Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Full Board Of Supervisors 20240712

Oppose this bill, and i thank you for bringing forward this resolution. Clerk thank you for your comments. There are about ten callers in the queue. Well take the next caller. You have up to two minutes. Welcome, caller. I work at sun tattoo in San Francisco, and im just adding my support for item 28. I would like tattoo businesses to reopen as soon as june 19, especially since all the other shops are open in california outside the bay area. Everybody touched on sterilization and a clean environment. Because of that, i everyone and i work with understand how to prevent cross contamination and provide a safe experience for everyone involved, certainly safer than businesses that are already open. Thanks krerk clerk great. Thank you f clerk great. Thank you for your comment. Next caller. Im calling on item 24, and i strongly support the resolution to support senator Nancy Skinners state bill. Im asking to join supervisors peskin, row anyonen, and fewer refuse the bill unless properly amended. The Public Participation in the planning process would be removed with Affordable Housing mon dated. Please vote in an expanded housing density law. Lets not let sacramento determine housing in San Francisco. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Hello . Is that me . Clerk yes, welcome. My name is chad, and im a tattoo artist. I own a house and have a family. Ive been a tattoo artist for 20 years. We are struggling, and it makes it hard to struggle for three months and support our families. Opening our shops help out more than just our businesses, it helps our families lives that are struggling. So please dont just consider Tattoo Parlors, think about other people who are suffering, as well. Clerk if you are interested in getting in the queue, best to get in sooner rather than later. If you havent already, press starthree on your phone to get into the queue. All right, operations, please send the next caller through. Welcome. Youll have up to two minutes. Hello. My name is jeff gleason. I am a professional tattoo artist in the city of San Francisco, and i am calling on behalf of my Tattoo Community to support item 28, dr. Aragon, and opening tattoo shops by june 19. As you know, we uphold ourselves in the highest standards of sanitation and cleanliness, and i am confident that any new guidelines set forth for our industry reopening would see a seamless transition on our end. My last day of work was march 13. My unemployment ends in july. I am a father of two. I have a mortgage. My savings are dwindling by the day. My Mortgage Lender does not have a reasonable forebearance option for me, and i need to get back to work as soon as possible. I feel like im in jeopardy of losing my home, and my family is scared. One shop i know in San Francisco has closed its doors for good, and will not be reopening, and it has been a sad and huge loss for our community. I would like to reity rate what giovanni mentioned about San Francisco being a Global Destination point for tattoo collectors all over the world. People specifically travel here to get tattoos have artists here. If we cannot get those people here, people will leave one by one, and our place in tattooing will be diminished. I am confident in my ability in tattooing and my colleagues ability, and i trust my clients to adhere to any guidance we set in front of them. I appreciate your letting me speak, and i appreciate gyour consideration getting us back to work as soon as possible. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have two minutes. Hi. My name is guillermo. I am calling in support of item 28. I work at moms tattoo and piercing shop located on the haight. I would like for our shop and our neighbors shop to reopen on june 19. We practice clean and Sterile Services regularly. We are ready to make adjustments to serve our clients and the community during this pandemic. This is all we can do at this point. I oppose bill 24, hurting the communities of color and lowincome families, and it only benefits big business. Please do the right thing, let us open. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. And welcome, next speaker. Youll have up to two minutes. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. My name is hallie, and i own idle hands tattoo. My shop has been open since 2004. Im calling in support of item 28 and dr. Aragon supporting opening the next round of businesses as soon as june 19. Our clients are requesting appointments, and while we have to turn them away, it is very easy for them to drive over the bridge and get tattooed by somebody else. I am also aware that med spas were allowed to open in San Francisco yesterday, and similar to tattoos, med spas perform all types of nonessential and beautifying services which technicians and clients are in close proximity for extended period of times, and yet, with the exception of med spas, this community does not have the training that the Tattoo Community really has. It really seems that tattooing has been overlooked when deciding who may and may not open. The only updates needed to add to our time tests methods and protocols would be to wear face masks and lower the number of people inhabiting our space, which were already willing to follow in our updated guidelines. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. We have ten callers in the queue. Hello. Is this me . Clerk hello. You have ten minutes. Welcome. Hi. Thank you so much for having me on on this. Im calling in support of item 28 and dr. Aragon. My name is nathan, and im a San Francisco firefighter. In response to an earlier caller, as a frontline worker, i would say that i i support tattoo shops opening and probably most of my coworkers do. The according to the San Francisco p. I. O. , the Fire Departments, and our chief, zero members of the San Francisco Fire Department have tested positive for covid, so it shows by taking the proper precautions, masks, gloves, what have you, we can prevent the spread of this virus, so i dont see any reason for the tattoo shopping not being allowed to reopen. I think with the sterilization and all of that, theyre at the front of this situation daily. And im with the San Francisco Fire Department, and not a Single Member has tested positive. We support item 28 and dr. Aragon. Thank you for your time. Clerk thank you for finding us and for providing us your comments. Next speaker, please. Yes. My name is jonathan rider, and im also a firefighter with sfrichk Fire Department. Im also calling you in support of item 28 and dr. Aragons opening of tattoo shops soon or sooner than june 19. As a frontline Emergency Service provider, i understand whats necessary to prevent the spread of covid19, and im convinced that s. F. Tattoo industry is prepared to safely operate. They already have the great understanding and training and the health and safety. I think theres far less risk of covid19 spreading in their industry than anywhere else. Youre taking a bigger risk going to a Grocery Store or gas station than you are to a Tattoo Parlor just simply because of their training and their experience. Ive got two little girls at home, and im a fireman, as i said, and im in contact with covid19 patients, and i wouldnt take a chance with their lives. I just think the tattoo industry is far more prepared than the other industries, in fact, and in reopening and preventing covid19. Id like to ask your help to save our local economy and maintain our local san franciscans by opening our Tattoo Parlors, and thank you for your time. Clerk thank you for your work that you and your fellow caller do to protect our residents. Thank you for your comments. Well come, caller. You have up to two minutes to provide the board of supervisors your public comments. Hello. Clerk welcome. I just want to throw my support behind item number 28, dr. Aragons proposal to open up tattoo shops. My name is derek, and ive been tattooing for over 14 years. Prior to that, i had a career in frontline workers, ai was a e. M. S. , and before that, home care. These protocols are something that weve been prepared in since the day you start as a tattooer. Something that hasnt been touched upon is how much our tattoo shops support the local economy in our own neighborhood and our own businesses. Our clients get food next door, they get coffee. They are patrons of the block not only to our own financial benefit but to everyone in our community, so i think in pushing this forward, youre not only supporting the tattoo artists who everyone has touched base with, makes the city richer, more diverse, but youre also helping those neighborhoods that have been affected by this covid on very severe financial terms, so i hope that you consider not only tattooers but the community at large for bringing some type of financial benefits to all of us. Thank you for your time. Clerk thank you for your comments. We have seven callers in the queue. Next caller, please. You have two minutes to provide your comments to the board of supervisors. Welcome. This is rick hall, member of united to save the mission. Im speaking in support of item 24, the resolution to oppose sb 1085. Youve heard from peter and others about the saying that this bill in particular with regard to San Francisco, but id also like to ask you to take some resolutions or Rapid Actions to oppose many other bills. 1085 and many other land use bills are being rushed through our state Assembly Members and senators and being heard in only one policy Committee Per house due to the pandemic. The public and you guys are busy and distracted, responding to the pandemic and recovery, answering the call for social justice and Police Reform and its associated social unrest. You guys and the people of california arent able to keep up with these bills right now. Many of them will lead to speculation, gentrification, further Racial Discrimination in housing and will provide little if any additional Affordable Housing. The bills im talking about include sb 1120, sb 902, ab 979, ab 3107, sb 995, ab 2345, ab 3040, and ab 3234. The theme of this years bill seems to all these bills seems to be taking away input by local electeds, including our Planning Commission and board of supervisors and we, the citizens. Circumvent clerk thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is scott. Im in section 9. I own and operate a tattoo par lar lore in San Francisco. I dont see parlor in San Francisco. Its obvious we run a sterile, clean, professional industry. Were regulated by the board of health, not to mention osha and the state and all that blah, blah, blah. So as a community of tattooers and tattoo shops, we love and respect our community, and i expect our city and our City Council Members to love and respect us in the same passion and show us the due respect that we have to be able to provide us with being able to make our own living, making our own choices, and yeah, thats it. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you, caller. Next speaker, please. Well come, caller welcome, caller. Youll have up to two minutes to provide your comments to the board of supervisors. Hello. Clerk hi, welcome. We can hear you. Hi. So i just wanted to call in. My name is steve rodriguez. I work in the city as a fireman, and i just wanted to voice my support for item 28 and dr. Aragon. I get tattooed in San Francisco and just would really like to see them reopen as theyre well prepared and well versed in sterilization more than most other businesses that would set to be reopen on june 19. So id like to see them open june 19, and thank you for your time. Clerk thank you for your comments. Thank you for keeping our community safe. There are four callers in the queue. There are also a number of you listening. If youre interested in joining the queue, which goes really quickly at the end. Please press starthree. Welcome, caller. You have up to two minutes. Is this me . Clerk this is you. Welcome. Thanks. To whom it may concern, im calling in support of item 28 and dr. Aragon. I am a restaurant worker who is out of work for medical reasons right now. I have been getting tattooed in San Francisco since 2011. I got my first tattoo here. The tattoo industry is what taught me to be comfortable in my own skin, and having them out of work and having their families not supported right now is hurting for a lot of us, too, in other industries, and opening them on june 19 would be a a very good move, i think, because the support that ive found in this community through tattooing has definitely been, like, a friendship among some of them and a lot of them, and thats all. Thanks. Clerk thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Welcome, caller. Hello . Clerk yes, hello, we can hear you. Its me . Clerk yes. Thank you. My name is joanne, and im a housekeeper. Ive lived in San Francisco for 13 years. Im a proud member of united local 2. I want to talk item 23. In my family of four, we have been affected the worst because of covid19. My husbands job is also connected to the hotels, so it is very important for us that all hotels reopen safe and strong. The hotels are saying they should. Im worried that the guests wont come back unless they charge our hotel as safe and clean. There is no business, we have no work. We should not make sure that our hotel we should make sure that our hotels, our spaces, are for everyone, and we should make sure that our hotels in San Francisco are cleanest in the world. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. Next speaker. We have five speakers in the queue. You have up to two minutes. Hello . Clerk hello. Welcome. All right. My name is jeff, and i tattoo in San Francisco like so many other callers. I am calling in regards to item 28, and im not going to repeat everything that everybodys said over and over, but one thing id like to repeat that hasnt been said that much is most tattoo shops see a limited number of people per day, and we are able to limit it even more if need be, and there are far less people involved in the daytoday operations of a tattoo shop or Grocery Store or, say, many hair salons, and id just like to add my comment to the group. Thank you very much. Clerk great. Thanks for finding us. Thank you for your comments. Next caller. We have six callers in the queue. Thank you. Hello, members of the board of supervisors. My name is gail gilman, a 20 year resident of district 3. Im calling to support item 28 and dr. Aragon, but as a resident of the city, i ask that the board of supervisors insist on clarity of regulation. There has been confusion over whether the state guidelines supersede San Franciscos guidelines, and theres confusion for many small restaurant and bar owners on how to open their businesses to be successful. Everyone wants their workers safe through the state, and while i fully support San Francisco submitting their assertation certificate to the state, i ask that there are guidelines and support in helping those small family owned businesses reopen in San Francisco. Many of them have small foot prints, and they need guidance in reopening under covid19. Thank you very much for your hard work. I really appreciate your leadership in the time of this pandemic. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. I hope i had the microphone on when i said thank you, commissioner gilman. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Welcome, caller. Yeah, hello . Clerk its your turn. Its your turn. My name is ben mcqueen hi. My name is ben mcqueen, and im calling in support of item number 28 and dr. Aragon, shops oepgs pening on june 19. I tattoo, and i dont need to go into what everyone else has told you about our high standards of cleanliness and standards. We are anxious to get back to open per state guidelines, limit the number of people in the shop, mask, temperatures at the door, all that good stuff, so yeah, i just want to put my name in for calling in support of item 28. Thank you guys so much. Clerk great. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Welcome, caller. You have up to two minutes. Hello. My names henry crinkle. My friends call me hank. Im calling to support getting tattoo shops open in a couple of weeks. Im a homeowner in the city. I work for the city, and i come into close contact with covid19 patients with appropriate p. P. E. And social distancing. I tested negative a couple of weeks ago. To put that in perspective, i think a business like a Tattoo Parlor with appropriate safeguards should be allowed to reopen. You might consider opening Tattoo Parlors to keep the tourist industry going in north beach. It could be part of the key to getting our economy going tattoo shops, tourist industry. Im a member of a small gym on balboa and la playa, derek. I think it would be hea heartbreaking to see him go out of business. I urge you to open businesses like his soon. I just got a haircut in the last week just down the street from where Governor Newsom works in sacramento, and it made me think of all the protocols they take to ensure our safety. Thank y i think they should be allowed to reopen. Clerk thank you for your comments. We have five callers in the queue. Welcome, caller. Hi. My name is susie horn. Im a firefighter in San Francisco. Im calling for the safe and immediate reopening of tattoo shops. Ive gotten tattooed in the city for the past ten years, and these people are these artists are the soul of our city, and i hate to see them having to leave the city, so i just encourage i encourage you to take this into consideration, and i appreciate your time. Clerk thank you for your comments and for keeping our community safe. Next speaker, please. Welcome, caller. You have up to two minutes. Hello, caller . Welcome. Okay. Operations . Hello. My name is zachary, and i live in the mission district, and i apologize if this is not the right time to bring this up rngs b, but im totally in support of the tattoo shops opening up. I can absolutely find no information on when the libraries are opening up. I volunteer with the mutual aid program, so im talking requwi lots of seniors on a daily basis, none of whom have access to the internet and all the Vital Services that they require. There are a lot of Senior Citizens in the city that havent yet gotten their stimulus check because they havent filed, and as a nonfiler, they need a computer to be able to do. Great that tattoo shops are going to be reopening, but how are we going to be getting Senior Citizens access to the internet . Clerk we have two speakers in the queue. If you are interested in getting in the line, press starthree, to get in the queue. The end of the line will go very quickly. Next caller, please. Good morning. Im bobbie lopez calling in support of the resolution under item 24. Take our word from the senates own legislative analyst who, in their may 22 Senate Housing report stated while the vote is intended to incentivize the building of more units, this may have the result of reducing Affordable Housing units. This bill will have a very specific unintended consequence because the bottom line for developers, building higher income means higher return. This bill is being discussed on thursday, and lets not undo all the progress being made by local housing activists. Say no to 1085 or amend 1085, and thank you so much, supervisors, for your leadership. Clerk thank you, bobbie. Hope youre doing well. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. This is the last call for speakers. We have three speakers in the queue. Welcome, caller. Hello. Clerk hi, welcome. Hi. Is this me . Clerk yes, its you. Hello, board of supervisors. My name is arturo, and i want to begin with ten seconds of silence in honor of the people who pass away from covid19. Dear Board Members, do not ignore the taxi industry. This matter is bad for us. The financial situation is bad. We need to talk with San Francisco credit union and tell them to help us. We want to say thank you to the supervisor ryan for the 1825 that will be helpful. I hope that they will help us. I want to say thank you to everybody, and they want to congratulate mr. Peskin for his birthday tomorrow. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments, sir. All right. Operations, next speaker, please. Welcome, caller. Youll have up to two minutes. Hi there. My name is martin, and im a Small Business owner here in San Francisco and a tattoo collector. I have been going to get tattoos for years, and i can assure you that their practices for hygiene and cross contamination should be followed by every other business type in San Francisco. In fact, when the covid crisis first started, my cannabis dispensary was having a hard time finding p. P. E. And Hand Sanitizer and bacteriaal cleaning equipment, and i asked my local tattoo shops if they had anything they could share because all shops were closed, and they provided me with antibacterial cleaning agents and latex glovest for me to protect myself and my customers. So im impressed on how clean tattoo shops are. They cleanup after every single client, thoroughly clean the stations, and i just think they should be allowed to reopen because theyre actually one of the most hygienically clean businesses in the city. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. There are two callers in the queue. Next caller, please. Welcome, caller. This is just in regards to item 28, dr. Aragon. I just wanted to speak on reopening tattoo shops. Its a matter of hygienic safety, and i just want to help push it forward for our community to start working and help the economy in San Francisco because everyone really wants to get tattooed, and thats about it. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments, sir. All right. I think we have another caller on the line. Welcome, caller. Hello . Let me start with id like to voice my support for our local f. B. I. For the hard work that theyve been doing for a number of years in regards to the public corruption in San Francisco. I would like to urge that two prominent san franciscans or used to be san franciscans, they should turn themselves in before they are publicly humiliated later on in the process, so im kind of talking on their above, that they should turn themselves in, speak what they know in the investigation, and then, well all have the complete story. In fact in my opinion, once the complete story is known, itll be a great t. V. Movie because it spans so many years in the history of San Francisco, and i expect it will all come out. Also, id like to make a friendly reminder to the City Attorney that there is a certain file still sitting in his office that has not been publicly disclosed. I think if hes really serious about public corruption, he should at least disclose the file and let everybody determine whether that person is not guilty or guilty. I think the public should at least have a chance to see the file rather than having it being hidden overall these years. And also, one more thing is that the Ethics Commission still needs a lot of work, and if ed lees legacy is to be heard, i think we should have a public discussion of that because i think his legacy is slowly but surely changing. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. Were going to thank all the callers who called today while operations checks if there are any other callers in the queue. Operations . Operator madam clerk, that completes the queue. Clerk okay. Thank you. Mr. President . Sblie sbie [please stand by] lets just take a motion, mr. President , to rescind the vote and well save the time. The motion made to rescind the vote. Second. Role call. On motion through 427, supervisor mar. Aye. Supervisor peskin. Aye. Supervisor preston. Aye. Supervisor ronen. Aye. Supervisor safaye. Ayep. Supervisor stephanie. Aye. Supervisor walton. Aye. Supervisor yee. Aye. Supervisor fewer. Aye. Supervisor ha iriney. Aye. Supervisor mandelman. There are 11 ayes. Lets go to number 24, supervisor peskin. Thank you, president yee and colleagues. There president sorry, ill just read the items to the public. Item 24, resolution to oppose California State Senate bill number 1085, authored by senator Nancy Skinner and to amend 25 for the local planning and Affordable Housing tools. Thank you, president yee. And thank you colleagues and my apologies for not suffering that in my discussion and thank you to the members of the public who have weighed in over the last hour and a half. With regard to item 24, i would like to regale all of your colleagues and members of the public with the long history that starts in the year 2001 when my then colleague, supervisor mark leno, later on senator mark leno, to have the first inclusion housing policy as a matter of law in the city and county of San Francisco at 10 and that number went up and down over time and, unfortunately, in the year 2012 was ensconced in the charter in the year 2016, in the month of june and the voters of San Francisco voted on a Charter Amendment authored by then supervisor jane kim, coauthored by this supervisor that took that out of the charter and has returned this to a dynamic instrument in San Francisco and the measure that is before us today opposes a piece of state legislation that would otherwise preempt our local inclusionary Housing Ordinance particularly around the bonus as it relates to inlieu fees on state bonus density units and i want to thank all of my colleagues. I think that almost every member of the board of supervisors has affixed their name as a cosponsor to this resolution urging our senator or actually berkley senator Nancy Skinner and our delegation to drop this or oppose this. So thank you to, i think, almost every member of the board for your cosponsorship. With that, mr. President , i turn it back to you. Thank you very much, supervisor peskin an. I will let you know now that i will cosponsor. Madam clerk,con you call role on this, please. On item 24 role call . Are 11 ay session. Es. Ithis is adopted nancy unani. This is item 28. Since we rescinded the vote, we take 2527 and we dont forget those items. Thanks for reminding me. Lets take a vote on 25, 26 and 27. Supervisor mar on 2527. Aye. Supervisor peskin. Aye. Supervisor preston. Aye. Supervisor ronen. Aye. Supervisor safaye. Aye. Supervisor stephanie. Aye. Supervisor walton. Aye. Supervisor yee. Aye. Supervisor fewer. Aye. Supervisor hainey. Aye. Supervisor mandleman. Aye. There are 11 ayes. Madam clerk, number 28. Item 28 is a motion to support the Health Officers attestation for a local variance, to allow San Francisco to progress further into californias covid19 resilience roadmap as the Health Officer determined, is appropriate on local Health Conditions and preparing a letter of support. Ok, colleagues, these items before us today is with the department of Public Health is applying for cutting a variance to allow the county Health Officer and the department of Public Health more discretion to move more quickly or differently than what was laid out by the states roadmap for reopening. As you may or may not know, we are one of the few counties left that have not gotten a variance. The vast majority have done so. And we recognize that this is a very important step forward to allow local flexibility and we have to support reopening our businesses and returning people to work, but in the safest way possible. We also need to ensure that we are able to contain and prepare for any potential uptakes in the spread of the virus. In order to apply for this, the county must meet health and safety criteria on containing covid19 and including in their application a letter of support for thfrom the county board of supervisors. That is what we are deliberating today, on the motion from the board to direct the clerk to submit a letter of support for this variance application. Colleagues, we are joined today by an office at the thomas aragon, must be the most popular guy with tattoo businesses. I have to reread it. I thought this was about him, but evidently it wasnt. And, also, dr. Susan philip, the director of Public Health, dr. Kolfax and assessor, recorders carmen chu from the Economic Recovery Task force and i want to welcome back from former katie tang, who is now serving the city in the different capacity, supporting the department of Public Health during this time. If theres no objection, then we will allow them the opportunity to provide a brief presentation about the variance application and then, we will open up for discussion and i know that we are also previously submitted some questions thats been collected and we gave those questions to dr. Aragon and dr. Kolfax, i believe, and hopefully, in your presentation, you can answer as many of those as possible. And just s for the sake of time. I dont know whos going first. Is it dr. Aragon . Youre up first. It will be dr. Kolfax who will lead off. Ok. Hi, good evening, supervisors and grant kolfax, director of health for the city and county. And i want to thank you for your ongoing leadership and support during these unprecedented times of the covid19 pandemic here in our city. I just have a couple of slides. Could we go to the next slide, please. So as we enter a new phase of the Public Health crisis, we have begun reopening parts of our economy. But covid19 continues to be a major threat and, indeed, theres more virus circulating in the community than ever before. In this new normal we are in, we must balance the completing need between protecting covid19 and the consequences of sheltering in place. Today, and until we have a vaccine or effective treatment, the safest thing to do to avoid infection is to remain at home. But for many, this is not sustainable for months on end. As we reopen various sectors, we are operating under a shared risk framework with the understanding that we have not yet safe from the virus. And we must all assess our own risk tolerance for certain activity and the degree to which we put ourselves and others at risk. People in sanfrancisco have done a great job and our collective work must continue to reduce spread. Wear face coverings, practise hygiene and dont go to work if youre sick. There must also be an understanding that cases and hospitalizations of covid19 patients will likely increase as shelterinplace lifts. Our goal is to keep the rate of spread low and the curb as flat as possible. Our goal includes reducing morbidity and mortality as much as possible. And yet, a surge is still very possible, including one that overwhelms our Healthcare System despite our efforts and vigilance. Of course, we all hope that does not happen. And given the uncertainty of the viruses effects on our community, we need to be as flexible and use data and met armetrics is to all of this, we must protect our most Vulnerable Community and that is why its so important that our decisions are made through an equity lense. Next slide. So far, the decisions we have made have allowed San Francisco to slow the spread of the virus. As you can see on this slide, San Franciscos success is evidenced in comparison to many other communities. Cases and the number of deaths are well below counties like los angelos and jurisdictions like philadelphia and new york city. This is due to regulations, guidance and infrastructure that we have put in place since the beginning of the pandemic. Most important, these data reflect the actions and support of sanfranciscans. We have been able to ramp up testing in a way that many other communities have not been able to do so, a. As you can see on this slide, our rates higher than philadelphia, new york city or los angelos. That is why we are here today, to continue to move forward, expanding our efforts, doing everything we can to protect each other and the community as we go to in next phase and also understanding that there is a shared risk as we move into this next phase of our pandemic response. So now, i would like to turn it over to dr. Aragon to explain the various requests today. Thank you. Thank you. Next slide, please. Good evening, supervisors. Im the Health Officer of San Francisco and the director of the Population Health division at the San Francisco department of Public Health. Ill just give you a very brief history of how varients came about. If you require, there were Rural Counties that had very low burden of infections and no deaths. And so, they really pressured the state to give them a pathway go ahead and open up. So what the state did initially, they allowed they created what is called a variance to allow Rural Counties to go ahead and apply to start opening things up before other counties and then what happened next is that other parts of california, not the urban areas, but the more suburban areas, some of the more rural areas, they wanted to have access to be able to open up and the state was concerned if they started allowing too many counties to open up without verifying that theyre well prepared, that would not be a good idea. So then the second version of variance came about and that was to have counties attest to the preparedness to respond to covid so that theyre in the position as they open up to be able to mitigate the risk. And so, when that happened, that variance took on a different form and what the state ended up doing, they created two buckets. One bucket was here is what you can do statewide and it had a very small list of activities to do statewide and the other bucket was called the variance bucket. And what became pretty clear is that if you did not apply for a variance, you could not access any of the activities in the variance bucket. Initially, across the state, there was a thinking that the state would eventually go at its own pace, but the state has actually shifted, shifted to the current framework, which is here is what you can do statewide and here is what the variance counties can do. But that list is not going to move over to the statewide bucket. And so if we ever want to open any activity in the variance bucket, we have to apply for a variance. Just to give you a quick idea, a few things. For example, dinein restaurants, hair salons and barber shops, a Family Entertainment centers like movies, winery, bars, zoos, museums, gyms and fitness centers, hotels, and then all of the personal services from the nail salons, body art, tattoos, piercing, massage and all of those and so, basically, this is one of the reasons we have to apply for a variance so we can access those and then take it through our process of deciding how were going to open them up in a safe manner. Next slide. And so, i think ive summarized why the variance is really critical for us, is that we need to be able to look at everything were able to work with and then go through the process that as mr. Carmen chu will take you through what the Recovery Task force does to help restratify and basically, it will give us the power and the flexibility to do it in a way that will work for us, make sure that we align with whats happening in other bay area counties and most of the other bay area counties are applying for variances, as well, because theyre in the same situation that were in. And so, thats really the most important thing that i want to really emphasize today. So i think its very important for us to really make sure that we get this submitted and were going to meet all of the criteria and ill go over that in a second. And youll see that were going to continue to take a very thoughtful approach and also, as we move into this new phase really involved more stakeholders, we have been in a response mode and now were transitioning into, as the economy opens up, that were transitioning into a different planning mode. And so input from the board of supervisors will be critical as we move forward. Next slide. And so, the readiness criteria, basically what they want us to do is that want us to address all of these criteria. It doesnt mean that we have to have met every single one of them. They want us either to show weve met them or that were planning to meet them. And just to quickly take you through a few of those. Under the epidemiology criteria, which is the first one, those we have met in terms of hospitalizations and the percent of testing that is positive. And in terms of protection for stage one, essential workers, evacuee donweve done a tremendt on guidance to help protect the workforce and thats one of the reasons its labor intensive because a lot of work goes into making sure that we develop best practises that can be implemented by businesses. And in terms of testing capacity, were actually we just learned from the state that were one of the biggest testers in the state. Were pu surpassed our current goal. Theres a lot more to do but in terms of the benchmark we passed it. In terms of containment, same thing. When you look at the draft plan, right now for Contact Tracing, were a little bit above what is being required of us. They say 15 staff for 100,000 and terms of active works, we have 16. In terms of housing for persons experiencing homelessness and they were prescriptive on how we make these calculations. We used january count of 5,032 hotel Units Available, we can meet up to 30 of the need of that population and the requirement is that we be able to house 15 . Mr. President , im sorry to interrupt, but and with all respect, which i mean sincerely to dr. Aragon, should i hold my questions . Because hes speaking very bs speaking very quickly, to the end or as hes speaking, mr. President . What is your will. Youre on mute, mr. President. I would prefer him to finish up his presentation and have whoever else present. I will hold my questions until the end. I am making notes, and dr. Aragon, evacuee go weve gog but time so if you can slow down, that would be great. There are other speakers coming, as well. And the numbers that im quoting are on our San Francisco data tracker and you can go there and look under alternative housing and, basically, those are the numbers that were using. And in terms of hospital capacity, San Francisco has been very fortunate that we have been able to be prepared for surge and so were going to meet that one and were getting at the station from the different hospitals. And in the category under vulnerable populations, the focus there was on Skilled Nursing facilities and killed sd nursing facility is an important area in general. It represents 50 of all deaths and pretty much across the United States and in San Francisco, weve been very fortunate that weve had a very small number of deaths from the Skilled Nursing facilities compared to most places. And so were doing routine testing with staff and workers on a regular interval of every two to four weeks and in that category, were doing well. In the timeline, professor carmen chu will take you through that and one important point here is that we have opened up what were able to open up without a variance and so thats why we need to apply for the variance so that we can access the other categories that we want to be able to access. And the other thing that was announced today by dr. Kolfax, is that weve developed this is also on our state data tracker where weve taken the data and weve developed a colored coded system to help the public understand how were going to be monitoring the epidemic. And it focuses on three categories which is disease situation, Healthcare System and then disease control. And the most important categories that we focus on, which is hospitalizations and how quickly hospitalizations increase, thats the most stable indicater of how bad the pandemic is going. And also how fast hospitalizations are occurring is the earliyest warning that things are turning bad and that will be the most sensitive and specific indicater we have. One of the challenges is the number of cases tends to be partially driven by how much testing you do. And so, were looking at that, as well. Were looking at certain indicators, for example, the amount of ppe, and testing. And so thats that category. The last one i want to mention and dr. Susan philip is available, the one who will be doing an overview of the containment plan, if we have time to do that. And so the containment plan has a long list of categories here and as i mentioned before, we have been focusing primarily on response. Were beginning to do planning on how were going to do containment as we open up because we know infections will increase. We know that in the fall and in the winter, well have our surge of respiratory viral infections. Kids will be going back to school and people will be going back to work and we have to shift on how well plan for containment. And this containment plan, as part of the at the station, is something well work closely with stakeholders and the board of supervisors is a critical stakeholder as we develop these plans and we really look forward to working with the board of supervisors. I want to just acknowledge the success that weve had in San Francisco has really been i think weve been successful because of the tremendous amount of contribution that everybody has made and i really want to acknowledge the role of the board of supervisors. You all have been very supportive of all of the decisions that weve made most of the decisions we have made and i think thats really important because it really sends a message to the folks in San Francisco that were doing the right thing. When you see the tension in other parts of the california, where, you know, some the Public Health officials are quitting, getting fired because there is strong disagreement with the elected officials, i feel fortunate to be in sanfranciscoo where we have received a whove amount of support from the board of supervisors and i want to show my gratitude. Im going to be turning it over to carmen chu, which the Economic Recovery Task force and as carmen will explain, has played a really Important Role in this next phase. So assessor chu, i will turn it over to you. Mr. President , wil while i he great and abiding respect for my former board of supervisors colleague, carmen chu, i think this would be the right moment with all respect, mr. President , to ask our chief Health Officer questions. And im prepared to do so, but i dont want to interrupt the flow of a powerpoint presentation. But i think that, sir, i respectfully suggest that this be a moment where we can actually ask the chief officer, not my former colleague, our current recorder some questions. I can see that youre ready to get off your chair, so ill be flexible and i want to be respectful of my colleagues when theyre being passionate about their questions. I probably have a question or two in regards to this presentation. So why dont we do that and so lets open it up and not just to you supervisor, peskin, but anybody else our colleagues, if you have questions of dr. Arag dr. Aragon. I will defer to any other members of the elected body, including you, mr. President. I have two questions to reserve to the end. I assume thaw an that you and my colleagues have other questions. Mine probably could be answered simply. Dr. Arago thanks. N. So the issue of Contact Tracing, we seem to have the minimum number of people that can actually perform that and, like i said, were, like, 16 for every 100,000, so 15. So my concern is that some of the people that are doing this or will be doing this are dsws or workers that are barred from other departments. As we start opening up, were going to still have the capacity. So, we have 143 that are currently active and theres another 157 that have also been trained and the person who is really one of the key leads for the Contact Tracing is dr. Susan philip and i believe shes on the line, so she may be able to add anything. Dr. Philip. If youre not on mute. Thank you, thank you, dr. Aragon and thank you to the board and president yee. Thank you. And Contact Tracing, we have 143 active staff and we have been working with the etc eoc to fige out what were doing Going Forward. Once theyre trained, its a valuable resource and were pleased many of the department have. Working with us and the staff can continue to do this. And so the philosophy that were going to use is to have a core untinumber of staff and a core t are trained and ready to be deployed quickly in case we do see aering. Anothea surge. We are moving del. We dont want to have just a large workforce, but we know having linqual abilities are important. We know 50 is in spanish and we need to work closely with the community and make sure were training and incorporating from community to have the best output of this work. Whats your capacity for chinese . We also have bilingual chinese speakers and i will find the exact number and let you know. And, also, if youre added, go ahead and read the numbers or the percentage of them of currently out many interviews are conducted in the chinese language . Supervisor preston . Thank you, president yee. Doctor, i have heard some concerns from healthcare workers and those who represent them regarding not being a part of the discussions around this. Obviously, theres a risk of increased burden on our healthcare providers, which, of course, we all are trying our best to minimize. But can you just describe your consultation with healthcare workers or their Union Leadership in formulating this request, if any, to the board . Yes, so right now, in terms of preparing our containment plan, thats exactly what we plan to do, is we do have to involve stakeholders and we will be sure to include both labor, as well as, as i mentioned earlier, all of you. And so, have they not been consulted in connection with this request but will be in terms of the orders that flow from it . So San Francisco county, its a little bit different. What happened with healthcare, all of healthcare across california shut down together and what happened was that in San Francisco, we ended up opening up healthcare opened up very quickly in california, because really, it was driven by the state level and they allowed elective surgeries and then they said they said most healthcare can continue and in sanfrancisco, we moved a bit slower because we spent time looking over the guidances that were published by the cdc and the state. We took the existing guidances and made sure that as we opened up, that we made sure that was implemented and we did that as directives and then through our information and guidance, our information and guidance process reaches out to different stakeholders. An example that happened recently with a dentist, for example. We spent a significant amount of time working with a dentist, to make sure he would work with them and our ambulatory care, we worked primarily with our information and guidance that has a team of physicians that works with other stakeholders. We didnt specifically work with the labor unions around that, but one of the reasons why we had to move quickly is because the state had already opened up those components and we were weeks behind and we really had to move quickly. So we focused on implementing the existing guidelines from the state and the cdc. And if i could so i appreciate thank you for the answer and i was asking something and maybe i wasnt clear. Like a little broader. I wasnt talking about just the reopening of medical services. And you know, my concern is that as we are talking about reopening, we are certainly hearing loud and clear from the Small Business community. Were hearing from a lot of stakeholders and these things have implications, also, for our healthcare workers in terms of what theyre going to be seeing, whether in their Emergency Rooms at their Testing Facilities and so forth and i want to make sure that they are i believe thats the concern that was being raised to me, perhaps, to other supervisors. So what im trying to if i could reask. Im trying to figure out, were they consulted in putting together this variance request . If not, is there a plan to involve them before issuing, in the upcoming days, before issuing the various reopening to orders that youre considering. Yes, so in the upcoming orders, theres no healthcare orders coming out. So if you look at whats available on the variance list, theres nothing that has to do with healthcare. What is important around healthcare is really the preparation of the Healthcare System in terms of personal protective equipment, all of the Infection Control guidances applied. And then, the ability for hospitals to surge should we have a surge. And so, yeah, theres a tremendous amount of effort in that area, but its not really related at all to the variance. The variance won itself wont e impacting healthcare. It will be these industries. And i dont want to belabor the point. I think when were talking about the variance, my understanding is that the variance gives you the power to, then, open certain businesses, everything from Tattoo Parlors that are discussed and those have a potential impact on how many cases are going to end up i mean, theres a level of risk sorteassociated with that and im making a point that healthcare workers should be a part of those discussions, as much as the Small Businesses and others impacted. And to the extent that has not occurred, which to me, it sounds like it has not, im requesting as you move through this process, that they are consulted before orders are issued. And a related question is, what is the timing here . So if you could just address number one, will they be consulted before various reopening orders are issued . Is there a commitment to consult with frontline healthcare workers around these decisions, number one . Number two, what is the time frame, if you submit this variance, for example, how soon after that are you able to issue some of the followup orders . Yes, so the first one, yeah, we will absolutely meet with the appropriate stakeholders, including healthcare workers and i think that its different for each industry. For example, you heard a lot of testimony today from people who do tattoos, that there, think, its primarily engaging the tattoo professionals because its really about understanding how they do their practises and then we work with Infection Control experts and Occupational Health experts and the people who do the frontline work, but it varies with each industry and were open speaking to healthcare workers if you think that will help us with some of the area. S. The second part of your question . Im sorry. Just the timeline between so if we support this request of yours for the variance and what is the timeline in terms of when thats granted and when you can issue the orders pursuant to the newest orders . What will happen is that the state, what they did was that they had things that were categorized in stage three, which were months away. In our initial assessment, we just put things in different buckets. For example, you heard today the tattoo artist talking about them being put into august. And those personal services were put there because thats where the state put them initially. It state put them as stage three and now with the new variance, the state is saying, ok, you can now coul do it starting june 19. So now what we have to do is once we have access, we will have to go back to the drawing board and look ating in a holistic way and apply the risk stratification framework that professor chu will assess how were going to restratify in sequence all of the of the difft industries. We dont want to do everything once. But we look at both the activity, how many people are involved, doing the lowest risk things first and the highest risk things second. If its an industry with a small number and it can be done safely, that may be moved up because we think it may not have a big impact because it doesnt have a big number. That gives you an idea of how to look at everything. Is the process really involving the Economic Recovery Task force, economic of Workforce Development and a team of people who have a much better understanding of how businesses work on the ground. And then the last thing i just want to mention, as we move forward, were going to continue to monitor carefully our Health Indicators to make sure that we dont get in trouble. Anyways the other important reason for sequencing, giving us time to see whether what we did two or three weeks ago is having an impact and thats one of the reasons why you see things spread out over weeks and not done all at once. Since we had a lot of callers on the tattoo shop issue, can you explain, without a variance, when are they able to open . Without a variance, we would not be able to open Tattoo Parlors and we dont know when we would be allowed. And thats where the state shifted. I hear an echo. So yeah, all of the things in the variance bucket, all things i read to you, we would not be able to do any of them and we have no idea when the state will allow us to do it. So we would be stuck and i think thats why the bay area counties are now shifting because the state has really shifted how its using the variance and so we realize that we dont want to fall behind and not be able to open up industries safely and so the state put us in the situation that we really have to apply for a variance if we want to open up all of the things that i read to you. Thank you and lots more questions, but i know my colleagues have questions, too, and i will end there. Thank you. Supervisor peskin, youre next. Thank you. Not to put too fine a point on it, but its my understanding that the variance and attestation are granted, everything still remains in your hands. Again, not to put too fine a point on it, but do you support this legislative body, which is a political body, which is a representative body, giving you that power wherein you will have remarkable powers as a chief Health Officer under the laws of the state of the california and do you support this variance . I absolutely support this variance, yes. Thank you for that. And then you said earlier that you have i dont want to put words in your mouth but i believe that you said that you have no plans to issue upcoming orders. What does that mean . Oh, that had to do with medical care. Yeah, the only orders that weve issued in medical care are elective surgeries, which we allowed to continue. And ambulatory care and then dentistry. Revives order of today . Yes, the ow only ones so s far as i know, there wont be any more orders specific to the Healthcare Industry that i can think of at th the moment. So that was only around the Healthcare Industry . Right, because supervisor preston was asking about including a Healthcare Labor and so theres no orders coming up that would be impacting Healthcare Labor. So thats what i was referring to. Im saw. I interpreted that in a much broader way. And so in that same larger context, in what situations would you consider departing from the states industry guidance in order to expedite a particular industry . We talked about the tattoo industry and, of course, you and i are both quite aware, by way of example, the Hotel Industry has been lobbying city officials both on the workers side and on the ownership side to accelerate or not accelerate reopening for tourists and at the same time, the workers side, there is great fear that it may not be safe for the workers and guests alike and how do you approach and sort out those kind of questions . Yeah. So at one level so i tried to stay in my lane in terms of my expertise. I really try to focus on the Public Health issues and focusing on Infection Control and interrupting transmission and i am not an expert in all of these Different Industries and so, i really have turned to people especially the office of economic Workforce Development, they have access to people who are in the frontlines and really having them develop and this is what carmen will explain, the risk stratification framework and using that and a tool that was developed by Johns Hopkins university, and used by l. A. County as a way to look across industries, look at how much contact, what the duration and can you mitigate risk and then go through and score these and develop a spreadsheet that has these stratified by risk. Youll see that in the way things are rolling out for example, youll see most of the things weve allowed up to this point have been Outdoor Activities and then were going to move to indoor activities. And thats basically following that risk stratification framework. Thats happening at that level because i dont feel like i have the exper expertise to understae nittygritty of how they operate. We take the guidances from the cdc and we look at those and say, how do we implement this in San Francisco, making sure that we do it in a way thats going to have its biggest impact . And so, the way that is being done, theres one order which is the shelterinplace order thats been done and whats updated with this are these aparticula apparticularthese ape social distancing, environmental disinfection applieses across the countries and we make sure theyre aware of the directives and we add an additional directive if theres anything specific to that industry. So with dentist industry, we had to work with a dental team to really understand what the risk inside a dental office and how to mitigate the risk. We have to go through the whole process and at the end of the day, we want to make sure that these state and cdc guidances get operationallized in San Francisco with really good quality. And i i would say were putting more effort than most counties and many are saying, go for it. Go read the state guidelines and open up and thats what i believe one of the reasons why youre seeing a lot of counties in trouble and you see places across the country in trouble because people are implementing things without going through the time that it takes to make sure that things really get implemented in the way that more likely to work. So that is the process. Its labor intensive and youll see as you go through the core application. Theres appendixes that go with that and the whole application will be close to 100 pages. So thats in a nutshell how the process works. I try to really stay focused on the Public Health principles and that is how we do it. I know that i have three supervisors behind me in the queue. Quickly, relative to the number of epidemiology at dph, how many are there and how many are being devoted to covid19 right now . Do you know the anticipation to . I do not know the answer to that. I can tell you that we have a lot of vacancies and were desperately trying to fill these and we need to fill our vacancies because a big component moving forward is really strengthening our Surveillance System. So we have a good Surveillance System now but were going to anticipate there will be more cases and we want more epidemiologists to do investigations of outbreaks. Right, but do you have a ballpark idea of how many epis you have and how many are working on covid19, like ballpark . Im not sure in susan knows. In the Population Health division, where all of the epidemiologthey allly,theyre o, theyre on hiv grants and the number, i guess, maybe 15. Its not a big number. Most of them are std grants and theyll have to go back to work on grant deliverables. And we have a small number and we have quite a few vacancies right now. please stand by . Then you have your investigation component. Investigation component is an idea we really have to build our capacity. If we start seeing cases going up, we have to be able to deploy and do rapid case control studies to be able to figure out who is this who is this where is this happening, in what population, and if we cant figure out why this is happening, we have to be able to quickly deploy and do Analytics Study to be able to determine what that is. That is what i would call the epidem epidemiological component, our s. N. F. S, housing, and poison control. And since you mentioned our reproductive number, thats one of the numbers that you looked at. I think you saw in the chron chronicle i think it was yesterdays chronicle that showed that San Francisco was doing the best in terms of opening up. For us, we used maya petersons model for San Francisco, and it allows us to project into the future and really have a better idea of what could happen in San Francisco. So maya petersons model has our reproductive number. Thats one of the reasons our curve has been flat and declining, which is great news, and which hope we can continue in that direction. Supervisor peskin dr. Aragon, i have many more questions, but i will yield the floor. Thank you for your work and thank you for keeping people safe and careful. Youre welcome. President yee okay. I believe its supervisor ronen. Youre next. Supervisor ronen oh, yes. Thank you so much. Dr. Aragon, two questions. One is sort of similar to the one that supervisor preston was trying to ask, ask im not sure of the answer. Assuming that the variance goes into effect, and youre looking to reopen certain industries, how much do you involve workers in that industry in the process of deciding how whats the safest way to reopen . I think assessor chu iu is going to be better prepared to answer that because i know that and also our information and guidance have been convening stakeholders to get input. And so and thats we heard of take what we do is we sort of take the c. D. C. And then the state guidance, and we do our first rough draft, and we hand it over to the information and guidance. We give it over to the Economic Recovery Task force, and they run it by folks in the from those industries. Youll have to ask them specifically how they do it, and then, they run it by us and they just give feedback. Ill just give you an example of feedback that came in to me was Outdoor Dining. They said no, its not going to happen like that. They have to give us feedback of whether they think they can implement it. If we give people something that cannot be implemented on the ground, it does people no good, so at the end of the day, we want to do whats going to be effective, and whats going to be effective is what can help people. Supervisor ronen so the example that you gave us of the dentists offices, and all the things to reopen dentists offices in a safeway yeah. You can imagine, i get contacted by many people, and i try to especially open, and i got overwhelmed, so we need to create through trial and error, we try to create a process where people we can system systematiccally look at plans. For the dental society, i would say that one happened a little bit differently. When those were going out, we were behind other counties. The other counties, state has already allowed the dental society and ambulatory care to open up really quickly. Just because of the amount of work we do, we fell very, very behind. Thats one that ill be honest with you, we rushed it out. And then, the feedback i got, dr dr. Aragon, you dont know what youre doing. This isnt going to work, and so i met with them to figure out their issues and people sent me emails of the dentists and all the things that they were struggling with. Its this iterative process where i realized oh, i moved too fast, and i wish i would have collaborated with them early on because they would have given me a reality check on a lot of these things, so thats how that happened. We did want to move to a more formalized approach meeting with Community Stakeholders because it didnt happen. Supervisor ronen, can i just share some information about that engagement . Supervisor ronen sure. So as you know, the mayor and president yee convened the Economic Recovery Task force, and one of the things that we had heard loud and clear was remember, we kicked it off in late april or so as the city was putting out guidance and other information about reopening, there was a real clear consensus about the opportunity for feedback, and sort of more transparency over what was to come ahead. So over the next few months, we worked really hard with the department of Public Health to figure out how information was going out. So this last iteration where we went through the process of creating those guidances for Outdoor Dining and retail was really the first example of where we had this new system in place to allow for that feedback to happen. So the way that it works now, the department of Public Health is taking a look at the different sectors that can prepare to reopen, and when they have sort of that summary of their initial thinking, taking a look at c. D. C. Information, state guidance, and so on, they put out a summary of guidances that they are thinking of making formal. What happens then is they feed that over to Economic Recovery Task force and oewd because oewd has a more extensive channel than we work with at the task force. And theyre able to feed them the feedback saying heres what it means on an economic level. I think this last round was a more successful round because the department of public heath was able to secure that feedback. Ill just say that process of creating those guidances has, in the past, not been as clear as getting feedback in the beginning. Weve since changed it, and i think were committed to iterate and improve it. What we are hearing loud and clear today is we are involving multiple stakeholders in these processes. Now whats going to happen with hotels because that guidance is going to eventually be worked on with the department of Public Health is if it follows the same process, were also going to see the same summaries through the task force. Were going to share it with our different members who are on the task force, which does include local 2, for example. Theyll be able to see it, view it, provide comments in advance of when d. P. H. Will actually finalize it. So i hope that that process will be a smoother one Going Forward that will allow multiple stakeholders to provide input to address the concerns that you were raising and supervisor preston was, as well. I hope that answers your question. Supervisor ronen yeah, that was very helpful, carmen. Thank you. So my second question is about the homeless numbers. What do you think about the areas where the homeless are housed that it creates a safe enough situation in the city . Yeah. The 15 , i do not know where the 15 came from. Thats just what the state put out, is at a minimum, you should have 15 , so thats where that came from. And youre asking me, do i believe that 15 is sufficient . Probably probably not. I can whatever whatever is going to be required, their requirement is that you be you be able to take care of 15 of persons who are experiencing homeless with isolation and kwaur quarantine. And so from the Health Departments perspective, thats been our priority is to be able to isolate and quarantine. So we are doing right now, in terms of our current planning and our projections, were estimating that if we were to have a big surge, we would need more isolation and quarantine rooms, and so we would actually need to add to what our current stock is if we do have a big surge. Because we do feel that we need to be able to take care of any number of persons that are homeless and you can be isolated or in quarantine. Another one that the i. Q. Rooms are important in Public Health, we have to be able to decompress the hospitals. When you get discharged, we need to have places that people can go. These hotel rooms end up being important for decompressing the hospital so that hospital beds dont end up being taken up by people who dont need to be in the hospital. Supervisor ronen maybe im not understanding. So that readiness, that variance quite real estate, thats just for i. N. Q. Rooms, its not for what were call s. I. P. Rooms or shelter in place rooms . Its just that you have access to Housing Units that can take care of up to or more than 15 of persons that are experiencing homelessness. Supervisor ronen if theyve tested positive or covid . Yes. So for people who are close contacts or are covid positive. Supervisor ronen who are covid positive, right. Supervisor ronen and youre saying that were at 30 . So the number of Housing Units that we have available to us at the moment on the west side, it was a number that i gave to you. So when you go online, we have hotel rooms and the r. V. S, right now, we have 2,532. Thats being spread across i. N. Q. And then also what were calling s. I. P. Units, but those are the current number of Units Available to us. Right now, the number of people weve needed in isolation and quarantine we havent needed that number. Weve been very fortunate. Let me see here supervisor ronen so sorry. I should always assume that 15 was to actually house during this pandemic, 15 of the county residents that are unhoused. But youre saying only if they need it, to isolate in quarantine. So how many numbers do you think we need at any given time to meet that 15 , to meet that requirement, and then do you think thats sufficient . Im doing a little calculation. Supervisor ronen okay. If you want to move on, we can come back no, itll take me itll take me just a second. You know, ill just tell you, theyre being very prescriptive on how to calculate this number. Supervisor ronen okay. So theyre saying that we would need 1,200 rooms, basically. Supervisor ronen that are i. N. Q. Rooms, so were building a lot of those rooms that are permanent s. I. P. Rooms. Yeah, theyre permanent s. I. P. Rooms. And if we did have a big surge, we would have to get more rooms because theyre not going to were not going to im just speaking now from a very practical perspective. People who are in s. I. P. Rooms, were not going to have them leave a s. I. P. Room, well probably get more i. N. Q. Rooms. Supervisor ronen so sorry. Do you know how many i. N. Q. Rooms we have right now . Right now, i believe we have i i think we have close to 200, and right now, we have 163 that are being used. Supervisor ronen so were way below the 1,000 number . Right now, because well, we would not it would be we would not be holding 1200 rooms and having 1,000 of them unoccupied if you only have 163 people. So the number of people that need i. N. Q. Is very small, and those rooms end up being used for other things, so the biggest reason those rooms are being used for supervisor ronen is the s. I. P. Rooms. Is the s. I. P. Rooms, thats right. Supervisor ronen so technically, we dont qualify for the variance because we dont have the number of rooms that they require. I mean, i see what youre saying in terms of that money, but so what youre saying no, what they say is that we have access to access to Housing Units. We have access to those Housing Units, and so thats really the most important thing because it would it would it would be it would be illogical for us to hold 1200 rooms and have 1,000 of them just sitting there empty so we can say we qualify. I think everybody would say, well, why are you leaving them empty . You have to do something with those rooms. Were stuck in a good situation in that the demand for i. N. Q. Rooms is very low because weve been really fortunate. Weve been really of the, but we do have but the thing is we do have access to the Housing Units which actually represent 30 of the homeless the homeless count. And then, from a very practical operational perspective, if we do have a large surge, i know we would look to get other rooms because were not going to displace people for obvious reasons. Supervisor ronen but you know the Mayors Office has been telling us the office, that all of those 60yearolds and people with dangerous medical conditions living on the streets right now, that theres no capacity despite our unanimously passed ordinance to require it to get hotel rooms. So how would we magically get these hotel rooms if we cant get them right now for the people that are very vulnerable on the streets . I cant speak for the mayor. Im just telling you im giving you my understanding. Supervisor ronen okay. Once again, you know, not not to continue to to to beat the drum that weve been beating the whole time, but we get very, very contradictory information from from you and from the Mayors Office on rooms for homeless. First, you tell us you have more rooms, then, when we set up the criteria, you say youre not meeting criteria. And we say what would you do if you get a surge, and you say we would get more rooms. But were not getting more rooms for the seniors and people thiliving on our street yeah. I feel bad because, really, i think the best persons to ask is really going to be h. S. A. And h. S. H. Im giving you im just giving you my honest my honest understanding, and i know that because were doing we were adoing the planning right now, were doing our scenario planning for a surge, and i can just tell you just from my personal perspective, thats just the way were thinking about it. I cant tell you how its actually going to play out. I think you need to talk to other folks. Supervisor ronen director aragon, youre asking me to okay a variance. I very much want tattoo establishments to open and etc. , but what you have just now explained to me is we dont have 15 of the rooms available if there is a surge for i. N. Q. , and youre telling me you have complete confidence that we wont kick out people in s. I. P. Rooms, but the Mayors Office has been telling us that thats not possible. So is there someone from the Mayors Office that can answer my question . Im confident based on the Housing Units that we have right now, we meet the criteria. Supervisor ronen you mean, the 30,000 empty hotel rooms . What are these Housing Units that youre talking about. Right now, if you go to our website supervisor ronen but theyre filled. Theyre s. I. P. Rooms. Theyre being filled with people from the tenderloin. Theyre not empty. You just said that, and i yeah, so right now, im im ill admit it, im hyperfocused on getting the variance because i think the variance is going to be good for the city, its going to be good for the workers [inaudible] and so but supervisor ronen, the were double what the criteria requires. Supervisor ronen but we arent no, no. President yee okay. One talk at a time. Yeah. The criteria does not require us to have 1200 rooms and have most of them empty because that doesnt make sense to me. Im trying to understand that. Supervisor ronen but doctor sorry. Can you still im not trying to not make sense but apparently, you dont understand me. Those rooms are filled with people that are 60 years old or have very serious Health Conditions that make them vulnerable. There are a lot more living on the streets, risking their lives every day. Right now, the mayor entered into a stipulated Settlement Agreement promising to moffve least 300 people from the tenderloin into those s. I. P. Rooms. Now youre telling me if theres a surge, which very much could happen because we are reopening the economy and its all the warnings you just gave us, you said that youre confident that were not going to kick people out of s. I. P. Rooms, but that were going to secure more hotel rooms. The mayor has been telling us that she cant obtain more hotel rooms, that thats not possible, that our ordinance is completely unrealistic, that we dont have the staffing and the money. Theres a new excuse every week. Youre providing me different information than the Mayors Office. I very much want to vote for this, but if voting for this means you might kick people out of s. I. P. Rooms, thats a very different matter that we on the board of supervisors need to think about. President yee supervisor ronen, im not sure, but i think miss kitler may be on the line. Miss kitler, are you on the line . Yes, supervisor ronen, through the president , i do understand your question. I do not have an answer for it. I think as dr. Aragon said, h. S. A. Is the best person to answer that. Supervisor ronen can you get them here . I want to vote on this ordinance today, but i cant vote for it if youre going to kick people out of s. I. P. Rooms or youre telling us that our ordinance is unrealistic. I cant vote on this. Can you get someone here on this . This seems to be a real basic question on the criteria of the variance. Its the criteria you have up on the screen right now. Supervisor ronen, whether or not you vote for this variance is not going to impact what were talking about, which is a surge, so i im i hope yeah. Its not going to impact if a surge is going to happen, its going to happen whether or not you vote on this variance. The variance is really about allowing parts of the economy to open up, and so supervisor ronen you dont think opening up the economy you just started this presentation dr. Colfax started this entire presentation saying as we reopen the economy, more people are going to be infected by covid19. Thats what you thats what dr. Colfax said at the very beginning of this presentation. Youre correct. Youre absolutely right. Im sorry. You are absolutely correct. Supervisor ronen i am so confused. We can go onto our other colleagues as we wait for someone from the Mayors Office to actually answer our question. President yee i actually dont see anybody else on the roster. Supervisor ronen well, i dont know that i can vote for someone when very basic information about the criteria, they cant answer really basic straightforward questions about. President yee supervisor fewer just went on the line. Supervisor fewer . Supervisor fewer im just wondering if this is an item that can be continued for next week . I just think that if there is specific questions and colleagues feel very strongly about getting answers to these questions, i think its not right holding a vote when there are some colleagues that obviously want questions and questioned answered, and if the people arent here to answer those questions, then perhaps the presentation would not [inaudible] president yee is that a motion supervisor ronen could i comment on that, president yee . President yee supervisor ronen . Supervisor ronen if we continue this for a week, is that going to impact these businesses that are dying . President yee well, i believe so. I shouldnt answer that in this conversation. [inaudible] supervisor fewer dr. Aragon, if this item were to be delayed to next week to get people here to answer the questions, would that delay these businesses from opening up . It would delay it, yes, because we want to start working on this as soon as possible. Supervisor ronen i mean, is there no one from the Mayors Office who can come in and answer our questions because i dont want to delay this, i really dont. I want these businesses to open, but i dont want 60 year olds and people with severe Health Conditions to be thrown on the street because were not prepared. And the fact that nobodys prepared here to answer these questions is pretty outrageous, quite frankly. President yee i agree. Supervisor mandelman is on the roster. Maybe he could ask some questions while were waiting. Supervisor mandelman well, im curious if weve heard all sides. Im curious if theres a side th all slides. Im curious if theres a slide that we have not heard. President yee yeah. Hopefully, we can do that, and then, therell be a person from the department to answer a question. Assessor chiu, are you still there . Yes. Ill try to be brief. I know the late hour. Thank you to the board for having me and, of course, you, supervisor, for convening the task force and i think virtually for all the members of the board who have spent time with me providing the direction of the task force. I appreciate it. Im not going to spent too much time talking about the task force except to just share with you that weve done a lot of work and outreach to our communities to really get feedback on how people are thinking about economic recovery. And then just sort of a highlevel view of the direction or connection between the task force and the question around phasing and reopening, there is one part of our work on the task force that is around answering the question of how do we facilitate a safer reopening . So in that process, were kbabtikbab collaborating with the department of Public Health to ensure that our policies and procedures are clear and more practical. Were working hard to make sure we provide feedback from the community and different groups to d. P. H. As they think about how they might want to open up different sectors and the way they might do that. We have heard from over 1,000 people who have provided survey responses. Over 160 people who have emailed us at the task force. Weve done Task Force Meetings with over 900 conversations there, plus many, many more subgroup meetings that we have convened. I think some of the more consistent messages from the Task Force Meetings and from the community at large is to help understand whats to happen and to plan and prepare. So i think with that, ill speak a little bit about the road map that was shared with the public and on the end of may by the mayor, on top of that, how we got to this initial road map, and what this variance means to us and what our work ahead is going to look like. Just quickly, the principles that we really considered when we thought about what it is that we want d. P. H. To be thinking about some of the elements, we really wanted to make sure that there was an element a risk framework thinking about different sectors and how they reopened. With that, we really heavily leaned on Johns Hopkins, the guidance that they put together for governors across the nation, and what they really did was that they weighed risks based on things like contact lengths, and number of contacts. There was a possibility around flexibility in modification. We paired things up with mobility where we could so we could understand what sectors opening up would look like. We took a look at all of those different sectors and tried to understand the inherent risks of delivery before versus what would be possible if there was mitigation. Other things were looking at is ensuring equity, so again, understanding the industries that are affected by closure, thinking about whether or not industries are able to work remotely, and other sectors like child care and others are essential for us to resume equity. One other way that the department is thinking about managing risk associated with increased activity in this economy is this idea of the incremental openings, so it gets to the point that supervisor ronen is mentioning. It gets to the point that supervisor peskin mentioned in that we want to make sure that we a were not opening everything at once. We want to monitor things like increased hospitalization, among other things, to really understand before we open up the next tranche, what were looking at. We want to ensure that were not opening up in a reckless way. And then, i think the other piece that is really important to understand in terms of how the framework of how this was created is really to take a look at staged guidances. I think as many of you have heard and was really, really confusing is what was heard about the governors announcement and whats happening in neighboring counties and all over our state is the state has put together different phases in its resilient s resiliency reopening plan. They say heres the businesses that we took a look to reopen. Take a look at what protocols you have in place, but you cant go beyond that. What dr. Aragon was saying is that they that [inaudible] because the schools, as you know, are run by different jurisdictions and have a lot more planning and work to do before theyre able to do that. So strictly what were talking about right now in terms of this variance is saying to the state, do we have permission to open up other sectors of the economy. It doesnt mean that were actually going to open them up immediately once the state approves it, but what it does mean is now we can consider all of those activities and apply all of those equity factors, all of those items that supervisor ronen and peskin mentioned where were able to open up and operate more effectively rather than being tied to a phonetic announcement that were hearing about moving or changing at the state levels. I think it opens up another bucket that were able to consider more industries as we move down the path of reopening. So what you see here in front of you is just a slide that shares with you kind of what is next. So just to recap for just a moment, when we were in the shelter in place scenario in midmarch, almost every business or every type of activity was really closed down for business except for the most essential businesses, and those were things like Grocery Stores and pharmacies. Through time, we have opened up and permitted more and more activities to happen, so you saw over time, of course, there were more things that opened, such as curbside retail. We opened up youth and summer camps. On monday, just yesterday, there was a whole other big tranche of activities that did open up, including indoor retail and including small gatherings outside, including for religious services. Thats a pretty big step in terms of opening up parts of the economy, and we know that there are more industries and people that will be impacted that we want to be thinking about for the future. The next two tranches that youre going to see, as you see this on the slide now, are going to include some of the larger activities. And again, we have the items that went through june 15. The next contemplated opening is midjuly, and then august and beyond. The way were trying to time these is were just thinking about the original phases that the state tried to put these activities w activities in. The road map was meant to be a planning document. It was always meant to be flexible, and i think since the time weve put it out there, we have heard so much feedback from industry, a. There were feedback from industries that said i think im in this part or this phase, but im not sure, so i need clarity. And then, of course, theres feedback that says i want to move forward faster than what you have us scheduled to do. So i think what will happen if the board moves through, is we will go through to apply with the state. If the state grants that variance. It opens up options for us to pursue additional openings. But what that means is theres going to be a second local step thats going to happen here in San Francisco where there is going to be an intentional conversation with you, members of the board of supervisors, with our task force members, with other stakeholders to say now that we know the university of different activities that can open up, now that we also know the industries that we may have left out of that guidance or that road map initially, lets go through it methodically to figure on you how it is we should be figuring out how to open in the next few phases . Do we want to think about Different Industries . Do we want to think about different thing thats that we d be thinking about in terms of changing the order . And we will present that to the department of Public Health so they can consider that and layer on top of it the Public Health impact. As many people say, we want to reopen the economy, but we also want to make sure that were doing it with Public Health in mind, so those are sort of the comments that i have, and i just want to thank you for letting me speak quickly, especially as im about to put my young daughter to sleep. So happy to answer any questions that any of you may have in terms of kind of what that road map, that process was, where we weant to go, and how we want to engage you. Supervisor mandelman and i serve on the policy committee for the board, so we want to Pay Attention when we get your feedback so we can look at how we can be flexible Going Forward, and once we get kind of feedback from our larger public industry sectors. President yee okay. Any questions for assessor chiu . Thank you, assessor chiu, for your presentation and laying out what some of the thoughts are in terms of where the Economic Recovery Task force fits into all of this. Thank you. President yee so i you can go ahead and put yeah, this is dr. Aragon. Just for the last slide, i i first of all, i want i want to thank you for listening to our presentation. As we develop the containment plan, we will work closely with the board of supervisors as well as other stakeholders, including labor, and i think thats going to be a really Good Opportunity to address the issues that supervisor ronen has brought up. Youre bringing up some very important issues that i dont have the immediate answer to. I think youre absolutely right. Even if we had more rooms, theyd probably be filled up, and wed have to figure out if we had a surge, what do we do with rooms occupied with people that may be needed for a surge . Those are very good questions, and i hope we use the containment plan as an opportunity for us to Work Together on these issues and come up with a solution thats mutually agreeable to everyone. President yee so assessor chiu, go ahead and put your baby to sleep. Thank you sleep. President yee thanks for sticking around. Before i get to supervisor mandelman, i didnt ask supervisor fewer whether she was finished. Supervisor fewer, were you finished . Supervisor fewer i am. Thank you. President yee of course. And then, before i get to supervisor mandelman again, i see miss kitler has come back. Do you have anybody yet, miss ki kitler . So we are trying to get director rhorer on, but in the meantime, the guideline is making sure that we can house 15 of the population overall, which weve done that. We continue to bring Additional Resources online on a weekly basis, and im pretty sure i can get you the scenario, what it looks like in the next couple of weeks, and we can make a commitment that we will not kick anybody out of a s. I. P. Room. That is a commitment from the Mayors Office. President yee okay. Supervisor mandelman, go ahead . Supervisor mandelman this conversation raises an interesting logic problem, because it is clear that the state is willing to use the shelter in place beds that we have secured as to treat them as i. N. Q. Beds at least it sounds like what were hearing from this presentation, but we might not be willing to use them as i. N. Q. Beds for humanitarian reasons. So this is a conundrum, and i dont know how it gets resolved. But for me, i do want to start by thanking the department of Public Health for that slide that dr. Colfax started with, for keeping our cases lower than any other municipality of our size in the United States. Pretty amazing, and getting our testing to rates that are higher than most places. I just think that its important that, you know we can see the problems, but when theres success, which there has been significantly here, i think its worth noting. I i support this you know, i support this variance, but i want to say that, you know, for me, this is just the start of a conversation, and i think that i want the department of Public Health to continue to put safety first, and as the next conversations go forward about what to open, when, and how, i think, you know, supervisor prestons points about consulting with Health Care Workers, not just around things that relate directly to health care but to the whole project of reopening, given that its Health Care Workers who are going to be confronted with the realities if things spin out of control, and i do think thats an important conversation that needs to get worked into the conversations that are happening with carmen chiu and the Economic Recovery Task force. But given that, i think it also makes sense for us to have our department of Public Health to be able to make decisions that are rooted in public facts, and when we are able to move forward in ways that dont jeopardize large numbers, i think we should be doing that. I think slowing this particular piece, the variance piece, down is not a good idea. I want feedback with broad conversation that this may allow Going Forward. Yeah, opening too slowly is a really bad thing for our economy and our people. Opening too quickly and having spikes and a roller coaster is worse, so that you know, im supporting the variance, but i want the department of Public Health to continue to be cautious and continue to put the data, science, and facts first. Thank you. President yee supervisor ronen . Supervisor ronen yes, thank you. I appreciate you confirming on behalf of the mayor that nobody in a s. I. P. Room will be displaced if there is a surge. That is very helpful. I do think that this proves that when there is a will, there is a way, and this board of supervisors has made it very clear unanimously that we have the will to house all Homeless People or especially those that are over 60 years old or especially with a Health Condition on the streets right now. And its the Mayors Office and dr. Aragon who have said that theyre not willing to use their power to make that happen, and i think that your commitment today, so if there is a surge, you will prioritize that and make that happen has proven the point that my colleagues and i have made from day one. And i continue to be and i just have to say it incredibly disappointed on the failure of leadership and on behalf of dr. Aragon who fail to protect the most vulnerable among us who continue to die at much greater numbers than last year on the streets of San Francisco. However, today, i will support the variance because i have suspected, and now i know, that when there is a will, there is a way to get more hotel rooms to house the vulnerable. And i believe you could easily get those hotel rooms if you needed them. Its just that youre pretending that you cant. And its always been inaccurate, its always been excuses thats not true, and its just not been satisfying, so i hope that you go back and think about that tonight. So when there are 60 year olds and various people on the streets that are dying in San Francisco. But i think its very important that we allow these businesses that are also dying in our city to open as soon as it is healthy for them to do so, and so i will be supporting this variance today. President yee okay. Thank you. So lets wrap it up. Its getting late, and i want to echo other supervisors. Its a fine balancing act, we all know that. Inasmuch as i wish i could wave the magic wand and say that everything is opening, and everything will be fine, i dont believe that we can do that. I mean, i would love to have a zoo open, for instance, so my grand kids could go there, but, you know, you have to weigh it out, you have to figure it out. And so i also wanted to echo that. We can always do better, but i have to give some credit to all the professionals and not only some of the people making these decisions, but i also want to give credit to the people who live here making sure that everythings not spinning out of control here. Not everybody is following the direction that they should be following, but the vast majority of people are following it. I mean, i see when you look at it, even the during the protest, the number of people trying to keep safe and wear masks, and so forth, its not just about voters, its about people understanding and wanting to do the best thing for all of us. So why dont we go ahead and, as this point, madam clerk, lets take the roll. Clerk thank you, mr. President. On item 28 [roll call]. Clerk there are 11 ayes. President yee okay. So the motion passes unanimously. Okay. So, madam clerk, can you read the in memoriams . Clerk yes. Todays meeting will be adjourned in memory of the following beloved individuals, on behalf of supervisor peskin for the late raymond lie and rober robert, and on behalf of supervisor stefani, supervisor peskin, and supervisor and president yee, for the late mrs. Robin brasso. President yee okay, colleagues. That brings us to the end of our agenda. Madam clerk, is there any further business before us today . Clerk that concludes our business for today. President yee thank you, madam clerk, and as theres no other business, we are adjourned. Clerk thank you. Good morning. The meeting will come to order. Welcome to the thursday, june 18th meeting of the government audit and oversight committee. Thank you to this committees clerk, john carol and thank you to sfgovtv for staffing this remote meeting. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcements . In order to protect Board Members during the Health Emergency the board of supervisors legislative chamber and Committee Room are closed. This is taken pursuant to various local, state and federal orders and directives. Committee members attend through video and participate to the same extent as if physically present. While the comments will be available for each item