Mayor breed good morning, e. Thank you all so much for being here. I am San Francisco mayor london breed. I am joined today by the director of the department of Public Health, doctor grant colfax, department of department of Emergency Management. Mary ellen carol, director of department of Human Services, trent rhorer, Abigail Stewart conas well as director of the department of m. T. A. , jeff tumlin, police chief, bill scott, and we have a special guest today from the Interface Council who will be speaking directly after my comments. As of today, we have confirmed 676 cases of the coronavirus, sadly, 10 people have passed away as a result of this disease. This is clearly a challenging time for San Francisco. What we have done time and time again, especially during this press conference is to reiterate is importance of staying at home. We know that a couple weekends ago we had real challenges with that. Over the past two weekends people complied and have been wonderful. We also think that weather might have played a role in that because it was rain, it wasnt as nice as it will be this weekend. I want be to remind people. It is important to really maintain our physical distance when we are out in public. We may need to run errands and take walks and we are hearing about a lot of data that indicates the early signs that San Francisco is in a decent place. The fact is, we need to be mindful that this virus is out there. We cannot get comfortable. We cannot get complacent because as well as it may seem like we are doing, as you can see, those numbers are still going up. We anticipate that they would be even higher and the worst is yet to come. I just want us to be mindful of the need to continue to follow the stay at home order and place comply. It has been almost a month. I know people are anxious and frustrated and wondering when will we get back to normal as we know it . I just want to reiterate that unfortunately now is a time for sacrifice and the sacrifice is for all of us to follow the order so that when this is over we can look back and look at, you know, the number of lives we possibly were able to save as a result of following the order. I just want to reiterate and talk about a couple things that we have planned for the coming week as well as provide you with some important updates because we know that this is a very challenging time. Not only is it challenging for people physically because of our concerns about the virus, but it is also having an impact on the Mental Health of so many people. Our First Responders are folks that we want to make sure are welltaken care of. They are working long hours under an enormous amount of stress. What i reiterated to people especially out there on the front lines working for the city, it is important we are doing everything we can to take care of the public. We have to make sure we take care of ourselves and our Mental Health. One way we are supporting the health of First Responders and other front line workers is through efforts like city test sf, the new covid19 testing facility which opened this past monday. It is not just about physical health. We need to provide the necessary Mental Health support. Today we are announcing an expansion of Mental Health resources for First Responders and City Employees. We will now be providing 24 7 oneonone counseling for any First Responder or any City Employee who is in need. If employees require longterm Mental Health counseling, they will be connected to Mental Health professionals provided by their healthcare plan. Our firefighters, police, sheriffs and 911 operators will have access to customized app on their phone to easily connect to this program and other Mental Health resources. It is not just enough to provide that support to First Responders. Our healthcare workers are under an enormous amount of pressure during this global pandemic. We need to do everything we can to support them. Today we are launching a new program called heal San Francisco to support healthcare workers throughout San Francisco. Heal San Francisco will provide free Mental Health services for public, private, nonprivate Health Care Workers with the covid19 counseling project. Licensed clinicals are volunteering time to support front line healthcare workers. Healthcare staff interested in heal San Francisco should speak with their hr department. They can help you sign up for this program. I also would like to take this opportunity to just really encourage people to take a moment to make sure that you are taking care much yourselves, taking care of your families. We know that this is having a tremendous impact on peoples Public Health but also just in general Mental Health plays an Important Role in that. We need to think about ways to be positive, to be supportive, we can be encouraging during this time because we all are going through this and we are in this together. On monday, dr. Colfax spoke to our efforts to increase capacity in our hospitals. We have increased our capacity. In fact in our intensive care unit beds we have increased our beds by 91 in our i c. U. S to 530 beds. We started with two 00 citywide. Now we are a at 5 30. Acute beds increase to 1068 beds total. While we are preparing hospitals, we know that all of our communications and communities need to access care, including communities traditionally underserved. Because we know that we cant just neglect other healthcare needs that we know people are experiencing. Yesterday we opened our first field care clinic at the Southeast Center in the bayviewhunters point community. This location will serve the surrounding community. It can serve up to 100 patients per day providing primary care, urgent care and screening for covid19. I want to be clear screening, not necessarily testing. Screening can provide an opportunity for testing. Ultimately we want be to make sure if you are not feeling good to the point where you need to go to the hospital, this is an opportunity to go to the local clinic and get the help and support that you need. Depending on the urgent care needs and extent of the hospital surge, we can mobilize up to three additional field care clinic nears existing Healthcare Centers as stand alone site. We will not just stop at bayviewhunters point, we want clinics all over the city to reduce other services in our hospitals. Field care clinics will help reduce the number of patients needing to go to the hospital, urgent care and Emergency Rooms which will help keep our hospitals focused on covid19 patients that we all know need to be served. Another need we have in some of our communities are more public toilets. A lot of people are struggling on our streets. We have fewer places to use the bathroom especially since so many locations are now closed. Starting today, our Public Works Department will be deploying the first five of 15 portable bathrooms and hand washing stations in the city. Public works with the department of homeless necessary to identify the high needs area in the tenderloin, castro andnition neighborhoods. Mission neighborhoods. These will be open 24 7 so everyone has access to a bathroom to keep hands clean to prevent the spread of this disease. I want to thank urban who will staff these for continuing the work to support public spaces. It is an incredible program. They are the folks monitoring all of our public restrooms. They e extended capacity to help us. These bathrooms are critical for making sure people have a bathroom to access and helping keep streets clean. Public works street cleaners are out there ever every day. I want to thank them for cleaning the streets, emptying the trash, thanking them to continuing to respond to 311 calls where there is illegal dumping, Power Washing sidewalks and the work they are doing every day. The hardworking men of the Public Works Department are doing everything to keep our streets as clean as possible. Thank you for your service. Yesterday we launched a new covid19 data tracker that greatly expands the amount of information we are able to provide to the public. As we said from the beginning, the decisions we are making are based off the recommendations of Public Health data and science. It is important that we try to be as transparent as we can with the information we are using to make the decisions that we are making. And that the public can see the effects of those decisions. This information is hosted by data sf website. Find it by going to data sf. Org. Dr. Colfax will provide an overview of this information and we will continue to add to this platform so that we can provide as much information as possible. I do know that people want to know what is going on, who has been impacted . People want to see the data. They want to know what is happening. Many of you know the challenges we have the Public Health have a lot to do, the ability to provide information has a lot to do with privacy lots around someones personal healthcare. As much information as we are able to share we will share that information with you. In the meantime, there are a lot of tools created out there, and one of the tools i personally started using is how we feel. It is an app that i uploaded on my phone. It tracks data and i basically log in every day. It asks how i feel and asks about my activities and locks in my zip code. This could help. John Hopkins University is facilitating this tool. It helps potentially predict based on zip code the hotspots related to the coronavirus. The more people we track and we know what is going on the better we can identify locations and figure out where there might be challenges in the future. That is just something i think will be a great tool to help us track this. I also want to just say as i mentioned in the beginning of this press conference. We know the early data has been very encouraging so far, i want to just again reiterate we are not out of the woods. We are not in a place where we can get comfortable. San francisco is, as you know, receiving praise from all over the country. People, governors, mayors and other leaders throughout the country have reached out to me personally to ask a number of questions about some of the programs and things we are implementing because we were one of the first cities in the country to move forward with the stay at home order. While i am proud of what we have done, we cant let up. We cant get comfortable or complacent. We have a long way to go, and i want to reiterate how physical distancing ourselves from people as hard as it has been is necessary. It is necessary to deal with this pandemic, and i know that a lot of time has gone by, and i know that people are starting to feel again anxious and uncertain and frustrated. I just want to remind you that this will pay off, and this too shall pass. We also know this upcoming weekend is easter sunday. Tonight we celebrate passover. For people who are religious and spiritual like myself, every year since i was a kid, easter was the holiday i looked forward to the most. It signified the end of the rainy season and it also signified a new beginning, spring, sun was coming out. We would go outside to play, get new dresses for church, and so many great things. It brings back happy memories of Easter Basket fun and family and food and tradition. I know how hard it is for people who are religious, spiritual as they celebrate this very significant time, how hard it is going to be for many of you to basically stay at home and not go to church on sunday. It is hard for me not to do that as well. I want to impress upon you this is the first time this has ever happened to any of us during this time, and there are other weighs in which we can celebrate. Many services are doing online service. I know that many pastors and a number of priests and folks in the religious community are reaching out to congregations and connecting members with other members of the congregations who may not have access to social media so they can check on their members of their congregation to make sure they get the support and conversation and prayers tha tht they need. I want to reiterate how important it is as hard as it will be to stay at home on sunday, it is necessary. It is necessary for not only your own personal health but also the health of the people that you love. Especially when you think about many members of our elderly community, those who are the most vulnerable. We want to make sure we do everything we can to protect them. The way we protect the people we love and care about is to stay home and follow this order and to continue to uplift one another with our prayers, with our good thoughts, with our phone calls, with the things that can really help get us through this very, very challenging time. We are in this together, as i said. Part of being in this together means that we take the responsibility for one another to support and uplift and look out for one another. I am just really asking so many of the leaders of our religious community to continue to do your very best to communicate to your members how important this is. I also want to just go back to something that just happened a couple weeks ago that i read in the paper about a church in Washington State where 45 members of the choir came together, they had aquir a choir rehearsal and sadly not only did the 45 members get diagnosed with covid19, two people from the choir passed away. We want you to understand that this is really why it is important that you stay at home and that you look for religious services on television and reach out to your congregation and try to make sure people who would want to and would definitely be at church this sunday during this very holy time for so many of us that that is not the case. We are here to uplift you. We are here to continue to pray for you and to support you, and we just ask that you follow the stay at home order because this is going to be so critical to the Public Health of not only you and your family members but the rest of the city. Here to talk a little bit more about the religious community and someone who has been an incredible leader and who has brought together different faiths because regardless of what faith we are part of, we are still part of religious community that puts love and puts support ahead of everything else, and we come together to offer prayers and to offer support during this very difficult time for each and every one of us. I have heard so many pastors and priests say this is the most important time as we go through this pandemic, this is when we need each other and need prayers more than anything else. There is a way to continue to do that. The Inter Faith Council has played a vital role in reaching out and pushing for that message and to make sure that people get the help and support they need. Here to speak on behalf of the inner Faith Council is the executive director, michael poppus. Thank you very much, mayor breed, for this invitation to address San Francisco today. I want to thank the mayor on behalf of the 800 religious institutions for her leadership in very early on addressing and responding to this covid virus. There is no doubt that numerous lives have been saved. We are a model for the nation as a result. I have been thinking deep in the heart about services in each of our services it is an ageold tradition. We pray for our civil authorities and those who protect us. Those words have never had more meaning than they have now. I want to thank the mayor for her leadership and, you know, we are not only just praying, but since the declaration of emergency wasnt acted and the Community Branch was activated, the San Francisco inner Faith Council works arm and arm with the city to make sure that our leadership in all of our different houses of worship are appraised of uptodate information, aggressive recommendations and public orders from the department of Public Health on what needs to happen. I want to just commend the faith leaders of San Francisco for very quickly pivoting and closing their church doors, closing their mosques and synagogues and temples and using the best that technology has to Foster Community in the midst of isolation. In addition to this, they have been reaching out personally by telephone to their congregants. This is significant because they are some of the most vulnerable citizens in our city and county. We are ambassadors of the city to help in this emergency and this Public Health crisis. I would like to say, also, that and to reiterate the importance of staying home. We are entering into the most holy days for the christian and Jewish Community but also in short time the Muslim Community which will enter raum don. The importance of worshiping virtually is something that we need to stress. The San Francisco inner Faith Council has been harvesting, compiling and making available to our greater communities a particular link where all can access online worship. That would be at sf inner Faith Council. Org. We would encourage you to go there. We would encourage you to join your communities at worship during this season. We know that this season will always be remembered in the years to come, and i just want to express my gratitude to the many faith leaders on the front lines with some of our most vulnerable residents in San Francisco. Ministering in a way they never imagined. I want to make a small confession. Some weeks ago when i heard that people were encouraging people to go to worship on these holy days, i was troubled because i think that in doing so you put at risk the welfare and the health and safety of those who are entrusted to your care. I am so pleased here in San Francisco without exception to my knowledge that i have not heard of one community of faith who is encouraging that, and i want to wish you all a very, very blessed easter andsover and may god bless our world, our nation and our city. May god bless our mayor. At this point it is my distinct privilege to introduce the director of Public Health, doctor grant colfax. Good afternoon. I am doctor grant colfax, director of health. Thank you may or breed an and executive director for your support. Thank you for your sacrifice and community spirits. As we join together we are helping fight the spread of the coronavirus. When you stay home, when you stay six feet apart from people, wash your hands and when you cover your nose and mouth with cloth, you are literally saving lives. I would also like to update san franciscans on a few developments in our ongoing work to respond to the coronavirus and to protect our community. I usually begin updates by summarizing the number of cases in the city and key data points. Today i am glad to be able to share this information using a new tool that we have created for the public. The San Francisco covid19 data tracker went up yesterday. It is a new online resource that will provide daily updates of key data that describe the impact of the coronavirus in San Francisco. Data are an important tool to help san franciscans see the picture of the coronavirus in our community. This knowledge will help us all do our part and see over time how this situation is changing. Our data analysts have been working tirelessly to collect information from across the city and create accurate i want to stress accurate reliable reports to guide our decisions and inform the public. The department of Public Health collaborated with the controller and open data sf and Emergency Management and i want to thank all colleagues for hard work and support. The tracker features information about cases, demographics of patients, hospitalizations and testing. We will add more Data Elements and they will be updated as we gather more information and continue to improve the tracker. Lets review the tracker now and go to the first slide. As you can see, today there are 676 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus out of 5994 test results. We will get to the testing patterns. Sadly, 10 san franciscans died from the disease. I would like to send my condolences on behalf of the entire department to their families, loved ones and friends. Now, we will continue to walk through the tracker. The report shows clearly that cases have been rising steadily since our first two cases were confirmed on march 5th. From march 5th to the data we are presenting today we have had dramatic increases in cases. I expect these increases to continue as coronavirus continues to spread throughout the community and as we increase our testing capacity. The more we test for the disease, the more we will find the disease. We do not know yet when we will peak. I also note that San Francisco has had no cases from travelers, which was such an early focus of the global coronavirus outbreak in december and january. Instead, the clear majority of cases are from community contact. This tells us and reinforces vitally how important it is for us to continue to stay at home and to practice physical distancing. This is one of the most important Public Health interventions we have. This is a vital tool. Please continue to socially distance. Now, lets move to slide two with regard to testing. As you can see on this slide, we have tested nearly 6,000 people in the city to date. We started with our own Public Health lab at the departments on march 2nd and have steadily added capacity at the zuckerberg San Francisco general lab and other labs and other commercial labs. We have developed great partnerships to ensure city workers and First Responders are able to be tested quickly. What is interesting here is the jagged line showing the percentage of tests that turnout positive. So far we are averaging 13 . It is very important on thisgraph to look at the trend over time. One day of high or low positive result is not the information that is vitally important here. It is really looking at the trend over time. Lets move to slide three. This shows hospital data. This is Important Information that i study carefully. The number of cases in the hospital and the number of those in intensive care is the best indicator of how our Healthcare System is going to be strained. Here we see the number of patients with coronavirus in hospital beds across the city. This tracker includes data from nine Hospital Systems. The tracker shows that there are 83 people in the hospital with diagnosed coronavirus. Roughly half are in the intensive care unit. The reason this information is so important is that it shows us the sickest people, those who are most in need of care. It also helps us measure the expected surge of hospital patients. You can see that there has been an increase since the data has been assessed. Not perhaps as rapidly as some other jurisdictions, but still a steady increase in numbers of hospital patients. So far, the numbers continue to go up, but they havent been rising at a rate faster than we can handle. I encourage all san franciscans to cut the data tracker and see how we are doing as a city. Working together we can flatten the curve and slowdown the spread of the virus. It is still a rapidly changing situation and we must not, cannot become place sent. We must continue social distancing. We must continue to remain resolute in this work in order to not see a dramatic surge of cases in our community. This virus will take off otherwise. I mentioned hospital surge planning. Every day that we prepare is a good day. All of our San Francisco hospitals are making way. Yesterday we opened a field care clinic in the southeast part of the city. To ensure that residents there can continue to get urgent care while keeping hospitals Urgent Care Services from getting overwhelmed. This field care clinic is an extension of the Southeast Health center, one of our vital primary care clinics in the department of Public Health system. The clinic will be open to the neighborhood and over time may expand to treat people from throughout the city. It is part of our hospital surge planning, and we have plans to open up to three more clinics like this if they are needed. As we continue together to fight the coronavirus pandemic, i would like to remind all of you that our top priority as a community are reducing the spread and slowing the spread of the virus in the community, protecting vulnerable populations, healthcare workers and First Responders, preparing our Health System for an expected surge of hospital patients, and expanding testing capabilities. In all of this work, we seek to continually do better as we incorporate the latest science, data and facts into our actions and recommendations. We are working quickly, as quickly as possible to integrate new information all of the time and adjust our recommendations accordingly. We are providing you the very best and most uptodate data and advice that we can. Now, i would like to provide an update on laguna honda hospital and the steps we are taking to protect residents and staff. We now have 17 confirmed cases of coronavirus at laguna honda. 13 of the confirmed cases are among staff and four are among residents. Of the staff, 10 have been in patient care positions and three have not. All four positive resident cases are in the south five ward or neighborhood. We retested the residents of south five this past week end and received only one positive result, which brought our total to four. We also tested all residents in the south four neighborhood on monday and have not received any positive results yet. The sum of those results are still pending today. Staff retesting on both units is continuing today. Overall, to date 298 laguna hospital staff have been tested either by the department of Public Health or their own healthcare provider. 208 residents have been tested. As part of our ongoing outbreak response, we continue to test staff and patients throughout the hospital who have been identified as being exposed through contact investigation or show symptoms of the virus. Unfortunately, we do expect more positive cases, but it is crucial that we know the facts so we can take evidence and informed action to preserve the health and mitigate the spread of the virus in the institution. We are working hard to keep our residents, their families and staff as supported and updated as possible. This weekend we launched a daily update via phone torres dents and families. When they call they will access a prerecorded covid19 update. It will be updated every day seven days each week at noon in multiple languages. It will include the number of cases, the units unquarantining and other key operational changes we are making to limit the spread of the virus. I encourage families and loved ones to call for these updates. The number is 415 7592190. This is a very challenging time for our laguna honda staff and residents. We will provide extra resources to support staff and residents coping with the impact of the outbreak. For example the chaplain is available for Spiritual Services and guidance for staff and residents. We have opened a dedicated phone line. Staffed by clinicians to provide emotional support to residents in realtime. This support is in addition to the regular Clinical Behavioral Health services. We also have a Behavioral Health specialist on site dedicated to staff needs who is proactively reaching out to the staff on the two units that have been impacted to provide support and coping mechanisms. The Behavioral Health specialist is available to all staff and our clinicians will continue to reach out to provide services. We know, i know that caring for the most vulnerable is some of the most intense and selfless work in the city. I am grateful to the compassion of the laguna honda team. They are true heroes. With regard to Infection Prevention and control, laguna honda continues so receive support from the centers of Disease Control and prevention within affection nurses physicians and epidemiologists. The cdc continues to guide laguna honda in screening and retesting of staff from the two quarantined units. The experts with the staff is conducting thorough contact investigations to look for sources of infection and the potential pathway of further spread. This will inform our current actions and further development of outbreak prevention and response that takes the coronavirus situation fully into account. The cdc has also developed a web tracking system for every staff person identified as symptommic during screening or who calls in sick. This data will be instrumental to limit the spread of the virus by providing important data as Staffing Levels and duration of illness among staff for covid r covid19. They have selfscreening prior to arriving at work. Under cdc guidance, laguna honda improved the Infection ControlProgram Using the best practices from top experts to be integrated into daytoday operations. These include all aspects of operation from deep cleaning infected rooms, transfer of acute patients to screening of staff. We are taking the knowledge and the learning from the cdc and rapidly applying through establishing training, learning and realtime coaching to ensure laguna honda has the protocols in place regardless of the on site presence of the cdc. I am most grateful for the cdc support and expertise. This is an ever changing situation and the ability to develop and rapidly implement best practices will help slow the spread of the virus not only at laguna honda hospital but also at other residential nursing facilities in the city and region. Again, i want be to thank the staff of laguna honda, residents and families for their resilience and capacity to be part of our response to this pandemic. Thank you very much. Director trent rhorer from the Human Services agency will now make remarks. Good afternoon. I am trent rhorer, director of the Human Services agency of San Francisco. I want today to give everyone an update on our plan for hoteling as well as providing other housing and supports for individuals during this pandemic. As i said before, the Human Services agency is charged with providing care and shelter for the City Residents under this pandemic. On march 9th our agency activated the Emergency Operations center in the expectation we were going to need to respond in a massive way to provide rooms and other Housing Options for individuals under covid19. Under the mayors leadership we met early on with the hotel council, which is the group of hotel owners in San Francisco representing over 80 hotels in the city to ask for their assistance to provide hotel rooms for the most Vulnerable People in San Francisco. The response to our request for beds was overwhelming. We received responses from over 45 hotels representing more than 10,000 rooms. These rooms were listed in the rpp for the following population. First those covid covid positive or persons under investigation meaning they are tested and the results are not yet in. In addition these are individuals who cannot selfquarantine on their own. Their current housing does not allow them to quarantine on their own. That would be individuals in the sro or Single Room Occupancy Hotels where they share bathrooms or kitchens or eating facilities. There are about 19,000 individuals living in these situations in San Francisco. In addition, of course, our Homeless Population who live in homeless shelters, on the street are unable to selfquarantine. Second population for the hotel rooms to be provided for are vulnerable populations in homeless shelters and homeless on the streets. These are individuals that are age 60 and above or who have Underlying Health conditions for whom a covid positive would result in significant harm to them. Third category are of course the front line health responders. We want to make sure they remain healthy able to provide the essential services that they dont go home and infect families or get in effected from familiors communities. I want to give you an update on progress so far at bringing these hotels under contract. As of today we have 1977 hotel rooms under or near contract. 880 are for First Responders. 1097 are for the vulnerable populations i just listed a minute ago. The current numbers in hotels we have 184 individuals who are in the vulnerable class in hotel rooms and 67 First Responders. Of the 184 the vast majority of these individuals are homeless. As i say, every time i am describing the City Response this is a fluid situation. We arwe are responding daily to guidance from the cdc or state department of health and department of Public Health. The current plan based on the most recent evidence and data and information from those Health Authorities is that we need to bring on about 7,000 hotel rooms for the populations i described above. So our plan is to do that. We have begun our costing out of the plan, and i want to talk a little bit about those figures now. The current 1977 rooms we have under contract will cost the city about 35 million over the first three months of activation. The plan for the 7,000 hotel rooms will cost over 105 million over that same three month period. In a sense our total activation or plan of 7,000 rooms will cost approximately 105 million. This cost does include estimates for staff costs, it includes supplies for cleaning and the other essential elements that we need to bring on the hotel rooms. It is important to note that fema provided guidance to the state of california. They will reimburse states and localities up to 75 of the costs of these hotel rooms but only for specific populations. The populations fema will provide the 75 reimbursement for are those covid positive or those who have come in contact with someone covid positive, individuals with Underlying Health conditions that i described earlier, individuals age 65 and over an what will be covered at 75 by fema. Our plan in San Francisco we consider age 60 and above to be vulnerable. There will be a segment of the population we are bringing to hotel rooms not reimbursed by fema. In addition the state of california through the governor provided across the state 150 million to counties to help cover the cost of these hotel rooms. San francisco will receive a share of that 150 million to be applied toward the 105 million cost i mentioned a minute ago. Lastly, i want to mention the plans for sheltering. This is the one piece every response that is most fluid. Initially on march 9th the plans across the state were to open additional shelters to thin out our shelter populations. Subsequent to that, and i will say we had plans for 2500 shelter beds to do this. As an example, the city of los angeles is standing up 46 rec center for shelter beds. From the state department of health we received guidance those shelters are not appropriate. We experienced that in San Francisco. We have had covid outbreaks at two of our shelters. We immediately shifted gears and pivoted from using moscone north to reduce the population in existing shelters and moscone north will serve for medically cleared Homeless Individuals, as a step down from hotel rooms. They have been tested negative or they had acquired covid and have since recovered and been tested clear. If they choose to, they can receive a shot at the moscone west shelter with the appropriate physical distancing as well. The second shelter that we are setting up is at the palace of fine arts. It has room for 160 individuals. Because this response is so fluid, what we are doing is setting up this shelter to respond to whatever need that may emerge. We are currently not planning to move individuals into that shelter at this time, but we have that under agreement and it makes sense to have relief valve of 160 slots for individuals should that need arise. We are in constant conversation with the department of homelessness and supportive housing, City Department of Public Health regarding the potential use for this space. So i just want be to wrap up again by restating the populations we are providing hotel rooms to so we are clear. Covid positive and persons under investigation, they have had a test and need quarantined and they cant at home. Vulnerable individuals on the streets and shelters to provide a safe place to protect from the virus. First line responders. We are planning for 7,000 rooms for that purpose, and we have nearly 2000 rooms under contract now. Now, i will turn the podium over to San Francisco police chief william scott. Chief scott. Good afternoon everyone. I would like to begin with thanks and a show of appreciation to our mayor for her leadership during this crisis, particularly in the resources provided to our First Responders, Police Officers and members of the San FranciscoPolice Department, other First Responders and other City Employees. We have had many members that have had a lot of stress and anxiety related to this pandemic. The resources the mayor has described today will be extremely helpful in helping us to deal with this pandemic and the anxiety and stresses that go along with that. Also, in terms of increasing resiliency to do what we need to do to cope our Community Safe and healthy. I thank the may important and everybody that had apart in making this happen. By taking care of First Responders and City Employees we will have a safe and healthy San Francisco and be in a box to help the residents of our city. Thanks again for that work. I want to speak a little bit about our compliance in the city overall. We are seeing good compliance. That is mentioned by the mayor and others, including dr. Colfax. We still have challenges. The statistics i provided for you on monday as far as citations are still valid. We have two citations on individuals. I want to provide an update on the other statistics. I reported monday we had issued 26 warnings or add mommishments that is now 41. Ththe majority are to businesses deemed to be nonessential. We are tracking, taking reports and as i said we will not ask a second time. For those businesses that are operating we do understand and we are very empathetic to the fact that this is Uncharted Waters for all of us, and this impacted peoples livelihood and there is stress and anxiety. What w we are trying to do is to keep people alive. Please add here to the Public Health orders. Keep doing well as we have seen for the first three weeks of the order. As far as crime. We are still seeing downward trends in terms of rates of crime. I want to go in a little more detail than i did the other day in terms of Crime Statistics the past week. 24 decrease in Violent Crimes is a decrease in 19 crimes. 71 the week before and 58 this week. Property crimes we saw alarminger decrease. 146 fewer property crimes and that number went from 569 to 455. Our part one overall crimes we are down 165 over the prior week. We are seeing decreases, but we want to emphasize our officers are out in force. They are out patrolling the streets, and we would like to see that trend continue. Particularly we are focused on the businesses boarded up and closed. We know those businesses feel vulnerable and the owners feel the businesses are vulnerable. We pay extra attention to that. We have had burglaries and vandalisms of businesses. We have made arrests and we will control those areas to give a sense of comfort to those who closed businesses. We encourage all people to report crime when and if they see it, and there are some crimes as i mentioned that you can report online or call our call center. If it is a crime of violence or crime in progress, serious crime, please call 911. Continue to do that. We will respond, and one of the silvesilver linings is that trac is light. Our Response Time has gotten much, much better because of the light traffic. We will be there if you call us. For crimes that have already taken place annan violent property crimes calm 415 5530123. You can call 311 or utilize our San FranciscoPolice Website to file a Police Report or request an existing Police Report. I want to reemphasize some of the scams we have heard about. We have not had this particular one in our city but it is online. We hear people talk about it. We want to advise and warn the public so people can remain safe. We have had a number of online posts about people knocking on doors asking to come into residential communities and they are claiming to be center for Disease Control workers or San Francisco department of Public Health workers. I want to inform the Public Workers from the San Francisco department of Public Health or workers from the centers for Disease Control will not knock on your door and ask to come inside your house or residence. Dont let people in. If you get that it is not legitimate. Be aware and be informed and call 911 if that happens to you. We have our City Disaster Service Workers placing door hangers on businesses and doors. Be aware of that. Informational pamphlets to keep the public informed to help with the cause of staying at home and staying six feet apart in the social distancing requirement we have been asked to do. They will not ask to come inside your residence. Please make note of that. If you have somebody reporting to be a worker from any of those entities or any city worker do not let them into your home. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Dont fall for things that sound too good to be true. Investigate and call somebody you trust. These particular individuals like to prey on the elderly and most vulnerable population. Be aware of that. If you know someone in those demographics please spread the word so we dont have anyone taken advantage of. Robocalls, emails, Online Sellers are also sources of scams. Please be careful and not fall prey to that. If you are asked to click a link you are unfamiliar with, be cautious about that and investigate the site to make sure you are not being scammed that way. If you are receiving online type of fraudulent or scam activity, you can call the federal trade commission at 877 3824357. As the mayor said, we expect that the weather will be nice this weekend, and we believe the weather has played a part in helping keep some of the people off the streets in the past few days. As weather increases, we ask again to please comply with the Public Health orders, social distancing requirement. If you have to go out for shopping like groceries stay six feet away from the person in front of you or behind you. It is really important. We ask the store managers and owners and leadership at these particular out lets help out with that cause as they are required to. The last thing i would like to say is for the Overall Health of the Police Department and wellness, nothing to update there. Again, i would like to thank our mayor london breed, director of Public Health, doctor grant coal fograntcolfax. Keep our foot on the pedal and do what we have been asked to do and stay safe and healthy. Thank you. Thank you. Our first questions are for doctor grant colfax. This question is from jamie at the associated press. Last week trent rhorer said 123 people, of whom 95 are homeless, had been moved from hospital beds to hotel rooms because they tested positive and needed to isolate or were awaiting test results. Why are these people not counted in the citys overall number of homeless who tested positive for covid19, which is three . Let me clarify on that number. Currently we have 167 people who have been moved out of the hospital who are either covid19 positive or under investigation. Those include people who have no other place to go that is safe. That would include a high proportion of Homeless Individuals. Also it includes people in crowded Living Conditions and other places where they cannot go and safely isolate. It is a combination of those populations. Again, that is very important intervention to keep our Hospital System as open as possible. With regard to the people, the three people mentioned, we have four cases now of people who have been diagnosed in a shelter or navigation center. The msp south is for three cases. We are working hard with data systems to provide an accurate number of people experiencing homelessness diagnosed with covid19. This testing is done throughout the city by different providers including private labs. Our understanding is that private labs do not assess the housing situation. Within our dph system we look to merge data sources on status of living status and covid19 positive cases. We hope to share that information. Thank you. Next question from trisha with the San Francisco chronicle. Will the city release specific data on how many covid cases are tied to Skilled Nursing facilities or longterm care facilities . If so how many cases have there been . We will release that data as it is available and we will ensure that they are accurate. Followup. Yesterday we learned one Skilled Nursing home campus for jewish living is preparing to accept covid parish aints patients. The state is working can longterm care facilities helping derm which facilities both across the state and within San Francisco could do that with regard to the need and ensuring the safety of staff and residents. I am not able to identify these facilities specifically in San Francisco out of respect for privacy. I will say that it is part of our surge planning assessing and determining where covid positive patients who require a Skilled Nursing type level of care has been part of our conversation with other Health Systems in the city. We are supporting the longterm care facilities in our collective response. We have regular communication with them. We are supporting them, and we also hope to apply the cdc recommendations from laguna honda to other partners in the city. Question from ron lynn of the los angeles times. Do you expect the shelterinplace order and forms of social distancing to last beyond the summer and into the fall or into next year . Well, unfortunately, i cannot predict the future. I am focused on what we know now. Looking at the data and science and facts. What we know now the physical distancing appears to have slowed the spread of the coronavirus in San Francisco. This is a very vulnerable time for us to ensure that that surge continues to be slow. As you can see from the data tracker, there is a steady increase in cases and hospitalizations. We must be resolute in continuing the social distancing through the shelterinplace during this time. Followup. Why are we seeing rising hospitalization cases eventhough the shelterinplace wasnt acted more than three weeks ago . Well, this virus is extremely transmissible. Despite multiple efforts early actions we knew there were going to be cases of covid19 in our city. And what we are focusing now is ensuring the Hospital Systems have capacity to provide the best care possible for people with covid19. Yes, there is an increase across the united states. Unfortunately, in our city we see a pattern. If you look across the nation, our increase has been slower so far, but again this could change any day when this virus takes off it can really take off. I would go back to Public Health intervention, social distancing, wash your hands, wear a Face Covering if you cannot keep at least six feet away from individuals, please do that and exercise restraint in your outings. Thank you. Final question for dr. Colfax from the San Francisco examer. Since the first cases were diagnosed has anyone recovered from covid19 and if so how many people . People recover from covid19, and i think we know from the data on both nationally and internationally that the majority of people and many have mild symptoms and recover well. It is really the focus on the vulnerable populations, the people who have to be hospitalized, the people in the i c. U. I think the focus needs to be on the Hospital System and the capacity there and the people who have not recovered are are e people who died. With our collective efforts of prevention and experts. I want to emphasize the expertise we have in the Health Department at zuckerberg, San Francisco general, u. C. S. F. And kaiser we have incredible leadership ensuring that as many people recover as possible. Is the department doing contact investigations for every positive case and notifying those who may have been in contact with the positive case . So we are continuing to expand our contact investigation efforts. We are ensuring that we are focusing on the most vulnerable communities with those contact investigations. Right now our capacity to do all of the Contact Tracing for every case has benumbedded, which is again why ha has been exceed. As we move forward we are ensuring that we have a robust number of contact investigators on board. Think of right now as a situation where we have as you can see from the dashboard a lot of Community Transmission. Over tight our hope, and i do not know if this will happen. Over time we hope due to social distancing that Community Transmission rate will be crease and we will go to a level where the Contact Tracing is particularly important. Think of it now as a situation where there is a steady, unfortunately, steady fire throughout the city with regard to transmission of cases. If we are successful in extinguishing this broader fire across the community, then we think about in the next stage if we get there sparks in the community. Sparks, outbreaks that are containable. Our goal is to have a robust team of Disease Control investigators to immediately respond to the sparks so we do not return to widespread Community Transmission like today. Thank you, dr. Colfax. The next questions are for mayor breed. Mayor breed, this question is from stefani at abc 7. Sf pride parade organizers have not cancelled for june. It may still happen. Do you have a response to that . Mayor breed i do. I want to start by saying pride is one of my favorite times of the year in San Francisco, and especially during this pandemic. The fact that the pride celebration potentially may not happen will be devastating to not only me personally but to so many people in our city, but we are in a different reality. I think it is important as dr. Colfax said we cant predict the future. We dont know what is going to happen in the city. We know when we start to get out of this that having large scale events will be very, very difficult. I am not certain that it will be possible at this time to say whether or not we can move forward with pride in the same capacity as we have done for many, many years. I think that once the shelter in order is lifted, there is going to be a gradual process to get the city back on track and back into some level of normalcy. I think it may not be possible to expect that we could launch a large scale event with millions of people in San Francisco. I am not sure if that is going to be realistic to expect that we will be able to host the kind of pride parade this city is known for. That is where we are at this time. John king of the San Francisco chronicle. What will mayor breed do if the emergency legislation proposed yesterday at the board is approved. Including Homeless People of all ages and Current Conditions and placing them in hotel rooms. Mayor breed i want to be clear. From the beginning we have focused on moving forward plans that are realistic, that allow us to use data, that are sustainable, that allow us to not only provide the resources necessary to make them work but to also sustain them. We have had to basically make magic happen over the past month as it relates to setting up the Emergency Operations center to focus on the Public Health crisis in staffing the hospitals, making sure the nurses and doctors have protective equipment, making sure the city work force has protective equipment, thinning out shelters to protect the people working in the shelter system. We know that it is a lot more complicated, as i said. The thing i would want to do more than anyone else is to be able to house every Single Person on the street to make sure they have a safe place to be. The fact is that comes with so much more than opening up the doors to give people a hotel room. Trent rhorer, the director of Human Services had provided an overview with a clear plan that has been changed based on what we know may work and may not work. Specifically, the change we made to moscone west, the changes we are making around the hotel rooms that we are fortunate enough to have access to and to provide the staffing for those particular locations. That will ensure safety. That will ensure that when we provide a room to someone that person is the only person who is in that rumor that person with their family members. That we are working with the hotels, that we are providing the 24 hour care and support, laundry service, food and all of the things needed. That takes a lot of people. It takes a lot of people who are part of our work force and the reality we are this is that some of those people are afraid. They are afraid to come to work. We want to make sure when we set these systems up we are not only providing places for people to be during this crisis but we are providing protection for those we are expecting to put their live on the line. We are expanding our capacity significantly quickly, and that takes a plan that is focused, that is developed, that is consistent, that is something we can actually deliver. That is really what is important for me as mayor of the city to focus on, what we know we can do and make sure we get it done and to focus our attention on elevating what we know we need in this crisis. I will really basically continue to do just that. Next questions for trent rhorer. Thank you, mayor. Trentrent rhorer, human serv. This is the San Francisco chronicle. The 7,000 hotel rooms do not include homeless not covid19 positive and not ranked as part of the vulnerable population. No ordinary homeless so to speak . Let me clarify. The 7,000 rooms we are bringing online are for covid positive, persons under investigation who cant selfquarantine and vulnerable Homeless Individuals who are living in shelter or on the streets. Vulnerable age 60 and above or Underlying Health conditions. That would make them more susceptible to the covid virus. 7,000 includes homeless on the street, shelter and covid positive and under investigation for covid. Next questions for chief bill scott. This is a question from the San Francisco chronicle. Has will been any change in calls related to Domestic Violence, increase as suggested by evidence . I can tell you what has been reported to the San FranciscoPolice Department. We have seen a decrease in reported Domestic Violence incidents. From the period of march 17 to march 31st is the latest reporting that i have. Compared to that time last year, we had 121 reported Domestic Violence incidents as opposed to 179 for the same period last year. We are hearing from the groups that they had an increase in calls and that might be a good thing in that people are seeking out help. We know from the science of Human Behavior that stress and anxiety and frustration can trigger violent behavior. My message is that the those things are happening seek out help. The mayor said it, public Health Professionals across the country said it. Seek out help. As far as reported we have seen a decrease for this shelterinplace stay at home period as of march 17th through march 31st. We will keep an eye on that. That is definitely something our Police Officers are watching. Some crimes are not reported. We realize that. It is another opportunity for me to encourage people to report crimes when they happen. We will be there and we will investigate. Thank you. The next questions for Abigail Stewart. These are the last two questions of the press conference from the San Francisco public press. Has the city run into challenge with hotel rooms with general trust issues. How are city agencies handling these challenges . That is a great question. From talking with you i know you feel that people experiencing homeless niece are just like you and me. We all have questions and worries now. We would all need support if we were asked to pick up and leave our communities and move to an unknown hotel room. As a social worker, i know the strength of every person is what we need to rely on now. I see it as the systems responsibility to set up that support so that we can rapidly meet people where they are. We have steps in place and staff from all over the city who are trained to evaluate an individuals ability to selfcare in these new environments before they move. The city is coming to help us. Our hotels are staffed with hsh heroes, nonprofits, first unite council and ecs of San Francisco and many more on the way as well as Disaster Service workers from city partners. As we scale, we will be reaching out to the most vulnerable outside through the channels and with a careful and clear process in place. We are grateful to ihss which is part of the Human Services agency who have helped so people can selfcare. We are excited that we are exploring a volunteer program that would allow people at home to regularly check in on individuals living in hotels to reduce isolation and support on site staff. We believe in San Francisco and in our community to set this up so people can shelterinplace. It is going to take all of our creativity and strength, but we are built for this. Thank you. Is the city working with homelessness related outreach groups to transition people to hotel rooms. If so which groups and what role do they play . I think i understand the question. I will answer as best i can. As we move to as director rohr said we are working on sheltered and unsheltered 60 and over people with preexisting conditions. We will work with Homeless Outreach but we are not ready for that yet. We will provide more information in the coming days how to bring them inside and we are working with those with covid19 cases. We are getting to scale rapidly and look forward to providing further updates. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes our press conference. Welcome to the Land Use Transportation Committee of the San Francisco board of supervisorses. Im the chair of the committee, aaron peskin, joined virtually on Microsoft Teams by vicechair supervisor safai and Committee Member preston. Our clerk is ms. Erica major. Ms. Major, do you have any announcements . Yes, due to the covid19 Health Emergency and to protect board members, City Employees and the public, the board of supervisors legislative chamber and Committee Room are closed. However, members will be participating in the meeting remotely at the same extent as if they were physically present. Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda, both channel 26 and ff gov. Org are streaming the channel across the sf gov. Org are streaming the channel across screen. You can call 8882045984. The access code is 3501008. Then press pound and then press pound again. When you are connected, dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the qu queueu to speak. The system will notify phi you when you are in line and waiting. All callers will remain on constitute mouth until their line is open. Everyone must account for the time delay, speaking discrepancies between live coverage and stream. Best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. Alternatively, you may subfit myth Public Comment in two of the ways noted. Email me at erica major, erica erica. Major sfgov. Org. If you submit Public Comment via email, it will be included in the legislative file as part of the matter. Written comments may be sent via Us Postal Service to city hall, 1 doctor carlton b. Good let place, San Francisco, california, 94012. And ms. Major, would you please repeat the call in number again for everybody so they can write that down slowly . Yes. The callin number is 1888204 18882045984. When prompted youll need the access code. The access code is 3501008. Thank you, ms. Major. And now can you please call the first item . Yes, item one is an ordinance amending the planning code to consider smaller commercial spaces when creating large large lots, limiting lot from frontages to 50 feet on ocean avenue, creating an exception from neighborhood notes for certain uses in the ocean avenue neighborhood commercial Transit District and adding arts activity as a use to the neighborhood commercial Transit District, and adding arts activity as a use to the ocean avenue neighborhood commercial Transit District. To provide comments please call the number. This was brought to us by supervisor yee. It is my understanding chief of staff jen lowe is here to present. And then we will go to the Planning Department in the form of mr. Sanchez as this item was reviewed and recommended to the board of supervisors by the Planning Commission with sucks for three modifications. With that, the floor is yours. Thank you, chair peskin and members of the committee. I hope you can hear me okay. Thank you for hearing this item it was brought forth to us by our Community Benefits district partners on the ocean avenue corridor. We have been quite successful before this Health Emergency in terms of supporting our Small Businesses, particularly familyowned businesses and as well as promoting legacy businesses along the corridor. And we want to keep it that way. This legislation aims to do two things. First, its to disincentivized any lot mergers that would result in large storefronts that would be difficult for Small Businesses to occupy. Number two it helps streamline some of the notifications that already require a conditional use to not have to also go through 311 notifications for desired businesses for the corridor. We know now more than ever we have to support our Small Businesses. And we want to keep ocean avenue to have that granular, mom and pop feel moving forward, beyond this crisis, and a way to do that is to ensure the physical spaces are designed so that we can keep smaller businesses and restaurants on the forefront. So im happy to take any questions, and thank you for hearing this item. So, this is aaron peskin speaking. With regard to those categories that would no longer require 311 notification, are you saying perhaps mr. Sanchez can also address this, that those are all uses that would be subject to conditional use and to the notice that is required pursuant to conditional use . Is that correct . Im talking about tobacco paraphernalia let me just scroll down, nighttime entertainment, private and Public Community facilities, restaurants and limited restaurants and general entertainment . Are all those subject to cu and thats why you are taking them out of section 311 of the code . Mr. Sanchez, can you help answer that question . Definitely. Some of those uses require conditional use authorization while others dont. You would have to speak obviously to the legislative sponsor to determine why they are taking them out or not. But not all of them require cu. Okay. In so far as the board has over many years taken steps to reduce tobacco use in the community, i think the one i would be most interested in is tobacco paraphernalia establishments. If they are not subject to conditional use, it would seem a little odd relative to the other body of policies that this board, including the sponsor, president yee have pass. If its subject to cu, i get it, but if it is not not, you would think you want want to send neighborhood notification. I agree with that. Let me see the planning code to make sure it does require cu. I would bet it does but give me one second. Take your time. Colleagues, are there any questions or comments from ms. Lowe while mr. Sanchez is looking that up . Chair, this is safai. Ii wanted to say this is very similar to what we did aid couple years ago in our commercial districts. Im really exciting adding for art uses on ground floor retail. We had to change our table to allow for that because they were not permitted at all. Even with the conditional use. So allowing for that changes the dynamic of arts organizations, and it provides for more activation, in fact we have been able to activate a few of our empty storefronts with arts activities. So that was a positive thing. The other thing we found was for Small Businesses not having to go through the neighborhood notification, it saved many of them thousands and thousands of dollars on businesses that we understand, and i think the Planning Department as well as the sponsoring supervisor understands would be principally permitted. So at the end of the day, we are doing something thats very important in terms of helping Small Businesses. And i think as we move into this crisis and then eventually out of the crisis, it will be really helpful in terms of recovery. I will say that i do agree, i mean, and i dont think it would be in the intent of the sponsor to remove any barriers for tobacco paraphernalia. So, other than that, i think this is the important piece of legislation. So i support supervisors intent. The other thing i think is very important is that when we are building mixed use projects that there is space for, by design, theres space for Small Businesses. So ensuring theres space for Small Businesses in terms of limiting the size, that would be presented for storefront retail is also very important. So i appreciate that as part of this legislation as well. Thank you. Any questions or comments from supervisor preston before we go back to mr. Sanchez . No comment. Thank you. And chief of staff lowe, does that conclude your thing and can i turn it over to mr. Sanchez now . Yes, i do want to emphasize that we have no intention of removing any notifications for those uses that would be particularly of interest of the public. So ill send that off to mr. Sanchez now. Mr. Sanchez. The floor is yours, sir. Thank you. So day go Diego Sanchez with Planning Department staff. After taking Public Comment and a deliberation, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve the ordinance with three modifications. The first was to eliminate the requirement that lot mergers resulting in a frontage with a greater than 50 feet within the ocean avenue nct would also create a corner lot. The second modification was to principally permit flexible retail within all stories within the ocean avenue nct. Currently that use is not permitted. The third modification was clarifying language, for example defining square feet, Square Footage and calling out commercial space as nondenial uses, essentially using more nonresidential uses, essentially using more planning code language. So that was the Planning Commissions recommendation. To get back to your question, tobacco paraphernalia does require authorization on the ground floor and not permitted on the second or third stories. So that concludes my remarks. Thank you mr. Sanchez. The only difference between 311 notice and cu is a 20day notification as compared to a 30day notification. Is that correct . Its that and also the deliberate notice is 150foot radius of owners and occupants of property and the cu notice is a 100foot radius er radius and less got it to wider radius and less time. Yes. I also appreciate the fighter planesgrain intent of this legislation and want to also note that portions of it are not just for the ocean nct, but are citywide, specifically subsection 3 set forth at section 121. 1 at the top of page 3 is citywide in its applicability. And i absolutely support that. Ms. Lowe, relative to the three suggested modifications, does the office of supervisor yee want to make any amendments . Are you offering any amendments today . Or would you like to proceed with the legislation as originally introduced . I do not have any amendments to introduce today nor do we have any strong reservations on any. We want to leave that to the committees to deliberate if you feel strongly. So i think the first two modifications are policy calls, and if the sponsor is not interested in making them, i am not interested in making them. The third seemed to be technical and explanatory in nature. Just relative to what mr. Sanchez described about using gross Square Footage. So i dont know, mr. Sanchez, if you have any suggestions, and i would ask or i assume those changes, madame deputy City Attorney, would not be substantive in nature, and could be undertaken today or could be done at the full board. Ms. Pearson . They would not be substantive, at least as they are described in the Planning Commissions recommendation, but we have not been asked to prepare them, so i dont know how extensive they are. I think you could choose to continue this for a week, and wed be hane to draft some amendments to be happy to draft some amendments to provide Additional Committee but that could also happen at the full board. Thank you for that advice. Why dont we open this up to Public Comment . Are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item, item number one . Just checking in to see if there are any callers thank you, ms. Major. You have one question remaining. Please go ahead and make Public Comment hi. This is tom with political city. Thanks to you all for hearing this item today. Thank you, supervisor yee for bringing in forward and all your hard work on it. We are fully in support. I think for a few reasons. One, its a great fit with the uses that the community has wanted on ocean avenue. For me, the arts use is allowing those is going to be a great thing for the avenue, especially for the efforts to rebuild and recreate from the theater which is now empty as an art hub for the community. We ask that all of you think about legalizing art usage in the corridor, supervisor yee spoke eloquently to the reasons why. We are probably unfortunately going to have a lot of vacant storefronts around our city in the months and years to come. And arts organizations and nonprofits along with these neighborhoodserving commercial uses are great uses for those. Supervisor peskin, you spoke to the citywide nc district piece of this. And we are particularly excited about that. Large developments, 5 to 10,000 square feet, a lot of ground floor retail, that it would ask the commission to consider as one of the conditions to approval that the developer provided a mix of retail spaces. What we are seeing is a lot of big commercial developments for mixed use developments go in with very few large storefronts, but they are expensive. Only larger businesses can rent those. So allowing that diversity of storefront sizes, in fact, requiring it, means that more small and local businesses can find spaces suitable to them. Some Good Research showing those are more affordable to locallyowned businesses we want to encourage. And theres Research Showing that commercial districts with a lot of those small storefronts as well as large ones are more resilient. After economic downturns and so on. As for flexible retail, thats made up of six different uses. All the uses are principally permitted in the corridor, and you relax the notification requirements for the uses, youve effectively allowed flexible retail without calling it out as a separate use. We think this is a good way to achieve the same ends that the flexible retailer does. So we have to support we ask that you support it today and we hope in your own commercial districts, if you see anything here in those neighborhoods as well. Thank you for your comments. Your time is expired, sir. You have zero questions remaining. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who would like to testify on this item . Mr. Chair, that concludes Public Comment. Theres no other speakers wishing to wish. Thank you. So Public Comment is closed. Chair, can i ask a couple questions. This is ahsha. Supervisor safai, of course. I wanted to clarify one thing. So one of the recommendations that the Planning Commission made with regard to lot mergers, it said in ocean avenue, it said if it was over 50 feet it would be permitted if it was a corner lot. Can you talk about that a little bit . Yeah. Right now what we understand the order to require is if someone wants to merge a couple lots and the resulting lot frontage is in excess of 50 feet, it may not b but not at a corner . The recommendation is to allow that to happen midblock. Thats because that would allow flexibility for midblock properties that want to assemble a parcel or two for the sake of housing development, for example. Its still permitted under this ordinance. It would just require a cu . Met lets me check that one more time. Im looking at that too. What i thought the read the ordinance to say was that if its over 50 feet, it would require cu. Yes, i think so. Then theres the set of things that the Zoning Administrator is empowered to do through an administrative waiver that are set forth in administrative exemptions right. If one of the lots is less than 20 feet and the other is larger they allow for the administrator to go, if its a government institution, those are some of the administrative decisions that the za can make . Thats right. Those are pretty well defined, the five or six, the five exceptions. And then subsection d says conditionally permitted exceptions. Planning commission may approve as a cu pursuant to section 303 mergers exceeding the restrictions of b c, only when they can make one or more of the following findings. Now, then theyve removed subsection e, which was the nolot merger. So and maybe ms. Pearson, im looking at b and c above. But is supervisor safai correct that this could still be done by conditional use . Im looking now at the top of page 4, line 5. Yeah. Lots larger than 50 feet are permitted to create corner lots only and shall require conditional use authorization. So it reads to me as if the corner lot is a requirement. Yeah. I think you are right. All right. This is a policy call that, given the fact that this comes out of the ocean avenue Business Community and cbd, and feel free to weigh in, that i would completely defer to the legislative sponsor, president yee on. So ms. Lowe, what is your will, assumes that my colleagues agree . It is an aspect about the corner lot was part of the original, i think it was struck out. And we contemplated this on the commission to a point. At this point, the type of projects were seeing that are of this scale are usually near corner lots and intersections. So we felt that we should start off with that first and really keep this legislation to be a little bit more prescriptive should there ever be a need to open it up, i think we would be open to that. But we didnt have a clear indication at this point in time that that was required to provide lot mergers on midblocks for other parts of the district. Thank you, ms. Lowe. I think as to the three modifications that were suggested by the Planning Commission and the Planning Department staff, as to one, the answer at least for the time being, is no, or not yet. Number two, i think mr. R. Answered relative to effective allowing of flex retail, and i think that this leaves us with number three. I would like to make this suggestion, colleagues and to the Planning Department and to supervisor yees office, which is that we send this item to the full board with recommendation and in the intervening week, if ms. Lowe, you and the department want to work with the City Attorney on putting in just those clarifying bits of language, that would not be substantive, would not require rereferral to committee, we could send this out today with recommendations subject to whatever you recommend that we adopt and insert at the fall board next week. Can i ask one last question, chair . Of course. If in the intervening week it was decided that rather than just the corner lots would be allowed over 50 feet and decided they wanted to do midblock with the cu, does that require, i mean i understand its a recommendation from the Planning Commission so it wouldnt require rereferral. Would it require a continuance of the board or would we be able to make that amendment and vote on it in the upcoming week . I think ms. Pearson indicated we would be able to do it at the first reading. But ms. Pearson . To the extent that you would be proposing to allow to longer impose the restriction so its only happening at corners, i think that would require a continuance. It would not require a continuance to make the clarifying edits that were recommended but to change the underlying policy would. Okay. All right. That was my only question. Ms. Lowe, is that acceptable with what i outlined, acceptable to the office of president yee . Yes. Thank you. Okay. So colleagues, i would like to move that we send item number one to the full board with recommendation. Can we do that without objection . Or no, excue me, the new rule. Can we have a roll call, please. On the motion to recommend, supervisor preston. Aye. Preston, aye. Safai. Aye. Safai, aye. Peskin . Aye peskin, aye. You have three ayes. Thank you, madame clerk. Could you please read the next and final item . Yes. Item number two is a resolution urging the Municipal Transportation Agency to refrain from any fare increases for fiscal year 2021 through 2022 budget cycle. Members of the public who wish to speak on Public Comment on this item, shall call the number and press one and zero. The number is on the screen for channel 26 and live streaming. Thank you. This item was brought to us, this resolution was brought to us by supervisor preston. The floor is yours. Thank you, chair peskin. So, you know, just wanted to start by thanking the hundreds of operators, all the folks at mta and muni who are on the front lines right now doing their best to ensure that our essential workers are able to continue taking care of san franciscans and help our neighbors have the food, supplies, medical care, that they need during this covid19 crisis. We appreciate everything that you all are doing to keep us rolling amid enormous stress and risks to your own health. So thank you for that work. This resolution urges the mta to refrain from any muni fare increases for the upcoming budget cycle, fiscal year 21 and 22. I hoped this resolution would not be necessary back on monday, january 27. We wrote a letter urging the mta not to urge fares. We engaged with mta staff repeatedly but have not been able to secure a commitment to back off the recommended fare increases. To the contrary, fare increases are still recommended by the mta and by staff and will be considered by the mta board on april 27. I expect in the midst of the Coronavirus Crisis with our residents suffering i am measurably, immeasurably, tht maybe there could be a reconsideration of bringing these fare increases forward, and we wouldnt forced to be talking about hiking fares on our residents who ride or will again ride on public transit. I think as we all know, the residents of San Francisco are in a period of Financial Insecurity as recognized by the mayor and board of supervisors. Many san franciscans are losing their jobs. Many most are wondering how they are going to be able to buy necessities, pay rent and utilities, pay mortgages, keep open their Small Businesses. We dont know how this will impact residents livelihoods in the coming months as this Public Health crisis helicopters to take shape. The impose i guess of fare increase the imposition of fare increases. When we turn the corner on this crisis, the last thing we want to do is be raising muni fares at a time when san franciscans will be so economically insecure. And also when riders may be skeptical of congregating on Public Transportation as a result of lingering concerns about covid19. And more than ever we will need to be incentivizing ridership, not disinventinvent size not disincentivizing it with fare increases. We are going to need hundreds of millions of dollars for our system to bounce back after this crisis. The estimated 15 million approximately in increased revenue from the proposed budget, from fare increases, will not even make a dent. We all know we know that this fare increase is not going to make a major difference in the budget. And we need to be clear that these fare increases will not increase service and similarly, a fare freeze will not decrease service, and we shouldnt be pitting those service and fares against each other. I think the it, it last thing we should be doing is balancing the budget on the backs of riders. I will have some amendments to offer but wanted to turn it over to director tomlin or others at mta to have an opportunity to address the issue. Thank you, supervisor preston. I do understand that we are joined by sfmta director tomlin as well as jonathan rurers. Mr. Tomlin, the floor is yours. And i think you may have a presentation as to the proposed fares and what you are proposing, i believe actually on april 21, not april 27. Mr. Tomlin. That is correct. This is jonathan with the mta. Unfortunately director is still at the mayors press event right now on the covid19 Public Health emergency. So he will join us as soon as he can. But in the meantime i have a presentation to share with you on the process to date and the recommended fare changes that the mta staff are recommending to take forward for approval on april 21. Let me start off with a couple of introductory remarks. In this budget cycle, and again, this was all precovid19. The mta restructured its budget process, really focusing on San Francisco values as values represent the number one component of any budget. It is our pure policy document. And it reflects what we intend on delivering to the people of San Francisco. With that, in a very different way, we attempted to be very transparent about the financial issues, the need of san franciscans and of the system generally, and about the trade offs that would be required throughout this entire budget process. So covid19 economic situation, the issue with regard to revenues and needs and trade offs remain throughout this entire process. So with that, let me share my screen with a quick presentation on where we are. Chair peskin and Committee Members, can you see the presentation on the screen . Yes, sir thank you. So just quickly, fares were the number one issue that we heard about through our extensive public outreach. We did begin the process with the mta board in january of 2020, with just the standard automatic indexing policy that the mta has had for nearly one decade. Im going to stop sharing my camera for better quality there. So we had an automatic indexing policy for nearly ten years. At a certain point, when the mtas costs get to a certain level, automatic indexing occurs and a fare increase occurs. The reason that we put this policy in place was not to be in a situation where we would have rapid and highlevel fare increases when our costs just exceeded the amount of revenue that we were collecting to manage the system daytoday. So on this slide that you will see here which is slide three, im going to go through it very public for the public so they can understand what were talking about. So the current, the gray column, represents fares as they are today. Today in 2020 and in fiscal year 20. When we first brought our proposal to the mta board in january of 2020, the blue column reflects just the base, automatic indexing policy that the mta has, which would index the cash fare to 3. 25. And all other fares are based on certain levels of the cash fare and the monthly pass, generally. So that would be original proposals. After feedback that we received, both through the board workshop that we held in january, through a public open hearing that we had, rather than throwing something out, the mta board held a hearing in february on fare policy exclusively. We received a lot of feedback that the public felt that especially in this environment, raising the cash fare didnt make a lot of sense and that we needed to take a more sharper look at how we were proposing to update our overall fare policy. With that, in march, we came back with two different alternatives. The equity monthly alternative and the equity clipper alternative. And ill run through the difference between both of those. So in the equity monthly, so youll see across all the alternatives, let me be clear, on both alternatives and options, that we are maintaining, and we have heard from the public that we should not raise the cash fare. And ill get into why thats important. So the cash fare across both recommendations does not increase. In addition, we are recommending, and we are maintaining this recommendation to the mta board, that we move towards free muni for all youth in San Francisco, thats up to age 19, and also including free muni for individuals experiencing homelessness. The recommendation around free muni for youth has to do with feedback that both director tomlin and i received from the San Francisco youth commission. We thank them very much for their participation and feedback and the feedback we received. It has to do with opportunity costs largely. One, the cost of administering the program is complicated, and weve heard from the youth of San Francisco, that its just complicated for them and their parents. This creates situations where youth who would qualify for free muni for low to moderate income youth today, in an uncomfortable situation if they were to need a transit fare inspector. So we want to remove the Administrative Burden and the burden of fare inspection from the system. But generally it was also just the right thing to do. We want all youth to feel comfortable in San Francisco. We think its allowed us to focus our fare inspectors on people who should actually be paying the fare and make it a more free and equitable system for everyone. And it will just make it easier for everybody, and its actually a good thing to do for the youth of San Francisco. So that is maintained in both options. The difference between the two is where we move the cost. So in the next slide here which would be slide five. In the equity monthly option, the cost to not raise the other fares for those who really cant deal with the burden of a fare increase is passed on to the monthly pass riders. So you will see the muni fast pass there and the fast pass a which includes bart. So you will see the cost goes up but it goes up a little more to cover fares within the policy. The equity option, this was brought up by the mta board, we currently provide a differential cost between cash fare via using cash or using clipper. We can cover the cost of the other fare media in holding the cash fare stead byie by reducing that differential. We still want to have the differential there to incentivize people to move to electronic payment. But in this particular situation, we want to raise the fare in that area to cover the cost of potentially freezing, creating free fares for youth and reducing the burden on those two cant afford the fare increase on those few who cant afford the fare increase. You will see on slide 6 who is impacted. This is based on a title 6 analysis we do in every budget when we prepare our fare proposal. With regard to the cash fares, you will see there is no impact. The significant number of riders are both minority and low income, youll see that in the senior category and disabled category. So we will not increase fares on those who cannot afford to pay and who could not afford a fare increase in this current economic environment. So we did hear that, and we modified our proposals accordingly. But there are some who can support the system and who should be paying to support a better and stable system for everybody in San Francisco. And this is part of the trade off. 15 to 17 million in the current proposal, while it doesnt seem like a lot, it is important to keep the system stable and acceptable for people in San Francisco. So here, in this particular population, youll see the electronic fare, youll see the increase, and youll see the monthly fare. Youll see who is impacted by increasing the monthly pass. One benefit of the proposed recommendation, and we often dont talk about this, is that the muni fast pass itself is actually a fantastic benefit for transit riders. So i lost the number on that. This would be slide 7, shows you the number of single cash fare trips it would take to break even on the muni fast pass. You will see currently its about 32 trips, depending on the cash fare and whether or not you would get the discount we give two options. But generally, you will see that within the region, we are extremely competitive, better than other transit. And nationally, in comparison to other transit agencies, the muni fast pass, even after this recommendation, continues to be a fantastic benefit for san franciscans in using the muni system. There are some other proposals that are included in our overall fare policy. These will be minimum costs. But one of the core values of our fare policy is to promote the access that supervisor preston noted to try to grow the ridership. These are areas that were brought up throughout the process and we started with in january. They have a minimum cost. We intend on advancing them over the next two years. So adding a day pass, thinking about available beyond electronic and beyond muni mobile, looking at fare capping and we will have to work on that in coordination with our friends the metropolitan Transportation Commission as we look at clipper and other fare Media Products in the future. Again, adding that muni pass for people experiencing homelessness, we are moving forward with that. And then some other discounts. More importantly, extending bulk discounts to those who use muni mobile so that the mta continuing to work with the Business Community to invest in the overall system. And eliminating that clipper differential, it was difficult for the customer. So we have realized that so we are proposing eliminating that option as part of this overall proposal. But continuing down the path that supervisor preston brought up in his opening remarks, we did want to make sure to give a fiscal update on the status of the agency, where we were and where we can see things going right now. In january, we did make it clear, and again, one of our core values in this process was equity, but it was also transparency and noting the trade offs that would have to be made. We started this fiscal year, this budget process, with a 66 million and 77 million deficit. This is based on the structural deficits the agency had for a significant amount of time. So we had already started the process of closing the deficits that preexisted to maintain Service Today as it is. As part of that process, we did have a recession scenario, and we have prepared for a recession. In our original recession scenario, this is one from january, we used the 2009 recession and projected the anticipated revenue loss for that type of a recession. In that period, the agency lost roughly 158 million. To give you a sense of scale, losing 25 million in revenue means a 5 to 8 service reduction. Essentially removing the salary of 200 operators from service. So when we talk about 15 to 17 million, that is 140 operators that get removed from service because the agency cannot afford to pay for those runs and cannot afford to pay those salaries. We have updated our outlook based on the best information we have today. I would like to describe the situation as we are currently in an economic shock in the current fiscal year between now and the end of june. The agency is essentially making no revenue or little if any revenue so we anticipate by the end of the fiscal year having approximately a 200 million shortfall. Then we anticipate that as a result of this economic shock, that there likely will be an economic downturn or recession next year, fiscal year 2021, possibly stretching throughout calendar year 2021 into fiscal year 2022. We have run some different recession scenarios. So youll see the ranges of loss there which are roughly from 100 to 210 million. To deal with that, we have put some cost controls in place. And we will be proposing to the mta board some additional cost controls to get revenues closer to expenditures based on our future projections. So we have already reduced overtime. We are reviewing all our positions consistent with the mayors memo on the budget most recently and focusing on those positions that are only servicecritical with regard to moving them forward. We are also looking at all of our contracts and services and supplies and again, only advancing those things in the current period that are critical to that frontline service. However, two weeks ago, hr748 was passed by congress and signed by the president. That fiscal release bill Fiscal Relief bill did include money for transit agencies. This was based on assumption of revenue losses to the end of the calendar year. These are eligible to cover expenses active january 2020. The local match was weighed specifically with the federal grant we would have a 20 of man and would be required to be in the Transportation Improvement Program within the region. Those requirements were waived as part of that legislation. And somehow my remainder of slides did not make it in here. But we are projecting roughly that we will get between 150 to 200 million from two. One would be in april of this month, hopefully toward the end of april which would cover the losses the mta has in the current fiscal year. The second one would be some time in the summer and we are hoping for another 150 to 250 million. That is being worked out within the region at the metropolitan Transportation Commission. We as the mta realize there are going to be hard Economic Times ahead. But to the best of our ability, we have tried to thread the needle between sustaining service and having it in place for the eventual recovery we know will come when people will really need that service in San Francisco. Again, we have to have a balanced budget, and we knew there were going to be difficult tradeoffs, and that decision is just part of that. So hopefully that was helpful. And im happy to take any questions. Thank you for that powerpoint presentation. Let me hand it back over to supervisor preston. Yeah, just some brief questions. One, thank you for your presentation. And let me just comment that we understand the desperate i was proud to cosponsor the resolution. And thank you to my colleague on this committee, supervisor safai, for his leadership in the resolution calling for significant funding, actually it was supervisor haney, i misspoke, supervisor safai did the other muni resolution. But we called for a significant federal and state grant, and we will be there with you in that fight for the serious money that we need from the federal government and from the state to recover from this. But i did want to ask specifically about the fare increases. Our fares have doubled in the last 12 years, cost of a muni pass has gone up 80 during that time period, and i want to be clear, what mta is proposing, what staff is proposing, would increase fares on the vast majority of riders. And i wanted to ask you what percent of riders would see a fare increase under the proposal . So this is another example of where i need to go back and look at the data. Let me help you could use the title 6 analysis. Its roughly 50 . My understanding is its only the folks who pay a cash fare, which is under 20 riders, right . No, you also have to take into consideration that we would be implementing free muni for youth, free muni for people experiencing homelessness and the existing free programs we have in place. So free muni for seniors, lowincome seniors, free muni for lowincome disabled persons. So that also is a significant body of people that preexisting get free service. Right. Im not talking about the folks who already have free muni. Im saying under the current proposal, everyone who rides muni except for the percentage who pay cash or the folks in the expanded free muni for youth and for homeless folks. And im trying to get a sense om the data ive seen is maybe 20 of riders who would not see who pay fares and would not see an increase. Am i in the ballpark . That is generally correct. So, again, we knew this budget process would require tradeoffs, and we also wanted to take equity into consideration. So those who were planned not to get a fare increase, mostly the number one thing weve heard about this to raise the cash fare, that was our priority, and yes, that is correct. In addition, its minor. But the lifeline pass we will be switching from indexing updates on inflation to indexing updates on social security, which kind of lowers the curve of future increases on those who qualify for the lifeline pass. So, yes, you are correct that we had spread the cost of a fare increase across the number of the riders, yeah. Okay. And also your comments about the 25 if you were to lose 25 million in revenue, what impacts do you believe those have. First off, just to be clear that fare increases that you all are proposing would not generate 25 million, right . They would generate approximately 17 million right, great. And then that is one of many Revenue Sources for mta. So when you make the claim that, for example, a 25 million reduction would result in Certain Service decreases and certain operator, inability to fund certain operators, thats assuming that you dont find the revenue elsewhere, right . That you dont whether its through parking, whether its through enforcement of muni, for any number of places, thats not directly tied to fares . Correct. What i will say is, and we did present not present it didnt present it in this slide deck, but we made clear throughout the process, they had been flat or going down. The difference has been the citys general funds. So in good Economic Times, making up for total fare revenue and decline, total parking fees and fines revenue declining was the citys general funds making up the difference. So we can take the budget, like transit fares related to transit, but we need to consider the entire cost of the Service Overall as an example. So when i talk about 17 million, that is absolute. We have balanced the budget considering all possible revenue forces that we can have. So we balanced it paced on, again, looking based on, again, looking at equity, who can pay, who cant afford a fare increase, especially in this environment. We it is the priority of the agency throughout this situation and post the situation to provide stable Transit Service for San Francisco. So the last thing we want to do in the middle of an economic downturn is reduce revenues and then thus reduce service. And reduction to the mtas budget equals a reduction in service. Well, and if you keep all other revenues fixed, then you can bear against service. And i will say that this has been a source of great frustration to me and to my office, and we work closely with mto on many issues and appreciate the work, but i think its a mistake to frame a fare increase as a necessary to avoid service reduction. I think thats not i think thats not accurate. I think there are other remedy sources Revenue Sources. And i think that what i heard in the presentation, and i think youve stated a few times, and i think it is, it appears to be the mtas position is that there are these folks, i dont know who they are, these folks who can afford it right now and who should be paying for our muni system instead of looking at the way we actually use either progressive taxes or stronger eff ridership and not be going after riders for these increases. But i wont belabor the point. Maybe my colleagues have questions or comments, and then i also, as i mentioned before, will some amendments to our resolution to date. Thank you, supervisor preston. I do let me first defer to supervisor safai before i ask you some questions. Do you have any questions or comments . Yeah, just while i was listening, i had a question. Whats the overall cost of actually providing free muni . If you want to do that, if you want to do you are touting that as a thing you are adding here. Whats the cost of free muni and free muni for those experiencing homelessness . Whats the cost to the mta for that . So those particular lines are just free muni, period. I understand. Whats the projected loss of revenue . The free muni for youth is estimated to cost approximately 2 million. And which means 2 million in lost revenue. Free muni for persons experiencing homelessness, there will be a certification process through the city, so its a impossible to predict how much. We have free muni for youth currently, low and moderate income youth. So we are taking the difference to actually pay the full monthly pass right now. Right, right. And so you are saying that the overall revenue generated just going back to your slide deck, from all of these increases, one of the ones, it would be great if you could post a couple of your slides back up. One of the lines show, you know, the impact, the amount of low, lowincome people. Yeah, thats the one. I think this one because i hadnt seen this until today. This hits part of the point that i think supervisor preston was trying to make. If you look at the adult single ride electronic, and theres an increase there, theyre one of the largest buckets along with the adult monthly fast pass, 200,000. About 30 of those, even for your estimates, are lowincome. And then out of the adult monthly fast pass, again, almost 30 . Thats a significant increase for those categories of people, even when you look at the amount of people that are coming from communities of color as well, both of those are over 50 . So i just wanted to point auto that as part of your own point out that as part of your own presentation. I was struck by that slide as well. I had not seen that title 6 analysis before today. Yeah. And i guess my other question would be what would be the, if you were not to if this were not to be approved, ultimately, we dont have any say. I just want to say that for the we have the say in terms of the realm of public opinion, right . We as the members of the board of supervisors, appreciate supervisor preston as bringing this forward as part of the conversation. But ultimately the decision lies with your sfmta commissioners. And as supervisor preston pointed out in the past, we transportation authority. But if if you were to listen and heed the advice of this resolution, what would be the outcome. What would be the impact . And i understand you are saying it would be loss of potentially you are saying 17 but you would have to factor back in the 2 million you get for free muni for all so its about 15 million. What would that mean to your overall about 130 operators is what he is saying. No, i didnt hear him say that. I heard him say that at a higher number. That was at 25 million. Correct. So you could do a proportionately, get to 120 to 140 operators affected. Okay. Thats not what director tomlin told me yesterday. So, okay. So theres some differences of opinion. But why again, let me just ask this question. Why does it go immediately to operators . How about theres whole other areas of your organization that could also weather the impact of this budget so its not just operators, right . Youre saying that as companion example but theres other areas of your saying that as an example but theres other areas that could be impacted. Youre absolutely correct. And prior to covid19, i think you make an excellent point. But the agency already now that we are going to be walking into a downturn, we are already looking at reducing in the area that we can reduce to sustain Transit Service. So reducing we are already directing expenditures and dollars toward maintains service, again, to weather the storm, to get through what we know will be a downturn and support the people of San Francisco. So i agree and i take the point, you know, a month ago, very good point. Today even more critical that the revenues are there to sustain the system, most importantly for those who need it. Okay. Thank you, chair. Thank you, supervisor safai. Im only laughing because my when i read this, i mean, i think supervisor preston introduced this february 11 is my recollection, serves me, and im in no way trying to be meanspirited because i do have mixed feelings about this. And these are really tough times. And were all kind of damned if we do and damned if we dont. But i cant help but smiling because it sounds like you thought he might have been on track at the beginning but may not be on track now, which makes me think he was on track at the beginning. If any of that made any sense of all four of you and anybody else who is watching. Uhhuh. And i say that to the mta as somebody who absolutely believes that the agency was chronically underfunded for many years when it was treated solely as a general fund department. Transportation, both on the operating and capital side, was in the puc days when muni was a puc property, always fell to the bottom of the list. And there have been a number of things that have happened, prop e in 1999, the Charter Amendment that i did in 2007 that brought a significant amounts of fee and fine revenue that used to go into the general fund was diverted to the mta and most recently what the entire board of supervisors put on the ballot and passed proposition d, the tnc tax that is a new source of revenue. And i look at those things, and i realize that fair box recovery is important. And i agree that people who are more affluent should pay for it, and we all know that, and just your slide 7 showed that in almost all of those categories, people of color and lowincome individuals were very large proportions of the folks that used muni on a daily basis, some 700, that percentage of 700,000 plus riders. And i note that we are down to 100,000 a day. But we will be back. So i hear what supervisor preston is saying, which is that there are other sources of revenues, prop b, that then supervisor wiener did that added money based on population was important. And i think weve always been, if you will, kind of proud of the fact that fare box recovery has been a percentage of whats made muni go as compared to other transit Properties Like bart, which is crazy expensive and some of us are chagrin that relative to the federal stimulus package, that they are going to be ending up with what i think is a disproportionate amount of the stimulus, but well leave that for another hearing and another day. So i wanted to make those comments. But i thought that slide, the title 6 slide, was really quite compelling. So you are welcome to respond to that ramble. And supervisors, you are welcome to jump in. And if not, i can open it up to Public Comment. The only response i would give is the objective since january has been to balance the budget, with all funding sources, including some that you just mentioned, chair peskin. So we are shifting some of the proposition b that went to capital operating to balance the budget, we are absolutely doing that. The budget includes a proposal to extend meter hours into the evenings and on sundays. So there are no more days of the week to extend meter hours. We extended it to every possible day there could be. Time to do that but these are thank you supervisor safai, these are the difficult tradeoffs, we have had to go through. Now even more important its our objective to sustain service to the public, especially in the times we know are going to be so important. I want to actually thank supervisor preston for his initial statement. Staff at the mta are working hard to sustain that service for San Franciscos now, especially those who need, who are providing Critical Services to the rest of the people within the city and county of San Francisco. And i know we, on behalf of the is acting agency, appreciate his effort and his focus on muni and Transit Service for San Francisco and having this discussion. And sorry, supervisor preston. Thank you, chair peskin. And thank you, for that. I do want to just make really clear for the public, because its come up a couple times, that there is absolutely nothing that we would be advocateing for to decrease in any way our operators who are absolutely the core and backbone of this system. So we have a fundamental disagreement around whether a fare freeze, effectively, where that money would come from. I think there are a number of opportunities. But i want to make clear, number one, that we have been in contact with the Operators Union and would not be pushing forward without talking with them. Number two, that we will fight by their side to make sure that there is no reduction as a result of anything that we are proposing. And i also just want to say before turning to the amendments or Public Comment, just to recognize that i do think that what he has presented is an improvement from where we started for both in terms of the lower increases across the board jealousy some of the categories as some of the categories that he talked about. But now is not the time for any fare increases on muni riders. Chair peskin, i dont know in terms of the amendments, whether they should happen now or after Public Comment. Thank you for those generous comments. And let me also concur, particularly now, that operators have a tough job every day, and they truly are frontline responders in this crisis and continue to get our essential workers to wor thank you. So a few things have happened, a lot of things have happened sin coronavirus on march 3, on march 13 the mayor issued a second supplement to that proclam line 10 through, adding a whereas clause on mayor london breed declaring a state of emergency based on coronavirus. Page 2 lines 18 through 24 adding a whereas clause that includes the sfmta fare increase recommendation to the sfmta board of directors on march 17, 2020. Page 2, lines 4 through 6, removing the whereas clause noting the indexing. I think i may have stated that page 2 lines 7 through 14 adding the whereas clause including fare increase resemblances