Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Budget And Finance Committee 20240713

Costs as a result of the economic downturn. 600,000 of the tax collectors to administer individual loans for Small Businesses impactedded by sarscov2. Members of the public who wish to speak should be dialing to be added to the speakers list. You might recall we continued this item from last weeks meeting. Today we have with us supervisor ronen. Would you like to make some comments . We also heard the report last week, too. Supervisor ronen . I want to thank you for the question you posed last week. My intention with this ordinance is to get assistance to Small Businesses who are suffering enormous losses at this moment and do it quickly. Sorry. Let me shut the window. Sorry. Hard to work from home. Basically, what has happened between then and now is i have been working with the Mayors Office and with the director of the office of economic and Work Force Development, and with the enormous leadership of my chief of staff, and we have reached an agreement that will make this legislation not necessary. My main goal has to get assistance to businesses if they dont get financial help will close forever in the city. We are a city of Small Businesses. It is what makes San Francisco San Francisco. We are not a city of chain stores that sell the exact same thing that look exactly alike. We have a special neighborhood that specialize in certain ethnic foods and art. My worry this time is that these businesses just like so many of our residents operate monthtomonth, that if we dont provide help at a time where they are not bringing in any revenue that we will lose them forever. Therefore, we will lose the character that makes San Francisco so special. Rather than having a protracted political fight about this that would take at least a month to get money available on the street to the businesses, we have reached an agreement with the mayor and director torres to do the following. We have a plan to release this week to the public 10 million that will help Small Businesses. Up to 1 million of philanthropic money will replenish the grants up to 10,000 to Small Businesses. If you will recall, this fund has already had 1 million into it and the up take and the applications for the fund were enormous and way more than the fund can handle. This doubles the amount of the fund, making this available to businesses all throughout San Francisco. Then an additional 9 million from the general fund reserve to launch a Small Business survival loan program. The beginning details of the program to be worked out in the remainder of the week and launched within the next few days would provide up to 50,000 of no interest loans that can be paid back up to six years, and will be administered by the office of economic and Work Force Development working with Community Development institutions like mainstream launch, working solutions to ensure that there is enough outreach and support to get these funds to the most vulnerable communities and especially those businesses that will not be eligible for the fba federal loans. We are going to target first businesses that for whatever reason they dont have enough capital, dont have access to the type of proof that is needed to make loan repayment, that this is filling the gap for that population of businesses. Finally, we will have the flexibility to offer these loans in differing amounts to businesses that we believe with some assistance could survive this crisis and this pandemic. Oewd and their partners have the ability in a very low barrier way to figure out and prioritize the use of that money. In addition to this program oewd will continue to help businesses apply for the sba loans that are eligible for them, and with that i am happy to take any questions. I want to really thank amy from my office for incredible work to get this done. Now is the time to be unified and get money working for Small Businesses on the streets as soon as possible. With that i will take any questions. Also, director torres is here and available for questions as well. Thank you very much. President yee. I want to thank supervisor ronen for focusing on the Small Businesses and for her ability to work with the mayor and come up with this quicker solution to helping the Small Businesses. I think not only myself, i think all our colleagues on the board of supervisors whose businesses in the district are being hit would appreciate this, too, thank you very much, supervisor ronen. I want to make one correction quickly. This 9 million will not come from the general fund reserve. It will come from the current general fund. I also wanted to ask would you like to continue this item to next week or would you like to file this item . As we are working the final details out, which i am very certain we will, i want to continue this item for one week before filing it just to have it going as an insurance policy that we will get this money out to the Small Businesses on the street this week. If i could ask to continue this. I make the motion to continue this item. I think i can make that motion because i am on the budget and finance committee. You would like to continue items one and two to next week. Thats correct. Supervisor walton. I want to say thank you to my colleagues on budget and finance for thoughtful questions and making sure we did everything we can to find a viable solution to provide opportunity for Small Businesses and i want to thank supervisor ronen for being willing to work closely with mayor and coming back with a solution to get us the results you want and as president yee said this will make it happen faster. Thank you all for your Due Diligence on this. Mr. Torres. Yes, i want to thank you, madam chair, and supervisors for all of the work in getting this done together with the Mayors Office and ms. Kittler to help us get here. This fund of 10 million is supported with a combination of funds general fund and philanthropic dollars to get us to the 10 million mark. Confirming what supervisor ronen said thank you so much in terms of us being able to double the resilient see grant and moving forward with zero interest loans for the folks in the Small Business community. We are excited to get this moving. Would you tell people how they can donate to the fund . Certainly. People can go to the sfgov and search forgive. There will be directions to make contributions to help us in these efforts to support our Small Business community, workers, those with housing, Food Security issues. We are happy that Small Businesses and workers are part of the pillars of giving that we are pursuing. The individuals may do note as well as corporations . Yes, individuals may donate as well. We have seen a large up take in individual donations on the site. A huge thank you to those in San Francisco who are reaching out directly. Thank you. That is part of the San Francisco spirit. I see on the roster is supervisor mar. Thank you, chair fewer. I want to thank supervisor ronen and director torres for working on this really important Additional Support for Small Businesses who are suffering in the city. I had a question around the allocation of the 10 million, 1 million of it would go to Small Business Resiliency Fund which is more direct grant to Small Businesses and 9 million would be more loans to be paid back by the Small Businesses. To my question, what was the thinking about having only 10 of the 10 million im sorry. 10 of the 10 million going as direct Economic Relief versus loans. Again, i have heard loud and clear from Small Businesses in the sunset district suffering and struggling right now that there is plenty of lopes available to them, particularly from the sba and now through the federal government through the relief package. That is the direct grant that is needed right now. That is what is the gap that we could fill on a local level. That doesnt really exist at the federal level in terms of Small Business support. Certainly. Thank you, supervisor. It is my understanding and my staff and i are reviewing the details related to the federal programs provided in terms of a 10,000 grant available through the federal program. In addition to low interest loans. We also have triggers for forgiveness within those programs. We focused here on trying to provide a middle ground up to 50,000 that would be beneficial to the Small Business community. As another line of credit they would be able to take advantage of with the favorable term every payment over six years. Again, through a zero Interest Program to be administered. We saw there was great value there, in addition to doubling the resilient see fund process. We want to move forward with those small 10,000 grants to comment what the federal government was doing for larger businesses and businesses that wouldnt have the capacity to access that fund and support the folks in the midrange who expressed that is a product that would be worthwhile and beneficial to them. Thank you. A followup question. Can you share an update on the Small Business Resiliency Fund. It is great we are able to double the amount of resources allocated to that through the plan you worked out with supervisor ronen, but it is my understanding there are still many times more Small Businesses that applied to get that support that that we are not going to be able to support. That is the reality right now that not all of those who are applying for the funding are going to receive it. There are over 2000 folks that have reached out to us citywide looking for relief of this kind. Just a note on that that not all of them are going to be compliant with the criteria necessary to gain those funds. Some of the businesses are larger in nature and are more suited for the loan products and potentially the grant and loan products out of the sba. That is one of the reasons we are working with the Neighborhood Economic Development organizations to provide technical oneonone assistance to connect them to the sba loan and grant applications. That is the work we will do right away and have begun in conversation with them. There are 24 checks that have gone out for those who have been approved. There are more happening right now, and that distribution will continue. As part of this next round of funding, what was important for us and for supervisor fewer and you and supervisor ronen, including supervisor walton was making sure there was a geographic equity in terms of distribution of the grants. One of the next steps will be working with you, madam chair and supervisor ronen to make sure the process for the next allocation can move forward in that geographically equitable way. Could i add in a few comments to that, chair fewer . Yes, please. The truth is we need a lot more of everything for everyone right now, whether it is pp for our caregivers, direct assistance to families, programs for Small Businesses, and the 2 million which is fully funded by philanthropic dollars is not enough. We need more. This is the appeal that i want to make, especially to larger businesses that are going to survive and be just fine during this crisis that we need you to support our Small Businesses to keep the economy thriving in the city. We have been able to put 2 million into that fund. We need a lot more money, and the more big businesses can contribute t to the fund, the better. We felt it was necessary to provide assistance to those medium sized businesses that might not be eligible for sba funding and dont want to take on debt, that includes not anin significant amount of interest we wanted help they had a long time to pay back without interest so they would return when they reach help over a six year period the money given to them during this time but nothing more. It fills that gap. Quite frankly, 9 million is not enough for that pot. That will be taken in two seconds. While we look at the overall budget, we can increase that amount of money. I have absolutely no doubt we will have more applications than we can fund be. That is something that we can continue to look at as a board, but getting this money out the door and working for the Small Businesses now is the main objective. I just want to say i also agree. I think this fund, this relief fund is not only about Small Business, it is about people getting housing and feeding people, also, for the most vulnerable. This is Small Business is one part of the relief. Food and also housing is another issue. Definitely not enough money, but as supervisors we should work to fill that potted of money through our connections reaching out to people and our own communities that people want to do something during the crisis to help Small Businesses. This is something they can do. They can donate to the fund and this is where the resources will go to. I want to ensure, also, that supervisor ronen there is in your legislation a sentence or so about geographic balance. I think that it is or in your agreement that it is really, i think, important as Small Businesses actually are all of our city and every neighborhood are the backbone of every neighborhood. Absolutely. To that point i have heard a lot from the latino community, which i represent in the mission, that they feel completely left alone, the businesses during this crisis and have not been able to access help through micro loan fund. We need to help every community and their Small Business hub that keeps us together as a Community Healthy as much as we can. Just remember that the Chinese Community in chinatown has taken a hit a month or two before the Small Businesses, as this is going on very, very early. Thank you so of an again. Any more comments, director torres, would you like to say any closing words . Yes, we know that in addition to all of the value these grants and loans can provide there are workers wanting to know what resources are available to them. I will ask people to visit our website oewd. Org and click on covid19. We have people standing by on the hot lines to call. If there are issues please do share those with us. Our teams are working hard to respond to individuals as quickly as they can. Thank you very much. Can i Say Something real quick . This is osha. Can you please introduce yourself . Thank you, chair. This is supervisor safai. I hope director torres is available and listening. I want to overemphasize and i appreciate the comment about geographic balance. That is really important. Thank you supervisor ronen for leading on this. I might have missed this. I wanted to just quickly say one of the things that has caused us to be a little bit cumbersome is the process people have to go through to get the money. I want to ensure that once this fund is available and it is available that we are ensuring we are getting the money to the business hands as quickly as possible that there is not a tremendous amount of paperwork or delays. The quicker the money is in the business hands the quicker they can pay workers and survive and pay rent. I wanted you to spend a little moment about that today how quickly the money will get to the businesses hands. It will usually take, once the application is complete, for that to take place is what our providers told us as it relates to the loan program. As it relates to the Grant Program, i am hopeful that can happen around the same timeframe as we built up the partnership with the northeast federal credit union. We will get more realtime information to you, supervisors, i will ask staff and providers and come back with the information. The intent is the reason we are working with partners. How quickly can this happen . How easy can the process be to be sure people have a relatable process of getting paperwork done and making sure those cash opportunities, that capital can be made available as quickly as possible. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to say i commend you on the hot line that you all have in multiple languages seven days each week. We have referred a lot of our businesses and people with questions with unemployment or accessing federal programs. Really appreciate you guys moving toward that. I know you now are moving toward a more aggressive joint number with the office of hsa so you have created a new seven day a week number. I know you are trying to combine Energy Resources and information in one location. That is right so people can get the most information all at once. So people have an understanding of the programs and resources they can provide. I want to give a huge shout out to the Work Force Team and to the office of Small Business where the support has been that they provided. Thank you very much. We have a motion on the table. Chair fewer. I want be to Say Something about in terms of as a supervisor safai was saying, time is of the essence, but we also have to consider that certain businesses or certain individuals that own businesses may not be able to get their applications together quickly for the Grant Program, which means that if you dont wait for a certain period that it is first come and first serve. I dont know how you balance that out with geographical equity there. Thank you very much, president yee. We will be back with you to outline what that process should look like so we can deal with that issue directly with all of you as well. Thank you very much. Seeing no more comments on the roster, i would like to open up for Public Comment. Is there anybody that would like to comment on items one and two and if you would like to comment, dont forget to press 10. Operation is checking to see if there are callers. Please let us know if there are any callers that are ready. Thank you, madam clerk. There are no callers wishing to speak. Sorry. One caller just called in. Allow me to take this question. Thank you very much. My name is francisco decosta. Hello. First and foremost, i think we have to get a sense of how this pandemic is affecting the entire city. I said first and foremost. Ookay. What i was going to say is we need to get a sense of this pandemic that is affecting our whole city, and i would like you as supervisors to Pay Attention more to the hospital, the nurses and the testing all over the city. Then, you know, get involved in what is said in item 2. Thank you very much. Any other speakers . Public comment is now closed. I would like to make a motion to continue this item for one week. Items 1 and 2 for one week. Roll call vote, please. On the motion as stated. [roll call]. There are three eyes. We are now adjourning the meeting of budget and finance committee. Now we are opening up the meeting of the budget and appropriation committee. Madam clerk, can you please call item 1. Item one hearing to review budget process and related updates for fiscal year 20202021 and 20212022 and the budget and legislative analyst to report. Members of the public should dial 10 to be added to the speaker line for this matter. Thank you, madam clerk. We heard from city controller yesterday about the revenue picture facing San Francisco. For todays discussion i am asking mr. Rosenfield to review the slides and we have the mayors budget director to discuss the existing reliever and changing to the process anything she can share regarding the city spending and the covid19 impact on spending. A couple of things to note prior to the presentation. These are unprecedented times. Last year San Francisco had the largest budget ever at 12. 9 billion with a growing budget and demand and set of challenging decisions. With those decisions were about which new priority the board wanted to invest in. This year unfortunately this will be my last year as you cant chair and supervisor, a hard one to end on. It will be difficult. As a city we will have a hard and perhaps painful decision how to Prioritize Services and ensure we are providing critical support to residents and Small Businesses. Because of these entirely new circumstances, my office in the next week will release budget principals to guide work and make sure we are all on the same page moving forward. Toward the end of todays meeting i would like to hear from you what issues you think the budget and Appropriations Committee should time on in the coming weeks and months and the lingering questions to come back to. I have cancelled all hearings because of the major shift in the landscape and want to spend a few days reassessing the calendar once i hear input today. I will update the budget calendar shortly along with releasing budget principles. I will convene an Economic Relief work group to include mayor and key departments and office and Work Force Development and two members of the budget and Appropriations Committee to ensure development of relief packagena leverages state, local and private funding. I will release more information in the coming weeks. The expectation would be regular meeting and weekly updates in the Committee Meeting. With that i will turn it over to the presenters mr. Rosenfeld and ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. Good morning, chair fewer, members of the committee and members of the board. As the chair indicated. I was going to start with a brief recap of the slides from our meeting yesterday. Our three offices controller, budget and board budget and legislative analyst yesterday issued updated projections of current year and next two years. This is the joint report. A lot of the numbers i am talking through here today are drawn from that report, which is available on our website and the boards website. Just to start with a bit of snapshot on economic dangthat has already occurred in San Francisco and around the state. We know we have approximately 14,000 businesses in the city that are either fully or partially impacted by the shelterinplace order. Those 14,000 businesses about about 166,000 employees. Statewide, we know that we began the month of march with 4 unemployment in the state of california. Even with the data through marca remarkable runup in claims 1 million in that period alone. As of today the states Unemployment Rate is at or above 10 . We expect to see similar surges in claims through the end of april i it is an uncertain momet for our offices and economists and forecasters. We know a recession is near certain and has likely begun. Given the differing forecasts about the severity of the recession, we are using two scenarios for our modeling at this point. One a more severe but lighter recession that really with severe losses in coming three months and quicker recovery by the end of 2020. Secondly we are modeling more extended impact scenario with more significant losses for six months then recovery that is much slower. Beginning in 2021 and beyond. To give a brief sense how dynamic this month has been, for not just our economy but for the u. S. I would briefly recap. Forecasts from moodys and how their view of the future has changed in the last month. Began with a forecast of g. D. P. Growth for the u. S. Of modest but continuing strength through the year. With g. D. P. Growth in each quarter. By march 23rd they revised that forecast, given early signs from the Public Health emergency and impact on the economy and had predicted a significant loss of almost 5 of u. S. G. D. P. And then recovery continuing to 2021. Four days later on march 27, mood des significantly downgraded the expectations. In the most resent projection, they are expecting g. D. P. Growth in u. S. To decline by almost 20 in the quarter we just started with much slower recovery after that. They have an upside and downside scenario in the forecast looking ahead. The u. S. Wouldnt reach full employment until 2022. In a more pessimistic model we wouldnt get down to full employment in the u. S. Until 2025. Translating that economic picture to how it hits us financially as a city, we expect to see sharp and immediate losses of more sensitive and monthly paid taxes beginning in the current fiscal year with delayed losses for some of our larger taxes, property and business tax that are paid on an annual basis. We wont see losses occurring today until folks file and pay taxes next fiscal year and beyond. Current year general fund losses looking at our expectations for the remaining three months of the fiscal year. At the six month mark we had good news and reported 98 million improvement. Since then you can see the revenue losses associated with the Public Health emergency. 300 million in a more optimistic scenario. Over 450 million in pessimistic scenario led by hotel taxes. We now expect to end the current year with 167 million problem or up to 207 million problem. The impacts arent limited to the general fund. Most of the city Enterprise Funds half of the budget are suffering losses. These are three of the largest ones we are tracking. Airport and m. T. A. And port, they are all impacted given their different lines of businesses in severe ways. There are other enterprises suffering losses, Public Utilities and department of building inspection we do expect to see losses there as well and will include that in the next update. Some of the lags tax impacts that i talked about earlier begin to play out more significantly not in the current year but in years ahead. There is more detail os each of these tax projections in our report with assumptions underlying them, but we expect tax revenue losses next fiscal year between 330 million and 580 million. Then with some recovery beginning the year after, given the shape of each of these scenarios economically. When we take this news and layer on top of the previous projections from january we are left with a larger cumulative shortfall through 202122. In january we projected a two year shortfall of 224 million the year after next year. When we account for this that number grows. 1. 1 million up to as much as 1. 7 billion in a more pessimistic scenario. It is also important to know what is not include understand the projections at this time, and whale our normal while our normal practice is to provide this two times each year in march and falling. We are working towards an update in april to incorporate the following. These projections do not include any covid19 expenses the city is incurring nor information which we are greening from the state bills regarding revenue for those expenses. Our retirement system will take losses in the current fiscal year in terms of returns that translates to higher pension contributions in 2122 for the city and employees. We anticipate in april updating our projections not just for covid19 revenues but for all revenue trends. As is the case with our joint report, it is status quo projection. Continuity of policies and spending by the level does not include steps to take to reduce spending or draw reserves to cover part of the shortfall. Very briefly, obviously, i think if there is good news is it that the city is in better financial shape than we have been prior to the last two recessions we entered. We have 590 million available in the rainy day and stabilization reserves. Those will get drawn in this hour eye don. They are guilt for this horizon. We have 150 million general reserve. There are a number of other reserves the city maintains detailed in our reports to use to offset pieces of the bad news, including reserves for onetime purposes to help carry onetime capital and other programs through this time without the need for new general fund support for them. I think it is important for me to stress that while reserves are at a high level, they will soften but not eliminate the losses we face ahead. There will be a challenge after the reserves are used. With that i am going to hand it over to mr. Kirkpatrick from the mayors Budget Office t to talk through the stimulus and other things the Mayors Office is working on. Thank you. Confirmation you can all hear me. Yes. Excellent. I will review i am getting feedback. I dont know if it is because your mic phone is still on. Apologies for the technical difficulties. They are trying to get the screen share back on. Thanks, ben. As the controller shared there is so much information coming at us all of the time. Time feels very abstract at this time. A couple days ago on march 27th the federal government passed a significant stimulus package of 2 trilliondollars. They also passed smaller magnitude acts to help both individuals as well as local governments respond and deem with the impacts of covid19. The state has also passed a 500 million stimulus bill. I will walk through the details there. There is a lot of information and a lot of details that still need to be sorted out. I think the bills are very helpful in helping us understand we will have support from our state and federal partners in both supporting residents and addressing city costs as relates to covid19 response. As i noted, the federal government has made significant expansions related to sick leave, expanding emergency sick leave for employees for fulltime employees up to 8 hours of sick leave including leave due to school closures. They have expanded unemployment both extended it and extended it to selfemployed and gig workers and waved the waiting period so people can receive those benefits more quickly. On the federal level there is 350 billion for low interest loans with companies. Additionally a part of the relief is direct tax rebates to individuals. Nationwide that is 560 billion, which is 1,200 per person with various caveats for those that make less than 75,000 per year. For relief for local government. On march 13th, the federal government did declare a National Emergency which will allow the provision of direct assistance and reimbursement for local government for Emergency Response. This is for medical response and ppe and logistics. In the cares act there is 45 billion. This is uncertainty how they will divide that up among jurisdictions but it is helpful to know for very specific covid19 related responses there will be up to 75 local reimbursement match under fema. We are still digging into the details what this means for San Francisco. Additional federal covid19 stimulus bill enhancements to City Operations one of the biggest is controller noted yesterday 150 billion relief fund distributed to states based on population. It will be direct aid which each jurisdiction will get a percentage for necessary expenditures incurred due to the Public Health emergency related to covid19. We are working with our state and federal partners to understand the allocation model. This will be helpful to offset additional costs that might not be covered by fema for San Francisco. Additionally, there is aid included in the cares act for transit agencies. 25 billion for transportation to help within from structure, operating costs and aid for airports. There is 1. 5 billion included in hospital and Healthcare Systems to include everything from ppe to testing, Infection Control. Other kind of enhancements to the programs the city administrators for vulnerable residents. Snap residents and homelessness and shelter support and support for individuals for addiction defense and hud supported housing. The state of the 500 million the governor has allocated to his 1 billion allocation for San Francisco the governor has allocated 100 million in Flexible Funding to address homelessness as well as 50 million allocation to assist with sro and hotels. We are working on a daily basis with state partners. I feel like a broken record. To understand how these will help San Francisco with our efforts, but i will say that as our spending takes place we do know we will receive some offset from the state and federal government. We need to understand the local impact and will work to provide updates to the committee as we discern those. The city has stepped up. We have done prior to discussion of this new fund this morning the city stepped up to help Small Businesses. We deferred the First Quarter of business taxes for Small Businesses up to 10 million of gross receipts. That is up to 40 million that acts as a no interest loan that businesses will not have to pay until february of 2021. Almost a year that is a bit more diffuse than other programs. That is a helpful aid the city has utilized to relieve pressure on Small Businesses. By delaying collection of the unified bill for various business related fees another 10 million to support 11,000 businesses for relief on having to pay the city in this time of crisis for the next three months. We have come up with direct grant and relief funds. We discussed the 1 million personal businesses. Additional grants for Small Artists and artists organizations. We discussed the priorities of the give to sf program with an equity loan to three priority areas. Access to housing, Food Security and workers and Small Businesses. We have also provided various d sick leave for private Sector Workers providing an additional 40 hours of sick leave. The Enterprise Department stepped up to help provide relief to residents m. T. A. And p. U. C. Waived late fees and shutoffs. They enhanced leave benefits through paid sick leave and leave forwarding and making sure the city supported nonprofit contractors have continuity through the contract as they add here to this shelterinplace provisions related to nonessential businesses. For cityrelated spending directly related to covid19, the departments have incurred costs to rapidly deploy resources and staff to respond to the Health Crisis. The vast majority of spending that has happened to date is for the department of Public Health related to staffing costs, stabilizing and supporting the Healthcare Work force, including nurses and doctors support and expediting additional hiring. Procurement of Safety Supplies including ppe allocations for additional testing and treatment. Of course, there is additional staff time across city departments responding to covid19 in terms of over time, staffing the eo c, providing support to we can work remotely all dedicated to covid19. Under the executive directive, the mayor has given me authority to have departments move money more flexibly around to meet these needs. As of now the majority of spending is departments moving money and reprioritizing in the near term. We are working to figure out how much money we will receive to offset. As the controller discussed once those shake out there will be a cleanup supplemental when we have a handle on the abilities of departments to utilize existing sources state and federal and if there is a delta to cover for that. In addition to the kind of direct spending that i mentioned in terms of staffing and supplies departments are working to get out the door, we have been working quickly to help with our forward looking costs and programs to address the crisis as it potentially grows in scope and number of impacted residents. The two priorities of especially the three biggest social service and Health Departments dph, hsa and hhh, they are focused on planning for and supporting additional surge planning for the Hospital System, seeking additional bed capacity and supplies and staffing. Vital to dphs plans is placement for people who either under investigation and not confirmed with covid19 and cov, finding places to free up capacity to help people with the highest acuity in the hospital setting. That leads to the demands we have and hard work that hsa is moving forward rapidly to identify hotel and shelter placements for vulnerable populations and front line workers. The goal is to secure about 3500 hotel rooms, which will be prioritizing to allow the Hospital System to discharge individuals who cant selfquarantine, to make sure we have enough Hotel Capacity to fill front line workers unable to selfisolate at home and vulnerable individuals without that capacity. Those in congregate settings and city shelters. There is a desire to find 2000 placements a need to find 2000 placements for additional shelter placements to help with the appropriate assistance at existing shelters and to provide assistance to those unsheltered on the streets during this Health Crisis. Finally, yesterday the mayor introduced in the seventh amendment to the Emergency Declaration and in concert and partnership with chair fewer and president yee, thank you for your leadership and partnership. Given this unprecedented time and need for all of us to focus on response to covid, having our staff to work to address the financial implications and getting the services and supplies needed as well as just given the ever changing financial landscape and the dramatic and Significant Impact of the likely revenue shortfall, we felt it behooves all of us t delay the budget process by two months. Here is a high level calendar. As you know, we introduced an updated the joint report yesterday. We will do another revision as the controller noted earlier in april that will take into account all of the other factors 13 or 14. During the month of april as well which is in the next slide. My office will work with city departments to close the current and come up with a rebalancing plan to clear the shortfall. The mayor will issue budget innstructions to departments in may. We will work through june and july to come up with a balanced budget. I will say there is also plans on here in order to allow the citys finances to complete. There will be an interim budget on june 1st to go through the First Quarter next fiscal year while the policy matters are deliberatessed by the mayor and the board. The mayor will introduce a balanced budget by august 1st. The Board Budget Committee will take place in august. It normally takes place in june. The full board will review the budget in september and mayor will sign by october 1st. As for the current year as controller noted, we are anticipated 170 million to 290 million in current year shortfall. In response to that, the mayor has instructed the departments to pause nonessential hiring and spending until we can develop a rebalancing plan. Those instructions include no new hiring except for essential workers, prioritizing essentially Capital Projects and other programs that havent begun construction as well as pausing new programs that havent started over the last couple of years. We have initiated new programming and if money has not gone out the door we will reevaluate those programs to unify if we want to repurpose to help close the shortfall. These are all different levers we have and we will look for Additional Savings in the current year to help offset the shortfall. This is a significant current year shortfall. We will prioritize maintaining services to vulnerable populations. We are looking at these three main areas as the first look to help usuryduce help us to reduce spending. It is to come to the board at the end of april or early may for review, as the mayor looks so close that shortfall. With that our presentation is done. Happy to answer questions. Thank you. Lets hear from the bla now, please. Good morning, chair fewer, members of the committee. Budget legislative analyst office. We dont have a report on this presentation but we did work with the Mayors Office and Controllers Office in the last few days on the update to the joint report. We concur with the conclusions in the report. Thank you very much. Lets open up for comments from my colleagues. President yee has requested to speak. Thank you very much. President yee. Thank you, chair fewer. Thanks for the presentation. It is helpful. I know it is hard to get details at this point, especially with the federal and state relief stimulus packages that are being offered. Two questions. Is there an estimate of time where you think you would have details on what San Francisco might receive from these relief and stimulus packages . In the second question on the interim budget itself, when you present the interim budget to us, what would it be based on . Is there a formula you are using or what is the thinking behind the interim budget so we know what we are voting on at some point . Yes, thank you, president yee. As the controller noted in terms of timeline for state and federal impacts to San Francisco, we would like to have some sense of that by the time we do that april update to the joint report. We will keep you all appraised as we green more information. There is daily and hourly outreach to help get that. We will provide updates with the goal of providing some type of more refined estimates as we receive information for the joint report. Update in april. Then to the interim budget, the goal is for this to be a status quo budget that allows general operations of the city to continue. The controller has a good sense of options that we have to try to maintain that without making those hard policy tradeoffs that really will be the meat of our august discussion. As we develop and finalize the shape of the interim budget, we will be in communication. The goal is to make the conversations in august and we will be in communication as the interim budget shapes up over the next month. We are going to focus on developing the current year rebalancing plan which will take efforts. If you have any insights to share on either of those points . Do you have anything to say . I think ms. Kirkpatrick handled the questions well. Each year the board of supervisors adopts a place holder interim budget for the month of july while the board deliberates on the final budget. This would look similar instead of covering july it would be for a three month period. In that interim budget, it is a status quo budget. New programs dont go into effect during that program during better times and times like this cuts would not go into effect during that window, new Capital Projects would not be permitted to proceed. I think the idea is a place holder until the mayor could submit a balanced budget with more substantive changes necessary to balance in august which would be deliberated by the board in august and september. I guess one of the reasons why i asked in your presentation, i think it was your presentation, you mentioned that the departments are adjusting to budgets at this point to certain things concerning the covid19, and i wonder if that is as you move things around this this years budget is that what will be presented or will it be just basically extension of what was presented for the budget at the beginning of the year . I think all of our offices are hoping to have for you much tighter updates o on the covid9 related spending and revenues to offset them before the budget to you in june. That is the focus of our update to these projections in a month. We should have our hands around these things and the rebalancing plan would touch on those issues as well. I think that can happen at the board sooner than the interim. Thank you. Supervisor stefani. Thank you, chair fewer. I just had a few questions for the controller or the mayors budget director based on the excellent presentation. I think this is more directed for the controller. It seems to me that any projections are filled with such uncertainty and i wonder if you know at what point you will be able to further revise the revenue projections for us. I think you are right. This is a level of financial uncertainty and Economic Uncertainty that i certainly have not lived through. Usually we express the joint report as a single number. Just expressing a range is partially acknowledging that. I anticipate one of the goals as we work through coming weeks and months to refine those ranges down as more information becomes available. I would hope that by the time we get an update to you in april we will have more certainty around a lot of these things, not all of them. By the time the mayor proposes a budget to the board later in the summer, we will have a much better picture how the Health Emergency has played out and in San Francisco and in the nation and we will better understand what the economic damage, what has occurred and what we expect to happen. I think our goal is to continue to bring these ranges tighter and tighter as we get new information. I believe you are on mute, supervisor stefani. Thank you. I am wondering to follow up to that, mr. Controller, in terms of events or indicators you will use to determine when we will have reasonable confidence in the revenue projections. I imagine we are looking at the end of the shelterinplace and with regard to Hotel Tax Revenue when will we derm it will hit the steady state . It will depend on the crisis in terms of travel looking at each state affected not only in the United States but also in terms of Hotel Revenue and tourism, what it is going to look like internationally as well. A good question. The range in the current year for hotel tax is relatively certain. It is basically zero or a little more than zero to the end of the year. I think the question will be how quickly does it recover in the year and years ahead . That is something we will watch for. That will be heavily informed how quickly the Health Emergency ends and some of the experience we see i in months after that. I think the hotel will be a lagging recovery even in more optimistic scenarios versus almost any other local part of the economy. That would be our expectation. One final question through the chair. With regard to additional expenditures, i am wondering if you think we will have a full understanding of those by august during the budget and appropriations fazan the work of our appropriations the phase, will you have an understanding what the expenses we had to incur because of the crisis by august . I hope so. We hope to have estimates what those expenses are likely toby beginning next month. Then we can track those expectations in the months that follow. Thank you. I i want to thank chair fewer. I feel confident in your leadership based on the prior two years. It is nice knowing you will lead us through this, chair fewer, and i thank you for having this forum where all supervisors can join as well. I hope you will continue to join us at our meeting. Supervisor ronen. One of my question is and as soon as we can get that information the better. I wanted to add to that request and i asked you this yesterday in the Board Meeting if we could along with the list of expenses or accounting of expenses that have been made during this emergency if we could get an update on the philanthropic dollars that have come in and what parameters around those dollars have been in place by donors . That would be great if you could give us a sense when we would get that information. Thank you for the question. I have a bit more information about the process you asked regarding yesterday that i can report today and we can follow up with more regular reporting on money into and out of that fund. In the mayors Emergency Declaration, the give to sf fund is created. The Controllers Office received payments and weep then caused them to be deposited into the fund. The fund can be used for three specific uses. Shelter in housing, Food Security and Small Business and worker relief. The approvals from the use of that fund are a three party approval. The director of Emergency Management for the city, city administrator and myself will be the authorizers of payment out of the fund. So far no payments have come out of the fund. We would expect to see recommendations for uses of the fund coming through the eoc. There is staff at the eoc working to bring forward proposals to the committee for approval. I dont have the numbers here with me today regarding how much is contributed to the fund to date. I can certainly report that and we would be happy to provide whatever reporting and regularity is helpful to the board as you work through this. If a weekly report regarding money in and out would be helpful, we wouldly glad to do that. That would be helpful. I know that checks have gone out for the micro Business Security fund, at least 30 checks have gone out. We just heard that a few minutes ago. It may be well. I can check on that. I dont believe any have out of this fund. I know that oewd and others are utilizing other appropriations to push money out faster. That may be where the money is pushed from. Thank you. Any other questions or comments . Seeing none, madam clerk can you see if there are any people in the c. U. E for Public Comment. Checking to see if there are callers. Please let us know if there are callers that are ready there is one caller wishing to speak. Thank you. Hello, caller. We can hear you. You can speak. Hello. Are you hearing me . Yes, we can hear you. Hello. Yes, we can hear you. . Thank you. I am from the San Francisco Human Services network. I want to thank our city policymakers for your leadership in implementing the strong measures to contain the virus and protect our most vulnerable residents. I want to call attention to the work of our cb os on the front line working facetoface with clients every day putting themselves at risk to flatten the curve, particularly for those experiencing homelessness, they are keeping people out of hospitals and ensuring the basic needs are met like shelter and food and Domestic Violence services. As we head into difficult budget times, i want to say i am struck that the need is greatest when resources are most scarce. This is a wakeup call. Lives are at stake. Nonprofits are experiences covidrelated costs. They will need additional city support, and right now the priority is to prevent short term gaps. This will exacerbate longterm needs for vulnerable residents throughout the recovery period. When we talk about cuts this year or in the coming years. [please stand by] supervisor ronen you mentioned that h. S. A. Are trying to get 400 hotel rooms for people that are covid positive and p. U. I. S that dont need to be hospitalized and dont have a place to quarantine or to contain themselves. And you then said youre looking for an additional 2,000 placements to thin out the shelters and laguna honda where possible, etc. Is that the only plans, because thats not what weve heard. Supervisor shamann walton, preston, peskin, haney, and myself have been participating in conversation with several people who told us that theyre looking at a much larger number. So weve gotten so much inconsistent information in this regard, and i want to make sure that i heard you right, or is that just a question of one part of the team not talking to another part of the team . Thank you so much for that question, supervisor. And i was trying to keep up to speed on the latest information, but you should accept the latest information from trent rhorer. I will say this is an ever evolving need and number, and so apologies for not being up on the latest, and definitely use those sources that you cited earlier as the most up to date. Supervisor ronen okay. Thank you. I just wanted to heireiterate t mr. Rhorer told us yesterday is that we are going to start in the next few days of action of thinning the shelter or any person over 60 who has an under lying comorbid condition will be moved, as well. We expect, given the need of First Responders, covid19 and p. U. I. S that dont need to be hospitalized, as well as Vulnerable People in the shelters are going to be way more than 5,500 rooms or at least a significant amount more than that. And in addition, those five members of the board of supervisors that ive mentioned believe we should also be providing hotel rooms for individuals sleeping on the streets, starting with those that are 60 or older or have underlying medical conditions that can care for themselves. But at this point, we have the ability if necessary to commandeer hotels, and we should be doing that, and that money should not be a block to that, to make sure that every Single Person experiencing homelessness that can care for themselves in a shelter in place order in a hotel room should be given that hotel room, and were going to continue to work to make that happen. Supervisor fewer i would just also include people in s. R. O. S. Supervisor ronen and thats included. Sorry. I didnt maenention that, but rhorer told us that People Living in s. R. O. S would be included. Thats why this number of 5500 scared me, because we know that the number is much greater, and the need is much greater than that. Chair fewer is that it, supervisor ronen . Supervisor ronen yes, thank you. Chair fewer okay. Thank you. Supervisor walton . Supervisor walton yes. My comments echo supervisor ronen, so i wont belabor that. I just wanted to say thank you. Chair fewer okay. Colleagues, any other comments or questions . I know this has been a somewhat brief presentation. I think what were missing are a lot of the hard numbers, i just wanted to secure a presentation for our april meeting, and to take note. Im wondering how much we have allocated for the expense of the hotel rooms, and how much we anticipate paying for hotel rooms, and what is the rate that we are paying for hotel rooms . Also, i understand piggybacking on supervisor waltons and ronens questions about it, i think we would all like updates on any numbers on people being released from jails. And then, are we using frontline workers . Are we using Health Care Workers . And what is the protection being given to them . And where is this funding coming from . Is this from our reserves or is this general fund money . And i think we hope to get reimbursed for some of it, but how does that funding happen . And then, i have a question, also, on testing. I wanted to know is i understand that were testing 400 a day. Is i know there is a delay in testing. Are we testing daily, and how much is it costing . And are we testing in s. R. O. S and in jails . And then, i think you answered some of the questions about we might be expecting a hiring freeze for the current year, and what are the discussions that were having with labor and the planning for the next two years with our labor partners . Are we expecting to activate v. S. W. Workers because in my neighborhood, i have 500 seniors who need meals delivered to them, and the individuals who deliver meals must pass a background check. Theyre able to be deployed rapidly, and if they are not working, theyre at home, that we could actually utilize them to work in these capacities. So those are some of my questions. I know that april, our meeting, we anticipate to have more hard numbers, is that correct . Yes. Those numbers are available in my office as well as the Controllers Office to provide sharpened numbers as we hone in on them. Chair fewer okay. Great. Oh, i see president yee on the roster. President yee . President yee thank you, chair fewer. Those are really Great Questions that you just asked. Not all, but some of these questions are being posted or answered from e. O. C. Ive seen some of the answers, but i cant remember the answers related to your questions. So if people wanted to know, maybe, some of the answers to the questions that youve asked, maybe they should look at that report that you have access to. Supervisor fewe. Chair fewer thank you, president yee. We are looking at extended answers. We had a good conversation and fo formative conversation with the chancellor of ucsf. Were wondering, im just wondering, i think this committee should know, what the extra cost for hotel rooms, e. O. C. Centers, everything weve had to deploy, if we could get a ballpark number, that would be helpful. And also, i would ask my colleagues, if were modelling whats happening in other countries. We know that countries have opened up and closed down again, and opened up again. For example, in hong kong, restaurants were open, and bars were open, and stores were open. And then, theyve had a surge, and theyve had to, again, shelter in place. So we may go through some of these transitions before we are done with this thing, and i think to have the projected cost of what we think might be for these things this year going into next year. Thank you for this presentation. Are there any other questions or comments on our committee that you would like for us to be discussing on the upcoming agendas . You can also email my office or call my office. I miss seeing you all. Its nice to see you on video because i havent seen folks for so long, but, do you have anything that youd like to give feedback to us, miss kirkpatrick, about these upcoming months . Just appreciate the partnership that i know we will have to have during these most difficult conversations. I know that our property as a city is to make sure that were supporting our vulnerable residents and responding quickly and swiftly to the medical crisis to mitigate our impacts on our community members, so i look forward to working together as we confront the tough physical challenges while trying to meet the needs of our community. Chair fewer thank you, miss kirkpatrick. I think these difficult times command it, and i residents of San Francisco expect it. Chair fewer so madam clerk, are there any other items oh, i think id like to continue this item to the call of the chair, and id like to make a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair. Could i have a roll call vote, please. Clerk is there a second . Supervisor walton second. Chair fewer oh, thank you. Supervisor walton just seconded it. Clerk on the motion [roll call] clerk there are five ayes. Chair fewer thank you very much. Madam clerk, are there is there any other business before us today . Clerk theres no further business. Chair fewer thank you, colleagues. We are adjourned. President yee thank you. Chair fewer thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to the meeting of the land use and transport Committee Meeting for today, monday, march 30, 2020. And it is a special meeting. I am the chair of the committee, supervisor aaron peskin. Joined by vice chair supervisor safai and supervisor dean preston. And the clerk is miss erica major. Miss major, do you have announcements . Clerk yes, please due to the covid19 Health Emergency and to protect Board Members and the City Employees and the public, the board of supervisors legislative chamber and Committee Room are closed. However, members will be participating in the meeting remotely. And precaution is taken pursuant to the statewide stay at home order and all preceding and proceeding local, state and federal orders, declarations and orders. Members will be by teleconference or telephone if the video fails and participate in the meetings to the extent as if they were physically present. Public comment is available on each item of this agenda. Channel 26 and sfgovtv. Org are streaming the number at the top of the screen. Each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. Comments or opportunities to use to speak during the Comment Period are available via phone call by calling 888204 8882045984. Again, that number is 8882045984. The access code is 3501008. Again, the access code is 3501008. When connected, wait until the Public Comment is opened and dial to speak. And they are to call from a quiet location and speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in either of the following ways email myself, the land use and transport Committee Clerk at my email and it will be forwarded to the board of supervisors. And it will be included as part of the official file. Finally, items acted upon today will appear on the board of supervisor agenda on april 7, 2020, unless otherwise stated. Supervisor peskin thank you, miss major and i thank the clerk of the board of supervisors and her incredible staff during this period. In addition to clerk calvillo and our Committee Clerk, miss major, id like to thank john see and john carroll and prent halipa, and john carroll, i think that i said john carroll. Thank you for your incredible behinbehindthescenes effort te this and other meetings possible as our participatoriy democracy survives during the coronavirus time. And with that, madam clerk, please call the first item. Clerk item 1 is an order to submit the planning code to create the intermediate occupancy residential use characteristic with the administrative code for enforceability and to prohibit rental units for temporary occupancies and the controller to analyze the impact and appropriate findings. Supervisor peskin thank you, miss major. Colleagues this was continued from the meeting which occurred a few weeks ago right before the shelter in place order was issued by the mayor. And it is my intention to continue this item to the call of the chair. But before we do that we need to take Public Comment. So, madam clerk, please work whatever magic you need to work to allow the members of the public to comment on this item. Clerk we are checking to see if theres any callers. Operator, let us know if theres any callers ready. indiscernible . Supervisor peskin seeing no Public Comment on item number one, Public Comment is closed. And colleagues, again, we have a roll call vote on continuing this item to the call of the chair. Clerk and continue on the call of the chair. Supervisor peskin. Aye. Clerk aye. Supervisor safai. Safai aye. And supervisor peskin. Peskin aye. Supervisor peskin this item is continued to the call of the chair. Next item please. Clerk two, the Building Code to extend the time for existing buildings with a place of public accommodations to comply with the requirement to have all primary entries and paths of travel into buildings accessible for persons with disabilities. Supervisor peskin this is brought to us by president yees office to provide flexibility to Small Businesses and other places of public accommodations, seeking to come into compliance with mandatory accessibility requirements. I spoke with president yee and his chief of staff jim lowe who are actually here at the Emergency Operations center. They do not have any comments and we are joined by the department of building inspection with mr. Bill strong and Thomas Kessler as well as the office of Small Business. I thought that wed start by having a presentation on this ordinance which was introduced before the coronavirus emergency and recommended by the building inspection commission. With that, mr. Strong, would you like to make a presentation to this committee and the public . Yes. Supervisors, thank you very much. Bill strong with the department of building inspection. Weve asked supervisor yee and members of the committee to consider this extension because as of todays report we have a weekly monitoring report of the accessible business entrance compliance and our compliance category is still running at about 60 . These numbers are actually getting a little better, but the reality is that i think that especially with the Public Health emergency, Property Owners are going to need a little more time to come into full compliance. So the Building Department having taken a look at this is saying that we should extend this at least until september 1 of this year and possibly consider tying it to the ending of the shelter in place order, with an additional, say, 90 or 120 days after that. But im happy to hear any specific questions that the committee has on this. And we just think that in this time this is a stress since most of these properties indiscernible it makes sense to give the owners a little bit more time to comply. Supervisor peskin thank you, mr. Strong. Mr. Kessler, anything that you would like to add . No, i think that he explained it pretty well. One of the things that were not doing right now because its these are commercial buildings, theyre not considered essential infrastructure under the mayors order. So we would not be issuing any permits if the permits were required under this ordinance. We would not be processing them at the present time because theyre not considered essential. Theyre nonessential construction. Supervisor peskin understood. So it sounds to me like well probably have to continue this or further continue this beyond september, but we will look forward to the advice of the department and your commission as we go forward. Are there any questions, colleagues, for the department of building inspection . All right. Why dont we move on to the office of Small Business. Thank you, supervisor peskin. And committee members. So in your packet you did see that the Small Business commission endorsed and is recommending approval for the extension. Our office is working very closely with the department of building inspection, working with the Small Businesses, that are being required by their Property Owner to meet this compliance. And we do have a Grant Program that is available for them. This grant money is not general funded so there will not be any issues or concerns about that funding still being there to assist businesses who need to access it to achieve compliance. And i think that the last thing that i just want to keep reiterating is that as a city that prides itself on civil rights that this is an Important Initiative that were undertaking to ensure the civil rights of individuals with disabilities are upheld. Supervisor peskin thank you. And if businesses want to get in touch with the office of Small Business about the grants that you just mentioned, how would they do that . They can do that by calling 4155546134. Or emailing sfose sfgov. Org. Supervisor peskin thank you. And maybe we should just further clarify things with d. B. I. Which is insofar as you indicated that no Building Permits for this type of activity are allowed under the emergency order issued by the mayor and concurred to by the board of supervisors during the coronavirus emergency, our permits that were previously issued, can those be acted upon if they were already issued . Or are those held in advance during this time as well . Yes, in general they would be they shouldnt be working on these because theyre they are considered nonessential or to the mayors order would extend to issue permits also. Unless, you know, of course if theyre partially in process, i think they should continue until theyre complete. But i would say if we havent issued a permit and they havent started the work, they should suspend the work until the emergency order is changed. Supervisor peskin thank you. And back to miss dickendreesy. Is the office doing any proactive outreach to businesses . I realize that is difficult now, but its still an important question. The office of Small Business is not doing proactive outreach. The way in which this is working is through the checklist that needs to be submitted. When d. B. I. Receives a checklist and its been identified that a Small Business is being required by their Property Owner to complete the Building Code requirement, d. B. I. Puts that business in touch with us. And, of course, weve been working closely with the merchants to make sure that theyre informed about the program. And just to reiterate that this is a requirement of the Property Owner and so if the Property Owner is not submitting the checklist then theres a particular form that they can state that has to be filled out and submitted with the checklist which is one of the ways in which were able to identify that a Small Business is now engaged in meeting this compliance requirement. Supervisor peskin understood. Thank you for that. Supervisor safai or preston, any questions or comments . Not at this time. Nope. Supervisor peskin why dont we open this up for Public Comment. Any members of the public that would like to comment on this item, number 2 . Clerk were checking to see if theres callers in the queue. Operator, please let us know. Mr. Chair, there are no callers wishing to speak. Supervisor peskin okay, seeing no Public Comment on this item. Public comment is closed. And colleagues, why dont we send this to the full board with recommendation, if that is acceptable to you. And i did see, madam clerk, in one of the memoranda from the president and from the clerk of the board, can this item be sent as a Committee Reporter on just be sent in the normal course of business . Clerk in the normal course. Supervisor peskin okay. So on the motion to send this item to the full board of supervisors with recommendation, can we have a roll call please. Clerk on the motion as stated, supervisor preston. Preston, aye. And supervisor safai, safai, aye. Supervisor peskin. Peskin, aye. You have three ayes. Supervisor peskin okay. The motion is approved. Next item please. Clerk an ordinance amending the planning code to correct typographical errors, update outdated crossreferences and make nonsubstantive revisions to clarify or simplify code language, amending article 4 to move the language regarding timing of fee payment and amending the code to correct outdated planning code crossreferences and affirming the planning. Supervisor peskin thank you, miss major. Colleagues this is the next up in a long series of planning code cleanups which has been the life long persui pursuit ofe aaron star at the cit departmenf planning. And we have this as the title indicates these are almost all technical corrections and typographical corrections together with a couple of policy changes or clarifications to article 4 which miss juarez can talk about. Thank you, supervisor peskin. As miss major outlined, it amends the planning code to correct typos and to update crossreferences and make nonsubstantive revisions to clarify and simplify the code. It will amend article 4 to move the language regarding timing of payments to the beginning of the article and then crossreference this with new subsection into the individual impact fee sections. Lastly, proposed ordinance will also add an additional fee waiver based on the replacement of buildings damaged or destroyed by fire or other calamities. The reason behind this is that theres thought to be no new net impact when were replacing said building or said use. The Planning Commission heard this item on december 12th, 2019, and recommended that you approve the ordinance with modifications. indiscernible . The first modification is to update planning code references and the administrative, health and police codes. And the second modification is to revise planning codes, section 155 to clarify that commercial thruway streets to find a better streets plan to also be protected. And the proposed ordinance will improve the quality of the planning code and make it easier for the objective and the goals of the code to be carried out. This concludes staff presentation and im available to answer any questions. Supervisor peskin miss flores, i assume that the additional modifications suggested by the Planning Commission are in the second version of the legislation which is the version that is before us, is that correct . Yes, that is correct. Supervisor peskin right. So no amendments are necessary and those have already been amended in between version one and version two . Correct. Supervisor peskin thank you. Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments . No. No. Supervisor peskin seeing none, is there any Public Comment on item number 3 . Clerk operator, please to check to see if theres any callers. Chair, there are no callers wishing to speak. Supervisor peskin with that Public Comment is closed and, again, i will make a motion to send this item to the full board of supervisors with recommendation. And on that motion, madam clerk, a roll call, please. Clerk supervisor preston. Preston, aye. Supervisor safai. Safai, aye. Supervisor peskin. Peskin, aye. We have three ayes. Supervisor peskin okay, the motion passes. Madam clerk, anymore business before this committee . Clerk there is no further business. Supervisor peskin seeing none, we are adjourned. Working for the city and county of San Francisco will immerse you in a vibrant and dynamic city thats on the forefront of economic growth, the arts, and social change. Our city has always been on the edge of progress and innovation. After all, were at the meeting of land and sea. Our city is famous for its iconic scenery, historic designs, and worldclass style. Its the birthplace of blue jeans, and where the rock holds court over the largest natural harbor on the west coast. Our 28,000 city and county employees play an Important Role in making San Francisco what it is today. We provide residents and visitors with a wide array of services, such as improving city streets and parks, keeping communities safe, and driving buses and cable cars. Our employees enjoy competitive salaries, as well as generous benefits programs. But most importantly, working for the city and county of San Francisco gives employees an opportunity to contribute their ideas, energy, and commitment to shape the citys future. Thank you for considering a career with the city and county of San Francisco. Mayor breed about afternoon. Thank you for joining us. I am San Francisco mayor london breed to provide an update with what is happens in San Francisco as it relates to the covid19 pandemic that we have been faced with here in our city and throughout the world. I am joined by our department of Public Health director grant colfax as well as the police chief bill scott, department of Human Resources director trent rohr. Currenttor odirector of emergeny management. We will help guide you through this unique challenge. I want to thank the workers who are in the hospitals working with people every day, Healthcare Workers, nurses, doctors, support staff showing up every day. I have seen a outpouring of love and support from san franciscans who are social distancing outside and giving hand claps and love to our Healthcare Workers. We appreciate what you are doing every day to keep people safe. We also want to say thank you to First Responders, police and firefighters, bus drivers, Grocery Store clerks, so many people who are showing up to work to help provide help and support and assistance to others. What you are doing on the front lines means so much to us. We truly have a deep appreciation for your commitment to serving others during this pandemic. We all know that yesterday the county Health Officers in the bay area announced an extension until may 3rd of this stay at home order with new guidelines that definitely are as far as i am concerned adding but reiterating the importance. I wanted to justi to continue to stress the need to practice social distancing. I want to refer to it as physical distancing. We cannot be physically close to one another, it doesnt mean we cant pick up the phone and reach out to people and reach out to neighbors and continue to do everything we can to support one another during this very difficult time because the likelihood this may 3rd date will be extended is possible. We already know that the school year for kids has been impacted tremendously, and we know that from some of the early reports that it looks like even though there are real challenges in San Francisco, we are at 434 cases, and sadly, seven deaths, it could be a lot worse if all of you werent playing an Important Role by staying at home when at all possible. For clarity, we know that people may need to go outside and take a walk, walk their dog or jog with babies or go to the Grocery Store. What we ask people to do is get the fresh air, get the exercise you need walking, jogging or biking. Maintain your physical distance from people not in your household. I see friends all of the time, and i desperately want to go give them a hug, my neighbors. I cant do that. It is a natural thing to want to have that kind of connection with people, but i also realize the importance of not only protecting myself but protecting them. That is what this is all about as much as the natural reflection is to give love and support and extend a hand, it is just really critical that we not do that at this time. Once we are over this, that knows . We might be able to hug anybody we want. Who knows . I want to talk about my incredible experiences, as i mentioned earlier this week. I had a neighbor drop a slip in my mailbox to reach out to say they are my block captain and as a result of being the block captain they are there to provide grocery runs, pharmacy runs and also i can call or email them if i want somebody to talk to. It was very touching. It made me think about our vulnerable population. We have been thinking about this. People have been doing this all over the city informally. I heard about another resident in the sunset. Someone reached out and realized they were a senior and couldnt leave the house, dropped off groceries, asked if they needed support, first of all, asked if they spoke other languages besides english and provided a comprehensive outreach to support neighbors. I know there are so many people doing that. We are grateful for you. I want to take that to the next level. Today i want to announce an opportunity for san franciscans to get involved and volunteer. People have been great, but so many have said my neighbors, i dont have that vulnerable population, i want to get involved and be helpful. The program that we are announcing today provides you with an opportunity to do just that. To help those who are seniors and are part of the vulnerable population, especially People Living in isolation and cant run the basic errands in order to get groceries and support and resources that they need. The department of aging and Adult Services under be the direction of shreen with us here today. They have partnered with the office of transgender initiatives to develop a program where you can sign up and we will partner you with a senior. Basically, it is like you are going to be responsible for caring for and taking care of that senior for the duration of this issue or this pandemic. I think that what is gained from this is not only the ability to do something to help support others, but it could be the beginning of a long lasting friendship. We know so many seniors are living in isolation. They may not have family members who are there and available to them. Here is an opportunity for you to help someone who desperately needs help at this time. To get information about this program, you can look on our website at sfgov. Org or call 311 or 415 3556700. I also want to thank mona a. M. I. They have repurposed the app to help us connect people with seniors who are living in isolation, and this program is also important a combination of mona and open house and others have been great in taking the initiative and doing the work. Now we are going to expand upon the work that they are already doing in order to connect even more seniors to resources. That is really our goal. I think this is going to be an Incredible Opportunity for our city. If you are interested, please reach out to us. I also want to talk a little bit about some of our efforts and trent will talk more about hotel rooms, shelters and some of the things we have planned to help house our unsheltered population. I want to just start by saying that i know that we have thousands of hotel rooms here in San Francisco. I know that people are asking why dont we just open the doors and let everyone who is homeless get access to a hotel room . I wish it were that easy. I wish it were that easy to help people who unfortunately are struggling with addiction, sadly struggling with mental illness. I wish it were that easy to provide a place for them to be. I want folks to understand part of the challenge we have here we have secured over 400 hotel rooms. We hope to increase that number and again trent will talk in more detail about the priorities and purposes and how we are preparing, but i want to be clear that the capacity and the resources in general needed to provide the wraparound Supportive Services for many of these populations make it very difficult to just open the doors and allow anyone to walk in. In addition to that, we dont have the ability to force anyone to stay anywhere. That also becomes a challenge even with our shelter system. It is going to continue to be a challenge, but we have a plan to talk about exactly how we are going to do a couple things. Number one, deal with the challenges of our congregate living settings, places like shelters and Single Room Occupancy Hotels. We know that if someone gets the virus and they live in an sro where they share bathrooms with others, we dont want to send them back to a location where we know they could infect others. We want to isolate them and provide them with a hotel room so they can get better, and that is a real part of the goal of our program. We also know that there are proactive steps we can take, and with our shelter system we have identified a location to specifically help to spin out our shelter beds. Masconie west and south will be a place for room for 400 people. The goal is to thin out the shelter system so people arent as close to one another as they are in our shelters. We will start as early as tomorrow moving people from shelters allaround the city into masconie west with 24 Hour Services of support, food, resources and exactly the kinds of things that you need in order to manage a shelter system here in the city. This is something that trent will talk more in detail about. I also want to touch on something that came out yesterday about the budget impacts and the fact that, unfortunately, based on the controllers work and research around what is happening with the finances of the city, there is, of course, a huge hit to our general fund and huge hit to our economy as a whole. We can anticipate a budget deficit of anywhere between 1. 1 and 1. 7 billion over the next two fiscal years. That is going to mean really a hard blow to San Francisco, a hard blow to our services. As we are also spending money and dealing with this pandemic locally to keep people safe, we also have to be mind full about what will happen if we are not financially responsible now. If we are not making wise decisions about resources and how we allocate things and prioritize things, we are going to be in a lot of trouble financially in this city. We are going to need to make smart decisions. We are hopeful that the resources that we anticipate from the federal and State Government will be of help, but when you are talking about a 1. 1 to 1. 7 billion budget deficit, that is significant. Lets be mindful of that. We know there is a lot of need now and we are doing what we can to not only take existing resources as well as raise private sector dollars to help our Small Business community and others suffering. This is a tough road ahead of us, and be we are working every single day to put together the resources and the people. We will have more to announce, some more information tomorrow about our Recovery Plan and how we are going to start to develop the right task force that would allow for labor and Business Community and city departments and others to come together to begin to talk about the future of San Francisco, our Recovery Efforts and what do we do once this pendemic has been lifted. There will be a lot of people suffering financially and we need to get prepared for it. Not only now but in the future. The other thing i wanted to talk about is the census, and i actually did the online census. It didnt take very long. I was surprised that it was so quick. I think it took me maybe five minutes to go online and put in the number analog in. It was very simple. You can go to my 2020 census. Gov or call 18443302020. Anything that we talk about today you can also if you have questions, concerns 311 is a great tool to get information as well or the city website at sf sfgov. Org. Why is it important to be counted . We dont know if any decision to make changes to the census might occur in d. C. , but we do know that when we are counted, we count. When you think about 2 trilliondollar stimulus package that is being provided to the entire country, our state and possibly our city could have a tremendous percentage of that packet based on the number of people that are counted in previous census. People counted in the 2000 census, that is the data used to determine population and other things and resources and how we get our fair share of the pie. This is really important. Every person should be counted. Every person, meaning if you are a u. S. Citizen or not. If you are part of the immigrant community, you are part of the San Francisco community. This information will not be used against anyone based on immigration status. The census is protected in that way. We know this is a very challenging time. We want to impress upon people in the city how important it is for everyone to make sure that you complete your census information. You get that sent in as soon as possible. For those at home with access to the internet, you have no excuse. We need your help and support. Please make sure you are counted. To the nonprofit agencies that receive funding for outreach, this is a great opportunity to work from home to pick up the phone to call people and figure out ways in which people can be counted. This will make a difference in how we continue to get the kinds of resources necessary to make sure that we get our fair share. That is what it is about. Make sure you complete your census. It is critical to the future of our city and country. With that, thank you all so much for all of your work. Everyone who is out there doing what we need to do to keep san franciscans safe, we know that it is only two weeks. It feels like it has been several months, but hang in there. Take care of yourself, take care of your physical and mental health. Try not to snap at your kids too much. They cant help themselves. I am sure they are feeling as challenged as you are during this time. My heart goes out to a lot of the families with children especially. I know that this is a tough time. So many kids not able to stay in school and hang out with their friends and see their teachers. Just lets be mindful we are all going through this together, and for one reason or another are experiencing a number of probably emotional challenges as a result of this. Lets be patient with one another, lets comply with social distancing, lets try to set an example and continue to hold our heads up so we can get through this together. With that i want to introduce doctor grant colfax. Good afternoon. I am grant colfax, director of health. Thank you, mayor breed. Today in my update i want to thank everyone for their cooperation and everything they are doing to help fight the spread of the coronavirus. When you stay home, when you keep six feet apart from people during the times you must go out for essential reasons and when you wash your hands, you are saving lives. These efforts are important. They are not enough. We must redouble our commitment to slowing down the virus in our community to protect vulnerable populations and our Healthcare System and to make the best path forward for recovery. Some people have asked this week, is it working . Are we as a community in San Francisco and in the region flattening the curve in my message today for you is it is simply too early to tell. We know we are doing the right thing, and the data tells us that staying home is the very best defense. But at this stage of the game, there are still plausible scenarios that our Healthcare System could be brought to the brink and even overwhelmed. I dont want that to happen. None of us want that to happen. That is why we are here doing everything we can to follow the science, data and facts to drive our decisions. Yesterday, San Francisco joined with other bay area counties to extend the Stay Home Order to may 3rd. I know this is very challenging. There are roll zero o real serious economic and emotional impacts. These sacrifices are an investment in our future as a community and as a city. It is time to take a deep breath and get ready to stay home all month. The new order is much like the one that was put into place on march 16th. All san franciscans must stay home as much as possible abonly leave for essential activities like getting food and medicine. Even then stay at least six feet away from others if they are not part of our immediate households. Go outside to take care of a pet or exercise so long as you do not congregate in a group and you must maintain six feet of distance between you and other people not part of your immediate household. Essential workers are still needed to help our community during this time so that people can buy groceries, get gas, do laundry, get prescriptions, travel for essential reasons, get essential healthcare and other basic important and vital functions. I am grateful to our essential workers in the public and private sector for all they are continuing to do every day to keep everyone as healthy and safe as possible. The new Stay Home Order strengthens the previous one in some significant ways. Here are four examples. Social distancing, physical distances is now mandatory when people leave home. Use of playgrounds, outdoor gym equipment and picnic areas and barbecue areas is prohibited. This is to remove the temptation to gather. Number three. People who can work from home must do so. Number four. Essential businesses must put in place formal rules for physical distancing protocols to ensure proper sanitation that people stay a safe distance away from each other. These rules and many others are detailed in the order posted online along with updated frequently asked questions at sf. Gov. Now, i would like to give an update on laguna hospital. We are very concerned about a growing outbreak there and are continuing to do everything we can to protect the health of residents and staff. This week we received help from the California Department of Public Health, centers for Disease Control and prevention and other key federal partners. They are working closely with us on the current cases, contact investigations and recommendations for improved preparedness and response Going Forward. With regard to testing. As of today laguna honda has 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus. 10 are among staff and two are among residents. Of staff, seven have been in patient care positions and three are no not to date 89 patient he been tested. 218 Staff Members have tested through the Health Department or through their own provider. As we speak, the centers for Disease Control and prevention their experts are on site conducting thorough tracing and contact investigation, taking action now and providing us with an evidencebased datadriven road map for aggressive action in the future. They are identifying and testing staff and residents that they are concerned may have been exposed to the coronavirus. With regard to Behavioral Health needs this is a challenging time for staff and residents. We added extra resources. We have opened a dedicated phone line staffed by psychiatry clinicians to provide support. This is in addition to regular clinical Behavioral Health services. We have a Behavioral Health specialist on site. He is reaching out to staff on the two units impacted to provide support and coping mechanisms. The specialist are available to all staff and they will reach out to provide services. Caring for most vulnerable during this pandemic is some of the most intense and selfless work in the city. I want to thank the staff at laguna honda, residents and families for their forbearance and resilience and capacity to be part of our response to this pandemic. I am there, the Health Department is there, and the city is there for them. With regard to cdc, centers for Disease Control and prevention, and the California Department of Public Health, i am thankful for the support we have received from them as well as our federal medical partners. There is an ever changing this is an ever changing situation, and the ability to develop and share best practices and protocols will help slow the spread of the virus both at laguna honda and other residential nursing facilities in the city and the region. Again, i am most grateful for their support and expertise. The cdc, centers for Disease Control and prevention, has five physicians and scientists on site at laguna honda today. They are providing much needed staff and strengthening the contact investigations which is crucial to slowing and stopping the spread of the virus. They are also providing expert knowledge to assist clinical teams in the review of clinical protocols and guidelines and any revisionsness given the fluid situation. As we learn more, as we receive more data, we will adjust our response accordingly. The California Department of Public Health is providing expertise and guidance on Infection Control practices throughout the hospital through direct observation. They have made recommendations for improvements in environmental cleaning and staff practices which are immediately acted upon by laguna honda staff and zuckerberg San Francisco general hospital. Let me be clear. These experts have insights from around the country and across the world to help us do better in our local response. They have also joined the Ongoing Department of Health Discussion with other longterm facilities in the city to assess current infection surveillance and control planning. I look forward to their daily briefings and recommendations for both individual facilities and monitoring our system as a whole. We and i will continue to do everything we can to respond to the changing situation at laguna honda. I will keep staff, residents, families and the public updated. I want be to remind everyone that we continue to focus our response efforts on slowing the spread of the coronavirus. Preparing the Healthcare System for a surge, expanding testing, supporting Healthcare Workers and protecting vulnerable populations including those at laguna honda. I am pleased to update the two drop in testing sites for their patients successfully opened earlier this week and have started conducting coronavirus tests. We have been identified spaces in hotels and motels for quarantine and isolation to protect people from homelessness and living in congregate settings. We are adding more spaces for people to shelter. We have made significant progress. Trent ward will now share an update. Thank you. I am the executive director of Human Services agency. We are charged with providing housing and care in the citys disaster Emergency Response. In this case, the citys Covid Response. We acwe activated the center on. The most pressing need was to set up housing for individuals in response to covid. Covid. We had to ensure a relief valve for individuals who did not need to be there but needed to be quarantined. We recognized the best way to do this would be to rent thousands of hotel rooms in San Francisco. Thanks to mayor breeds leadership early on she joined me and director colfax in a meeting with the Hotel Council where we asked for their help. They stepped up by providing responding to our request for quotes offering over 10,000 hotel rooms for this purpose. I want to walk through now with you all what the priorities are for these hotel rooms. I am going slowly because this is important detail, and it is important that not only the press but stakeholders understand these priorities. It is important to note that these priorities are at the direction of the department of Public Health, Covid Response to the city is a health response. We are taking the best guidance from the department of Public Health in terms of their needs. For the hotel rooms online. The number one priority is to discharge or divert individuals who need to quarantine because they are covid positive or have been tested and are showing symptoms. Divert from the hospital or discharge from the hospital when they dont need to be there. 95 of these individuals are homeless. Remaining would be those in Single Room Occupancy Hotels and cant quarantine at their home. Next population that is important for hotel rooms are the vulnerable population, which are individuals aged 60 and older or individuals who have Underlying Health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the covid virus. First priority among this population would be the vulnerable in the homeless shelters. As we move to reducing the census in the shelters to create the physical distance physical distance required we will move to hotel rooms if they can selfcare. If they can be in the room on their own with the minimum level of support from the city annan e nonprofit providers. Then it is the front line healthcare responders, doctors, nurses, medical professionals who need a place to stay so they dont go home to potentially infect their family and loved ones. We can provide them rooms here to allow them to stay. Some of the front line Health Responders are exposed to the virus and will be exposed. We have rooms set aside to quarantine in hotels in San Francisco rather than quarantining at home. Last population for hotel rooms would be the vulnerable population. Let me restate that. Individuals aged 60 and older or individuals with Underlying Health conditions to make them vulnerable to could individual. Covid. They are living on the streets unsheltered. They are prioritized for hotel rooms. They need to selfcare. If they are quarantined they will be in the rooms with with meals delivered to them. The secondary response. Let me give you numbers. I know you will ask. To date the city has entered into contracts with six hotels providing a total of 479 rooms. The priority population for those rooms are the first category which are individuals being discharged or diverted from the hospital who are homeless and who are covid positive or have been tested. To date we have moved 123 individuals to the first hotel. We have additional rooms totaling 479. In addition, we have another two hotels totaling 576 rooms that we anticipate finalizing the contract at the end of today. They will be online by tomorrow. Then we have discussions with one additional hotel, a large hotel of 1500 rooms that we hope to enter into contract by the end of this week or saturday. Ithis brings the total hotel rooms to 2555 by the end of this week. It is important to know media and others ask what the target is. It is difficult. It is like projecting the curve, the medical surge and timing. It is difficult to know how many rooms we need. We are nimble enough to flex up to as many as 6555 rooms. Say that again. 6,555 rooms. We are in contract discussions with hotels totaling that number. We are attempting to balance the need of the medical system and the need for isolating and quarantining and providing safe places for vulnerable populations. Balancing that with fiscal prudence. We dont want to rent 3,000 rooms for a couple rooms. We want to manage the medical surge and manage the need of the vulnerable populations on the shelters, streets, Single Room Occupancy Hotels. The second piece is creating the physical distance in the homeless shelter system. Cdc is creating three feet of distance in between in the homeless shelters. We are moving to six feet in between. We need to move individuals from existing homeless shelter system to shelter that we are setting up right now. As the mayor announced earlier, our first shelter that will be ready to transfer individuals into is at moscone west. It is 394 individuals with full neals, showers, full meals and showers. It will be staffed by department of Public Health Shelter Health workers as well as other nonprofit partners. We will be moving individuals from existing shelters into this facility tomorrow. We have two other shelter sites we are currently negotiating with. I wont say the location or the names because we are not completed with the negotiations, but this will provide us slots for an additional 460 to 510 individuals. These three facilities combined will allow us to achieve physical distance in the current sellther system and the shelters we are deploying by the beginning of next week. Important to note individuals who are in our shelter system who are vulnerable age 60 and older or Health Conditions will not be moved to a new shelter. They will remain and we will arrange for transport to moments rooms if they can selfcare. The last intervention that we are charged with deploying are the trailers the state of california is sending to us to the state department Emergency Operations center for the state. That is 91 trailers coming to San Francisco. In addition we have secured an additional 30 recreational vehicles. We have identified a site and are currently negotiating with that site to finally the agreement and to begin setting those up. We anticipate those being primarily used for individuals who need to isolate but who have significant other needs, Behavioral Health or addiction or other physical health needs that need to be staffed by a medical professional, that need to be in an isolation setting but arent equipped to selfcare in hotel rooms. Clearly this response takes the entire city to cooperate. Hsa is not doing this alone. We are doing it in partnership with department of real estate, city attorneys and department of Public Health and in the case for moscone west we cant thank the director of the convention e confacilities for helping us set up th the space. It is amazing the level of work, expertise and partnership in the city. There is no way we could do this alone. No way the department of health can manage alone. Mayor breed is steadfast in her leadership and guidance andy serves a lot of credit for the way the city has responded. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am Assembly Member david chu. I have been in touch with my legislative colleagues around the state regularly. What has been apparent to all of us is the leadership of San Francisco and the bay area during this coronavirus we have been setting the standard, leading the way. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who is part of the Emergency Response and the Public Health response and the response to the economic challenges we are facing. The decisions that have been made earlier here in our region and our city have been setting the gold standard. I just want to come to thank you for that. Having a chance to tour the eoc, we have a sophisticated operation with many moving parted. I want to thank the men and women who are part of this. I should say as the chair of the api legislative caucus today is census day. Among all of the many things folks are doing if we dont ensure that every resident in San Francisco is being counted, we are jeopardizing billions of dollars of federal funding to city and state. I would reiterate not only are you making yourself counted. Please ask your friends and family to ensure that is the case. We are working hard to ensure that there are statewide resources and moving forward policies to ensure not only are we housing everyone unhoused but working hard to make sure tenants are protected during this time and that when we come out of this crisis we are planning to keep people housed and doing all we can during this crisis. We have managed during this time period to do all we can. There is more that we can do. I want to thank mayor breed and the leadership in the city for working closely with the state and with our federal government. Together we will prevail for all of our family members at home, stay strong. We will get through this and we will come out the other side stronger than ever. Thank you very much. Questions for dr. Colfax. This is about mask guidance. Is the San Francisco department of Public Health issues mask guidance . When and where should people wear them . So our Health Department issued recommendations for Health Department employees and First Responders to wear mask on a recent announcement. The key for these employees and teams is to prevent transmission of the virus from them to other people, including members of the public. There is a window period for some people where they do not have symptoms could transmit the virus. This is particularly important where there is High Frequency of continued contact with vulnerable populations, such as in the hospital, in the emergency room, in our correctional facilities, and with our Police Officers and firefighters out there helping people every day. I want to emphasize San Francisco as with the rest of the region and rest of the country has a severe, severe shortage of masks. I am very concerned about our ability as a Health Department to supply masks ongoing for people. We are asking everyone to keep that mask that you receive as long as possible, as long as possible until it becomes soiled. We need these masks for Public Health and First Responder purposes. We are assessing along with many other jurisdictions right now with regard to facial barrier recommendations for the broader populations, and we will be continuing to look at that data following the evidence and pants and any further recommendations you will hear it from us with regard to recommendations Going Forward. Thank you. Thank you. A follow on to that question from abc 7. Should people be wearing homemade masks or bandanna . Do they serve the same purpose . At this time there are no recommendations from the cdc with regard to wearing mask. We are focusing on the people in the healthcare situations engaging with First Responders. Next question from the San Francisco chronicle. It pertains to the residents of laguna honda. Are they all being tested . Particularly the south floor unit. In my remarks i said we have a team of world experts assessing the situation right now. I am awaiting actionable recommendations from them. I will be debriefed today and every day Going Forward with regard to the recommendation. As soon as i receive the recommendations we will implement them wherever feasible and wherever possible. Next question from ron lynn of the l. A. Times. Can you tell us how many hospital as ic beds are in the city and how many are empty and how many are filled can coronavirus patients. We have 1300 medical surge beds where people with medical conditions or surgical issues would go. We have 1300 beds. We have p. M. 200i c. U. Beds in the city at this time. We are working to expand that. The capacity of those beds is greatly increased because we have taken early steps to do things such as ensure that elective surgeries and anything that could be postponed was postponed so our bed capacity is higher than it was before the pandemic started. With regard to coronavirus patients in the hospital, i do not have those specific numbers at this time to share. At this time we are monitoring the situation very carefully. Thank you. Question from the ap. She would like to understand testing in homeless shelters and the shelterworker population. Have they been tested and have many tested positive . I have been really clear and the mayor is clear. I think across the country local officials and mayors have been clear. We need more Testing Capacity. We need more testing materials. I am so proud of our Public Health team which tripled Testing Capacity from last week to this week. We have very short turnaround times. 24 to 48 hours which is key to better understand why people need to be freeing the hospitals if people do not need to be in the hospital. Now we are focusing on looking at the number of swabs that we have with regard to the Testing Capacity. Very basic supplies that we need as well as people need across the state and across the nation are really the limiting step at this time. We are focusing and will continue to focus testing efforts until we have more supplies on people who need the testing most. Those are people who are symptomatic with covid19 symptoms. People in close contact with those people and our Healthcare Workers and First Responders. I hope that as our testing sites increase across the city and as our capacity in terms of equipment increases that we will get the supplies necessary. I am waiting for more swabs to do more. Next set of questions for mr. This is from the mercury news. How many people have been offered hotel rooms but have declined . The current and initial deployment of hotel rooms were targeted 100 to individuals in the hospital to prepare the medical system to manage the medical surge. We have moved 123 individuals in. I believe in terms of number that declined it is less than 10. Again, 94 of those were homeless. That speaks to the next question from the associated press. Of last weeks 300 hotel rooms how many are filled by people who are homeless and what are the remaining percentage . 123 rooms are occupied by individuals who are covid19 positive and have no placetor selfquarantined. 94 of the 123 are homeless. Question from john king of the San Francisco chronicle. Will the hotels being contracted by the city to house First Responders and homeless be rehiring Hotel Employees to help attends to the new residents . It depends on the hotel. The citys desire is for the hotels that are providing meals with restaurants or kitchens that we fully deploy to provide meals to the individuals quarantined there. If the hotel does not have meals we have to arrange for meal delivery. It is a step we would like to avoid. It is up to the hotel and ownership on whether or not and of course employees if they would like to remain, but it is our full intention that we have these hotels staffed with again kitchen staff, general lobby staff, housekeeping to do general cleaning areas, not room cleaning and the like. It is important, of course, the primary goal is to provide a Public Health response to protect individuals but secondarily given the significant hits that the hospitality employees have taken to about them is an added benefit, of course. Clarification from nbc bay area confirms that as of now 23 individuals have been moved to the first hotel that came in line . No, 123. Next question. Chris. If a person in household is covid19 infected should they move to an sf hotel. Are there rooms set up for this type of stay and what rate . That is more of a medical question in terms how the Health System responds to families. I will refer to dr. Colfax. He will handle that when i am concluded. Are you able to temfolks tell folks the name of the hotels the city has contracts with . We have made a decision not to name the hotels for privacy of the individuals in the hotel as well as protecting and ensuring the negotiations moving forward with other hotels. We are not releasing names of hotels. Next questions are for chief scott. This is a question from maygan cassidy. How many officers or sworn staffers have tested positive and how many have been exposed or quarantined on your staff . We have had two officers test positive. We have had 53 quarantined. Some of those are back at work. We have been very fortunate working with the department of Public Health and the mayor and others who provided leadership early on. We hope we can continue to see this good fortune. We have not been severely impacted at this point. At this point only two. Follow up from sf gate. Do you have plans in plate for the a significant number of First Responders become ill. We do. We have seen other places around the country with this. We started with modifying our protocols, administrative units and officers that work those units were rotating in patrol to supplement. We modified the patrol schedule and have several models in the event we have significant short sage ages of personal. We have several models to go to. Depending on the shortages there are different models. We have modified deployment greatly included limited activity in terms of in Service Training is canceled. We shifted investigators to patrol duties, some supervisors that work investigative units are shifted to patrol duties to supplement patrol. We want to keep social distancing and not over crowd police stations. Yes we have models in event of shortages. Thank you. That concludes our press welcome to the sfmta online budget open house top to ask a question about the key transportation decisions to be made for fiscal years 2021, 2022. Call 415 6462222 [speaking foreign language] good evening im Jeffrey Tumlin San Francisco director of transportation. Welcome to the sfmta Budget Online open house. I know that this is very difficult time for all of us as the coronavirus situation unfolds. Were all thinking about how we keep ourselves and family safe, how we deal with our children at home and how to prepare for the financial consequences unfolding all around the world. Im grateful that you joined us at this time. We understand the challenge of having budget conversation given Everything Else that is going on. Yet, in order for Government Services to continue, Government Agencies need to have a budget. Were mandated by the San Francisco charter to submit a budget to the mayor of San Francisco and the board of supervisors by may 1st. A budget that is rooted in this agencys value. We understand that even if the mayor decides to use the Emergency Declaration to extend the deadline of our budget, we still need an adopted budget as a Reference Point for making the Necessary Service and financial cuts that will have to happen as the Global Financial disaster unfolds. We need a starting place for this conversation and that starting place needs to be rooted in our values. On the one hand, the details of our budget may seem unimportant. But at the same time, Public Transit is continuing to play an essential role and will so for months. It is on public transport that our essential workers get to work, that our residents get access to essential services. Its also our Parking Systems and bike way system and other programs that allow essential work to continue even as we deal with this significant Public Health and financial crises. Tonight, what were trying to do is to take our Public Engagement process online so that we can hear from you, understand your concern and your questions. Over the last three months, we completed hundreds of Community Engagements and we still know that we need additional engagement in order to finalize our budget even though Public Comments so far has resulted in significant changes to our original proposals. I like to continue that dialogue. First i want to introduce my colleague, victoria wise who will help me facilitate this meeting. You want to go over some of the details we established to help people engage online . Thank you. Good evening everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. This open house is being broadcast on our website. You can find it on our twitter page on our Facebook Page as well as our Youtube Channel and you can also watch it on channel 26 and sfgov tv as well. The links to all these social Media Channels can be found on sfmtas website, sfmta. Com budget. Also just to share with everybody, the recording of this hour and a half will be available on our website. If you werent able to join us, you will be able to view the video later and can continue to submit your comments. Just to show with you, the way were going to do this is for the next 13 minutes, were going to share with you a rerecorded video jeffrey recorded custom days ago, share with you the challenges the agency is facing and dive into couple of details that ewith heard a lot about as it relates to fares. Well play the video. Once you have an overview, well come back live and work through some of the comments and questions that well be getting from you on various social media channel. While youre watching the video, please share your thoughts with us. You can leave us a voice mail at 6462222. You can tweet us sfmta underscore muni. You can email us. Sfmtabucket . Com. You can leave a comment on our Facebook Page. Lots of different venues for us to engage. We appreciate you bearing with us as we try something totally different in terms of public participation. Other thing i want to share, please feel free to share your comments in chinese and or spanish. We have translators standing by. They translate your comments or questions. We unfortunately cant answer in chinese or spanish, staff will be getting back to you via email or voice and the language that you leave the question in with specific answers. Lets watch the video. [video] im jeff tumlin San Francisco director of transportation. Our agency is working on our next twoyear budget. Ultimate reflection of our agencys value. [inaudible]. Tric[technical difficulties] one question that i have for the crew, is it possible to show any of the slides that were embedded in the video . Theres huge amount of data. For those listening at home, the entire content of this Powerpoint Presentation in were going to show you, those details are all available at www. Sfmta. Com budget. If you go and look at the materials there, somebody can tell me where to look, all of the material that were referencing including the details around our different proposals for fares as well as detailed proposals for cuts as well as detailed proposals for new services. Can be found there. I will try to walk you through some of the highlights of this program. Please bear with me. This is live tv and we were not prepared to do this. One of the first things that i want to say, the most powerful statement of any agencys value is its budget. The budget is a reflection of how we spend our money. Its about making decisions about what gets funded and what does not get funded. The budget must contend with incredibly difficult tradeoffs. One of the things we tried to do in creating this budget is to be very clear about what our agencys values in order to help us address those inevitable tradeoffs. The most difficult tradeoff were facing given our serious financial constraints, is tradeoff between do we reduce or keep fares constant or do we improve service. Or phrased different way, do we cut fares or do we cut service . Do we keep the fares the same or cut Service Given the reality of our budget. I want to talk about our values. One of the things we value a great deal is system safety. Here in San Francisco, there are about 30 people who are killed result of traffic violence of ey year and 3000 are injured. We want to focus more on social equity. This means something very different than providing equal service to all sa san franciscas it means prioritizing better choices for people who have the fewest cloyses. Many ways for us this means prioritizing the delivery of Public Transit service particularly to the neighborhoods where people either face poor access to employment or inadequate access to schools or other critical services. This particularly means prioritizing access to neighborhoods that have been historically underserved. Like neighborhoods in districts 10 and 11. Particularly districts where we see high levels of residents of people of colour and also People Living in poverty. Another core value of ours is decarbonation of the transportation of the economy. Transportation is well over half of the citys carbon dioxide. Many you know as the economy has improved up until last month, the congestion and vehicle miles traveled as well as the rate of driving have increased. All of that has resulted in an increase in Greenhouse Gas emissions. Another core factor that were contending with in our budget, as congestion rises and as the rate of driving rises, as more people drive, our streets move fewer and fewer people in a given year. Its not that im necessarily a better person when i ride my bike or take the bus. I do take up one tenth of a space when i drive a car or ride in the back of lyft. In order to accommodate San Franciscos significantly growing population and job space, its very important that we manage our streets for the movement of people rather than the movement of vehicles. This means prioritizing the most Space Efficient forms of transportation which incidentally are forms of transportation that are most used by low income people and most environmentally friendly. Another key factor that we face, if you can go to the next slide, is the reality of our structural deficit. In San Francisco, like in almost all municipalities in california, our expense rise with the cost of living but our revenue rises basically with inflation. In an up economy, the sfmta faces a widening structural deficit. There are many complex reasons in the tax code about why this is true. Its the reality of our agency. We faced a 66 million structural deficit as of a month ago. A deficit that is significantly widening in the face of the current economic crises. In order to be able to deliver the existing service that we provide, we need more revenue in order to deal with our financial reality, we either need to find a means bringing in new revenue or we face service cuts. If you can go to the next slide, you can see how our revenues are tracking year over year for different sources of revenue. As a result, partly of uber and lyft are parking fee and fine revenues have been declining over the years, as parking demand declines. Similarly as weve expanded our free and discount fare programs for muni, our fare revenue is in slight decline. All of this is meant that San Francisco mta is dependent upon general fund revenue. Which is very susceptible to changes in the economy. The general fund is very susceptible to changes in the sales tax rate and for revenues like the hotel tax, all of which are rapidly declining in these economic times. All of this is covered. These core issues were covered by group of san franciscans and experts in transit from all over the country. That convened over the last six months, called the Muni Reliability Working Group. This group gave a rather brutal audit of the muni service. Gave us very specific recommendations about how to improve the efficiency of the system and put the agency on a stable financial footing in order to allow us to deliver on the Transit Service that San Francisco needs as it continues to grow in its economy and its population. These recommendations are more important than ever given the current economic and Public Health situation. However, our budget does not include any of the recommendations for expanding service. Instead, despite the financial catastrophe that is upon us, we do want to implement the recommendations thats the Muni Reliability Working Group, around stabilizing service and improving on the reliability, allowing us to become more efficient. The Muni Reliability Working Group recommendations were bold and specific and targeted improvements around the transit lines that needed it the most. Many of which in the outer neighborhoods of south africa, n francisco. Which serves over 17 schools and other educational institutions. It is a workhorse route of the southern and western neighborhoods. Our representation was to invest in rapid improvements on this line in order to meet the increasing demand for service and all those neighborhoods. We will not be able to move forward with any of the Service Improvement or equity recommendations even in our original state of a budget without a new source of revenue. Which we require of the public. We also know that where we have invested in Better Safety improvements, weve seen significant positive outcomes. Where weve invested in muni reliability improvements. Weve invested in safety improvements like the platforms on turk street and other corridors. Weve seen dramatic reductions in crashes including the complete elimination of injury related crashes on places where weve made improvements on terra ball streets. We are capable of making dramatic improvements in the quality of service that all san franciscans experience in the Transportation System. Our budget included a 5year Capital Program. That focused on hundred, really thousand small improvements or many higher ridership muni lines. For more detail on all of those projects, you can google muni sfmta for great deal of information. Or see the detailed Capital Budget program at sfmta. Com bucket of budget. Youll see the details of our vision zero and major streetscape projects. Cars versus pedestrian fatalities continue to be the highest cause of fatalities transportation related fatalities in San Francisco. It requires significant investment in order to improve the reliability of the system including ongoing upgrades in the subway tunnel. Finally, our Capital Program includes significant improvements to our light rail system, completing the purchase of new light rail vehicles that would expand the reliability of our subway system and continue advancing the major improvements that weve made in speed, reliability and comfort on the bus system. We have even in this current financial crises, we will likely continue to have access to a significant amount of capital funding. We are not able to use this money for Transit Service operations. We can use it to advance our core priorities like social equity and safety. Were targeting those investments to the neighborhoods that have been most neglected. Includes advancing our vision zero network, focusing the prop d tax on uber and lyft to advance Quick Build Program that focuses on safety outcomes, along with advancing Educational Campaign to improve safety outcomes. The most controversial topic that we have to contend with in in budget is our bus fares. Muni fares. As many of you know, the sfmta has a policy called indexing. What this means is that every year, we raise fares by a specific percentage. That percentage is basically the average of the cost of living and inflation. So that our fares rise with the cost of delivering service. If we didnt increase fares with the cost delivering service, we would need to cut service in order to accommodate fares being the same. We would end up in a service and financial crises that we would require us to periodically implement a huge increase in fares that would be very painful for all customers. In order to avoid both the service crises as well as the every 5year huge increase in fares, weve decided instead to impose relatively modest increases in fares each year. Weve heard a lot on this topic. Including many calls for free muni for everyone or free muni for certain classes of people or to cap all our fares given the reality of the financial crises that all our riders are facing. There are some challenges, however, to stopping a fare increase. That it impacts our ability to deliver service. One of the things that is quite clear about the San Francisco system is that even though theres what we call a price elasticity of demand for fare. Ridership declines as we increase fares. The elasticity demand is far greater. If we cut service in order to keep fares the same, that the impact on ridership loss will be greater. Ridership loss will be primarily for higher income people who would simply flee to uber and lyft. Lower income will be burdened by less frequent and more crowded service. In listening carefully to the public, weve proposed some different approaches. One of the things that weve discovered is that the demographics of who rides muni varies a lot depending on what fare product they use. [please stand by] o it attracts young people in San Francisco. It also means that kids who forget their card no longer have to contend with fare inspectors. There are a lot of good reasons to extend free muni to youth. This doesnt cost us all that much money. Similarly we are recommending that individuals who experience homelessness also get access to free muni. We expect that these people need to get to their appointments and social services and they require Public Transit in order to get there. This is a program that we feel very confident that we can afford. Were also proposing that for that fare median that our lowestincome people use the most, the singleride fare, that we cap it at 3 for both the next year and the following year. Weve heard fairly loudly from our customers that that is important. That is our recommendation in the green as well as the pink column. In order to pay for that capping, we have two choices. We can either in the green column raise the clipper pass rate slightly. Or in the pink column, we can narrow the discount that discount clipper users get to pay their fare. As you can see below the monthly pass would rise to 81 and similarly the 2. 75 individual clipper fare would rise to 2. 80 instead. We think this is a much more efficient way of allowing us to get the revenue we need in order to retain service, while at the same time being very conscious of our neediest customers. Well look forward to additional feedback from all of you on that proposal. Next slide, please. Were also making a lot of adjustments in our fine policies. Hearing from, again, a lot of people on this topic. We know that our fine policies should be guided by our desire to get compliance in our rules to make the systems fair and efficient. It should not be guided by punitive objectives and should also be equitable across modes of transportation. Were constrained in how we manage our fines, but what we are trying to do is increase fines that are rooted in safety and decrease fines that are rooted in getting compliance particularly for people who are suffering from financial distress. We also want to be aware that, for example, the fine for riding transit and taking up 3 square feet of space should be less than the fine for not paying at your parking meter for taking up 200 square meters of space on a San Francisco street. You can find all of the detail in our budget proposal, but were trying to maximize the possible fine given state restrictions for issues like parking in a bike lane or riding a scooter on the sidewalk, while reducing fines for things like not paying your muni fair, to the extent that that is allowable according to the state law. That is on the next slide as well. Another area that is included in our budget is rethinking our approach to parking meters. As many of you know, in San Francisco the reason we charge for parking is to make sure motorists can find an available parking space, creating availability of one or two Parking Spaces on any block or in any garage or parking lot. We are trying to find the lowest rate that achieves that outcome. If we charge too high a rate, merchants would complain and customers and we would get less revenue. If we charge a rate that is too low, all the spots would be fill, merchants would complain, motorists would have to circle around the block, and we would get less revenue. We want our policy to be about customer availability and Small Business success. The reality is we bring in revenue from our parking meters. So as a result were proposing two significant changes. One is extending the hours of enforcement in neighborhood commercial districts, particularly those where there is a lot of restaurant and entertainment uses, we want to extend the hours to the extent that spaces are full. In order for people to drive to go to a restaurant in a neighborhood commercial district. This would apply only to places that demand is high. The second thing we want to do is look at sunday meter enforcement, at least on sunday afternoons. As many of you know, our sunday meter restrictions are rooted in an era where businesses were closed on sunday. Now businesses are all open on sunday and we want to make sure were supporting those businesses, while at the same time being very aware of the needs of the community. Were proposing to partner with neighborhood commercial districts and faith communities in order to roll that out in a way that is conscious of everyones needs. With that, i think we should probably are we ready to go to questions now . Were ready to roll. Thank you for accommodating our onthefly response to our technology difficulties. Were happy now to take questions. Once again, i would like to remind all of you that there is a tremendous amount of detail that is available at www. Sfmta. Com budget. Just thinking about whats going on with the coronavirus right now, jeff, our economic Prospect Team and obviously the citys budget and sfmta budget is going to be significantly affected. Could you talk to us how we are handling the situation in this asylum of uncertainty. Were working on a budget and we dont know how our budget is going to be affected. How are we dealing with that. This is the craziest time to be developing a twoyear budget, given the massive oment of Economic Uncertainty. The only certainty we have is that our economic budget is uncertain. That is reason we are moving forward with the budget. We need a Reference Point for making decisions about what needs to be cut. We know significant budget and service cuts are coming and we need to be prepared for that. Thats why we started this conversation about the budget with our values. It is only by having clarity about this agencys values that we will need to be able to make solid decisions about how to make cuts in a way that minimizes damage to the agency and minimizes the effects on the san franciscans we serve and those most vulnerable. I am not pretending that we are going to implement this budget on july 1. We will not have the resources to do so. All of the improvements that were planning in here, none of them are we going to be able to simply fund on july 1. What we need is the starting place for making the decisions about what we fund and dont fund and, particularly, how we make those cuts. This is a very challenging time for all of us, including the budget and policy things in every Government Agency. All of whom need to have a budget set of balances. Very good. Thank you. One of the things you talked about in this slide is the fact that this agency has a structural deficit. What i often hear from different sources is that sfmta has a deficit. Can you break it down. I have spent my entire career in the private sector. I understand how private Companies Operate and ive served a lot of public agencies. So i understand the how budgets work, particularly budgets that are oriented around providing the greatest amount of service at the least cost. One of the things that ive found is that with a few very specific exceptions, sfmta is a remarkably efficient agency. I have not found waste. To the extent that there is waste and we found some, about 5 million worth and this budget includes cuts to those waste categories, thats about it. My predecessors weathered the last storms. It takes a lot of people to run an agency of this side, particularly people like bus operators. They are our biggest single class of personnel and they cost a lot of money in part because we have to pay them a living wage. Most of the greatest service challenges that weve experienced at the sfmta are rooted in our thousand vacancies, to the extent that we have any Financial Flexibility here at the sfmta is because of the vacancies. Vacancies that exist because we have not been as competitive with the private sector at being able to attract and retain talent as we need to be. We have to provide our workforce a living wage, and thats also something i know from the private sector. Delivering any serviceoriented organization is about attracting and retaining talent. So our costs are driven by wages. That also means that our Cost Increases are driven by wages. In order to attract and retain talent, we have to increase wages with the cost of living in this region. All of you know what it is like to live in this region and face rising rents. We have to pay our workforce a living wage, which is not an exorbitant wage. At the same time, our revenues do not increase with cost of living. Our revenues increase with inflation. So in a boom economic cycle, that gap between inflation and cost of living rises, exacerbating our structural deficit. This is a problem that basically every Government Agency in california faces and its one of the things that we are absolutely going to have to be contending with, given the likely Financial Impact of global pandemic. A third factor also is that we need to contend with growth. Even though weve had were in an economic crisis right now. Over the last decade, San Francisco has added about 30,000 Housing Units and about 220,000 jobs. Those 220,000 jobs and 30,000 Housing Units have increased the need for us to deliver transportation services. And because our streets are of a fixed dimension, as the city grows, our cost per person actually increases because the work that we have to do is about making the Transportation System more efficient. We cant just make the Transportation System wider. I know all of this is rather complicated, but its really clear to me coming from the private sector that there is not a lot of waste in this pie. It is a pretty efficient pie and that we need to find a way of growing the pie in order to deliver the service that particularly our neediest san franciscans need. Very good. Thank you. Now that weve covered the basics of structural deficit and why we have it. At the end of the day, our agency needs to have a balanced budget. So you and i know that in order to have that balanced budget, we are going to need to use some of our fund balance. Can you explain what fund balance is and really talk a little bit about whether its appropriate to use the funds right now in this particular economic circumstance that we find ourselves in. Yeah. So public agencies basically have a savings account. Its our rainy day fund. Its a pot of money that we use when were dependant on Revenue Sources that go up and down. Its the thing that allows us to flatten out our budget so we dont have to do layoffs if one of our services is delayed or experiences a downturn. We have fund balance that is there to deal with cost overruns on our Capital Projects and to get us through rainy days. Guess what, it is not just raining, but hailing and storming outside. So now is the time to actually use our fund balance. Weve got to get through not just the next couple of months, but what is likely the next couple of years, depending on how the pandemic impacts the Global Economy and all of the sources of revenue that we rely on. One of the challenges were facing using the fund balance is how much do we spread that out just to keep treading water or to slow down the pace by which we need to make Major Service cuts. Do we do that or do we accelerate spending in our fund balance in order to generate trust with the electorate in order to go after a new funding source. Something that becomes particularly challenging, depending on the overall state of the San Francisco economy. Thats one of the core questions were going to be facing over the next couple of months, what should our rate of draw down be on our fund balance, knowing that our total fund balance is about two months of payroll. Thank you. Now i want to dive into the questions that we are getting online and through email. We have an email asking that we prioritize new lrv4 in our budget. Can you share what were going to do about that and share with folks if we will continue to be sliding in the chair. Thanks to the board of supervisors last week, we now have approval to move forward with purchasing the next round of lrv4s, the new red siemens cars. Were getting 63 of them to replace the breda cars that have the problems with the doors getting stuck and delaying the subway system. Shifting to the new light rail vehicles will be a significant benefit of resolving some of the delays that all of us face practically every morning, given the poor reliability from our older cars. Weve heard a great deal of feedback from our cars. Were changing a couple of the passenger details on those cars, including adding butt divets in the perimeter seating. Those of us who ride the j church when theres significant grade on the train, we get to know each other much more than we should and thats particularly problematic. I shouldnt joke about this, but given social distancing. Having little scoops in the seats will allow people to have great greater distancing. With people with spinal difficulties, having a few forward. Facing and rearfacing seats allows them to have a ride with significantly less spine or bone or muscle or neck pain. So weve done some of those changes as well as some changes to the handle bars and the grips in order to be able to accommodate a whole variety of requests. Were lowering the seats by 2 inches to help some of our shorter riders. Weve gotten some complaints from our taller riders so we will retain some of the higher seats over the wheel wells. I think what were going to do is to maximize happiness, knowing that its not possible to make all of our customers happy. One other comment that weve also heard is complaints about the perimeter seating in general. One of the reasons why weve switched to perimeter seating, like most urban operators around the world is it allows us to fit more people on the trains and allows better circulation on the trains so that standees or people sitting allows people to get out to the doors. This makes more room for people and maneuverability. One of the biggest problems that muni currently faces and likely will for some time is crowding on our buses and trains. As the economy changes, we expect crowding will continue. Very good. Part of this budget i know that we are doing just a tiny bit, but a tiny bit of service cuts. We are eliminating the 83x express bus. And sunny jolly emailed us opposing this change. She felt that the riders need this change and that the 47 would have a hard time picking up the slack and that the commute times would be longer. Can you talk to us about the rationale of eliminating the 83x. If you have no idea what that is, this was in the press a couple of years ago called the twitter express from the cal train station over to basically the twitter building in midmarket back and forth. Its a short line. It runs at peak only and gets about 300 riders a day. I dont know if its the lowest ridership lines, but one of the lowest. Among the ridership lines it has Redundant Service on the 47 as well as other lines, the t and the n lines. People can take the train and the subway. This is an opportunity that we have to get rid of a line that is low ridership and serving primarily an affluent clientele and a line that has abundant other choices, including taking advantage of the new protected bike lanes that we have installed on townsend street, 5th, market, as well as the scooter lanes. There are abundant other alternatives available for the 83x. Excellent. So we talked a lot about fares during your presentation. I have to say that we heard from so many organizations, Transit Riders Union about fares and we listened and addressed some of their concerns. Now i do want to spend a little bit of time talking about fees. So we have an email asking what changes are being proposed to the towing fees. This writer is wondering how are we addressing the challenges around towing folks during these hard times. We talked about towing quite a bit with the public already. So if you can share some of the changes were making as a result of that feedback. Thats right. Weve got hundreds of letters and emails on the topic of towing and weve heard some very passionate testimony at our board and many of the Community Workshops that we did before the coronavirus started. Towing is a difficult topic, particularly for people who are most vulnerable, and especially people who are forced to live in their cars and who have no other place to live. So we took a really close look at our overall towing program, all of the reasons we tow, as well as what are the costs and revenues that we get from the program. To my surprised, we lose money on the towing program. Our tow fees are very high and on every tow, we lose a huge amount of money. One of the things were looking at is to the extent practicable, where its not needed for safety or accessibility reasons, simply reducing the amount of towing were doing. On streets like pine and bush where the parking lane is towaway at peak, do we really need that, particularly with traffic levels so low, given that that is going to continue for some time. Why dont we just eliminate that and save some money. Similarly, for people who are living in their cars, certainly for the time being, we are eliminating towing for people who are housed in their vehicles during the Current Health crisis. And for our proposed budget, once were out of the Health Crisis and into a better economy. We still need a mechanism to get rid of abandoned vehicles or for dealing with people who are creating actual social problems on the street as a result of car encampments. Thatsaid, we want to be compassionate to people and identify locations where they can avoid having to live on the street, by instead making do in their vehicles. So were proposing a couple of changes. One of those is creating a new onetime zerodollar fee for people who are homeless who have had their vehicles towed. This is important frankly because were not making any money off this program. There may be times we inadvertently tow somebodys car who is living in that car. We dont need to punish them more. They dont have the resources to pay. We might as well make that free. We have had a program for a discount tow fee for people who are low income. The current fee is 238. We want to reduce that to 100. We want there to still be we dont want people to block driveways or curb cuts. We want there to be a disincentive, but we want that to be merely a disincentive and not a way to make money, reducing it from 238 to 100. Were reducing the lowincome boot fee from 100 to 75. Similarly, were proposing for other folks to make some slight adjustments to the firsttime tow fee to 524. And raising the repeat tow fee to 524. Treating typical income people the same but putting in a reduction for lowincome people. And at the same time trying to reduce towing across the board except for reasons related to health and access to property. Very good. I want to stay with the topic of fees a little bit longer and make sure that we cover and talk about taxis. Theres lots of things going on with taxis. Folks are struggling with the industry. A couple of people have written to us. One person asks, why are there no funds indeed the fiscal year 202122 budget for taxiing. Another person says what are we doing to support the taxi drivers generally and particularly right now in particular given the coronavirus. Yeah, this is, as many of you know, a very, very difficult for our taxi operators. I feel strongly that San Francisco needs to maintain a strong, publicly regulated taxi industry that is positioned to compete well against ride Hail Companies like uber and lift. We have to recognize the challenges moving forward and setting it up for longterm Financial Success and for a whole host of reasons. One is for how much our taxi drivers have invested in the program but how dependant they are for their livelihood. We are really dedicated to doing what we can in order to ensure their success and reasonable livelihood for the operators. Our budget as it currently stands contains a couple of items related to taxis. In the fiveyear improvement item, there is a small bit around taxis that includes 30,000 each year for advertising. Were in coordination for the advocates for taxi operators are looking at using their remaining funds to support advertising, to promote the use of taxis in as a more laborfriendly way of getting around the city. Certainly theres something that i choose when i need a rise is our taxi service. So right now the funds that we have are nearly depleted within but weve got about 300,000 remaining in that fund and trying to find out a way of funding if we spread it out too thinly, but which could support advertising if our board approves. In the short run, we are making sure that we are eliminating driver renewal fees for the extent of the Health Emergency. Drivers can continue working out on the street without paying their renewal fees while were in this Health Emergency. Its the least that we can do in order to support our operators. Were also thinking about if we can waive the taxi fees for the next two fiscal years, given the huge impacts being felt by our taxi operators. Those are things under discussion outside of our budget but which we would likely do. Im going to shift my bicycle gear and move on and talk a little bit about the Golden State Warriors. During this last fiscal year the chase arena was open and we were successful in that opening because this agency partnered with the Golden State Warriors and provided excellent transit and Parking Management and curb management. One of the most innovative and really exciting things that we did was that the muni ticket is included in ticket of your event or Golden State Warrior game. Thats an Exciting Development and i think it has facilitated folks riding transit to the events or to the basketball games. So how do you envasing maybe expanding that program . In particular, are you envisioning partnering with the giants to do something similar . I think the m. T. A. Should be so proud of the work that you did. All that happened before i arrived, i had nothing to do with it. I sat back and watched and was braced for a disaster and instead it was a phenomenal success. You should be proud of that success. Sfmta charges 1. 50 on services on those nights and makes it possible for the arena to function with people coming in and out and without a lot of gridlock. This is an amazing success. So i would love to expand on the success of that program. If anyone from the San Francisco giants is listening, call me. Were ready to expand the success of a program like that. Similarly, if and when our Convention Center is open again for business, and it will be, i would love to have every conventioneer badge be a muni fast pass. I would love all the hotels plastic card keys to be a muni fast pass. For all major employers in San Francisco to chip in to help us deliver the Transit System that we need, particularly given the economic crisis, while at the same time having us deliver free transit to their employees. As an agency, were really eager to make some savvy deals in order to be able to maintain service in these times. And its going to require really, really active participation from the private sector in order to allow us to do that. Very good. One question that we get from time to time is about our crossing guard program. In particular one person asked can we increase the number of hours that crossing guards work. For example, the way it is today, we have crossing guards in the morning for an hour and a half making sure our kids get to School Safely and a shift in the afternoon when everyone is leaving school. Its not a long day. A person or two are curious can we give the crossing guards more hours. What do you think about that . I love our crossing guards. They help me cross the street at harvey milk school. They provide a phenomenal amount of service and keep our kids safe. In our budget, he had a choice to make about whether we expand the program to more schools or expand the hours to individual crossing guards. If we add more hours, we serve fewer schools. If we add for guards, we can serve more schools and enhance safety. We have chosen the latter and have allocated additional budget to hire 20 new crossing guards, but not expanded their hours. In fact, in talking to many of the guards, including the ones i have seen, most of them live in the community. Many of them are older adults. All of them are interested not so much in more hours, but are happy to get out in the Community Every day. We feel more safety for more schools is going to serve San Francisco better than more hours for fewer guards. Very good. Live from twitter, what is the planned schedule for sfmta to hire more supervisors in 2020 . Yes, this is a hugely important question and one of the questions that comes straight out of the Muni Reliability Working Group recommendation. If you want a lot of detail on that topic, search for Muni Reliability Working Group and also look into the detail of our budget. So in order to so back in the last recession, back in 2008, in order to hold onto our core service, the Previous Administration widely chose to slash line supervision, the people who are in charge of making sure that buses are evenly spaced out, that operators leave their terminals on time, when there is a problem there are many places in the system that we have recurring problems. That there is a supervisor there with operational experience that knows how to sort out those problems. In order to improve reliability and to have steadier service, we need to staff up with those supervisors. Those supervisors can also take advantage of the investments that weve made in technology. Years ago people thought that all of the Global Positioning satellite trackers on the buses would allow us to automate supervisor. In reality, what we find is that that data requires a detailed understanding of whats happening out on the street and what buses can and cannot actually do. So what were finding is that having a new array of supervisors allows them to get the data that were getting, which basically is a force multiplier on the supervisors and where were applying the supervisors, were getting huge increase in reliability as well as headway maintenance. This is a question of whether we will actually be able to hire the new supervisors. Im getting a question. Any Job Opportunities offered to recent College Graduates at the sfmta. Ill pipe in and say that we of course have an Internship Program that is amazing at sfmta, truly a trainingground. Many people who have gone through our Internship Program end up working at sfmta. And really people should be looking on our linkedin website and the city website. We post a diverse range of positions. Its important to retain and attract talent. If you google jobs with the sfmta, the jobs portal will come up. Another position that just opened up just today is our transit ambassador program, which is a really fascinating job. Its for entrylevel people, particularly san franciscans, who live in the southeastern neighborhoods to ride our School Tripper services in order to help ensure that muni is civil. Its our alternative to having a police force ride muni. Instead we train people in the community who understand the kids in their neighborhoods and can engage with riders in order to support civil behavior and that we all need to get to what we are getting to. There are 13 of those that were advertising today. Another person from twitter says why is the fine for fare evasion in some cases more expensive than a parking violation ticket . Can sfmta look into the aggressive action that requires payment for fare. This is important to me. It was one that would take too long for our budget conversations, but we are going to take a longer program that may require advocacy at the state level that restrict our ability to manage fares. It is very important to me that we look at our fare Evasion Program not as a way of making revenue off citations, but as a way of encouraging people to pay their fair share. Rather than charging people fines, i would so much rather people who havent paid their fare, instead be required to buy a clipper card that would be the value of that fine, but instead gets them into the business of actually of paying their fare. Or instead of asking them to pay a fine, that it allows them to contribute their time to a Community Service function. The thing that irritates me is the fine for not paying your 3 bus fare for taking up 3 feet on the bus is greater than paying your parking fine for 300 square meters on the street. We need to equalize the fares for the impact they have on the system. There is too much complexity or resolving all of that in this particular budget, but that is something we are absolutely committed to coming back to and revisiting in several phases over the coming year, particularly relative to the legislative effort we want to have at the state with the equity question as well. Very good. Staying with fares, we have a question, do parking permits go up by the same amount as the muni fares. Why is parking so much cheaper than a muni pass if we are transit first . Speaking of things that drive me nuts and require legislative change. Our residential parking fees are currently 144 a year. Were raising them by some tiny amount. A residential parking permit is basically 0. 30 a day to store your car on public property in our neighborhood or at least have a license to do so. The reason it is only 144 a year is that it is illegal for us to charge more for the residential parking permit than it costs us to administer that parking program. So this is really frustrating. Unlike parking meters, which we have a great deal of flexibility in terms of how we set the rate, the Residential Parking Permit Program is fundamentally broken. A result of that is in our urban communities, it is a hunting license. It is not a tool for making sure that residents coming home at night can find a parking space near their homes. Changing that requires significant changes to state law as well as changes to a Court Decision called richardson v. Arlington. We need to figure out whats the optimal way for managing parking in our residential neighborhoods that provides some reasonable assurance that our residents can find a Parking Spaces near their home, at night, in the rain, makes it difficult for commuters to the financial district to park their car in the neighborhood to avoid paying in the garage and at the same time make it is it possible for the employees in our neighborhood commercial districts to find a place that they need to park thats not just in front of the business across the street. Its part of the complete madness of the rules governing that looked only at a single mode at a time. We want to think comprehensively across all modes of transportation and have the tools to manage the entire right of way in San Francisco for the public good. Again, would love to take care of that in this budget, but we really cant. I should add as well, on the parking meter side, again, it is our policy that the parking meter rates achieve a good rate in the communities. If we doubled the parking meter rates, we dont double revenue. Our rates for parking have a much greater impact on the demand for parking than our muni fares. So were trying to have a parking meter rate that optimizes revenue and accessibility to the commercial districts at the same time. These are some of the many things we struggle with as were trying to put together this budget that brings together the budget that we need and that does so in an equitable way for those who travel to San Francisco, whether by foot or bus or skateboard. Moving on to an email. What lowcost measures will muni undertake to improve service. For example, providing Faster Service to make the service cheaper to provide. Is muni willing to give more priority to buses through signal priority as an option or to eliminate bus stops that are spaced too closely together, i would add to that maybe doing transitonly lanes, and so on. This is a program that im so excited to move forward with. Most of that was developed before i arrived, but that we have new tools to move forward really quickly. This is called the Muni Forward Program. You can google that on our website. But just last month, our m. T. A. Board of directors gave us authority to implement our Muni Forward Program so much faster than before. As some of you will know, we have this thing called the Quick Build Program. We applied it to bike lanes where we go in and engage with a community in the corridor and do some pilot implementation with some cheap and easily reversible materials with paint and plastic posts. Youve seen it and some of it looks ugly and slash dash in part because we wanted it to that way. We wanted to get data and make adjustments as we go along. In the corridors where weve made these bike lanes, weve seen huge increases in bike ridership. Weve also been able to generate trust with the businesses and residents in those corridors. Weve also been able to make adjustments in realtime based on the data. We then make a report and decide to make the changes permanent. Then there will be a separate project that uses concrete and trees and nice materials. We want to take all of that success and apply it to muni. Weve already seen the muni forward projects, where we did a thousand small projects, including implementing the five rapid. The result of that was a 60 increase of ridership and a 40 decrease in collisions on the street. This was a success for a relatively lowcost project. That project took us a couple of years to implement. We can now do many of these projects more quickly. Weve been experiments with that on the nine. We want to move faster than in the past. The Muni Forward Program and the new projects that were just approved by the m. T. A. Board on tuesday allow us to move forward. If we have any capital money and can maintain our current staffing levels, we are ready to move forward with dramatic improvements on the muni lines that our riders use the most. I have a specific question asking us when will the fare increases start. So if we get approval in april for the fare changes, those would be in effect on july 1 im sorry, im being corrected. If we get approval in our budget in april, the fare changes would go into effect on september 1. This is going to give us time to actually understand what are the implications of the Financial Impacts of the global pandemic. So again, i want to emphasize why were wanting to approve this budget now. We need a budget that is clear about its values and we need a Reference Point for making changes. Our current budget is not very rooted in values. Its pretty strict and rooted in values. One very important question thats not related to the budget that were getting, but its absolutely critical is from a youtube user asking are we cleaning our buses. Yes. This is definitely a question weve been getting almost every day. Were doing a couple of things. Every night when the buses and trains go to sleep at night, they are thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed and completed desanitized. Were fortunate, given all the guidance from Disease Control and global authorities is that the virus itself is fairly delicate. Its easy to kill the virus with straightforward materials. Were making sure were doing a thorough cleaning and similarly were doing a wipe down using simple chemicals four times a day. As the epidemic has gone on, were also gone on to activate what are Disaster Service workers. All of us who work for the city, one of the things we signed is that in the event of an emergency, we can become endeared to serve essential functions. One of those functions is increasing the sterilization of our vehicles during the middle of the day when operators are taking a break. I am doing my car cleaner trainer duty this friday morning. We feel sorry. We feel very strongly that all of us here at the sfmta are in the service of the public and that were not just going to ask our maintenance crews to step it up even more than they have. In fact, the thing that is making me most proud of serving this agency right now is the way our but operators, maintenance crews, communication teams, station agents, they are all here at basically a 100 level. They understand that they are in service to the public. It is my job and the job of the professionals to serve our operators and other frontline workers, which means we need to step it up to protect our operators and protect our riding public. So i will be serving my shift on cleaning down the vehicles in the coming vehicles and im expecting the same from my other managers. This is the time this agency has to come together and to remind our Service Mission to the public and to our frontline workers. Excellent. As you can see, i feel a little strongly about that. Yes, and im glad that you do. We will be working together and we will get through this very challenging time. Once we do and looking a little bit into the future, i want to talk to you about and bring you back to the budget. We talked about the structural budget and the fact that its going to grow over time. In the long term, were going to need to think about ongoing new Revenue Sources. Can you talk about what work has been done to identify new Revenue Sources, what they look like, and what are your thoughts on that. It was about a year ago, the 2045 work, its not like our structural deficit is a new problem, but an ongoing problem that all transportation agencies in california face. This program investigated all of the various ways that sfmta could either temporarily or, better yet, permanently create a Revenue Program that would close the gap and deliver the service that san franciscans need. There is a long list of those measures. San francisco now has the authority to create a special vehicle license fee that would go to transportation. That is a possibility that has not polled well. Here in california the things that tend to poll the best are sales tax measures for transportation. We could consider doing a special election at any time to put a sales tax measure on the ballot. It is too late for the november 2020 election. Putting something on the ballot requires a huge amount of work and will compete with other priorities. We could go to the voters for a general Obligation Bond that would be particularly useful for capital money, but could also for a certain degree be used for operating support. One mechanism were particularly interested in is a Community Benefits district. This is a district where individual Property Owners vote to tax themselves on their Property Value in exchange for specific Community Benefits programs which could include a expansion of the Transit Service. It is one of the easier taxes to talk about administratively that doesnt have to be tied to a major election. Were not going to be having a major election for a while after november 2020. Another thing that has been talked about as well is changes to the ridehailing tax. Voters approved last november which is bringing in a fair amount of money, but not a lot given our needs. There are different ways of taxes ride hail. This is a fee on using ride hail. So it doesnt tax the way in which ride hail operators drive around empty, which is a significant portion of their time. Another really, really important revenue measure that is currently under study and is arguably, if it is done appropriately, the most equitable and Sustainable Way of closing our revenue gap, is congestion pricing. This is similar to what milan and london and singapore and stockholm have done, which is to say that for every commodity in our society, we use price to balance supply and demand. In mobility we use time to balance supply and demand. So congestion is simply what happens when the demand for mobility equals the supply. And rather than using price to balance supply and demand, we asked people to queue and this reduces the amount of people our Transportation System can serve. It is a huge problem. In 2013, the San Francisco transportation authority, which is our sister authority, did a downtown congestion study that looked at how much revenue could be raised by charging a fee to drive in and out of downtown San Francisco during the peak time. It was focused on revenue and it resulted in many concerns by people who said that this is just a way of taxing the poor in order to allow rich people to drive more easily downtown. That was not implemented. This time around were asking a different question, which is how can we use systematic mobility pricing in order to advance mobility and to allow our streets to move more people. What if we looked more holistically about this pricing and looked at it as rent. I charge 3 on the bus, but its free to drive down the boulevard to get downtown if your office gives you free parking. Why am i charging someone to use our roadways efficiently and making it free for the most inefficient use of our mobility space . Similarly, for example, for a shift worker who works in a restaurant downtown who starts their shift at 5 00 p. M. And has to drive downtown at 5 00 p. M. Because when they get off work at 2 30 in the morning theres no Transit Service. Its cheaper for me to subsidize their drive trip or uber or lyft trip than to invest in better Transit Service at 2 30 in the morning. How can we think about advancing the he could by basically stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor, rather than stealing from everyone to advance the poor. These are complicated questions and i would encourage all of you to follow the sfmta downtown congestion study and get involved in that, particularly as Economic Conditions are changing, to make sure as we think about mobility pricing that were using it in a way that advances equity and makes it easier for everyone to move around San Francisco and that values peoples time, including lowincome people who have the greatest time burdens. Lowincome people are more likely to work multiple and shift jobs. Im not fired when im late for a meeting. Shift workers are fired if theyre 10 minutes late too often for their jobs. This is a way longer answer than you wanted, but its a question thats super important to me. We are at time, but i wanted to wrap up. I went over time. These are important topics, but i wanted to thank everyone for joining us and appreciate the time that you were taking to write and to engage with us. These are important questions so were grateful for everyones engagement. Do you want to offer any Closing Remarks . The engagement that were doing is substantive. Weve got thousands of emails, comment cards, letters, all kind of contributions. I want you to know that we take these comments seriously. Our staff have read every single one of those comments, and i have read most of them themselves, including all of the comments i get on the twitter feed, which is hundreds and hundreds. Im sorry i dont respond personally. Again, i want to emphasize that there is no greater statement of an agencys values than our budget, and thats why were trying to build values into this budget, while being aware that we are in very, very economic times, our balance must balance, and we have deal with tradeoffs, these tradeoffs of fares versus service. We have hard choices to make as i know all of you do. I wish you all the best in these difficult times and that you stay safe and your family stays safe. Thank you so much for listening. [ ] hi mayor. Good afternoon. My name is dr. Emily, the director of the San Francisco department on the status of women, the only department on the status of women in the nation. Since 1975, San Francisco has been the home of the strongest commission on the status of women in the nation. Its my pleasure to welcome you to the annual womens History Month celebration. This year we celebrate the National Theme of valiant women of the vote. We honor the brave women who fought for suffrage rights for women and those who continue to fight for the Voting Rights of others. Im very pleased to say were joined by many members of the family. If you could hold your applause, well give them a big applause after. Carmen chu, board of supervisors norman yee, catherine stephanie, sandra lee fewer, and fire chief nicholson, and police chief william scott. So lets give them a big round of applause for showing up today. [applause] i also like to recognize Womens Commissioner sophia and julie from the commission on the status of women. [applause] also joining us is president linda calhoun, and lisa of the friends on the commission of the status of women. [applause] and i just want to thank my associate director carol for her exceptional support for todays event. We are also joined by many Women Department heads, raise your hand if youre a Woman Department head. [cheering and applause] , as well as many Women Leaders serving on our commissions and boards. Can we have a wave from our Womens Commission and Board Members. [applause] so we mark 100 years since the passage of the 19th amendment. Its important to remember that as the sixth state to ratify the 19th amendment, california has played a major role in the suffrage movement. Newly uncovered historical sources put together by the neighborhood history project indicates that San Francisco was a site of the first ever suffrage march in 1908. Over 100 years ago, suffrage leaders picketed the white house, went to jail, endured intense personal suffering in order to secure the vote for women. I do want to note, this is my last womens History Month as the department head. I will be leaving my position at the end of the month, after 15 years of service. I had the honor to serve former mayor now governor gavin, the late great mayor ed lee, and the first africanamerican women and the second woman to be elected to be the mayor of San Francisco, the one and only london breed. She has made equity for all, including gender equity a hallmark of her administration. Shes working everyday to achieve a vision of San Francisco that is inclusive, fair, and compassionate, one that stands up and supports all its residents. She has a great team and i want to thank two members of her exceptional staff, senior policy advisor nicole and appoint secretary who helped with todays program. [cheering and applause] finally before i bring the mayor out, i want to thank the hard working staff of the Mayors Office of Neighborhood Services who makes these celebrations so special for the entire city. So, please join me in welcoming mayor london breed and happy womens History Month. [cheering and applause] thank you emily. I dont know if you all heard emily say this is one of her last women History Month events as director of the commission on the status of women and she has done an incredible job leading this department for so many years. Lets give her a round of applause for her service. [cheering and applause] and thank you to all the women who are here. They are not just women commissioners from the commission on the status of women, they are women commissioners who serve in various capacities in this city that has joined us here today to celebrate womens History Month in San Francisco. We know that there are still a number of inequalities that still exist for women. In fact, as a woman mayor, i still believe it or not, experience some of those when im even in meetings, even today, dealing with the challenges of the city. Questions that i get asked i know if i was not a woman, i would never get asked. The fact is that we made a tremendous number of gains. I look around and i look at the fact that so many of you serve in so many capacities. Even think of the history of our Police Department and we see now deputy chief and the other leading women who are basically running the Police Department in San Francisco. [cheering and applause] we see members of our board of supervisors, our fire chief, Jeanine Nicholson and so many other incredible leaders who continue to lead this city as the director of departments, commissioners, president of the commissions, and we also know that it shouldnt take 30 years to have the second female mayor of San Francisco. So while we come a long way, we know that there is still a long way to go. As emily has said, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving the women the right to vote. It is time ladies that we exercise that right to vote. We know there is power when we serve on boards and commissions. We know there is power when we are at the table making the decisions that impact our lives. Just think about it. The fact that we are even discussing in the year 2020 a womans right to choose and we have to get out there and defend that, even in 2020 is absolutely insane. It means the work that we do now is important, more than it has ever been. I mean think about what San Francisco has done. Significant policies that the rest of the country is following, including our paid parental leave which people are still excited and talking about today. [cheering and applause] things that address the challenges of motherhood that people who may not have babies understand what mothers have to do in the workplace to of course make a living and take care of their families. There is still work we need to do. Todays honorees represent San Francisco values at their very best because the work they do highlights the need to do more, to get people to register to vote, to get more people interested in causes and policies that impact women, to help understand how our voices are important. When we come together and we vote, we make magic happen. We make change happen. We make the kinds of policies we know need to be here, even when were no longer here. We dont want 20 years from now the next generation fighting for a womans right to choose. We dont want the next generation fighting for the same policy that should already exist in this city that protect and support women. So todays honorees represent, as i said, incredible women who really have focused on advancing the rights of women, who are spending a lot of their time trying to get women registered to vote, to address what we know, even in San Francisco as we see a lower voter turnout, we know disproportionately that it impacts people of color and women. So getting women registered, getting them to turn out to vote is important and having organizations that are dedicated to that cause is also significantly important. Our first honoree is a local American Woman of color who is a child of immigrants who came to the United States. She worked tirelessly to engage women, register them to vote, and connect them with volunteer and civic opportunities. Have you ever come across people who say what do i do . How do i get involved . Whats the next step . People have no idea what to do. Nadia has been doing this work to help motivate and get women, especially women who have not been actively engaged, engaged. She volunteered a lot of her time during the 2018 midterm elections, traveling and california, speaking with people across the state and educating communities on how to get involved and how to register to vote. She has been working to bring women together and to take action. So please ladies and gentlemen, help welcome nadia roman and shes this years woman im honoring for black History Month. [cheering and applause] thank you so much mayor breed. Thank you for being a pioneer and modeling leadership in every way for girls and women in San Francisco, especially for girls and women of color. Mayor breeds work to cut red tape in city hall, take on the citys housing shortage, and end homelessness in San Francisco ensures that this city can truly be a home for everyone. Thank you for everyone who came out to participate today. Its great to see this balcony be full and see many familiar faces in the crowd as well. Thank you for participating in the celebration of womens History Month. 2020 is such an important year in so many ways and there is a lot to celebrate and look back on, including 100 years since the 19th amendment was added to the u. S. Constitution, finally giving women the right to vote. So securing that right to vote, we heard a little bit about everything that went into that. So the formal Women Suffrage Movement start in 1848, 72 years before that amendment was adopted into the constitution. 30 years after that, in 1878 was actually one of the 1st amendments that was introduced and it failed. Finally in 1920, a 100 years ago, it was adopted. Women and their allies secured the right to vote. So as we look ahead into the rest of 2020, were already in march now. I ask that we all be attuned to the time that were in right now. Mayor breed did a great job of talking about how our Civil Liberties are under attack and thats particularly affecting women and also women of color, specifically. So lets be intentional on how we choose to spend our time this year. Its of critical importance that we Pay Attention and do the work of winning elections for people that share our values. San franciscan values of equity, inclusiveness, and radical acceptance. If the suffrage that worked towards their goal for decades, for 72 years in a formal way across multiple generations of women and men, we can commit to eight months to get us to november 2020, right . Yeah. [applause] so im going to conclude my remarks with and ask of you all. Please push yourselves harder this year. Pay more attention, be more informed, push yourself to whatever your personal commitment to Civic Engagement looks like. That can be calling a friend or a relative tomorrow to remind them to vote in the california primary. That can be canvassing for a candidate that inspires you in a swing district in california or a swing state somewhere in the United States. Lets all commit to being as informed and engaged as possible this year and lets hold on to that beyond november 2020 so we dont find ourselves back in this place ever again. If you ever think about tuning out or turns off this year or in the future, please think of those who worked for decades for the right to vote. Thank you. [cheering and applause] thank you. So, the next honorees for today are a group of incredible, Inspiring Women who decided after the election in 2016 when the other 45 was elected, i dont know about you, but that night i was campaigning for my reelection for supervisor district five and i was Walking Around the neighborhood and i ran into a young woman who basically was in tears and so many people were hurt. I mean i won that election, but i was still devastated by the results of what happened as a result of that election. As a result of that, these incredible women got together and they said you know what . Were going to do something because i dont eastbound even want to talk about what we all know that this president has done, that has not only been offensive to women, but continue to roll back many of the gains we have made. They came together and they really started a movement. The womens march has really been a place that has brought so many women together for inspiring speeches, to connect with other women, and yes there are some men that show up too. Theyre always welcome with open arms, but what i notice about the men that show up, theyre showing up with their daughters. Theyre showing up with their moms. Theyre showing up with their family members in solidarity for what we know we need to call attention to the challenges that women continue to face in this country. Its clear that no matter what political spectrum you are on, there is a sincere need for women to come together for the purpose of talking about the things that matter to us the most. So this has created a platform, the womens march has just really taken on a whole other dimension. Its not only expanded to other cities throughout the country, where they even had a womens march in napa. I was thinking because i love wine, i was going to join them. I was already committed to San Francisco. Theyre not just focused on a womens march, theyre focused on advocacy and support year round, in helping to outreach, to get more women registered, to get more people actively engaged, to make sure theyre turning out. So they are all volunteers spending their time in order to provide a platform for women all over the country. The people here in San Francisco. They do it with a lot of love and lot of complaints from other people. [laughter] but they still try to provide the opportunity for people to be heard and to be recognized, and diverse community, and i know its a lot of work, but you still do it every single year, even though sometimes it may feel like oh, i dont want to do it again this year, its a lot of work. Were with you, we appreciate what youre doing and as long as were here in San Francisco, well be there to sported support the work you continue to do. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time i want to invite up one of our commissioners from the commission on the status of women. Sophia andari and ann to say a few words and to really thank them along with theres a bunch of women who helped to coordinate this event every single year. So after these ladies say a few words, were going to ask them to come up for a photo. [cheering and applause] good afternoon. My name is sophia, im a Founding Member and cochair of womens march San Francisco. Im joined by Founding Member elizabeth, kelly, martha, heath heather, janet who is here in spirit, shes working, and cochair ann. We have other leads of womens march San Francisco as well. Were all right here. On behalf of womens march San Francisco, thank you mayor breed for this incredible honor. Thank you so much. A group of 10 women came together right after the november 2016 election, not knowing the impact that we would have on each other and our communities. Over 100,000 marched on january 21, 2017, in the pouring rain. Pouring rain, yes. To affirm our commitment to womens rights, human rights, Civil Liberties, and social justice for all. Since then, we have partnered with Numerous Community organizations to continue that work through events, marches, and action to keep our communities civicically engaged. Stressing the importance of voting, getting involved in local and national campaigns, and empowering women to run for office and take on more leadership positions. Commissioners, more commissioners, now regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, we cannot afford to be idle anymore. We need to show up with our votes for our most marginalized, elect more women, especially women of color, run for office, and take on more leadership roles so that women take 51 of seats in local government in the senate and the house, in boardrooms, and in all rooms where decisions are being made. [cheering and applause] thank you again for honoring our team to the mayor and the Mayors Office and the commission on status of women. Im going to hand it over to my cochair ann. [cheering and applause] again, thank you so much for everybody whos come out today. Im the cochair of the womens march with sophia. As sophia highlighted, none of the womens marches accomplishments over the last four years would be possible without the volunteers and the partners we had working an organizing on nights, weekends, and any other moments of time we could find. I would like to thank our Leadership Team that we have here today. Crystal, robin, ariel, and all the talent and hard work you bring to this organization. I also like to express our deepest thanks to the partners that helped us put this together. This includes planned parenthood of northern california, the womens building, the js c. F. S. , glide, care f. S. , and the league of women voters in San Francisco. [cheering and applause] our mission is to empower everyone that stands for human rights, Civil Liberties, and socialing social justice for all. We will continue to organize to march because the most marginalized among us is defending all of us. In 2020, this marks 100 years of women gaining the right to vote. The women that demanded this right were extraordinary in their conviction and ordinary in the fact that it was a Critical Mass of people coming together to demand more. To all the women that marched for us, who were arrested for us, who gave their lives for women to have their voice and votes be heard, we honor you today and we promise to humbly continue in your footsteps to all among us achieve equity. Thank you all for having us to celebrate. Thank you mayor breed and happy womens History Month. [cheering and applause] so thank you. As the women who are on the board for the womens march come forward so we can take a photo together. I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for coming out today to celebrate these incredible women, to kick off womens History Month. Tomorrow, the board of supervisors will be hosting their owner is moan ceremony starting at 2 30 where i know theyre going to be honoring some phenomenal women like we are today. So thank you all so much for being here. After this photo, i also like to take a photo with all the women commissioners and Women Department heads that are joining us. I want to take advantage of this Incredible Opportunity. You know, i know that it feels like there are challenging times ahead of us, especially in San Francisco and throughout this country. When i look around this room here today, when i think about so many of the incredible inspiring leaders that are with us right here on this balcony, i cant help but be excited about what we are going to do to change the future for the better because we know that we are stronger when we come together. There is nothing we cant accomplish. So we want to keep that in mind as we move forward with these challenges. We are going to take it all head on. We are going to do it because you know what . When women are in charge, great things happens. [laughter] thank you all so much. [cheering and applause] good morning, everyone and thank you all for being here today. My name