Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Budget And Finance Appropriations Committees 20240712

Commander ford showed in the powerpoint. Its not as much increases in the applicant pool. We only hire about 5 or 7 percent of the applicants. We have lot of applicants to get at the end. Very small number of candidates actually get through the whole process. I think its important to say, i hope this isnt taken the wrong way. Background process is strenuous and its strenuous on purpose. We ultimately from the entire pool, it is a small percentage that ultimately gets in the door and we armed with our equipment and guns. I guess i was in background for many years. I remember early on, this was years ago, the underlying theme was that the background process, it is exclusive to a degree. Were looking for a certain type of individual who has certain mindset and heart to come in this organization and do this kind of work. This is a unique profession and it requires a very unique personality. Were very all organizations are very particular about who we ultimately hire. Obviously, the implications are huge. If youre not suited or ready for this line of work. Thats the underlining theme. Were considering hiring people, not are they best, the question is are they suitable for hiring. Thats a culmination of a long process that takes sometimes a year. Were talking about physical, oral, background and is when we get into peoples personal and professional history and start crossreferencing information to see if theyre transparent with us. The numbers on face value maybe little alarming belch a pool we have a pool thats out here. I think the underline i theme, can we salvage more people. Is there a way to not. Only cast a wider net but pull people in the organization. At the end of the day, it is a very the process is stringent and everyone isnt suited for this line of work. Supervisor haney i wanted to make one point and some reflection. I know one of the values of this hearing was ability to see whats happening across Different Departments in our city and what folks are doing differently and what the data looks like. It does seem like im sure theres a lot to learn it does seem like the Sheriffs Department, at least as it relates to the demographics to the folks there, looks a bit different in terms of diversity. Is there would ascribe that to . In terms what they are doing, that maybe something other departments can learn from in terms of positive things they said there are things they would learn from you as well. Its funny you say that. I have relatives in the Sheriffs Department as well as relatives in the Fire Department. One of them is mr. Buford. I think it boils down to nature of the work. The way our Sheriff Department is structured, i dont want to overspeak, primarily they work in the jail, they are turnkey. Then dont have any patrol car. Its a different structure. In San Francisco, the police manage the street and the Sheriffs Department manage the jail. I think obviously, the nature of work is different. The implications are different. Being a police officer, in certain communities, is not attractive to pursue that line of work. Conversely, although sheriff are Law Enforcement, the way they function in San Francisco is different than anywhere else. I would say, the demographics at the Sheriff Department look different than Fire Department and Police Department. I think its really the nature of the work and then ultimately who gravitates towards that profession. Policing, we have our moments. To your point, theres a lot of variable and nuances that would feed into the research and the assessment as to whether or not why people of color, africanamerican in particular, are gravitating toward the Sheriffs Department as opposed to the Police Department and Fire Department. There are structural differences, lot of has to do with the nature of the work. Supervisor haney thank you for that. Its something that as were looking at these practices and processes and also as you said, what is drawing people to the work as well. What is it about the Sheriffs Department. For some grupps i grupp for e groups in our city are more drawn to it than the Police Department. I want to flag that. That is something thats notable with the opportunity to look at the Different Department bees. Im sure theres examples with the Fire Department as well. Supervisor peskin i will also note with all due respect to commander ford, theres also very different history in the Sheriffs Department. Interestingly enough, the Sheriffs Department was the only agency that was not subject to a Consent Decree. In large part because the sheriff is elected. Interestingly enough, if you go back to as early as 1971 when the first progressive sheriff was elected and then you had almost 30 years of Michael Hennessy at the helm. That level of diversity was really a function of having an elected official who was directly elected by the people and the people actually got to make choices as to who that sheriff was. It really have noteworthy that when judge conti, long time ago, issued those Consent Decrees at a very shameful period of time, relative to fire and police, the Sheriffs Department never went through that. I think thats in large part why three decades later, they look different. I have to say, lets just call it out little bit, which is that the unit of labor, the Deputy Sheriffs Association has actually not been as much of an impediment to the leadership in that organization over time as their counterpart. The Police Officers association has been relative to every chief and command structure as long as ive been around, which is 20 years. Every single thing, every obvious thing, subject to meet and confer for years upon years. I always say, you have to meet and confer, then you can go forward with a sensible policies that we all agree to. I wanted to get all that off my chest. Thank you mr. Chairman. Chief scott, i do want to say commander fords presentation was very thorough and impressive. Thank you sir. Supervisor safai just to bring it back little bit. I think that we got kind of about thousand feet. I want to bring it back down to the real, which is important. I think one of the things that i like the office of Racial Equity to do is when i hear online, physical, oral interviews, background processes, the d. O. J. Went through a significant number of recommendations. Theres the whole aspect of what process as much as possible, in your recruitment and hiring is objective then how much of your hiring process is subjective and subjective process is where many of the inherent biases are played out. Thats why i highlighted the retired members doing background processes. They cant help but people cant help but bring their biases into the conversation. The other thing to note is today how much energy and effort is put into recruitment and who are we targeting for recruitment and what does recruitment mean . Recruitment can also mean separation. If im just asked to step in an opportunity and im going against people that understand the process better than me or better prepared, i might not score as well or perform as well. An example of that is some of the physical which can be as of objective as possible. There might be some adjustments that need to be made. The Testing Processes itself, when we have a national organization, weve heard it over and over again. It seems to me both from applicants as well as some of the other people that representative bodies. This seem to be something thats a point of contention in the process. That has been an area where you see lot of diversified pool begin to drop off. Its not as reflective as your overall body. I want to underscore that point. I think were going to im going to ask the clair chair to continue the hearing. So we can either call of the chair set a date in the next three or four months so we can come back and people can talk about some of the progresses thats been made and ask the office of Racial Equity to give us analysis and recommendations. Well also be able to see how each department has performed during the budget process and what commitments theyve made to this. I dont necessarily have any other things to say to police other than the Testing Processes seem to be something that should be revisited. Obviously it rests with the Human Resources department, the power of your recommendation definitely could make some significant changes here if they are warranted based on the data. I agree 1000 . As referenced during my presentation, we have quarterly meetings. We definitely will revisit and consider the things that youre talking about and look at mitigate adverse effects. Once we get past the n. T. N. , we feel really good about the work were doing and embracing these applicants and identifying the ones thats suited for this organization. Supervisor safai if the Testing Process is leaving people out and youre getting that ends youre left with a very different makeup. I agree. Like i said before, well look at the n. T. N. Closer and tight up that process and not have the adverse effect its having. Supervisor safai okay. If you can share that study on the hiring process, if you can get that over to director finley and h. R. So they can have access to that and look at it and give their own interpretation an ande help form the conversation. We can go to the Fire Department now. Chief nicholson is still there. Greetings. Oh, just a minute. Director finley, did you have a question or comment . I do have a comment. I can wait until after chief nicholson speaks. You can go ahead. Youre good. Thank you chief and through the chair. Thank you supervisor safai, office of Racial Equity is able and ready with the additional support, our office with perform the analysis. We live in racialized society, the system we set up produce racialized outcome. Its impossible to find a mutual instrument that will produce the type of result that we want in regards to diversity inclusion. Therefore, as a city, we have to work extra hard to make sure that were setting up testing systems, our interviewing systems, our physical tests, background checks in a way that is overcompensate and make sure were not producing as many racialized outcomes that given we live in a im committed to advocating and working and pushing to make sure that with Department Resources and with our Agency Representatives here that we do that work which is necessary for this to happen. It sounds for us given the racial dropoff that weve even seen in each department in regards to testing and hiring needs to be examined. I want to make sure we dont fall in the overall population of San Francisco as an indicator how wel were doing. Were not doing well because of the extreme gentrification and displacement and black and brown people. Were not we have to put in extra to work make sure were not reproducing racialized outcomes that happens because of the society we live in p. P. P. Supervisor safai you heard some of the things presented by president buford and 798. Can we talk a little bit about that . I want to say for the record, i know that you been there for a year. Some of this stuff predates your position and taking over and also understand as you stated, were faced with the significant budget shortfall and economic calamity. Part of the reason why we called this hearing was to ensure as we confront the budget process or tackle the budget process, were going in with eyes wide open. I think this is something everyone made a commitment to and we need to figure out ways as creative as they might be, to make really firm commitments. Heard from president buford about the Recruitment Division, meeting a budget, needing a better classification for the Recruitment Officer and properly funded and additional staffing dedicated to recruitment. I wanted to see what your response to that was and what some of your thinking was since you been the chief now for some time . Thank you supervisor safai. If i can go back for a little bit. When Consent Decree happened, we had a really well staffed well oiled recruitment machine and a Testing Division in our department that mr. Johnson was part of. When i came in, there was all this support. We got to go to workshops and all sorts of things. It was really impactful and really effective obviously. End of the Consent Decree came. Im not sure when the testing unit moved over to d. H. R. We lost that testing unit. Supervisor safai when did the Consent Decree end . Approximately . Im not certain. I cant remember if it was 15 or 20 years. I think it was around 2009 when we were left with not a whole lot of anything. The diversity of our department was really strong at that time. The chief spoke this morning. She came in couple of years after i did. We all had really good support. Fast forward to 2009, we didnt have much of anything. I believe that d. H. R. Hired a Public Safety Recruitment Officer and had that for i dont know how many years. D. H. R. Can speak to that. I dont think that was particularly impactful. Thats when we had no one. In 2015, our former chief hired a recruitment firefighter to do recruitment. Thats what we had since that time. If you look at our Strategic Plan, it backs up lot of what president buford said as well as what i think. I would love to be able to get funding to put in place so we can be as impactful and duty outreach and supportive stuff that we did 30 years ago. The budget. Our Strategic Plan does speak to that and it is extremely important to me. We are having trouble staffing getting enough staffing for our ambulances. Last year, i tried to i came in two weeks before the budget. I asked for additional staffing, additional administrative staffing. Very difficult with the board and got very little in terms of administrative staffing. This year, we are being removed from the budget. Whether we like it or not. That is the reality of it. I dont want to make excuses. I welcome any and all recommendations that come out of this. I look forward to figuring out the solution. Started trying to do something little bit differently. In the past, past 16 years we had one person choose who was going to answer the San Francisco Fire Department. I wanted to change that. Thats why i reached out to all the Employee Groups to ask them to help recommend people that they wanted they thought would be qualified to come into the department by holding panels and having conversations with people. Then to address what director sims said in terms of there being 18 africanamerican women. That is an absolute shame and a travesty and its awful. Clearly, we are not doing something right. Were not doing a lot of things right. How do we make these changes with not a lot of money because we have we just been were all being gutted this year with our budget. How do we make these changes, how do we do what we need to do . Thats the question. Im open to recommendations to ideas, thoughts. I look forward to figuring this out. This is important to me. Supervisor safai i appreciate that. I didnt have any preconceived notions of what we were going to be presented with today. I didnt know that the Police Department had eight full time staff dedicated to recruitment. I knew based on the meetings that we had with the representative groups there was only one person with your department. I didnt know exactly how many in the Sheriffs Department. [please stand by]. I just think there is creative ways that you could obviously you are given 423 million. I dont know what your time number is going to be. You could make a gesture in this budget to find a way, given the circumstances that we are under in terms of this overall climate that we are in, and it is important that our First Responders are making that commitment. I think we have to find a way within our existing budgets, even faced with the shortfall on how to do that. This is actually very, very telling today to see what each department is doing in terms of their commitment and what the outcomes are. If i may just say, supervisor, we do use parttime. We do that with our core committee, Community Outreach and education, but we dont have the resources we need. We dont have the program in place that needs to be in place. I absolutely admit that. I think that is what we were trying to do today, to have an honest conversation and talk about things we can do. We can help you as we go through this budget process. I think the commitment needs to be on your end and we can help support that through the budget process. President buford, i saw you come on. Did you want to Say Something . Thank you, supervisor safai, chair mar, supervisor haney for taking the time to hear us, let us express and share our thoughts and opinions. I look forward to tennin to cong this as we move forward. Funding is an issue with equipment and also with services. I think after todays meeting we can come up with Creative Ideas to move forward to boost our Recruitment Department and be able to reach the communities we are seeking. Thank you all for this opportunity. I appreciate it. I saw mr. Johnson have his hand up. Good afternoon, supervisors. As chief nick console said the Consent Decree was an ordered lifted in 1998. The fire service was transitioned to the department of Human Resources in 2009. They did hire a citywide recruiter. I think that still exists. I am not positive. What did you just say . Recruiter position citywide as opposed to just Public Safety. I think that position still exists but i am not sure. Chief nicholson is saying no. We tried to get in touch with that person a couple years ago, and that position did not exist. You may know something else. That sounds really strange that after the Consent Decree there was a requirement to have a recruiter. Ththe position was citywide and now that position no longer exists. This is recruiter hired two or three years ago not related to the lifting of the situated order. It was the decision of the director to hire the director. It was not just fire other Public Safety recruiter. That doesnt help this conversation, but okay. Supervisor peskin, did you have something to say . Look, relative to fire, the thing that concerns me. A lot of things concern me. The thing that concerns me most is the lack of diversity in the upper promotional ranks. That is the biggest obvious place where there is a big backslide. I mean if we only have given the covid constraints we are under. That is one that actually doesnt inquirycruitment from inside. It is promoting people up from inside. I really hope we can address that. When i was first a supervisor the upper parts of the Fire Department were much more diverse than today. I hope we can fix that as promotional opportunities arise. If i may respond. Yes, chief nicholson, please. Thank you very much. Yes, supervisor peskin this was one of the things i saw we needed to work on when i came in. It is why we are putting together a Succession Plan and training in house for all of our members to be able to get leadership and management and other types of training. The single parent who cant go to a training off site. The Single Person can go to training off site, there is not equity in that. That is part of the longterm plan and we are working with internally as well as with city college on that. You are correct in terms of we have lost most of our africanamerican battalion chiefs in this department. Obviously, most of the africanamerican women in this department over the past several years. I do understand the need to promote. I do understand the need for pipelines, and supportive pipelines as well. You are not getting an argument from me. We have a lot of work to do. Thank you, chief. It doesnt reflect on you at all. I know you are committed to the same goals that we are. I guess a couple quick things. I really appreciated what you just shared, chief nicholson. I am hopeful with your leadership and the folks presenting today we can make real progress. With president buford and director simms that you had incredible partners who are knowledgeable and want to address any of the barriers. One of the things i want to flag. Part of it is the process and testing. There was a lot director sim said as far as the process set up. Keith called in to speak to the experiences he has had as a recruiter and people he wanted to put forward who didnt get through the process. It sounded like even within the recruitment structure that exists that the person out there working on that is sometimes feeling stopped by roadblocks or unsupported. Are there things to do to better support the mechanisms in place in the recruiter that you do have . Like i said, our Recruitment Division is way under funded and under staffed. Are we perfect at everything we do . No. We are looking internally to see what we can do differently. It started this last year earlier this year in terms of having other folks be on those panels. Like some of the folks that called in today so they can really vet someone to say, yes, chief i think this is a great person. That is really what we are looking at. I know that can also be panels can be problematic as well. We are working to changing what we can. I also have a Racial Equity officer. I brought this person into the Administration Prior to the Racial Equity because i know that he has Big Solutions for things. You know, we are committed to making things better. I appreciate that and would love to be involved with next steps. I know supervisor safai you will follow up on this. I do want to say to underscore something because i know you know this, chief. The folks in my district who are every day interacting with some of the most Vulnerable People in our city, people who are experiencing Mental Illness or Substance Abuse addiction, and having people who want to be there working with those folks and have philosophy around what it means to serve in San Francisco. Director simms was on point about that. It is critical and sometimes we think of that when we come to the police and not as much as fire. The diversity is essential and critical and in a connected way who wants to be here and understanding what it means to serve here in the communities that rely on your department. I just wanted to add that. Thank you for your commitment to this and partnership on it. Thank you, supervisor. Any other questions or comments directed to chief nicholson . Through the chair. I just want to under be score a couple things as i was reviewing what the sfpd did. You know, they dedicated a quarter Million Dollars to work on events for this. They have done testing on the road, mentorship. The other thing that struck me was a quarterly meeting with hr and they also had continued collaboration with Employee Groups, many of whom are similarly represented. What is your reaction . Again, and i understand when you get the budget you get a lump sum and you have existing requirements and you have the ability to allocate and put resources into it. It seems as though there is existing resources within your department, chief. I think that is why we wanted to have this conversation today. If you have those existing resources and we understand. I visited some of the stations and one of the first things i hear when i talk to the battalion chief or the captains on site is that they are worried about equipment, being able to get in the field to do their work. I dont want to minimize that. I understand you have existing staffing and requirements. When i hear from the head of the Police Excuse me president of the local 798 that getting recruitment position similar to what i see over here sfpd that they put the main person in charge of recruitment at q50 and all other recruiters q2, it sends a message this is a real bona fide division. You have one person at entry level position with no budget, resources, additional staffing. How do we other than the answer is give us more money and we can build that up. How can we Work Together in the existing budget and resources to get additional work . Also encourage the Employee Groups to continue to build so there is a flow of information and ideas happening within the department. Thank you, supervisor safai. Yes, i meet with Employee Groups regularly. I met with them yesterday. I spoke with the president of the bfa the night before that. We have open communications. I speak to the president of the united bar Service Women. I work with the president of the Asian Firefighters Association here. Communication is absolutely open and honest. In terms of their involvement, they do the captain spelled out what the united bar Service Women are doing, black Firefighters Association does a whole lot in communities. When i came on board a year ago, there was a lot of work that needed to be done throughout the department administratively. We set up committees, a multitude of committees with personnel from the field and from the Employee Groups as well as local 798 to work on all sorts of different topics. One is the Community Outreach and recruitment and education. We have that. You understand this because you are working in your position. Is that core group and the Employee Group, my question is are they working in partnership with the Recruitment Office . They are talking to you. It is similar to the Police Department. Their core team is constantly meeting with the Employee Groupings and chief. Is that happening . It sounds like missing communication or link there. Recruitment officer is part of the core committee. Every Employee Group is represented on that committee. They are speaking to one another and are things perfect . No. Room for improvement . Absolutely. We are learning every day as we go. I am by no means saying we are doing the absolute but that is what we are aiming for. I appreciate any recommendations, thoughts, i want to follow up to see where we can go with this. What about response to the giving the proper rank and title similar to i dont know what q50 is in the Police Department. What about that . I heard that from president buford and director simms. It seems that predated you. It could be an opportunity within your own department for promotion in terms of upping the rank. That doesnt require more testing or any of the things we talked about. What about a bona fide position similar to what it was during the Consent Decree or at the end of the Consent Decree. I would love to make it a bona fide division again. We need the resources for it. We need multiple people as well as civilians to do the proper job. One person is not going to it is not happening. It is not enough. I would love to be able to say we could get that in this budget season. We know what the budget looks like right now. I guess what i would say if you are committed. Are you committed to putting that in the budget and trying to enhance that on the recommends here today. You have constraints based on requirements of budget constraints. It also takes a commitment there. I think that and i hate to keep using it as parallel. What the Police Department has done. Over the years they were pushed into this position or motivated themselves. I am prepared to working with local 798 to go through the budget process and supervisor walton expressed those concerns as well to see how we can help you with that through this budget process. I will absolutely have a conversation with the mayors budget office. I hope they do not laugh at me. This is big for me. This is what i interviewed about as well, this is equity. It is just, you know, it is a matter of funding and getting the positions through the budget process as well. Just one last thing if you are comfortable. You are one of the highest ranking lbgt members in San Francisco. I want to see what you thought in terms of lgbt recruitment or advancement or opportunities within your department, how that is going . They are one of the representative groups you meet with. I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that. Yes, there is we do not collect statistics on bg on lgbn the department. You cant ask that question . Correct. I know lgbtq people are in the upper ranks and all throughout the department, but it is not quite the same as our other demographics. You feel the environment there is encouraging and promoting . Absolutely i do, yes. Any questions or comments or any colleagues for chief nicholson . I do not at this time. Thank you. Thank you, chief nicholson for acknowledging the need for the Fire Department to really address its capacity to further diversity. I think it is clear from our discussion the board sees this as a high priority. We will work with you on this. Thank you. I want to end by saying we will see what you guys are doing and work to continue to help and guide through the process. You have my commitment. I appreciate you answering the tough questions and making a commitment to this and we will work with you during the budget process along with Employee Groups and local 798. Thank you very much. Can we shift to the Sheriffs Department. The sheriff is back now. Are there any questions or comments for the Sheriffs Department . My question to the chair, thank you for coming back. Similar to what we asked, we understand that your numbers are stronger, your budget is a lot smaller than the other two departments that spoke before you. Your number of deputys half the Fire Department. You have twopart time deputies on this one fulltime staff for recruitment. I want you to react to some of the things that sfpd has done in the areas you think there might be a need for improvement. What i didnt see. Do you have represented Employee Groups you meet with and confer with, meet with and get in put on and advice and guidance along with recruitment and hiring for diversity purposes . Thank you for the followup questions. I did drop off but i am back. To answer your questions, yes, we do work with both the representative collective bargaining units to represent not just entry level and sworn deputies but supervisor and management staff. We work with them on the issues they bring up related to recruitment, retention and diversity. We also talk to dhr. I think earlier as the Police Department mentioned some things because we are more in line with the Law Enforcement profession as part of Public Safety. It is interesting to note part of the ability to be successful with limited exposure is that we work in a system, a lot of the stuff we do is in the jails and in the criminal justice system, in the courts. We have daytoday exposure to underserved communities and people of color and people who are involved to varying degrees. People who provide support, services, who provide part of the process. By being a partner we have the ability to reach a group of people who may be interested in our profession, a little separate from the local Police Department experience. It is an advantage to us to lever anoraktual participation in that process and who we are in that process. It has led to our successes. As you asked earlier how are we going to do more with what we have because of the current yout budget . We respect 165170. The budget right now is 220 million with salaries and benefits at 197. Recruitment is 280. That does include the deputy salary. We do have basically 1 of the budget dedicated to recruitment with the ability to use our discretion on the varying degrees we can invoke. Captain sanford is the lead on that. We have an entry level position. That is the actual spd for recruitment. Part of the job in the Administrative Services is oversight of these efforts. We are fortunate. He has strong ties to the community to leverage our participation and our eco jobs program for youth. That was under the Prior Program we partnered with other Community Group to keep that going for youth engagement. I am offtrack but i forgot to mention that earlier and i want to straighten that up as well. I would ask the same question supervisor peskin asked in terms of upper ranks promotion. That is a good question. Our newly promoted we provided the information on we have 64 people of color promoting to sergeant lieutenant out of 19 total promoting up. It is reflective and consistent with basic numbers for management staff. Upper executive level management. As the chief mentioned we dont keep statistics or ask whether or not they are members of the q committee. We have members of upper level commandery negative of the same percentages we have in the lower ranks of sergeant and lieutenant. Any other questions from directors or members of the committee . Sheriff, one question. I was wondering if you could speak to those communitybased relationships to target black and brown folks to bring them into your organization . What we have done in working with less resources. We have leveraged the members of our department and sworn staff who are members of our community. Our recruitments revolve around suggestions from our own staff as to what segments of the community we should reach out to. That has formed our strategies over the past few years. We have been a mom and pop organization when it comes to using our own people to tell us where to go to get these things out there. We have used that. We partner with the conservation core and other organizations in the past to outreach to youth. One thing i did personally was we have part of our engagement was Junior Deputy program. I mentioned earlier and we try to get out there to do clinics related to interest. We went up to Juvenile Justice Center a few months ago. Myself, captain stanford and another captain and provided basketball clinic for juveniles up there. It was part of our process to reach out not just for recruitment but to engage with people to just really message out that we are here for them in any other ways other than being just as involved. I think those efforts that we engage with the community. The organizations i am looking forward to meeting with you. I have spoken to director davis about that. Thank you so much. Colleagues. Any other questions or comments . Thank you. I am good. Thank you, sheriff. All right. Maybe we can move to wrap up this hearing. Thanks, supervisor safai and your legislative aid for organizing such an important hearing. Do you have Closing Remarks . Yes, i would like to make Closing Remarks if that is okay. Thank you. Thank you, chair, for allowing us this leeway. I know this was a long hearing. I want to say since i have been supervisor and this is my fourth year. I can count on one hand the number of hearings i have called. I am very selective. That doesnt mean i dont believe there i is a necessity o have hearings. I will cosponsor hearings with colleagues. One of the most important roles as supervisors is the power of inquiry. My purpose today was not to embarrass anyone. It was not to make anyone feel as though they were singled out. It was to learn as much as we could and to highlight an important issue in the climates we live in. People talk about ideas but for me this was one of the ones i not we could have Lasting Impact here in San Francisco in how we are represented in our First Responders. Those First Responders are the ones that are here today are the ones interacting with our communities of color that experienced a historic racism and oppression. If we are going to have a representatives body that is more of what we see in the Society Today as director simms said we cant use the demographics of San Francisco as the yardstick. San francisco is going through a major gentrification, for lack of better word, for historic communities and others have been displaced and not a good example. The demographics of the bay area or california or those interacting with the community that have the most interaction might be better. Who you are interacting with Community Members and represents that work force it is important to be reelective of that. There are many yardsticks we can use. We knew the audit was hiring within the Police Department. We wanted to do compare and contrast. It was telling today. I learn a lot and i appreciate the teams for sharing that information. Director simms and the Human Rights Commission and director davis for allowing the energy to be put in to this from the local 98 and for participating. I want to give a special thank you for putting in tremendous effort. I feel bad i amsor rye i am sot quick enough. Recruit men and hiring of women in the Fire Department. I apologies for that. I do want to make a moat i am going to ask i am going to ask this hearing be continued to the call of the chair. We can then set a specific date. I dont want a date off the top of my head in the next three or four months. We will ask the office to look at the data they have here today to simply come up with recommendations and see areas for improvement in all three departments. Today we compared Police Department to Fire Department and Sheriffs Department. I think there are lessons to be learned and we have to be more creative within each department. There were discussions about increasing budgeted and the rank. A diversified work force in different areas is extremely important. That is more important given the times we are in. We cant use the budget process as a reason for not making that firm commitment. We have to affiant creative ways. They can use existing resources. Lastly, i want to underscore. It was telling the to hear those in the police and Fire Department that the testing mechanism when it was changed had a Significant Impact on the outcome of a diversified work force. That is something that i want to specifically under score for the office of Racial Equity to look at in terms how we are going to continue to do that and use that moving forward. That is a major impediment to some of the goals told. I want to thank you supervisor marfor ifor sitting through theg hearings. It is amazing because you do these all of the time. I appreciate your input today. I hand it back to you, mr. Chair. Thank you for this important discussion we had today. On supervisor safais motion to continue this hearing to the call of the chair, mr. Clerk, please call roll. Small amount of housekeeping. The house did change with return of supervisor haney to the committee. The appointment was effective until haney arrived. If we could get the usual pan telpanelof three. So moved. Vice chair peskin mover to call of chair. Aye. Member haney. Aye. Chair mar. Aye. Mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Thank you everyone. Can you please call items 6 through 16 for closed session. Sure. Agenda items 2 through 16 . Yes, 2 through 16. Various ordinances and resolutions settling lawsuits against the city and county. Members of the public should call the Public Comment number. 415 6550001. Enter meeting id1464783455. Press pound twice to connect to the meeting and star key followed by 3 to speak. System prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. Wait until you are unmuted and you may begin your comments. Mr. Chair. Before we go to Public Comment on the closed session, supervisor peskin do you have anything . Thank you, chairman mar. As supervisor safai indicated. This hearing has gone on for four hours. Unfortunately, i need to be somewhere else as of 2 00 which i am 10 minutes late and 10 minutes away. I think we have two choices and it is in your and supervisor haneys hands to continue these items to our next meeting or to hear it without me. I have to leave at this point for which i apologize. I had no idea we would be in this hearing for over four hours. Thank you, supervisor peskin. I would ask if deputy City Attorney pearson can comment on whether continuing these settlement agreements 2 through 16 on to the next meeting would be okay. Department City Attorney pearson. It is your call whether to continue the items. I have been prepared to be joined in closed session by my colleagues litigating hastings. They are prepared to walk you through that settlement. They would be in a better position than i am to talk on impacts on a continuance, but with respect to the other cases i am not aware of external deadlines. I leave it to the committee to decide what they want to continue. We can consider continuance in closed session. Yes. Supervisor peskin. Yes, i am not able to stay for the closed session at this point. Thank you. Sorry everybody. Thank you. Maybe we can go to Public Comment right now on the closed session items 2 through 16. Mr. Clerk are there any caller on the line . Thank you very much, mr. Chair. We will check for callers in the queue. For those connected press star followed by 3 to speak to this item the entirety of the litigation agenda. For those on hold in the queue continue to wait until you are prompted to begin. You will hear the prompt that your line is unmuted. If you are watching by streaming or through sfgovtv if you wish to speak on this item call in by following the instructions on your screen. I will repeat. 415 6550001. Meeting id today 146 4783455. Press pound twice and then star followed by 3 to enter the queue to speak. Could you connect us to the first caller, please. Hello. I am a resident of district 8. I am calling to ask the audit and Oversight Committee to vote no on the item on the closed agenda. It will endanger unhoused people. The lawsuit is racist and unjust. In particular the goal of the tenderloin node. [indiscernable] the visible poverty is not a crime. I vote with the other 40 organizations in the tenderloin to reject the settlement. You can avert the disaster. Well over 1600 are in the tenderloin. You can end the dangerous precedents of litigating and allow the coalition on homelessness parties granted intervention lawsuits that did not have an opportunity to participate in the initial settlement a seat at the table. Thank you for your time please vote no on the hastings settlement. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Could you please connect us to the next speaker. I am a resident of tenderloin district 6. I am calling to urge you to vote no on the hastings settlement item 12. My reason is contrary to what my colleague before me stated. It is unfair for the settlement to occur on the tenderloin and leave others. This is not a question of poverty. There are 1600 unhoused. I think there needs to be a grand solution for such people. They need our assistance but these residents here on Willow Street have been suffering with not just them dwelling on the streets but there is a lot of disturbances, noise, crack addiction and all sorts of looting and garbage eve everywh. It is unhealthy to be here. That settlement should extend to all tenderloin not just the 300 tents committed to. Thank you. Please connect us to the next speaker. That completes the queue. Thank you. Operations. Hearing no further callers, Public Comment is closed. We can move to closed session. We will now convene in closed session. Could we take a roll call on motion to convene in closed session. Yes, please. On the motion to convene in closed session noting vice chair peskin is absent. Haney. Aye. Chair mar. Aye. Mr. Chair will are two ayes and one absence. Thank you, mr. Clerk. We will convene in closed session. Thank you very much. A note. The members of the committee will be leaving this live meeting and connecting to did closed session hall. They will reconnect to this live meeting when it is concluded. I will present a summary of the actions taken during the closed session. Any members of the public invited to remain in this live session so you can hear summary of the actions taken. At this time the members o ie leadership of the department of Public Health flattened the curve in San Francisco. The steps we have taken together have saved lives. One of the reasons the city acted so quickly so early was to not overburden our Health Care Systems. As the state of california and bay area counties have begun to gradually reopen, we are seeing some troubling signs. We have a seven day average of ninety eight new cases per day. Our demand for acute care for covid positive patients has goan each week. Today dr. And i are announcing the establishment of our first low acuity medical site. Located a 163. It will open with twenty patients. Its not expected to treat covid positive patients. When i starred this i facility i was truly impressed at the first rate medical facility. The citys ability to confront covid 19 depends on our ability to care for those with all manner of conditions. Sprained angels to heart attacks. Other ailments are not stopping just because of the pandemic. Opening this facility will shore up our ability for the hospitals to treat covid 19. It is not a drop in acute care site testing location or shelter. Please do not visit this location if you are seeking any of those services sm as the district two supervisor i would be remiss to not note the response to local emergencies. Were an incredible resource and im grateful for the partnership with press i hapartnershipwith. A good mark morning. Im director of health. Thank you for your support during this unprecedented time. Today like if everyday, i check the number of patient patients h covid 19. Unfortunately that number is higher than ever before and continues to climb. That number dropped to just 26 patients six weeks ago. Today, its one hundred and seven. Of those one quarter are very sick and in intensive care. Across the city we have more than six thousand cases of covid 19. And look, it took us thirty eight days to go from two thousand to three thousand cases. Of half as long to go from three thousand to four thousand. In just ten days we went from five thousand to six thousand cases of covid 19. Let me be clear, we are in a major surge of covid 19. The virus is moving fast and more people are getting seriously ill. If things continue, we estimate well have more than 750 san franciscans in the hospital by october. Plausible worst Case Scenarios put us at twenty four hundred hospitalizations and eighteen hundred deaths. These scenarios unfortunately become more likely as each day goes by with the current trend. Today, fortunately all patients are getting world class treatment from the most caring professionals sm we wisals. We still have capacity to care for patients. It is good news that our Health Care System has not yet been overwhelmed as we saw in new york. Many are contributing to that by staying home, avoiding gathering, covering your faces when go ting out, washing your hands sm you are preventing more illness and spread and keep our Health Care System functioning. Our city must prepare for this surge. How many peoplethat puts us in the red zone of one of our key Health Indicators. Weve been there for over a month. Its extremely sobering that we reached this point. Its extremely concerning. Our reopening remains on pause. The main reason we joined the watch list was because of our rapidly growing rates. Our goal is to keep the increase to less than 10 . Since january the Health Department has been planning and preparing for covid 19. We built up the capacity of our Health Care System. We added testing sites a sites. Today supervisor stephanie announced, were creating a care site that we hope we will not need. Its located in the presidio but will serve all san franciscans. It will serve patients who no longer need acute care but are not ready to go home. They would have medical medical supervision and care from staff. I hope this day wont come. We hope our hospitals will never need to open the relief that this site represents. That depends on you. All of us. Please. Please wear a mask. Its really not that hard. I want to see San Francisco open schools instead of medical sites. We want to see houses of worship open their doors. Sit in their favorite barbers chair. Hug our grand children again. We can make that happen. We still have time to turn this around. If we want those things we cant take chances and hope this virus is not as infectious as the data and facts tell us it is. Everyone needs to behave as though each of us has covid 19. Think about that. We know half as many doap donte symptoms at some period. Be careful. Every time you wear a mask, socially distance. Wash your hands. Avoid gatherings. Youre moving closer to the day we can live more like we did before march. Everyday you take a risk you move us farther away from that day. We can prove testimon works aga. Covering our faces may be the most important. On friday San Francisco updated the orders. Everyone over the age of ten should wear a Face Covering. If youre alone in a space that people might use later, cover your face. If youre handling food for other face, cover your face. Basically, cover your face. If youre passing someone on the sidewalk, your face must be covered. Other things we must do. Washing our hand hands, stayingx feet apart. If you are meeting. Meet out side if you can. Of course, please you must stay home if you can. Short of the vaccine or cure of covid 19 these are the most effective interventions that we have available to us. They work if we take them up and practice these behaviors everyday. You can do this. Its up to us to flatten the curve again. Thank you. Thank you doctor and thank you supervisor stephanie for your time. Well begin the q and a portion of this meeting. We have a variety of questions for dr. Co lfax. The first question is from the associated press. We havent seen the devastation in the homeless communities. Why do you think that is . I think its a number of factors that so far have helped us avoid worse Case Scenarios with people experiencing homelessness, we took action early on with our partners and support of housing and with our Community Seven is agency part mere ins. Ensuring that best practices were rapidly a applied. People had the materials necessary to reduce the spread. Other key interventions that we did is make available hundreds of hotel rooms so people experiencing c homelessness were able to shelter in place. Over thirty five hundred people have been placed in those hotel rooms. Weve done a lot of out reach work on the street. Providing hygiene. We had an intense Clinical Team that provided health care for people before the pandemic. This team has been working around the clocke clock to ensue people get the best care. Its a variety of actions that weve taken to avoid some of the outcomes weve seen in other jurisdictions. Thank you, doctor. The next set of questions are from ab c seven. Face shields should be worn in addition to face masks. Do you for se for see this beina requirement. The most important thing is that we ensure in public that everyone is wearing a Face Covering if they are over ten years of age. Weve been very clear that protecting our Health Care Workers is key. How close is San Francisco to getting off the watch list . We continue to see increases above the 50 hospitalization rates. I cant speculate on how soon. We are in a major surge here and anticipating on average seven hundred fifty in the hospital by october. If were on and off the watch list what is key is we work to flatten the curve and recommit ourselves. We did it before and we can do it again. Its going to take the whole community to make this work. Are social gatherings the major reason for the surge. Its a major ko contributor. People should not be using testing to determine whether they should gather. If someone is infected, the virus is extremely contagious. They are contributing to this increase. If you go to a gathering and somebody has the virus and is going to transmit it. We have to understand that with more virus in the community you saw how quickly we went from four thousand to five thousand tcases. Please, please dont gather. We have a handful of questions about San Francisco issuing fines on people who dont wear masks in public. Weve been emphasizing the needs of these masks and the social distancing as we continue to emif i if emphasize. Were schorrin exploring how wey increase enforcement particularly in situations where requirements that are very clear are not being followed. This would be enforced following up with businesses an other situations where people gather. Were working with communities for voluntary compliance. Were looking at increasing enforcement. In regards to the press ci the. Who is paying for it and who will staff it . The city is funding the site. It will be staff by Health Departments and u c sf providers. Well take care of 93 patients. M what has it historically ben used for and is it prepared to accept patients. It will depend on the capacity of our hospitalization across the city. If theres a need to move people out of the hospital quickly and make room for covid 19 patients. I cant speculate on the past use of the site. Thank you for your time today that conclawed concludes the prs conference. For additional questions please for additional questions please coping with covid19. Todays special guest. I am chris manners, you are watching coping with covid19. My guest is the director of economic and Work Force Development here to talk about the programs the city has in place during this crisis to help Small Businesses and vulnerable and disconnected residents. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here, chris. Start by talking about gift to sf. It provides many of the resources we are talking about. Could you tell us a little bit about the focus of gift to us. Then we will talk about specific programs. I very much appreciate the question. For anyone who is watching right now, so much of the work that has been accomplished to serve most vulnerable is because of very generous donations to the give to sf covid19 response and recovery fund. Over 28 million has been fund raised to support areas as important as Housing Stabilization for vulnerable communities, Food Security programs which has been a big issue not only in San Francisco but up and down california and of course across the nation. Very much thinking about workers and family members who may not have been access to state and federal programs the same way that others who are impacted have and do. That was to make sure families and workers were supported with woulrelief. Small Business Community to make sure they have access to loan was and grants. We are excited how diverse we have been able to do this. We have been able to roll these out to ensure that our communities are supported by our city together with all of us with city funds and philanthropic dollars to help realize them on behalf of the communitys needs. That is great. Now, many of our Small Businesses dont have large payrolls. They are unable to qualify for the federal ppp loans. Does the city have active programs available for Small Businesses to help with ongoing expenses such as rent while they are still closed . Certainly. One of the programs we launched in partnership and because of the ability of the give to sf loan fund presented us with was for loans and grants to do that. We knew in the beginning that it was not easy for smaller businesses not connected or those who were to get an answer around relief provided through ppp. We have seen success of the program. We knew it was important at the time to also have the San Francisco hardship mcwas Emergency Loan Program be launched and designed to support businesses who needed resources the most. We have committed 15. 5 million in ongoing covid19 Small Business Financial Relief. We have awarded grants and loans to over 400 Small Businesses thus far. We wanted to make sure that we were equitable about that approach always guidings work through Racial Equity lens. One of the most important pieces is ensuring every district would be represented and also more equitable work and places where we were doing that work would be supported through these efforts. In the first phase 1 million to 128 Small Businesses and 29 different neighborhoods with up to 10,000 in funds to support those who were experiencing loss. We set aside a minimum of 2 million for low and moderate income owners to ensure they were supported with relief efforts. Neighborhood goes like lower filmore, bayview, castro and excelsior. Longterm businesses have given to the city and we want to give bamto them as well. Then because we were looking for additional funding sources, we took dollars that we had with existing partners already with our partners to do Small Business work and help convert to support Women Entrepreneurs around San Francisco and very specific neighborhoods for mini grants to serve immediate needs. Every little dollar helped. One of the programs that just become available. Right to recover. I am glad you are asking about right to recover. We know that it is extremely valuable right now as we look to incentivize Community Members disproportionately impacted by covid19 by economic hardship, spaces to work in because they need to provide for families, having access to the Economic Relief or wages that you count on to protect yourself, stabilize your families, support your families and children or parents or extended family. That is a huge disincentive if you believe you may not have access to quarantine to do what we want you to do. If you are sick to get tested. If you test positive to quarantine and stay home. So that you can get better and not infect anyone else. That comes at a cost. You are not going to work, not making wages. For so many low income workers that is not acceptable. This is to provide relief based on the individual to give minimum wage for that period of time. When they walked into the testing site they knew if i test positive is there a program to help me, we could say yes . That was important to mayor breed, extremely important to supervisor ronen and they worked together to make 2 million available to support these individuals. Together with the department of Public Health we have a holistic system to fill the gaps that may exist to encourage people to get tested to do the right thing. Wear a mask, social distancing, not going places when they are sick and doing our part to make sure they were incentivized. Not having sick pay with the virus would be really stressful. Iit is important for undocumented. We know the lat inx is more than 50 of the positive cases and may not have access to sick leave or Financial Hardship to do the right thing and to quarantine with financial reli relief. As we start another new releaf program. Africanamerican Small Business Revolving Loan fund. How will that fund work . Well, i am very, very proud. This fund. I do have to give a shout out to our invest in Neighborhoods Team who worked day and night with the africanamerican chamber of commerce and main street launch to support the zero percent interest loan up to 50 thousand dollars. We have been striving to be specific and target communities of color and africanamerican Small Business Entrepreneur Community. It is so much more difficult for this community to access resources and it was important to do something in this moment that is reflective of a movement we know has been emotion for such a long time. For us to do something real, provide Financial Relief for the community in this ka this way ar them specifically. We are very proud to get this up and running. We look forward to applications being live so people from the africanamerican and black business communities to get relief. Flexible terms. Forgiveness up to 50,000 for those loans which can make a huge difference fought only for relief when you think about rent for a Small Business but also in terms of longterm recovery and being smart about the moment. There are businesses with the ability to be open, even a little bit. It is a stress on them. There are others that dont have the ability to do this at all. Where is their relief . They wait for us to do our collective part to ensure we can reopen. These dollars, very specifically for the black Entrepreneur Community are important for longterm viability success. That is good for them, the diversity of the city we hold dear and we need to be proud of. Do we have active programs for disconnected or underserved communities . Absolutely. As i was mentioning just simply about the right to recover program. When people go to the mission hub at 701 alabama within the Mission District to serve the community, they are providing Food Security, access to resources. What they have done is extraordinary in terms of partnering with the city with relief efforts to help pay and maintain Food Distribution for families. Thing are important like the latin x to do so many dishes with one item masa. Access to rise, cereals, milk, butter, fresh foods and vegetables. That is across the city in the entirety in those areas of need. To ensure those programs are made available for our most vulnerable communities. Seniors or families who desperately need that help. Finally, is there a website specifically designed to provide access and information about these resources . One of the easiest things to do, people have a general question and to want dont have access to the internet call 311. Reach out. We have been working closely to ensure the members and staff have the information they need to get what you need. As you call in. Most specifically for workers, employers, nonprofits to go to our website oewd. Org and click on covid19 which is a large button on the site. You will find a full list of information specifically designed for you as employer, as worker and nonprofit so that you know where to go for resources. Also, our phone number 5546134 for the small acciden small bus. The incredible staff are administering those lines. If they dont answer they will get back to you so you can talk to a real person in multiple languages. Also email sfosbasfgov. Org. Again, visit the website oewd. Org and you can find that. In terms of workforce 415 7014817. Someone will get back to you if they dont pick up immediately to answer your questions if you are a worker. Then to donate. Give to sf. Org. All of that information is to find to the website if you need resources or you need an understanding how we are phasing reopening or updated information, please visit us. We will get back to you. We look forward to serving you and the community to get through this very, very challenging time. That is great information. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate the time you have given us today. It is a pleasure, chris. Thank you for helping get information out to our communities. People are aware your government is hard at work on your behalf to get you what you need during a dynamic and challenging time. That is it for this episode. We will be back with more information shortly. This is coping with covid19. I am chris manners, thanks for watching on sfgovtv. Hi. My name is carmen chiu, San Franciscos elected assessor. Buying your first home is a big deal. For many of us, its the single largest asset that well own. Thats why its really important to plan ahead for property taxes so that there are no surprises. A typical question new homeowners ask is what is a supplemental tax. So understand supplemental tax, we need to start with proposition 13. Under californias prop 13 law, the value we use to calculate your property tax is limited to a 2 growth peryear, but when ownership changes, prop 13 requires that we set a properties assessed value to market value. The difference in value between the previous owners value and the new value is the supplemental assessment. How does the supplemental assessment translate to the tax you need to pay . Supplemental tax is calculated by applying the tax rate to the value and then prorating it for the amount of time that you owned it in that tax year. In generale, the tax rate is roughly 1 . Lets walkthrough an example together. Here dan is the original owner of a home with a prop 13 protected value of 400,000. With a tax rate of 1 , he pays 4,000. Dan sells his home to jennie at a market rate of 700,000. In this case, jennies home will be reassessed to 700,000, and jennie is responsible for paying property taxes at that level from the time she first owns it. Many times, people might have already paid their property taxes in full by the time they sell their home. In that case, dan has paid 4,000 in taxes already for the full year. Jennie would likely payback dan through escrow for her share of the 4,000, depending on the proportion of the tax year she owns the home. However, shes also responsible for paying taxes at the higher market value from when she begins to own the home. How does that work . Lets say jennie owns the property for nine months of the first tax year, which is approximately 75 of the year. During the escrow process, shed pay dan back 75 of the 4,000 he already paid, which is 3,000. On top of that, she would owe taxes at the higher rate for the proportion of the year she owned the house. In this case, she owes the amount not already billed through dan or 700,000 minus 400,000, multiplied by a tax rate of 1 , and multiplied again by 75 to reflect the time she owned the home in that tax year. Here, jennies supplemental tax is roughly 2,250. Going forward, jennie will be billed at her new reset prop 13 value. Are you still with us . If this isnt complicated enough, some new owners might receive two supplemental tax bills, and this has to do with the date that you transfer property. But before we get to that, you first need to understand two concepts. First, what is a fiscal year . In california, local government runs on a fiscal year. Unlike the calendar year, where the year begins on january 1, a fiscal year begins in the middle of the year, on july 1. Property tax follows the fiscal year cycle. Second, state law requires property be valued as of january 1 every year, in other words, new years day. The value as of january 1 is used to calculate property taxes for the upcoming fiscal year. This means Property Value as of january 1, 2018 will be usedtor fiscal year 18 used for fiscal year 1819 covering july 2018 through june 2019. Similarly, the value of january 1, 2019 will be used for the fiscal year covering july 2019 through june 2020. Now back to whether you should expect to receive one or two supplemental tax bills. The rule of thumb is that if the property transfers happens in the first half of the fiscal year, in other words between july and december, then you should expect only one supplemental tax fill. If the transfer happens in the second half of the fiscal year or between january and june, you should expect two supplemental tax bills. Heres the reason why. Using dan and jennies example again, dans 400,000 value as of january 1 is used to set the tax bill for the following fiscal year beginning july through june of the next year. Jennie buys the property from dan in october. The taxable value is reset to 700,000 as of october, but the bill issued still reflects dans lower value. In this case, jennie would expect to receive one supplemental or catchup bill to capture the difference between her assessed value and begans fr begans dans from october through june. Because of january 1 we already know of the sale, we would have used the following year to set jennies property taxes and no other supplemental bill should be received. However, if dan sells the property to jennie in march, instead, jennie should expect two supplemental bills. Like before, jennie would receive one supplemental bill to cover the time in which she owned the home in the current tax year from march to june. But because as of the next january used to set the tax base for the following tax year, dan still owned the home, the following years entire bill still reflects the values not updated for jennie. In this instance, jennie receives a second supplemental for the following year covering july through june. After the supplemental tax bills, new owners should receive only one regular tax bill peryear Going Forward. Remember our office values the properties, but billing and collections are handled by another Organization Called the treasurer and tax collectors office. If youd like to learn more, please visit our website at sfassessor. Org. Thank you for watching. Hi everyone, thank you for joining us today for the Panel Discussion on the covid recovery. I am your moderator today, megan, the policy share for the San Francisco womens political committee. I would like to welcome our panelists carmen chu, joey jackson morgan, and veronica shepherd. Thank you for being here today. I would like to open up the discussion with a question. Please introduce yourself and tell our audience what you are currently working on the covid issues in your field. We can start with carmen. So good afternoon everybody, so glad to join all of you today for this great panel. I want to thank you megan for helping to host this and making sure this important conversation comes forward. I serve as San Francisco elected assessor. Like many of you, we had to quickly change to a remote work scenario with our office when we had the shelter place be put in place in march. We were able to do that relatively quickly and 98 of our operations is happening off site and not in person. Weve been working hard to make sure we try to continue to do our work, primarily because we know that the revenue impact of our work has been very, very large and disperse impact to the city, from the types of programs were able to support people with us specially during covid19. Were continuing to do that. I think on another note, i think i also serve as the Economic Recovery Task forces cochair, so very much excited to speak to you about the work of the task force coming up in our additional conversations and the last thing ill say in terms of introduction is that im a brand new mother of a 14yearold i mean 14monthold, not year old, but she is growing very quickly and i think more than anything i really am truly seeing and appreciating what it means to be part of a working family, especially during covid19 because there are so many different challenges associated with worklife balance among other things. I want to recognize that i consider myself in a very fortunate place because i have my health, i have a job, and i think that is so much more than a lot of people are facing at this moment. I think we always have to count our blessings in terms of things we do have and recognize that there are many people who need much more in terms of help than where we are. Im happy to be part of this conversation and i look forward to hearing from the co speakers today as well. Thank you. Thank you carmen. Lets go to joy next. Good morning everyone, my name is joy jackson morgan. Im the executive director. Im a unicorn in the city, a San Francisco native. During this time third street has really focused on our young people in addressing the needs that youth have been coming up with, primarily with housing. That has been a huge issue for our young people and food has also been an issue. Weve gone from having our food pantry to having food delivery for our youth and their families. Were currently serving about 50 youth and families per week. Were also trying to keep our young people engaged. This has been a hard time for them adjusting to Distance Learning and not having the certain outlets that theyre accustomed to. So we continued our Youth Development program. We have been keeping our young people engaged, and active, and connected to their peer groups. This is not the norm for any of us. We are use to be being able to go outside and going where we want and now were confined to zoom or many of the platforms we come to be recognized with. Its been difficult for young people, i think, because this is their time in development where theyre suppose to be social and not having these normal things has really taken a toll. So weve been trying to make sure that our Behavioral Health services is available to them, our clinic has been closed since march, and were in the process of trying to get our clinic reopened in the next few weeks so we can start delivering some of our medical services as well. So really trying to stabilize our young people the best way we can and help them through this difficult time, both economically, food, sheltering, heal health. Definitely, thank you joy. Last but not least, veronica. Good morning everyone. Good morning to my panelists. My name is veronica shepherd. Im with the San Francisco department of Public Health. My primary work is around Food Security and Racial Equity. I support primarily the African American faithbased coalition. Its a coalition of 21 plus churches across the city of San Francisco with primarily African American congregants. Covid19 through the population of people were put into a whirlwind. Shelterinplace hit and there were not a lot of city plans on how people would be sustained. The coalition i work with, because of its infrastructure, we developed a partnership and was able to provide meals immediately across the city. As of todays date, they have delivered over 110,000 meals across the city. Theyre feeding almost 1,000 households each week. Its been quite a challenge. For those of you listening that dont know, the African American community, joy kind of spoke to it. We have been suffering precovid and theres been huge disparity issues between racial inequities. So the shelterinplace and the coronavirus had just added another additional issues on top of what was already going on, on top of the heightened Racial Climate. Its like this stew of a lot of issues that people are facing. We have seniors who this isolation is impacting them mentally and emotionally. We have hunger, issues that hit immediately but were addressing that. We have children in households that cant go out as joy was talking about. I have families where there are ten people in a household and only one person is working. I mean there are so many issues that are spiraling all at the same time so part of my work and role is to support people, help them to stay safe, provide resources and information, and continue to just be that light as a beacon for people who were living complex lives precovid and continue to live complex lives in this pandemic. Thank you veronica. Thank you everyone for those good introductions. I also wanted to quickly note that anyone watching from home, you can feel free to leave a question in the chat box or if youre watching on facebook, leave a question there for our panelists and well get to those at the end. So i wanted to shift it over to carmen. If you can talk more about how was the Economic Recovery Task force created and what is the purpose of this task force . Sure, absolutely. So the i think maybe folks may have heard that the task force is a convening of the mayor, as well as the president of the board of supervisors normen yee. I think as we started to learn more about the pandemic, learn more about the disease and how it was spreading, i think the picture has become that much more complicated and i think you see that with the most recent resurgence with covid19 and the Health Indicators coming back to a negative when it comes to hospitalizations, as well as the number of people who are contracting it. So, it is going to be a big challenge in terms of how it is that we deal with it as a city. I think in general, San Francisco has been really trying to take a measured approach on how it is we have been thinking about economic recovery and making sure were grounding how it is that we are approaching both where were directing or services, house were making sure that were providing different support, based on information on the ground. So actual data, statistics, information that helps us understand whats happening from a health perspective. I think as veronica and joy mentioned also, i think there is a really strong recognition that covid19 really is, is even though the disease does not discriminate, what were seeing is some of the underlying inequities that exist are being exacerbated by the disease. We are seeing instances where people who have the least income security, the people who are at least able to take a break from their job, people who are not able to tell commute, people who dont have savings or have poor Chronic Health conditions who are the ones that are the most impacted by covid19. So we see this from the latinx community, where they are 15 of San Franciscos population, but they make up half of the people who are testing positive in terms of covid19. We seen a disproportionate amount of deaths being asian, pacific american, and the impacts to the African American community and were also seeing in the asian community, a rise in terms of xenophobia, a lot of people being blamed for the creation of covid19 and the spread of it, even when we all know that thats untrue. So i think we see some of these disparities. I think one of the partners we have Going Forward in our w challenge and recognizing women is the department. Im not sure if folks have seen but they put out a report that was telling which spoke to how covid19 is exacerbating inequities amongst women. So again, women tend to be concentrated in lower wage jobs and jobs that may not have as much ability to do telecommuting or some of these other options that people currently have. We are also typically people who will be primary caretakers for young children, and our seniors, and our children, and there is a disproportionate impact among women. Were concentrating on what kind of policy decisions can we be pursuing as a city to enable recovery and think of equity while were at it. If we will have scarce resources, we need two different programs to support our workers, families, and san franciscans as a whole, where should we put that understanding there is a disproportionate impact on how covid is miimpacting our city. S there this is such a significant challenge to us. A lot of the work in terms of spre spreading and food securities are some of the other things. We still have to think of intermediate term. Thats what the Economic Recovery Task force is trying to do, putting the on the ground experiences together, coming up with a coherent plan and strategy on how the city may want to approach reopening going into the future. Definitely, very impactful. I want to bring it to veronica and knowing that Health Disparities are tied to systemic racism and this is a Public Health issue that disproportionately effects people of color and black and brown bodies, what can our leaders do and those in power do to change this tide . I dont think we have enough time. [laughter] ill give it my best shot, okay. Its a loaded question. For our community and im specifically talking about African Americans, we as leaders in this city, particularly at the higher level has to be honest about the Structural Racism and violence thats been perpetuated by our people ever since slavery. We have to be honest on how it looks and how it shows up in each of our systems. We have enough data on the black experience to build cities about, but we dont seem to shift on how the racism and its structure is continuing to keep these barriers and these hurdles high so our communities cant thrive unless we change the Program Project mentality. Were not really pulling out the roots of the racism. Were just doing check boxes. Theyre always like a band aid. They never really resolve the problem because were not going deep enough and were not being honest enough to say were putting systems in place that perpetuate the inequity. Until we as leaders all come together at the highest level and have honest conversations that will be very uncomfortable, because t going to reveal how our own biases stand in the game, to be honest. We have to own up to the fact that a lot of the systems in place, were protecting them at the highest level. People who make up 5 of a population, but have the highest Health Disparities, the worse education outcomes, the highest rates of mass incarceration, i mean i can go on and on. Something is intentionally wrong there. Half of the Homeless Population is black and there isnt even that many of us. What structures continue to perpetuate this and how are we protecting it that it keeps going . We got to be honest, otherwise we are going to continue to Fund Programs that are not sustainable because theyre not designed to be. Theyre not going to dig out the deep root of the problem. The entire country has been functioning in systemic Structural Racism and violence against black people. Now we just got to own that. So it comes back to checking ourselves with our own bias i cant say biases, and you cant tell your community were here to help you and you need a heart transplant, but you give me a band aid. How does that help my community . Yet we continue to do this. So somehow until we as leaders at the highest level can sit down and be honest about what were actually doing to black people and particularly right now with the Racial Climate that were living in, its been unleashed and against us and yet were fighting to get basic needs, food, housing, struggling to get testing out here in our community and yet as karmen spoke, the need is huge. Were not being honest. I think weve been so conditioned to operate in our different slices of the pie, we dont see the whole picture. We dont see how the ingredients are combined to create the recipe we want to build. We need to have conversations that dismantle the racism and make sure that everything were doing is connected to some policy or some ordinance that dismantles the barriers against African American. Absolutely, thank you. Joyce speaking on that, i know that you spoke a little bit in your intro about how this effected your organization right now. How has covid affected your ability to provide Behavioral Services to youth . Both carmen and veronica, i dont know how i get to come after both of you. You spoke so well about this. I think Health Starts in community. It is a community response, a neighborhood response, right . When you start to take away some of the things that were accustomed to, to have this sort of response, on top of the social determinants of health we already had, it definitely puts us at a disadvantage. We need to acknowledge the roles and how that relates to the disbursement of resources and the response from the city. As veronica eluded to before, we are scrapping for resources, for testing. We had to do all telehealth for our Behavioral Health services. Thats not a community model, right . We depend on relationships. We depend on each other for our needs. We build a rapport with you and then that gets taken away. They trust us. Its like were a boutique clinic. It was designed and created by the community and youth to be the beacon for their needs. So i think when we talk about policy, i think we need to look at how there is racism in the Decision Making and that we need to look at whos at the table and who has the power at the table to make these decisions and to help Bring Community to the table so theyre at the forefront of the Decision Making, the solution and the progress. How do we hold the city accountable for try to address our needs without the community there . So when we look at these things moving forward, as veronica said and carmen said, we have to put our leadership and the Community Leadership to help with some of these policies and Decision Making Going Forward. Thats the only way were going to crawl ourselves out of this hole were in. Yep, definitely. I hear that and agree. Speaking about policy and good policy, but just often the foundation of good policy. I want to open this question up for all three of you. How have you seen this city or your organizations budget effected by this pandemic . Can i just start by saying i want to appreciate what veronica and joyce said. I truly think that when we talk about economic recovery, i agree with joy in terms of the Community Based approach. Its really important there are community leaders, network, and existing relationships that can only strengthen and either make that work or not work. I think that is really important to acknowledge. I think to veronicas point as well, i really appreciate the comment she said about how we need to be willing to confront those Difficult Conversations because i really feel whenever it comes to the conversation around race, its really, it is very hard to talk about. Its very hard to be vulnerable and talk about what you dont know or to be fearful of saying the wrong thing and then that makes the conversation around race hard. When we start to see the outcomes that we talked about, whether its economic outcomes, health outcomes, so on. Theyre tied to race. So how do you say that its not connected . So i do think that its important for us to begin taking those steps. Its hard to do, but im hopeful that were going to start to have more conversations and the more conversations we have and sustain conversations, not just for this month or next month, that we can actually see progress. I hope thats going to be the case. I know that its going to be the leadership of the city, but also in our community and how we all interact and what kind of personal responsibility we can all take with dismantling the system we have. In terms of budget, you know, budget is incredibly tough for the city right now. You know, i think what were seeing is a 1. 7 billion deficit because a lot of the revenue has been drying up, all these things tied to Economic Activity has pretty much stopped. So i think thats been a big challenge for us from our organizations point of view. Were trying to figure out the best way possible to continue our work because for folks who dont know, the Assessors Office is responsible for property taxes and our operation brings in about 3 billion of funding to the city year after year. That helps to fund our social services. Its the largest source of general fund revenue for the and Public School and education, which is also important. We want to make sure to continue those operations, but its not going to be easy because if were going to defeat this budget deficit, it looks like potentially cuts. I think all of us are looking for areas where we can cut to help make balance and wont impact people and services, but for an organization like mine where 80 of my expenses are people, thats hard to do. I think that youre going to see that to be really true, especially with so many of our nonprofit partners, where it was already hard to begin with in terms of being able to run the operation to recruit, and to keep talent and people in your organization, to pay them something that will help them survive in a high expense city and now that were in this situation, its even harder. So i just want to acknowledge that its true. Its true for the city and its even more true for a nonprofit partner. I will imagine that were going to have a really challenging time. With that being said, in my point of view, were committed to doing everything we can to continue to bring in the revenue that is fairly due to the city and we will see a lot of challenges to that. We are already seeing a lot of commercial properties and others saying covid had an impact. It certainly has an impact, but from a Property Value point of view. We dont think it has an impact for the fiscal year upcoming. So that is just in my mind understanding where were going to have challenges coming forward as a city. Its going to be tough. Thank you. Im going to jump in. For me the answer is twofold because i work for the Health Department and lot of the budgets were redistributed because of covid. Then i work for community and people on the ground, and their budgets were just pretty much destroyed by a lot of this work. So from the citys lens, from the Health Departments lens, the new guidelines, the Mental Health money has been drastically reduced, which impacts our commune huge because there wasnt enough resources for black people and their Mental Health needs before covid. With the reductions i saw from Gavin Newsoms office, its going to have even a harder hit for our community because as i stated earlier, all of this impacts our mental and Emotional Health and wellbeing. We have people who are seniors that are isolated and are just not doing well because of this intersection of us being around people has impacted us all. So from the community lens, its a huge struggle because youre trying you got funded to do certain programs and certain projects that are going to sub support people and yet people are sheltered in and cant come out. Our Community Also doesnt have access to Technology Like a lot of other communities. Those resources arent always available. As black people, many of us live multigenerational. Our programs are for the seniors or for the kids or for the working poor. We arent looking at Household Level responses. Were all impacted. If grandma is getting the grocery bag, all the eight people that live in that house are going to live out of that gross bag, which is probably going to be gone the same day they get it. So the programs have been impacted by the pandemic so the resources arent as great as they want them to be. It has changed the last few months, but its been a huge impact on trying to connect resources. As joy said earlier, we as Community People know each other and try to build upon what we know we all have, but were all still fighting for the same bread crumb. Its not like joys program got an abundance of stuff. Our wonderful baby y here, a great resource to our community yet theyre trying to engage our community, families, seniors, all the people they serve from an extended reach. The question about the budget has to do with the people on the ground compared to the Health Department who are trying to take resources and redistribute them in an equitable way, but the need is so great. Theyre trying to figure it out each new day. Things keep changing. We have federal guidelines that impacted our budget. There are layers upon layers of things that people have to think about daily. Thank you. All right, im going to answer this question wearing two hats. Im going to start with the first hat as being cochair. So this is my third year. Every year we put out these recommendations, trying to be as equitable and Community Focused as possible. As a cochair, i am worried about this plan shrinkage in the city. When i say that, when we think historically when these things come up, black and brown people are always at the tail end of this. This is who is going to get hit the hardest. It will come out of the Police Department or Fire Department, wherever it is, its in our neighborhood. Trying to make sure in every decision being made around this planned shrinkage that were taking an equitable lens or equitable approach. The director put out a Covid Response not work book, but i cant think of the word. She put out a great report about how we should approach our recovery as a city. I recommend people should read that. Also my other hat as a leader of a nonprofit, im terrified because by this point in the process, nonprofit leaders will know what were working with. This delay is adding another layer of stress. Youre trying to keep your staff calm and make sure you have money to pay for the things you planned for. Now were waiting for your city counterparts to know if this is going to happen. Youre trying to keep your population to conserve calm. Its a whole level of stress for nonprofit leaders because we dont know whats going to happen and all the things that we grown to trust and depend on are all at jeopardy. I just want to say that health is involved in all policies, whether its education, transportation, whatever, intentional or unintentional. So like we really need to focus on how all of these policies and event the way these budget cuts come down and what impact its going to have on communities of color. Yes, definitely. That is so true. Speaking on that, in todays debate, the Public Health recovery and the economic recovery are often times pinned against one another. So, how do each of you envision a community where these two could be integrated to create prosperity . Lets go to carmen. I was going to let someone else take the lead. In terms of tracking this, when you look at the reproduction rate of covid19, in march it was something above 3. That meant for anyone with covid19, they were basically spreading it to 3 other individuals. San francisco in the bay area took Decisive Action to do shelterinplace in midmarch. They were faster than many other places and it helped slow the spread pretty quickly. When you look at the trajectory of reproduction rate, it dropped dramatically after shelterinplace went into order. For a long time it was under 1. Thats a good thing. You want the number to be under 1. Around the beginning of june or so that started to inch up and now were likely above 1. Thats where we are in terms of the reinfection rate. We want to bring the number down or we will see spread in our communities. I tell you that because what happened that drove that number down was two things. We closed a lot of businesses, reck recreation was also shut down. The second thing, i know for myself, psychologically we were seeing what was happening across the country and around the world and new york. We thought we better take precaution because we dont want to see that happen here. We dont want to see lines of ambulances going into the hospital with us having to make decisions on who to treat and who not to treat. Many of us took a lot of precautions and then that flattened the curve when we reopened the economy in midmay or so, i think a few things happened. I think you know, number one more Economic Activity was happening, so more people were coming in contact with one another. I think a lot of people let their guard down. Weve been cooped up and people thought it wouldnt hurt if i just saw so and so. Overtime as you start to be social, you forget you shouldnt have give someone a hug. I think its hard is see what of the resurgence is related to Economic Activity and what is he rated to our social behaviors. I think the one thing ill say is that im still hopeful that we can open up more of the economy so we can get our budgets back online and our support back online and to help people too. There is a cost to shelterinplace. We heard a lot about the cost to business, the cost to losing jobs, which is not small. Those are big things when people lose their incomes. There is social and emotional challenges, Mental Health challenges. Veronica spoke about social isolation amongst our seniors. We are seeing more food insecurity. There is also the typical ability for us to be able to detect things like abuse. Were not seeing kids go back to school. Were not seeing more avenues for some of these things to be daylighted for example. So it is not without other costs associated with it. I just wanted to say that because part of reopening the economy and getting back to as normal as possible is because there are other impacts we have to see. I do think that we can continue to do it, but we really have to double down in terms of our own social behaviors. Thats hard to do because were use to being the social people we are and seeing your own family. I do think thats what needs to happen in terms of the city and other actions that need to occur to make this a not a here or there or win or lose situation. We have to take more personal responsibility. All of us do. We have to remember to buckle back down again right and not try to get back together and do as mump as we can to social distance and wear masks. Those are things we can take on ourselves to do. As a city we need to think harder about how do we support people during this time . So if we want people to not spread, it means we need to support people who get sick, to make sure they have a replacement income, and they are not going to lose their jobs when they do that. I think there are a lot of policies that need to happen that support Economic Activity so people can have good health behavi behaviors. I just want to say we all have work to do on the policy side to help people who get sick and making sure our Public Health has the resources they need to help with Mental Health, with contact tracing, and testing. The last thing i have to say is that we need to think more regional. I think we started off really well in terms of coming together as a region to slow and close things down. When we started to open back up, counties did it all different ways. So there was a lot of confusion on what is open here and what is open there. When things are open in another county, people from our county and rightly so were saying oh, ill meet you over there to have dinner or whatever it was. You know, it just shows you that spread isnt contained within our county, right . People go, they work in other counties. People come here to work. So i think our lack of having a regional approach when it comes to opening really hurt us. I hope we can get back on track with some of these things so we can come together and be more coherent and cohesive on how were moving together. I could talk for hours about this stuff. So for me megan and thanks carmen. That was wonderful. The question has a different turn for me. When i think of economic recovery or Public Health recovery, i have to ask for who . Our health was terrible before covid. Our Economic Life was very poor precovid. So, when were talking about the recovery of these things, if were talking about black people, we have to have a whole different conversation. The Median Income for white people was 101,000 and for black people it was 29,000. Our Health Disparities are the worse across the city for every group. Its a different discussion. Again, everything all the racism that black people and people of color just in general experience is connected to economics, period. So its not just about the pandemic but for my community, it heightened everything that was already in place and occurring. So when we talk about recovery for people who are already oppressed, already impacted by the social determinants of health, the conversation has to take a different nuance. We need honest conversations on what does recovery look like and for what population are we talking about . If youre already twothirds of the food chain and the issue for you is this pandemic, but you still have food, housing, your bills are still being paid, that recovery will have a different outcome for those at the bottom of the barrel. Right now what we see and i know carmen and joy have seen it, its the despair in everyone were seeing. How long will this go on . I have people that i know that dont have jobs and are so afraid because theyre going to end up losing the place theyre renting because they cant pay. I think of recovery for those who are marginalized already and its a different conversation. I agree with carmen. It has to have a regional approach so were not all doing our own thing based on the communities we live in. We do have to think about that. I learned last week because of my exposure to data in the Health Department. I currently live in the census track, in the bay view. Im a native here, born and raised here, that has the highest cases of covid. Oh god, im scared to leave my house even for a basic need. There are people that are Walking Around and theyre not thinking about Public Health recovery. Theyre not thinking about economic recovery. A lot of these people dont even wear masks and theyre not just the black people. It has a different layer added to it in our community. That recovery requires the voices from our community to be leading those conversations. What recovery looks like is not the same as in the bay view. Thank you. I very quickly. Go ahead. And i think that was a perfect segue into one of my points about the community aspect. I was thinking since young people are now one of the fast ers populations to be contracting covid, i have this crazy idea, why not hire them to be our contact tracers . They know who are around and who is going to be somewhere and all this other stuff. Have them help us track this for us. Its their population that is now entering into this. We didnt do a great job with our young people in messaging. They have all kinds of messages going on, does the mask really help, i thought we can go here, is this real, all these different things. So now getting them involved, getting them educated on whats really happening and helping them be a part of the solution is going to engage them, is going to help them in economic recovery. Its going to give them experience that hopefully later on you now have your new Public Health team. Even hiring young people to be Community Ambassadors or captains to help with the Data Collection in specific neighborhoods. I think about whats happening in sunny dale. Hire young people to help with that. Even in the shelterinplace hotels, how can young people be part of the stat . I think there are ways that we can include community and im using my youth lens because i run a Youth Organization but community in general. These are ways we can incorporate the community in a way that doesnt make them feel tokenized and you understand what youre going to do and youre going to sit here and this is on the checklist. This is having them feel a part of the solution and helping their community that is also uplifting them economically. Can i add to that too . We have a Seniors Group called network for elders out here. I know the president and she says theyre trying to communicate because so many of them live alone and they dont even have laptops to do that. They used to meet monthly before covid. I asked how many laptops do you need . She said eight. They dont have the money to get it but its a way to stay connected and to be able to engage and feel like they are also part of what they can do to shift the narrative. It could be small but its so critically needed. Yeah, i love what joy had to say about engaging the youth that way. The city has a huge need for contact tracers and well have a huge need for a while. I think thats an idea we should be exploring as a city and to veronicas point. The Digital Divide is terrible. Youre seeing thats playing out in terms of education. If you have parents or kids that dont have access to technology or the connection, or dont know how to use it, youre seeing theyre falling further behind. Thats a huge challenge. Yeah, so really quickly, i guess a follow up to this is what are some of the red tapes that can be addressed. Youre shaking your head veronica, theres too much red tape. Thats something to think about and maybe theres Community Building down the road. A question we have from an audience member, denise asks how has the covid crisis effected or complicated the housing prices . Hi denise, thanks for your question. We saw an uptick in young people trying to escape Family Violence just in a weeks time. Before the city was allowing them to use Emergency Hotel vouchers we said were going to use them and ask or forgiveness later. So we tried to get our young people somewhere where they could get safe. It started as a week, then growing into a months time and we thankfully were able to sustain them during this whole shelterinplace time. It ended up being 12 young people we had to do this for outside of trying to house i think during this time we were rapidly trying to house all the youths on our list. In addition to the emergency housing youth, we housed close to 20 young people during this time. It looks like rent is going down but there is still a huge need. There are a ton of young people still in the queue and we had to slow down because of resources. Its been strapped because all the money that had to go into hotels, food, just making sure that everyone has the electronic stuff like laptops, hotspot, all of that. It just put a huge strange on our resources strain on our resources and there are still a lot more people in the kuwaiting to be housed although rent is dropping. This is like we went into this crisis with homelessness being one of our huge issues at the city and weve done a better job of trying to address it, but its only going to like its a deep hole. We need if i can advocate for anything right now the two things would be housing, food, and Mental Health. I can say that as a homeless response system in general, everyone not just youth, everywhere faces this crisis during shelterinplace and even now. Definitely. Does anyone else want to answer that question briefly . I guess just quickly for me, its just thanks denise for asking that question. Its so complex. Our housing, our homelessness shot up. I mean we got hundred times more Homeless People here in the bay view than we had before because resources shifted. Things that use to be available in certain parts of the city werent anymore. We even have people that are in sheltered environments without food and going to the Homeless Services to eat. So its just very complex and i ditto everything that joy said. All these of these intersections have to be addressed because theyre all happening at the same time. Definitely. So i want to open it up to our Closing Remarks and last questions here as were coming to time. How has each of your personal experiences guided your strategy to recovery and what are some resources that you can provide to our audience and try to keep this under 2 minutes. I think well be good. Ill go very fast, which is you know my parents were immigrants here so my parents i grew up most of my life where my parents think racism because they couldnt speak english well and they worked in low income jobs. My mom was a seamstress and my dad worked in a kitchen. It always colored my perspective because when i think of policy and how we respond to economic recovery, i think of the people who cant make it to the table. I think of the people that cant come out and advocate because they have to work or i think of the people that cant or dont feel they can speak up. So, i think that is something that will always be with me. Its always keeping that perspective on who cant come here to say what they need to say and we need to be thinking about them too. I think in terms of this pandemic, its even more clear about how it is that we need to be protecting, especially our most vulnerable communities. Joy, if you want to go. Yeah, ill go. I dont think you come out of Hunters Point without being an activist. One of the most overused but appropriate words to describe our neighborhood is resilient. So i think weve learned how to, you know, make something out of nothing. I think again as i talked about earlier the village model of really making sure that we all were helping each other no matter what, even if we had something little. Let me help you get this. I think thats been sort of the beauty of all this, seeing how San Francisco has come together to make sure that we are at least trying to address our most marginalized. I seen people come out to help our seniors like veronica was talking about with the Faithbased Community and serving all those meals. That came from just conversations, very organic conversations. Seeing that and seeing how the networking has i have really been amazed at how everyone has come together in all different fronts. In terms of resources for the audience, i just really want people to get out here and advocate, right . Weve talked about all the things that need to happen. Get engaged. Look at the next budget meeting. Look at the next Police Commissioner meeting. Look at all these different meetings where we need folks to come out and advocate for the things were talking about. Were going to need your voices to make this happen. This is where the community is at the table. This is where we shift the power in the Decision Making. We need you all to show up and advocate for these things. Ill leave you with that. And im going to end with very little. The resources i bring is food. People know me as you need food, call veronica. I pretty much know where all the food is and how to get it to people. More than that, i bring grace. I bring dignity. I bring values and humanity to peoples lives who are suffering in multiple ways and spaces and places, whether they speak english or not. I think that hope and joy said, the resilience we have helps keep people helps people know that somebody cares and somebody really shows that they care about how were experiencing life each day. I dont care whether youre giving a person a napkin or referral. Do it with dignity. Do it with hope. Do it with grace and remind people that theyre not alone. To me thats the most important. If we dont stand for the values that we say we represent, it doesnt matter what we have to offer. You can treat people very badly for something they really need and theyll walk away from you because you disrespected them. So i think that is critical of how to engage people, specifically in this pandemic. Thank you. Thank you veronica, carmen, and joy. Your comments are much appreciated and i hope the three of you collaborate down the line. I just want to plug for summer in the city is their next event, august 6th. This is a big event for all women to celebrate and i know that carmen also has the w challenge coming up celebrating the 100 Year Anniversary of woman suffrage, both are tied to womens suffrage, keeping it in line with womens rights and of course what that means for women of color especially black women and brown women. Thank you again for everyone that is watching from your homes. A remind to make sure that you are socially distant, wear your mask, and stay informed. Thank you. Everything is done inhouse. I think it is done. I have always been passionate about gelato. Every single slaver has its own recipe. We have our own we move on from there. So you have every time a unique experience because that slaver is the flavored we want to make. Union street is unique because of the neighbors and the location itself. The people that live around here i love to see when the street is full of people. It is a little bit of italy that is happening around you can walk around and enjoy shopping with gelato in your hand. This is the move we are happy to provide to the people. I always love union street because its not like another commercial street where you have big chains. Here you have the neighbors. There is a lot of stories and the neighborhoods are essential. People have they enjoy having their daily or weekly gelato. I love this street itself. We created a move of an area where we will be visiting. We want to make sure that the area has the gelato that you like. What we give back as a shop owner is creating an ambient lifestyle. If you do it in your area and if you like it, then you can do it if the moderator can open the phone line to Public Comment on the minutes of the june 30t june 30th special meeting. Ok, were opening phone line, madam chair. Ok. It is slow today. No problem