Transcripts For SFGTV MTA Board Of Directors 20240713

Chairman heinicke all right. We have a quorum. Obviously, these are unique times, as we could say. Given the Public Health recommendations issued by the department of Public Health and Governor Newsom and mayor breed have lifted the attendance of Board Members by telephone, directors rubke and torres will be participating by phone at my request. Caroline and others in the room here to assist with our City Attorney deputy City Attorney, susan cleavelandknowles. We will say, at the end, get through this together. I will ask Board Members to mute their phones. It sounds great right now, but if you want to speak, unmute the phones and let us know. For this meeting, we would like public to participate remotely about writing a question and contacting us electronically. Thank you for honoring this request. Going forward, we urge the public to write the board at mtaboard sfmta. Gov or calling 4154464470. That information is also on our website if you need that. We usually ask for speaker cards, but today, we are not going to use the cards to minimize the risk of contamination. Today, although there are relatively few people in the room, we would ask you to continue to practice social distancing rules that weve all heard. We will for you that the microphone for us and for you have been sanitized, and if you need assistance using the microphone, let us know. Lastly, there is a Hand Sanitizer dispenser over there, and we will proceed in these odd times to get through this as quickly as we can. We have asked staff not to schedule any critical items for the board, especially those that may require Public Participation because we want to make sure that people have a chance to comment publicly on things that may affect them. We know these are challenging times, so we want to thank everyone thats here. I particularly want to thank director tumlin, and with that, ill just say were grateful on behalf of the board for everyones cooperation and by cooperating with the mayors order to shelter in place. With that, we can proceed to the requirement of silencing the cell phones or other sound producing electronic devices. The next item is the march 3, 2020 regular minutes. Is there any Public Comment on these minutes . Okay. Seeing none, Public Comment on that item is closed. I will pause a little bit more on Public Comment for any obvious reasons, but i dont think we have any indication of Public Comment on that. So would the Board Members who are present all entertain a motion on approving the minutes . Move to approve. Second. Chairman heinicke okay. And ill call for a roll call vote because we have some directors on the phone. Clerk okay. [roll call] chairman heinicke okay. That item approved, we will go to communications. The board will not be discussing the anticipated litigation in closed session. Thats the only communications that i have. Chairman heinicke very good. That takes us to item 6, introduction of new or unfinished business. Okay. Board members, i will say in the order of new business, something thats never done, i drove here. I talked about this with director tumlin, so for those of you listening at home, if you are leaving your homes to go to an essential appointment or like, a doctors appointment or going to get groceries or taking some of the few essential tasks allowed under the order, please use it. This is the rare time were going toen courage that. By having fewer to encourage that. By having fewer passengers on Public Transportation, youll make it safer for fellow citizens who need to use Public Transit to use it more, enabling social distancing. So you wont hear this often from me, but if you have a car to get to Public Places that you need to get to, please use it to keep our fellow Public Transit passengers safe. Very good. Stay healthy, folks, and exercise. Director eaken has just told you two wonderful ways to do that in this wonderful city. Okay. Clerk directors report. Chairman heinicke director tumlin . Director tumlin the order that has ordered bay area residents to shelter in place specifically excludes transportation in part because our nurses and doctors and firefighters and First Responders still need to get to work and our residents need to get to Grocery Stores and pharmacies and doctors offices in our districts. Our operator availability was on average this week, and today, its almost normal, and our Incident Command Team is working nearly full stop. And despite the intensity of these last weeks, i really couldnt wish for a better team or a better job, frankly. Im incredibly proud to serve this agency in these times. So i want to give you an update on some of the key activities that weve been doing to respond to the covid19 disaster. Give a couple of additional updates before we move onto our full agenda. For muni, our priority is shifting service around to allow for social distancing among our passengers and also protecting our operators. So as many of you know, we have cancelled service on cable cars, the e and the f and replaced the services with bus lines. This is largely to protect our operators. On our regular buses and regular light rail trains, all of our operator cabins have a protective barrier to protect operators at this time. Weve had a dramatic drop off in ridership to the financial districts but the neighborhood district remains strong. Of course were continuing to clean all of our buses and trains nightly, were continuing to scrub down all the high touch areas in our stations four times a day. Were increasing midday cleaning of the vehicles at the end of lines, and were accessing all of the usual Health Protocols about not riding while sick and sneezing into your elbow and so on. On the parking side, were also adjusting all of our parking rules in order to focus on measures that maintain Public Health, public safety, and the accessibility of services. So this means any parking regulation having to do with health, safety, and responsibility is enforced. It also means continuing to enforce parking meters in order to allow people like director heinicke to drive to get to the Grocery Store or the pharmacy or other essential services and to keep the Parking Spaces available in our neighborhood commercial districts. Parking enforcement is temporarily suspended for residential parking permits, for most peak hour tour way and for parking more than 72 hours in order to accommodate people who are sheltering in place. As you know, this is a constantly evolving situation. We are trying to make adjustments as we learn more information, and you can always go for the latest information at sfmta. Com. I also wanted to update you on central subway. Back in february, when you approved the modification for central subway, we submitted to coming back today to give you an update. Unfortunately, im sorry to report that staff have been otherwise distracted, and our contractors are being impacted by construction worker available issues. We know this is essential information, and we will have an update for you at our next scheduled m. T. A. Board meeting. I also wanted to let you know in addition to the ongoing conversations at these meetings, we are having a public open house that will be entirely online this thursday from 5 00 to 6 30. You can get more information at sfmta. Com budget. We will also be hosting a twitter town hall on april 2. Finally, this is interesting that this is happening at specifically this time, but tomorrow is transit operator appreciation day, and i could not imagine being more appreciative of our transit operators right now than ever before, so we have stickers i guess i should have cut these up beforehand so i didnt actually have to hand them to you. We will give you properly sanitized stickers to show your appreciation. Chairman heinicke that concludes your report . Director tumlin that concludes my report. Chairman heinicke is there any Public Comment on the phone to director tumlins report . Seeing no Public Comment, Public Comment is closed. Vice chair borden . Vice chair borden i would say in my neighborhood, the mission, a lot of people still riding the bus. I see it well into the evening as well as in the day that the buses are quite busy, and the people, this is how they get to work. For a lot of employees, i cannot understate how significant this crisis is for them and their livelihood. Chairman heinicke yes. We will consider that in our decisions moving forward. Jeff, how long have you been on the job . Director tumlin 100 days . Chairman heinicke i think for anything like this to hit anyone else it would be devastating, but working with you, especially over the last couple of weeks, you have hit the ground running. I will thank director eaken, borden, and torres for bringing you to us. Your honor born for this. Next item. Clerk okay. Next item is the mayors report, and i dont see anyone, so today, we will not have the report. Chairman heinicke is there anyone who wants to comment on that today . Great. Next item. Clerk consent calendar. These items are considered routine unless a director wants to sever any items, in which case, it will be treated as a regular agenda item. Chairman heinicke is there anyone that would like to sever any items . That was directed to our secretary. Seeing no motions, i will entertain a motion from one of my fellow Board Members here in the room. Move to approve the consent calendar. Chairman heinicke okay. May we have a roll call vote on this, please. Clerk yet. [roll call] yes. [roll call] chairman heinicke very good. That item passes. Item 11. Clerk item 11, procurement of new light rail vehicles with simmons mobility to enhance the vehicle with comforts and to enhance phase two production and acceleration activities for early fleet replacement for an amount not to exceed 43,414,056, with no increase in price and no increase in the term of the contract. Chairman heinicke all right, miss kirschbaum. Thank you for your time today. I will try to keep it brief, but i am here because weve reached a critical milestone for the lr4 project, and i believe theres a need to proceed with the phase two. We had intended to initially bring this contract modification to you last spring, but we had a series of issues that raised concerns for both staff as well as this board to proceed. Weve learned a lot over the intervening months and i think are back on track to deliver a really great train. I think thats exhibited most strongly in the mean distance between failures which reached 22,000 miles between february. Our expectation is these will meet 25,000 miles and will stay there for at least six months as part of the contract, and we are holding retention on the vehicles until that milestone is achieved, but it is a far cry from our floor, which is Something Like 3,000 miles between failures, so were really seeing strong performance, and as we continue to see bradas break all over the route, this is a big adjustment. The biggest failure was the hydraulic brake adjustment, which was preventing us from moving vehicles. But weve had a series of issues, and almost all have been addressed or are in the process of being addressed. As weve brought on more vehicles and addressed some of these fleet challenges, we have seen more and more of these vehicles in service, particularly on the weekend. Youre probably seeing mostly lrv4s at this time. These are our best vehicles, so when we can use them, we do, and weve doubled their mileage over the last year. We are still only seeing about 48 to 50 vehicles available a day, and we hope to get that up to closer to 55 or 56, and the reason for that is we still have three vehicles that we have not purchased yet. The original two vehicles that have had these testing plus as seen in this photo here, we also have one vehicle that we hadnt purchased yet that siemens borrowed heavily from to keep the vehicles up and running. Plus, we have six vehicles whose wheels have been flattened so much that we can no longer true them up, and we need vehicle replacements. Our goal is to do about one per month. And then finally i wanted to give you an update on the shear pin issue. What we determined after they outfitted a coupler with very sensitive sensory information is that we found at our intersections where we have half the train on a hill and half the train on a flat intersection, the shear pins are experiencing about ten times the force that the subcontractor anticipated when they designed the vehicle. This is part of being a historic system. We would not design a rail system today with very flat intersections and very steep grade, but siemens committed to meeting our operating environment, and they are on track to get us a solution to this problem. In the short time, they continue to pay for the pin replacement and installation moving forward. And then, one additional issue that i wanted to flag for you and it is related to the new trains has to do with the integrations between the lrv4 and the pantograph. Were seeing excess wear and tear in these locations. We also simultaneously equipped an lrv4 pantograph with a camera and a ruler. And without knowing where the locations are, the locations that they identified where the pantographs were getting compressed actually matched onetoone where we were getting excess wear and tear. Its not unusual to get these types of issues. The bradas pantograph is designed to compress even further than the 122, but it is a system issue that we do need to address. In the contract modification, theres two primary costs. The first, which we discussed in november, when you approve modification six, when you approved the brada replacement to shave off about six months off the timeline, and the second is to invest in the seats to do all of the changes that we reviewed and agreed on. We have essentially completed the track breaks except for a if you remaining vehicles, and then, one issue that is not in this mod seven but that we are making Good Progress on is the monitors. We are using the monitors in place of mirrors that are much larger and have better visibility. We have a product that we all like, and were just in process of doing proof of concept. It wasnt ready for this package yet, but we still need to work through all of the design details. And then, finally, in addition to the brada and the track changes and the seat breaks, there are a couple dozen miscellaneous changes that were doing that is based on feedback from operators, from mechanics, as well as from the public. So if youre starting production, and you want a blue button instead of a red button, those are design changes and have costed associated with them. Costs associated with them. Chairman heinicke julie, can i ask you a question. For the four directors participating by phone, there is a bit of a lag, so if you could indicate which slide youre on, that would be great. So i am on slide 15, indicating the major traffic drivers in slide 7. Chairman heinicke thank you. So we are now on slide 16. Thank you. Slides 16 through 18, im not going to take time to go through each item, but they do describe all of the items included in this change order. They were also outlined in your packet, and then slide 19 includes the overall funding package, which is approximately 1. 1 billion. So with that, the action that were asking today is for approval of the task order. It is critical to maintain our position in the pipeline and to get our phase two vehicles underway, and im happy to answer any questions that you have. Chairman heinicke okay. Is there any Public Comment on this item, item number 10 excuse me, item number 11. Okay. Seeing none, item number 11 is closed. Directors, any questions from miss kirschbaum . Directors on the phone, if you have any, please say so. Caller this is director hemminger. I have a question. Chairman heinicke please, ste steve. Caller this is the cost for all of the vehicles, and i assume were just asking for a portion. Thank you for the clarification. This is the funding for the entire project, and todays action is on just the task order seven, which is, i believe, about a 50 million task order that incorporates all of the changes that we want to make to phase two that you didnt previously approve as part of task order six. Caller and just in the future, julie, it would be helpful to me to show how much of this funding has been secured. For example, the regional measure three money, i know, is held up in litigation, and its sitting in escrow. So its not immediately available, and i dont know how many of these other sums have either been secured or are hoped for, but it would be helpful to see that whole picture when were allocating funds and not knowing whether weve got it all in the bank yet. Absolutely. Wed be happy to provide that. And even where were relying on measures like regional measure thre three, we either have contingency plans or theyre far enough out into the cash flow pipeline that we have some confidence in them, but understand that we will absolutely indicate where theres funding uncertainty. Caller thank you. Chairman heinicke any other callers on the phone have questions . Okay. Thank you. One oh, director eaken. Director eaken i have one question. Regarding the seating arrangement on the two different designs, one which has more sitting space, one which has more standing space, just, like, something to think through, are these going to be scattered throughout the system, or are we going to deploy trains that have more standing space through the higher traffic corridors where more standing space is required or just as they come online . I think thats something well have to look at when we get closer to determining what the route is, but i think well have to look at the different demands, what they are. Chairman heinicke very good. The new trains coming online will have the ability to receive communications from Central Command or elsewhere while deployed in the system. In other words, if we have to make a system announcement, which we will, it will not only go to the stations, but it will go to the new trains if Central Commands so chooses. Is that true . Its two different communication sources, but yes, we will have the ability to make centralized announcements. Chairman heinicke okay. If there are no further questions, can i have a motion caller i have a question. Chairman heinicke director rubke. Caller thank you. Just following up on the funding plan. Theres two different places that reference the iraf funding, and im just wondering in two different places, its referencing at sscf eraf, and then another, its sfmta eraf. Can you just articulate the difference . We would be happy to follow up, but i believe those are two different fiscal years with different allocation. Chairman heinicke very good. Okay. Any other directors with questions . If not, ill entertain a motion on item 11. Ill move to approve item 11. Ill second. Chairman heinicke okay. May we have a roll call vote on that, please. Clerk yes. [roll call] chairman heinicke item 12. Clerk item 12, admitting transportation Code Division two to establish a transportation only lane on townsend street and eliminating more Parking Spaces on townsend street. Chairman heinicke okay. While were waiting for this presentation, i will note that we have received significant Public Comment on this item. Please. Directors, steve bolin from transit planning, and im here to talk to you about a plan to reduce transit delay at a strategic location, and that is townsend and third. This is really the last piece of a larger project to optimize our buses through soma. At third and townsend, the location were discussing today, there are up to 20 buses per hour. Thats about one every three minutes. Its an extension of the muni four project. Wherever we do implement a muni four project, we continue to observe and evaluate, and were always on the lookout to improve transit service, and thats what were doing today. Just a quick note, this is not one of the legislations included in the quick build that you just approved. It doesnt include colorization transit lanes, but this is a huge project, a bypass lane, that would be covered Going Forward under the quick build program. All right. Next slide. So this proposal does one primary thing and a couple of secondary things. The main thing is create a leftturn lane for buses only at a place where buses are regularly delayed turning left. This is also at the start of busy routes, so delays here are felt by riders all down the line. The proposal does two things. It improves availability to caltrain, and two, it moves cyclists out of the door zone into the curb where cars cannot turn right, greatly reducing conflicted. This is just a view of third street at townsend. As i said, this project is really an extension of that one, based on ongoing analysis of transportations in the corridor. Next slide. And here is a view of townsend showing the existing and proposed lane striping. As you can see, we are proposing a second leftturn lane only for buses. I ing this will be to the right of autos. [inaudible] and this means the bike lane will be along the curb on the approach to third since third is oneway northbound, cars cannot turn right at this location from eastbound townsend, and that should more or less eliminate contests between bicyclists and vehicles at the intersection. This is the other end of the block of townsend between third and fourth. Just to be mindful of the directors who are on the phone, were on slide 7, if you could state the slides when you get to them, that would be helpful. Yes, sir. Slide 7. This is where we currently layover routes 30 and 45. This has always been a constrained location for us going back decades, and by removing a few more spaces from the parking garage at the end of the safeway entrance, we can use the current layover spot as a layover spot for route 30 riders. Next slide, last slide, slide number 8. So finally just a few words on process. While this is a relatively minor project, we did conduct direct outreach to neighbors, and we made a few accommodations to accommodation trash pick up at the beacon and garage access at the apartment on third. If you approve the project, we hope to pursue with implementation within a couple of months, although that timeline is delayed by a few months for outside reasons. Im hayden miller. I just wanted to say that moving the 45 terminal, theres already not a great operator rest room situation at caltrain for the 30 and 45 line, so moving it further away from the caltrain station, where i believe the operators use the rest room, especially during rush hour, they dont have the longest, like, Recovery Time there, so it seems very inconvenient for the operators to have to walk further to a not very clean bathroom in the first place. All right. Thank you, mr. Miller, for being down here to stick up for our operators. Chairman heinicke is there any other Public Comment on item 12 . Director tumlin, would you care to address that comment or director tumlin i was just trying to look to see. I know were doing a whole bunch of changes at townsend for operator facilities. Thats correct. So the shortterm solution is were currently looking to add a portapotty at the creamery, which is on the northwest corner of townsend. There are two rest rooms available to operators at this location, and theyre problematic. Caltrain can have problems with sanitation. We have a rest room task force, and this is one of the locations that theyve been looking at for a long time, and were working on some longer term solutions, as well. And i realize these changes arent taking place tomorrow, but if there was ever a time that were looking out for our operators needs and their ability to wash their hands and be sanitary, it is know. I trust that you will work closely with our unions to address this issue. Okay. Any other Public Comment on this item . If not, i will entertain a motion. I have a motion . Chairman heinicke absolutely. Just a question. I dont know if you can put up the scheme with the double left turn. Just have a question with the pedestrians chairman heinicke just for our callers, we are on slide 6. Just speaking of the experience with the pedestrian in the double leftturn lane. If you could tell us about that . Yes. So this is an issue that we identified early on in project development. We are looking at some changes to the signal timing . Were not currently doing it so i didnt mention it today, but one of the options was to do as fully protected left turn thats followed by a brief phase at the end. We are looking at that. I have concerns about sometimes were going to have a bus in the righthand lane, so youre looking at doing a protected phase for we are. And is that funded by this phase of the project . Well, the signal change wouldnt cost anything necessarily. Its not a physical change, its effectively a software change. Yeah, okay. So you can come back to us with an update on that . Wed be happy to follow up. Okay. Thank you. Be a perfect time to follow up on the rest room situation, too. Excellent. Okay. Anything else, directors . Anyone else on the phone with questions . Okay. Seeing none, ill entertain a motion on item 12 . Move to approve. Ill second. Chairman heinicke okay. May we have a roll call vote, please. Clerk okay. [roll call] clerk the motion passes. Chairman heinicke boy, he casts those votes like someone who is in the state senate for a while. Item 13. Clerk approving the issuance and sale of transportation and road improvement general Obligation Bonds in the amount of 134. 3 million to fund costs associated with Capital Projects. In this case, i am your transportation 2030 Program Manager today, and we are recommending that the board approve our third general Obligation Bond. In november 2014, the voters of San Francisco passed the first transportation general Obligation Bond in nearly two decades. We have slowly been working to sliver 500 deliver 500 million of improvements to the people of San Francisco. In 2015, we had our First Issuance of bonds, and followed up with that three years later, and today, were following it up with an additional 134 million issuance of bonds. The only thing i would say with regard to this particular item, you can see that the period of time between issuances continues to decrease, so the period of time between the first and second was three years. The period of time between the second and this one is down to two years. Over time, we have learned to become better and better at delivering this time of project and g. O. Bond obligation projects. These are all large projects. Theyre all 10 million projects. Theyre all shorter. Theyre all at the end of Detailed Design phase or in construction, and in addition, we have borrowed from our sister departments in adding a g. O. Bond overall programatic to allow for any contingency in the projects. So with that, were asking for the approval of the issuance today and support for the appropriation ordinance at the board of supervisors which will be introduced later this month. Chairman heinicke very good. Any Public Comment on item number 13 . Okay. Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Directors, any feedback or questions for jonathan . Anything you want to add . Its almost going too quickly. Ill entertain a motion on this item. I just have a question. How much money do we have left to spend . I believe after this one, its about 180 180 or 190 min left. There are a few projects. That would be Market Street, the canopies delivered by b. A. R. T. , and i believe we would have a little bit for the caltrain electrification project, so this completes all the projects by the m. T. A. Caller mr. Chairman, this is steve. Can i ask a question . Chairman heinicke yes. Caller it appears that this g. O. Bond issue has to be approved by both the board of supervisors and our board, but its an obligation of the general fund of the city and county. So whats the origin story for why the m. T. A. Board approves it, too . So he asked two questions there. Okay. Very good. So in this case, the m. T. A. Board approves the programming of the general Obligation Bond, so within that 500 million program, its within your authority to decide how those funds are allocated to different projects. Since this is the citys general Obligation Fund program, we are required to take it both to the citys capital plan committee, which we can monday, and they supported it, and the actual appropriation of funds, which happens by the board of supervisors. Oka. Caller okay. I guess the comment i would have for you, jonathan, is i would challenge these bankers to bring this in on a negative rate. People ought to be paying us to buy our bonds these days. I will pass that onto the office of public finance. Chairman heinicke okay. Director hemminger, i assume thats a director and not a condition for the addition of your vote . Caller thats correct. Ill move the presentation. Chairman heinicke okay. Is there a director whod like to second it . Second it. Chairman heinicke okay. Any other directors on the phone or present have questions for jonathan or director tumlin . Seeing none, can we have a roll call vote on this, please . Clerk yes. [roll call] chairman heinicke thank you. And director tumlin, you have what you want. Now item 14. Director tumlin thank you. Every source of revenue for the sfmta fares, parking, fees and fines, all of the contributions of the general fund including sales tax and hotel tax and a variety of other commercial taxes are all declining rapidly and for an unknown period of time. Nonetheless, it is essential that we move forward as we consider the necessary changes well make to economic reality. Of course we need to confront the economic reality to the agency but also the economic reality of san franciscans. As we stated repeatedly, the only statement of value for any city agency is its budget. With values as a starting place, its easy for us to make adjustments as we go on because we stand in principle. One of the questions we will need to face is do we cut fares or do we cut service . That oversimplifies the challenge, and as the budget team will present this afternoon, we are doing a lot to try to improve efficiency in this, but we know we still have a gap. Id like to also remind you that we are grateful for the public who has contributed hundreds of comments online. As weve tried to move our public processes online, we also have many comments from the Community Meetings that we han before the covid19 ran before the covid19 situation got as extreme as it is. Those were forwarded in your packet, and i trust that you are taking them all as seriously as we will be. Chairman heinicke we are. Given your wind up, its obvious to us and anybody watching on television, this is an important notice. I would ask that you read item 14 so that its clear what were discussing. Clerk item 14, presentation and discussion on fiscal year 2021 and 2022 operating and Capital Budget including use of the contingency reserve, proposals on fare policy and pricing, authorizing sunday and evening parking meter enforcement, and service changes. Thank you, chair heinicke, and director tumlin. Im leo levinson, chief Financial Officer for the m. T. A. I just want to say that we recognize these are unprecedented times. Much of it was formed before the covid19 situation and the changes that it makes to our operations and our Revenue Sources. We are also keeping track where we stand in the revenue shortfalls. So what that means is we have a constantly changing budget situation. Director tumlin says we still need a base lynn and a Reference Point baseline and a Reference Point, where we will expect to be after this emergency is over, and where we stablize in a new situation. So i want to say that the commitment of my entire team to you is that even as we review and create a budget under a time of creating resources, we will be watching that budget extremely closely, and we will be returning to you with a better situation, and make sure that we manage this Agency Within the context of its resources and do not allow some dramatic surprise where we have been spending outside of our resources without your knowledge. And so with that context, i want to turn it over to jonathan, who is our seen i dont knower senior budget analyst. Thank you, directors. Jonathan brewer, senior budget manager. I am going to do my best to go as quickly as possible but refer to the budget points for the members that are joining us remotely. I am on the cover. We are proposing our fiscal year 21 and 22 budget. Let me start by saying this process is completely new and different, so you would have noticed this is something new and different. We are consolidating the operating and Capital Budget, noticing that were shifting them back and forth, and the cost of operating our system impacts it daytoday. We will be talking about what we went through today. We will have an updated k consolidated budget that we bring to you later. Im on slide 4. As director tumlin noted, the core of our budget proposals today were a reflection of the agencys values. Its our ultimate goal. Where we put our money should reflect the values of the agency, and we fell todays proposal does that. We started on slide five with an operating deficit of 66 and 77 million. That is part of a structural deficit or structural imbalance that was projected in fiscal year 25 to grow to 165 million. Our enterprise revenues or the revenues under the control of the m. T. A. Have been flat, were declining over time. That makes us more dependent on the general fund that was in 8. Those are things outside of the control of the m. T. A. Board, but you will see today that as part of the budget of fiscal year 21, those are a growing part of the m. T. A. Budget. We did run a recession scenario. I do want to note for the audience and the board that just a revenue loss of 25 million can impact and result in a Service Reduction of 5 to 8 . So you can get a sense, when we talk about 25 million of revenue, how much of an impact that has. On top of that, we have seen our Capital Needs grow. In september, m. T. A. Approved a change to our capital plan. On slide 11, we get into the specifics of where that is. Two of the areas that grew the most were in Traffic Signals and signs, and that has to do with the state of the economy and the fact that it costs us 300 more to do a traffic signal project than it did a few months ago. We have done a lot of the low hanging fruit, but some of the projects that are proposed over the next five years are significant street reconstruction projects. The capital plan reflects the cost of implementing those over a 20year period, which was part of the reason we saw the increase that we did. At the same time, our capital revenues are declining, so you see the last three fiveyear Capital Improvement programs. I will state in the current c. I. P. Again, a lot of the projects that we were doing on the street were smaller but larger impact to the city, so again, the number is going to be smaller, but the impact is going to be greater. At the same time, our deferred capital costs and our deferrals over year are continuing to grow. To remove the backlog on capital assets, would cost 756 million per year, and you will see that our backlog continues to grow, currently projected at 3 million. So thats where we started, and this is what we were trying to address. The budget was trying to address to that and how we could come up with responsible and strategic investment. This slide shows the investment that weve done to date, and as director tumlin has noted, we have gotten a ton of feedback on various proposals, and i can report that we took that feedback that we received from you and the public and it is integrated into the proposals that we are putting forward today. Noting that we are doing this, and we knew this in january in an uncertain economic future. I would stress while this budget, it is aspirational, but it is conservative at the same time. So now, we will get to the updated proposal. So first, equity was a clear lens across everything we looked at on the investment side, and even, to some extent, on our parking policies. This is what we presented to you in january, and the dollar amount, i. Amount, we got a lot of feedback about who should be paying and whether or not the agency needed the resources. As director tumlin noted, we do need the revenue. It is needed to stablize and provide Excellent Service to san franciscans, and any reduction results in a reduction in the services that we provide to the public. Youll notice the proposals, we recommended all of those move forward, and those have been included in the budget. We have proposed two different options for the board to consider, and today, we hope to get feedback on this. Again, taking an equity lenses, we have two options, the equity monthly option, and the equity clipper option. The position of the budget, we have budgeted or assumed the equity, but the differential is not substantial. Its within a few hundred thousand dollars. The equity monthly option keeps the cash fare at 3, keeps the electronic differential where it is per policy now, at 2. 75, adds free muni for youth, and that is all youth across San Francisco. I will say that a lot of the feedback we got, especially from the San Francisco youth commission, was around this particular program. And while there is a cost associated with it, the 2 million we reported to you during the workshop, theres also costs that we dont see, i. E. , the cost of fare evasion, the costs associated with the program. So when you really think about it, we will be able to direct a lot of those resources towards actual fare paying customers and actually doing enforcement. Again, from a fare paying lens, children in San Francisco, this is probably a good policy call. Chairman heinicke i will say there is another intangible cost, which is creating a future barrier to future transit riders. I will say this, particularly for folks who this is an accessible system to all young people, and what it will mean to all future san franciscans. There is also free muni for San Franciscos experiencing homeless san franciscans experiencing homelessness. This is something we had mentioned during a part of the workshop. So we increased the cost of the monthly passes a little bit more than would be allowed in the standard indexing, so that is how we get to netzero in this proposal. This was our attempts to listen to the public, be more strategic as to who we were charging, why we were charging them, and again, taking kind of a note from you that we want to believe in San Francisco and believe that people will use the fare media and participate in the system appropriately. The fare clipper is slightly different. The only difference, which is on slide 19, is we essentially index up the monthly passes, so in this option, the monthly pass, we keep at a more reasonable cost, the cost is passed onto the electronic tagging at 2. 80 and 2. 90 over the next two fiscal years, so we keep it, but we shrink it. Chairman heinicke the big picture that youre presenting to us for direction, is assuming the board is agreeable to the various items that you started with, keeping the cash fare flat, extending free muni to all youth in the city, then, how do we fund it is . Do we knock up the monthly pass a little bit or increase the monthly pass or do we close the gap on the clipper differential while, nevertheless, keeping the clipper differential, while encouraging people to keep a clipper® card. Is that a fair summary of what were saying . That is a fair summary, and allows me to talk about this. This is still a fantastic value when you base it on what it costs you to break even, so youll see a comparison of m. T. A. At current rates compared to transit agencies across the country. And even with the equity clipper, we are staying below that 35trip mark that we hold ourselves accountable to, but the monthly pass is still a great value for the rider. So that was the changes on fares. This is just the dollar differential, depending on those changes on slide 31. But again, for the board, its essentially even between standard indexing and the two equity proposals we gave you. Again, equity monthly is the one that is currently in the base budget as a cost, but therell be minor changes, depending on which options you choose to go with. Now to parking policy, so again, some feedback and thoughts and consideration how we would implement moving forward with sunday parking and extended hours in commercial corridors across the agency. Again, the goal is to manage demand and not make money. It is good for the community and for our Transit System if we can continue to have people to cycle through after 6 00 p. M. The estimates we gave you during the board workshop in january were an extensive range. We have since revised our proposal, and we are proposing to go kind of a steady state implementation, working with specific corridors and neighborhood groups and merchant groups, so youll see theres a general uptick in revenue. We are on slide 23, and this is what we have priced into the budget for these years, so assuming youve made the policy decision with regards to these hours, the amount of revenue in the budget has to do with the amount of time we think it will take to appropriately implement the policy. Now to talk about the tope proposal, i will turn it over to leo since weve had a lengthy conversation since we last met. Chairman heinicke excuse me. This is slide 24 . This is slide 24. What it shows about half of all tows are related to towaway zones or where the car is blocking some activity construction, special event, or yellow. The abandoned driveway, and the interesting thing is the five or more citations or expired parking is about 17 , for what thats worth. This provides some context. What we did, similarly to the fares and again, listening to the Public Feedback and your feedback in our last board presentation, we wanted to reflect two different equity focused adjustments to our tow program. As we mentioned, our tow program is very costly to administer. It does, in fact, with all of the costs included, has been costing more than the revenue that is returned by the program. The two options before you, the option one reflects the first equity option presented at the last Board Meeting which did include a new lower 100 fee, and then increased the firsttime and wirepeat to com closer to meeting the cost of the tow for the first time. Weve also shown on the slide the first time comparison fees, as well. There is a lot of discussion of difficulty of people experiencing homelessness having an option to meet this, so what we have proposed is a zerodollar fee for people experiencing homelessness for one time. They still feel there should be a strong disincentive for people to repeat that level, so this would be a onetime zero fee for both either boot or tow, and to reduce the lowincome fee to 100, again, reflecting that impact on that population for tow. In order to keep that at the same level of cost recovery, this is proposing to reduce the firsttime toe differential to a flat 50 as tow differential to a flat 5 as your firsttime discount, so wed be happy to hear your input for this program . I ju rather than just proposing a proposed cost of living increase across the board, you looked at who was experiencing all of those. We also listened to the experiences of people who have been forced to live in their vehicles and to contend with the rapid changes in San Francisco economy and to minimize the impact on people with the greatest needs while at the same time doing heroic work for closing the funding gap. Jonathan . So we will ask for a phase today from option one to option two on the tow policy. Director torres had asked if we had looked across the agency, and we had. We were able to realize 4 million savings on labor that were reinvested on other resources within the agency. We did actually look at additional services. Rider sh ridership has been stable or flat, to the recommendation as part of this budget is to discontinue this service and use the operators time throughout the rest of the system. Youll see the service here, which takes you chairman heinicke and sfgtv, we are on slide 27. And now im moving to slide 28 with regard to making this service change. We looked at efficiencies, we looked at cost savings across the organization, and those are within the budget that were showing you today. So kind of one of the last areas that we discussed at the board workshop was the use of the agencys balance [inaudible] we must replace the parking meters, so that is being maintained as a recommendation. We are shifting ongoing revenues to the operating budget as part of this process. We did need to do a onetime backfill of Capital Projects to make those projects whole, which is the 10 million there, and then, i constantly come to the board talking about operator rest rooms and keeping up our 100yearold facilities, so we have continuously appropriated funding for our maintenance facilities across the city. So as the Current Fund Budget proposal for the next two years. As i stated on slide 32 here, we started with a deficit of 66 million and 77 million. The asks over the twoyear period, ongoing costs, were around 90 million, so that would have been a 167 million problem to solve. All of the departments went back and revised their asks, the Public Feedback and board feedback that we received at the prior workshop. You can see our previous requests. The march 2020 column on slides 33 are the costs that are recommended to be in the budget. We could not afford the maximum requests that divisions had. We were clear about it, but we were able to include Strategic Investments to move a lot of these various elements forward. This includes funding elements of the Muni Working Group, making sure that were ready to open the central subway, including the staffer supervision that is required out on the street, the 9139s, vehicle Maintenance Positions as we have a new fleet and about to go into our first midlife overhaul on the new 40foot fleet, and also critical maintenance of way and other positions necessary for the maintenance of the subway and our fixed guidance infrastructure. So we went through a process to determine when these items were needed. So this is really funding the bare minimum that we need to stablize the existing service. Yes. The things that were not funded, to be clear, we did not fund the 6 and 6 poi. 5 servi expansion. That is not included in the budget. There are 50 other staff positions that we could just not include. A lot of them, julie spoke about, the support that we want to continue to provide to the operators. So while there is line and daytoday service supervision, we want to also, at some point, make sure we have the resources to include that support structure that the operators need. And then, there were other positions related to maintenance and subway maintenance that we could just not fit in the budget. So i want to be very clear about what we could not get, and this is it. Another key element is chairman heinicke do you have a question about that . Ill let you finish your presentation, but id love to hear particularly around the transit stuff ill speed through. The next one is i. T. Related support. The network infrastructure, the maintenance of the systems, and a lot of these projects that were funded as Capital Projects, after we implement these systems with onetime funds, we need the staff in place to make sure that we maintain them and they function. A lot of this was a large ask, 15. 6 million, this was stablizing our Technology Infrastructure to make sure that we can move into the next generation of system managem t management. This is just keeping the existing systems running. Im sorry. Im trying not to interrupt, but since you do that, is this an area where there are funds innovation or any type of funds that we can tap into, grant strategy programs . We did fund a lot of these programs and infrastructure with onetime funds, but to keep them going and paying the Software Licensing fees, but the bill has come due, so weve done our best to keep that Going Forward. Slide 27, we were fluctuating between 44 and 66, and we went with 66. That has been fully funded in the budget. We do anticipate that largely this cost will be offset by the p. C. O. S doing their business, so that was why we felt fully confident with that ask in the budget. Both the board and the delores blandin report have several asks, and those are in the requisition and included in the budget. Muni request, the original request was 17 positions. We got overwhelming Public Feedback about the positive impact of this program, so 20 positions have been included in this budget. Vision zero education was also a high priority, so we are funding onetime service and supply needs for both the safe routes to school and Vision Education Program and bumping up the staff just a bit to help do the appropriate outreach associated with that. We heard you loud and clear when you said we must fund kimberly ackerman, so her request was fit in. As director tumlin said, the target is budget investment. Its not to get to where we wanted, or where we want to be, but it does set a foundation to do those in the future, which is slide 32. So now its the nerdly part of the presentation. So nerdy part of the presentation. The largest m. T. A. Operating budget has since existed at 1. 3 million and 1. 34 million in fiscal year 22. Im just going to show you heres where we stood revenues wise when we bought it to the board. Youll see this minor tick up between slide 35 and slide 36 showing the revenue adjustments in 2,019. This is where it gets nerdy. You see we bumped it up with the final policy adjustments that you would approve, hopefully, when we get to the budget approval in april. Here it is by source, so youll see the general fund, again, is our highest contributor to our overall budget. Parking traffic season fines is the second largest. Operating grants from the state, largely transit assistance, transit fares, as well. Getting to a balanced budget. Salary continues to be our number one expense and continues to grow to be a large part of our pie, which well have to continue to start thinking about. These are, again, the requests that were in the budget so im not going to cover that again, on slide 50. So get to a balanced budget, we also covered this at the board workshop on january 28. So we made it very clear that we want ongoing sustainable revenues going to ongoing operating costs. We really heard the feedback from the board, so we will shift 30 million of our proposition b general fund setaside. This is Population Based from capital to operating. So we are able to do that in the next two budget in the budget cycle, and we have assumed in our fiveyear financial plan, we will continue to do that. We were able to backfill the project impacted with onetime project impacts with onetime Development Fees that we have now. There was no project impact in the next two years, but it does take a stable source of capital away from the Capital Budget ongoing. We now have one month of the t. N. C. Tax. We are estimating about 10. 8 million in revenue from that program, so youll see the 11 in fiscal year 22. In fiscal year 21, it says 16, because were collecting a halfyear projection. [please stand by] in those years we have gotten more than anticipated. I can reported while we cant on Planning Department projections that dont come in perfect, we have the 25 million in cash now from Higher Development impact fees in prior years. It is okay to approve this. It is out of projection what should come. We have enough in cash to cover that amount in fiscal year 22. That is a onetime source. We shrunk that as small as we could. That is recommended for fiscal year 22. We have the use of the fund balance at the lowest levels we have used in the current fiscal year we have 30 million in fund balance. This is a much lower amount than you have approved in prior years. I am not going to slide 52 again. It is a sum of the things in the budget. Slide 53 shows now the change in our five year financial forecast as a result of all of these policy changes and what we are recommending. We close the structural gap, as you would expect. We must have a balanced budgeted in fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22. Our costs are growing faster than revenues. If we include the proposition b, 10 million impact fees, our costs will come right back. While the structural deficit is less, it is still something that requires another Revenue Source for us to resolve or we will just constantly be in the cycle. There will be a point where we will not additional expense. As the director said we have no choice to consider what we have to reduce. Is that based upon before this last few weeks projections . Yes, it is. Just quickly on the five year Capital Improvement program on slide 56, the board does also approve the five year Capital Improvement program, fiscally constrained capital projected. Here are the various programs. Transit optimization is one of the largest capital programs. On slide 58, you will see the sources we did include in the five year cip. We do assume a certain level of grants. Regional measure 3 to a period where we can get it. It has been included. 15 million for vision zero is in proposition d. We hope to get a state grant related to light rail vehicles and other Capital Improvements. That is pending with the state. We get regular formula funds through m. T. C. Which is in the capital program. We did not include the second giobond. We are starting the planning on how to use it. Proposition k reauthorization would additional sales tax. We are holding in the back pocket the ability for an additional revenue bond. We are not recommending it in this budget. If cash flow requirements require a revenue bond, we have an ability to do an issuance if needed. We talked about the regional measure that may or may not happen this november or sometime in the future. That would be the faster proposal. We have gone over this before. Slide 59 is the five year proposal. 157 projects for 2. 4 billion. We close central subway out. The project julie presented lrv replacement is there. A key priority of th the Muni Working Group replacement of computer based train control system in the five year cip. Elements of better Market Street are there. Advancing muni forward. Not entire 500 for the modernization but Niagara Falls to enough t to keep the projt moving. Here is the very detailed elements of the Funding Sources and amounts on slide 60 over the five year period at 2. 4 billion. Slide 61 just shows how much of the pie different Capital Improvement types should get and what we were able to fund. The reason we make this public. They think the m. T. A. Has say on the capital side. We are restricted how sales tax can be used and federal dollars. With a discretionary source we try to be transparent about that. Here is the list of projects on slide 62. Quick build on the transit and street side for the very first time. Very significant in large muni projects. 22 fillmore. Second phase of 14 mission. With the geo bond it is getting shorter projects but more higher dollars and more substantial are included in the five year c ip. In closing on slide 64, all of these investments should support our values. We went through this design. Even after all of this, after this budget is approved by the m. T. A. Board and by the board of supervisors in the summer, we still will have a structural deficit. We still require 756 million to close the backlog and keep the system in state of good repair. We will see the 3. 3 billion backlog grow. Our needs with regard to investment in the system continue to grow. We want to get to all of the things listed on slide 65 fully funding the muni equity strategy, anticipating growth and funding system. Ongoing funding for vision zero education, not when we can afford it. Modernizing facilities, getting to the Technological Infrastructure and mode share. This budget does not do that but it sets a foundation that is what we can do in the next two year cycle. There are opportunities to look for. There were two Transportation Task forces. We are on slide 66. It shows the options before us to help raise revenues to close those gaps that i discussed, and in 2020 and 2021 we will work to advance these. This is today. Based on the feedback on the options we presented today, we hope to return to the seventh on schedule with the final budget for your approval and five year Capital Improvement program. If we require additional time or if there are things to look at we will have a additional meeting to approve. The charter requires we get a budget to the board of supervisors and the mayor by ma. Of course that is one of the reasons we are holding this meeting today. Let me say this. Thank you for the thoughtful presentation. Thank you, we recognize the fact you had to put this altogether under the trying circumstances that are going on in if outside world and to you and leo and the team, thank you very much. Any Public Comment. If you have Public Comment i would ask you line up and, of course, maintain the social distancing protocols advised. Mr. Miller, please. Two minutes for each speaker. Yes, i am haven miller. This is kind of like a question. The chase center. Every ticket comes with a muni day pass, i understand. How much money do we get from chase center for that . An idea to make clipper more accessible in outer neighbors that dont have access to downtown metro is putting tbms at rapid bus stops and metro bus stops on the surface. Then getting more proof of payment into the system. I know we had like some Contract Security that is being added to the subway. Maybe just instead of Contract Security putting like prove of payment because then they can provide security while also enforcing the fares. Generally, riders like to see the fares enforced. Thank you very much, mr. Miller. Next speaker, please. I am Sarah Greenwald. Can you move the microphone closer to you, if you care to. Thank you. I am Sarah Greenwald San Francisco resident member 350 San Francisco. I appreciate muni doing the utmost under the virus constraints. I want to thank and commend s. F. M. T. A. For that. As you have been saying, we can see muni is not set up for this. Hasnt got support and what it needs to handle these situations. These situations can be expected to recur, to be worse. We now have a clear object case showing that you have got to have funding for emergencies like this. This is a time to insist on it because it is so evident right now. That is going to take extra time, and it is probably going to require some delay in the budget. Now you mentioned the city charter. I am not a lawyer. Getting that to happen is not my job, but i cannot believe as a citizen seeing all of the emergency rules and regulations that have been instituted over the past couple days. Really i have to say that holding this meeting today instead of making at least a slight delay makes it look like you are using this as an excuse to hide from the people. In closing one second. With regard to the budget, i think raising the fare for the monthly pass. Disincentivizes Public Transit. That has a negative effect as a marketing strategy. I advise you to look at that more closely. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. I am pj. I hope everyone from the board saw how many people emailed s. F. M. T. A. Opposes the fare increase on all Payment Options in addition to the 800 postcard and 500 signature petition we gave the board on february 18. We know Public Transit is reliable and safe and affordable is important. Our allies cant be here because of Public Health that is happening. They did their part by sending emails and doing phone calls to oppose the fare increase on all Payment Options. Yesterday i was trying to go to work. The bus is late even if there is a time indicator at the 14 bus stop. I attended all board of directors meeting from january to now. When we bring up no fair increase oh, no Payment Option we get the service will suffer if we dont raise the fare. We already are suffering with unreliable unsafe services. Every 10 increase in transit fares decrease ridership by 2 . According to the january 2018 university of California Institute of transportation studies, Mobility Research study on falling transit ridership in california, stop the fare increase on all Payment Options and free muni for all is just inequitable. Thank you. Mr. Weaner. I dont think this issue should have been presented today. We need facetoface contact with the board. This is the worst time to discuss this. You could withhold this for april. When you increase the bus fares, you are going to have a decrease in ridership. There has been a problem with decrease in ridership. Now, as far as the sources of revenue goes, bicycle lists should have to pay for licenses. They get the benefit of bike lanes. So should scooter users pay a fee. Actually, if you want real options for saving, maybe you should freeze muni ford projects. Dont spend on those. Apply it to other expenditures that are necessary. Here is the ultimate option. The management should have their salaries frozen until there is some release for other expenditures and balancing the budget. If you really wanted it to be fair for everybody, it should apply to management. Now, these are some of the ideas i have. I think that basically this is an agency of perpetual deficits since i have been testifying here and it is going to continue. I think the real question is not balancing the budget as balancing m. T. A. As an agency. Good afternoon board of directors. First off, we believe our definition of equity is not the same as s. F. M. T. A. It means fair to everyone across the board. What is proposed to you right now is, yes, there is no increase on the cash fare but what we saw there is still massive increase on the monthly passes. Monthly passes are used by the working class and students. You are shifting costs to another grouping of people at the expense of another group. That is not equity. We understand s. F. M. T. A. Needs to make hard decisions. Should we cut services or cut down fares . This is nothing new from city departments. Similar lines were told to us a few years ago that we need to make decisions between funding for housing or funding for transportation. Our answer is the same. Stop putting different needs against each other. We need both. This increasing fare to provide service is false. Since 2005 the city of San Francisco has experienced 100 inflation in muni fares and steadily increasing approximately 7 each year. Transit riders have already done their share of helping muni be safe and reliable. The price on 2005 to now has doubled. We still have not seen improvements in services. Please stop this practice continuing to hurt the working class and City College Students economically. We need the department to hear us louder and clearer. No cuts on services, no cuts on jobs, no fare increase on cross the board to any Payment Options. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any further Public Comment on item 14 . Seeing none, jonathan, as i understand it, there are two main issues which you want guidance. The one i sum rised halfway through, if we accept cash fares flat, the all youth riding for free and the homeless benefit we talked about, then if we accept that premise whether we fund it by increasing the monthly pass fee more than we would otherwise or close the gap between the clipper card and the cash fare, which will remain flat but maintain differential. That is number one. I think i understand it but for efficiency would you summarize the towing option on which you would like our guidance . The towing option is simply whether to reduce the first time. Yes or no . Yes. Very good. Okay. Directors, we have heard Public Comment before we have individual directors provide guidance if they wish to do so to jonathan and leo. Let me ask if there are questions first. Director bordon. I have a question. We talked about this with people being able to use clipper card for a certain number of trips. When they get to the pass price they wouldnt de charged any more. Is that the policy . What i was interested in the correlation between most of the cash fare riders or low income are the cash fare riders that is why we are not increasing single fare ride. With the other part that people cant afford sometimes that pass at the beginning of the month. Is there a way to in that population again if they are paying 3 each time. That is more what they can afford as opposed to going to 44, would that be possible in that population to isolate it so they would hit that at the 44 as opposed to keep paying . We did discuss essentially what you are talking about an accumulatetor pass if that is possible and perhaps including it. That technology and leo or julie can correct me if i an am wrong. That is something that could be integrated into clipper two. It is something that might be possible in the future with muni mobile. We are looking at it. To implement the fare policy of that type we want the technology in place. That will take time. That is why it is not included in the budget. We have been told the technology to do the pass will not be available within this budget. One other item is that i think if we were able to pilot it, we would remember piloting it first on the lifeline customers really. We believe for the full paying customers we want more analysis. I wonder is there any way i mean do we happen to know any research to know the reason people dont buy the lifeline pass is because they cant afford the full pass . Is there away around . We want more people to go to clip person and the passes in general but at the same time can we allow a payment plan . Do we have capabilities to break up the price for a low Income Customer to buy a pass but maybe not pay it all at the same time . I am not trying to make your life more difficult. I have not scenery search or analysis seen the research or analysis. That is a good question. We are looking through it department at longterm options to allow more flexible Payment Options. Some is in the open loop payment as part of clipper 2. 0 but not in time for this budget, unfortunately. Letted me just address because in both fare policy options we have given you, and in recognizing that the number of people that could participate in a lifeline pass at that price might be an issue. We propose to reduce the monthly price. If you approve any of the items before you, the monthly cost gets reduced. We know that we might be hitting elasticity with that. As director tomlin noted, we look at the actual person using the fare media. To your point if we hit the point of the dropoff because lifeline is too expensive, we want to collect a certain amount of fare. That is the proposal before you today. Who gets the reduced fare monthly pass . That is a good. Question. The people who qualify for life line meet an income requirement. There are people who like persons with disabilities or seniors who would never meet the income requirement and could pay the full cost and this will provide a discount. Those are the people who wouldnt meet the income requirement for lifeline but are in special groups where we provide a discount. That includes youth presently but that is going to go away. Yes. It is a differential fare. Earlier in the presentation you underscored there are certain reliability improvements we are not able to make because of the balanced budget. Could you speak what that means and when the budget might be online to implement those improvements. I would direct julie to talk about what we are giving up in terms of muni reliability improvements and when and how we might be able to fund those planned improvements so many worked so hard on. Start with first one and we will be interested in the answer to the second one. I will answer first one. There are a number of things that we are able to achieve in the current budget proposal, including some of the staffing shifts that we have already made in 2020, taking advantage of our vacancy float to hire trainers and to fill vacancies and increase our supervision. This budget allows us to put a little more Management Structure in place to support that. We talked a lot with this group about one day you are an operator, next day you are a supervisor. As we hire up we want Training Programs in place not just for operators but for supervisors and entry level managers to be able to be successful and support the work. There is also some key positions to make sure that as we roll out central subway we are not diverting resources from the muni metro subway. That includes supervisors and some overhead lines, inspectors that will prepare us to be part of operating two tunnels rather than one, and there is also some staffing for some of our seed programs. Like the attraction power needs to support the electric bus program. It is sort of a sprinkling of resourcers that i think will allow us to keep momentum and to build the case as we go out to the larger public and community and ask for resources, addressing the operator shortage, providing some service, supervision enhanc enhancements and maximizing the investments we have already made. It is about a tenth of what we talked about in the overall Muni Working Group. It is going to take a concerted really all hands on deck constituent effort to identify the funds. You will hear a little bit when i talk about the Muni Service Equity strategy that is one place we can start with coalition building. There is definitely a set of service increased recommendations built around equity we are not able to implement. I dont have the perfect answer. If i did we would have money in hand. It will take all of us to talk about where we have successes, where we will continue to have successes and what we could really do if we were appropriately funded. One of the key risk questions you will have to help us address on the board is to what degree do we use our reserve fund in order to maintain what we have through an uncertain financial future versus take some risk to invest in what we are capable of doing in order to build trust with the electorate to go after new revenue to finally close our gap . I can tell you right now what i want. The irony is if we are in a trouble budget time, more people will depend on takes it i transt around. Less people using other modes. We will be the most affordable mode. It is important if we are gaining people back to transit who are transitioning from other options the service is strong and reliable and it will grow and help us fund the future enhancements that we need. I will say i agree. For 10 years of my 14 years here, i have been beating the drum how important it is to keep the reserve. The rainy day will come again. My first two years it was a rainy day when the reserve was important. You and i had discussions and i had concerns what we were doing with the reserve. It is clear the rainy day is upon us. For exactly the reasons vice chair borden said now is the time. This is not extreme reserve usage. We are right where we need to be by the guidelines. That is important to keep in mind how important that is for the bond rating and how the Financial Markets look at us. My view we should be above the reserve in good times so we can use that excess reserve and still maintain our bond ratings and financial status in bad times. That recipe proved fairly well the last time around. Now we are better situated. I realize this isnt the budget everybody wants. The fact we have the ability to tap reserves without going below guidelines is testament to past folks and you all and the board forgetting us there. When someone takes thing to, people are looking to me to say the reserve. The reason it is there before is for a time like this. I am line myself with vice chair bordens comments. I am sorry to take over. I am to speak last. Directors who are on the phone, i suspect some if not all of you would like to weigh in here. May we hear from you. Since i believe she is the longest serving i will call on directodrink director brinkman. Thank you. I agree with what you have proposed. This is the perfect example of the rainy day fund. I want to congratulate staff. I really appreciate hearing the budget update. They listened to the public and i am very, very supportive of the changes that have been proposed. I like vice chair bordens ideas for the Payment Options for the lifeline pass. Looking into away where people could not have to pay the full amount upfront on the first of the month before we get a fare aggregatetor option to allow them to pay weekly towards the lifeline pass. That brings up, again, i know the hearing from the people whose homes were towed hit me so hard last month. It was suggested to me by somebody who knows about that. We could look into a system where we enroll somebody in the Payment Method to pay off parking tickets. It seems that a lot of the time people who are vehiclely housed may not be engaged with the social services system, and this could accomplish two things, which would be to engage them with the social services system. Even if they are paying a small regular amount towards the parking tickets, it is a way to scoot them into the whole world of opportunity that the city can offer them in terms of help. Those are my two cents worth from my living room. I will now go back on mute. Very good. Director, do you have anything to add . Sure. A few Bigger Picture comments and a couple specific feedbacks based on the requests. First, thanks to staff. Ditto what director brinkman said. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into the budget. I wonder if i support what we are doing and i like the proposals of holding the cash fare at this time. Looking forward to the future, from a transparency standpoint, what is the plan for the next budget . Will we increase the fares in line with the fare policy . I wonder what our plan is. It is important for the public to have expectations around that even in uncertain times. Our policy will continue to be indexing the fares upward on the average of cost of living and inflation. This is important in order to allow fares to continue to increase with our costs and so that we dont artificially hold fares flat and then be forced to have a massive increase every few years. A modest increase every year is more helpful. All of this is in the context of however we shape the next new revenue measure. The next new revenue measure could ask what is the appropriate fare box return rate for s. F. M. T. A. And make changes there. We can continue to look specifically at who uses individual fare categories. Rather than increasing all fare categories at the same Percentage Rate we can make adjustments to allow Cost Increases to be more eckwetable and have equitable and a accumulatetor pass to the extent we are allowed to buy the agencies. Does that answer your question . Very much so. Anything else . My second question relates to i know in the past that you were able to make slight adjustments to the budget after we pass it. I wonder if that can explain that process. I know the sf transit riders face it in their budget. Is there Something Else to do once we pass the budget to make changes if necessary moving forward . I will answer that question. In the fiscal year 1516 budget. There were a number of revenue measures proposed. There was seeds put in the budget to assume if those things passed the m. T. A. Would have a budget of a certain amount and implement certain programs. There was contingent language put into the resolution this board approved saying that in january of th the following year the board would have reviewed the physical health of the agency. If th the revenues were realized those triggers would or could not happen. We want a core budget approved. We are considering when we come back addington continuing get adding the contingent language to review where we are with regard to the policy and revenue changes in the budget now and have you revisit some things. Make sure we include all of the programs and they are approved now but adding the contingent language we advance them if we hit certain marks on the revenue side. As far as the two pieces of feedback you specifically asked us for with respect to the equity monthly versus clipper, my preference is equity clipper to reduce the differential between he electronic and cash fare. It balances the competing fares and that is my preference. On the tow options, i have a preference for option two. I still have pretty significant concerns about our practice of towing as that collection tool for unpaid tickets. I would like us to look at that moving forward once we are past this budget, i guess. That is all i have. That was plenty. Thank you very much. Director torres. If you are in your pajamas dont share that fact with us. I support everyone who wants to be. Thank you. You know, i feel having i am still having trouble resolving conflicts on the fare increase issue. What is the timeline when we require a final vote on these proposals . The final vote is not today . This is a session for feedback so they can craft the budget. The final vote on the budget is planned for april 7th if we have a difficulty crafting it or reaching decisions, we have another meeting in april, the second meeting on april 17th. Maybe 21st. Let me say this, today is not the final decision. If there are things you are struggling with we totally understand. At the same time i will say from my experience through the process, todays discussions will lead to the final decision. This is not merely an informative meeting. If you have feedback on any of the items, not all of them to be sure. If you have feedback on any of the items in your mind, now would be a good time to provide it. Right. I have had very productive discussions with jeff. I appreciate the time he took. We spent saturday morning going over these proposals and trying to derm what the options are. I have said i am against a fare increase. I am open to looking at how that fare increase might be implemented, especially less so to those least able to afford it. I support the towing amendment to deal with homeless we are not criminalizing homelessness or poverty. That is a priority for me. I know jonathan talked about earlier where specific areas they have been looking at to reduce costs at the agency. That is appropriate step to take. The other issue i dont know given the fact we are losing 1 million a week since this crisis occurred what revenues might we expect from the government helping everybody . Are we in line . If so what are the chances we night receive revenue help in light of all of the help going to everybody else from airlines to bankers . Those are the thoughts i want to put out there. This is a very difficult process. The budget process is the worst to go through when you are looking at minimal Revenue Streams and sources. I want be to applaud publicly jeff and staff who have worked on these issues. I thank you for the work that the current staff presented today has provided in the past and will continue to do so. We are all in this together and we need to make sure the number one priority are the people that need to use this transit to survive in the city. Thank you. That is very helpful. Thank you for the time that you spent with director tumlin. Director hemington. I cant wait until i am not the rookie any more. You are only the rookie on the board, not in the industry. A few comments. They will range beyond the two points of issue that you raise. First one i was encouraged by what jonathan said about some kind of midyear budget review. That is what we will need. We have so much uncertainty on our general fund and economically based Revenue Sources that i think we are going to need it. Secondly, on the question of transit fares. You know, at the last meeting i gave a nice speech about the indexing policy. Two weeks later i am sheltering in place. I think it is fair to say the times are a changing. I dont think it is the time to be raising fares. I would support the equity monthly approach with maybe one modification. I would support it more than the equity clipper approach because the latter whit els the discount down to a dime by fy22. At some point the discount becomes meaningless if it is too small. The modification i suggest for the staff and my colleagues to consider on the equity monthly and, jeff, it goes back to the comments you just made. Maybe i am misunderstanding what the information is providing us. On slide 19, it shows the 3 flat fare for both fy21 and fy22. Clearly, i am hearing agreement we shouldnt be raising it for fy21. Fy22 is over a year away. God willing this pandemic will be in the Rearview Mirror or diminished. I would prefer to restore the option to fy22 to be 3. 25, which is what the policy suggests. That kicks in revenue to the budget and puts the shoe on the right foot. The default is the indexing policy, not the default is a onetime deviation from the indexing policy. That is something for folks to consider. On the issue that i dont think has been raised in this meeting, and i think this is on slide 22. I still think it would be a good idea not to raise the demand responsive meter rate cap by an arbitrary amount but to eliminate the cap entirely and let the market dictate what people are willing to pay to use the meters. That would be difficult to estimate from a revenue point of view. From a policy point of view, that is the right thing to do. In terms of the towing question, which i guess is slide 25. The trouble i have got with option two, which i generally would prefer to option one. What option two does is jacks up the first time tow by almost 100 to around 530 on average between fy21 and fy22. It would help me when we make a decision about the options to have comparisons with other cities. I would expect we are on the high end of the range, and that is just a very significant increase to cover the other revenue losing items we are trying to include. Finally, jonathan mentioned a couple times that what we are doing here is really eating our seed corn. We are shifting capital money into the operating budget and then only able to backfill the capital money for a couple years. Obviously, with an operation the size and scale of the municipal railway, we need a robust operating and capital program. I really do worry we are headed in the wrong direction on that. The only real solution is to raise new revenue for capital or operating or both purposes. One thing i would like to suggest we think about is the fact that my senses in my tenure on the board have been mostly reactive to other parties developing revenue ideas and then we elbow up to the bar to get our fair share of that. What i wonder is whether it would make nor sense for us to take the bull by the horns ourselves and try to develop some revenue ideas that would help the m. T. A. And not try to worry about everybody elses chicken and everybody elses pot. Maybe that is something, mr. Chairman, you could do on the way out the door is appoint a subcommittee to take charge of that to see if we could fashion a revenue proposal for ourselves. Are you volunteering . Well that is the risk of ever mentioning an idea like that. It is your can chicken and your pot. Yes. I would be happy to discuss that with you the next time we see each other in person. Your experience in this game would be tremendous there. I know we are not going to get the resulting you want by wrapping more trains. I favor that and that is a great idea and would be happy to discuss that with you. That concludes my comments. Now, let me before i turn be to the directors, everyone is live. The directors who are here live in person, no matter how they are dressed. Jonathan, i think we heard clearly from our four fellow directors on the telephone. Is there anything you want to clarify from their comments that may be you werent getting because of the lack of body language or eye contact or do you have the direction of those directors . I am hearing on tow you are comfortable with option two. There are three of us to speak here. That is what i was getting from that group moving in that direction. I am getting on the fare policy you are in the middle. Well maybe the director was on one side and director themingger was on the other. What i heard from the four was there was except acceptance of the premise and which option to use to fill it. One point to clarify with regard to the fare policy and indexes is the board has always had certain goals, equity being one of them, ease of access to the system. Those goals have always existed with regard to the fare policy. With regard to indexing the question is from all of our transit fares, are we increasing the revenues to match the cost of the labor and cpi . Within the proposals before you, you are meeting the spirit of the fare policy and hitting the revenue mark. The trigger of the cost is resulting in the need to collect more revenue from the fare media, different programs. What we have done is gone a level below and we looked specifically at the people who are using that specific fare media and made it work. I believe we are true to the fare indexing policy and might continue down this path in the future. We are maintaining that the fare indexing policy must be used and executed and the agency must increase what they collect from fare revenue. That is clear. Those are the reasons we put it in place. I heard director tumlin speak to that before. With that, director eagan. Thank you. A couple of comments here. First. I want to applaud the fraud on the free muni. Two young people in my household will be delighted. It is equitable and in line with our goals. Loud and clear support for that. I also support pausing indexing on the cash can fares and remembering from the last discussion that the single payment cash fare was the fare media with the largest percentage of low income riders. That is equitable in response to the public input received. In terms of the two proposals, equity monthly and equity clipper, i am interested to hear from our colleagues on the phone, director rubkes support for the clipper proposal. I find myself aligns on this one where you are still receiving a discount in the equity clipper proposal and you are able to reduce the cost increase of those monthly fare cards which we heard from the public again is something that is of concern for folks. To director hemmingers proposal raise clipper to raising to cash fair before racing cash fare. Thanks for bringing those proposals to us. One comment on procedurally. I think we spent a lot of time talking about the budget which i think is right and that is our charge. At the end of your proposal we have the five year Capital Improvement program. We spent significantly less time in the details of that. That gets us to vision zero to fy24. I think that is right. I would ask for more detailed conversation to be brought to the board on the capital i improvement program. We havent had those options for our feedback. To help you, maybe the reason we do it this way is because the charter and approachation for appropriation of the board of supervisors including different elements. It is funds from exterior parties. The timeline is around the appropriate components. On april 7th we can go in depth on the five year and we dont have to approve on that day. We can bounce it. We can do that. I dont think we have been able to get into those issues. One thing i noted in there is that they view the communitybased Transportation Plan you brought us and everyone felt so good about and they asked for a modest amount of money when it comes to transportation spending. Total implementation would be 8 million. 3 million is proposed to be funded in the five year improvement plan. I would love to see this fully funded in the next five years. If we had a little discussion the colleagues would agree. We havent been able to get into that level of detail. The last thing to say because of the budget is when we talk about the wish list. I want to make an observation about the electric bike program out there on the streets. Just to observe anecdotally it was so much use of the electric bikes and growing sector of the bicycle mode we know to hit the 80 goal. It is 1 that is a mode that we have to support growing to meet the 80 mode share. Electric bikes are an interesting way to grow the mode share. When you saw the per minute cost going into effect which happened on march 2nd. I see so many ebikes out there. They are the only ones at the stations. People dont want to use them because they dont want to pay the per minute cost. Also, the flexibility of dock less mobility is a wonderful addition to the system. When you penalize people to pay an extra 2 to park not in a station. Several times as i biked downtown there are no spots there. You are stuck with the bike and dont know what to do with it. The system was working well before the 15cent charge. I am discouraged that to reach the 80 goals it seems now like it is compromised. The question after that long rambling preview. Did we consider through this process whether s. F. M. T. A. Would intentionally motivate or if they have made a decision about the policy structure. If we would want to subsidize the electric bikes. When you pay the 145 per year you are not paying an year to use the bike. It seems to be growing as a popular mode of transport. I think i know the answer but we might want to consider the subsidies. It is in line with the goals. We are able to learn and experiment with riding ebikes. I would argue that would be a great target for a new revenue measure to add to the popularity of the measure. Implementing them now would require shifting resources away from even more vulnerable users. As you know, we are facing a very, very tough Economic Situation as are our users. I understand that. That is a policy discussion i would love to have. How do we weigh this . I am not thinking in the exact moment. I would like to have those discussions. That is the conversation director hemingger will lead. We will volunteer him. Fantastic. Vice chair borden. Just going on. If you would care to give jonathan your guidance. You have spoken on these issues. I think just being able to go back to i am happy with keeping the cash fare the same for fiscal 21 and 22 for the reasons that director eaken stated. It is important at this point. The economy could be much better in 2022, we dont know is the problem. In terms where our Customer Base will be. Other issues. I think, you know, trying to figure out ways to recapture some of the last income and not necessarily be appropriating in the budget but the core transit operations that the working Group Proposed that we cannot fund and how we figure out prioritizing those things. I think also in terms of using the fund balance, it makes sense to use it for this purpose. It was pointed out that because we get so much money from the general fund and the Mayors Office looks at us having the reserve that other departments dont have, it puts us in a worse position. We are better off spending the money so more is available in the future as opposed to holding on to it. If we can get ourselves through the next couple years, i dont know that some of the other departments are in the same position. I know the Restaurant Industry and transit agencies there will be a lot of asks for government assistance in the next 18 months. We have to figure out how to make ourselves hold through that period when everybody is asking for money and only come back after those asks have been dealt with. It it would be helpful to see. We dont want to depress ourselves but the picture of the budget for this year where we are going to end with a decline in parking fees and fines, decline in ridership revenue, then just when we talk about the projections going out, looking at the graph and figure out fixing those things. Those are my priority areas. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Jonathan, thank you for your hard work. On the question of accepting the premise, i accept the premise. Lets start with free muni for youth. When that was proposed several years ago my belief was it would be provided to those who needed it, who faced barriers to the system. As i said my daughter should pay for her ride to and from st. Ignatius every day. I have come around on that. I have seen the issues that exist with the differential class of fares for youth. I am persuaded by the larger issue we talked about before. The city is more dense. There are not more roads. We need to train our children to take Public Transportation and build the next generation of riders. Our taking a bold step in making our Transit System free for people 18 and under is a strong way to go. I will also say this. I was swayed by an interview i did with a High School Reporter who was focused on fare evasion. Why should this be enforced . San francisco have much of a School Bus System the way other districts do. Our School Bus System is the muni. I embrace it. I would be remiss if i didnt comment dave and dusty and were ahead of me on thinking about that. Congratulations to this development, particularly david lets keep the cash fare where it is. I am glad to hear you both comment on how the indexing policy will be live. It is a policy, not a mandate. If we need to make an exception we should make them. This is onetime. It benefits the followings most under privilege. It does prevent someone digging for the extra quarter. It slows down the bus and affects visitors. As we work, particularly, with our visitors borough to regain Visitors Bureau this sends the right message to the visitors. How to pay for it . I am with the directors. The way to do this is to close the differential on the clipper card. I am sensitive to director theminggers comments where it is not much of a differential. I would like to see more people on clipper card. We have achieved the big part, flattened the curve. We are working on the remaining folks. That is the better voice and here is the reason why. The monthly pass may be of tremendous value is the fair method working folks in San Francisco are using. If there is a time to promote the working folks and get around the city with new jobs now is the time to do it. It may be an extreme value, i value, i would favor the increase in the clipper amount to shorten the differential between that and the cash fair to close that gap and accept the premise. On the towing, i would favor. There is one other thing i wanted to clarify on the premise. I know the answer but i want to clarify for the public. You went over free muni for homelessness. I want to be clear this is not simply someone can say they are homeless and they get through the gate and the pop officer is not going to enforce it. Iit is an administrative system where they demonstrate homelessness. I say that because i think one of the things we hear about fare evasion is people concerned it is not fair. They are happy to pay their fair share. They are upset when they pay and others are not. This is an effort to help the homeless. It is going to be administered and not take peoples word for it and create the perception of unfairness among other riders. Towing. Credit to you for going out to hear what is going on among folks helping the under privilege. I favor option two. I think that is something you are going to continue to work on with this board after i am gone. My reaction the broader than favoring option two. I want to give you the direction you ask for. Thank you for working. Look, we have talked about towing restrictions. You know where i stand. Rather than just continuing on the dialogue where we are going back and forth, you look for a different way to address the problem within the paradigm, and i appreciate that. Is that direct enough feedback for you . Yes. If i may, may i offer some thanks to our sleepdeprived budget crew. I will remind the members of the public here and those listening live and recording on sfgovtv we will continue the Public Comment online. All of these materials are available at s. F. M. T. A s. F. M. T. A. Com budget. There will be a town hall on march 19th from 5 to 6 30 p. M. I will host a Twitter Exchange from april 2 from 11 30 a. M. To 12 30 p. M. We will hear more comments as we struggle with these tradeoffs. Next item. I want do remind you when you come to the podium please use the kleenexes and Hand Sanitizer in the room. Item 15. Presentation and discussion regarding the Muni Service Equity strategy. The good news is my presentation is shorter than jonathans. The bad news is that i am pinchhitting for sandra who has her team that has led this work. She is exercising the discretion and is homesick today and staying home until she gets better. I want to thank sandra and ask some forgiveness for the board if i am not able to answer all of the questions on this topic. The muni equity strategy we are presenting to you in draft form today. It is the recommends and the process so we can incorporate your feedback. We will provide the full report to the board as part of the april 7th board packet. You will be able to see not only these recommendations but the supporting materials. The secretarthe equity strategyf a 2014 board policy. It was then built upon by not only be staff but both social justice and Affordable Housing that helped us shape the program. It is neighborhood based. The reason for that is that the Transit Needs in chinatown are different than in the bayview, and it allows us to develop tailored solutions. It is also very targeted and incremental. If i had all of the money in the world, how would i solve transit equity. It is more using data and Community Feedback to make in cremental improvements and to monitor those to make sure what we expected to happen is actually happening. We are presents at this time of year because it is set up to specifically inform the budget process. As you make decisions, the need to improve transit equity are front and center in the budget process. That is reflected in the value statement jonathan shared. There is both quantitative and qualitative data in addition to the metrics we addressed in years passed. We added the percent of Service Delivery in the 90 day plans. We are not filling all of the service. We used the equity policy to make sure we are fills as much service on the equity routes as possible. In addition to quantitative analysis we have a bunch of sources that help us with qualitative data, including operator feedback. Feedback from 311 comments as well as targeted meetings that we host. As this Program Continues to mature we are sable to do more things than in the past. One thing is working with technology team. I developed a dashboard for all of the 311 comments on service to allow us to parse it out based on routes and neighborhoods in the equity strategy, and we also took advantage of some of our Ongoing Community work. You will see a lot of recommendations for bayview. It wasnt because the Service Planners went out to do a bayview study. They partnered with the folks working on the bayview Transportation Plan and pulled out the transit recommendations. We also had multiple meetings with the Human Rights Commission and special thanks to director for coming and supporting that work. There is our third equity strategy we are asking the board to adopt. In first one we were focused on how do we operationalize this. What data do we collect and who do we talk to . It has become our overall transit planning process. This is completely integrated how we approach our work. The equity principles are forming the service and operations decisions. To that end, we just have this continuous feedback loop. We identify trends, we review them based on feedback that we are getting, identify recommendations where they are working. We continue forward, where they are not we correct. There is a continuous cycle. The equity policy also, i think, has good Core Principles to flag. One is that we are looking at data not just overall route. Some routes are very long through a lot of neighborhoods, what are the conditions in the specific neighborhood and looking at all times of day. Particularly people from low income households are less likely to have a typical 9 00 to 5 00 job and rely on Excellent Service around the clock. Some of the data trends that jumped out this year have to do with crowding. In the am spea peak that is schl crowding and work crowding. It looks at needs of people disabilities citywide as well as using data where ridership is heaviest. Crowding while it may mean one pass up for some customers, for people using wheelchairs, it might mean three or four vehicles pass up before somebody can get on. Crowding has an acute impact on people with disabilities. School crowding also emerged in the early afternoon so we most of our routes are not crowded between 3 00 and 4 00, but we do have isolated crowding on routes like the 29 and the 44 which drove a lot of the recommendations. A little bit surprising to me because in general the weekend ridership trends are going down. We have isolated crowding on routes, particularly north south routes like 8 bay and 9 and the 14 rapid. There is also good news that came out of the technical analysis. As part of the previous equity strategy we put a focus on the kt, as you may recall we did eliminate switch backs and added service in thelate the late eve. That was a reduction in gaps on the kt line, both in the bayview as well as in the omi neighborhood. Same on the 8 day shore. We saw a reduction in gaps when we looked at the 2018 data over the 2019 data. In addition to crowding, some of the other key findings had to do with long travel times between bayview and downtown as well as just general acknowledgment while missing service is not good for anyone, for people who dont have a lot of other choices or People Living in the bayview that may have to make a difficult transfer to missed service and reliability challenge impact them particularly acutely. I asked to go second after jonathan because one of the things you will note in the plan is that we cant afford everything that the plan recommends. We have tried to do a coding system. In green are things we implement with current resources plus recommended proposed budget. In blue requires new resources. They are important for the plan to build the case we need to be growing service, in particular, we need to close equity gaps. I am not going to go through every proposal, but i will. For our friends on the phone. Slide 16. I am on slide 16 and 17. Those are the recommendations for the bayview. For example, on the 19 polk, one of the recommendations is to address the hotspot at larkin and farrell using the quick build tool kit the board approved earlier this winter. That is an example of something built into the Capital Budget and we can move forward on. We would like to increase Weekend Service on the 9 9 thats something we are not able to do under the current budget. We will be as creative as we can with scheduling to help with gaps where we can. 229 sunset has twotone indication. The reason for that is because we are recommending a Significant Service increase we create a 29 rapid for this route. That 29 rapid was going to be commented with travel time improvements that make the service quicker and more reliable. We will continue working on the capital piece. There are Capital Resources in the budget to address it. We will continue with the planning process because i am hopeful that we will identify resources and getting Community Feedback on what the 29 rapid would look like, where it should stop and go. It when allow us to be ready if and when funding becomes available. In chinatown, one of the proposals i am excited we will be able to implement this august is to both extend the 30 stockton to the presidio providing connections to the field and going from 40foot to 60foot buses on the long line. The new electric buses allow us to consider things we never would have considered before. Getting to the presidio and how we would spring wire through that area was not possible. With the range we are seeing on the vehicles, we think we can extend them. There is a benefit because we have a much bigger terminal to allow us to do 60foot buses in that area and better operator restroom. There will be operational benefits and decreased crowding through chinatown. In the excelsior and the mission the biggest need is more service. Many of those proposals will be on hold pending additional funds. There is a quick build project on the 54 to build on the route improvements the board already approved and were implemented last year to make the service quicker and more direct. In the ocean view, the biggest improvement will come when the k. And t are separated. That is such a long line we do anticipate some reliability enhancements from that change. Also, coming back at the april 21st meeting to talk about the successes and Lessons Learned of the west porttal pilot to benefit the kt and m and the incremental supervision of hiring we are making will help that quite a bit. Both the intermission and the Western Addition have four recommendations than in the past. We have made significant investments including the 14 rapid project and service increases. We see a need on the 14 for increased Weekend Service, but here is another example where just having all of the service we are currently committed to be filled as we hire more operators will help with gaps which we are seeing on the 14. In the tenderloin and south of market area, we already worked on the northern part of the 27 bryant, but some of the benefits are offset by other investments we have made on fifth street. We hope to try to do a hotspot im movement at fifth and mission to help with delay in that area. We have a similar quick build project for the 19 polk. Treasure island was a neighborhood. Slide 23. Treasure island was a neighborhood we added this year. We had previously not added because it was one route that we were tracking, but it is in the report at this time. Some of the things that we heard based on Community Feedback is a need for better construction routing as the island changes and grows. We will continue to do that as well as increased supervision at the Transit Center to help with on time departures. In visitation valley, this is an interesting set of recommendations. If more resources were available, we would be investing in the heaviest used route and tiniest routes. The heaviest used routes for crowding and weekend connections people are making between visitation valley and downtown and chinatown. 56 rut land is one bus. If anything happens there is no service. Adding an additional bus would not only make that route more reliable but also allow us to connect just a few blocks over to the 29 sunset, which does run more frequently and would provide new connections. Then on the Western Addition we have made a lot of investments. One investment shown in blue we have current resources is the 5 fulton. It currently ends in the tenderloin right at seventh and market. We have been able to identify resources to extend it further into downtown to help with connections and help with the operator layover. As i said, for accessibility, we do track issues citywide. One of the benefits of having a lot of our customers with disabilities using the clipper card. We have good data where people are riding. Some of the heavy use routes include 9, 14, 14 rapid. Some of the investments we outlined on those routes will help people with disabilities as will the overall addressing the operator shortage and reducing crowding because we see a lot of passups. I am now on slide 27. Slides 27 through 30 talk a little bit about the accomplishments to date. This is something you will be able to read in more detail in the final report. I want to acknowledge this is a program we have a good track record on. It is one that as we identify improvements and the board approves we are able to implement. Moving forward we see this program continuing to evolve and improve. We were excited about a partnership with the commission on status of women that reached out to us, and we are excited to look at more gender specific issues on transit in future plans. We also hope to in the next two years take a deeper dive on the owl network and look at enhancing reliability when the service is less frequent being on time becomes that much more critical. Finally, either continuing to use equity strategy principals. Even in days like today where we looked at Service Reductions including not operating the express routings in order to better match staffing levels, we looked at it through an equity lens, which is why the 8ax and bx we did not make a change for because of their heavy use. Thank you very much for pinchhitting. Any Public Comment on item number 15. Mr. Wi ner. When you mention equity, it means equal services for everybody. Now, i can appreciate the changes that are being proposed that have been made. The accomplishments made, but there is still areasneg collected. For instance, the delation of the 26 valencia bus which ran directly to the mission bunnel campus was good service. It also connected downtown with the merced extended neighborhood triangle. That was delayed. When people have deleted. When people have to walk long distances when they are disabled and senior citizens. That is not equity. You are addressing the concerns of people that have been deprived of service. They have legitimate needs but so does the rest of the city. You have neglected that. When i hear managers say walking is good for you and when i address the plight of seniors and disabled, that is done with tongue and cheek. I recent that. That is the attitude of some managers of m. T. A. You have to have equity across the board for the city. M. T. A. Is a public service. Fire and police do not think in the same way. They dont favor one district over another. A house burning down in the bayview is as important as the house burning in the marina district. That applies equally to crime. Basically, i think this is a start, but you better address the rest of the city. As far as pleading no resources, managers are paid to address this. Thank you. Any further comment on item 15. Seeing none. My understanding this is an information item, not a vote item. Directors any questions . Yes, i do have one question. I know we use metrics around on time performance and schedules, but have we ever thought about a time . You made me think of that when you pointed out the hour and 20 minutes. I always look before trips sometimes i can get there 10 minutes in taxi where it takes 45 minutes by transit. I have a choice. Other people dont have that choice. Could we have like a trip time . I understand there are different variables. A trip time metric. That is the difference maker between people taking transit. You dont have a many choices. For people who have a choice we know that time is the metric. Is there a way to do a metric overlay of how many percentage of the city can get to Market Street in a certain amount of time . Have we ever looked at Something Like that . Thank you for asking. In the current report we have an analysis where we look at from different neighborhoods how long it takes to get to key destinations like sf general and downtown via transit and via driving. That gets at where you are talking about. It is part of the issue of the travel time to downtown and bayview connections comes up. I think that the stateoftheart is using access mapping access data so that if you ping on any neighborhood you can see with rings what can i get to in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes and what can i get to in 60 minutes . That is something we hope to include in the next iteration of this work. Jared walker is doing particularly interesting work on this topic and somebody we would like to engage within the next version. I think that would be great. The other thing is just that i know we dont have to i want to make sure we prioritize routes that have one bus or limited service. I have experienced how terrible the service can be. We make sure we prioritize those things. Also, the neighborhoods that have the furthest out, you know, visitation valley, bayview, neighborhoods that have the worst travel times in general, what their options if we can prioritize those. We cant do everything we want to do. My choices would be limited service, buses, having them come more frequent and more of them and to prioritize people further from everything and have less options. Only a couple buses to choose from versus areas with a lot of buses and opportunities to choose from. Thank you very much. We are at the end of item 15. We will move to item 16. Did you want to ask about 15 . I noticed on slide two, the bottom bullet the strategy is updated every two years to inform the budget. That is the subject of our discussion today. I wonder if you could comment in terms how the update of the strategy has informed the budget we are discussing. Thank you. Specifically, the board is required to adopt the equity strategy in advance of adopting the budget. That is why the full report and that action item will come to you on the seventh. I think that the equity strategy has kind of infused every part of the transit budget and was a big part what we discussed in the Muni Working Group, but the service increase proposal which i am still optimistic we will find additional revenues to do is driven by the findings in this report. Then furthermore, the investments in the base system are really respond to and resonate with the feedback that we are getting from people in these neighborhoods that having Unreliable Service that they cannot count on is not meeting their travel needs. It was sort of two fold. Both in making decisions about how we reprioritize resources in 2020 and then also as we made both capital and operating recommendations in 2021. Then i noticed and maybe it is what you have chosen to show us. This is mostly focused on transit. Is this specifically the transit Equity Service strategy . There are many others that have equity implications how we raise funds andy sign the streets, how are those . Is there a different document . It is very marrow. Not only very narrow. It doesnt address fares. It is specifically focused on the muni service. That is based on the policy the board adopted. We also look at equity through all of our capital programs and. We will bring you an update agency wide Strategic Plan with reframing of equity and what we mean and applying across all work areas. We hope to be accelerating that right now. It will be delayed. Okay. Item 16. Approving corridors on the San Francisco vision zero highinjury network on which the s. F. M. T. A. Can install the parking and traffic modifications quick build projects. That is good. Jamie parks is sheltering in places right now. He was to deliver this. I could deliver it for him. The meat is on a single slide. We seek approval for eight vision zero corridors including substantial component of the Bayview Community plan. We got this in advance. Wonderful written presentation. Is there any Public Comment on item number 16 . Seeing none. Directors unless there is questions or comments, i would call for a vote on this and entertain a motion. I move to approve. Am i allowed to second a motion . Why not. I will second. Thank you. Lets have a roll call vote on this item, please. [roll call]. That passes. Congratulations, thank you, staff for hard work on that. That takes us to the closed session. Yes discussion and vote pursuant to the attorneyclient privilege and conduct a closed session conference with legal council. Motion to move to closed session. Second. Those in favor, please say aye. I will take a roll call vote. [roll call]. So we will go chairman heinicke all right. We are back. The board discussed the tang matter and decided to come to settlement. The board discussed the other matters and no supplement were made. It would be appropriate to have a motion to disclose or not disclose closed session. I make a motion to disclose. Chairman heinicke all right. There was a motion. Is there a second not to disclose . Second. Chairman heinicke okay. Roll call, please. Clerk okay. [roll call] clerk okay. That concludes the meeting. Chairman heinicke as we conclude, as we close, i have two things to say. Happy birthday to my wife, ann morrissey. There is nobody else i would rather be sheltered in place. And director tumlin, we were afraid that our operators would not come to work. We were afraid that we would have a shortage of service and that our medical professionals and people who depend on our services would not be able to get to work, and that did not happen. We have our stickers on proudly. Please convey this boards thanks to your staff tumbay. I will. I could not wish for a better team. Chairman heinicke yes. This city has survived a lot and come out strong, and well do it again. But their dedication is truly remarkable. With that, we are adjourned. Hear, hear. Clerk thank you. Byebye. Chairman heinicke all right. We are back. The board discussed the tang matter and decided to come to settlement. The board discussed the other matters and no supplement were made. It would be appropriate to have a motion to disclose or not disclose closed session. I make a motion to disclose. Chairman heinicke all right. There was a motion. Is there a second not to disclose . Second. Chairman heinicke okay. Roll call, please. Clerk okay. [roll call] clerk okay. That concludes the meeting. Chairman heinicke as we conclude, as we close, i have two things to say. Happy birthday to my wife, ann morrissey. There is nobody else i would rather be sheltered in place. And director tumlin, we were afraid that our operators would not come to work. We were afraid that we would have a shortage of service and that our medical professionals and people who depend on our services would not be able to get to work, and that did not happen. We have our stickers on proudly. Please convey this boards thanks to your staff tumbay. I will. I could not wish for a better team. Chairman heinicke yes. This city has survived a lot and come out strong, and well do it again. But their dedication is truly remarkable. With that, we are adjourned. Hear, hear. Clerk thank you. Byebye. 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. 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. Lets get started. Good afternoon and welcome to the march 21st, 2020 special meeting of the board of supervisors. Madam clerk, will you please call the role. Thank you, mr. President. Supervisor fewer