Transcripts For SFGTV SF TIDA ITC Committee 20240712

Please recommend this Charter Amendment to the full board of supervisors. We look forward to looking with you all to defund sfpd and reinvest in our communities. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have the next speaker. Speaker good morning, supervisors. Im a resident of supervisor ronens district. I wanted to call again to thank you for listening to the community and removing maximized Police Presence and moving the Charter Amendment forward today. I wanted to just give a brief comment to the Organizational Work thats been happening and a shoutout to defund sfpd now. We look forward to meeting with you oneonone to discuss the concrete ways to cut the budget of the sfpd and this Charter Amendment is crucial because it gives us more flexibility in the budget and we need to reallocate resources to services that make us safe. Supervisor yee, thank you for bringing this forward. One comment i wanted to make is that, this is a predominantly black campaign and were turning out plentiy new voices and voters and that means they are not familiar with who is and who is not present. We appreciate your patience in listening to them, even though they are firsttime commenters and may not be what theyre used to hear. This is a good thing for democracy and hopefully, it will be engaged in the november elections and elections to come. Thank you for your time. We look forward to figure out ways to make the budget represent San Franciscos values. And ps, supervisor yee, when the time comes, please defund sfpd. And thank you so much. Goodbye. please stand by . In showing how to truly represent democracy and respond to what the people want. And when there is this outpouring of energy from the people, to see you actually responding to it and giving us a chance to make that official on the ballot, its great. And i always like i want to shout out the defund sfpd campaign under the leadership of the caucus, and its an incredible work activating people like me to give Public Comment for the first time and maybe start to believe in Representative Democracy in our city again. So, thank you very much. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller. Caller good evening, supervisors. Todd snyder for district 5. I thank you for amending this measure next week and supporting it thus far. I ask that you continue to support it today. And i want to point out that an arbitrary number of Sworn Police Officers provides no flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of our city. And this came from a Consent Decree entered into in 1979. And lifted in 1998. It has no relevance to the city today. So i urge you to continue to support this measure and to put it before the voters on the ballot in november. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller, please. Caller i already spoke once and i have been unmuted. Clerk i believe this person has already spoken before per their comment. Can we have the next caller, please. Caller yes, im a native san franciscan, and im in my 60s. I want to express that changing the charter to minimal staffing is a deadly Public Policy decision on your part. No doubt that criminals are intercepting this message as an opportunity to commit rape, murder, assault, theft, and an endless list of criminal activity. I hope that youve also given thought to potential international terrorism. Were really in a vulnerable position. You also place on Police Officers that extremely higher risk and you will be responsible for their deaths and for their injuries. This city has really turned into a complete cesspool of crime, bad governmental regulations and unsafe decisions. The current number of Police Officers does not even meet the growing population of residents. We have truly a major shortage here. And im really disgusted by this antipolice sentiment. Im an older resident and this place is really changing and it is really upsetting. Id like to know who strongarm you to creating in unsafe proposal. The line message here is that you never, never, never compromise Public Safety. Someone will die. Additionally, you will be responsible for the deaths of more Police Officers. Its happening as we speak. Stop do, this and do the right thing. And its not whos right, its what is right. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller, please. Caller good morning, supervisors, my name is gracie and i live and work in district 4. I just would like to address that Police Officers actually commit rape often and theyre never charged for crimes such as rape and murder. Thank you for listening to the Community Last thursday and putting the remight hava removae police into this language. This demonstrates San Franciscos lived experience. Public safety comes from investing in our community, not criminalizing them. I thank the socialist of color caucus. And calling in support to eliminate the sfpd minimum staffing. indiscernible we look forward to working with you all to defund sfpd and to reinvest in our communities. Thank you. I yield my time. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller, please. Caller good morning, supervisors. My name is sarah and i live and work in San Francisco in district 1. Thank you for listening to the Community Last week and putting their language regarding maximizing Police Presence in this amendment. This properly demonstrates San Franciscos values and reflects the data and our lived experiences. Public safety comes from investing in our communities, not criminalizing them. And to the caller who spoke before me, he said that amending charter will increase crime and that people will die. People are dying at the hands of Police Officers and as a survivor of Sexual Assault and rape i can tell you that police have done nothing for me to support me or to bring justice to me in any way. So the current state that were living in is not actually beneficial for the people of this city. Im calling once again in support of the Charter Amendment to eliminate the minimum staffing requirement. And im asking you to please recommend this Charter Amendment to the whole board of supervisors. Im looking forward to working with you to defund sfpd and to reinvest in our communities. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller, please. Caller hello, supervisors, my name is sage and i live in district 11, and i work in district 7 on occupied land known as the alono. I feel odd thanking you for doing what is the will of the people but im pleased to see that it was removed from the amendment. I want to further recommend that this be taken to the entire board so that it actually makes it on to the ballot. A couple of things. Im still absolutely perturbed about the fact that you dont have your cameras on and that we cant watch you watching us. Im a teacher. And one of the things about Building Community is about being able to watch people listen to you. We need to see your nonverbals and we need to know what is confusing to you, we need to know what you are supportive of. We need to see you nodding or shaking your heads. We need to see you. Right now this is the only way that we get to interact with you as the board of supervisors. And so this is incredibly important and i will be on the call later with the clerk to discuss this as well. I also just want to say to the earlier caller, it is the public who strongarmed the board into defunding and dismantling the police. This is what we want. And a few people calling in to say who clearly have never interacted with police because if they did they would know that the police are an incredibly violent institution, and saying that more police is safer for them when they never interact with the police . It is imperative that you put those comments into context and remember who is saying them, right . Those are the very rich people who are living in houses who never get the drivebyes that we get in the excellsior and never get racially profiled, all of that. So its very important to remember that all of these comments or any comments that wants more police or who says that clerk thank you, the speaker time has elapsed. Just note if you have not already done so, please press star, 3, to be added to the queue. And for those already on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted. At this time we have six callers on the line waiting to speak. Can we have the next speaker, please. Caller hi. I work in San Francisco as a Police Officer. Im also a queer person of color who lives in the mission. I think that a lot of these issues are valid on both points. To the elderly woman who said that shes scared of not having police, thats valid. To the person who just informed that there are problems in the excelsior, thats valid. For the majority of people that thank me every day for patrolling and putting my life at risk, for trying to keep a community safe, how do we reconcile that with the people that feel that the police need to be abolished completely . I think that what needs to happen is that defunding seems like a great idea, but how do we do that prior to having other systems in place . How do we find thousands of Mental Health workers to go to these calls before we have those policies and those laws and though employees put in place . To jump to this moment of saying get rid of the police completely doesnt account for the fact that there are driveby shootings in the excelsior and it doesnt account for the fact that crimes like homicides and rapes and everything that the caller before me stated, those need to be investigated, those need to be dealt with. So abolishing the police right now in its current form is not going to keep our community safer. And while i completely am aware of our history, of our oppression, and the violence that Police Departments around the country have put on the communities they are supposed to serve, that needs to change, but we need to set up a system prior to pointing a finger and accusing every Police Officer in this country of doing harm because thats just not the case. The silent majority of people that i interact with thank me every single day. And that gets left out of the conversation. And like i said, i think that both sides are valid, but we really need to stop for a second and not have a knee jerk reaction and try to dismantle the system before the next system is in place. Weve seen that happen and i clerk thank you, the speaker time has elapsed. Thank you. Hearing from the next speaker, please. Caller im happy to speak immediately after the Police Officer. Its an interesting listening at the end. What i would say here and i say wanting to defund and abolish the police entirely is that i dont think that they make us safer. I dont think that theyre there for the right reasons. I dont think what they do makes our society better. I think that theyre there to oppress us. I think that they have nine out of 62 rapes solved in the last year, but theyve shown up to every protest with brutal military arm, oppressing people at their convenience. Now you gather in this city, you will see the police oppressing. Youre right, they dont have the resources to apparently to be able to address violent crime. Theyre not good at that. They dont have the resources to be able to address homelessness. Theyre not good at that. They dont have the resources or even a division to address vehicle theft anymore. Theyre not good at that. What theyre good at is political oppression and brutalization of civilians. So they do. They politically brutalize us. They disburse us. They prevent us from gathering. There is no reason to have even a single one of those pieces of shit violating, brutalizing our city. We should disburse of them. We should abolish them. The police are pieces of shit. Abolish the police. Theyre violent. This system that we have built is criminally unjust, racially biased, and disgusting. The free world clerk thank you, speaker time has elapsed. Can we have the next speaker, please. Caller my name is mike chan an and im in district 2 and im in support of this Charter Amendment. Weve had this on the books for 20 years and we have not matched it. We should be based on a public conversation and something not based in the charter. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you, can we have the next caller, please. Caller good morning, supervisors. My name is anita and i live and work in San Francisco in district 5. I want to first of all to just echo the sentiments of the previous two callers who so eloquently described why polic policing can be fixed. And i want to thank you for listening to the Community Last thursday and putting the remight haval of the removal of the language of maximizing Police Presence in amendment. This demonstrates San Franciscos values and reflects the data and our lived experiences, which is really important to highlight those two words. Public safety comes from investing in our communities, not criminalizing them. We are calling once again in support of the Charter Amendment to eliminate the sfpd minimum staffing requirement. Recommend this Charter Amendment to the full board of supervisors. We look forward to working with you all to defund sfpd and reinvest in our communities. Thank you. I yield my time. Clerk thank you, can we have the next speaker. Caller oh, hi. So i am also calling in support of this amendment. I do not necessarily support defunding police, but i believe that the police need to provide essential services as the police woman who called earlier about driveby shootings, we do need them for a lot of things. However, there is certainly no reason for having an arbitrary minimum of police. And so certainly an amendment that would allow the city to have the politicsibilit flexibie amount of police and to explore different avenues of dealing with problems in a city and trying to use social Services Social services is great. And so, yeah, i support this amendment. But i do think that the police are essential. I think thats everything that i had to say. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller. Caller hello, im shawn taylor and a resident of district 9. I wanted to voice my support once again of putting this amendment on the ballot. Thank you to supervisor yee for removing the language that we requested. Thank you also to all of the members of the board that have cosponsored this Charter Amendment. In response to a previous caller i would like to say that i dont think that international cells will target San Francisco because we changed our city charter to allow for Dynamic Police staffing in the city. Honestly i think that theres an argument against this amendment is that the proponents are resorting to big threats of terrorist attacks. And indiscernible thank you again and im looking forward to seeing this on the ballot. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller. Caller hi, i am a district 5 resident and a parent. And i want to thank supervisor yee for proposing this Charter Amendment. I am supportive of it, but its a good start. For example, theres still it still allows for converting from sworn divisions to only become civilian if it becomes vacant. For example, as the School District said that we no longer want s. R. O. S in our schools. The police chief said that those decisions simply be moved to other places. And thats not what we want. Because that doesnt allow any funding to be reallocated to youth programs, to violence prevention, to Something Like programs for youth. So those positions need to be removed. We need fewer officers. Thats the whole point of this. So as we said, its a good start. I appreciate you proposing this. I appreciate all of the supervisors supporting it. And i look forward to voting on it. But it needs more work. So thank you very much. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller. Caller hi, my name is emily and i live in district 9 and im calling in support of the Charter Amendment and im glad to see this moving to the next step. Thank you for listening to us on this, and thank you for president yee for moving this forward. Im also calling for the amendment to the full board of supervisors to have a minimum staffing requirement. And i see abolition as the road to fully doing whats best for the city of San Francisco. And for everyone in it. When we defund and abolish police, we can have social services, education, and do things that the community really needs. And i dont think that this is a knee jerk reaction. Public safety comes from investing in communities, not policing people, not criminalizing them. So, yeah, defund and abolish the police. And i dont think that defund sfpd now, and i want to thank you the color caucus, for all of the work they have done to make indiscernible in giving people like me to call in for the first time. Id like to echo the sentiments or not the sentiments, like everyone has been asking to you turn your cameras on and you need to do it so that we can see you and see your reactions. And that you can actually show that youre listening to us. Thanks. Clerk thank you, can we have the next caller, please. Caller im a resident in district 11 and there are constant cops patrolling our neighborhood. Thats what we mean when we say they drive by. This neighborhood takes care of each other but the cops are constantly present on in our neighborhood. They have their eyes on neighborhoods that they deem need extra patrolling or monitoring which is basically racial profiling. A cop is a cop and they where they are working. Youre engaging in a racist, violent system. When we defund the sfpd we can use those resources to pay and open up more jobs in Mental Health professions, equitable housing,ette set. By defunding sfpd we are building the system to take care of our community. This is not a knee jerk reaction, unquote. This is a long battle for police and this white supremacist country on this stolen land. This argument for why you should defund and abolish police is built by marginalized communities. It is not new. Most people thank cops because theyre completely terrified of them. We dont need police. We need that money reallocated to real help, help that doesnt kill people or tear gas them during a viral pandemic. Invest in communities, not cops. And, yeah, turn your cameras on so that we can see that youre listening to us and not playing angry birds or stepping away for 15 minutes or tweeting back to people being really defensive, whatever that might look like. And make sure that every single district member is a part of these calls because this is not just supposed to be a Small Committee meeting. This should be an entire countywide meeting for the city of San Francisco. I now yield my time clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller, please. Caller hi. I have an interesting perspective to offer on this. My husband is in Law Enforcement here in San Francisco. And im not willing to identify him publicly. We live in district 8 and supervisor mandelmans district. And we have taken time to reflect on whats happening around the country and here. And my husband will be leaving his job, and while we understand that people are concerned about Public Safety, we dont think that it has to look like armed Law Enforcement or anything that resembles Law Enforcement. So its a difficult decision and reckoning, we do stand behind the movement to defund the sfpd. Many of our colleagues, we know that it means that many will lose jobs and we think that its the right thing. Thank you all for your time. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller. Caller hi. My name is kate and i live in the tenderloin. I just wanted to say to the last caller, your husband is one of the good ones. Thank you. Thank you for actually listening to the people of the city, the people of this world, of this nation, everywhere. Thank you for your service and for realizing what you need to do. To supervisor yee i want to say thank you for coming up with this motion that were talking about today. I think that its amazing how you have this coming before the floyd uprising, so to the people saying this is a knee jerk reaction, again, this has been in place since weeks before the george floyd uprising. This is not a knee jerk reaction, this is an ongoing problem that needed to be addressed in multiple ways throughout the world. So, you know, its not a knee jerk reaction. To the caller saying not every cop every single one deal with it. To the blue to the rest of the citizens, what youre seeing on the wall here is a blue wall of silence again. Its like what they want to hide behind. They dont want us to know that theyre just typing on their phones and not paying attention. Theyre hiding behind a little blue wall again protecting police in every way that they can. They want us to not be able to see them. To the people behind the blue wall protecting them and protecting police, we see you. We see what is happening. And if you want to be another portland, if you want to be another seattle, were ready to be on the streets, trust me. I dont yield my time. Go fuck off. Clerk can we have the next speaker, please. Caller hi, this is martin callincalling from district 5. I wanted to call in to support this Charter Amendment. I think that minimum staffing for police is arbitrary and we should be able to defund the police, you know, as we need it in the city of San Francisco. I wasnt going to originally call because i feel that, you know, this is really common sense and that the board will take this up. However, i did hear comment from a Law Enforcement officer who said that they are aware of police brutality. And id like to ask that officer if theyre aware that brutality before or after the department ran vans into people and protesters during first couple days of black lives matter protests in San Francisco. I was part of that crowd, you know, and im proud to support black lives matter and i do not appreciate having a van almost run me over on Market Street of all streets. Again, i support this Charter Amendment. And, yeah, defund the police. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller, please. Caller hi, my name is lawrence and i live in district 9. Im calling in in support of the Charter Amendment. Im also glad to see that this is moving to the next step. Thank you for listening to us, and thank you president yee for bringing this forward. As i said i see this as a positive initial step on the way to creating a better and more equitable society. Equitable society where were all safe and we all have access to the same access to the resources. Were currently not living in that reality, very apart from it. But, again, its a very good first stip but w step but we sta long way to go. Thank you and i yield my time. Clerk thank you, can we have the next caller. Caller yes, hello, district 11. Im just calling to support the Charter Amendment and called to say that as an individual and as an organizer with the indiscernible organization, we support the abolition of the police. And we this Charter Amendment is one step. And we also support Community Control. We will not be satisfied to deal with the replacement of police and sheriffs with privatized security and privatized Law Enforcement. We want Community Control and an end to this relic of slavery that infected and oppressed our society for way too long. Clerk we are going to move on. Any additional comments . Can we have the next speaker, please. Caller good afternoon. This is alex calling from district 10. Im also a member of d. S. A. Im calling in support of the Charter Amendment. Thank you, president yee, and supervisors, for considering this. You know, the thing was put on the ballot in 1994, the arbitrary minimum of Police Officers association, and frankly for way too long that interest has really seized control of the public spending here. And so i think this is a great first step for actually looking at Public Safety from an analytical perspective as opposed to, you know, just funneling our public money towards, frankly, a lot of people who live in nevada at this point. So i appreciate what youre doing here. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next speaker, please. Caller good afternoon. indiscernible my name is roland w and indiscernible in 1964 to San Francisco. Please do not undo the minimum staffing for the citizens of San Francisco. In the city charter, section 4. 127, this is for the safety and protection of everyone in San Francisco. It seems that ive seen less and less Police Officers walking the beat in San Francisco, and ive seen an upping of more crimes and vandalism and crimes against seniors and streets littered with garbage and graffiti and people on drugs and drunk and urination and drug dealing and more in public. I am saying please maintain the minimum Staffing Levels for the Police Department. For the safety of the residents of San Francisco, and indiscernible for the theft levels as they currently are before making any decisions. The Police Presence in my opinion is a crime of deterrent. Look around San Francisco and walk around north beach, chinatown, union square, the tenderloin and look at how dirty it is. And the criminals that might be walking around. Look at union square. Look at all of the rioting and the looting and damage to property of everything. Look oh, look at the public defenders. You want to release all of the criminals. Look at the last public defender . What did he do . He died indiscernible and look at the current District Attorney. He was the public defender and refuses to prosecute criminals. Look at all of the crimes of the asian seniors. You know, the lady at the tunnel getting dragged into out of the car and her purse ripped off her. And the old man indiscernible and got robbed and beat by the people up at hunters point. I think that we need clerk thank you, speaker time has elapsed. Can we have the next speaker, please. Chair, that completes the queue. President yee, do you have any closing comments before i ask my other colleagues . Supervisor yee no, i want to again thank the public for expressing their viewpoint, and actually i want to say thank you for everybodys respect. And as much as they are varied, theres legitimacy in everybodys point of view. And i want to really respect that. Thank you so much. Supervisors mar and stefani, any comments . Thank you, chair ronen. I wanted to thank all of the callers during Public Comment today and also at the last hearing on this item. Thanks again to president yee for your leadership on bringing this important Charter Amendment forward. And im proud to cosponsor this. This is a common sense change replacing the outdated and arbitrary minimum staffing level for uniformed Police Officers with a much more thoughtful datainformed and transparent process. And this is also an important part of our broader reimagining of Law Enforcement and Community Safety in this historic moment. So thanks again, president yee, for bringing this forward. I look forward to voters weighing in on this in november. Chair ronen thank you, supervisor mar. Supervisor stefani. Supervisor stefani thank you for all of the callers who have called in today. We are listening to you. I just want to repeat again, even when we have our cameras on during Public Comment you cannot see us for some reason but we are listening, we hear you. This is a very important time in our history, a very important time in our city. And i know that there are a lot of conflicting opinions and views on this. And a lot of hurt, a a lot we all know this is big. But, you know what, i do have to say and hope that we can all come through this together and be stronger and safer. And for everybody. So i just want to let everyone know that, again, thank you for your comments. Thank you for your passion. Thank you for, you know, for going through this. I think that everyone i just want to again to reiterate that we will get through this and we will hopely do it with respect for one another and respect for all opinions and listening to everybody. So, again, president yee, thank you for bringing this forward and i look forward to continuing to listen and learning more from everybody on this topic, thank you. Yes, i wanted to add my appreciation, president yee, for bringing this crucial, crucial item forward as a start to reimagining what Public Safety could look like in San Francisco. We have to remove any mandatory requirements in the charter. And this is a nobrainer. So i wanted to just express my gratitude to you for this work. And then, of course, to every member of the public who is engaging so consistently and regularly and in masses that i have never seen before on all of these items, thank you for telling us what you need and what you want. It is important for us to listen and to know. And with that, i would be happy to make a motion to send this to the full board with positive recommendation as a committee report. Can we take a roll call vote on that motion. Clerk on the motion to recommend this matter as a committee report, to the july 14th meeting of the board of supervisors. Supervisor stefani. Aye. Stefani, aye. Supervisor mar. Aye. Mar, aye. Chair ronen . Aye. Ronen, aye. The motion passes. Thank you very much. Chair ronen have a great day, president youre. Mr. Clerk, read item 5. Clerk item 5 is the Charter Amendment to amend the charter of the city and county of San Francisco to create the Sheriff Department Oversight Board to have recommendations to the sheriff and the board of supervisors regarding Sheriffs Department operations, to create the Sheriffs Department office of Inspector General, under the direction of the Inspector General appointed by the Oversight Board, to investigate complaints of noncriminal misconduct by employees and contractors of the Sheriffs Department and incustody deaths, develop policy recommendations for the Sheriffs Department, and report quarterly its findings, results and recommendations to the sheriff and the Oversight Board at an election to be held on november 3, 2020. Chair ronen thank you so much. Good afternoon supervisor walton, how are you . Supervisor walton doing great, thank you so much, chair ronen and to my colleagues on the committee. First i just want to thank all of my cosponsors, supervisors ronen, haney, preston, yee and mar for supporting this muchneeded Charter Amendment to hold the Law Enforcement accountable. We have seen deaths in our jails, assaults in our jails and we have paid out in lawsuits because of sheriff misconduct. And this cannot continue to happen. We need this independent oversight over our Sheriffs Department when it comes to the investigations of these infractions. Like the ones that i have just named. And we have other counties that have similar models in place like los angeles county. I want to thank all of the advocates who work with us on this Charter Amendment as well as the public defender, and the District Attorney bodean, and the president kim romda, and sheriff. And the Law Enforcement cannot continue to go unchecked and this oversight is just one step in keeping everyone safe and holding the Sheriffs Department accountable. Just some brief reminder that this Charter Amendment will establish a sheriffs Department Oversight board of Seven Members who should complete a training and orientation on custodial Law Enforcement, constitutional policing, and Sheriff Department policies and procedures. This body will appoint the Inspector General to evaluate the work of the Sheriffs Department, to recommend Law Enforcement custodial and best practices and conduct Community Outreach to give public input regarding the Sheriff Department operations in the jails and the conditions. This body will receive, review and investigate complaints against Sheriff Department employees and contractors. And this body will investigate deaths and certain assaults of any individuals in the custody of the Sheriffs Department. The body will also develop and recommend to the sheriff a useofforce policy and a comprehensive internal review process for all use of force and critical incidents. Quarterly reports are submitted to the sheriff and the sheriffs Department Oversight for a report to include the number and the types of will complaints filed, trained analysis, and the outcome of each complaint. Im looking forward to a positive vote for this to move forward today. I just want to thank you, chair ronen, for the time. Chair ronen thank you. Do any of my colleagues have any comments before opening this up for Public Comment . No . Mr. Clerk, please open this up for Public Comment and every speaker has two minutes to speak. Clerk yes. Yes, members of the public who wish to provide Public Comment on this item should call 1 415 6550001. And the meeting i. D. Is 146 661 5309. And then press pound and pound again. If you havent already done so, please dial star, 3, to line up to speak. A system prompt indicates that you have raised your hand. Please wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted and you can begin your comments. Do we have any Public Commenters . Yes, we do, i will release the first caller. Caller hi, i want to indiscernible the Police Department and it was impossible to get indiscernible even though youre saying that you had indiscernible in the right area indiscernible and had my hand up so you may want to check that system. People are not trying to indiscernible they are telling you what they want to do. They want to abolish the Police Department and the courts and the prisons so that we can have 90 of black people in this country that are killed by other black people, but really it should be pretty clear that the Law Enforcement people indiscernible its not because theyre antiblack, its because theyre anticrime. So lets just get on board with trying to stop to trying to make the people of San Francisco unsafe. So lets work on that. This is ridiculous if you think that indiscernible but well be there tomorrow. Thank you. Clerk thank you, can we have the next caller, please. Caller hi, i was calling in about the sheriffs commission and its a good step but, again, a step towards reform. One thing that supervisor walton, we wanted to address that we wanted to work with you to reallocate budgets of multiple departments. Thank you for your work on the sheriffs commission. Unfortunately, youre not free until july 27th, it would be difficult to work collaboratively with you and the mayor, but we request a meeting sooner. Wed like to really work with you. So thank you so much. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller. Caller hello, indiscernible again im from district 8 and i live in San Francisco and i just wanted to respond to the caller, just like the police, the sheriff, they do not have our Public Safety in mind. When i was protesting at city hall, protesting the curfew that is was a terrible curfew ims toed by the mayor imposed by the mayor there was police and sheriffs and the National Guard all lined up by city hall. Even though those protesters were entirely peaceful. So i just dont believe the sheriffs are here to provide Public Safety more than the police are. I support this amendment only because it gives more oversight of the sheriffs, but as another caller mentioned this is one step towards abolishing police, including abolishing the sheriffs. I wanted to respond that remark about violence on black on black crimes. Thats not true. Police brutalize black and brown people every day and they always criminalize black and brown people. Police and sheriffs are just not here to to advocate for Public Safety. So please advance this amendment, but, again, we want to defund and disarm and abolish the police and the sheriffs. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Can we have the next caller. Madam chair, that completes the queue. Chair ronen okay, thank you so much. Any comments from my colleagues . No, supervisor stefani . Supervisor stefani i want to thank supervisor walton again for his work on this and i look forward to it. Chair ronen thank you so much, supervisor walton, and with that im happy to make a motion to move this item forward with positive recommendation to the full board as a committee report. Can we take a roll call on that motion. Clerk yes, on the motion to recommend this matter as a report to the board of supervisors, meeting of july 14th. Supervisor stefani. Aye. Stefani, aye. Supervisor mar. Aye. Mar, aye. Chair ronen . Aye. Ronen, aye. The motion passes without objection. Chair ronen mr. Clerk, any other items on the agenda . Clerk that completes the agenda for today. Chair ronen thank you so much. The meeting is adjourned. Have a good day, everyone. Hi. Im Chris Mathers with channel 19, and youre watching coping with covid19. Today, im going to be talking about exercising during the pandemic. First, im going to tell you what ive been doing, and then im going to be checking in with some friends and family. Ive been riding my bike. All i take is a pair of gloves and a mask if i come into contact with anyone. I try to ride my bike during the time im sheltering in place. I try to ride for at least 30 minutes. Surfing is my other regular outdoor activity. California state guidelines recommend you dont drive more than ten minutes for a spot to exercise, and although im close to ocean beach, im a bit wary to go there, so im using the time to do some maintenance. Filling in gouges and dings, and sanding it down. Im also repairing holes in my suit. Fellow sfgovtv producer chris took his first yoga lesson a couple of years ago and used to go to a class regularly before the lockdown. He and his wife set up a space in their garage for exercising. This routine is from an online class by power yoga. Deann and andy have been using the ping pong table that they bought off craigslist and set it up in their back yard. Ellie has been using this home gym to stay fit. It has everything she needed. And lastly, if the weather is bad outside, you can exercise your mind by doing a puzzle, sudoku, or just by reading a good book. Heres a quick recap. Since i started this episode, the guidelines have changed. For instance, jack may be able to go golfing with some restrictions. Go to sf. Gov to get the most uptodate mayor breed today we have 4935 confirmed crisis of covid19 and 52 people have lost their lives. I will provide an update i tested negative for a second time after be exposed to someone with covid19. This does not mean that i am immune or can let my guard down moving forward. I will continue to keep my distance from others, wear my mask and frequently wash my hands just like everyone else should be doing. As you know, San Francisco has recently seen a sharp increase in cases in hospitalization as a result of the virus, and we had to pause scheduled reopening. On april 11, we had 94 people hospitalized. By midjune we were down to 26 people. We are back up to 80 people in the hospital. Today we want to provide an update on how we are moving forward as a city. As always, we will continue to be guided by the science in our data and Decision Making because we know how fast this pandemic can get out of control. As dr. Colfax outlined we have a small window of time to get our cases under control before we could see the large outbreaks that we are seeing around this country. We are continuing to pause our reopening indefinitely until our Public Health indicators improve and none of them are in the red. As of today, San Francisco is on the states watch list due to our rising hospitalizations, meaning we need to follow the state restrictions even though we were given a variance not too long ago to move forward more quickly with our reopening. We followed almost all restrictions. The main change is that indoor mall and non essential offers must now also close. If the state adds more restrictions we will follow them. If conditions in our city dont improve, we can also choose to close additional businesses and activities as well. We have flattened this curve once, and we must do it again. What i am afraid of is the complacency. People are tired of the virus. The virus is not tired of us. What we know from our Contact Tracing is that a large part of the new virus spread is coming from people having gatherings with others outside of their household. One of our Disaster Service workers, a person working on our disaster response, was recently infected due to one of those gatherings. She lives with a roommate and the roommate decided to go camping with 15 friends. They figured camping was a safe socially distance activity, they would wear masks and be fine. They didnt expect anyone in the group to have covid. After a few days, as is human nature, they got comfortable, started sharing meals and food and sitting closer during dinner and stopped wearing masks. One person in the group started to show symptom. They figured it was just a cold. When the roommate got home she started showing signs of a cough. She scheduled the test. The Service Worker had to quarantine taking her away from her important role. The roommate tested positive. The Disaster Service worker tested negative. The point is that gatherings remain dangerous. You need to give a lot of thought if they are worth it and how to do it safely. Can you wear a mask . Can you be socially distance . Can you wash your hands often . If you cant, you are not only risking your health and health of others but further pushing back the date when our city can open because we are not reopening until we get this under control. We need to redouble efforts to limit gatherings and wear masks outside of your household. The other major area of spread is among people going to work. Latino residents in particular in the eastern and southeastern neighborhoods are struggling. We are continuing to focus further expanding access to testing in these communities and conducting targeted outreach. We opened a new site to add to the expansion of testing sites in tenderloin, mission and sunnydale and bayview. The steep cant conduct all of the testing by ourselves. We need private care providers to step up. That is why we will be issuing a health order requiring private Healthcare Providers to increase testing by providing same day testing for patients with symptoms and close contact of people confirmed to have covid19. Additionally, private hospitals must provide testing to a symptomatic workers in jobs with risk of exposure. The delays in testing cannot continue. They must step up to do their part. The main message is that we need everyone to do their part. We have to get this virus under control right now. We dont be have months. We barely have weeks. Every decision you make affects everyone around you. If you choose not to wear a mask when you go out, you are delaying reopening further. If you are going to a barbecue and acting irresponsibly you are preventing children from being able to return to school, forcing parents to stay home from work or miss shifts at the job because you are not taking basic steps. Most importantly, you are endangering peoples lives. We want to move with reopening. We know we are going to be living with covid19 for the next 12 to 18 months. What we all do matters. How we all respond responsibly makes a difference. We have proven that time and time again in the past. We cant do that right now. We are all able to do our part. If we are going to get to where we are able to open and let people get back to work because they are financially struggling, allow kids to go to school and engage and interact with one another to learn and grow. We will see our elderly parents and grandparents in the nursing homes. How to get back to things that make life more meaningful has everything to do with everybody being part of the solution. Please know that we are not out of the woods. Know that we are seeing a spike. Know that you, only you can make the difference. Please wear your mask. Wash your hands. Socially distance and do everything to be part of the solution. That will make a difference to the city. I will turn this over to dr. Grant colfax for a update from the department of Public Health. Good morning. I am dr. Grant colfax, director of health. Thank you, mayor breed. In the past weeks, San Francisco has been experiencing a surge in cases and hospitalizations that have forced us to pause reopening plans. Increase our testing and Contract Tracing and care for many more covid19 positive patients. Unfortunately this is happening all across california. As of today, we join more than 30 counties statewide including most bay area counties on the states watch list based on the rising hospitalization numbers. I want to emphasize that the people in the hospital in San Francisco today as we speak are not only the elderly and the most frail. In fact, at San Francisco General Hospital the average age of the person hospitalized since july 1st with covid19 has been 41 years. Young people, middle age people, older people. We are all at risk for this disease. We are all at risk for serious consequences. With our designation of being on the states watch list, we are required to close malls and non essential offices again starting this monday, july 20th. We will continue to pause our reopening indefinitely. San francisco, we can do better than this. We know we can do better. We have proven that already. The virus is moving quickly. We must accelerate response. It took 38 days, more than a month to go from 2000 to 3,000 cases in our city. Now it has taken 13 days, less than two week goes to go from 4,000 cases to nearly 5,000. There are several key steps that we can take and that we must take until the Health Indicators improve and our information shows that the virus is subsiding and slowing in San Francisco. We dont have a lot of time today so i will keep my remarks short. I would like to highlight a few key points about the Current Situation. We know the pandemic affects some communities more than others. We must continue to focus on equity in our planning and response. In San Francisco the lat inx community makes up 50 of cases even though they represent only 15 of the citys population. Another Group Workers who must leave homes to take risk are more at risk of getting infected and are getting sick in greater numbers. The neighborhoods on the eastern and Southeast Side of the city continue to have higher rates of cases. The surge is making all of these disparities worse. We are working with Community Leaders and Community Members to improve outreach and communication. That work includes targeting Testing Services where they are needed most. In the past two weeks we have expanded low barrier testing in the mission, bayview, tenderloin, potrero hill and sunnydale neighborhoods. Testing has been a reoccurring issue since the beginning of the pandemic. We have come a long way. At first there were no tests at all. Then there were extreme short ages of supplies. After that we had to let people know how and where they could get tested. Today we are acceding our testing goal of providing 1800 tests each day in the city. Now providing an average of 2599 tests per day. As demand grows, access to appointments is getting harder and test results are taking longer. While testing challenges are a National Issue as a result of lack of federal leadership, we need to improve the situation where some san franciscans are waiting a week or more for an appointment and sometimes as long as that for results. More than 95 of san franciscans have some form of healthcare coverage. Private providers need to do their share in our testing effort. The citys public test sites are current bely conducting an average of 60 of all of the tests that are being done in the city. Therefore, on monday we are issuing a health order requiring private providers to test their patients with symptoms, those in close contacts of known cases, and a symptomatic workers at higher risk of exposure. This testing must be done on the day requested. This will help and will free up the capacity of San Franciscos public Testing Program with the goal of allowing residents who are uninsured or members of impacted communities to get tested from a more timely manner. We need to realize that while testing is a key tool and will continue to be a key tool in our response, we are not going to be able to test ourselves out of this pandemic. Iin fact, the more the virus is around the harder it will be for us to keep up. We will fall behind. That is why prevention is so key. Today a covid positive person in San Francisco is expected to infect more than one additional person causing the disease to spread. A positive test means that prevention did not work. This is important. A negative test is not a passport to do what you want. Dont get complacent and take risks because you tested negative. Gatherings are opportunities for the virus to spread and must be avoided. If san franciscans stop gathering, wear face mask at all times and socially distance, we will be able to get the situation under control. It is that simple. We know how to slow the spread of the virus. We know how to do it. We just must do it. We must do it quickly. The key next step if everyone something to do to flatten the curve. This includes residents, businesses, Healthcare System and the city. First, we will continue to pause reopening until the Health Indicators and other data show that the virus has subsided in San Francisco. Second, we will abide by the states restrictions as a watch list county, and i emphasize this we reserve the option to go further than the state in closing additional businesses and activities while continuing to pause reopening if our local and regional conditions call for it. Third, to reenforce the mayors comment. San franciscans need to change their behavior. Do not gather. Cover your face. We know many of our new cases can be traced back to social gatherings of families and friends. Think about that. The Birthday Party or barbecue can spread the virus and get many people sick. Remember half of the people with the virus dont show symptoms. You cannot tell by looking at somebody or asking somebody how they feel if they have covid19. A symptomatic spread is a key part of the surge we are seeing. These gatherings can and could delay the first day of school or the chance to go back to work and worse than the inequities we are seeing in this pandemic. Do your part, please do your part. Our individual actions have a big impact on the entire community. Fourth, we will continue to focus on equity and the communities that are most affected by the pandemic. We are working with Community Leaders to expand testing, outreach and partnership. We are conducting extensive multi media campaigns to reach people in their own neighborhoods and languages. 5. We will continue to expand Testing Capacity and access. The health order coming out monday be will guarantee providers do their share while the city continues to expand testing in the neighborhoods most impacted. We will, we must continue to follow the data, science and facts. Together we have the power to flatten the curve once again. We can emerge from this pandemic with strength and pride in our communities and our collective effort. The work we have done together has saved lives and improved health and will put our city back together. The time is short. It is up to us to take action now and i thank you, San Francisco, for doing just that. Thank you. We will now begin the q a portion of the press conference. We have the first set of questions for dr. Colfax only. From mission local. Before going to work and latino residents are struggling. Why only 300 tests at the hub. Why were people turned away yesterday for lack of tests . I was at the hub yesterday. It was remarkable to see the work done there. We have been partnering with the Latino Task Force since the early days of the epidemic to expand testing. We need to expand testing, particularly in the mission and lat inx community. We are continuing to build that capacity. As i said we are requiring providers to provide same day testing to workers and people symptomatic. We also have other testing sites in the Mission Neighborhood including the zuckerberg General Hospital and continuing to work the Mission Neighborhood Health Center offering popup testing and ensuring people understand when and where to get tested and expanding the Contact Tracing. Half of our cases are among latin x residents and half of temperaturofthe exact tracing i. People understand if they test positive and they qualify, they can access the right to Recovery Program to have the support and resources necessary to keep themselves and their families were safe thank you, doctor. Next set of questions janney harwith associated press. Most School District start with year with Distance Learning. Governor will issue the orders soon regarding schools. Under which conditions do you feel comfortable allowing in person classes . Would all county wide indicators have to be at certain level and the safety conditions vary by age or class size . What do you tell pris private schools. The city issued guidance with regard to schools. We are going to need to see indicators improve before School Openings would be allowed. The complexity of the question is addressed by the School Guidance we issued. We want to ensure that schools do make the decision to reopen that they are following best evidence in terms of reducing transmission to people most vulnerable for the virus and that children or families and school staff are as safe as possible. It is a very complex issues and rapidly evolving issue. We will follow data, science and facts to ensure when schools open they are doing so in the most safe way possible. From crown 4. The city is giving mixed messages. In noey the tables and chairs are return causing people to it is next to each other. How many sites have had tables and chairs returned . Doesnt this send the wrong message. Outdoor activity is much safer than indoor activity. The science has shown that being outdoors is much safer and people need to get outside for mental and physical health. We cant stay inside for long periods of time. When we are outside, we need to follow the guidelines. The people need to stay at least six feet apart. It is very clear our health order makes it clear that people need to wear facial coverings, including mask or other facial coverings when they are within three feet of each other. The message is clear. The mayor was clear and i am clear. If you are outside within 30 feet you need the facial covering to keep the community safe. Thank you, doctor. From melanie from abc 7. Can you clarify the change to San Francisco around testing as of the monday health order. Had private providers not been testing people previously . Will they have tests and supplies to do so . They have been doing testing. I would emphasize that across the city of all of the tests done, 60 are tests supported by the Health Department or other city departments. That investment is huge. Providers have been doing testing. What this health order will require all providers to offer testing to people who are symptomatic, who have been in close contact with a known covid positive or who are workers at high risk for the virus. That will be required to be same day offering of the test. Their Health Systems that have the ability to get the supplies and to do the testing and if that is not the case, certainly this order will require that they get them. Thank you, doctor, thank you may or and director colfax for joining us today. This concludes todays press conference. Welcome back to 49 hang on , have you seen our first video . If not, click on the link before in the description and watch before you watch this one. Welcome back to 49 south van ness. We are excited to show you around today as we have now topped out and we are well underway for construction. Early in june this year, we had a topping out ceremony. It was the very last steel beam that was placed at the roof penthouse level. We had a number of speakers who came to join us. It was a great event and we cant wait to show you what is going on inside. [ ] what has happened in the last year is Steel Construction is now topped out at the top. Down below us, as you can see, as a full foundation. The basement is almost complete. We have concrete, we have steel, we have framing, we have a little bit of everything. To get started, i would love to walk you through what we call the form. It is a really exciting new way to get from here into 49 south then ness. It is a new Public Open Space that cuts through the walking allows people to walk through there and gives the civic Building Three or more ways to be connected to this really big block. [ ] we are in the pavilion gallery. Right behind me as south van ness. It is very close to the street. You will see a curved wall with an l. E. D. Screen. This space will be used for a number of different purposes. It will be also one of the most prominent spaces in this building. We are here in the main atrium lobby. Behind me here, there are the grand stairs that will eventually be fully finished with wood and this will go to the level to permit center. Welcome to the permit center. We are now on the second floor of the building. The permit center is the driver for this project. Picture this. I am a plan checker and im sitting on the inside of the permitting counter. And i am a member of the public, and i get to come in here and enjoy this big, open, beautiful space as well as tables and chairs behind to open up my plans, review them. The terrace is just outside. Tons of windows, daylight views. It is very exciting upgrades and improvements. [ ] now were on level three, which has a really great building amenity, the childcare center. In fact, we are standing at the terrace, or the outdoor space that is connected to the childcare center. The kids will have access to a huge area for playspace, as well as a really nice interior space for three classrooms. When the kids are out here playing, they will get a very close up view of the historical clock tower. A some of you may have seen, we have preserved a historic clock tower that one point was the cocacola bottling plant, so we have tried to integrate this into our building and thoughtful and meaningful ways, and preserve some of the character of the site. [ ] the two have so the tower joined in the center. The idea was to create a scene where all of the collaboration spaces can rise vertically to the architecture is a public as the public comes to the Office Building, they are physically within a public realm, but visually connected to the inner workings. The theme is going to be a Collaborative Center that includes an atrium nested by a series of stairs. This is the bottom of the threestory stack. At the bottom of this, would be a collaborative breakout space where you can have meetings, have lunches, just talk to your coworkers. [ ] we have Conference Rooms throughout the building, including the Coffee Center and the Training Center which will be used by staff and potentially for things like city hearings. There are a lot of amenities in the building that make it really be unique really unique and special. [ ] one of the unique aspects of the building is it is clad in eight and a system that will adjust the intensity of the tent of the glass as the sun moves around it and is whether patinas weather patterns change. Everything from the glazing that covers the glazing, to the water system, were really excited to bring this tower to San Francisco. [ ] it is a pretty exciting project. A civic Office Building for the city of San Francisco. It is pretty unique. I dont believe the city has built a new building of this type in at least 50 years. Were really excited to partner with the city to create a new experience for you and for all of us. Thank you so much for joining us today. We hope you really enjoyed the tour inside the construction of 49 south of then ness. Watch our next episode when we give you another update on the projects being that see next time. [ ] [laughter] sorry about that. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Just a friendly reminder for those who are joining us for the first time. This platform is only for members of the press. If you are member of the public, watch the live stream on sfgov tv on the youtube channel. Keep yourselves on mute and also keep your videos off as well so we dont distract from the remarks. If you have any questions at the end, i do want to let everyone know we do have a hard stop at 11 30 to be mineful of the directors to be mindful of the directors time. If you have any questions, please submit them to us by chat and well receive those questions and try to submit as much as we can with the time that we have. Please remember to give your full name and outlet and no more than two questions. And depending on time and the type of question we might take it offline as well. Thank you, all, if for your patience, and i will pass its on to you director colfax. Well, good morning, everyone. Im dr. Grant colfax, director of health for the city and county of county. Tos today im going to provide an update on the covid19 pandemic in San Francisco looking at health ind kaytors and other data. Unfortunately, we are experiencing a surge in covid19 infections that is affecting our communitys health and our reopening plans. As a result, we are forced to continue to pause our reopening plans until conditions improve. We are, we have been, and we continue to be in a period of uncertainty, and i want to acknowledge that is a really hard place to be. We all need to continue to do what we know works. We can flatten the curve and we can do it again, but if we do not, the consequences could be dire. In terms of where we stand today, both locally, regionally, and nationally, in San Francisco we have 4,696 cases diagnosed of covid19 and sadly, 50 deaths. In the bay area region, approximately 37,500 cases and 667 deaths. Across the state, 346,000 cases and over 7,000 deaths, and across the nation, cases and deaths continue to rise. 3. 4 million cases and nearly 137,000 deaths. The virus is not only still out there, it is out there more than ever before. It continues to spread locally in our community and throughout the bay area region. We are working with researchers who are seeing the reproductive rate of the virus continue to claim above 1. Right now we estimate that that number is now approximately 1. 3. That means that each person who is infected with covid19 is passing the virus on, transmitting the virus on on average to more than one person. It is key that we get that reproductive number to 1 or lower. It is key for us to move forward. Now, 1. 3 doesnt seem that different from 1, that far from 1, but if we do not do better, we are looking at major problems by late august and september with an average peak an average peak of 900 hospitalized patients by early october. And just to put this in some frame of reference on the last surge in april, we peaked at 94 cases. This average scenario of 900 cases is nearly 10 times worse and it is certainly not the worst Case Scenario that we have by that time. Models show that we could have thousands of hospitalized cases by then. Todays tracker show that there are 92 covid positive patients in San Francisco hospitals. That includes 76 San Francisco residents and 16 transfers. Lets look at the Health Indicators we are using to monitor our covid19 response in the city. These are available on the San Francisco data tracker, and you can reach them from our departments website. They are scored by color. Green, yellow, orange, and red to make it easier to see at a glance where we stand and theres detailed Data Available for people who want to dig a little deeper. Right now the indicators show that we have reason to be concerned. Our cases per 100,000 and the case rate has increased to 7. 7. That is in the red zone. Our goal is to keep the case rate around 1. 8. We are red. In terms of our Hospital System, the rate of covid19 infections which really represents the slope of that curve that we work sod hard and successfully early on to flatten, that rate is now increasing at a 33 rate. That is red. That is cause for grave concern. Our goal is to keep that curve increasing by less than 10 . Our other hospital indicators are thankfully still green. Black is our capacity to take care of people across the nine Hospital Systems in the city. Right now we have 27 of the acute care beds available and 28 of the intensive care units available. With regard to testing, our testing indicator is green. We are coveraging 2,950 test day across the city. With our that is far exceeding our goal of 1800 tests. Certainly as we are seeing across the region, across the state and nationally, our testing system is experiencing delays in access and getting results both within our city system and with private providers. Our numbers are high at 20,950 in the green range. With regard to Contact Tracing, we are at level yellow reaching 85 of cases and 85 of contacts. We expect that that indicator to turn orange this week due to delayed test results reporting and our increases in cases. The Contact Tracing team is working hard to catch up and will continue to expand staffing of that program. In terms of our personal protective equipment or ppe, we are on level orange with 78 of the Health Department having a 30day supply of ppe. Im sorry, let me rephrase that. Across the Health Department, we have our ppe supply is 78 . Our goal is 100 . We are experiencing some issues in terms of obtaining ppe likely due to the increased National Demand for ppe supplies. San francisco and the challenges across california the virus is spreading at Dangerous Levels and this week the state announced a roll back with additional restrictions for counties on the states watch list. Approximately 30 counties are on the monitoring list as of today including several in the bay area. We know the bay area region is an interdependent region where they live, work, and play across and covid19 knows no county lines. If any county in the region is in trouble, we are all in trouble. That is why a regional approach has been key ever since this pandemic started, and we continue to be in touch with the hub area officers sharing data and solutions to keep all the communities as safe as possible. And it is certainly possible if our conditions do not improve, a roll back may be necessary in San Francisco in other parts of the bay area as well. Whether thats a roll back through local action or through state determined access rules will continue to be watched. But this is a tool to control the situation and we have always known that this is the possibility given the unprecedented situation in the uncertain situation we continue to face. No one wants to be in the situation were in. And as we look at the rise in cases, many of them are because the people have started to gather with friends and family and others to socialize. And i realize how hard these months have been for us and the sacrifice that all of us have made. These visits are really hard to resist but the truth is that they are spreading to covid. The birthday parties and visits with parents or grandparents, cousins, the barbecues, they are contributing to a delay or rollback in reopening of businesses or even the first day of school. Another key behavior that we all need to do is cover our faces indoors and outdoors when people are around you who are not part of your immediate household. This is critical. Research shows that masking significantly lowers the rate of transmission and 80 of people wear them. Adherence to facial coverings and masking is so key. One cannot tell by looking at someone if someone has covid19. We know that people are asymptomatic at some stage of their disease and they can transmit it when they are asymptomatic and being safe and wearing facial coverings and social distancing and using good hygiene is key to our success. And the simple act of wearing a mask will slow the spread of the virus and lead to lifting shelter in place restrictions. For those who are wearing masks, we are truly saving lives and those who are not taking precautions, you are not helping. The situation is becoming more serious every day. Please wear a mask and do not gather. Stay 6 feet apart. And wash your hands. These basic acts will make a huge difference if we do this together. We have flattened and we even crushed the curve before and that curve is now escalating and we all need to do better. And until then, our real thing is on pause. And until then, our reopening is on pause. We are not able to open up personal services, indoor museums, aquariums, outdoor swimming pools, Indoor Dining, outdoor bars without food, real estate open houses, and other activities that encourage people to gather and make it harder to wear a mask and social distance. And while it is hard to slow down the reopening and that we all want so badly and the price we pay for moving too quickly is very high. Remember, this virus has no timeline. That is why it is up to us and now is the time despite very curious numbers that i reported to you in terms of our hospitalization. We have a window to make a difference. We can still drive that number to one or lower that reproductive number by the interventions i just went through. We have a window to do this and it will make a huge difference in our hospitalization rates and the number of lives saved. We have shown that we can join together to make a difference, and we need to do it again. Truly, the power is in our hands. And even in the Uncertain Times we know for certainty what are the right steps that we need to take. We can have a thriving city with the healthy population and a renewed economy if we work together. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Colfax. This should be better. The first question and i do just want to say to everyone joining us today that we did receive another question and we will take them in the order they were received. And any others that we cant take in time we will simply take offline. Thank you for your patience. Dr. Colfax, the first question is from christian captain. Can we please explain the role schools could play in the state of covid19 infection rate . The School District announced that students will be Distance Learning when School Resumes august 17. Theres been a lot of talk on federal and local level about local kids getting back on campus. What will it take to get San Francisco kids back. One thing it will take is for us to be confident to reopen schools safely for the buildings to reopen, and certainly we are going to need to see a decrease in that reproductive rate and continue to follow the data and science to ensure that the support systems are in place and that people are able to physically distance and that the most vulnerable are protected in the settings and emphasizes the need to have the safety protocols in place and followed using the best evidence we have in terms of transmission. So we will make the decision about whether it is safe to reopen the physical spaces depending on where we stand with the virus and where with our surge in the city when the time comes. Thank you, doctor. Next question, the governor issued new order this is week to try to wrestle the california surge back under control. The order includes statewide closures of bars, Indoor Dining and other activity but those werent happening in San Francisco anyway. What places or events are currently the main source of infection and how are you in addressing the sources . We think it is a combination of factors and increasing the number of cases in the city. And there is clearly increased activity in terms of social gatherings that people are having and we really need to insure that people are taking the precautions and not making those and not having those birthday parties and barbecues moving forward as much as possible. And focussing on the prevention, education, and neighborhood by neighborhood and street by street and going to be so critical. And we are reinforcing the work with Community Partners to insure Community Champions that people have the resources and the knowledge they need to be safer. The other key components of this are that we continue to see infections among essential workers and we think that may be do to certain work place conditions that safety precautions are not being followed. We will be looking at that and enforcing and increasing our oversight and enforcement required precautions and the Health Orders that have been established and we will also be looking at the existing businesses and looking back at the data and potentially what is on the table for that. And i will also add that we have known since the beginning of the pandemic that crowded conditions that promote the spread of the virus and really again working with Community Members and multigenerational households to ensure and getting people tested and taking precautions to protect themselves as well as their family members. Thank you, doctor. Is the country considering the Outdoor Dining and reverting to takeout only as a way to reduce gatherings . Are there plans to cite businesses for Health Order Violations in your counties . We are taking one thing that is clear from the data is indoor activities are riskier than Outdoor Activities overall. We know that the virus spreads more easily and more quickly in indoors than outdoors. And we are taking a look to determine whether this increase in cases is driven by some of the Outdoor Dining and Outdoor Dining and we think this is more due to the noninsurance of some of the businesses rather than rather than the risk thats taken and the relatively smaller risk that is there and if the proper precautions are taken. And outdoors and dining and drinkings and not adhering to the masking and social distancing rules and is at a higher risk. And looking at increase in enforcement and in businesses and institutions and focussing on individual enforcement and enforcement of individuals but really looking at the potential enforcement of institutions and businesses that are not complying and doing the enforcement and the institution and right and Small Businesses are not able to necessarily comply at baseline and what can they do to improve their compliance and support and workers to be more safe during the challenging time. Thank you. Next question, doctor, are you ordering residents to stop gathering outside with masks if groups are keeping to under 10 or 12 people . So at this time we are encouraging people to minimize gatherings as much as possible, to wear a mask if you are in close contact with others and to socially distance whenever possible and certainly if people do better in these small groups that they gather outside is much, much safer. So those are the key components to this right now. And we know theres a lot of need to improve that appearance to the facial coverings of the social distancing. I think we know and we have seen particularly when people know each other and good friend or family members but not members of the immediate household, it is ward to wear a mask and keep socially distant. We want to hug people and we want to engage. We dont want to think a loved one who is not a part of the immediate household or good friend may be infected with covid19 which is why we really need to get the messages out and support the communities most affected by covid19 to drop this reproductive rate below 1. Thank you. Next question. How will the Current Situation effect decision to reopen indoor pools for summer camp . So we have put a pause on any additional and include outdoor pools at this time. Thank you. Next question, and what surge sites are ready to be set up and the Hospital System reaches capacity and when will that be done . Right now we have Hospital Capacity per indicators and again you can go to our website and see that capacity across the nine Hospital Systems and we are in the process as we have been a number of weeks preparing for a greater surge and i want to be clear here. We all need to do our part so that we dont get to that point. We have seen when this virus overwhelms Health Care Systems such as in new york city as it is now doing in arizona, florida, and the southern part of this state the outcomes are poor. Theyre much poorer while we have had 50 people die in San Francisco of covid19 and that is too many and one death is too many and our death rate is significantly and bend the curve here again and not overwhelming the Health Care Systems to move forward. Thank you, doctor. How will the city enforce the latest orders . Im sorry. I missed the first part of the question. Last question from San Francisco chronicle. How will the city enforce the latest orders . So we are working across the city to strengthen our enforcement capacity, and that will be a culmination across different cities and Department Agencies including the Health Department and the city attorney. If people see violations the violation of the health order and businesses and call 311 and make a report and send people out to investigate. Thank you, dr. Colfax. This concludes todays press conference. For all of you joining us today, we took the questions in order and the number that they were received and all other questions will be taken offline in the interest of answering them. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you