Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Govt Audits And Oversight Committee 20240713

Peskin. Ill just call you. Supervisor preston. Just one question regarding some shelters that are not 24 hours, so, for example, in my district the first friendship emergency family shelter where folks have to leave at 7 00 in the morning i know that theres other shelters that dont operate 24 hours. And im curious if theres been any effort underway under the circumstances to try to have shelters that are less than 24 hours to be a resource during the day as well . Yes. Thank you for that question. I couldnt have scripted this discussion any better. We are working on that and trying to get all shelters that are currently not open 24 hours, including first friendship, to stay open and to provide three meals a day. So thats in the process and i dont know the status of that, but thats our intention is that all shelters stay open 24 7 and theres only a few that do not and so it shouldnt be too big of a lift. Thank you. President yee okay, i think that is it. Thank you very much,. Thank you very much. Clerk next dr. Odogon if you could come up and the question that we were asking for all of the Department Leaders is whether or not there is any programs that youre working on that havent been publicly been mentioned so that were aware of as we plan our legislative agenda and work with our constituents and our offices. So in my current role as the Health Officer good evening, i am the Health Officer of San Francisco. So in my current role as Health Officer, i have been thinking primarily strategically at a Population Health level and working with other Health Officers and other counties, studying what is happening in other countries. Learning from the experts that we have here in the bay area, to understand what strategies were going to do moving forward. And in terms of where were going, there was a question that was asked earlier about what can you do. The measures that we need to do are by our regular standards very drastic. And so the population is going to need the support, the social support, to really be able to endure endure everything that were going through. I wanted to just describe to you really briefly where the evolution of where we got to, and where we are today. Initially we started with travel restrictions to prevent introduction. As cases started coming, we focused on isolating cases and quarantine contacts. That body is called containment. Its an important strategy and a lot of what you hear about getting people into housing for isolation and quarantine, its absolutely critical. Super time intensive. And it has been limited by testing. The third one, the third area, is what people normally call mitigation and focusing on social distancing involving schools and workplaces and social gatherings. In the last few days, we had really been thinking and seeing what is happening in italy and really trying to understand what is the key strategy that we needed to implement so that we dont become what is happening in santa clara, and the Health Officer in santa clara said to us, you are a week ahead of us. You dont want to be where were at now a week from now. And just watching the explosion of this virus. And so a key strategy is to have people stay at home so they do not become exposed. And you reduce you reduce exposure except when you have to go out for essential services. And for us to be able to support that strategy it took it took we worked with the attorneys across the bay area and the idea is that how we keep people in place but have enough of the economy running that supports essential services so people can stay home safely and not have to go out and get exposed and to expose other people. So thats probably i would say that the things that were thinking moving forward is really thinking about how do we strengthen what were doing. What are the areas that we got wrong that we need to adjust. And so the continuing support that we have from you for supporting social services and social infrastructure is going to be really be critical. And the other thing that i want to point out is that i want to just share one more thing and that is one thing that i learned from sunday night that just now is stuck in my head is that hours matter. This virus, the way that it moves, is explosive. To give you an idea of how explosive this virus is, is that we have an iceberg. At the very top of the iceberg are the people that die. And then we have the people who are in the i. C. U. And then you have this iceberg that you cannot see. And we were not able to see any part of this iceberg because of our testing debacle that happened in the country. Thats increasing, which is great, but that iceberg that we cannot see is doubling every six days. That iceberg that we cannot see is doubling every six days. That means that its just going to explode like this and thats why the measures that were taking while they seem drastic its our only hope of trying to freeze that from growing any further so that people can people who are infected can recover. So that means how we move happens in days. Thats it. Sorry. President yee supervisor peskin. With the president s indulgence, doctor, do you think that were being aggressive enough . And what other steps would you suggest to this government that we take that were not taking now, sir . So youre asking a really good question. I would say that were in our approach, were close to what is happening in europe. Except that theyre being more restrictive on enforcement of shelter in place orders is my understanding. Okay, so lets talk about transportation. I am very concerned that the bay area regional Transportation System,bart, is moving a lot of nonessential people around this region. Not people who have to go three stops on the 38 or the 30 or name your bus line the 5. But people who actually do not need to move around the region, who are nonessential. Do you have a comment on that . Youre slielg absolutely rig. I would say that the Transportation System is a vulnerability, and to function we need the Transportation Systems to just get the essential workers here. But your point is absolutely correct. So if you had advice to the individual who is representing our local transportation property, the sfmta, who is sitting right there, what would your advice be . I would discourage people from doing nonessential travel, including local nonessential travel. How would you suggest that . Thats a good question. I would have to sit down and think a little more carefully about how wed do Something Like that. How would you suggest that for bart . With generally other than nurses, doctors and First Responders, does not need to operate at all. How would you suggest that . You know, for me i can think about it conceptually and id have to sit down with the City Attorneys and really understand the attorneys dont run this government and they just give us advice. I agree, i agree. But i would have to think about that. I know i can tell you what is happening in other countries. Yeah, what do they do in other countries . Theyre tracking your cellphone so they know when you move around, they know who you are and where you are, and you cant you cant move into certain spaces unless youve been cleared so they have a whole surveillance infrastructure electronic surveillance infrastructure to really monitor the movement of people. I know i had heard that somebody was telling me in france when somebody was on before they would leave their home, this is not verified and just told to me theyd have to put online why they were leaving and print something out and when theyre out and about they have to show police this is why im out on the street and im not staying home. So the chief Health Officer, what recommendations we dont do that in america. That in amer i know. But because theres a hugh distance between i agree. With that kind of invasion and the stuff that im talking about which is stuff that we can control. We can control mune and we canf arguably control bart. So theres a huge distance their cellphones that we do notd do and will not accept in our or culture. Wha and what you are recommending. Can you bring thahat together quickly now, sir. Hat together i would say the key issue is for us to minimize, to the extent possible, nonessential travel, including locally and we dont have a campaign to do that right now. Becausbecause what happens is tt this is so massive, so massive, that a lot of the enforcement happens from the peer pressure and they see what other people are doing. So at this moment, even for this order, we dont have a Massive Campaign yet to really, really enforce how important it is to not be out. As the chief Health Official of this town, who is not dr. Colfax, how are you relaying that to the mayor, to other officials in this town with the urgency that youre expressing to the elected body of San Francisco right now . Thats a great question. Today has been spent mitigating and trying to understand how the order applies or doesnt apply to them. You have gone through three steps we should take as a city and what would the three steps be . At this moment today, i would not do more than were doing today until because im being honest with you. Because i think, like i said, this started sunday morning as we started looking at putting everything together and it happened so fast. Started on january 28th and santa clara blew up and god bless you and your five colleagues and that precipitated to mayors. And we will probably in a few minutes actually take action to ratify our mayors order. But what three steps or one step or two steps, how would you step this up if you want to flatten the curve . Again, ilets say you wont w transport, we would have to figure out how to support people in place. If people cant get around, how will we support people . We need transportation so essential workers are able to move around. Thats one area. The other area that was mentioned earlier and i will tell you what i lose sleep over, i feel that we may be able to this broad measure may able to mitigate infection among the general population who is able to sheltener place, understand the issues, et cetera. And where i start losing sleep is that even if everyone there did a great job, our vulnerabilities are, again, we already know theyll be our condegrecongregate living and wn have an explosion in those populations. So those are areas i believe we need a lot more work in. But doctor, isnt our Transportation System congregate living . Its not congregate living. Again, to the extent that people separate in transportation ill just give you an idea, just because sometimes people dont understand this and this is from experts that study this. Is that its not just the contact its the contact rate, the distance and the duration. So, for example, in the models that have taken the covid, basically onethird or actually let me just put it to you this way. We cut up a pie into six pieces and two of those pieces, two out of six or onethird transmission occurs in the household. Because prolonged contact. And thats one of the reasons why congregate living is so critical. We know in sros, you have People Living in crowded conditions and multiple families in one room. Thats where infection can happen. Schools is onesixth and workplace is onesixth and the community in general, the community in large, when you put it together will be two pieces, two out of six or onethird. So its not it really depends on duration. Youre absolutely right about transportation. To the extent people are crowded, to the extent people send prolonged periods of time, the risk goes up. But if i hop on bart for a 20minute ride, thats different than living with somebody and being with them for hours or being in a restaurant where youre not just spending prolonged periods of time but youre doing a lot of exchange. So transportation is a vulnerability, but its also an essential infrastructure and well have to figure out how to tackle that one. So doctor, i will stop after this, and i dont want to be argue goargumentive, but you to, its exploding. Its not an airborne disease but a droplet disease and if i touch something and then improve touch my eye or my nose or my mouth, then i can get it. What im trying to talk to you about is the recommendations that you would make to the mayor, to this body or, actually, under state law in your absolute authority and weirdly enough and ive never had this conversation with anybody who has the powers that you actually personally have. There are no greater powers that a chief Health Officer has under state law. You actually dont have to come to us. You dont have to go to the mayor. These powers are actually held by you personally. So what i am asking you is what steps would you take if you tell jeff tumlin that you have to do this, as a matter of law, he has to do it whenever you issue the order. You are the most important individual person in this town as a Health Official. So the questions that im asking you are not arbitrary. Theyre not capricious, but theyre the most important questions that could be asked in public, in this town, at this time, noting that were doing much better than santa clara and much better than any other neighboring county. So let me tell you what ill try to explain this to you, but i spent a huge amount of time thinking about this. And so this is just a little diagram i drew today. We are you can put it on the overhead. This is a little bit embarrassing. But we have pulled every lever. We have pulled every lever and one thing i didnt mention of the levers we pulled, what were doing is beyond mitigation. Its actually called a suppression strategy. Were not just trying to flatten the curve. The idea behind flattening the curve is, from some of the papers estimate up to 80 of the population will become infected, up to 80 . The question is, do you want that 80 to get infected in a short period of time now or do you want it to be flattened out . Thats the mitigation strategy, the flattenthecurve strategy youve been hearing about. What weve embarked on is called a suppression strategy and its more impressive than the mitigation strategy. Thats the fourth one you see here and were trying to get the reproductive number less than one. Why are we moving in that direction . Because theres so much uncertainty. We dont know. There is a role we know its definitely droplet spread, when youre close by, in fine aerosoles and we are assuming that with asymptomatic infection, when you have 100 people of the susceptible, thats like dropping a match and it may be only a few matches, but its dropping a match on gasoline because everybody is susceptible. We have to learn to do it better and faster. At least with the modeling papers are telling us, for us to be successful, we would have to do this for more than three weeks, going on into months. So the question that these papers ask is that how do we begin, if were successful in doing the suppression strategy, how do you take your foot off that accelerator . That means that we would have to have a Public Health infrastructure that is able to do these other strategies that other countries are doing and doing well because they have an army of people that do Contact Tracing and quarantine. We havour Public Health infraste is so small that we dont have enough to do syphilis contact investigation. So we are down to the bare bones in Public Health infrastructure. These other countries have invested in the Public Health infrastructure, so they have all of the people to do, all of the contact investigation and case isolation, contact investigation and quarantine in following everybody, because we know that containment strategy works and we need a modern Surveillance System. We would need to do massive testing. We would want to test as many people as we can so that we can identify whos infected so we can isolate them. So those two components, containment and Surveillance System is really critical. We dont have that right now. We would need investments of them. On that depressing note hold on, sorry. The thing is to realize if youre looking at south korea, singapore, they are countrying that are doing this. So it can be done. Its just that we have to have the will to invest in the Public Health infrastructure thats required to be able to pull back on a very aggressive strategy until a vaccine becomes available because thats what were waiting for and thats not coming for at least a year. Supervisor safaye . So i think you said a lot of what i wanted to ask for. It sounds like from everything, all of the resource and reading ive done, we are taking the most aggressive measures, probably, in the united states. As of today, yes. So we are taking the most aggressive measures and what ive heard you say is, you need a little bit more time to understand how much suppression is working, and reading also today that the cdc and, also, the federal government is encouraging more private testing to the point where we might have at some point the ability to do thousands of more tests. Can you talk a little bit about that . With all due respect, to supervisor peskin, its important to talk about transportation where that could lead and where we are, but theres been a conversation about tradeoffs and what that could mean in terms of essential employees being able to get to where they need to go that dont necessarily have access to automobiles, right . Right. I think thats something youre weighing, so could you talk about the testing and the tradeoffs in terms of allowing the suppression to take time . Yeah, so testing is going to be, in my mind, will be very, very critical, especially for people that have mild symptoms, because oftentimes right now, as you know, as dr. Colfax said earlier, our testing is being reserved for people at higher risk and oftentimes we tell people just stay home and recover. We dont know what they have. We want to know what they have. We want our Surveillance Systems to know we want to be able to tell that person who has a mild illness, you dont have covid, dont worry about it, get better, go back to work. But if you do have covid, we absolutely want you isolated and so this is really critical because thats where a lot of the infections are happening because people have mild illness. Theyre out and about and contaminating surfaces, infecting people and people dont realize theyre becoming infected from somebody because you cant tell when somebody has mild symptoms. One thing well be pushing for, our Public Health Surveillance System, we only receive at the Health Department positive tests. We dont receive all of the negative tests. So, for example, what they did in santa clara, they looked at the negative tests and they found that 11 people showing up with influenzalike illness, 11 of them tested positive. Thats a high number. We need to have a Surveillance System so we need to make testing reportable by law so i can tell you what proportion of ilis are covid because that lives us an important idea of what is happening. So testing is critical and what was the other one . It was about essential workers . The tradeoff in terms of further than what we do. Thats the other one that we really struggled with, but we know because of unaffordable housing in the city, the vast majority of our workforce lives outside of the city. And so, we need them. We need this army of workers here with us, whether theyre cleaning sros or whether theyre an epidemiologist. We need them and want them to get here safely and so the Public Transportation plays that important role. , including police, fire, Public Safety and all other Public Workers that have to commute here. Just based on the orders today in terms of the essential workers, theres more than just police, fire and others that are deemed essential. Correct. Theres a whole bevy of people that are essential workers that need access to Public Transportation. So what i would say, work wig the sfna, are there things we can do in terms of the drivers or the other workers that are there, kind of informing people as they go in whether it means ensuring people are doing social distancing . Are there other things we can do to manage our public Transportation System in a more healthy way . Youre absolutely right and i think the most important thing is going to be social distancing and environmental disinfection and educating everybody when they go in and out of transportation to actually, youll notice that i cleaned the platform before i put my books down. So its really developing a super awareness. I wont touch that. Developing a super awareness of how you can become infected and it has to go, also, into transportation, as well. I guess my point is a little bit more refined in the sense that because of your position and because of your direction and because of the directives that you can give, working with our bart board and with our sfmta, could you give specific instruction because we have a lot of essential workers that are still in the city that would be redeployed to help with this and also as a part of this containment strategy as people are getting on and off Public Transportation. Yeah. Im not sure what is there a specific intervention youre thinking about . Giving them the instructions on what to do and having additional people . Right now on a munibus, you only have the driver, for example. Does it make more sense to have an additional person on there to make sure people are doing the appropriate thing . Anything that adds to the effort, absolutely, and i think thats one of the challenges, is that, yes, when you sit down and resign when you sit down and resign a process, you will discover that, yes, we need more people to do those types of things. I havent sat down and thought about resigning transportation, but there are people that specialize in just those types of things. Theres scientists that are called implementation scientists and their sole mission is understanding the science of behavioral change. How do you understand how people interact to optimize the Behaviour Change that you want . And there is a team of implementation scientists at ucsf looking at these types of questions. The challenge that we have is that hours matter. And so this is where these things, where even though we have implementation scientists, well have them look at, for example, how to help people stay at home and what are the barriers and unable enablers tot home . How can we use evidence to do that . Unfortunately, if we dont work fast enough, it may help us a few months from now but not today. Besides that, is there something the sfmta and staff can do now, ensuring people arent sitting next to one another . Absolutely. Right now its going to be social distancing, disinfection, making hand sanitizers available and all of the real basic things and not asking people to push so, for example, ill give you an example, these doors right here, right, these doors should be open, right . You should at least have one door open so people can walk in and out without touching surfaces. If you have 500 people here, you have 500 people touching a common surface and you could have infected 500 people with one door. Isnt that muni . Thats my point. Thats my whole point. Up have to really sit down and design the system so that people are minimizing supervisor ronan heard my speech, minimizing contact with surfaces and so its not just my voluntary contact. Its designing the environment so that they dont have to make that decision, right . If a door is open, you dont have to push it. And if you have hundreds of people going through a door and a hundred people are pushing it, thats 100 exposed people. You have to take that mindset. I guess that would be my last thing, through the chair. But this is a lot of work. Everything that im describing is a lot of work, including the social distancing, having ads, having all of it resigned so that youre making it safe for essential workers to come to work. Thank you. So supervisor peskin . Thank you, president yee. On your example of the door, we walk into city hall and that door is closed and that one is using the same handle for this building. So everyone just echo that and Everyone Needs to be thinking about their workplace and thinga door or wearing a glove or washing your hands, thats absolutely essential. And i think obviously there are things like testing that we, as a body may not have access to. We made a big step yesterday in having folks shelter in place and probably the single biggest thing we can do is to consistentlily anly get the wor. I will say the mayor and folks who spoke at the press conference yesterday, i think, delivered a very clear and strong message. So i think there is good messages and some of the materials we share do that. And i guess its partly a comment and partly a question because im curious whats in the works on this. But we in this body, i think, are particularly connected to our constituents and have the ability to get the word out in substantial way. What i dont see happening more broadly in terms really getting the word out around the importance of all of the measures that youre talking about is robo calls, standardized emails coming from every department and every supervisor and frankly, everyone who ever ran for office in this town and whether they won or not, to their lists. And phone trees and phone banks. I mean a lot of the things that many of us did to get elected here in this body are the ability to reach out to thousands of people. Doing that, i think amber alert on the phones, i dont know if thats an option of getting forced communications to cell phones. We talk about buses and i agree with supervisor safaye of having someone on the bus to walk through the bus but signage. Instead of advertising product, lets put stuff up thats jarring and talks to people about these issues. So i think theres a huge amount we can do and i think it has to happen really quickly and i think the more our offices and certainly my office to invite you to if theres a campaign, a real robust campaign, im not aware of it. Were trying to do our part and all of us on this board are, but the sooner the better in terms of getting out the word in a more robust way. The laugh thing i want tthe lasa contrast to what some of the other speakers and particularly director roher spoke about, i think your point, if im not missing it, even if we do all of that right, even if we ramp up testing and even if folks follow the instructions that the mayor and department of Public Health and yourself gave to everyone yesterday, that we run the risk because of congregate living weighingsesituations, that it es again or emerges. And so thats a real disconnect, i think, to when we were hearing about the priorities here. Frankly, i think one of the things that seems to be being deprioritized so some extent is i mean, were moving folks one from congregate living situation to another one, maybe a better one, and we dont have a great plan around folks who are unhoused. And so, i wonder if you could just talk about your whether there is a disconnect between your view on that and other city leaders or if i may be mischaracterizing or misinterpreting the difference. So right now, i dont represent any policy option from the Health Department around that, wit but i can tell you whoa, whoa, whoa, youre not the Health Department. Youre accorded certain powers of state law. You are not the Health Department. You have certain, specific powers, sir. I agree, but i also work for the Health Department, but let me explain to you from a Public Health perspective, from a Public Health perspective, Housing First is the way that we think about how things should be. And so we feel that people in terms of dignity, equity and compassion should have access to dignified housing like every other human being and thats the Public Health ethic and thats the Public Health approach. I know it actually plays out ind the real world may not be that but thats how any Public Health practitioner would tell you, Housing First is our goal. And i would say and i know thats how the Health Department operates, just like we also work in the area of harm reduction. And i agree with you, just now speaking from a disease transmission perspective, i become concerned about shelters. I know, for example, with tuberculosis, which is airborne, historically people who are outdoors caught thank you bur s less than those in shelters. And to the extent people are housed in situations that reduces that, thats absolutely better from an Infectious Disease perspective, yes. If i could just follow up, though, on that last point. So what would be what is your recommendation regarding folks right now in congregate living situations . I mean, because what i was hearing earlier is that it is not the top priority to get them to the extent they can be in individual units. I mean, what were hearing is there may be in excess of Available Hotel rooms, frankly, or at least many. Yeah, so i guess theres probably ill tell you what i think the challenge may be and that is, so, for example, lets say you were exposed, ok, and you needed to get housing so that you can be quarantine, it would only last for 14 days. And i think thats part of the challenge, is that these places what were trying do is, were trying to interrupt transmission. So its great that all of these rooms are becoming available because i can just tell you, a few weeks ago, we were having trouble finding one. From our perspective, we need places for especially people who are positive, people who are symptomatic and you would like them to be in their own location with their own bathroom so theyre to the infecting anybody and that would be the ideal situation. Thats what we want. Thats why all of the effort went to that criteria. The problem is its temporary. If you have limited number, you have to move people in to finish their quarantine in 14, or they recover and have to move out because you need that space for other people who will be going in there. So its not a permanent solution. But theres a policy. Its only im telling you from an Infectious Disease perspective. But its only a limited number because we allow it to be, either because were not recruiting more units at a certain point or not exercising our city power or asking the governor to exercise his power to commandeer units. Theres no lack of vacant units in the city and county of San Francisco right now to house now, there are issues around some individuals fitness to live without supervision in separate units, but theres a heck of a coldfront of folks who could live in a unit like that. Youre right. And my frustration in hearing that we could do everything right and its that congregate Living Environment and folks who are homeless, where you still wouldnt be able to control future virus spread. It seems like that should be a top priority right now and im not laying this on you. Right. If your recommendation is that if those units are obtainable, right from a disease transmission perspective, youre absolutely are right. And i can just tell you, a few days ago, no one like, when we first embarked at looking for rooms, you know, the Hotel Occupancies were 90 and nobody would talk to us and werent return or phone call. Were iright now were in a dift situation where we have a lot more available to us because occupancy rates are a lot lower and now businesses are willing to work with us and so youre absolutely right. From my perspective so i think were moving into a world that didnt exist even a few days ago. So i think thats important. Thank you. I just want to, in conclusion, say that i think that we fortunately the number of the units is increasing and i appreciate the folks stepping you and making units available. The units are out there and hopefully folks will come forward voluntarily and if not, we need to figure out how to take those units and every hour and day matters in terms of disease transmission. So thank you so much for your work. Supervisor hainey. I know you have a huge amount of influence of what we do from a Health Perspective and i think what supervisor peskin was leaning into, we need you to intervene more than you are, i think, in this question of what is happening with the thousands of people on our streets and thousands of folks who are in and in our shelters. Earlier tonight, and this is the disconnect that supervisor peskin is pointing out, director roher stood up there and i said will we get people to hotels . He said thats not the priority because the Public Healths position is that people should be in congregate settings and people homeless, its to get them in congregate settings which seems to me, from your perspective, not what the department of Public Healths perspective is and whoever we have to get clarity here, is that for people who are currently homeless and even not yet tested or quarantined or whatever it is, that the best place for them is a room for themselves. And so, for the director of hsa to stand up there to say the director of Public Healths position is to put people in congregate settings let me explain how that might have happened. First of all, i completely agree with you. Everything that youre saying is from a disease transmission perspective, having your own room is the best, absolutely. I completely agree with you. I think probably what happened is that this order here was put together in a matter of hours with counci counsel from six dit counties. To show you what they put here for homeless, if you can see it right here, so it says individuals experiencing homelessness are exempt from this section but strongly urged to obtain shelter and governmental and other entities are urged to make such shelter available as soon as possible and to the maximum extent practical. So theres nothing in this order that prevents us from doing more and i think maybe this may have been interpreted because it is a help officer order but it was crafted to be consistent across counties and that may be where some of that interpretation comes from. I know were going on and to wrap this up, im concerned that it seems to me, hsa resident for securing these placements believes it the position of the department of Public Health or the Health Officer that you would prefer that people are in congregate settings rather than hotel rooms. That is what he suggested there. And second to that, the situation right now with people who are in shelters and navigation shelters, theyre sharing rooms and, as you know, in santa clara, there was the first death and the individual was somebody unhoused. It doesnt mean theyre more likely to get it but more vulnerable, so the situation in the city right now, from a Public Health perspective, to make it clear to the policy makers and administrators who are dealing with the shelterings and the policies around housing is really important that you all get on the same page. Because not only did he say that something that seemed to be the wrong thing here but theyre doing it because thats what you told them to do and it sounds to me like you believe the opposite of that. Yes, i completely concur with everything that youre saying. They may have misinterpreted this or took it verbatim, but i absolutely agree with you, that what you want is what i want. And i will make sure that gets communicated clearly and that everyone here and thats what i said earlier, that even if all of these other things work, thats why i worry so much about the congregate living and homeless, is because we know that theyre at increased risk because of their living conditions. To the extent we make that better and they have the same dignity, equity and ca compassi, thats how we should do it. Supervisor furer. Fewer. There isnt a campaign but its our job as supervisors in our district to do the campaign and to get the word out and publisize it ourselves, quite frankly. I want to mention we what heard from hsa, there was a lack of workers or a shortage of workers to work and actually to supervise some of the if we were to put people in hotel rooms, we heard there were 19,000 people in sros and 10,000 unhoused folks and that would be 29,000 people. In these hotels rooms were putting people in, we have to remember that many have been chronically homeless for a long time and have not lived in this type of a setting. So the support system for this, it is about, also, coming with a mandate around housing, getting our unhoused population into housing should also come with a mandate about workers and increasing the wor workforce for this. What weve heard, theres a shortage of workers and why we cant do some of this is because we dont have the workers to work in so many facilities. So i think that with the mandate comes, also, another mandate about a worker shortage. Thanks. Supervisor ronen. Im the last on the roster, doctor, so thank you so much. I just am such a fan of yours and really admire all of your work and appreciate youre here and answering all of these questions after everything youre doing. So im trying to understand now the extent of your power. So could you issue an order that requires all Homeless Individuals in San Francisco to be housed in individual units . So it is true that the powers are broad. However, its really under the approve and extend every 30 days. Its broad but its only good for seven days and you could approve and extend it for 30 days. So ultimately my power comes back to you. And its actually your power and im appointed by the board of supervisors, and you may not know this, but your body appointed me. But i work for the Health Department. And we are a city and a county. And so the things that are here are all connected in a different way. So i just want to tag team off my three colleagues, supervisors preston and haney and fewer. And just say that it was really disturbing to hear trent worth say that he didnt even have Homeless People who were living or people experiencing homelessness living on the streets as a priority. Theyre not even on his list of priorities. His First Priority was the 19,000 People Living in s. R. O. S and the his priority and what hes thinking about is quarantine and confinement. Hes not thinking about risks to people that are out there. Theres no plans in place going on right now as we speak to even house seniors who are living on the streets. And given that we know from experiences, especially in districts 6, 9 and 10, about how people have to use the bathroom on the street, and dispose of needles and things that they use to support, you know, selfmedication, that this is extremely dangerous to the Public Health. I mean, im getting calls from my constituents daily that, you know, theyre seeing human waste and discarded needles on the street. I cant believe that this is not yet a priority of the city. And given that youre an appointed body, if you could take this back and make the department realize what a priority this is for us and i understand that everything is moving very, very fast and that, you know, youre working as hard as you can with the staff that we have. But this is probably one of the biggest things that we have taken out of this hearing today is that were not prioritizing individuals and especially seniors and people with underlying medical conditions that makes them a priority to get inside of individual units. And we just need to make that a priority now. And to do whatever we need to do. I appreciate everything that youre saying and our ethos is social justice, thats where we come from. And we did this pivot, and we agree, we agree. Thank you for everything and i think that were done. President yee i was going to make a suggestion that maybe we can relate in regards to transportation. Right now a lot of us depend on indiscernible it was only good for the city and bart and now the clip card is extended to be fine for other transportation modes around the bay area. And im just wondering if m. T. A. , you know, if we were wanting to minimize that people who dont need to go place to place, to have them stop doing that but at the same time to serve those that are leading the First Responders and everyone else to get to one place to another, whether they can come and they should start doing that now if theres a notion that this may last a while and we need to flatten it even more. Why couldnt they come up with another card that we would give to those people that need to go from one place on another . And the clip a card wouldnt work anymore. Is that a possibility . And so pretty much limit how many people will be taking these things. And so its easier to control in terms of social spacing. So if somebody can hes sitting right there. Did you hear all of that for m. T. A. . Did you hear what i just said . indiscernible . Illgist guff you just give you president yee if you cant do it, you cant do it. Its not what the Health Department does, but theres essential workers and then all of us need to be able to get around to do our food to buy food and we may not be an essential worker but i still need to feed my family. President yee supervisor peskin, youre still on the roster. Thank you, mr. President. I have actually found the file from 2010. Were in the board of supervisors did approve of the motion appointing tomas javier effective december 5, 2010, as the Health Officer of the city and county of San Francisco. I have questions for the City Attorney, but i will let her do more research as to what our powers are. Thank you, sir. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. And last but not least, joaquin, thank you for sticking around so long. Y. Good evening, supervisors. I know that you had a long day. I just wanted to provide you with a brief update in terms of the work that we have been doing since we were called into action to support our Small Business communities and our business communities and our neighborhoods and im sure that the people have the most uptodate information possible related to the Services Available to them as well as informing some policy guidance related to some of the measures that have been introduced today to support both workers and businesses. And i wanted to just, again, for a quick moment to put on here the numbers and the information that we have set up to ensure that people have immediate access to individuals who can answer questions for them related to the impacts of services and resources that are being coordinated, not only by the city but by the state and by the federal government and by private enterprise. Can you keep that up there . Sure. And over to your staff as well, supervisor ronen, and i believe to all of you and your aides, supervisors, to ensure that you have this information. But eaodw. Org is the way to get to our site, click on covid9 and youll see information where both employers and the employees for the uptodate information as we have it and the Public Health order updates taking place and as well as new policy announcements that were putting into place on a consistent basis to support our vitality here in San Francisco. Just in terms of some of the programs that we have, may i go ahead and remove it okay. And, again, the simplest way to get access to that information is eaowd. Org covid919, to get that information out and if theres ideas that you have to get the information out on the ground and on the streets and in your districts, within your commercial districts for those Small Business needs our otherwise, please do not hesitate to share that with me or my staff directly. So we can get that information out there. In terms of some of the work thats been done to date, to begin to address the pleading that our businesses bleeding that our businesses are facing right now i want to talk about the Small Business Resiliency Fund which is a Million Dollar announcement that we made with supervisor peskin and your district in chinatown and many supervisors here. We have already had 300 applications. 300 applications which is onlyod by the Million Dollars in place. With my Economic Development directors across the country and in conversations with new york and portland and seattle and with denver today and chicago, and the advocacy that we are taking and learning from the best practices with each other and making sure that our programs are improving each time that one of us decides to make a decision so we can have a collective response and its built on existing practices across the country. And thats something that were focused on. For them alone they were expecting only a thousand people to reply to their program, very similar like this. Within the first two hours, 500 Small Businesses reached out him immediately once it was announced. Within two hours. So the demand is there. And theres currently the very helpful news that has been out in terms of the s. B. A. Disaster fund program for 3. 75 loan, up to 2 million, again through the s. B. A. And all of our neighborhood economic organizations are aware of this and were making sure that in time dealing with the new constraints that are on us related to the new Public Health order and around social distancing that were exploring the best ways for us to engage the community i in doing that wk and where there are concerns were thinking how to actively enhance our outreach and engagement so people can get the support they need tailored to who they are and who they report and what the cultural realities are of their businesses. So, again, a 2 million loan that is provided for that purpose. You have seen additional apkaigs allocations from the private sector and from our give to s. F. F. Website and guided by the policy team are better articulated on that site. So folks have an idea what we are prioritizing. What you have been hearing throughout this session and closed session, in terms of the significant demand that is out there and the needs that are faced across our communities and across areas, that we are determining how best to provide some direction, in addition to the priorities that individual donors have. In addition to that Small Business loan continuing, low interest loan programs are available to Small Businesses and our provider is main street launch. We are currently working on enhancing that Loan Portfolio with some of the redirected funds that we have within our office to help, again, once the Small Businesses respond to this extreme trauma theyre facing right now. Why do i say that . The conversations that i and my staff have been having at the highest levels in terms of business representation, not only the chamber of commerce but the ethnic chambers, the African American chamber and the Hispanic Chamber and the Filipino Chamber and the Chinese Chamber making sure they are aware of the resources that we have and the members know that were here to help them and to guide them through this process. And the Hotel Council and s. F. Travel and others, constantly engaged with them. And as we have individuals and Small Businesses coming to us were taking the time to spend time with them about the pains that they are facing to make sure that we understand how best to help them. And then also to let them know that despite the constant communication that we can walk them through simply in a blaze at times of very significant emotional feelings that people are having right now, which is very real for people, that we can kind of guide them through that process as well. So that has been a very large priority of mine and in making sure that were as accessible as possible to our Community Members and making sure that all of our people are aware on how to help them and how they can help us in terms of getting the word out. And just some just some examples. I want to show this graph in terms of, again, the demand that is coming to us. I dont know if this will show up. So you can see here i mean, the moment that we launched our page, how quickly the attraction to this site and the demand for information increased. In the hundreds of Percentage Points in terms of reaching out to our office and asking for support. And i do want to remind everyone that even with the constraints that were under right now, while we were waiting to come up and present, there were still Small Businesses that are out there that are open and providing essential services and that need peoples support. Just before this, walking down the street to go visit dobbs, right there on hayes avenue and abuelios to get some goods. And i want to remind people that theres more places than simply your Large Grocery stores that you can get basic amenities. And abuelos by my house and casa and others, please do take the time if youre a Community Member and to share with your members about where those resources are as well. And this afternoon people were telling me that the amount of traffic that they were receiving was finally beginning to quell and thats been good for them as well. And we are anxiously looking to see what the final approvals will be with regards to the paid Sick Leave Program. We also recently announced where that is at the federal level. Less than 500 employees less than 500 employees for businesses is what the government is looking to pay for, and after that is exhausted and employees services are exhausted, then we have a minimum Wage Compensation program for employers they can take advantage of as well and for those essential services up and running right now, that would be an important resource to continue operating in case anyone is exhibiting levels of sickness and they will be encouraged to stay home knowing that theres a resource out there for them. And in terms of some of the additional engagement that we have been doing, we have had our workforce online orientations and webinars and ensuring that people have access to those services especially when dealing with layoffs and they have questions. And we have been in partnership with the Mayors Office to ensure that there are programs out there that are appropriately tailored to the real life needs that were collecting based on our conversations with workers and with employers. You have seen the partnership that weve had with the controllers office, the treasure and Tax Collectors office, in terms of coming up with delays in quarterly tax payments that the mayor has announced. The delay of the unified bills, and the conversations with our Public Utilities and the conversations with others that i know that some of you on the board of supervisors are actively working on to make sure that we have some relief there legislatively. In addition to the conversations that we have had across the country with Companies Providing online delivery services, and actively advocating to make sure they could lower their commissions and serve more folks who are actively in contact with them so that every dollar matters to these individuals and to ensure they have viable ways in which they could deliver their products. That all of us that all of us need. Again, the web page, oewd. Org and direct people there. And, again, please do reach out with any questions that you have. And just quick numbers and theyre maybe insignificant at this moment in time and the citys economist is actively coming up with more accurate numbers. But a quick snapshot before the Public Health order was enacted yesterday about in terms of jobs and businesses impacted, about 132,000 jobs, 11,000,000 businesses. We think that is not fully reflective of the realities that were going to be facing. What is that number . This is an estimate. But currently and this is not indicative of the Public Health order effective as of midnight this morning. But 132,000 jobs. 11,000 businesses. So and ted is looking at indicators to figure out exactly where we are right now. And he will continue doing that work. And i know that supervisor fewer that you mentioned earlier about some of the work that new york was doing. We are actively pursuing those efforts at the state level as well. And, again, how to support our Restaurant Industry and were thinking about how to support the expansion of Unemployment Benefits and disability benefits and ensuring that people have additional relief like we as a city have provided and from the state level as well and we have performed that through the Mayors Office in a strategic way. Onefourth of the calls that we have received i want to say its a hundred or so calls and it could be more since i have been here, but onefourth of those calls are related to independent contractors. In our discussions with the Division Director we have been told theyll be receiving they will be receiving calls and they want independent contractors who believe that they may not be able to benefit from Unemployment Insurance and Disability Insurance to still apply so that theyre collecting that information and well see where that is going to go. And its unclear yet and so were asking for clarification there. But this is something that were hearing right now. And something that i heard from my director of workforce just a few hours ago. So still needing to get clarity on those pieces and ill make sure that we can followup to give you that information as well. Some examples of those folks who are reaching out, care giving, Business Owners and Video Production and the like. If theres any questions id be happy to answer them. Yes, thank you for that, joaquin. And starting where you ended off with the independent contractors and pin talking to some high level folks at the California Department of labor around 1 30, before the Board Meeting, they said that they were not aware of any programs or expansion of Unemployment Insurance for independent contractors. As of right now thats my understanding as well, and i did not get a claireific fro clarif, and they said they wouldnt discourage people from applying. Thats clarity that im seeking as well. Are we thinking about any program locally to support independent contractors because, frankly, they wont make rent on april 1st and hopefully our moratorium on evictions will work and they wont be kicked out of their homes but that rent is going to accumulate and when this ends they wont have the money to pay rent. So they could be evicted at the end of this. So what, if any, programs are we looking at thats our next step. And i will be very, very happy to come back and provide an update once we have more clarity but thats the next area to look at. And we want to ensure in the initial phase were focusing more holistically. And theres some populations to focus on granulely as well. And how those programs are structured well determine what the best structure and the best resource would look like. And what time period are we looking at . Because this is we are moving literally by the hour, by sixhour and threehour increments . Youll get back toous that. And what about the immigrant workers . Thats the next question as well and thats the exact type of programming that we want to work on at the same time and how those are conversations that were having at the philanthropic level with the resources they may be able to provide based on priorities that were hearing from donors. That i cannot name because i havent been in direct conversation with those specific donors. But the issues that they have been bringing up specifically around what well do about Domestic Workers and what will we do about undocumented numbers of our community and how will they be supported holistically in the region. And how are our lowwage workers to survive in this environment when their lives are so fragile and people are living paycheck to paycheck. And even before this began if people didnt have access to 400 or less money that they were at grave, grave danger of not being able to survive. Here in this region. And so this is a comment, this is a priority and this is a statement and this is an observation that is constantly being shared in our policy conversations. Fantastic. I would love to work with you on that if we could join forces. The next question about philanthropy. So we started with 1 million. Where are we . How much has has the city given . You know, we are per capita we have more billionaires in San Francisco than anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. We have at least 75 billionaires that live right here. Have any of them stepped up and offered to help . Whens announced the s. F. Program, the first public announcement was from 1. 5 million. And theres additional investments that i have been told that should be coming. I think that is more information that we can provide later on once we have more donations accepted through the give to s. F. Fund and potentially other places, and the investments made. We saw earlier today that were getting clarity on this 300 Million Investment that facebook made and we want to understand what that means for San Francisco and our residents and small communities and our region. And more information like that will be coming down the pipe. And the more that a bit more time that we have, we can share more details on the work done there. Do we have a prioritization where that money will go and once it comes in and where is that going . Again, based on as we announced last week, those priorities need to be finalized through the policy team. Of those conversations that are had right now because were working realtime, obviously about basic needs and basic Security Issues and basic stabilization issues for our Small Business owners and security for our lowwage workers. So were developing those principles right now. Okay, the more we have dialogue about that, because we can legistate all of this and, you know, if were not hearing that theres concrete things that are happen, then were going to just legistate it. Got it. So it would be great to know in realtime whats happening here. I will make sure that in terms of the conversations that i am having that i can come and make sure that this board and you and your aides are aware of the work being done. Again, its really been a whirlwind. Of course, of course. And its been a short period of time but well continue to do that work to make sure that youre aware. So the 1 million 1. 5 million im sorry 1 million. The 1 million for the micro Business Loans that you have 300 applications so far. Have we increased that fund at all . No, no, but thats a conversation that well have later on this week. Okay. And the s. P. A. Disaster, are you talking about the federal program . Yes, the federal Program Requires a state of emergency that is signed by the Governors Office to access those funds and that work has taken place. I believe that we have received, i would to say between mid 20s and early 30s applications right before i came into this room. But theyre processed locally, is that how it works . So we have helped them through those who are partners of the s. B. A. So all organizations like working solutions, cameo, and other communitybased organizations that are in conversation with the s. B. A. And partner with the s. B. A. , they can help to process the applications. And organizations like meta and others. So they have access to that 20 million and they up to 2 million per business. Sorry, up to 2 million per business and sort of unlimited funds . We havent been made aware of what the conscriptions are with that fund. I see. So we dont know what the requirements are to access it . No, the requirements are all listed on our website. You can go and see through the disaster loan information that is there right now. And for the particulars in terms of those individual businesses that want to know how to access them, they can know that theres local Community Providers that should be reaching out to businesses right now and we get phone calls and people want to begin that application process, like the mid 20s to early 30s that we received so far, were directing them to our partners or the local partners to be walked through that process. By way of example, the 300 applications that we received, would they be eligible for those . Yes. They would. And is it high do they need to are they secure . They are personal guarantees. Thats a question that i have to come back on. Im blanking on that right now. It would be great when we have a hearing on the legislation that i introduced today authorizing the treasurer to take out 20 million loan to in turn then loan it to Small Businesses at no interest with very few requirements so that we can turn it around fast. How that might interact with this. Because it is my understanding that the requirements are quite onerous and that many businesses wont be able to meet those requirements. Its not just requirements themselves, i think that as were talking about that the time that were trying to buy here in terms of stabilizing businesses, that that becomes a very important pra parameter and lens through which to look at this. And the time that we have initiate relief at this period across the board that can fill this gap as people who are eligible for those s. B. A. Loans. When those come on. And thats a period of time im told right now between six and eight weeks for that to come online. So there is going to be a need to fill them. Okay, thank you. And then last question the Small Business Assistance Center phone number and the worker info line that you just gave us. Is there a live person answering those calls . Yes, on two occasions please tell me if youre not having this experience yourselves, given the changes that just happened, were having those calls forwarded to another line so people can access them on site and making sure that our employees are appropriately in place and functioning with the phones, etc. , to receive those calls. If it goes straight to voicemail theres multiple languages to go back to the website and to leave a message so that our teams can get back to them. If youre hearing that individuals are not getting a response in a timely manner thats something that i want to be aware of immediately. Fantastic. Its great news that its a live person. Thank you. President yee supervisor walton. Thank you, president yee and thank you. Just jumping in on that last question about a live person being there. And i understand that there might be a lot of calling being fielded right now and you said that theres the ability to leave a message. Do you have a timeframe in terms of Response Time, in terms of when your team is getting back to workers . Thats something that we need to look at. And i have not heard complaints yet yet about the Response Time. I believe that its been pretty much in realtime and almost immediately when people were getting phone calls back or at least within the same day in which they called. If thats an issue and you hear anecdotally that someone is not getting a response thats something that wed like to know about directly. We have the ability of people leaving messagin messages and ne answering and it would be great to be able to communicate with people in terms of what we think that the expectation of a response should be. Thank you. We understand that theres a lot of calls coming in. Typical Response Time is this, if thats possible. And then the second thing how are workers connected to child care . We have been getting calls about frontline workers and lowincome workers who have not either received information about child care and how to access it and some have received information and theyre going in and theyre wait listed. What is the situation there for us to try to make sure that our families are connected to child care during this crisis . Im going to need to get back to you on the immediate information there and ill get back to you as soon as i can, supervisor. Its not necessarily your department. Its holistic and i have to say that it takes a lot of us understanding what the demands and needs are holistically and the Services Provided through other departments to make sure that were well integrated across the board. And making sure that were aware of what each one of us have the power to do. Thats a work that were continuing to do. President yee right before the what was the question, did you Say Something about child care . I asked the question in terms of that we know that we have child care set aside for frontline workers and lowincome families and theyre supposed to be contacted. Some have been contacted and some havent. And ones that have been contacted are being wait listed as well. So i pointed out on the advertisement for that, it says child care, and for a lot of people they think in terms of 0 to 5 for child care instead of schoolaged. What were talking about in reality is that they have worked out a system for the 6 to 12th grade i believe which would be located at rec centers. And the kindergarten to 5th, i believe is located at libraries. I know that i might as well say this. There was an issue i dont know if you were involved in this discussion this morning, i believe, i pointed out and this is the beauty of o. E. C e. Od being able to visit it and to mention some issues around child care and in which there was really mixed messages to them. You know, on the one hand were talking about social distancing and were talking about, you know, 50 i dont know what the numbers are anymore, but on the other hand we have a lot of the providers that are over 65 years old and especially in family daycare and so i pointed out an issue for to dr. Co fax and also to mary ellen carol, and that the fact that we are sending out mixed messages and not declaring that these are things that should be closed according to our policies. It means that they lose out on a lot of money. The state wont reimburse them if they close down because theyre saying that the city is not declaring they need to close down. And because theyre closing down, and they will get reimbursed from the city, because its considered at one point an essential service, which is advertised and everyone is sending out heres essential Services Similar to policing and nurses and doctors and medical people. And were talking about, you know, basically the minimum wage folks. So i hope they worked on that and i believe that theyre going to declare something. And i just wanted you to know that if youre not involved in that, that it does impact workers. Even before this, there was really like a revolt by child care centers, over a hundred already said that even though theyre going to lose out on money, they cant do it right now. And were talking about throughout San Francisco. And im sure that every district is impacted with that. And one of the nice things is that the city asked whether any centers would be willing even though they close down to provide just like the libraries, just like the rec and park, whether anybody would voluntarily open up for essential workers. So hopefully theres a view for that. If its not clear in the next few days where they promised that it would be done, that would be legislation that id like to introduce to make it happen. Okay. President yee supervisor safai. So i just want to thank you director torres, and to ask you on the record and we talked a bit offline about this and had a lot of calls about seniors wanting to figure out ways to get groceries, and essential items. So i know that mandelman and ronen and myself we got posts on social media ca and calls todayd reached out to ufcw and working with your staff and i have a call set up on the way home. I wanted to just hear a little bit of about what you have planned or started to do in terms of ensuring that vulnerable populations, in particular seniors have access to groceries and essential items. Certainly. And jeff was talking a little bit about using the existing resources that are in place and partners that are already engaged in ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to food. He talked about some of the expansion of the conversations with partners like meals on wheels. And in my conversation with them after you and i had that conversation and, supervisor, that my understanding is that theres a Vulnerable Populations Working Group through the Human Services Agency Department operation center. That is looking at this. Were expecting to get brought into that conversation shortly. And we can be brought into that. And we have flagged it. And so theres also some Additional Support that i understand that the National Guard is providing and waiting for more clarity on that and we should have more answers for you shortly. Supervisor mar. Im sorry, just to follow up on that, in terms of working with h. S. A. Community partners to get a volunteer system in place, to help to address those issues as well around how we can make those delivery models more accessible to folks. Thank you, president yee. I wanted to just thank you director torres and all of the work that you and your team have done in coordinating work to create programs to support the wide range of businesses and residents that are going to be starting to be and willer severely be impacted by this health and economic crisis. And the web page compiling all of the different programs is a great resource. And we have been sharing that out a lot. And, you know, it was good to hear that you said that you are there are efforts to work on programs that are specifically addressing the needs of the most vulnerable workers, undocumented workers, and then the independent contractors, particularly the gig workers, because theyre misclassified by their employer and theyre ineligible for a lot of the existing benefits, existing and new ones that are being created. So, yeah, i also look forward to working with you on that and i have been in meetings. I did have some questions about the paid sick leave, sick benefit and paid leave program that the mayor announced this week and i think that is a positive step forward. In fact, i just introduced a resolution today with supervisor haney urging expanded paid leave for workers, you know, during Public Health emergencies. And urging congress and the State Government to enact those expanded leave. But for unpaid leave program, i was a little or i just had questions about the provisions like, first of all its structured as more of an incentive to employers and to offer additional paid leave, a week of additional paid leave, versus as a mandate that employers should provide it. So i was just wondering what the thinking was around that . And as well as, i also i understand that theres 10 million that is in a fund right now for this the i incentive to employers. But it looks like only 20 of the funding is supposed to go to Small Businesses. So that means 80 of thedering e 10 million goes to large businesses. Im wondering what the thinkingt t around that and that is out of line for what most of the proposals have been around expanded paid leave which has weeks of paid leave emplowould be a mandate on employers with financial suppora targeted targeting Small Business businesses and mediumsizeded sinesses and businesses and not the l businesses. First let me say, supervisor, that this is designed to be a very Nimble Program so were responding in realtime. Its also focused on the individual excuse me focused on the individual, the lowwage worker as well in addition to Small Businesses. So we may once we see where the application levels are coming in and an understanding from a further perspective for those Small Businesses operating and who can provide paid sick leave, where the pressure points are for them. So this is not a set in stone program. And we will look at who is actually coming forward. And one of the reasons that we designed it this way in terms of a minimum wage component here was so that when there are opportunities to support lowwage workers that the nexus between the minimum wage worker and the support that is provided for them and a nexus between them and what their actual hourly wage is, that theres an incentive for them to come forward. And it would skew towards supporting lowwage workers. Again, its not static. Its meant to be a Nimble Program. And well assess it as it continues. And there are large employers who do have parttime employees and lower wage employees and well look at those granulely as those application comes in to see what support can be provided to them as well. And so thanks for that explanation. Yeah, i look forward to seeing how the actual uptick and participation of the program looks like. But did you did you consider structuring it more as a direct mandate on employers and expanded paid leave which is what i think is called for. And even the current democratic leadership, you know, in congress have proposed with Financial Support for small and midsized businesses to comply . Not at this time. I think that also because of the economic pressures that employers are facing across the board right now, the pressures that those individual employers would be facing in any situation, especially, i mean, in this particular situation, is important to Pay Attention to. So we will be seeing again and assessing how the applications come in and the various conversations with employers. But i do encourage, please, more of these questions and if youre hearing that this program is not working in a way that you think is best to serve those vulnerable members who are looking, again, to ensure they have similar leave and employers have the opportunity to say to their employees if theyre not feeling well as their work is continuing, that they have an area where they can provide relief. Great, thank you. And i just had a question around the Small Business support. Yes. And i had a meeting with about a dozen sunset district businesses earlier today and, you know, i heard directly from them about the challenges that theyre facing. I think that they made it pretty clear to me that while some of the programs that have been set up like the deferral of taxes and license fees and the different types of loan programs that are being made available are certainly helpful, whats really needed is direct Financial Assistance right now. Otherwise, you know, a lot of them and many businesses in the city are really going to go under in the next in the coming weeks really. Thats right. So. So i think that the Small Business Resilience Fund is what is really needed. And its great that it started up like you said even in the short time that its been set up. And weve already gotten three times more applications for it than we have funding for. And even just based o on going f the figure that you said theres a projected 11,000 businesses that are impacted right now in the city. And that was before the you know, the recent escalated actions. And if youre looking at 10,000 of support to those 11,000 businesses that comes out to 110 million. So i guess that my question is what is the plan to really have the resources that are necessary to provide that direct support to Small Businesses that are really under threat of going under right now in our city . Thats a conversation that were having from an Economic Perspective with the treasurer and Tax Collector and the Budget Office and the budget director where well draw from as a city and also as a community in terms of what the Business Community can provide as well. And the resources that they can bring to bear to support the Small Business community as we consider all of the priorities in the city. Obviously, very much so as you have seen me do consistently, advocating for the needs of the Small Business community and i will continue to do so to make sure in policy conversations that the weight of the pressures that these Business Owners are experiencing are present in the room when were having these policy conversations. Thank you. Thank you. Two more, supervisor haney and all right, ill be quick. First you are doing a great job and i know that you have a lot coming at you and you have a small team and impressed by the work that youre doing. So thank you. Thank you. We just saw the governor put out something today where he thinks that the schools are going to be closed in california through the summer. So the amount of time that we were thinking in terms of people needing to figure out how theyre going to take care of their kids, potentially its extended a lot longer. One of the things that i think that would be helpful for us to do, and maybe it comes from the state or not, is to provide clear guidance to families and parents about how they should approach applying for benefits, what rights they have to assert at the workplace, you know, all of those things that really hasnt been out there. I know this is the first week of it, but to a degree that if theres something that you could prepare that with the School District that is specifically for parents or caregivers to be provided for them, that is something that is their rights to prepare and what their rights are and what benefits they can claim. And the other quick things, and for people continuing to work like people who work at Grocery Stores and walgreens and things like that, and that may be and putting their own health at risk, have we thought as a city that were thinking about this for our nonprofit workers but and with Emergency Powers to make sure theyre still on the frontlines and going into work, particularly if its okay if you havent thought about those things. If i may supervisor, yes, it is something that we have thought about and some of the questions that we have, i have been encouraged by the businesses that i have been visiting in terms of the direction that theyre providing, not only to their staff it seems, again, it seems that in addition to members of the public who come in to have directions about social distancing as people are entering a place of business and certainly we have seen that in some neighborhood Grocery Stores as well in terms of the amount of people that theyre letting in and larger Grocery Stores as well as with the number of people theyre allowing in to make sure that theres a ability to practice the distancing here and asking people from a Public Health perspective to take the best practices very deeply to heart and also to follow the intent of the order themselves. And theres more to do there. And as it relates, absolutely, i think that its essential in our communications with the next step and, again, thinking about taking a few steps back now that you have the governor of california telling us that on how we plan for that to make sure that we have the right investment, strategies and plans in place to help people to help people through this. And just last thing, again, just something that you might look into, i know that were not really at a place yet and we will get into this place of thinking how to get people back into the workforce, particularly as we hear that maybe unemployment is going to go up and sooner than later you might have some companies that are in certain categories and such who actually are going to be interested in hiring at this time or having people work remotely or theres some opportunities that may be coming in later, but im just wondering about all of the people who are just, you know, wer were workig somewhere and theyre out and theyd like to be working right now or at least in the near future. Thats a conversation, again, that is one of the pillars of our next steps as we think about immediate steps and shortterm mitigation measures that you want to put in place. And that we have already put in place. What are the longer term recovery actions that we need to think about and we have begun to have some of those conversations and thinking about the best and the appropriate structure should look like for doing so. What the engagement is from other partners, not only within the city and with the city proper but from our University System to make sure that were drawing on the best practices and the thoughts that people have regionallily and even nationally on how to do this work. So absolutely. Again, thank you, i appreciate you and im grateful that youre in this role at this challenging time. Thank you very much, supervisor. Supervisor mandelman . Yep, thank you director for all of your work and your accessibility and availability and a lot of people in City Government right now youre confronted with the needs that far exceed your and our collective capacity and its heartbreaking and hard and youre continuing on to try to address them and so thank you for that. Thank you. I think that supervisor haney raises an interesting point and there are Many Industries and occupations, including in City Government that have been really been hurting for applicants in the last, you know, year, months, years and so there may be opportunities Going Forward to connect people up with opportunities that are, you know, like safeway posting 2,000 new positions where theyre hiring and there was more that i was talking to a business that is open in my district, and, you know, a food serving business that is, you know, has a lot still is hiring. So i think that there are jobs out there. Some of what we may be able to do is to connect people with jobs. I also just wanted to since we had a conversation about Grocery Stores to brag on a Grocery Store in my district, canyon market, which i just heard that is opening up 7 00 to 8 00 in the morning for seniors to do their shopping. And so good on you, canyon market. And then weve also been in conversation in the last 24 hours with safeway and whole foods, i think that they are similarly doing making arrangements for senioronly hours to allow folks who are having to shelter in place but maybe are in a Vulnerable Group to get their shopping done. So my hope is that by the time that we vote on our resolution that there will be a thank you to all of these good actors in the grocery industry who have stepped forward in the next week to create these opportunities for people who are potentially health compromised to get their to get their food. Thats right. Thank you. Thank you. And i just want to echo supervisor haneys complements tcompcomp liments toyou. A quick question about sick leave. Can you explain how workers would access it and given how many workers are most likely going to be laid off, do we expect that theres a major portion of the workforce left that will be eligible for this Sick Leave Program . Well, as you can see, i dont have the full data numbers but i can bring those to you in a later time just in terms of the essential services. I think that is a great focus right now, especially as supervisor haney was saying with the populations of the businesses that will provide these essential services and the jobs that theyre creating. Again, you wanted to have an opportunity so that employers are saying that i want to keep you on and youre not feeling well and you should not be coming in and i have a resource for you and thats why theres the importance of what the numbers of paid sick time that an individual business has for their employee and drawing down on the federal Governments Program for those 80 hours and see how that looks like and how that applies to our folks. And the next step of having 40 hours available for individuals should the employer pay for those employees within those essential services. That is one of the next steps as we take a very short breath to look at what we have been rushing to put together that is beneficial for folks and what to do to invest in those areas. So someone wanted to take advantage of this today, how would they do it . So, for example, lets say that theres well, a barbershop is closed. Theres a employer who is doing the federal program. And the next step is that as we receive applications that i dont believe that we have yet or questions about the paid sick leave question as of yet, and is that those employers are reaching out to say that im interested in the program because it would be a reimbursement of the payment that the employer made to the employee and this is a partnership between our office and h. S. A. And olsc, and the office of labor standards and enforcement. And, again, were building up this application so that we have it ready for folks so you can see it and, again, any guidance or thoughts, and we are really pushing hard ahead here so any kind of considerations that you have about this are welcome as well. Great. And just the last question, before i let you go could my office and maybe i dont want to volunteer supervisor mar but i know this is something that we have both been working on closely and any other sup office that wants to join to join you in creating an official work group around nontraditional workers, independent contractors and immigrant workers, the workers not eligible for Unemployment Insurance so that we can collectively brainstorm how were going to assist them through this period . I know that Many Organizations from the community would like to have a place to do that strategy and to give their input and their expertise. We have begun to hear from some constituents in your district specifically. It was almost like it just happened after i had asked the staff to check in with the program to find out what theyre hearing from folks as well. How theyre faring right now. And then almost immediately after we heard from the Economic Development agencies in your district who reached out to find out where theres opportunities to have these conversations. And the same from chinatown and my conversations with the new director Malcolm Young and im having those conversation as well. We would love to be at the table with you and to be brainstorming that. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Supervisor ronen, what would you like to do continue or keep on talking because everybody i know that everyone everyone is not present. First of all, thank you so much to all of my colleagues. I think that this is really important to be able to have this open session and to discuss it. And it looks like matt is ready to jump and to get out of here. But i wanted to just have a moment longer if you would indulge me to have a discussion amongst ourselves about what, if anything, that your office is working on. So that we can make sure that were not duplicating efforts. Youre saying no. And that were working together as opposed to both working on the same thing. I mean that everybodys time is so limited and important right now and i feel like we should be working more collaboratively than we ever have before. So i, you know, just gave away aside from the legislation that i introduced to help Small Businesses, i really want to be looking at and concentrating and working around independent contractors and immigrant workers and basically the workforces that are left out of the state and federal programs. So thats something that im going to be focusing in on. If anybody else wants to chime in with areas that theyre looking at, that theyre trying to specialize, so that we know who to call and start working together with, id love to hear from any of you who want to share what it is that youre focusing on at the moment. Quickly from me a lot of things as i have mentioned about the child care thing and it went directly and then have them fix it. And i would be i think that several people mentioned seniors and for me im not working on any specific thing, but its my interest, and once i get from te field itself what is not working, thats when id come up with solutions. So, again, you know, im interested in working on that and Nothing Specific but if anybody else is interested we could put our head together and come up with solutions. Supervisor mar . Yeah, so, again, i have been working on some of the worker impacts issues, in particular the independent contractors and the gig workers and also with supervisor haney. And then also the expanded paid leave. Were seeing if theres gaps some gap that we still need to fill here locally that will be not covered by the state and federal legislation moving forward. Thank you. Yeah, a couple things. Ive been working with supervisor mar on gig workers and rideshare drivers and folks who are kind of in that space, and so it sounds like theres an overlap for us to Work Together there around the expanded leave as well. And then also homelessness and folks who are in supportive housing, shelters and Navigation Centers and spending a lot of time thinking about that and how to get people off the street and into shelter or into a housing. And also bathrooms and hygiene at the time when we have so many people still on the streets and how do we get them access to more bathrooms and wash stations and things that really ensure as much cleanliness as possible. I mentioned it earlier that im thinking a bit about folks who are continuing to work right now. So if youre working at a Grocery Store, kind of how we are dealing with some of the labor issues there. And then as many of you are thinking also about schools and families a bit, i have some particular populations that are having challenges right now. So Treasure Island in particular is very isolated and so were working together to try to make sure that they have access to food and addressing Food Insecurity and some of the different areas of my district. I think that we can fulfill a useful function for our constituents in getting information out as quickly as we can and so i have my legislative aides that are doing a lot of responding to emails from people who have questions and doing trying to do as much social media as we can and put out newsletters as appropriate. I am trying to figure out, you know, i that it will be hard Going Forward the right balance between pressing on things that i think are important and not making a system which is super stressed right now even more stressful for all of those who are participating in it. And so i you know, i yesterday i found out that like i think that a lot of us did that the order that went out on sheltering in place for a moment well, the guidance went out that they would have to close and i felt that it was worth some intervention. And i did intervene. But as i think that a number of us did and we got a better outcome out of it today. But i also feel like in terms of legislation or pushing on ideas, im somewhat trying to restrain myself in recognition of the limited capacity of our City Attorney and also the fact if i try to talk about Public Health with anybody in the Public Health Department Im taking them away from, you know, the things they really must address. So i think that is not to say that we dont weigh in. I think that supervisor peskin recognized a couple weeks ago the need to start planning for people on s. R. O. S and had an impact in the city planning for that and i think that it was necessary but i also think that we also need to be a bit aware of kind of that balance. And then i think that, lastly, as a member of the Budget Committee that i think we are heading into a budgetary situation that is worse than maybe supervisor peskin thought in the great recession. But i dont think im not sure that anybody else some of the legends saw it, i guess, but i think that its going to be worse. I think its going to be amazingly awful and were going to be having conversations about how do we prioritize the things that we absolutely have to be, you know, for the most vulnerable and the most dependent on Public Services, and i think that those are the hard conversations that i think were going to be having when we are as we emerge, when we emerge from the Public Health crisis aspect of this. Or maybe in tandem with it. So i am, you know, i think that is going to be a set of very unpleasant conversations that i dont look forward to. Supervisor peskin. Thank you, mr. President. To you and your office and to the City Attorney, albeit weve had a few unpleasant interactions in recent time, thank you for the closed session and the open session and thank you to all of my colleagues for having what i think is a very, very important dialogue in the biggest crisis that any of us will face. And thank you to the Department Heads and the representatives of the Mayors Office who participated over the last many hours. Yeah, we have a financial crisis. And, yes, we dont print money and our money will ultimately be limited. But i totally concur with all of you and all of us and i think that we are First Responders in a certain sort of way. But most of our people who actually have access to the internet, most of our people who are English Speaking people of certain means, will be able to garner this information. Our actual jobs, individually and collectively, as supervisors, and as a city, is to communicate with those people who are the hardest people to communicate with over social media, and over the internet, and over email and were going to have to do that doorbydoor, handbyhand at six feet apart. And those are the people that we actually have to help save. So i think that is actually as we stratify what were doing within our offices, i can blast out the same stuff that all 10 of you can blast out and were all doing a great job at that, but weve got to actually go find our folks in chinatown, our folks in the valley and our folks on irving street and our folks on clement street. That is actually what we all have to do right now. And i love all you guys and this is a pretty weird situation. Supervisor . Thank you, president yee. Just the same in terms of the work that well all do together. Of course im going to be supporting our protections and making sure that our Small Businesses are whole and looking at basic income resources for the undocumented populations and for lowincome families that dont typically receive a certain level of resources, so they can be sustained through this crisis that we have in front of us right now. Those are the things that well see from my office and well continue to have conversations about that. Supervisor safai . Thank you. So many of the things that you are all doing in terms of dealing with your constituents, i think that theres a lot of overlap. I know that we talked a little bit about the simple things but also simple in the sense that it sounds simple to talk about but difficult to implement which is getting groceries to seniors or vulnerable populations that are asked to stay in their house. So thinking about that. And a lot that i have responded to is around organized labor and working with organized labor in all capacities, whether its nurses or ensuring that we did in terms of hiring, whether its construction workers and how theyll be impacted by the shutdowdown, which construction workers are working on projects that are essential or not essential. And we had conversations about Housing Construction in general. And the Building Department is shut down right now. So whether there is an effective order to stop all construction, if theres no inspectors in the field, there is no construction happening. Although been in good communication with our city administrator and theyre working on plans on how to adjust that to ensure that the right people are there and right orders are there. So she and i have communicated a few times today. And the Planning Department as well. But housing will be prioritized in all forms. Whether its one unit, up to, you know, 250, but they want to keep that going. Including those in the pipeline. And how that affects people that are in the business of building. Also talking with the teamsters and in understanding how the orders impact their daily lives in terms of garbage collection and what times of day. And theres conversations about when that will happen. So you should be prepared. Im sure that saw . Some information that went out that the routes would start earlier than they have in general. And some of the so essentially you know, and today now talking about the bus drivers and those that are doing that work and ensuring that theyre safe and the buses are clean and things all around organized labor and many of the things that other supervisors have talked about immigrants, and seniors and child care providers. And those that are the most vulnerable. So to supervisor peskins point, to look at how the staff and myself can help to support those in need in our district. Thank you. Supervisor stefan. Thank you, president yee. Im definitely focused on messaging everything that we can in a way that is coherent and cohesive and everything from the Mayors Office. But i am paying particular attention and acknowledging that this is a particularly difficult time for those that suffer from anxiety, depression and addiction. And i want to make sure that i am communicating resources to those who do suffer from all of this because this is a time where its anxiety producing for anybody. And if you suffer from depression, its really hard to look forward into the future and wonder when this is going to stop. And addiction, i have to tell you that knowing people that rely on meetings for their sobriety and those meetings arent there and making sure that i can connect people to resources. We have the Mental Health hotline which is 8558457415 and we have the suicide 4157810500. And, of course, were in a shelter in place situation and not everyone has a home that is easy to be in. And if you are coquarantined with an abuser and worried about having to selfisolate in a dangerous home situation, i want to make sure that people know about the National Domestic hotline at 8007997233. And, finally, again, with regard to addiction and alcohol and drug addiction, just making sure that people know that theres free help out there with alcohols anonymous and narcotics anonymous and online meetings at weconnectrecovery. Com and there are people that can help. Youre not alone. Theres no shame in needing help for all of these things. It is okay to be anxious. It is okay to be depressed. And certainly its okay to have an addiction that youre trying to recover from. So i just want to know people to know that im really trying hard to reach out and to connect people to services. We have empty beds right now in our Health Department that can connect people to recovery programs. We have many empty beds. And i am working with people to make sure that i can reach out to communities and to get those beds filled. And, finally, something that im doing with my kids is that were focusing in on acts of kindness. And we said the other day that this is very contagious, but kindness is also contagious. And acknowledging all of the people in my district that are reaching out and helping people and engaging in acts of kindness because we dont have time to be mean to one another. We dont have time to be testy with one another. This is a time when we must be kind and i am glad that my children and i are really making sure that we make an effort to every night to talk about where we are seeing acts of kindness. And i have to say one more thing, gigi and i watched the mr. Rogers movie last night and theres that thing, what does he say to kids when youre in a situation like this, you look for the helpers. And were looking for the helpers. And i am so happy to be on this board where i know that all of you, all of my colleagues who, like i love, and maybe you dont all love me, but i do and i really were in this together. And were all helpers. And really im glad that we have had these hearings. I think that all of us are in Public Service because we love it and all of the Department Heads that we saw today we want to help. And i will be focusing on this. So thank you supervisor ronen. Supervisor peskin . Thank you, president yee. And thank you to president yee and supervisor ronen and supervisor peskin for calling for these and leading these discussions today. I think that its really important. And i think that as a new supervisor ill tell you that one of the most wonderful things is the brown act and one of the most frustrating things in our state is the brown act and to casually have conversations with so many important things that we all need to collectively discuss. So i appreciate this forum for us to get some of those conversations going outside of oneonone or small group meetings. I want to echo and really appreciate a couple comments that supervisor stefani just made with acts of kindness around this time and folks suffering from Mental Health issues and anxiety and depression. I think that its hard enough for folks who are not suffering from Mental Health issues to process all thats going on, and its that much harder for folks who are, and so i appreciate you listing those resources and acknowledging folks who are really struggling in this time. So i dont think that it is you know, i dont think that its a secret that certainly the Housing First model that dr. Argon talked about resonates very much with me. I mean, right now its health care and health care workers. And in housing. And in homelessness issues that im primarily focused on with incredible amounts of overlap between those. Some of it we have already been moving on and im committed to making sure that we have no evictions during this time at all and that were moving folks from homelessness into vacant units around the city. Also working on a number of issues around Small Businesses that we have talked about, both in terms of eviction protection and in terms of the fund that supervisor ronen has been leading on. And i also am looking at and look forward to collaborating with folks on the broader issue of protecting folks, not just in evictions but protecting folks from being taken advantage of during this time, and very concerned around price gouging issues and Consumer Protection and things that we have only seen the beginnings of, and particularly if this is prolonged that well see more. And i think theres a lot to do on that front as well. And then just more broadly what we have been doing, and i look forward to comparing notes with folks on whats working and whats effective is on the outreach side. So we have been calling every senior facility in district 5, all places of worship in district 5. Were moving on now to cutting lists of seniors individually and having oneonone calls with folks in the district. And i really do believe that the beauty of district representation is that were able to do that. We have a relatively manageable group of people to reach out to. So were doing that by phone and were going to also be launching Virtual Office hours and some other ways that folks can participate and meet online. So as i said, i really would welcome hearing in the upcoming days what is working for folks and what are effective ways that when were not able to meet facetoface with our constituents in the same way that folks are able to meaningfully connect. Thank you. Supervisor fewer . So my office has been really been concentrating deeply on building a safety net around my constituents and my neighborhood. A couple years ago we launched one in richmond which has four basic concepts. One of them is we take care of each other. So we have a website that we already had all of the communitybased organizations that have joined. So we have listings of them. And we have also about 3,000 of our constituents who have joined in the community and then we have also have had about over a hundred Small Businesses. But we have been having almost daily phone calls, conference calls, with all of the organizations like c. B. O. S which actually serve the senior population in my district. So we have been coordinating around meals, meal delivery, what everybody is doing and how theyre augmenting their programs and were plugging in support and giving out information. But were the conduit to the one richmond website that we direct everyone to to help Small Businesses and communities and posts for volunteerism and the most uptodate information about the vs the coronavirus ane things that are happening within the district to impact them. I feel that it is my main responsibility as an elected official that the people of my district are depending on me to be a leader and also in times of panic and in fear to know that they are not alone, that weigh are in this we are in this together and we will get through this but we have to Work Together to do it. So were doing a Campaign Around how to keep to obey, quite frankly, or adhere to the Public Health guidelines. I think that what we heard today in closed session but also in the public session, is that the main thing is to get the word out there so that people comply and people actually are following the rules of what we know has worked in other countries and other communities to actually to help stop the spread of this virus. And i feel that in my district i have a lot of Vulnerable People and it is my job to put a safety net around them so theyre fully informed, they are supported, and they are supported by each other also. And so in this time when Public Health and all of these departments are working on these huge, huge issues, housing thousands and thousands of Vulnerable People and finding hospital beds i find that what i can contribute is to keep this community of 80,000 people safe to have a safety net around them and so and also that they are not overburdening our system with a lot of phone calls and also i have as i said a lot of seniors in my neighborhood trying to keep them also connected through phone trees and phone banks. But also just trying to keep everyone fed and making sure they have resources. As chair of your Budget Committee were still doing meetings via telephone now, with groups that want to meet with us around budget. I think that chelsea in my office has 15 meetings set up to talk about the budget. As your budget chair i feel that my office does 10 times the work of your offices around been. It is going budget. It is going to be completely challenging this time because in years past as you know that we have been adding things and it looks as though the outlook is not good and we will have to cut. And that is always a very, very hard thing i think for all of us to do. And a lot of those decisions i think come down to our Budget Committee. So i just want to say that i think that during this time though that it is about unity. I think that about working together. And this is a very scary time in San Francisco. But its a very scary time in our nation. And also in the world. And in San Francisco, as i said before, you know, this is when were put to the test we perform. And i think that well be fine. I just want to also express to president yee that i am happy to have my office take a shift down at e. O. C. And help participate in that effort. Thank you. And thank you to everyone for everything that theyre doing. Supervisor ronen . Yeah, i just want to thank you all. I got a lot of just great ideas in terms of the district and constituent work. So just agreeing with supervisor preston that if we can hear back from each other how those straft gees are going i strategies are going i think that would be helpful. In terms of our budget chair, supervisor fewer, a lot of the items that were going to bring forward are going to cost money. And so im wondering if we can start to come up with some principles in the Budget Committee about sort of how were going to prioritize, where were going to add money and subtract money . Because those are this is not i cant say that . Im not an attorney but an attorney would stand up and say that you cant say that. So the item that were still in the middle of it is the hearing and i think that weve heard from the people who are asked to speak and the conversation is going beyond the scope of the notice item now that were talking about different budget opportunities and budget solutions. Okay, i thought that it was the citys response to the covid virus, the covid19 virus which is allencompassing and the notice says the city of the whole. But, anyway, i said what i needed to say there. So, again, thank you president yee and to the clerk staff for making this happen. I know that its really late and you all want to go home so i appreciate it. We still have a few more items. To remind everyone here, we have a few more options. Clerk Public Comment . Seeing none Public Comment is closed. Ooh ill make a motion to file this item. The motion passes to file the item. Lets go to our 3 00 3 00 item. Number 16 i believe. Clerk item 16 is a hearing of the board of supervisors sitting as a committee of the whole on march 17, 2020 at 3 00 p. M. For the members of the board to hear and receive specific findings with Police Staffing citywide and to request that the budget analysts to report. Okay. Here comes the matrix. Colleagues, i was going to continue this item. So wed like to continue this item, this hearing to the board of supervisors meeting on april 6, 2020. I can have a motion. Moved. Clerk and well take Public Comment when you are ready. Supervisor walton, did you say move . I did move the motion. Thank you. Is there a second . Supervisor ronen. And on this item any Public Comments . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Can we take this motion, same house, same call . So the item is continued to april 17th, 2020. Madam clerk, lets go to the agenda. Clerk items 1924 with adoption without resolution to the committee. And on First Reading alternatively a member may require a resolution to go to committee. Okay. Can we take these items same house, same call . Seeing no objection, then these motions are are passed. Resolutions are passed. What else do we have . Clerk on behalf of president yee we have an imperative item, a motion concurring in the actions taken by the mayor on march 11, 2020, and march 13, 2020, to meet the ongoing local emergency related to the Novel Coronavirus pandemic declared on february 25, 2020. We have an item to have the board to adopt two separate findings unanimously. Adoption on the item itself, lets take the findings first. A motion then to find this resolution is imperative as to threatening serious injury to the Public Interest and thus meeting the standards of sunshine ordinance, made by supervisor walton and seconded by supervisor stefani. And without objection can we have a discussion on that item . Im not going to object to sunshine or brown, but i do have quite a number of questions for the City Attorney. And i refer to this earlier relative to our powers and authorities. But im happy to concur with sunshine and brown. Okay, let me do that first and then well get to the item itself. So is there any without objection then, this finding is accepted. Now to the brown act finding, is there a motion that finds the need to take action . And bringing to the attention of the board after the agenda was posted and thus the motion meets the standards of the brown act. Motion made by supervisor walton and seconded by supervisor peskin. And without objection, this finding is accepted. We must now take Public Comment on this item. Is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on the imperative item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. And now the assessment of the imperative motion itself, supervisor peskin . So, mr. President , colleagues, before i even ask the questions that i have, insofar as it was almost impossible for nonelected officials to come into this building, were any members of the public actually able to come to this meeting . We saw a couple people earlier, but id like to ask that question for the record. Madam clerk, is that yours to answer . Clerk there was an actual complaint from a member of the Boards Office who had some concerns about confusion that might have occurred when individuals wanted to walk through the doorway. There was some confusion. Supervisor preston your office contacted us about their concern. But other than that we did not have any complaints about today. So id just like to note for the record that while were in the middle of covid19 that it seems to me that downstairs people are having trouble getting into the building. So that is noted for the record. As it relates to the items before us, madam deputy City Attorney through the president , if you could tell us what our powers and our authorities are. We have heard earlier today that we have seven days to do something, what happens if we dont do that in seven days. And can you explain under an emergency order pursuant to every subsequent declaration that is issued by the chief executive, what the function of this body is . The function of this body is to ratify both the initial declaration of emergency, which this board has done. But also to ratify any orders made pursuant to that declaration. So so far the mayor has made it was two earlier today, i believe that its now three, and theyre brought to you today through this resolution for your ratification. You do not have to ratify them, in which case they would not be effective. And whats the sevenday timeframe . The mayor declared the emergency and may issue orders pursuant to the emergency and they may last for seven days until the board takes action. So you will need to ratify within the seven days. So if the board fails to act, what happens . If the board fails to act i believe that the declaration and the orders would no longer be valid. I believe or is that cited in code . I believe and i can double check. Okay. So we all definitely voted unanimously on the declaration of emergency. So as the supplemental proclamations that are before us, i believe that theres one that is timestamped 11 march, 2020, at 1 50 p. M. I dont know the time but it was on the 11th. Can you as our attorney and counsellor in front of the 11 members of this board and the public explain what that declaration what that supplemental proc proclamation . It is sum vised in the resolution summarized in the resolution. But the one that was issued on the 11th would order the controller to develop a policy to allow the city to continue to provide funding under existing agreements to nonprofit organizations who may be unable to perform all of the duties under those contracts. It would suspend deadlines set by local law requiring city bodies to take action within a specified time if they do not comply with those deadlines. It complies with the board and it gives the board latitude if it cannot meet and comply with the timeframes that apply. And suspend the charter requiring members of the city policy bodies to attend meetings in person. That order by the mayor has been complemented by a similar order by the governor which is with various provisions of the brown act. To extend the deadline to pay licensees and defer quarterly tax payments for Small Businesses. The second supplemental proclamation . To impose a moratorium on, evictions for nonpayment of rent on tenants impacted by covid19 and suspend for 60 days the shut off of Power Service and the imposition of late penalties by the p. U. C. And would suspend the initiateiation of lien for delinquent water and sewer bills during the emergency and the controller to accept and extend donations for the purposes of emergency meanedness and sustain the residents and the businesses. Third supplement to the mayoral proclamation . That was signed today after i entered this room. So i have not read it in full and its not captured here. So were being asked right now to ratify or agree with a third supplemental mayoral proclamation that you cannot advise us on because you have not yet read it . This resolution does not propose that youre ratifying the third one. It would only ratify the first two. Got it. And so relative to the third one, which i have concerns with on page 4 at item 5, which i previously expressed, explain to us what our powers and authorities are relative to the seven days. If we fail to act, if we act, when do we lose power on the third supplemental declaration . You have seven days in which to ratify it and during that time you could choose to decide that you will not ratify it and pass and say that you do not ratify the particular acts that are expressed in this one. As i said, i will confirm what the impacts of taking no action within seven days. Right. Heres the problem the problem is that its entirely possible that this policy body that is Department Number one that is the only Standing Department in this town since the 1800s stops meeting. We may meet virtually, the governors waive the brown act, but what i need to understand before this board leaves or if we need to change the concurrence motion to ratify or reject the third supplemental declaration. I need to understand that if this board fails to act in seven days, does it continue or does it cease . Im going to have to get back tooto you on that. If you would like to wait ill look it up now. Yeah, we can just sit here until you do that. Because im fine with the first two. I read those. The third one you have not read we have not read and if it goes into if it becomes effective and we cannot reject it, if we fail to meet in seven days, and were in an emergency situation and our job is to be a check and balance to the executive branch, i need to understand, we need to understand, our powers and authorities. I will look. I will also say that im aware that the clerk is making arrangements for this body to be able to meet remotely so that i understand that. I will be at the e. O. C. At 09 00 hours but i need to understand what our powers and authorities are and if we cannot reject it after seven days, we need to talk about that before we adjourn. Okay. Fair enough. While shes doing that why dont we just vote on the item itself which is inclusive to the supplements that were laid out already. Lets see, do i need a motion for that . Yeah, you do, you do. But this third supplement indiscernible supervisor peskin, supervisor peskin . Yes, sir . I would be happy to make a motion to concower in the actions to meet the local emergency as set forth in the motion on the imperative calendar that only deals with the two aforementioned first and second supplements to the mayors proclamation declaring the existence of local emergency. I would like to subsequently, depending on the advice from counsel, to move or not move the third supplement to the mayoral proclamation. So i am making a motion to concur in the actions to meet local emergency relative to the motion that is before us on our desks as to the first and second supplements to the mayors proclamation. Is there a second . Supervisor fewer. And, madam clerk, if we vote on this right now and approve it, do we have i guess some leverage still to discuss the third supplement which is not on this agenda . Clerk given that supervisor peskin made it very clear, that you would dispose of this item and then the body could at another time or in this conversation talk about that. I withdraw my motion pending counsel. You can keep the motion, its just that we wont vote on it. All right. Okay. So, first and second it and well just wait a few minutes. Hold on a second. Mr. President , are all 11 members in receipt of the first, second and third supplement to the mayors pr proclamation . indiscernible . So are all members in receipt of the motion concurring with the actions of the mayor . Those actions are set forth in two separate documents. Are those actions before us, do you guys even know what were voting on . We have a twopage motion concurring. We dont have the two documents that are referenced. All right, at least i dont. So the first one is a supplement and dated 11 march at 1 53 p. M. And the second one is dated march 13th at 4 47 p. M. And that they are both set forth here. But if you dont have them, madam clerk, everyone should have them before we vote on them. Clerk through the president , as far as the Clerks Office is concerned we have sent those items to each of the members. I dont believe that they were submitted today with the third supplement. The third supplement and the deputy City Attorney can correct me if im wrong, the third supplement is not before you today to approve. We understand that, that is dated 17 march at 2 51 p. M. Clerk so through the president id provide you the dates and times in your emails that we have submitted all three to you. Were all electronically in receipt and i just wanted to make sure that as this body is going to on a weekbyweek basis, in person or virtually, ratify thos these things that wl know what were voting on. This is profoundly important. And, by the way, i have reviewed both of the first two and im 100 okay with them. The third one i have got questions about and i would like to understand if we do not happen to meet next tuesday, did we waive our authority or did we not waive our authority . And that is the advice that i am looking for from our attorney at this time. Yes. I got that part. Also if the answer is that we waive our authority because the last day that we could actually vote on it right now is monday of next week because that would be the seventh day and next tuesday would be the eighth day. So thats i think is and supervisor peskin is absolutely right to question that. If we were to lose that authority, my recommendation is that we could for this one item also to have a special meeting on it and hopefully the virtual or the online, whatever it is called, we could be away from the chamber, would be up and running. So that we have that option too. Hello, mine is not turned on. Mr. President , supervisor aaron peskin is rising to make a motion to recess the Board Meeting pending legal counsels answer to our last question. Second . Second. Seconded by supervisor mandelman. Can i ask a question. Could we could i make a friendly amendment to your motion and say that we we leave it to our president to decide whether or not we need a special meeting on monday or or if were unable to vote down the order number three . Yeah, thats what i suggested earlier that if we dont get a clear answer then we could always do that. And we dont need a motion. Excuse me. Can you get to the mike, i cant hear you. Theres a motion on the floor to vote on the first and second supplement and there wasnt any questions about that, except supervisor peskin asked if we read it point of order. Actually there is a motion to go into recess. So i think we need to address that motion first. Oh, okay, i was getting there. Can i make a friendly amendment to the motion before we vote on it . I think if the body wants to vote on a motion to recess they could. If the president wanted you to state your friendly amendment, the first and second would have to agree to it. I see. Do you agree to it . So we could come back in five minutes and whatever. So, colleagues, in the age of love and covid19, not getting basic answers to the most important legal questions about the authority of Department Number one, the legislative branch, are things that we have to have in realtime that we should have actually been advised of days ago. I am happy to step out of these chambers and to ask our deputy City Attorney if she cannot resolve this question, which i would imagine that is set forth in a very basic citation, then we can continue this. If that is not the case, i would accept the friendly amendment. But if we can we dont have to recess, but, mr. President , if the sergeantatarms can go consult with the City Attorney as to whether or not this is going to be answered in the next five minutes or the next five hours, then i would accept or not accept the friendly amendment from my good colleague from district 9. We are in session and i will leave it for now until we get an answer. Were in session and were just not saying anything. So if you would like to turn off your microphone currently that would be good. Mr. President , i would respectfully suggest that we vote on the motion made and seconded to recess until we 10 minutes. I stick with my motion to call the question. Call the question to recess. Supervisor walton . indiscernible . I know that you seconded it already. Okay, roll call. Clerk 10minute recess, mr. President. Yes, or shorter. Clerk supervisor mandelman, and supervisor mar. Mar aye. And supervisor peskin. Peskin aye. Supervisor preston, preston aye. And supervisor ronen, ronen aye. And supervisor safai, safai a, and supervisor walton, walton aye. And supervisor yee, yee aye. And supervisor fewer . Fewer aye. Okay, welcome back from recess. So what we have on the floor right now is i believe that its still valid the motion, seconded to to accept the the findings we voted on that already. Just the item itself. And now the item is just before the board, mr. President. Supervisor peskin. Thank you, mr. President. It is my understanding that as to the motion that is before us on the imperative calendar, concurring with the actions taken by 11 march and 13 march that there were typographical errors and i believe that the copy before us fixed those errors, is that true or not tr true . The president s office indicated that it is true that the typos have been corrected. Okay. So in the dearth of legal advice to this body and the legislative branch, im happy to vote on the affirmative on the motion that is before us on the imperative calendar and, mr. President , i hereby respectfully request that an absence of legal advice that we schedule either inperson or virtually a special meeting of the board of supervisors on monday, to deal with the third supplement to the mayors proclamation. So there was a request and i will honor that to schedule that for monday. Thank you, sir. So we have a motion on the floor. So roll call please. Clerk supervisor mandelman. Mandelman aye. Supervisor mar, mar aye. Supervisor peskin. Peskin aye. And supervisor preston. Preston aye. And supervisor ronen. Ronen aye. And supervisor safai, safai aye. And supervisor stefani, aye. And supervisor walton, walton aye. And supervisor yee, yee aye. And supervisor fewer, fewer aye. Supervisor haney, haney absent. There are 10 ayes. So the motion carries. Deputy deputy City Attorney pearson, did you have an answer . Because were wondering what action to take with the third item. So i apologize for the delay. This is not an issue that our office was advised on before. Under state law when the mayor declares an emergency the board must may last for seven days until the board ratifies it or chooses not to. Thats with respect to the declaration of emergency. Under the charter, the board is also expected to ratify any orders that are taken or made pursuant to that declaration. The charter does not include a specific deadline or timeframe for that action the way that state law imposes on the act of ratifying the declaration of emergency. So whats being brought to you now are is a request to ratify the orders under the charter and the board must ratify them but as i said that theres no specific deadline. So they must be brought to you as quickly as possible. When they are brought to you may choose to ratify them or not. If you dont if you dont take action and dont meet for the next 10 days theyll remain in effect until you do. You will have not lost your opportunity to take action. And to vote to not ratify them if thats your choice. The first statement that you made, that you talked about in which it sounded like we were to take no action that the action would be in effect for seven days, and if after that that we dont take any action that the action would disappear . Thats according to state law . There are two things that this board is asked to ratify. One is the initial declaration of emergency made now, a couple weeks ago. And under state law the board is required to ratify that within seven days. And had the board not taken action within seven days there would not have been an ongoing declaration of emergency, but the board did ratify that. So these supplements should be ratified but theres no time limit . Right. The supplements are not a new declaration of emergency. These supplements are orders of actions taken under the emergency authority. And those are required under the charter to be ratified by this board but as i mentioned they are not subject to the strict sevenday timeframe that is the declaration of morning is emergd be subject to. If you dont act as i said for 10 days, they will remain in effect until you do. And our action could be to ratify or not to ratify . Or to alter. Or to alter. Supervisor peskin, did you still have a question . Thank you, mr. President. Through the president to our legal counsel, can you please advise this body as to the original declaration which explicitly stated that this board could not that any of us would or want to cancel that declaration of emergency. How would that technically work . I would assume that you would do that by motion. So, in other words, relative to timeframes on a given tuesday, a member could introduce a motion to cancel and on the subsequent tuesdays calendar the board could vote by a majority to cancel . Under the charter normal notice posting of agenda requirements under the board of supervisors are not applicable to the boards actions pursuant to the ratification of the declaration of emergency and the orders issued thereto. So there may be so there might im not talking about ratifying but talking about canceling. You would do that by motion. Are you asking how long what type of notice that you would need to give of your motion . Yes, maam. I mean, in an emergency situation could we do that in 24 hours, 7 72 hours . An emergency to declare that theres no longer an emergency . Correct, because, listen this is not going to happen what im looking for is advice to this body which is a check and balance to the executive branch of government as to what our authorities and powers are. So what im trying to determine is and i do not believe that the mayor of the city and county of San Francisco would ever abuse her authorities or her powers, but if we believe that to be true, do we need 24 hour notice, 72hour notice, oneweek notice, how does it work . Supervisor peskin, i suggest that she do the research and get it to us by the 24 hours with the answer because right now i get a sense that you need to have some time to look more carefully. I will totally defer to you, mr. President , relative to supplemental orders that do not appear to be covered by state law but appear to be covered by charter law, i would like to reiterate the advice that i think that you gave us. Which is that we can act at any time, failure to act does not in any way affect our future powers, is that true or not true, through the president . That is true. Under the charter the mayor should be bringing these orders to you as quickly as reasonably possible so that you may act. Either to concur, amend or not concur. And if you do not and in the period that you do not act, they will remain in effect and you will not waive your opportunity to act when you do meet to consider them. Okay, and then let me to underscore one word that you said. That is unbelievably important, and i want to make sure because youve said it twice, through the president , the word amend which is that this body can actually amend the chief executives order. Thats correct. Thank you, maam. Supervisor fewer . Yes, deputy City Attorney, so just for clarification, if when the time that we are not voting on that, if her mandate is in effect, is that correct . Im sorry, could you repeat the question . So is it an order for her mandate to actually be in effect, the board must vote on it . Or if we choose not to vote on it, it will remain in effect until the moment that we do vote on it . Its the latter. It will remain in effect until you do. So that means that it is happening in other words, it is happening without our permission, is that correct . Or without our its happening pursuant to the original permission that we delegated unless we revoke an order or amend the order or ratify the order. So, quite frankly, just to vote on it is somewhat of a formality, because it is still in effect even if we vote on it or not, is that correct, mr. Miskin, supervisor, through the supervisor. I mean, is that right . I have no idea. Oh, is that right . Theres two there are two orders that have been issued or three now and two that are the subject of this resolution. They are now in effect. And they will be until this board takes action and you may choose to ratify them, or you may choose to not ratify them. But if you choose to not ratify them it means that theyre still in effect though, is that correct . At the point that you choose to not ratify them, theyd no longer be in effect. Okay. Thank you. So in that case, mr. President , i would like to make a motion to rescind the vote on the imperative calendar as to the motion concurring with the actions taken on 11 march, and 13 march. And the reason for that is because rather we vote today on it to ratify that its still in play . Based on the advice that we have received, if we fail to act, it is in it is deemed to have been in essence a concurrence until we act. Okay, so theres a motion to rescind the vote. Any objection . A second to that . Can i have a second . Supervisor ronen. Any objection . I think that the house has changed. So we need to vote on it. Yes, it has, right. On the motion to rescind, supervisor mandelman . Mandelman aye. Supervisor mar, mar aye. And supervisor peskin, aye. And preston aye. And supervisor reasonnen, aye. Supervisor safaia, aye. And supervisor fewer, fewer aye. And supervisor haney, haney aye. There are 11 ayes. So is there a motion to continue this item to next week . I still had more questions for the City Attorney. Supervisor ronen. Thank you. So given that we can amend these orders, can we also add additional orders . Given the importance of these questions, of this emergency and these answers, i would prefer to have the time overnight to look into all of the questions that you have. There have been very few emergencies declared in the past and im aware of prior emergencies that orders have been made that the board did not agree with and were overturned by the board. But i would much prefer to not give you quick answers in such thats totally fair. I think that is a great plan and i am glad that we just rescinded the vote then that we just took. That sounds great. If you could give us the answer to that question, that would be great. And one other question for you to research is, if we add a new order that the mayor