the cement cans and metal renaissance cans are working and overflowing and we have access to technology that will help, but also in highneeds areas, we need entirely different can. We either need to fortify them strongly or we need big belly style containment cans or we need this new design and need it sooner than ten years from now. We also need to expand the recology bins to areas where we have the needs and i appreciate the commitment for the thousand and that will be very much welcomed by folks. I hope we can extend that to the black bins, as well. Im looking forward to more solutions for dumpsters, because, obviously, what is happening out there right now is not working. And then lastly, a way to collect and create clear policies around regulation and enforcement of adequate trash pickup requirements for buildings similar to how were being proactive about the type of cans out there is we should be proactive around Illegal Dumping, making sure people have adequate service and making sure when there is regular, Illegal Dumping, were following up, doing enforcement and tracking whos doing that and appreciating the folks from public folks sharing they have a particular attention to this issue of mixeduse buildings with commercial and residential. With that, trash has been a problem for not a problem, but a reality for a long time and i think i hope we can continue to be innovative, to iterate, to be smarter because i can speak to the realities in the district that i represent. This is a huge issue and a huge concern and affects peoples quality of life and you all know that because you live this everyday and so whatever we can do to be preventative, to be proactive and to Work Together to address these challenges, i hope we can do that. So thank you all for being a part of this hearing and thank you to the committee for hosting it. Anything else. Thank you, supervisor, for calling this hearing. Its very needed and very important and, you know, obviously, its clear to this committee, i believe, that this big belly trash cans work and i want to thank everybody for coming out and letting us know how theyre working in your cbd. I want to say that i dont think we should be investing in trash cans going in the city that dont work. That we dont take a look at making sure we are investing in either the pell cans or the big belly cans. Weve heard the evidence that they work. And its one of the reasons why half the pellcans in the city are in my district because i know they work and i dont want cans that can be easily pilfered where we have trash strewn about our streets. If theres evidence out there that works, thats what we should invest in. Thank you for calling the hearing and thank you everyone who came to testify. I think we learned a lot and hopefully the investments we make Going Forward reflect what we heard today. Thank you, vice chair. Is it your desire we continue this or file it . Have it heard and filed . Yes. I move that we do that and take that without objection. Mr. Clerk, do we have any more items before us today . No further business. Well, then we are adjourned. Thank you. Hi. Welcome to San Francisco. Stay safe and exploring how you can stay in your home safely after an earthquake. Lets look at common earthquake myths. We are here at the urban center on Mission Street in San Francisco. We have 3 guest today. We have david constructional engineer and bill harvey. I want to talk about urban myths. What do you think about earthquakes, can you tell if they are coming in advance . Hes sleeping during those earthquakes . Have you noticed him take any special . No. He sleeps right through them. There is no truth that im aware of with harvey that dogs are aware of an impending earthquake. You hear the myth all the time. Suppose the dog helps you get up, is it going to help you do something i hear they are aware of small vibrations. But yes, i read extensively that dogs cannot realize earthquakes. Today is a spectacular day in San Francisco and sometimes people would say this is earthquake weather. Is this earthquake weather . No. Not that i have heard of. No such thing. There is no such thing. We are talking about the weather in a daily or weekly cycle. There is no relationship. I have heard its hot or cold weather or rain. Im not sure which is the myth. How about time of day . Yes. It happens when its least convenient. When it happens people say we were lucky and when they dont. Its terrible timing. Its never a good time for an earthquake. But we are going to have one. How about the ground swallowing people into the ground . Like the earth that collapsed . Its not like the tv shows. The earth does move and it bumps up and you get a ground fracture but its not something that opens up and sucks you up into haddes. Its not going anywhere. We are going to have a lot of damage, but this myth that california is going to the ocean is not real. Southern california is moving north. Its coming up from the south to the north. You would have to invest the million year cycle, not weeks or years. Maybe millions of years from now, part of los angeles will be in the bay area. For better or worse. Yes. This is a tough question. Those other ones werent tough. This is a really easy challenge. Are the smaller ones less stress . Yes. The amount released in small earthquakes is that they are so small in you need many of those. I think would you probably have to have maybe hundreds of magnitude earthquakes of 4. 7. So small earthquakes are not making our lives better in the future . Not anyway that you can count on. I have heard that buildings in San Francisco are on rollers and isolated . Its not true. Its a conventional Foundation Like almost all the circumstances buildings in San Francisco. The transamerica was built way before. Its a pretty conventional foundation design. I have heard about this thing called the triangle of life and up you are supposed to go to the edge of your bed to save yourself. Is there anything of value to that . Yes, if you are in your room. You should drop, cover and hold onto something. If you are in school, same thing, kitchen same thing. If you happen to be in your bed, and you rollover your bed, its not a bad place to be. The reality is when we have a major earthquake the ground shaking so pronounced that you are not going to be able to get up and go anywhere. You are pretty much staying where you are when that earthquake hits. You are not going to be able to stand up and run with gravity. You want to get under the door frame but you are not moving to great distances. Where can i buy a Richter Scale . Mr. Richter is selling it. We are going to put a plug in for cold hardware. They are not available. Its a rather complex. In fact we dont even use the Richter Scale anymore. We use a moment magnitude. The Richter Scale was early technology. Probably a myth that i hear most often is my building is just fine in the loma prieta earthquake so everything is fine. Is that true . Loma prieta was different. The ground acceleration here was quite moderate and the duration was moderate. So anyone that believes they survived a big earthquake and their building has been tested is sadly mistaken. We are planning for the bigger earthquake closer to San Francisco and a fault totally independent. Much stronger than the loma prieta earthquake. So people who were here in 89 they should say 3 times as strong and twice as long and that will give them more of an occasion of the earthquake we would have. 10 percent isnt really the threshold of damage. When you triple it you cross that line. Its much more damage in earthquake. I want to thank you, harvey, thanks pat for valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. The first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the Mission Neighborhood extending from market to Mission Street. It is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. From 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. The mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m. T. A. To put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four months time. [ ] valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in San Francisco. It has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. We promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. Valencia is our mission fits our mission perfectly. Our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. Whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. I have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. During that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. We have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber taking folks to concerts at night. One of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. The most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. We kept all the passengers the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. Most people arent actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. Half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6 00 p. M. , so could be used for fiveminute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. The five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be. One of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. We worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. On this lot, there are a few schools. All these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. To address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings railings that channel channeled a designated crossing plane. We had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons . I do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. We have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the rightofway so they can cross the roadway. This is probably one of the most unique features. During the planning phase, the m. T. A. Came out with three alternatives for the long term project. One is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. A twoway bikeway. The third option is a Center Running twoway bikeway, c. Would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. Earlier, there werent any enter lane designs in San Francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for San Francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesnt exist already. With all three concepts for valencias longterm improvement , theres a number of tradeoffs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal infrastructure. When he think about extending this pilot or this still this design, theres a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. The pilot is great. It is a nobrainer. It is also a teaser for us. Once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. What were trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. The Pilot Project is one of our first major improvements. We will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. This fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. By spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about longterm improvements. I appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the Community Workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. We want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. Theres a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. We will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [ ] hello, my name is jamie harper. In this episode, we are featuring the park locations in your very own backyard. This is your chance to find your heart in San Francisco with someone special. Golden gate parks largest body of water is this lake, a popular spot for strolling and paddling around in boats, which can be rented. Created in 1893, it was designed foreboding and for boating. It is named for the wild strawberries that once flores. A pleasant trail follows the perimeter past huntington falls, 110 foot waterfall. Two bridges connect the trail to the island. The climb to the hills summit, the highest point in Golden Gate Park at more than four hundred feet. You can get quinces of the western side of the city through glimpes of the western side of city through a thick trees. The lake is ada accessible. It has a peaceful atmosphere where you can enjoy a warm day. Walk along the lake and watched many ducks, and swans, and seagulls. It is a tranquil spot to stroll, enjoy each others company, and sail away. Many couples come here to take a ride around the lake, floating under the bridges, past the pavilion and waterfall. For a quiet getaway, it makes for a memorable and magical experience. Located on 19th avenue, this grove is the place to wear your hiking boots, bring your family, and bring the dog because it has so much to offer you and your loved ones. It is a truly hidden gem in the city. The part is rich with eucalyptus trees. Long paths allow you to meander, perfect for dog walking in a wooded environment. I enjoy this base and the history behind it. The diversity that exists in such an urban city, the concrete, the streets, cars, we have this oasis of a natural environment. It reminds us of what San Francisco initially was. This is a section for dogs and plenty of parking. Transit is available to get you there easily. And the part is ada park is ada accessible. There is also a natural lake. This is your chance to stroll and let the kids run free. It also has many birds to watch. It is the place to find some solitude from the city and appreciate what you share with a wonderful breath of fresh air. , an experienced this park and enjoy the peoples, picnics, and sunshine. This is a lovely place to take a stroll with your loved one hand in hand. Located in the middle of Pacific Heights on top of a hill, Lafayette Park offers a great square a of a peaceful beauty. Large trees border greenery. It features tables and benches, a playground, restaurants, and tennis courts. There are plenty of areas for football, frisbee, and picnics. It is very much a couples part and there are a multitude of experiences you can have together. Bring your dog and watch the mean go with the community or just picnic at one of the many tables and enjoy all of the park has to offer. Many couples find this is the Perfect Place to put down a blanket and soak up the sun. It is a majestic place you can share with someone you cherish. It is located along the 1 and 10 buses and is accessed from the 47 and 90 buses. It is ada accessible. For more information about reserving one of these locations, call 8315500. This number is best for special events, weddings, picnics, and the county fair building. For any athletic fields and neighborhood parks, 8315510. You can also write us. Or walking in and say hello at old lock cabin, Golden Gate Park. And of course you can find more information and reach us at sfrecpark. Org. [ ] at San Francisco animal care and control, we care for all animals, any species. We get about 10,000 a year. They can be injured, lost, victims of abuse or violence, and we take them all in and we care for them. I felt really passionate about getting the spca a new building. I had personally seen first hand when my family was searching for our first rescue dog what conditions a lot of the animals and the staff from a. C. C. Where working in. We were really excited to be moving into this new shelter. Our current Physical Plant is in terrible shape. I like to describe it as the building is working against us rather than for us. This shelter was put together in six months, 30 years ago, in a building that is now 80 years old. Our staff and our volunteers are amazing and wonderful, and they are warm, but the space makes it difficult for people to connect with the pets because we have families coming into adopt, we have families surrendering their animals, people looking for their lost dogs, and they are all crammed together in a very small, emotionally fraught space our heating and ventilation system is very poor. Right now, our shelter is not capable of good ventilation to prevent the spread of disease. We have no security features. Our veterinary suite is cramped into one room. We can only perform one procedure at a time. One of the main Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina is people were reluctant to evacuate. If they were fearing that their pets were going to be left behind and not cared for. In the event of an earthquake , we need to be off the grid for 72 hours. It is unlikely that we would be able to fulfil our mission to take in domestic pets that need to be temporary looked at while parents are out of their home. In a new building, we will be able to meet those earthquake standards. [ ] we are standing at the site of the future animal care and control facility. That is the beautiful brick building you see in the background behind me. This building is part of the Showplace Square Historic District which is a collection of brick warehouses and factories that was built in the late 19th century. This was built in 1893 as the original coalfired power plant for the first street car in San Francisco and has been owned and operated by munimobile ever since. We chose this building for the project for a number of reasons. One is we are not far from the existing animal care and control facility, San Francisco spca is nearby, and it is a nice nexus to have in the center of the city. [ ] what we are doing is we are going seismic upgrading the building. It is un and unreinforced masonry building. We are going to be installing floor prate floor plates across the space to put in all of the animal housing. We will be able to get our give our animals adequate space. We will also be separating our small animals into different rooms. Right now we have reptiles and bunnies and birds, everyone all crammed in together. The tricky part of it is to find open space in this existing urban environment. We did that by inserting an open air courtyard, and also using the roof deck for another dog in small animal run. [ ] three, two, one [cheering] [cheers and applause] when the new a. C. C. Opens and two years, it will be incredible and we will finally have the worldclass facility that our Animal Shelter needs in the city hi, im lawrence corn field. Welcome to building San Francisco. We have a special series, stay safe. Were looking at earthquake issues. And today were going to be talking with a residential Building Owner about what residential Building Owners and tenants can and should do before earthquakes and after earthquakes. Were here at this wonderful spur exhibit on Mission Street in San Francisco and i have with me today my good friend george. Thanks for joining me, george. And george has for a long time owned Residential Property here in San Francisco. And we want to talk about apartment buildings and what the owners responsibilities might be and what they expect their tenants to do. And lets start by talking a little bit about what owners can do before an earthquake and then maybe after an earthquake. Well, the first thing, lawrence, would be to get together with your tenants and see if they have earthquake insurance or any renters insurance in place because thats going to be key to protecting them in the event of a quake. And renters insurance, there are two kinds of insurance. Renters insurance coffers damage to goods and content and so forth. Earthquake insurance is a separate policy you get after you get renters insurance through the california earthquake authority, very inexpensive. And it helps owners and it helps tenants because it gives relocation costs and it pays their rent. This is a huge impact on Building Owners. Its huge, it really is. You know, a lot of owners dont realize that, you know, when there is an earthquake, their money flow is going to stop. How are they going to pay their mortgages, how are they going to pay their other bills, how are they going to live . What else can Property Owners do in Residential Rental housing before an earthquake . Well, the first thing you want to do is get your property assessed. Find out what the geology is at your site. Get an expert in to look at structural and nonstructural losses. The structural losses, a lot of times, arent going to be that bad if you prepare. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Get in there and get your property assessed and figure it out. So, what is a nonstructural issue that might cause losses . Well, you know, pipes, for instance. Pipes will whip around during an earthquake. And if theyre anchored in more numerous locations, that whipping wont cause a breakage that will cause a flood. Ive heard water damage is a major, major problem after earthquakes actually. It is. Thats one of the big things. A lot of things falling over, ceilings collapsing. But all of this can be prevented by an expert coming in and assessing where those problem areas and often the fixes are really, really cheap. Who do you call when you want to have that kind of assessment or evaluation done . The Structural Engineering community is great. We have the Structural Engineers association of Northern California right here in San Francisco. Theyre a wealth of information and resources. What kinds of things might you encourage tenants to do besides simply get tenants renters insurance and earthquake insurance, what else do you think tenants should do . I think its really important to know if they happen to be in the building where is the safest place for them to go when the shaking starts. If theyre out of the building, whats their continuity plan for connecting with family . They should give their Emergency Contact information to their resident manager so that the resident manager knows how to get in touch. And have emergency supplies on hand. The tenants should be responsible to have their extra water and flashlights and bandages and know how to use a toilet when theres no sewage and water flows down. And the owners of the building should be proactive in that regard as well. So, george, thank you so much for joining us. That was really great. And thanks to spur for hosting us here in this wonderful exhibit. And thank you for joining us to 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 [inaudible] im a illustrator by day and a [inaudible] composition teacher. Right now im practice by transscribing [inaudible] that is what i have been doing the past couple years, teaching myself. California college of the arts, illustration there has really great teachers. Robert hunt, vance story taught me a lot. What im working on is a portfolio [inaudible] riding a donkey unicorn in the process. My name is dawn richardson and musician, drummer and drum teacher. I guess i would say i started my professional path quh i started playing in bands and teaching drum lesson when i was in college. They were definitely not that many women that would do what is doing. In 198 8 i graduated from cal state los ang and studied mostly classical percussion and Music Education but at the same time i was in hollywood so played at night in rock bands so was doing two different things. The reason im [inaudible] the people. There is a extremely vibrant Art Community especially arounds the red poppy art house [inaudible] as a artist in the past 2 or 3 years there is a event called the [inaudible] every 3 months a free art Music Festival that i usually play at and just met so many people. I was teaching a little bit and doing odd jobs like waitressing and going at night and playing in bands and meeting a lot of people. I chss in ban that had cool break jz get parts on tv shows or things like that. A friend of mine, we had mutual friends that got signed to a record deal in San Francisco called 4 nonblaunds and i addition frd the bands and moved to the bay area. I think things are different now than 30 years ago, the World Evolved a lot. It could be a challenge but have to know how to negotiate everything and sometimeatize is [inaudible] it was great to get to a point where i was just treated like another one of the people, a musician not a female musician and that is always what [inaudible] you dont hear stuff on the radio [inaudible] i need to write music [inaudible] be more conscious in their decisions and somehow make that poetic so they will be convinced. I think i will do that. [singing in backgrounds] drawing and writing music since i was a really little kid and fortunate enough to have a good education in art and parentss who supported me. I hope my life will continue to allow me to do both. For me now having all male, female girls, boys students it shows the world has changed a lot and people areope toon open to a lot more than they were in the past. You can get a deep satisfaction from responding a lot of year practicing in one thing and becoming really good at something. Sometimes i think that it is better to get lost. You have to practice and become good at what you do, so if you have everything together then go out in the world and do what you do and then i think people weal accept that. The Health Services system board will now come to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] madam secretary, roll call, please. [roll call]