Transcripts For SFGTV Transbay Joint Powers Authority 20240713

Residents. More than 40,000 square feet including private balconies, large podiums and terraces on different sides of the building give the unique masking. Ground floor the level has a Public Open Space at the Market Street intersection. Mid block pedestrian passage between market and 12th. All three streets will see streetscape improvements coordinated with Planning Efforts by the city. Project will construct a new interest for the vanness muni station in the ground floor of the building pending city approvals from bart. The project is subject to the citys housing requirements electing to use the land dedication as means to comply with 415 requirements. In this alternative the sponsor would dedicate sites or sites for Affordable Housing. It did not need to be finalize prior to planning. It would accommodates 35 of the units in the project. It would contribute approximately 17 million in Affordable Housing fees due to market requirements. Environmental application was first accepted in september 2015 t. Determined it would require Environmental Impact report. This was started prior to the vir and it has its own e. I. R. It was open until december 11, 2018 for comment. The comments were on december 6. The department prepared responses to comments received during the draft e. I. R. And published the document on march 3 this year. The final e. I. R. Was the draft and the responses to comments document and is to be before the Planning Commission this afternoon, march 21st, for certification. Currently scheduled for june 4 they are seeking approval from planning consisting downtown project authorization and request for exceptions, conditional use, adoption of shadow findings with recommendation of this and director of Parks Department and variance from zoning administrator. Sponsor has conducted Community Outreach regarding the project dating back to 2017 and met with stakeholders both individual and with established neighborhood organizations. Sponsor held meetings with the hayes valley neighborhood, vanness corridor, San Francisco heritage, civic Central Business and San Francisco Housing Action coalition. The project has received very little Public Comment and staff is not aware of opposition or comments made with regard to shadow impacts not already addressed in the responses to comments document for the final e. I. R. Department finds the project is consistent with general plan and area plans and will recommend approval at the upcoming Planning Commission hearing. That concludes my presentation. Back to chris to discuss the shadow impacts. I am happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you very much. Getting back to the project shadow analysis. This slide provides the map of the shadow park in relation to the project site. Project site is in pink at the center abshown in relation to the hub boundary in black. The 98 franklin street street in light blue and 30 vanness in orange. There are a total of 7 parks shadowed as previously listed numbers on the right. Referenced by the green on the map. A street view of the existing project site the former honda dealership is located at the corner of market and south vanness that is the photo image of the center. For the first park. The green park is. 41acres on octavia boulevard between fell and hayes street in the Western Addition neighborhood with central freeway. It is divided into three sections at the north end the seating area on hayes street. Middle section features circular plaza with bench seating around the exhibit space, and this mid section has two equal sized lawns. At the southern end of the park is a small childrens play area. There is currently a 20. 208 existing shadow load on this park. The project would add. 319 for a total of 20. 527 . New shadow would occur in the morning winter and fall for an average duration 29 minutes 33 seconds covering 66 of the total park area. The shadow from across the mid section of the park over the Central Plaza in the rectangular lawn as you can see. The dates of maximum shadows february 22 and october 8 at 9 00 a. M. For 11895 square feet. The second park, mini park is. 55acre. 15. The park is accessible from the sidewalk on both ends bordered by one to three story remember homes on both sides. A linear pathway goes through the middle with landscaping throughout in the plan. 49. 427 and this would add. 05acres for a total of 49. 485 . Shadows in the morning of summer and spring for 19 minutes over the southern portion of the park covering the landscape areas halfway and bench seating for a maximum of 18. 8 of the total park area. Dates of maximum and largest shading may 3 and august 9 at 7 45 a. M. And would cover about 1236 square feet. The next park is howard mini park. 23acre Neighborhood Park and Community Garden on the Southern Side of the Howard Street corridor at the corner of lincoln street. It is heavily vegetated with metal fence, trees on the interior and divided by pathways that crisscross throughout the site around the Community Garden bed. The park has a 49. 850 existing shadow load this would add. 002 for a total of 38. 852 . Shadow in the evening of fall and winter for six minutes over the Northeast Corner of the park covering a portion of the Community Garden bath way and corner park entrance for 5. 89 of total park area. The dates of maximum shading on january 18 and 22 at 5 27 p. M. To cover 600 square feet. Next park is hayes valley playground. 75acres on the Western Addition on the western half of the city block hayes to the north and lyndon street to the south and buchanan street to the west. The parking is 2500 square foot clubhouse building at the southwest, childrens play area and exercise area north of that building. Tennis and Basketball Court to the east. The hayes valley playground 26. 588 existing shadow load. Project would add. 024 for 26. 612 . New shadow in the morning of fall and winter for an average duration of nine minutes 54 seconds. Covering 23. 6 of the total park area. New shadow on the western and southern portion of the park, the chains play area and clubhouse building. The dates maximum shading march 8 and october 4. Largest shadow same date at 8 1e feet of area. The Community Park and Learning Center. 2acres buchanan and page street in the Western Addition. There is a 7 story residential building on buchanan street at the bottom of the image. There is a tall retaining wall on page street down sloping with bermed earth bermed earth with mature trees. Park programming from west to east basket ball half court and childrens play area and Community Garden space at the east end of the park. There is currently a 16. 233 existing shadow load this would add. 064 for 16. 297 total shadow load. In the morning of spring and summer of 10 minutes and 36 seconds covering a maximum 55. 27 of total park area. The shadow in the Southern Park over the basketball park and childrens play area and Community Garden. Dates of maximum april 26 and august 16 at 7 25 a. M. 19,722 square feet coverage. Buchanan street mall 1. 81acre linear Neighborhood Park north and south on buchanan street for five blocks in the Western Addition neighborhood. The mall has sidewalks on both sides. Bordered by one to four story residential building on the eastern and western edges. Park programming including childrens play areas, basketball half court and Community Center. The existing shadow load is 27. 873 . Project would additional. 003 . For a total of 27. 876 . New shadow in the mornings winter and fall for an average of 7 minutes and 3 seconds covering 3. 17 of the total park. It was fall acros across the mis over the pathway north of mcallister. The dates of largest shading january 18, november 22 at 8 00 a. M. Covering 2475 square feet. Last park is a future park. It is the future park site. It is. 45acres south of market between ministry to the north and bordered by 11th street to the west. Future park sited occupied. Not yet developed. Future park sight has 20. 788 existing shadow load this would additional 1. 438 for total of 22. 26 . New shadow in th in the evening of the park area. The shadow would fall on the northwest, southwest and southeast quadrants. Dates of maximum shading may 17 and july 26. Largest shadows may 31, july 12 at 6p. 11679 square feet. That concludes the shadow load for the seven parks. This slide is just to provide broader context. It is the pipeline project which includes 10 south vanness and 30 vanness which you will be hearing. In addition to the surrounding neighborhood and parks. Projects are in orange, collective shadows in blue with darker representing more frequent shadows. Light blue more occasional shadows. The shadows more frequently surrounding the project footprint and dissipate away from the project site. In closing, i want to highlight the pemmonth pro memo provides the shadow impact. The guidance provides under two acres greater than 20 shading, no additional shading, no standard for smaller than two acres with 20 or less. All parks are less than two acres. All but one Community Park and Learning Center have existing shading over 20 . The cryteria includes time of day, year, shadow size, duration, location and Public Benefit served by the project. This concludes my presentation. I am available for any questions. Thank you very much. We are now on Public Comment. If you would like to comment on item 7 of the mixed use project and you are online, please dial one and zero to be added to the queue to speak. You have two minutes to comment. Please state your name first. Caller corey smith. Good morning. Corey smith on behalf of the San Francisco Housing Action coalition in support of the project here today. As you know the 10 south vanness project and hub plan have been in the works for a better part of a decade now. I am happy to see this significant step forward. We are creating the homes and understanding the impact on parks is essential, and with all of this project we are proud to support and ask you to continue moving the project forward today. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. No further questions. Commissioners, i turn it over to you. Commissioner low. Thank you. I have a question for andrew. Patricias green was created under the central freeway. Is this extension of the hub to the market octavia plan an extension of that central freeway plan . In other words, in creating patristhe green which would shae development within the central freeway plan, would this project be included so that the new shadow created by this project would be permitted under that plan . Commissioner, perhaps lilly may be better suited to answer that. I am not really sure how to answer that question, unfortunately. The hub boundary is in the plan. The freeway is in that plan as well. A number of the central freeways have been slated for Affordable Housing many of which are constructed and some construction has not be gun. Patricias green was one of those provided. This wasnt a parcel that was contemplated under that original plan then . No, this is a private parcel in private hands for a long time. It was a honda dealership that has since closed, and a residential developer is choosing to develop housing on the site. We have to do the shadow analysis for patricias green. In other words if it was in the original plan, there would be some consideration that in creating patricias green there would have been included in that plan. This is outside so we have to really look at the shadow impact of this project on patricias green . As i understand any Development Project we are looking at shadow impacts on adjacent parks. Now, can you plush out the affordable, how the developer satisfies the Affordable Housing requirements . I couldnt quite follow how it is intending to satisfy. It looks like they are doing it off site. As part of the proposed market octavia or hub amendments, the planning code actually allows for what is a land dedication option. I believe it is allowed in central soma, for example. Basically, as one of the equivalent options of meeting section 415 requirements instead of providing on site or off site units or paying a fee, the public sponsor has the option to dedicate the property in fee title to the city. They dont have the obligation to construct on that property. The land will be conveyed to the city for the purpose of constructing Affordable Housing in the future. The site to be dedicated would need to be shown to accommodate 35 of the units in the Development Project. The Development Project has 966 units. Is this going to be a developer that is going to dedicate the monster in the mission . I dont know the street address. I believe that is a site being considered. It is not the time sell eye final selection of the site. They have 180 days to obtain a letter from the Mayors Department of housing and development. They can finalize the Site Selection following the Planning Commission approval. That is one of the sites being considered. Six months after planning approval . They can accommodate 300 units . Correct. The way it will be written in the Planning Commission motion is that the the land dedication option for whatever reason does not happen, the project sponsor would be obligated to meet the inclusionnary requirements in some other manner. They could choose on site, through a fee. In that case they would have to come back to the Planning Commission. I am drilling down. One of the requirements under the 1989 memo. What is the public good provided by the shadow caster, the term under the memo, not my term . This project casts a lot of shadow on a lot of parks. The quantitative test on a number of parks including shadows on active areas. What i am struggling with is how do we make assurances the Affordable Housing piece will actually be developed . If it is off site, okay. What happens if that option falls through . Do you have to come back to us for approval of the shadow . We are making a decision based on the idea that there is going to be some offsite project that is going to be developed. The land dedication option really requires the project sponsor to dedicate a site, it does not require them to construct the affordable units on the site. That would be the citys city would take that on through the Mayors Office of housing. If the land dedication option does not happen, the project sponsor would still be obligated to meet Affordable Housing developments. That would look like on site units or payment of fee. It would not need to come back to this commission for reapproval of the shadow but there would be an obligation to meet the inclusionnary Affordable Housing requirements. In terms of other benefits, Affordable Housing is a large piece of that. The provision of this number of units at this particular site, 966 units at transit rich site at the intersection of the two main streets in the city, number of streetscape improvements, project sponsor intends to construct a new entrance to the muni station. Looking beyond the Affordable Housing benefits, there are certainly other Public Benefits included as part of this project. I get that to provide the large number of units. Maybe you answered this once before. One more time. The land dedication doesnt happen they could fee out or put it on site . I believe the way it will work, the backup option will be on site units. If the project sponsor changes from that in the future and they want to do the fee, that would require them to go back to the Planning Commission for reapproval. That is going to be included in the motion that goes before your commission . Correct. Thank you. Any other commissioners that have questions . Thank you. No questions, we are good. The chair would entertain a motion and commissioner low, perhaps you could make it. I think there is a qualification we have to say whether we are recommending no Significant Impact or significant. I would move this forward for approval finding that while there is a quantitative impact on a number of different parks, that the commitment to provide 300 Affordable Housing units provides the public good on which to move the project forward. I would recommend that under be the 1989 memo that general manager poured this to the Planning Commission with no Significant Impacts of the shadows. Second. Moved and seconded. With that it has been moved and seconded. Can you call the roll, stacy. Commissioner buell. Aye. Commissioner low. Aye. Commissioner anderson. Aye. Commissioner bond. Nilla. Aye. Commissioner harrison. Commissioner mazzola. Aye. Commissioner mcdonald. Aye. We have unanimous approval i think commissioner harrison was muted when he said aye. We are on item 8. Good morning. I am a planner with the Capital Planning division. This is my first time presenting. Hello. I am sorry i am not able to meet you all in person. It is my first time presenting ververyually. Thank you for your patience today. If i could get the first slide up, please. The review of the shadow cast by this project 1. 2 in the Strategic Plan to strengthen and the quality of existing parks and facilities. Here we see the shadow policy overview chris went over. The 1989 memo established quantitative and qualitative criteria of significant shadows in parks. Slide 3 shows the hub and the market octavia plan which lilly told you about. The orange dot is the location of the 98 franklin project, very close to busy market and vanness intersection. Now, i will be joined with Christy Alexander who is going to give us a brief overview of the project. Good morning, commissioners. I am with the Planning Department staff, Christy Alexander. A overview of the hub area and with the 10 south vanness project, you got to see a good portion of what is currently going on. We have a couple slides to show you the architecture and the context of the 98 project within the project of the area. To give you an overview of the project. The sponsor is partnership between related california and the American International high school. The proposed project would include 31 story residential tower above a five story school podium. The tower would be in the northwest portion of the site currently an empty parking lot, and it would extend an arm out to the Market Street site as well. The podium would be 68 feet tall and the 31 story tower above would extend 365 feet in height. The paraput would extend up to an additional 36 feet above the roofline. As permitted in the planning code, and the residential portion of the project contains a good mix between studios, one, two, three bedroom units. 20 of the 345 residential dwellings rental are affordable. Under the inclusionnary housing requirements you are only required to do 18 for rentals to be affordable. We are proposing 20 at 5 famils and individuals making 50 of the area median income. Ground floor retail for a future restaurant or cafe adjacent to the school lobby to help activate the ground floor and the surrounding community. The project includes three level parking garage below for parking spaces, bicycle parking, loadings and building services. Different from what 10 south vanness. We have a different Environmental Review. This is included within the hub plan along with 30 vanness, which you will be hearing later today, and the hub ability were all included in the same Environmental Impact report which we hope to be certified by the Planning Commission this afternoon. Once that certified with the Planning Commission if it is certified today i will take this project to the Planning Commission next week, and they will need to adopt the findings along with the statement of overriding consideration related to the project impact. Along with the Environmental Review the project needs to receive downtown project authorization and exceptions to seven code requirements. In order to permit construction of the 36 story mixed use building. The plans commission will need to adopt findings after this meeting pursuant to section 295 that impacts from new shadows cast under your jurisdiction will not be adverse to this park. The project has the potential for affect four parks which we will go into greater detail with you. This is really a good overview of the Public Benefits of the hub plan and more specifically to this project. 345 Housing Units and 20 of those will be affordable. 69 units, which is more than what is required under the zoning code. Out of those units, 25 will be family size units. The project will help activate the district to the next slide so you have more of the architecture. The project would help activate the district by providing ground floor retail or cafe adjacent to the school and create a vibrant atmosphere and public improvement for street trees, raised crosswalks and widening the sidewalks along all three frontages. As well as significantly improving lilly and providing street trees on the entire franklin street between market and oak. There are many outreach events with communities groups and the hayes valley neighborhood association. Hayes valley market, civic center district, sf jazz and bally and housing coalition. As of today the department has received zero letters in opposition to the project. I have received 58 letters of support from members of the French American School community as well as four others from the Community Organizations which i just mentioned. This concludes my presentation. I will be available to answer any questions you may have. Just to let you know the project sponsor is on the line if you have any questions. Slide 6. The location of the 98 franklin project in the outline of the hub. The four parts that the shadow will impact. These are the page and luguna mini park, patrish that green and the future park site which is the acquisition in 2017. The inset photo shows the current condition of the site the parking lot. The shadow analysis analyzed the potential shadow impact of 98 franklin on each of these parks and is the source of the data we will go over in later slides. The mini park is. 15acres in hayes valley. It is between two victorian homes and fronts page street. The park contains a curbing walkway with apple trees. Slide 8 is the quantitative and qualitative impacts of the project on the park. The current existing shadow is 50. 80. The project will add. 05 of shading. That is bringing the total shadow budget to 50. 85 . The new shadow would on was occur Early Morning for 15 minutes on the Northern Edge of the park. The date of maximum shading junt square foot hours. The largest shadow cast or footprint lands on the date of june 14 and june 28. Occurs at 6 48 a. M. Totals 943 square feet. Slide nine shows the diagram of the green. Patricias green is. 41acre urban park running north to south. It features two open lawns, paved plaza on hayes street and childrens play area as well as new art exhibits every six arts surrounded by shops and restaurants. The proposed project would results in net new shadows on patricias green increasing the shadow load. 45 annually. It would increase in new annual total shadow load 18. 51 . The new shadow would occur within the first 52 minutes of the daily analysis between february 2 through march 28 and september 14 to november 70 the northern half of the park the planting abbenches and the lawn. The dates of maximum new shadow march 1 and october 11. Largest shadow cast march 8 and october 14 and cover 10822 square feet. Slide 11 the Community Park and Learning Center a. 82acre park with a half Basketball Court, childrens play and Community Garden lined by large trees. Slide 12 proposed project would result in increased net new shadow adding. 003 annually above current level. This increase would result in a new annual total shadow load 15. 450 . New shadow from the project would occur Early Morning between april 20 and august 22. Last an average of five minutes daily. Net new shadow from the proposal along the northeastern and southeastern corners of the park affecting the northeastern corner and wooded area in the southeast corner. The date of the maximum shadow would occur on june 21 and largest shadow cast from the project june 14 and june 28, 6 48 a. M. And covering 783 square feet. Last site is the 11th future park site. Shown in the current conditions. The site is. 45acre site in western soma with a Light Industrial with residential, commercial as envisioned by the area plan and the future park site was selected for acquisition to serve the growing population of the emerging and park neighborhood with the understanding of the up zoning changes and incoming growth of residential development. The proposed project would result in net new shadow on the future park site adding. 18 annually above current shadow load bringing the total annual shadow load to 22. 27 . New shadow would occur Late Afternoon early evening for a daily average of 15 minutes between may 4 and august 8. Net new shadow on the western portion of the park dates of maximum necessary new shadow june 14 and june 28. Largest shadow on june 7 and july 5 at 7 00 p. M. To cover 4595 square feet. That is the conclusion of the individual park sites impacted by the 98 franklin project. Sheeonslide 15 this. Is depicted in blue from light to dark. Light is less frequent and dark is more frequent shadows. The shadow is immediately around the project footprint in orange and gets lighter as it spreads further from the project site. 16 is the cumulative diagram of the Hub Development pipeline project, including 10 south vanness, 98 franklin and 30 vanness. In relation to surrounding neighborhood and parks. Hubs in orange, collective shadows in blue with dark blue more frequent shadows and light more occasional shadows. More shadows around the project footprints and dissipate further away from the project site. In summary, the 1989 memo provides the criteria to determine the shadow impact if it is significant. The guidance provides under two acres greater than 20 there would be no additional shading and no standard for parks smaller than two acres with 20 or less shadow. All parks shadowed are less than two acres and two of the parks we looked at today page and laguna has existing shading over 20 . The criteria to consider including the time of day, year, shadow size, duration, location and the Public Benefit served by the project. Thank you very much. This concludes my presentation on the the 98 franklin impact as well as the future park site, i am available for any questions. Thanthank you for your time. Thank you very much. There are no callers on the line. Public comment is closed. We have a comment from james abrams. Hello. This is jim abrams. I want to clarify the projects proposal. The project is providing 25 on site inclusionary housing. The citys study supported a maximum of 20 on site. The project approving show that 20 provided on site. The project sponsor in consultation with the community has voluntarily agreed to add an additional 5 inclusionary housing. That is 7 greater than what is required by the code which is currently 18 on site. Little also, this project is paying significant Affordable Housing fees as well as Community Infrastructure fees, and this project would pay 8 million in infrastructure fees to be used in the market octavia plan area. 21 are to be used for open spaces and parks. This project as well as other projects you hear about today would provide quite a bit of funding for parks and open spaces in the area. Thank you. Commissioner low. My questions mr. Abrams had answered. I have a followup question on the number of affordable rental units. There was some mention of percentage of those units, the affordable units going to individuals making a certain percentage of the a. M. I. Can youlaborate on the breakdown of the Affordable Housing rental units. What is the breakdown of the a. M. I. . Sure. Under the current manning code 18 manning code is 55 for low income up to 110 which is middle income for rental units. This is voluntarily agreeing to do all 20 at 50 a. M. I. Rather than the spread, all 20 is 50 for low income households. Additional 5 will be at 100 a. M. I. Wow. Thank you. Any other commissioners comments . We are good. Then the chair would entertain a motion to recommend to the Planning Commission that this project does not have an adverse impact. So moved. Second. It is moved and seconded. Could you please call the coal. Commissioner buell. Aye. Commissioner low. This has a clearer Affordable Housing component and the developer is dedicating the majority of the units to residents making less than 55 of the a. M. I. , and i approve. Commissioner anderson. Aye. Commissioner bonilla. Aye. Commissioner harrison. Aye. Commissioner mazzola. Aye. Commissioner mcdonald. Aye. It is unanimous. Thank you, commissioners and staff for presentation. We are on item. General Public Comment continued from item 4. At this time members of the public not able to address on item 4 may address on items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the recreation and Parks Commission and do not appear on the agenda today. Do we have any callers . Hello, caller. You can go ahead and state your name. You have two minutes. Caller i am richard fong. I am trying to get interest stirred up on the issue. I am having problems going through city hall and speaking with the supervisor and sunset supervisor and other people havent got back to me. City hall is boarded up with two by fours. You cant get into the place. I have a few comments. One had to do with when you mix ground water with treated sewer water and you clean and diswash it, then you have children Drinking Water from the fountains in the parks, i am questioning the health issue related to using such water. I have already at different times tried to include the possibility that with the chairs approval on the d study. I do not like the idea of people Drinking Water that is treated sewer water where it is 5 million gallons per day out by the zoo and piped over to golden gate park. That kind of water to me is not very good for human consumption. In light of the problems with virus, that is another transmission source. Thank you. I will probably have to take up the subject matter at a Normal City Hall times. I will table it on the issue myself. Thanks. Thank you, richard. No further. [roll call lers. O tim 9 is closed. Item 10. Commissioners matters. Commissioners. Commissioner buell. A quick question. Coming out of the general managers report of the budget. They will come back with revised budget in light of required cuts . Yes, we will schedule. It will be a special meeting. We will try to get to you as closely in alignment with date of submission as possible. If we couldnt arrange a special meeting before the budget is due, what we can do is still do a hearing as soon as possible and submit to the Mayors Office any comments, recommended changes or whatever. Thethey are on a tight timeframe will do our best to align with it. One final question. Are there any implications in the context of budget cuts on the bond measure . The bond measure that you all voted on at our last meeting went the following week, monday, to the Capital Planning committee. It was approved with a slight modification that shifted some funding for buchanan mall which we had talked about a little bit during the hearing. Now it is at the board of supervisors where i believe there will be Committee Hearings and a vote whether to place it on the ballot. As you recall it is not a parks bond per se, it is Citywide Health and recoverybon. I dont think there are any direct implications on the budget, direct implications on the bond about the budget. There are indirect implications. I am sure there will be questions about staffing and maintenance, and that sort of thing. Maybe on that note you can communicate with the commission in writing as you come to some clearer understanding of your recommendations in the event we dont have it before the Commission Prior to it going to the Mayors Office. That would be a secondary option. We will do our very best. This is not a typical budget for us. Regardless, we will make sure that Commission Feedback and Community Feedback is heard and forwarded to the Mayors Office. The Mayors Office is the first step. They have about six weeks before they send it to the board. Thank you. Any other commissioner issues . Hearing none. Lets move along. We are on item 11. Mnew business. No. Item 11 is closed. Item 12. Communications. I dont think we have anybody in our phone line. We are now on item 13. Adjournment. Thank you one and all for a stellar job under unusual circumstances. Commissioner harrison do you want to make the motion. I move to adjourn. Second. All those in favor. Aye. So moved unanimously. Thank you one and all. First its always the hardest and when they look back they really wont see you, but its the path that youre paving forward for the next one behind you that counts. Hi, my name is jajaida durden and im the acting superintendent for the bureau of forestry and i work for public works operations. And im over the landscaping, the shop and also the arborist crew. And some tree inspectors as well. I have been with the city and county of San Francisco for 17 years. And i was a cement mason, that was my first job. When i got here i thought that it was too easy. So i said one day ill be a supervisor. And when i run this place it will be ran different. And i i didnt think that it wod happen as fast as it did, but it did. And i came in 2002 and became a supervisor in 2006. And six months later i became the permanent supervisor over the shop. With all of those responsibilities and the staff youre also dealing with different attitudes and you have to take off one hat and put on another hat and put on another hat. And shes able shes displayed that she can carry the weight with all of these different hats and still maintain the respect of the director, the Deputy Director and all of the other people that she has to come in contact with. Shes a natural leader. I mean with her staff, her staff thinks highly of her. And the most important thing is when we have things that happen, a lot of emergencies, shes right by me and helps me out every time that i have asked. My inspiration is when i was a young adult was to become a fire woman. Well, i made some wrong decisions and i ended up being incarcerated, starting young and all the way up to an adult. When i was in jail they had a Little Program called Suppers Program and i supers program, and i met strong women in there and they introduced me to construction. I thought that the Fire Department would turn me down because i had a criminal history. So i looked into options of what kind of construction i could do. While i was in jail. And the program that i was in, they retrained us on living and how to make the right decisions and i chose construction. And cement mason didnt require a High School Diploma at that time so i figured i could do that. When i got out of jail they had a program in the philmore area and i went there. My first day out i signed up and four days later i started to work and i never looked back. I was an apprentice pouring concrete. And my first job was mount zion Emergency Hospital which is now ucsf. And every day that i drive by ucsf and i look at the old mount zion emergency, i have a sense of pride knowing that i had a part of building that place. Yeah, i did. I graduated as an apprentice and worked on a retrofit for city hall. I loved looking at that building and i take big pride in knowing that i was a part of that retrofit. My first for formen job was a 40 Story Building from the ground up. And its a predominantly male industry and most of the times people underestimate women. Im used to it though, its a challenge for me. As a female youre working with a lot of guys. So when they see a woman, first they dont think that the woman is in charge and to know that shes a person that is in charge with operations, i think that its great, because its different. Its not something i mean, not only a female but the only female of color. I was the first female finisher in the cement shop and i was the first crew supervisor, in the shop as a woman. When i became a two, the supervisors would not help me. In the middle, theyd call me a rookie, an apprentice and a female trying to get somewhere that she dont belong. Oh, it was terrible. It was terrible. I didnt have any support from the shop. The ones who said they supported me, they didnt, they talked about me behind my back. Sometimes i had some crying, a lot of crying behind doors, not in public. But i had a lot of mentors. My mentor i will call and would pick up the phone and just talk, talk, talk, please help me. What am a i going to do . Hang in there. It was frustrating and disheartening, it really was. But what they didnt understand is that because they didnt help me i had to learn it. And then probably about a year later, thats when i started to lay down the rules because i had studied them and i learned them and it made me a good supervisor and i started to run the ship the way that i wanted to. It was scary. But the more i saw women coming through the shop, i saw change coming. I knew that it was going to come, but i didnt know how long it would take. It was coming. In the beginning when i first came here and i was the first woman here as a finisher, to see the change as it progressed and for me to become a permanent assistant superintendent over the cement shop right now, thats my highlight. I can look down at my staff and see the diversity from the women to the different coaches in here and know that no one has to ever go through what i went through coming up. And i foster and help everyone instead of pushing them away. Ill talk to women and tell them they can make it and if they need any help, come talk to me. And they com knock on my door ad ask how i move up and how i get training. Im always encouraging to go to school and encourage them to take up some of the training with d. P. W. And i would tell them to hold strong and understand that things that we go through today that are tough makes you stronger for tomorrow. Although we dont like hearing it at the time that were going through all of this stuff, it helps you in the long run to become a better woman and a person all of these amazing organizations that exist in San Francisco, its great to be here and great to talk about the incredible work that all of you are doing despite what our very challenging times for our city and our country, so lets get started and lets get to hear your questions and, also, i just want to make sure that you put in a plug for your organizations and the work that you are all doing and people dont have to sit at home by themselves. They can sit at home and maybe watch a great film thats going to be aired online by the Film Festival. Lets make sure we get the word out. Thank you, mayor breed. I want to thank the panelists and welcome to all of the viewers at home. As Asian Pacific americans are facing extraordinary challenges at this time, not only because of the pandemic, but also because the rising tide of antiasian violence. This reminds us about history when Asian Americans became scapegoats. The immigration station and the japanese americans during world war 2, the asian communities have been through it all and thats why the communities are coming together to continue to navigate through the crisis and to track the future and thats why this afternoons conversation with you, mayor breed, is so important as we continue on this journey. To that end, we have selected two special topics to talk about this afternoon and one is the impact of the pandemic and antiasian violence on youth and children. We are very concerned about how students will be treating each other when they get to go back to school. And the other one is the other topic is the impact on culture. This is what we normally would look to to bring communities, to bring comfort during times of crisis. However, we all know that the arts and culture communities are being hit very hard and theyre going to have an even harder Time Next Year when we may or may not get a tax refund. We are all in this together. So i hope this conversation is going to help us focus our thinking a little bit more about some of the topics so close to our hearts and close to the community. Without further ado, i would like to introduce the moderator, thomas lee, of this conversation. He iwere lucky to have thomas s one of our celebration cochairs and the master of our website. Everything to do with communication and all things social media and so thomas. Thank you, cla claudine. Thank you. We are bringing this celebration online virtually, like many organizations, were finding new ways to celebrate and were doing it all online. At this time, i would like to welcome our distinguished panel presenters, the mayor of San Francisco, mayor london breed, and all of the viewers on facebook live. So i hope youre watching. Tell a friend and we are on facebook live, at facebook. Com sf. You can text that to a friend. For this afternoons program, we have Six Community leaders representing civil righters, children and youth services, as well as arts. Each presenter will have two minutes to share their perspectives and have the opportunity to ask mayor breed a question. We have a lot of ground to cover and lets get right to it. Our first presenter is vincent penn, for affirmative action. For over 50 years, he has been at the forefront of events introducing civil rights and justice and providing equal opportunities for chinese and Asian Americans, caa colaunched a program to collect data of antiasian incidents in the country encouraging Asian Pacific americans to report these incidents. Please welcome vincent penn who will provide us an update on asian violence incidents. Thank you. At the outset of the pandemic, San Francisco state universities and the Asian Pacific studys gunpoint anplanning in los anget Community Members could report incidents that were happening against Asian Americans and pacific islanders. In the past month and a half, we have received 1700 reports for both harassment, bullying, physical assaults and racerelated property vandalism from across the country, including 117 incidents here in San Francisco. The data shows that women have been proportionately harassed and all asian communities are being harmed. Most is happening under shelterinplace orders, so we expect the situation to get worse as orders are lifted. In some ways, this is not a new problem, just an escalated problem, made worse by the covid19, as well as the Trump Administration to blame everything on china. We all appreciate, mayor breed, the strong, strong stance you have made towards hate towards Asian Americans and all communities, but given the difficult economic and budget situation facing the city and the community, are you able to have resources to build in the capacity to address these antiasian situations . Well, i will say that as many of you all know, its going to be a real challenge for our city financially. But, from the very beginning, before people were really paying attention to this pandemic, to the coronavirus, our Asian Community in San Francisco was already being impacted. The level was zenophobia, the attacks and other violence against ederly seniorsnd w were experncing thatoreit h and, this is something weve paid close attention to, working with Law Enforcement, working with our Small Business community and trying to provide resources, but its knot goin not going to be h the situation were in. Ill start with, specifically, with whats happening around a lot of the attacks and the violence and the robberies. I want to just express how important it is that people report these things to the police, because this is going to help inform a lot of the decisions that we make. And we heard about a lot of incidents that have not been reported and we know there might be fear or people who are uncomfortable with that. Ill be looking to so many of your organizations to be that vehicle. Weve providedes to a bilingual act thats available, so some of our officers can call and get a translators on the phone to communicate and report crime. We need to do this now more than ever, because thats going to be important so that we can make sure people understand that not only this is happening but the work we have to do has to be started on supporting where we know the challenges are. Recently, i a nancy tong has reported on the board of supervisors andtheres rumblings of not supporting her. As much as i believe in criminal Justice Reform and as much as i dont want to put people in jail, if you commit an act of crime, you should be held accountable, and there should not be a negotiation there. Having someone who believes that on the police commission, on the Law Enforcement community is important to making sure that people dont feel comfortable coming to San Francisco, committing crimes or attacking other people. So thats part of one of the challenges we will continue to face and im definitely planning to do everything i can to make sure that the investments are there to support this community. The businesses, its really been tough. Its been tough because, again, it hit our asian businesses before it even touched anyone else and already, with the millions of dollars that we allocated to support our Small Businesses, whether its a 10,000 grant or up to 50 50,00 nointerest loan, we know we need to do more. So im raising money, as well as redirecting resources to support our businesses. And again, your help and your support to get people to apply for the funding is really necessary. We have an equity team thats embedded in our Emergency Operations centre, where their sole goal is to work with communities that are usually disenfranchise. So, for example, from day one, there were a number of businesses who were supposed to shut down but they didnt shut down because they didnt understand, they didnt speak english and there had to be another level of communication to make sure that they understood and they were connected to resources. And so were going to have to continue that. Because this is going to be really hard for us because some of these businesses are not going to be able to reopen. So the question is, how do we make sure that we outreach to the community . How do we make sure that we provide them with the records and the support that they need to maybe even transition into doing something other than what they were already doing . Its going to be a partnership with all of you because we cannot do this alone. We need trusted Community Representatives who people support and respect and who will help to identify where there are holes, what we may not be doing right and how we can make that connection to support our communities. Weve made a lot of gains over the years because weve had really good budget times, but we are really in trouble. And it will require all of us to Work Together and its going to require a big sacrifice. We want to make sure were not leaving anyone behind, especially our Asian Community, which has been impacted over this virus more than any other community. Thank you, mayor breed. And you have a great bunch of allies on this call in addition to people on facebook who are tuning in right now. So are next presenter is sarah wong, the executive director of the Community Center of San Francisco. She started as an organization that focuses on addressing issues for atrisk in chinatown. And over the years, she gets involved in the citywide agency serves over 8,000 multi cultural youths, and please welcome sarah wong. Thank you, thomas, thank you, mayor. Thomas is doing the best job so ill jump right into the topic. To the pandemic has really become another reason to target asian communities a communitiese country. Its our hope to turn the table around in education. Ethnic studys courses have been instituted in all of San Francisco School District high schools to give students an introduction to the experience of the ethnic communities that are rarely represented in textbooks. We need to work with projectbased learning on Racial Justice in crosscultural relationship buildings, such as by educational documentaries, and also chinese exclusion acts. What most of our youth programming have moved to virtual settings, most of our youth are still dealing with fear, isolation and this triggers depression and other Mental Health symptoms. And many of our youth couldnt even talk on the phone with our staff to share their feelings due to the lack of privacy and space. It is crucial to prioritize the offering of cultural competent Mental Health services to students at the schools and Community Settings in this current crisis. And as the incidents of violence will continue to increase, especially after the school reopens, i would like to ask mayor breed to not only send a strong message to our young people in response to the alarming escalation in xenophobia, but to create a task force where our Community Members track incidents of antihate violence in communities and schools that target our young people. Kind of similar to the current hate campaign at the national level, and also the policy in action plans to ensure all of our young people will be able to be in a violencefree community. Some thank you, sarah, and thank you for providing that perspective. I think thats an incredible idea. I think that im happy to do whatever i can and i love the idea of as i was hearing you speak, i was thinking we needed to launch some sort of Campaign Around this, to really highlight how this is not the way. And i will touch bases with the superintendent to figure out whether or not this can be incorporated into their distancelearning strategy. In fact, as you know, as a recipient of some of the resources where youre able to help support your youth through opportunities for all and other programs, i love the idea making sure that the opportunities for all kids who are participating in paid internships, working with them to come up with strategies and ideas and outreach in order to be the ambassadors. When i was in Elementary School here in the city, my teacher, because i talked a lot and drove my teacher crazy, if someone was sitting in the corner by themselves, i would try to solve their issue and i think thats the level that we got to get back to. We have to get back to caring about whats happening with each other and we want to make sure that, especially kids who, unfortunately, may not even know better because of their upbringing or what have you, we have to make sure that they are educated about how harmful, what they do is when they attack anyone with a racial slur or anything else for that matter. I think the time is now for bridge building and for a campaign and something that could be inspired through our young people. And i know you, along with john osaki, jcyc would be two incredible resources for all programs to look at a way to incorporate that into the work we do and well touch bases with our superintendent, dr. Vincent matthews and then the director of the Human Rights Commission, cheryl davis, who oversees the opportunities for all programs and maybe theres something we can get started with now to really turn the tide on this. A lot of discussion about opportunities for all. In facebook, weve been operatinparticipating for oppors for all and this year, were looking at new ways toengage with cheryl. I dont know all of the answers and so im looking to many of you for strategies or even these kids, because kids can come up with some of the best ideas. Absolutely. And i know there are young people. Just given the opportunity, they can kind of push these campaigns over. Theyre the ones who know how to use this technology and social media and stuff like that to do stuff, right . So lets tap into that in a way that could spread like wildflowers and bring our city closer together. Speaking of opportunities for all, let me bring on our next speaker to discuss the impacts on youth and children, its john osaki, the Japanese Community Youth Council and this year jcyc is celebrating 50 years focusing on japan youth and a broad range of programs from preschool to college prep to opportunities for all and jcyc is leading many youth initiatives is please welcome john osaki. Thank you, mayor breed and thank you for being a part of this town hall. Ill focus on some of the things you were just talking about regarding building bridges. They talked about safety and education and i think that the area that i really want to emphasize is that i think its so important that we find ways to build and promote understanding between communities here in San Francisco. As im sure you know, San Francisco is the birthplace of antiasian sentiment in this country. And so i think its so important that San Francisco be a leader in this area and really think about how it can promote strategies that really build understanding. I think the thing thats been so alarming to me is to see how quickly and easily asians could become a target again in this country. And so, i think one of the things that we would be very interested this is a systemic approach to putting together a planning effort thats going to address this at many Different Levels because, unfortunately, this virus is not going away any time soon. It could easily pop back up. And i think many of us are very interested in figuring out how do we come up with recommendations and ideas, such as some of the work that sarah has been pioneering in the bayview, where shes really been promoting understanding between the Chinese Community and the africanamerican community. And i think efforts like that are so critical to promote making sure we understand each others experience and can appreciate all of oppression the communities have experienced so that we can ban together push back against the tide of hate and the type of targeting thats going on right now. So i would like to know if you would support an effort to bring together a systemic approach and recommendation for house San Francisco can be a leader in pushing back against some of hate were seeing today. Thank you, john, for putting that in perspective and i think its overdue and we need to get started on something of that nature now which incorporates all of the different layers. Because again, when kids were in school, we know there were kids who were picked on about this virus before it hit. Businesses were suffering and being discriminated against and people were attacked and robbed and a number of other very violent incidents have occurred. And we know that its important to develop solutions and to start to really change the tone of folks who are a part of our city who represent the Asian Community, how they are treated. And i think that we can put this together in a way that proposes solutions that we can work towards. And i do think its important and i go back to the schools, because that Learned Behaviour that starts when youre a kid continues to develop into adulthood. So its so important that we really work with and use our kids in a way as an opportunity to bridge that gap because that is going to help to fill out, i think, the rest of the city. So im definitely open to the idea of developing a campaign, developing a system, putting together a committee, a diverse committee of folks who care about this issue. I know that folks from the nacp of San Francisco and other organizations would be happy to participate and we can work as partners in developing solutions. But i also want to say that its going to take a level of consistency unlike evacuee seen in the past. Weve seen tensions, in particular, and im using this as an example because i know that our Asian Community is being discriminated against by all races. But in particular, in this city, weve had tensions in the past, you know, sometimes between the africanamericans and our Asian Community and to our Chinese Community, in particular. And when those things happen, what we would do, woe come we we together, have these forums, try to Work Together and they would die down. So i think the difference here is that we have to maintain this effort of a coalition of people who are really consistently active in making sure that we spread a different message, that we combat this and that we not allow xenophobia to be tolerated against people in our Asian Community or any community, for that matter. And soy think there so i thinkn opportunity to Work Together to be consistent and to try to make sure that we get over this hump and that even after this pandemic is over, we have to hold steady on the work we need to do to address these challenge. Challenges. Thank you, mayor breed and thank you, john. Well shift gears a minute and well talk about the arts and culture sector and how that pandemic has impacted it. So next, i would like to bring on jay xi, the director of the asian art museum, which is home to one of the worlds finest and collection of asian art over the 50 plus years. The museum has been successful in achieving the mission of inspiring new ways of connecting Diverse Communities to both traditional and contrary art. Please welcome jay xi. Thank you, thomas, for the introduction and hello, mayor breed. I would like to thank you for your leadership and thank you for making the video statement, the owner of the ap heritage month in speaking strongly against the antiasian racism that is going on right now. We at the museum have turned our museum into a virtual museum. And we are featuring a wide range of artists, not only visual artists but performing artists and particularly Asian American artists and our programs are diverse, too. Not only offering the thoughtful meditation. At this time in the crisis, Everybody Needs time to meditate and take stock of what happened and what the future lies for all of us, but also programs speak strongly in action and in Group Discussions about the common efforts, fighting against antiasian racism. In addition to very widerange of programs which i encourage all of you and the audiences to check out our website. Follow us on our social media. And asian museums is itself a diverse workforce, having strong representation for Asian American community. And in addition to giving back artistically, our staff has been also donating hundreds of masks and spending of hundreds of hours to helping service work. So we are there as an element, a very Strong Community to navigate together through this crisis. Today is poignant because today, may 8th, was supposed to be the day we would open the transform expanded asian museum for our public. Mayor, you were supposed to do the Ribbon Cutting for all of us and sorry for me getting a little caught up here, because this is ver a very emotional dar us. We will stay on course and transform the museum to the public, hopefully in the fall. Just behind me, theres a new rorendering of our facade, turng the Museum Inside and out. You can also enjoy the museum from outside. Were also turning the asian museum into a National Leading platform promoting Asian American artists. The artists that you see are my backdrop are all featuring Asian American artists. I think the more artists amplified, the more theyre empowered. I want to echo the theme about community and how were playing an important role. I think the more artists can speak up, the better chance we will have in winning the war against the entire asian race. Racism. My question to you is that you have implemented measures to support local artists. What are the further measures that you can develop, plans you can develop in supporting Asian American artists and measures to enhance or efforts in the fight against antiasian race . Thank you for that question. First of all, one of the things that we did was to provide grants for artists, because we know, for example, those filmmakers, those musicians, performers, people who paint and do other artsrelated things, this is their livelihood and especially now during this pandemic, i think people are realizing the importance of art, because every time you hear about something, you hear about someone singing. You hear about someone showcasing some level of art and how that is what is getting people through this. And i do think its important that we pull together resources, financial resources. I think it was around 2 million or so dollars for immediate grants to artists with the goal to increase that even more, but the arts are going to take a big hit and as we lose revenue for hotel tax and other things, its going to be very challenging. And my commitment is to really focus on making sure that we are supporting San Francisco Arts Organization, that we are supporting San Francisco artists, as much as we possibly can. My goal is to make sure that and lets be honest, there will be cuts and then usually, arts is first on the chopping block and that wont be the case with me. Ill be looking for waste and places where money things that are not necessarily as valuable as making sure our kids are participating in paid summer internships or arts related functions. I mean, all of those things are important, but its going to be difficult or well continue to do what we can. I think when were talking about what john and sarah brought up in terms of coming together and developing the plan and possibly even developing a campaign of sorts, and maybe using the arts as a vehicle to support and promote that, you know, that is something that i think is important and its something that should be prioritized and so, because it does matter. It does matter in terms of whats happening in our city and if thats a vehicle by which we can supportive, we will. So it doesnt give you, maybe, reassurance that things will be great. Theyre not. And so, fortunately, as a museum, you have the ability to encourage many of your Board Members to possibly even contribute more. But there are shawler smaller institutions and other organizations that will have a much more difficult time. And so we want to be mindful of that and we also want to live within our means and i remember when i was the director of the africanamerican art and culture complex and we had a number of challenges in the western edition with violence, weould organization, but all of the organizations got together and because the Community Center and john, you remember this they were on the verge of asid toe a beuse have toemember thatuxt lets bli e b c tut to be mindful of the fact there will be other organizations that will need something more than others. And so, i see thomas giving me the signal. Madam mayor, i just got pinged by your staff that we are running late on time and we wanted to get through two more speakers about the arts before you have to go. Iwell make sure you get in and out on time. So next we have irene almario, the studio that was founded in 1969, dedicated to showcasing emerging philippino artists and providing access to a broad range of performing arts programs. Please welcome irene. Thank you for having me. First of all, thank you, mayor breed, for your action and early shelterinplace order. Were grateful for the people in the cities who adjusted to this crisis, the bcyf, which allowed us to utilize our arts grants for direct covid relief and space thats contract work areling with isolation and digital accessibility. We have had to completely pivot our operations to directly address theid crisis in our community. We are now aiding Service Organizations like up, west bay, Equity Center and comcan. However, we want to continue to create and put on productions. We are trying to shift into alternative means to engage with our community, but we actually need more support. So madam mayor, my question is, small performing arts benefits will find it nearly impossible to implement social distancing measures in a viable way. Will the city able to offer any support to small venues searching for alternative ways to present work, such as Technical Resources to move to the virtual platform . Or when we can gather once again, creating a program that allows venues to stage performances in large Public Places like parks, gymnasiums, et cetera, while still making it affordable for a Small Organization . Thank you. Well, thank you for your question. First of all, i am anxious for the day when our artists can get back to performing and playing and that is really what we so desperately need even now. And i think that im not familiar with all of the resources that will be specifically available for Arts Organizations. , bubut i do know that our plans to try to make sure that were supporting Arts Organization and make sure i mean, you have your space, but there are also expenses associated with that. We want to make sure that youre still getting your grant support and able to provide some Additional Resources to your office. And we have not im not familiar with the technical aspect of online and whats going on there, but i will check with our equity team. The director of the Human Rights Commission, she is managing the equity team out of the Emergency Operations center and i think that if you if there is something youre specifically in need of, i think that there is a way to connect you to access to the technology or resources that are necessary to get you online. I will say that, unfortunately, artists can perform on their own. But they cant necessarily come together and perform at this time because of the six feet of requirement. So i know whatever it is that you choose to do, i want to make sure that you do it within the help order and i will make sure that we follow up to figure out ways to help support you and the artists that you help. Represent. On the topic of artists, lets turn to our friends at cam. Our last presenter is steven gong, the executive director for center of the Asian American immediatmedia. Theyre celebrating 40 years this year and the leein leading present of american asian television. The camfest is right here and around the world. So welcome steven gong. Thank you thomas and claudine and mayor breed. It was a year ago when you joined us at the castro theater for opening night. And like so many others, we were ready to present a fabulous festival again and had to cancel. But we have pivoted and next week, as you can see from the information behind me on may 13th, we will kick off our camfest online and, again, thank you for doing a welcome for us and so, youve answered one of my questions already and youve shown your leadership here in support of the arts and cultural community. And i would also just want to mention that we have a National Broadcast of a fivehour series of the on history of Asian Americans broadcasts from kdtv on monday and tuesday nights. The bay figure area, so prominently in the asian area. This is a time when the asian america is coming together in a way that we have waited generations for and at a time, we know were facing such hardship. I wanted to make my turn, because i know i can count on your leadership for us. My question now from after what i have heard from all of my fellow speakers is to ask you to task us and that is to say what role can we play to help support the kind of vision that you want and that we share your vision for a more unified community and Diverse Community . And even though it is a time of tremendous risk and challenges and hardship, we also know in this is time to shift and make new things happen. Because you might as well start over and bill it th bill build. So please elaborate and give us a task. Thank you for your leadership and the work you continue to do and thank you for your work on the series. I put it out on social media and ive announced it and asked people to tune in with a message, exactly of what were talking about here. Sadly, in liberal San Francisco, we have seen xenophobia play out from our hurrican children to os in a message and to learn more about the rich history of our Asian Community in San Francisco, you know, tune into this series. I like the idea of really starting to shine a light only things that give people a perspective and part of that and what you do and as jay mentioned, the arts is a vehicle for that. Filmmaking is a vehicle for that. Performance on stage, all of those things can be used as messages and i know i remember there was a play because in the western community, we grew up and it was predominantly african and japanese and there was this relationship that existed with our communities of just respect and trust and that relationship has carried over the years and someone did a performance, a play about i think you might remember this one, john. When the japanese americans were placed in internment camp and how there were africanamericans who occupied their housing. When they were released, they turned their Housing Units back over. There was this very informal relationship. And i think a lot of it had everything to do with the fact that there were two communities living next to each other that were both treated poorly and were discriminated against and they, in some ways, we talk together. And we supported and respected each other. I mean, john osaki and his organization has helped more africanamerican kids than any other organization in the city. And i think part of what will be important is how our we using the vehicle we have to bridge that gap . Whether its in the cam Film Festival and providing, of course, films featuredpy Asian Americans, but how do we begin to broaden that and make sure that they are maybe an africanamerican filmmaker who has asian people playing various roles in those films and featuring those films . I think the charge is, how do we begin to be together more in what we do . How do we start to Work Together to really make sure and again, it starts with the schools. It starts with the kids because i learned about the various asian cultures because of my school, because of the different festivals that highlighted the different times of year that were significant to all of us. Thats how i learn. And so part of this is really going to be a learning experience. How are we going do a better job around our communication strategy of promoting and supporting and helping people to understand and learn about the asian experience, not just in this city, but in this country and in this world and the value that is not only placed on your community because what makes us an incredible place is because we all have values. We all have values because of our own cultures but also our shared experiences. And so i think the call is really to remind people of that, how much alike we are and now more than ever, with this pandemic, what we see, it does not matter what color you are or matter about your socioeconomic status. It doesnt matter. This virus does not discriminate against anyone. Anyone could be affected at any given time and it shows that we are all on the same playing field. So how do we emerge out of this crisis stronger and better than ever . I think is really how we communicate, a consistent, positive message around the Asian Community and how we come together, whether its a task force or a group. Weve put together people who care about these issues with various races and we put out the right messaging and an implementation strategy to support our communities and our kids. And either consistent iand wer. I would like to continue working with you all on just that because its so important, especially now, because it just makes me crazy that people are targeted because of their race. And as you know, as an africanamerican woman, as someone who gets targeted myself, like the last thing i want to see is this happen to anybody. It is the worst feeling in the world to be treated a certain way because of your race, to be discriminated against or attacked. It is the worst. Lets turn the tide with our positive energy, our positive reinforcement, our positive solutions of coming together and really focusing on the things that we know our organizations can do and collectively what we can do to really turn the tide. Thats what i would like to see us do. This is the beginning, i think, of it, because i know this is apa heritage month in San Francisco and im glad that we are celebrating in this way, but it gives us also an opportunity to have this very important conversation and shine a light on this. And i think the next step is, lets put a Team Together and lets start to move forward on some real solutions, especially with our young people. Thank you, mayor breed. Thumbs up. On that note of togetherness, lets turn it over to claudine for closing remarks, the person who brought us together in the first place. Thank you. I feel very uplifted from your message, sharing your thoughts from us and i feel there is hope seeing all of us together and i think that many more out there that we need to expand this circle of discussion and im very happy to hear about the campaign. This is a positive energy. In fact, i know that many of educators are listening to us and hearing us, this program online. And i think we can view that alliance and network and have a multicultural solution to all of this and bringing people together and thank you so much, mayor, and we are here to roll our sleeves up and Work Together. I think this conversation is started in this month, but i hope we will regularly have our other conversations and keep doing on and engage all together. Thank you so much. Thank you, claudine. Thank you to everyone. To everyone in the public, go to apa sf. Org. Thank you. As a woman of color who grew up in San Francisco i understand how institutions can have an impact on communities of color. I think having my voice was important. That is where my passion lies when the opportunity to lead an office in such a new space came up. I couldnt turn it down. I was with the District Attorneys Office for a little over nine years, if you include the time as an intern as well as volunteer da, all most 13 years. During the time with the das office i had an opportunity to serve the community not only as the assistant District Attorney but as director of community relations. That afforded the opportunity to have impact on the community in an immediate way. It is one thing to work to serve the rights of those without rights, victims. It is really rewarding to work to to further the goals of our office and the commitment we have as City Employees and advocates for people who dont have a voice. I dont know of anyone surprised to see me in this role. Maybe people have an impression what the director of the office of cannabis should be like, what their beliefs should be. I smash all of that. You grew up in the inner city of San Francisco. My career path is not traditional. I dont think a person should limit themselves to reach full potential. I say that to young women and girls. That is important. You want to see leadership that looks diverse because your path is not predetermined. I didnt wake up thinking i was going to be a prosecutor in my life. The city administrator reached out and wanted to have a conversation and gave me interest in the new role. I thought you must not know what i do for a living. It was the opposite. She had foresight in realizing it would be helpful for somebody not only a former prosecutor but interested in shaping criminal Justice Reform for the city would be the right person for the space. I appreciate the foresight of the mayor to be open how we can be leaders in San Francisco. I was able to transition to the policy space. Here i was able to work on legislation, community relations, communication and start to shape the ways our office was going to reform the criminal Justice System. It is fulfilling for me. I could create programs and see those impact peoples lives. I am the change. It took truants youth to meet with Civil Rights Movement leaders who fought to have access to education. Being a young person to understand that helped the young people realize this was an important thing to give up. What we find is that young people who are truanted have a really high homicide rate in our city, which is a sad statistic. We want to change that. Coming from a community we are black and brown. I dont reach out to other people. I dont think they feel the same way. I had the great opportunity to work on Prison Reform issues and criminal Justice Reform issues. We created a program at san quentin where we brought district opportunities t to lifs and talk about how we are all impacted by the criminal Justice System. We brought over 40 elected das to san quentin for the situation. Now we are inviting the police department. Our formerly incarcerated group born out of this programming asked for the opportunity to work on a project where we could bring the men in blue on the outside to come speak to the men on blue inside to start the healing dialogue around how the criminal Justice System specifically in San Francisco impacts the community. I was attracted to the role. There was a component of equity that was part of this process. The Equity Community here in San Francisco is a community that i had already worked with. Before i took steps to visit cannabis businesses i thought it was important my team have a chance to go inside and speak to men who ha had been impacted. That conversation needed to happen so we know how we are making an impact with the work that we are doing. The das office as we were leading up to the legalization of marijuana in the state we started having conversations on the policy team what that could look like. The District Attorney was really focused on the right side of history for this. We realized it would be quite a heavy lift for individuals who have been negatively impacted by the war on drugs to expunge the record. It was important to figure out the framework to make it seamless and easy. They put their minds to it after some time and many conversations the data analysts and other policy walk throughs on the team came up with the idea to engage the Tech Community in this process. Code for america helped us developed the rhythm to be used for any jurisdiction across the state that was important to create a solution to be used to assist all jurisdictions dealing with this matter. The office of cannabis is the first office to have a completely digital application process. We worked with the digital team to develop the online application. There are going to be hiccups. We are first to do it. It is one of the most rewarding parts to offer a seamless to offer a seamless approach. That is how they can find solutions to solve many of the community challenges. The best way to respond to prop 64 was to retroactively expunge 9,000 cannabis related records for San Francisco. It feels like justice full circle for my personal experience. In the past i was furthering the war on drugs just as my directive. Really coming from a place of Public Safety. That was the mandate and understanding. It is nice to see that pass a society we are able to look at some of our laws and say, you know what . We got it wrong. Lets get this right. I had the privilege of being in the existing framework. My predecessor Nicole Elliott did an incredible job bringing together the individuals superpassionate about cannabis. The office was created in july of 2017. I came in early 2018. I have been able to see the Offices Development over time which is nice. It is exciting to be in the space, stickily in thinking about her leadership. Looking for the office it is always we might be before my time when i was working for the board oforboard of supervisors. I learn new things every day it is challenging and rewarding for me. We get the privilege to work in an office tha that is innova. We get to spearhead the robust exprogram. I am excited she came on board to leverage experience as a prosecutor 10 years as we contemplate enforcements but approaching it without replicating the war on drugs. I was hired by cam laharris. I havent seen a District Attorney that looked kind of like me. That could be a path in my life. I might not have considered it. It is important that women and certainly women of color and spaces of leadership really do their part to bring on and mentor as many young people as they can. It is superimportant to take advantage of as many opportunities a as they can when they can intern because the doors are wide open. Plans change and that is okay. The way this was shaped because i took a risk to try something new and explore something and show that i was capable. You are capable, right . It was about leaning in and being at the table to say my voice matters. You find your passion, the sky i want to thank all of you for joining us here today. We know that this is a very challenging time during this pandemic, especially for many people who have not only lost their income, but have had their hours reduced at their various employment sites and also lost their jobs completely. As of today weve had over 83,000 people in San Francisco apply for unemployment. What that says is that even though we locally are doing everything that we can to provide resources to the public, we know that theres so much more that needs to be done. We cant wait for a federal stimulus check in many cases, people who are living paycheck to paycheck and need money to pay their bills. And we know, especially our hairdressers and our nail salons, our barbershops, theyre probably suffering the most. Because if they dont work they dont have any income. So this is a very challenging time for all of us. And as we deal with the protecting of Public Health, we need to always protect the Financial Health of our families and communities. After were able to reopen what is that going to look like . And how will we be able to continue to make sure that everyone has a decent paying job with benefits . Thats the foundation of our city and its necessary for us to figure out ways in which we can help to support one another and uplift one another. Just a few things that we have been doing here in San Francisco include providing additional sick leave for private sector employees and also making available funding that employers have paid into our fund that establishes the support for Health Care Benefits and were able to give that back to the employees to use for important things like rent or food, finding Creative Solutions to give to s. F. , where were using those resources to help to pay for food for lowincome families and undocumented families. We know that may not qualify for other benefits that are available. Making sure that people who are very concerned and will not be able to generate revenues that theyre able to get some resources and some relief to help to pay rent. For their ability to stay housed, our Small Business community is the foundation of our city and we know that, sadly, whats happening now is that people are impacted financially, but we know that theres going to be a real challenge in the future. And its important that we make smart decisions, that we make investment in the people who work so hard for our city so that they are able to get over the very challenging time and are able to emerge from this in a way that moves our city forward. So today what we wanted to do was to take this opportunity to have a webinar specifically for workers. Because even though we have made a lot of announcements here in San Francisco about various programs that are available, it can get quite confusing because there are local programs, there are state programs, there are challenges with unemployment and other things. And we wanted to provide this as an opportunity to reach directly out to workers. And to talk to the community about ways in which we want to be as helpful as we possibly can. And also to solicit feedback because we may not have all of the answers, we may not know exactly whats going on in every sector of every part of this city, and we want to be a resource to make sure that were investing the dollars in the right programs that are going to directly impact peoples lives. So today im joined by a number of folks here who are here to serve employees of San Francisco. The workforce director josh arce works for our office of workforce and Economic Development. And for more information about what were doing and if you have any other questions or concerns, not only can you call josh directly and hell answer your call. But go to oewd. Org or call 311, and he is available. He is very dedicated to helping workers and to helping people find Job Opportunities. So thats one of his roles here with the city. And were so grateful for his commitment and service to the city. We are also joined by rudy gonzalez, the executive director for the San Francisco Labor Council. And as you know the San Francisco Labor Council represents all organized labor here in San Francisco, but they dont just fight for the groups that are part of their collaborative. They fight for better wages, they fight for Better Benefits so that people have can live with dignity and can take tear of their family take care of their family. I have a uni union family that m blessed to be part of and we know that organized labor in San Francisco is critical to the safety net of many of our lowwage workers and people who make San Francisco strong. And i want to thank you, michelle, who michelle lenardbell who is agreeing to moderate this conversation. And they have been my goto for Employment Opportunities since i mean, its been theyve been around longer than this, but its been over 20 years. When i have someone who is struggling and needs an employment opportunity, and they provide the wrap around Supportive Services and the training necessary to get people on their feet and back to work. So were glad to have an incredible network of people who are here to help to guide this conversation, help us to answer some questions, and the goal is to make sure that we are connecting our resources to the people that we know that need it the most. That is why were here. And we want to thank you all for joining us. At this time i want to join it over to josh arce, with oewd. Thank you, mayor breed and thank you for convening us here and for everything that youre doing for workers. I want to say at our department under our director, we are a team of 54 men and women who are committed working with at this point 48 communitybased organizations to support workers out there at this time and to prepare for our recovery. So as you said, so we can emerge from this even stronger. Thank you. Mayor london breed so, thank you, josh. And rudy gonzalez, the executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council here in the city. And also i want to mention our Economic Recovery Task force, because not only do we need to help workers now, and what happens in future when we start to reopen the city, hes a cochair leading that charge on the San Francisco economic recovery. So, ladies and gentlemen, rudy gonzalez. Thank you, mayor breed and director arce, and michelle, its great to be in your community. Were grateful for the opportunity to be part of this discussion and bringing together not only organized laborer but as you said, mayor, ways to lift up all people. So were happy to get to work on our recovery right now. Mayor london breed all right, michelle, we can turn it over to you so we can get started. We probably have a lot of folks on the line who have a number of questions and thats what were here to do, to answer the questions. And also to take feedback on just suggestions that people who are in the middle of these experiences might have. So ill turn it over to you. Thank you so much again. Thank you, mayor breed, thank you. Im michelle leonardbell and im the general manager of mission hiring call. We have been putting people in San Francisco to work with quality employment since 1971. So were going to get started here. Mayor, thank you so much for everything that youre doing. We believe that lives here in the city and the region around the city have been saved because of your Decisive Action and your administrations work. Thank you to all of the participants who sent in questions. We received many, many questions around workforce. What were going to try to do is to select the questions that were asked more than once. And also to request the diversity of the things that you would like to know. Our first question was one that was very common. And ill share this one with mayor breed and then with josh. So many people are frustrated with the challenges of applying for unemployment. What is the latest status on the state and federal unemployment resources . Mayor breed . Mayor london breed well, ill turn this over to josh because he has a lot more detail. But, you know, again, weve had 83,000 people in San Francisco alone and over 2. 5 million in state of california, of people who applied for unemployment. I know that the Governors Office is working to increase the capacity in order to try and be as responsive as possible to people because we know that people need their money now. We dont have direct local control over Unemployment Insurance in general but were definitely partnering and working with the states to be as aggressive as we can to get unemployment in the hands of people right away. It has definitely been a challenge. And ill turn it over to josh. Yes, thank you, mayor breed. And we work very closely with the state Employment Development department, or e. E. D. And they have an unpri unpreceds only 50,000 who had applied for employment and three million ever since. And so as the governor and the labor secretary julie siu increased staffing to the unemployment phone lines and emails, what weve been doing is running a hotline. We have been working closely with the Human Service agency, Community Partners including selfhelp for the elderly, and the Mission Economic development agency. And a whole lot of the staff to answer phones. Our team takes calls seven days a week in multiple languages. And its really around whatever supports that we need during covid19 and, of course, most of the calls around unemployment. Many of our Community Partners are doing the same. So in nearly 2,000 calls that have been received to date since march 16th shelterinplace order, and independent contractor questions, and what we do is that we gather information from those callers and the staff works directly with us. Were grateful for that to get the answers and to call folks back and email them with those updates. We do twiceaweek Rapid Response virtual online webinars to get a group of folks and workers laid off in a room to share those resources with the state, with the Labor Council, with cover california. And thats about an hourlong process that we do twice a week. As the mayor said, were just here for you and we want to stay connected. Our website is www. Oewd. Org. And the phone number is 41570 4157014817. And go to our website www. Oewd. Org and thats a great way to get the number and all of the resources that well talk about today. Thank you again, mayor breed. Thank you, mayor and josh. Of the nearly 350 calls they recently provided services to, unemployment questions were the main questions. So thank you again for this. Oewd. Org and you can get assistance around unemployment. And the next question here is for rudy. Rudy, before people go back to work, they are understandably concerned about the safety and ensuring safety for themselves and their families. Will the city be providing guidelines and giving back to the office back to the office to ensure that people are safe when they return to work . Thank you for that question, michelle. The short answer is yes. The department of Public Health, the county Health Officer have been working diligently to provide clarification and guidance where weve needed it. I think that a good example of this came to the City Administrators Office and the mayors administration with respect to industries and the construction sector. So, yes, the city is providing that guidance. Its something that is a top priority for the Economic Recovery Task force in our effort to support not only jobs and jobs and businesses and Small Businesses, but we also want to support workers by collaborating around what those safety protocols are. Theyre going to look and feel a little different in various industries. But we trust that the department of Public Health is going to provide us, you know, timely guidance on those things. And i think that its also important to recognize that the situation is fluid. And so we have to be dynamic in how we respond to these concerns. This is an area that im particularly interested in developing feedback through the Recovery Task force, their Community Engagement team. Im very interested in what some of the specific needs will be from some of our small and mediumsized businesses along these lines. But, yes, well continue to work with the City Partners and the Industry Partners to develop clear guidance that allows people to get back to regular work, to continue the essential work, and to do so in a way that promotes Public Health. Thank you for that, rudy. Our next question is for mayor breed. Will more people be eligible for testing as more people return to work, mayor breed . Mayor london breed oh, definitely. The only way that were going to be able to get back to life as we knew it in some capacity is to ensure that testing is available to people. And the good news is that we announced that all essential workers for the city or even in the private sector, you are considered an essential worker, whether you exhibit symptoms or not, you can be tested. So, please, reach out to us. You can go on to sf. Org citytestssf. Or call 311 if you would like to be tested and youre an essential worker. But the other thing is that we will test anyone who exhibits symptoms, whether you have insurance or not. I think that is important. Because we never want testing to be a barrier. If you are not an essential worker or just a San Franciscoian or anyone, you know, from our immigrant community or anyone you dont have to have insurance to get tested. If you are exhibiting at least one symptom, we will test you. So you can go online or call 311 and we will get you tested. So i think that the good news is that we expanded our testing casity. Scapacity. So were able to provide the opportunities more than we ever had before. So theres no reason for anyone in San Francisco to not get tested right now if they need to, if they exhibit at least one symptom of covid19. And i also want to be clear that our essential workers can get tested in general. So what we want to be able to do is that we want to expand that even further. Because ultimately the goal is to make sure that as people get back to work that we have Testing Capacity to get people tested. In general. Because even if i get tested today, its negative. Well, im around people tomorrow, and the possibility of me getting the virus is possible still. So it doesnt just go away because of a test. So we have to make sure that testing is readily available at any given time for anyone. So im really excited about our Testing Capacity. So, again, no reason that anyone cant get tested who exhibits symptoms or our essential workers for any of these reasons. Thank you so much for that, mayor. One more followup question as well with schools remaining closed through the rest of this academic year, will more Child Care Services be available as more people return to work . Mayor london breed yeah, and i believe so for sure. The good news is that were offering child care for essential workers right now in our Health Care Industry and our Public Safety industry. And our goal is not only to expand that as we have space available, but it also is to expand it as we have more testing. And so right now were having conversations with our Public Health department about what does it mean for summer camp. What does this mean for things that we want to be available to kids but we also want to not only protect the children that we want to have these opportunities, we want to make sure that the workforce and their parents and others have access to this testing. Testing, Contact Tracing, those sorts of things are going to be key when we start to allow various industries to reopen in San Francisco, along with the guidelines, just like what were doing with construction, just like what were doing right now with Outdoor Services like a number of flower shops and nurseries and kiosks and outdoor businesses, setting guidelines in place and allowing those industries to open. We want to do that with more industries. But that happens as we have also more testing capacities which we are seeing occur. And im really excited about that for the future. Thank you, mayor breed. Director josh arce, would you like to add anything . You know, i thought that, mayor breed, this might be a good place to say to any students or parents that might be watching that you can apply for the mayors opportunity for all Summer Internship Program which is preparing to launch again in june and taking applications for online internship through the Human Rights Commission. Should we share that link with everybody . Mayor london breed i hope that you know the link. [laughter]. And from director davis its www. Opps4allsf. Org. And well have these links posted at the end of the video feed. Mayor london breed and then also i think that, you know, if you have questions and theres a lot of information overload, you can always call 311. Thank you, mayor breed. We have had several questions around skills and Training Programs which are going to be essential to getting folks back to work who have lost positions in this crisis. Lets start with this question with rudy and then josh. How are we preparing people who have lost their jobs for Employment Opportunities when the city reopens . And its going to be such a tight market. Thank you for that question. The first thing were doing is identifying where the greatest needs are. And in some industries the road will be longer to recovery. So its important that we get into those workplaces and identify who needs reskilling or upskilling and different forms of training. And i think that its important to note that some of the existing models that the city has worked very closely with organized labor and our Public Education institutions Like City College and departments like joshs and city build, provide a good framework for us to start modeling this. In fact, just recently director arce and i were part of a collaboration and the city was able to directly address some workers at munch sconi center that will have a longer road to recovery in the trade and show sector. They accessed funds through the state of california and set up a collaborative model where well be partnering with a high road Union Apprenticeship training to help hundreds of workers at musconi to transition into viable career paths in the construction industry. So i think that unique to this recession is that we are going to have certain sectors of the economy continue. Some will even thrive. And its going to be up to us to collaborate to make sure that we deliver those Training Programs directly to the workers who need it. Im particularly excited about this opportunity of musconi, because i think that it shows a Great Partnership not only the city and organized labor who have these Training Programs already set up, but it also highlights the importance of San Franciscos role with respect to the Governors Administration and the e. D. D. Without those partnerships, these kind of models wouldnt be possible. So were really excited to think through how do we provide some of those skills in a new virtual setting and how do we model then so they can be rolled out at scale. While some workers are just kind of waiting for the next round of orders to come out, we know that others will face a much tougher road and will have a longer ways to go. So we want to get into that segment of the workforce and Many Industries so that we can provide not just new skills or certifications, but real career paths. So that people can recover, you know, in their own family life. And, thank you, michelle. This example that rudy mentions, because mayor breed has in so many ways primed the workforce for this moment. And i think back to not much more than a year ago when the chariot drivers lost their drivers and mayor breed convened our office and m. T. A. , Teamsters Union and mission to meet these workers who had been driving private shuttles and to train them through a new program, city drive, to become muni Bus Operators and commercial drivers. When we got the call from rudy its a logical next step to have that coordination and to connect with the Workforce Development board and e. D. D. And to really think of options here. Its only at the end of last week that we i think that 10 days ago is when we started this conversation and just at the end of last week, as rudy said, the state e. D. D. Announced theyre awarding one Million Dollars to train several hundred of those men and women to become Union Construction apprentices through city build. So that kind of work with labor, Community Partners, to think of new Training Programs is something that i know that were focused on every day, Nonprofit Service provider partners are out there. And most Community Partners that we support are still operating virtually. Neighborhood job centers, i have mentioned some already, as well as Success Center and the young developers, and hospitality house in the tenderloin, and the inner city youth, you can connect to these great organizations through oewd. Org. And theyre working through the Service Agencies right now to hire onsight monitors at 24anhour each which is a great opportunity and our hospitality is working with one fair wage and the state of california to support high roads to kitchens and working to support restaurant workers in partnership with our Human Services agency. The cannabis industry is hiring and they really need our help, but, again, its just about most importantly that were connected and that our website is oewd. Org, as mayor breed said, you can call me, call any of us, were just here to support you and stay connected as we have been charged by our mayor. Yes, thank you so much. Another thing that id like to add is that during this time is that you felt that you were underemployed or just existing in employment, this could be a perfect storm for you. And when we say underemployed we mean if you were working fulltime and partners in your household were working fulltime and you were not making ends meet with the employment that you were in, this could be a great time to go to oewd. Org and check out the training. Most of these trainings are not over 18 weeks and it will land you into quality employment. Next question ill ask of josh. Given the changing landscape of work, what sort of retraining and reeducating programs is the city developing to equip people for jobs . Thanks, michelle. Mayor breed has spoken of the need for us to adapt our workforce to the new normal. And the fact is that we get notices from employers laying off workers. And since march 1, we have received nearly 300 of such notices of companies laying off employees in San Francisco and that impacts more than 33,000 workers out there. Nearly half of these companies are in the accomodation and food service industry. So we know that these are areas where we need to focus and we have talked about some of those ideas and well look forward to connecting with our partners to do even more of that. Health care and tech are still hiring and we think that those are going to be Key Industries that well hear through the Economic Recovery Task force where we will see opportunities. And Health Care Academy partners are signing up and theres tech s. F. , and its still taking applications to train in the tech industry. And theres free training thanks to Linkedin Learning and zen desk where you can certify for free and their platform, which opens up more opportunities for you in recovery. And opportunities for all that we mentioned is a really important way as mayor breed has said to plant seeds for our young people. Both in an ordinary economy, and certainly postcovid. And apprenticeship, not just in construction but tech and health care and commercial driving, we expect to be a key to our workforce strategy during recovery. And, again, our Community Partners are out there doing the work to support you. We have received an additional 675,000 from the state e. D. D. For general Supportive Services to support workers that are laid off to be able to do these kind of trainings and thats something that you can learn more about, again, to upskill or reskill and to really prepare for this through our website oewd. Org. Thank you, josh, for that. And also if you go to mission missionhiringcall. Org you can apply for city build at that website. And you can apply for the Construction Administration and training and professional services academy. This is an answer for folks who do not wish to put on a tool belt. You can work inside construction companies. And the training is just 18 weeks. And we also Security Guard training free of charge. And we also offer placement into hospitality positions. This question, the next question that we have here is about the impact to our most vulnerable workers. Ill ask this one of everyone. Starting with mayor breed and then josh and then rudy. How is the city helping workers in sectors like arts, nonprofits and other fields where the workers may have already been struggling before the coronavirus pandemic . Mayor london breed ill tell you the one thing that weve been able to do, fortunately, with not just our city workers, but with many of the nonprofit workers that the city has contracts with, we have been able to honor our commitment to those contracts which have allowed us to continue to pay many of our nonprofit providers. And so that has been incredible. We have not had to stop funding even though our city faces a 1. 1 billion to 1. 7 billion budget deficit. We actually repurposed i think that i cant remember the exact amount but i think that it was around 2 million or so for art support to give to Arts Organizations and to give to artists. Because, you know, these musicians and people who this is their livelihood and they dont have the ability to get by. If you, for example, play live music once a week and thats how you make ends meet, and now youre not playing live music anywhere anymore, these artists are suffering. Theres a number of Arts Organizations that are suffering. So we have repurposed some of our dollars and grant money that were not directly committed and we are digging deep to find more to support artists and people in our arts community. And, in fact, give to s. F. , they may qualify for, give to s. F. , we started to partner with both to partner with the private dollars and the public dollars for food security, for housing, and for Small Businesses. And we work with many nonprofits to try to distribute the Resources Available to get the money in the hands of people right away through some of these particular programs. But it continues to be a challenge because we have had money that we put into these pots and it runs out quickly. And we have, of course, wait lists of people who need resources, which is why im constantly not only raising money, but trying to scrap up city money in order to combine those resources to provide that to people that we know that are already struggling. So well continue to do that. Thank you so much, mayor breed. These are all great resources. Keep in mind that the small the communitybased organizations all over the city are working hard and theyre ready to go to work as soon as we unshelter to help to you access every one of these services and trainings that we talked about here today. Mayor london breed well, a lot of the nonprofits, just so you know, are still working. Theyre still helping us in various xa capacities. Definitely those managing our shelters and those working with the homeless population, they have not stopped working. They are putting themselves in harms way in order to take care of people on a regular basis. So there are some organizations, even before the pandemic really hit our city and they were out doing the work around outreach and educating people about what is what the coronavirus is and some of the recommendations and things to do or not to do and who to call for resources. So our relationships with our nonprofits is really important in not only communicating but distributing the resources that we have through give to s. F. Were working with organizations to identify the people who are most in need and who to contribute those resources to. So we appreciate that. And were hopeful that we can maintain it. But we are looking at a very challenging future for this city with our anticipated budget deficits. Thank you, mayor breed. We have time for one last question and its about economic recovery. Id like to go,a round to al, af the panelists, starting with mayor breed. How can we ensure as the city begins its recovery that every San Franciscoians has a chance to succeed in this new normal. Mayor london breed im sorry . How can we ensure that every San Franciscoian has a chance to succeed in this new normal . Mayor london breed well, unfortunately, thats going to be very challenging. Its going to be challenging, sadly, because of our deficit. Because of whats happening with our economy, and it doesnt mean that we dont try to come together to figure out ways in which we can really focus on, you know, making sure that exactly what josh and what rudy talked about is looking at people in various industries and making sure that if their industry is going under or those Job Opportunities are no longer available, and then how do we help them to shift what theyre doing. And thats going to be really important. Thats how were going to be able to ensure support for our city workforce. Its going to be tough. There are no plans in the near future. Tourism is going to continue to be very challenging. So when you think about it, the people who work at the Convention Centers and the people who work at the hotels and the folks who work at restaurants where well need to make changes to the restaurant industry. A lot of folks are going to suffer. What we have to be prepared to do, exactly what josh talked about, when the chariot drivers lost their jobs, well, they could drive one of those big vans for chariot, they can drive muni. So what a great and they get paid more. So i think that thats a lot of what were going to be doing is helping to make it easier for people to shift whatever industry they might be working in and making sure that the programs match what is available. So, for example, were not going to be out of the woods on the coronavirus for some time until theres a vaccine. And Contact Tracing along with testing will be a critical part in trying to help to keep people safe. Well, we need thousands of people to do Contact Tracing. So training people and getting them equipped with what that entails could be a stepping stone to another opportunity. But its the kinds of things that well need to do in order to try to support everyone. It will be challenging, but we are committed to this, and thats why im i have a lot of confidence in the Economic Recovery Task force with a number of people from labor, people from academic world, folks with the city departments, folks from nonprofits and from the communities and from the arts communities. Like, the goal is to come up with the right plan of action for people in various industries so that we make it less challenging on people than im sure that it already is. And thats what were committed to. Thank you, mayor. Josh, would you like to chime in . Yeah, thank you again, thank you again, mayor breed and to the panel because a few of the ideas that we talked about here and then we have heard in the questions are some cues for what we can think about in recovery. 10 years ago we had federal stimulus dollars and economic stimulus resources that we may see again, i know that were all advocating under the mayors leadership and to our speaker and governor to make the case for any resources that we can. The mayors example of Sick Leave Fund was a partnership between our office and Human Services agency. And with the 10 million fund we saw applications to support nearly 21,000 different workers giving us a framework to think about. If we could have those stimulus dollars again to implement those programs, and it could be built out again. Supporting our immigrant workers, and families that give to s. F. Dollars that mayor breed has helped to secure that will soon deploy to those workers who may not be eligible for any other form of relief because of immigration status, working with partners such as the Human Rights Commission and Latino Task Force and the Labor Council and others wh that are some of e ways to do what mayor breed charged with us each before this started to leave no one behind. We were just starting a collaborative right before this started under the coordination of hospitality house and joe wilson, his team and Tiffany Jackson with the homeless advocates and workers advocates of formerly homeless job seekers to really create a new system, a multidepartmental system working with the community that weve got to return to that too. And it was also policies and our local hiring policy for construction started 10 years ago. And ideas that we can obviously catalyze a return to the Economic Prosperity that we had, and we will have once again. But using these policies to truly make sure that no one is left behind because by the end of that moment of prosperity we saw disparities such as unemployment within the African American Community Disproportionately low compared to everyone else in this city. And many of our women of color, and Public Housing residents who are not able to share in that income and that wealth as we rebuild. And its going to be tough as the mayor said. But as we rebuild weve got all of the right partners from community, labor and businesses and mayor, and the supervisors and the agencies and everyone coming together to do this through the task force to do these kind of policies, to come together and well look forward to that hard work to get us back. Thank you so much for that, josh. Rudy, would you like to chime in with a closing statement on recovery . Sure, thanks, michelle. In terms of the Economic Recovery Task force, i think that the frame here is that we have to be deliberate. So if were going to talk about a recovery that serves everybody and provides opportunity, you know, were going to have to focus energy on that question. And the Recovery Task force framework, theres sort of three areas or three work areas around job and business and a work group dedicated to that, and Economic Development and a work group dedicated to that. And im proud that theres a vulnerable Populations Work Group to think about these questions and these issues, through an equity lens, right and to think about how do we lift people up. I dont think that it will happen on accident or by chance. Its going to happen because of political leaders, of Community Leaders and overall a level of engagement that brings everybody into the conversation. I want to say that i think that it also counts on some of the outcomes that were seeing at the federal level. Im very proud that our national aflcio is mobilizing our 12. 5 million members to lobby and to push to make sure that local government gets taken care of in the next stimulus package. All of the extraordinary efforts from p. P. E. To testing, to making sure that nonprofits and Vulnerable Community groups are being taken care of at the city level requires that the federal level of our government recognize that and then to provide resources, funding, money. So were fighting for that very hard as an organized movement. And i also want to say they think that our local government will play a key role in defining what recovery feels like for all people. Our local government really has an opportunity, not only as the representatives of the people, but as the largest employer in San Francisco, well have an opportunity to speak our values in this recovery. And i think that it starts with health care. I know that the city has been a leader on that. The mayor has been working diligently as she said with the ahcao and money and there are policies that we can look to really make sure that everybody recovers in San Francisco. So were excited and were ready to get to work on the Economic Recovery Task force and thank you again for the opportunity to participate in this panel. Thank you, rudy. And thank you all who have participated in this today. Mayor breed, thank you for having us. And one last thought on recovery. As we go back to work and everyone else joins the others now working, lets keep in mind our safety. This isnt the kind of skim over emails from our employer and advising us of policy and procedures. Weve got to keep safety as paramount and at the utmost top of our minds while we go back to work. Because weve got to keep families safe. As the mayor said were not through this yet but weve got to keep working together. Thank you, mayor breed and i turn this back over to you. Mayor london breed thank you. And let me say, michelle, i know that you have a lot of questions and i want to make sure that were able to answer them. So feel free to turn them over to josh. And hell followup. We want to be a resource for people and so if theres any questions, please reach out to us. The website is oewd. Org. Call 311, and we understand that it is probably frustrating to go through this process of applying for unemployment on your own and needing documents and not getting a response. Though we dont have direct control over this particular state agency, we want to be helpful. For example, if youre struggling for unemployment and youre waiting for a check and if we have a resource to provide support or food or something of that nature, we dont want you to have to wait for unemployment to get help. If theres something available in our city we want to help as much as we can. And so we appreciate the opportunity to be here. Well continue to do everything that we can to support our workforce. As we go through the challenges of our budget, keeping people employed and making sure that people have employment options is really so important to taking care of the people of this city and also our economic recovery health. That is so desperately needed. So were counting on all of us to do our part in providing information as well as getting information and making the decisions based on whats best for the people that were here to serve. So i really appreciate all of you and all of the work that youre all doing on the frontlines. We really are in this together. And i want to see us emerge as a stronger, better city for our workforce more than ever as a result of this unexpected pandemic. And i think that by working together we will. So thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. This is march 20th, 2020 meeting of the San Francisco police commission. I apologize to everyone and we were experiencing quite a few technical difficulties to log on to the meeting so im sorry that were Getting Started a little bit late. And im sorry that you guys cant see me right now but im placing my hand over my heart and if everyone else on the commission and the staff would place their hands over their heart so we can recite the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So we would be remiss in having a meeting in may without acknowledging that this is law