Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Budget And Finance Committee 20240712

Fluid situation. Remember just recently as i reminded folks at the last press conference, of course, one day we were talking about a phased plan. Then the next day we had to make significant changes. More recently we had a level of confusion between state issued guidelines and local guidelines. I want to be clear that we are definitely working and communicating with the state. I just believe that there was a level of confusion as it relates to what we were doing here locally because of our numbers and because of our Public Health officials. What we try to do is provide you the most uptodate, Accurate Information. It is important that you visit sfgov. Org to find the latest in guidelines. There are certain things that we have repeated over and over again that we are at a point where those are the kinds of things we should automatically do. That includes making sure we wear our masks, social distancing, doing our part because what happens is there are a lot of questions asked of me and so many leaders in the city. The biggest question is when can i open my store, when can my kid go back to school . When can i do this or do that . I understand the desire. I have those same desires, and the only way to get to that place is if we all do our part. Today we want to talk a little bit where the city is, a new phase every opening because of where the city is, but also just reminder that just because this happens doesnt mean that we, unfortunately, cant pull things back if we see a surge. Labor day weekend is coming up. Everybody is thinking, well, this is the time i miss my family. It is six months. Here is an opportunity to get together. That is highly discouraged. Highly discouraged, especially if you want your kids to go back to school sometime soon, you want to visit your elderly parents in the senior home that probably doesnt still allow visitors, if you need to reopen your shop to go back to work. As we approach Labor Day Weekend, it is so important that we remember in those family and friendly gatherings that occur that is where we see through Contact Tracing where the spread happens, where we run into problems. We saw it during the fourth of july weekend there was a spike and during holiday weekends. We understand human nature wants to connect with other people, but we have got to get through this. We have got to get through this. Dr. Colfax will go into more detail what is happening in the city. We are still based on the state system that has been established that the governor announced last week, we are still in the red category, and we want to, of course, move away from that as much as possible, but it doesnt mean that we arent able to move forward to provide guidance on when we expect to reopen. We are off the wait list, which is a good thing. We are not out of the woods. Keep that in mind. As of today, we no, i thinks like haircuts and outdoor hair salons and massages can resume, outdoor pools can reopen. This is not what people wanted. I sure dont want to get my hair done outside, to be honest. I get it. This is what we have to offer. We also said that as of today that gyms can open, our door gyms as well. We are working on the guidelines to make sure they are prepared. Most likely september 9th would be the first opportunity that could be available. Another thing after being removed from the state watch list, malls were opened. As of today malls can reopen because we are no longer on the state watch list, and because they were open previously before we were placed on the state watch list. Now, i also have heard there is a lot of talk about not knowing what the guidelines are for various businesses. I want be to direct any business, any community, anyone who is uncertain what they need to do to sf. Gov reopening. There is not only a laundry list of guidelines for various businesses, there is information that you can review so you can be prepared even if your business is not open at this time. You dont have to wait until these announcements occur. You can get ready before the opportunity is available to your business. The path forward is good news. Again, we have Labor Day Weekend coming up. We have real concerns because the more reopen, the more people are gathering and spreading around, and we still have concerns. We want you to do this responsibly because we want to make sure we see these businesses continue to be open. All plans are subject to change, just like they were before. The last thing i want to do is tell you that we are going to be opening and then need to make changes and start closing businesses again. That is the last thing i want to do. The good news is that starting midseptember, hotels for tourism and visitors, outdoor movie theate theaters and mini , tour buses, boats. Indoor museums, zoos and aquariums with approved safety plans, houses of worship can allow Outdoor Services up to 50 people. That begins midseptember. We will provide the specific date once we have confirmed the date and make sure we are in touch with those various businesses with the appropriate guidelines. The end of september is, i think, really good news. This is something we should all be working towards. What that means is sacrifice of another month of masking and socially distancing and doing everything we can to get to a place where we can have indoor personal services. We can move hair and nail salons and barbershops and massages by the end of this month indoors. That is incredible if we continue at the pace we are now. And we will be able to allow tattoo, piercing and indoors no more than 25 and 50 outdoors. Door oneonone training with the gyms. Safely with mask wearing because that is critical to success of not opening establishments but allowing them to remain open. The path forward for schools. I just want to be cheer that as mayor i am, of course, very, very supportive of our schools, our kids, in particular, and wanting them to learn, grow and thrive. What we have seen this year with our students, especially those students who may not have parents or grandparents or Family Support to help in lessons. When we provided devices and internet service, they are still falling further behind. It is why it was so important that we open these learning hubs. We are almost at capacity. We know how vital it is that kids have access to people who are able to help them with lesson plans. I am extremely concerned about the future of our children as we continue with covid. We have to make prioritizing the ability to get schools reopened, we have to put that at the forefront. We know it is not as easy as we can open the schools. There are teachers and educators concerned, we know we need to put together plans. We know it is not my decision but the decision of the School District to move this forward, and my plan is to do everything i can to work handinhand with the School District so we can move forward to get kids back in school as soon as it is safely possible to do so. Starting in midseptember we will have Community Learning hubs. K through 6 schools that submitted health and safety plans through the waiver process will be able to open. I want to be clear. There is a process and it is their decision. We want to be clear that the opportunity to move forward with k through 6 is possible. After that work toward getting the following open by midoctober, after that the goal is to take it to the next level. By midoctober k through 6 not part of the waiver process will be part of the waiver process and will determine whether or not they will open. Middle school through eighth grade. High School Students are similar to adults. We are cautious and not certain we will move forward with high schools any time soon. All of this again has everything to do with the numbers, with where we are, with what is happening as we open more businesses, as we start to move around San Francisco like we havent before. We will all play a role in this success of what we do moving forward. I cant reiterate that enough because you all have been a part of stopping the spread at one point. When we first started this journey six months ago, this city was like praised, it was praised because of our fast action and because of the people of the city who played a role in doing everything you could to not only stay home but to also support your neighbors and to support one another. Six months later, i am tired of it, too. I am tired of living like this, too. I understand how you feel. I cant imagine what parents are going through or people caring for elderly parents, but you know what . We all have to sacrifice. We are all going to have to sacrifice to get through is this. As i said. If we want to move to the next level, if we want to get kids back in school, want be to keep the business that we grew up going to open, the businesses that rely on us every day, if we want to keep them open, all of us play a role. I want to thank you all for your cooperation. I know it is Labor Day Weekend, i know it is attempting, but, please, keep in mind that this virus is still out there and we need everybody to play a role in making sure that it doesnt continue to spread, and as we reopen we dont want to see the numbers go back up, which will force us to take a different direction. That is the last thing i want to get out here and say is that unfortunately, i told you yesterday that we were opening and i am telling you today that we have to close because of the numbers. That is the last thing i want to do. Keep that in mind as we move about the daytoday activities. This is really great news for Small Businesses, especially the personal services that i know are struggling to survive. Thank you all so much for your cooperation and work. At this time for a detailed Public Health update from the director of the department of Public Health, doctor brent colfax will joint us join us. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, mayor breed for all you do for this city every day. I am dr. Grant colfax, director of department of Public Health. I am happy to join the mayor and cochair of the City Economic Recovery Task force to discuss the San Francisco path forward towards recovery. As the mayor just explained the state has removed many of the restrictions that had previously prevented us from reopening low risk activities and businesses. While we have managed the impacts of the virus better than many other cities and counties. For example, we have one of the highest testing rates of any city in the country, and given the rates of infection, we thankfully have one of the lowest death rates in the country. Both of these, while being one of the densest cities in the country. We still need to move forward with gradual reopening as infection rates remain high as do hospitalizations. They have gone down over the past few weeks. We still have one of the highest hospitalization rates in the region. Of course, we are continuing to monitor the virus in our community and adjust and adapt our response as needed. We continue to have a high positivity case rate, and this continues to proportionately impact or Latino Community. Today in San Francisco we have 9544 confirmed cases of covid19. Over half of those cases are diagnosed in the Latino Community. We have made progress, but there is much more work to do. This is a priority for the department of Public Health. The reality is that we know more about the virus today than we did six months or even three months ago. We learn more and more about the virus every week. We are able to analyze more data and learn more about the relative risk and preventative measures we all need to take to reduce and slow the spread of the virus. This information is so key as we continue to follow the science, data and facts. These will inform our efforts as we open incrementally so we can manage the spread of covid19 and sustain the progress that we have made. We continue to monitor the rules and limitations of the states friday announcement, but in San Francisco we are placing an emphasis on our city indicators while decides whether we can reopen more and at what pace. We must look at the local contacts. Remember the state guidance is broad brushed, meant to cover counties as small and rural as yuba oral pine but also as large as la or as dense and urban as San Francisco. We will continue to be guided by the local Health Indicators which tract the covid19 cases, deaths, hospitalizations and Contact Tracing capability and availability of all important personal protective equipment. I want to provide an update on todays indicators from our data dashboard. The rate of new cases of covid19 remains high. We are seeing about 75 new cases every day right now and are still in the red zone. Our Hospital System indicators measuring the rate of increase of hospitalizations as well as capacity of our Healthcare System to respond are in green and indeed that is good news. Our other Health Indicators remain solid. Testing is green. We are testing over 3500 people a day, more than double our goal. Contact tracing is yellow and orange. We are reaching about 81 of cases and 77 of their contacts. While this metric has improved over the past few weeks, our goal is to reach 90 on both. Our ppe supply is at 100 of what we need for 30days, placing us in the green zone. The gradual reopening of Outdoor Services, hotels and children activities means people will start to move about the city more. Increasing risk and potentially Community Spread of the virus. With more activities we will likely experience an increase in not only cases but also hospitalizations. We will continually assess the new positive case counts and hospitalization numbers. Our reopening pace will be informed by our ability to manage the risk of more activity that may result in more cases and again more hospitalizations. Reenforcing the mayors comments, we need everyone to do their part, especially as we enter the holiday weekend. We must remain vigilant. I know six months if we are tired, but we must dig deeper and do our part. There is more virus out there than ever before, and indeed we have a narrow window to keep moving forward. The most important thing you can do to slow the spread of the virus is to continue to take precautions. I thank you for taking these precautions in march, june, july, now and in the future. Even in this time of uncertainty, especially in this time of uncertainty, it is important to remind ourselves and our neighbors that we do know how to slow the spread of the virus. Stay home as much as possible, cover your face to help us all keep on track. Keep six feet apart, wash your hands frequently, and please do not go out if you are sick and avoid social gatherings. We are in this together, and together we will get through this. In this evolving risk environment we will bring back our communities and economies the same we continue to fight covid19 by working together. Thank you. It is now my pleasure to introduce assessorrecorder carmen chu, cochair of the citys Economic Recovery Task force to discuss further the San Francisco path towards recovery. Thank you may or breed and dr. Colfax. We were here on friday to share our plans for expanding outdoor activities. We mentioned at that time we would be back this week to talk more about forward plans as we think about other industries. As dr. Colfax mentioned and the mayor pointed to we consider the restrictions and parameters the state provides. We will continue to reopen based on local Health Indicators. Today is important because it shows all of us what our path forward could look like. I will take a moment to thank the Public Health team for all of work they are doing to keep San Francisco residents and workers safe. I want to thank all of you for your individual actions that collectively have made a difference. Because of your actions, wearing a mask, keeping social distance and making sure you are taking precautions, we are here today to talk about what a path forward could look like. I want to acknowledge how hard it has been. I think for many people over the last month, month and a half it finley set in another i eye fine finally set in. We felt heart break we wouldnt be moving forward and this might be here longer than we hoped. We miss our family and friends and want to get back to work. More than anything as the city first started down this path when we first entered shel shelterinplace. We were here and it didnt really settle into us what this would all mean. What we did know was this this was going to be a situation unlike anything we had ever experienced before. Not only from Public Health perspective we are in the middle of an active Global Pandemic the Economic Impact would be so devastatdevastating and quick. Unemployment went from under 3 to 11 . There are over 60,000 in San Francisco unemployed at the moment. So many kids are having a very hard time adjusting to distance learning. Our most vulnerable continue to be isolated in homes and other settings. Not only that, we have heard from so many businesses they are hanging by a shoestring. In the beginning we knew there was a lot that we did not know about the disease. We had a lot to learn about how it is spread, prevalence and what it means for those infected and what treatments would look like. We know more today. We knew we had to b be flexibled transparent to sherry opening plans to get the economy back on track. We are transparent and will share forecast as soon as we know it, share guidance and best practices with you so you can operate safely, so that you can interact safely. We knew that we had to let the data guide us to make sure we were careful about watching the hospitalizations, our case counts, test positivity to allow that to guide decisions if it is safe to reopen, pause, or take other actions. We had to be thoughtful in our approach. We had to make sure that we understand the impacts of the actions we are taking. We go this is important to sustain the progress that we make. It helps no one when we pingpong and go and open and close businesses. People have to make investments to pull back or not able to use. These dont help our economy, they hurt our economy. We knew we had to focus on information an and guidance. The safety of our workers, customers interactions matters with economic recovery. There is no economic recovery unless people are confident reengaging with our city and city life. We will continue to provide immediate relief to workers, families, businesses. We will continue to be as flexible as we can. Through our words and actions we will break the narrative it is a decision between Public Health or the economy. Over the last few months we know we need both. That is our continued commitment to you. I am cautiously excited. There are many cautions out there, we hope you continue to do your best during this week end. I am excited this plan recognizes many things. One, we need to take steps to move the Economic Activity indoors. We need to do it safely to sustain the opening. It really does begin to recognize what that path forward could look like. This plan also recognizes the importance of uplifting large and Major Industries in the city including hog hospitalities. Thousands are employed in hotels and restaurants and retail stores. We can do that safely. We have shown the world we can do this safely. I will rest on this one thought. It is a refrain you have heard before. The idea that that progress isnt automatic. Again, i think san franciscans are familiar with this call to action. We have heard it before in all of thesive vit rights movements that we have had. While we make progress sometimes we somewhere to fight to make sure we dont lose ground. That is what we are facing. We know this can come back. What we have shown is that we know how to beat it back and can open up businesses together. I want to thank you, San Francisco, for all of the work you are doing to continue to help move our city forward and make sure we are able to keep opening in a sustained and safe way. To make sure we balance taking care of workers and customers at the same time. Thank you, San Francisco. We will begin the q a portion with dr. Colfax. The first set of questions from the San Francisco chronicle. What have you learned about reopening and about the virus since may and june that you are applying to reopening plans now . I think we have seen in our local response as well as across the country that we can mitigate and slow the spread of the virus, keeping the Hospital Capacity adequate and having enough capacity in our system to care for people who become infected. The other side that we have also seen is we know if we let down our guard, the virus can spread very rapidly. I think it is really getting this balance between the need to manage the control of the spread of the virus and realizing that there are key factors that we need to consider with regard to education, mental health, Behavioral Health and other Public Health considerations that we need to take into account in our reopens. We know that masking is so key. We know that more than ever. Something we learned a number of analysis have shown if as a society we can get up to 80 masking that will have a dramatic effect on the virus. In the guidelines coming out there will be an emphasis on the need for facial coverings. Out door activities are safer than indoor activities. Outdoor activities you can see in the phasing that we have. Outdoor activities that are expanded as of today. We also understand the need after six months for children to come back in to inperson learning as much as possible. We think that can be done in a safer way. From what we have learned in the data globally, we will be making recommendations around how to move forward with educational activities. There is no such thing as no risk. Pacing is important. That is why we spread out this process every opening and we need to be cautious as we go forward. Thank you, dr. Colfax. This is from ev baty. Are there Indoor Dining problems that keep it off the list of those you are hoping to open in september and october . If you look at the pieces we released today they fall into the buckets of the lower risk activities. The component of Indoor Dining there are a number of things that are concerning. Outdoor dining and takeout is open. There are opportunities there. Indoor dining would be in a later date at this point because of the risk that is entailed in people sitting down for long periods of time in crowded croud quarters taking off masks. I miss going to restaurants. If we all do our part we will be thrilled to see it coming online sometime in the future. Many next question with healthner from the San Francisco chronicling. Any plan for reopening kids playgrounds and basketball courts and Outdoor Recreation item . We are evaluating. One of the key things with regard to playgrounds. I would love to see them reopen and many parents and kids would as well. Playgrounds are mostly uncontrolled environment with a lot of children mixing different ages, interacting with different families. That does increase risk of transmission. At this time we do not have a date to reopen play grounds. Our Health Officer and Pediatric Team is looking at the data. That is something we would like to do as soon as it is safer to do so. Next set of questions are for mayor breed. First set of questions are from heather with the San Francisco chronicle. Six weeks after the city settled a lawsuit regarding the tenderloin how are things going in the neighborhood amid the covid19 pandemic . We didnt just put together a comprehensive plan to address homelessness and the large number of tent encampments we have spread to other neighborhoods where we have seen a level of homelessness that typically these particular neighborhoods dont experience as well. In the tenderloin in particular we saw over 400 tents with a few hundred people. We have been able to reduce that to as of today 41 tents. We have been able to get most of those people the help and support they need. That includes transitioning some of those folks to the safe sleeping sites, some into hotels, some into permanent be supportive housing. It is easier said an than done. It required a village of people working several different agencies. The home less Street Operations center under the Emergency Management because of this covid crisis and need to try to get people indoors, prevent the spread within the Homeless Population and provide people with a safe place to sleep, this operation has been incredible. I want to thank all city workers who played a role in going in to address the real challenge in several areas including one by ocean beach, one on oak street, in addition to the tenderloin. These camps resolution teams include workers from the department of public works, members of the San Francisco police department. Workers from the department of Public Health and the mag management team. I want to thank them. They are out there every day. Our Homeless Outreach team. When they began the resolution of addressing the encampment site. They dont show up just that day. They have to develop a relationship with the people there to understand the challenges they face so they are able to provide the support and assistance that they need. It is an ongoing process and the most effective thing we are able to do to resolve encampmentses and it is something we will continue to do. People are tired and frustrated and there is a lot of poverty and lack of housing and resources for so many folks. It is something we are working hard to address. Our program that we have established applan around homelessness has been the most effective that it has ever been since we put together this plan to address encampments. It is going well. It is not good enough. Going back to the conditions of the tenderloin in particular, it is really shorible. I want to be honest. We may have removed encampments but what we see in soma and the tenderloin around the behavior, urinating and def if indicating and public acts that are unmentional that have impacted the quality of life for the people in the community, we see things get worse. Part of what we need to do especially around the significant amount of drug dealing that occurs in the tenderloin, it is to to point where we have to get dress i. We cant have it both ways. You cant be upset that we are making arrests and then be upset we are allo allowing it is cont. These acts should not be tolerated. We will continue to push and do our job to make sure we cleanup this community so that people walking down the street with a baby stroller dont have to get off and go to the street to walk around a bunch of people selling drugs and shooting up. Is that okay for families to live like that . It is not. We are in a much better place than in a long time. Thank you madam mayor. No further questions. This concludes todays press conference. Thank you, madam mayor, doctor colfax, and ms. Chu for your time. He is a real leader that listens and knows how to bring people together. Brought this department together like never before. I am so excited to be swearing in the next chief of the San Francisco Fire Department, ladies and gentlemen, lets welcome, Jeanine Nicholson. applause . I grew up total tomboy, athlete. I loved a good crisis, a good challenge. I grew up across the street from the fire station. My dad used to take me there to vote. I never saw any female firefighters because there werent any in the 1970s. I didnt know i could be a fire fighter. When i moved to San Francisco in 1990, some things opened up. I saw women doing things they hadnt been doing when i was growing up. One thing was firefighting. A woman recruited me at the gaypride parade in 1991. It was a perfect fit. I liked using my brain, body, working as a team, figuring things out, troubleshooting and coming up with different ways to solve a problem. In terms of coming in after another female chief, i dont think anybody says that about men. You are coming in after another man, chief, what is that like. I understand why it is asked. It is unusual to have a woman in this position. I think San Francisco is a trailblazer in that way in terms of showing the world what can happen and what other people who may not look like what you think the fire chief should look like how they can be successful. Be asked me about being the first lbgq i have an understands because there are little queer kids that see me. I worked my way up. I came in january of 1994. I built relationships over the years, and i spent 24 years in the field, as we call it. Working out of firehouses. The Fire Department is a family. We live together, eat together, sleep in the same dorm together, go to crazy calls together, dangerous calls and we have to look out for one another. When i was burned in a fire years ago and i felt responsible, i felt awful. I didnt want to talk to any of my civilian friends. They couldnt understand what i was going through. The firefighters knew, they understood. They had been there. It is a different relationship. We have to rely on one another. In terms of me being the chief of the department, i am really trying to maintain an open relationship with all of our members in the field so myself and my deputy chiefs, one of the priorities i had was for each of us to go around to different fire stations to make sure we hit all within the first three or four months to start a conversation. That hasnt been there for a while. Part of the reason that i am getting along well with the field now is because i was there. I worked there. People know me and because i know what we need. I know what they need to be successful. I have known Jeanine Nicholson since we worked together at station 15. I have always held her in the highest regard. Since she is the chief she has infused the department with optimism. She is easy to approach and is concerned with the firefighters and paramedics. I appreciate that she is concerned with the issues relevant to the Fire Department today. There is a retired captain who started the Cancer Prevention foundation 10 years ago because he had cancer and he noticed fellow firefighters were getting cancer. He started looking into it. In 2012 i was diagnosed with breast canner, and some of my fellow firefighters noticed there are a lot of women in the San Francisco Fire Department, premenopausal in their 40s getting breast cancer. It was a higher rate than the general population. We were working with workers comp to make it flow more easily for our members so they didnt have to worry about the paper work when they go through chemo. The turnout gear was covered with suit. It was a badge to have that all over your coat and face and helmet. The dirtier you were the harder you worked. That is a cancer causeser. It casser. It is not cancer causer. There islassic everywhere. We had to reduce our exposure. We washed our gear more often, we didnt take gear where we were eating or sleeping. We started decontaminating ourselves at the fire scene after the fire was out. Going back to the fire station and then taking a shower. I have taught, worked on the decontamination policy to be sure that gets through. It is not if or when. It is who is the next person. It is like a cancer sniper out there. Who is going to get it next. One of the things i love about the Fire Department. It is always a team effort. You are my family. I love the city and department and i love being of service. I vow to work hard to work hard to carry out the vision of the San Francisco Fire Department and to move us forward in a positive way. If i were to give a little advice to women and queer kids, find people to support you. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep trying. You never know what door is going to open next. You really dont. [cheers and as a friendyou can submit u questions by chat only. Please submit your questions as clearly as possible and include your name and outlet. We will do our best to receive questions up until the q a begins. Remaining questions can be sent to des sfgov. Org. And here is the mayor, london breed. The hon. London breed good afternoon, everyone. Today, im joined by Community Organizations that have always been amazing partners with the city and have really stepped up during covid19 for our community. I was out with the Latino Task Force earlier this week to distribute p. P. E. For all businesses, and they are doing amazing work organizing and fighting for resources for the community. The sisters for perpetual indulgence are always at the forefront for keeping the sister of lgbtq healthy, always while having a little okay, a lot of fun. And the African American arts and cultural district has been working hard to make sure the Community Members know where they can go for support, from sharing information about testing, business grants and loans, and working to empower youth in the bayview, and opportunities for all has helped distribute books, activity kits, and technology that students need to be successful this school year, and their terms and fellows have repaired with Community Engagement and outreach throughout the city. So since the start of this Global Pandemic, we have always heard and received advice about how we can protect ourselves and others and slow the spread of the virus. Overtime, as our understanding of the virus has evolved, some of that guidance has changed, like face coverings, while other guidance shall stayed consistent, like frequent hand washing. You cant walk down the street, go to the grocery store, listen to music our browse social media without someone telling you to stay 6 feet apart, wear your mask, and wash your hands. Since january, our city has launched multilingual campaigns on t. V. , radio, social media, newspapers, bus shelters, and bill boards. A team of Disaster Service workers han been on the streets daily, blanketing our city with posters, multilingual posters and flyers. Since january, this team has distributed more than 3 million flyers. Posters, and fact sheets across the city. You cant turn anywhere in the city of without seeing our blue and yellow signs. This provides good information, and many people are listening. However, as weve stretched into our seventh month of this pandemix, we are looking for new ways to capture peoples attention to sustain the good work of our residents and communities. We want to be bold and strategic how we reach out to people who arent Wearing Masks. We wanted to find out why people might not be wearing face coverings and see if we can change their behavior because were all safer when we cover our faces when we go out, and regularly wearing face coverings will help us keep San Francisco on a path of reopening that we so desperately need. I asked our team, our city team to start working with people and organizations in our neighborhood to did he vel Community Led education campaigns and outreach efforts specifically around mask wearing, and many answered the call. Our nonprofits arts and faith organizations are on the frontlines impacting communities. Because of their relationships, they are often the most trusts and the most influential than the government. Im proud to say, today, we are launching our first series of communityled campaigns ahead of Labor Day Weekend, and you are going to hear from some of our partners shortly. But first, i want to address why we are launching this ahead of this current weekend. Historically, labor day is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of american workers. Because of the pandemic, this labor day has a special significance. It is a chance to honor the special workers in our community. We know this virus has disproportionately impacted our frontline workforce, many of them who have to reuse their medical equipment every sipping wisipping single day. Labor day marks the end of summer, and most years, we have barbecues and cookouts with our families, and i personally wish i could attend one of those gatherings. As we set at the beginning of the pandemic, the safest thing is to do is for people to stay home, but lets be real. People miss each other, and theyre going to decide to get together. So if you do, we ask if youre going to be other with others, keep it outside, make sure everyone is wearing a face covering, and avoid sharing food and drink. We know that oftentimes, when people come together, especially when they start drinking throughout the day, behavior changes. In addition to keeping our friends and our family safe, wearing a mask is one of the most effective things we can do to keep reopening San Francisco. Lets be mindful what we are doing and how we are impacting the spread of this share. Lets share the love, not the virus. And at this time, id like each of our Community Partners to talk about their campaign and why its important to protect our communities this Labor Day Weekend and beyond. First, we have dr. Scott sampson from the California Academy of sciences, which lent their creative and innovative design experts to help our city. Thank you very much, mayor breed, and thank you for your strong leadership during this challenging time, including in relation to this coronavirus. And warm thanks to all of our partners. Im scott sanchez, director of the California Academy of sciences. The academy has been part of San Francisco since 1853, just three years after california became a state. We care deeply about our city, and we are here to putting all of our cutting edge science to keep our community safe. When we heard that San Francisco is so close to hitting an important mask wearing milestone, our organization jumped at the chance to help get the word out. The science is crystal clear, wearing a mask makes a big difference, and we need everyone, especially young people, to mask up. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that wearing a mask, watching your distance, and washing your hands will help crush the covid19 curve. This campaign, available in four different languages all over San Francisco, is asking young people to take one small step that can make a giant difference helping to keep our entire community safe. Whether youre missing outside lands or dinner at your favorite restaurant, a giants game or inspirational evening of night life at the academy, we are all in this together. We are excited to keep the citys reopening on track so that we can all return to enjoying the many amazing benefits San Francisco has to offer. I wear a mask so that we ask safely open the academy and welcome you back for more awe and wonder in golden gate park. Thank you, and stay safe. The hon. London breed thank you, dr. Sampson. Now next, we have up annie chung from selfhelp for the elderly who will talk about efforts to conduct outreach and education with our asian and Pacific Islander community. Annie . Thank you so much, mayor breed, and good afternoon, everyone. Im annie chung with selfhelp for the elderly, and as mayor said, weve been on the frontline, providing essential meals and other Elder Care Services to all of our seniors in San Francisco. And were honored today, mayor, to partner with you and to support you in your relentless fight against the covid19 pandemic, and to educate the chinese speaking seniors and families how to protect themselves once they step outside their homes. Mayor breed, i think the seniors are doing their part to abide by the health order. I urge all the seniors and families to remember what dr. Sampson just said and practice the three ws one, wear masks, two, wash your hands, and three, watch your social distancing. I know the Labor Day Weekend is coming up, and we may be tempted to invite friends and family over for barbecues and gatherings. Only invite people that are in your immediate household, and if possible, try to meet outdoors, which will be much safer for you and your family. Remember, prevent everyone from sharing drinks or using the same utensils or chop sticks with each other. Be aware at all times. Protect yourselves and others, and think positive. [speaking cantonese language] thank you, everyone, and thank you, mayor. The hon. London breed thank you so much, annie, for all the work that you continue to do. Next, we have director glen from the African American arts and cultural district. I understand the district worked with local rappers to produce a music video that well see at the end of this press conference. Evan . Thank you, mayor breed. We really appreciate the continued support that the city of San Francisco has shown the African American community. Its been a lot of unprecedented work over the last several years, and we deeply appreciate that. My name is evan glen. I am the executive director for the African American arts and cultural district located in the bayview and third street corridor. So it was a process working with fran says zamora, the frances zamora, the department of Emergency Management, making sure the message put forth in our campaign was representative of the people in our community our culture, the way we look, and it just resonated with our spirits and our soul, and so thats what youre going to see in bill boards across the city. We also thought it would be a good idea to put a rap together to resonate with the young people. After talking with my codirector, erica scott, she says hey, you know, my daughters going to parties, and the young people need a message, as well. So we got together with a rap group out of the fillmore, 16yearold girls called the poppin twins, and they wrote the rap that were going to share for everybody today. With that being said, i just want to send a message out to the community to remain safe because statistically, the bayview has been hit the hardest with covid19 out of any other area in San Francisco. We need to be aware of that. We need to wear masks, stay 6 feet apart from each other, and remain safe. And think about your grandparents. Think about the elderly in your neighborhood because their immune system obviously isnt as strong, and so we have to start thinking about each other. But again, i just want to thank the city of San Francisco for the work that theyve been doing to support the African American community. The hon. London breed thank you, evan, for your remarks and for joining us here today, and were looking forward to seeing that video. Now we also know that the Latino Community has really been the hardest hit in our city. In fact, over 50 of the cases that have been diagnosed were people of latino descent, and we have not been able to do we would not have been able to do the incredible work that we are doing to support this community and to address this disparity if it werent for the Latino Task Force. Theyve been an amazing resource in not only mask wearing but keeping people safe. Theyre here to discuss the latino Awareness Campaign in San Francisco. So thank you, susanna. Thank you, mayor breed. My name is susanna rojas, and i am the director of the Latino Task Force. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak and to collaborate dpshfor allowing the Latino Task Force to collaborate with the city so that our city can feel empowered to take action. The virus is just one more challenge to conquer, to stop the spread of covid19 and to protect our latino families ahead of Labor Day Weekend and beyond, im here to showcase the Latino Community. [speaking spanish language] [end of translation]. Our actions speak leader than words. We can show love by masking up. We can stay 6 feet apart, and most importantly, by not sharing food and drink. Now we in the Latino Community know that food is central to our interaction. It is the backbone to our community, and gathering with large families is how we show our love. Love during the coronavirus looks like wearing our masks, washing our hands, staying 6 feet apart, and protecting our seniors and our young people. Hugging in our families and physical contact is something we do on a daily basis, but right now, we have to demonstrate our love by hugging virtually by wearing a mask. And last but not least, we have sacrificed [speaking spanish language] thank you. The hon. London breed thank you again, susanna, for joining us and for all the work that you do. Im so excited for our next speakers. Sister, you are one of my favorite speakers, and i am so glad to have you here with us today. The sisters of perpetual indulgence along with supervisor mandelman launched an outreach campaign, focusing on the Lgbtq Community. The poster that you created was just amazing. Thank you, and join me, everyone, in welcoming sister roma. Hello, mayor breed. I cant wait to see that video, and of course im hungry for some great latin food. I want to thank you for unprecedented leadership during these very hard times. Your team is amazing. Since the beginning of the pandemic, its been hard for people in my community to not compare it to hiv aids, which we all know ravaged the Lgbtq Community very badly in the early 80s. And the sisters stepped up at that time and were actually leading the fight against hiv aids with providing information and education. So when this got here, we thought oh, this sounds familiar. When tom temprano approached me, i went back to my sisters, and we were all on board, and we went back to our methods of Harm Reduction and reminded our community that its best to stay safe and stay away from each other. This weekend, people are just itching to get out and dance and see each other. Its difficult, and itll be trying, and i want people to know that therell be a time that we can get together with each other and hug and hold each other, like we used to. But the sisters want to let you know that Wearing Masks can be fabulous. Look for us in dolores park on friday, where were going to be handing out 1500 masks, and then were going to be heading to the castro for our first friday event, which will be at 5 00 p. M. In the castro. So thank you for including me, and its been my honor and privilege. The hon. London breed thank you, sister roma. I almost didnt recognize you without your makeup on. Maybe ill join you on friday. That would be amazing. Oh, thank you so much. The hon. London breed okay. Finally, i want to introduce a leader who has a Bright Future ahead of her. Athena matthews. It is so important to demonstrate proper covid19 behavior, and masks are just one tool to prevent the spread of covid. Bypassi covid by catching droplets when you sneeze or cough, protecting those around you. Indifferent while understandable is not sustainable. It is imperative that this generation feel empowered to take care of ourselves and take care of each other because we need to be more active and take on an active role in fixing our nations challenges, even beyond covid19, so to my fellow general fellow genzers, let this be a warning not to just be aware of covid19, but be aware of those around you. Tag us on social media at 60s. The hon. London breed thank you. At this time, i wanted to play the video that evan mentioned, so lets get to it. [ ] the hon. London breed very nice. Thank you so much. That concludes our press conference. I guess now well be opening it up to a few questions. I want to take a moment to thank everyone for joining us and really express my appreciation to all the organizations for the work that you are doing to make sure that we are staying healthy, and we are staying safe. I love the amazing posters, the graphics, the videos, and all the cool things that we are using to really get people actively engaged in this need to finding Creative Solutions to get folk to see comply with the mask folks to comply with the mask wearing compliance. I think about when i was a kid, and talking about wearing your seat belt and the work that had to go into getting folks to wear your seat belt, and today, its just natural to get in your seat belt when you get in a car. And i remember when i was little, people used to smoke in buildings and on planes, and now, its completely different. Even wearing a condom and the push for safe sex, the conversation about mask wearing, we have to get creative in what we say in the culture and the fabric of this country. The work that you do in getting the community to trust you to know that twhat they do is important and it saves lives. So were thankful for your work, and at this time, were happy to open it up for questions. Thank you, mayor, and thank you to all everyone who joined us here today. Well jump right into the same questions. Mayor breed, we received multiple questions on this, and this is one question thatll cover it. What do you think about speaker pelosis decision to get a blowout in San Francisco on monday . Does she owe the Service Industry an apology . Is ignorance of the Health Orders an excuse . The hon. London breed well, let me start by saying that its really unfortunate that with everything happening in this country, with the fact that we basically have a dictator in charge of running this country, and we have our speaker, nancy pelosi, working day and night to try and fight, again, the challenges we have with the white house. She has spent her entire career working for this city and working for this country. Its unfortunate this conversation has blown up the way that it has and distracted us from the real issue. The fact is we dont have good, solid federal leadership that is helping to facilitate this covid19, and over 180,000 americans have died as a result of this virus. And had we had what we needed from day one from this federal administration, then we would probably not be in as bad of a situation as we are. Our focus should be on making sure that we as a city are providing also good information. I know that theres been a lot of confusion with our Small Businesses and operations and whether or not they can operate indoors or outdoors, and so we as a city, and the confusion between the local information and the state information, we have to do a better responsibility of doing a better job around communication. So we can either focus and blaming and saying who should do what, but we have bigger issues as it relates to this country, and i have a tremendous amount of respect and appreciation for the hard work that nanny pelosi does every single day to take care of this city and this country. And thats what we should be focused on because we are dealing with very challenging times, and leadership does matter. I do understand that the industry is suffering, not only the hair industry, but the masseuses and the salons. I understand the frustration, and some businesses may not ever open again. I understand this is hard for everyone. The decisions that were making around Public Health have everything to do with keeping people safe, and unfortunately, the economy and peoples li livelihoods have suffered. So i understand that, but i think its important to get back to the main part of Wearing Masks, and staying apart, and staying heath healthy, and the city will do a better job of communicating with our Small Businesses in San Francisco as we begin or reopening efforts. Thank you, madam mayor. The next question comes from cristian captain with ktvu. With the weekend almost here and warm weather for the forecast, what city parks and impeaches are open beaches are open, and what distancing steps are you asking for people to observe . Look, we know that parks and beaches are open, and its important for people to socialize and pick up a date or two, but what we also need you to do is comply. There are more parks that are dolores park or chrissy fields. Theres other places you can enjoy, as well. So what were asking people to do is to just make sure that youre using good judgment. If you go to dolores park, and you see that its crowded and theres no place for you to go with your people and maintain your distance with your mask and so forth, why even step foot in that park . We will be out doing enforcement more so than we have in the past, but we want people to use common sense because we tend to see spikes in our numbers as a result of the holidays, and labor day, im sure, is not going to be any different. Ive had people reach out to be to invite me to barbecues, people who want today do a jumpy with the kids, and im saying, why are you calling me . Im going to say no way. Its not that im not only going to go, its just that these are places where the virus could transmit. Im just asking people to remember, be a part of the solution, and we will do our very best to be out there, to do enforcement. We dont want to have to do enforcement. We dont want people out there, creating more attention than already exists because of people not being good citizens by Wearing Masks. We just want people to do their part. Were going to do our part. We hope we dont have to shutdown parks and parking lots and make it difficult for people to get out and enjoy things. We have so many parks where theres no reason why people have to crowd in one or two or three park in San Francisco. The beaches have been a lot more manageable because weve opened up more space there. Again, just use common sense not only to protect you but the people around you. Thank you so much, madam mayor, and everyone else for your time. There are no further questions at this time, and this concludes todays press conference. Thank you, and stay safe. The hon. London breed thank you. Good afternoon. And welcome to the land use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco board of supervisors for today, august 31st, 2020. I am the chair of the Committee Aaron peskin, joined by Committee Member supervisor dean preston and i think to be joined momentarily by vice chair supervisor ahsha safai. Our clerk is miss erica major. Ms. Major, do you have any announcements . Clerk yes. Due to the covid19 health emergency, and to protect Board Members and employees in the public. The Committee Room are closed. However, members will be participating in the meeting remotely. All local, state and federal orders, declarations and directives. Committee members will attend the meeting through video conference, participating as if physically present. Public comment will be available on each item on this agenda both channel 26, 78 or 99 depending on your provider. And sfgovtv. Org are streaming the number across the screen. Each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. Comments are opportunities to speak. During the Public Comment period, are available by phone by calling 415 6650001. Again the number is 415 6650001. The meeting i. D. Is 146 466 4627. Again thats 146 466 4627. Press pound and pound again. When connected youll hearing the meeting discussion and be muted and in listening mode only. When your item of interest comes up, please press star 3 to be added to the speaker line. Best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. Alternatively you may submit Public Comment in either of the ways, to myself at erica. Ma erica. Major sfgov. Org. You submit Public Comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and it will be included as part of the official file. Finally items acted upon today will appear on the agenda on september 15th, unless otherwise stated. Supervisor peskin thank you, madam clerk. Can you please read the first item. Clerk yes. Item number 1, is the reenactment of emergency for protections of occupants of Residential Hotels or s. R. O. Residence during the covid19 pandemic. Supervisor peskin thank you, madam clerk. Colleagues, i want to thank my cosponsors for the original ordinance. Supervisors mainy , ronen, safai, fewer, preston, walton and yee. That emergency ordinance, that as the clerk said, established protections for occupants of s. R. O. Hotels in San Francisco that include some 18,000 to 19,000 individuals in congregate settings, passed by the board of supervisors as an emergency matter and lasts for 80 days. That required the department of Public Health to offer a number of provisions, including testing and i. N. Q. Provisions, isolation and quarantine for individuals that had tested positive, as well as implicit notice for residents of those s. R. O. S. These are individuals who live in congregate settings, where they share bathrooms and they share kitchens, a highly transmissive environment. And i want to thank the department of Public Health for not only taking that ordinance seriously, but already having done that job before we massed the emergency ordinance. And during the interim for starting to establish a dialogue with the residents of those communities that span the mission, into the tenderloin into chinatown into north beach, were the best of the rest of once were 40,000 or more s. R. O. Hotels once existed. So i want to thank and acknowledge d. P. H. For that. This has been really an admonition to d. P. H. And the community to step up the game. I want to thank and acknowledge the department of Public Health that on friday at approximately 518 in the afternoon, actually put up a web tool that shows the number of cases in s. R. O. S and the numbers of deaths, which thankfully tragically four deaths over 500 cases. So those buildings have been handed superbly, some less so. And i really want to thank d. P. H. , but more importantly the community for holding our feet to the fire as decision manned legislators and d. P. H. s feet to the fire, as the frontline implementers under the pandemic. And with that i believe that we have dr. Stephanie cohen. Colleagues, if you have no comments, i would like to hand this over to the department of Public Health and dr. Cohen. Thank you, supervisor safai, for joining to really present whats happened and fundamental, as i said in the newspaper the other way, i want to create the space for the department of Public Health to build trust amongst the s. R. O. Population in those communities that are very, very different communities. Some of them latinx communities, some of them chinese communities and predominantly cantonese amongo linguaamong mono lingl individuals. And those who reside in the arc that has s. R. O. S. With that ill turn it over to dr. Cohen. Thank you very much. Im going to share my screen and give a short update to what we discussed a couple of weeks ago. Are you able to see the presentation . Supervisor peskin yes, we are. Okay. Supervisor peskin, preston and safai, thank you for the opportunity to come back and speak to you again and update the committee on our ongoing work to prevent covid19 in s. R. O. S and to protect the residents who reside in these buildings. We met a couple of weeks. My name is stephanie cohen. Im an Infectious Disease physician and serving as the lead for the sscta covid19 s. R. O. Seeing none team since Response Team since april. As we discussed at the Committee Meeting on august 17th, we are committed to this population and we have a robust and proactive approach to prevention in these congregate settings. Our robust approach has produced results preponderates of covid19 testing among s. R. O. Residents are actually higher than the rate of testing in san franciscans overall. The proportion of s. R. O. Residents who test positive for covid19 is similar to that of nons. R. O. Residents who live in the same neighborhood. So a lot of what were seeing in s. R. O. S reflects the Community Prevalence in the communities where the s. R. O. S are. And lastly the case fatality rate among s. R. O. Residents is comparable to the overall case fatality rate at approximately. 8 . And this is one of the lowest covid case fatality rates nationwide. As supervisor peskin mentioned, one of the provisions in the ordinance was to launch a publicly available data tracker. And after much hard and diligent work on the part of our advanced planning, data s. F. And surveillance groups, that dashboard went live on august 28th. Its available its a u. R. L. That you see on the slide. This is just a snapshot from the data tracker to show you what it looks like, as required by the ordinance. It shows the number of residents who tested positive, the number of buildings that have had a case, numbers of deaths and number of residents who have gone to an isolation and Quarantine Hotel. It also shows these figures here which show over time the total number of cases and the total number of deaths, as well as the daily new cases and the sffd rolling average, which gives us a sense of where we are on some of our important surge metrics. We also, since our last meeting, are working on Community Engagement. Since the last meeting, we met with Chinatown Community leaders. We also have met with Chinese Hospital leadership and are excited to really move forward in a collaborative response with Chinese Hospitals to covid19 cases in s. R. O. S in chinatown. And were working on setting up recurring meetings with the s. R. O. Collaboratives. And we want to hear their concerns. We also want to provide them information and updates and we want to strategize together how we can optimize covid19 prevention for s. R. O. S residents and other disproportionately impacted by covid19. We have an amazing team in our group of social workers, nurse practitioners, nurses, Health Workers who have been in the field in s. R. O. S every day since really the pandemic started, talking to residents. And we want to share the stories that we have heard, bus we know there are a lot of up stream factors and social determinants of health that are affecting these communities and we can only figure out how to address them if we work together. We do want to continue to request that the committee reevaluate the provision in the legislation, that requires sfdph to test all residents in an s. R. O. Within 48 hours of a single case. I would like to be clear that we are not asking to waterdown the legislation or relax rules for s. R. O. S. Our team, who exists to advocate and protect these residents, will continue to deploy onsite testing to a building, when there is concern for interbuilding transmission. And we do a lot of onsite testing in s. R. O. S. At the same time i want to try to explain again why this particular provision is just not an effective strategy. I know that testing is a hotbutton topic. Its a politicized topic, unfortunately, at the national level. And i really want to reiterate if we thought this particular testing strategy, testing all residents in a building after a single case, if we thought that would be effective at preventing outbreaks, we would be all for it. We are aligned in prioritizing and working to protect s. R. O. Residents. The challenge, though, is that s. R. O. S are not closed settings, like a Skilled Nursing facility. In a closed environment, like a smith, you can implement we can implement routine surveillance testing of staff and identify staff cases before residents become infected. And, of course, this is especially critical in the smith context, because the case fatality rate is so high among those living in those conditions. But s. R. O. S, as you know are not like smith. Theyre open. Residents come and go every day. They go to work, they go to the store, they go to visit their friends and family. And so a single case in a building, in a residence doesnt mean that theres an outbreak in the building. We do test and quarantine close contacts of all cases, including cases among s. R. O. Residents. Then if their contacts, including their household members, then their nextdoor neighbor, whoever they hang out with in the building, if they test positive, we continue to test and expanding circles. In the worstcase scenario, and this has happened, an s. R. O. Resident has covid, hasnt been tested and is symptomatic and has not been ice slating in the building. They think they have aler gees o allergies. By the time they get tested they may have exposed others in the building. At that point, though, testing is not prevention. Testing doesnt prevent anyone from getting infected. Theyve already been exposed. But what it does do it allows to us find cases. And we want to find those cases, because then we have the opportunity to intervene on those who are already infected. And so thats why we do deploy testing when we see multiple cases in a short period of time in a building. And so, you know, really i think to summarize here, what im trying to explain is that testing is important. It enables us to identify individuals who have covid when theyre still in thin infectious period, then we can support them in isolating. We identify their close contacts and support those close contacts with testing and quarantine. But mass testing at a single point in time, triggered by a single case, does not in and of itself prevent covid19. So in conclusion, building mas g is not a strategy in line with our citywide testing strategy or with supervisor peskin miss major, i think you may doctor orb someone may have hit a button that they shouldnt have hit . Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. Im checking with operations. It might be the bridge line. We will supervisor peskin the bridge line has become the bain of our existence. Go ahead. Thank you, dr. Cohen. My apologies. No problem. So really in summary, i think what im trying to make clear this particular strategy is not in line with cdph or c. D. C. Guidance. Its not the best use of our testing resources. And our investigative tools can really help us predict when and where to test. We really have to continue to push primary prevention approaches, the best way to protect everyone from covid. And thats, as you know, things like masking, social distancing and hand washing. Those are the critical things for mitigating spread in all settings. Thank you for giving me another opportunity to speak to you and for all of your work to protect these communities. Supervisor peskin thank you, dr. Cohen. And when that when you release your screen, well all be able to look at each other over our respective computers. And, dr. Cohen, i really want to thank you for your candor. And, indeed, this is an evolving situation. And i think collectively we are trying to, as nondoctors, address what we believe are the most vulnerable populations in the most transmissive settings. And i know that you and your colleagues are committed to that as well. And as i said earlier, we know that youre resourceconstrained, as we all are economically, Human Resource wise and relative to actual physical things that are reagents and swabs that are moving to hot spots in the United States of america, be it texas or florida. And, yes, this is an ordinance. And, yes, it is a law. But fundamentally and i have tried to communicate this to you and to the advocacy community. This is an admonition. And it is a shorttermed a mow s going to last for another two months. And i for one, unless you make not you personally, but the department is malfeasant and not going to go after you, so to speak, on. I think this is really trying to hold you to the highest standards for our most vulnerable populations. And this, too, shall evolve. Ultimately i hope this becomes a permanent ordinance, which doesnt mean that we cant tweak it going forward. But i think the most important thing, and ive been very clear with you and the community and my former colleague, who has become a liaison between the board and your department, former supervisor katie tang, that i really want to create the space to build trust between the department of Public Health and the community. And the community has been abundantly clear in the last several days and while i think i dont want to put words in their mouth, that theyre thankful for the transparency that now comes with the additional tool on the tracker site. That trust is earned through hard work and relationships. And you are working now to build them. These were relationships that didnt exist before the pandemic, that have to be built very, very quickly. And i hope over the weeks and a couple months ahead, before this becomes a permanent, albeit flexible piece of legislation, that those relationships and that trust will start to be built. So i just wanted to share those thoughts some that you know where im coming from. As you know and as said in the paper 48 hours ago, i actually originally didnt want to have this debate. But i fundamentally have to honor the community that is are in these s. R. O. S. And i think we all collectively, the people, the decisionmakers and the department of Public Health really also have to delve down into and make very transparent what is confidential and why and what is not confidential and to whom and why or why not. And i think h hippa which is a huge privacy law, needs to be weighed and balanced for Public Health. I think we have to delve down into that, maybe in closed session, subject to attorneyclient privilege advice. But ultimately in open session, where we can all ask those questions and understand where we balance privacy. As i have said to the deputy City Attorney, that is on this in this meeting and to counsel for d. P. H. , it strikes me as odd that we can be transparent with a Building Owner or a building manager, that theres a covid case in a particular building with a particular address, but we cannot tell the rest of the tenants that one of their neighbors, that they share a kitchen or a bathroom with,s that covid. And i dont want to freak people out. I just want to make sure that they have the opportunities to be tested, to be isolated, to be quarantined, to be given a meal in a comfortable, confident way. Thats whats driving this. This is not a, you know, board, you know, being you know demeaning to d. P. H. Its not at all. Its an evolving conversation. I know you understand that. So i appreciate that. Are there and dr. Cohen, if you have anything you want to add or subtract from that, youre welcome to do so. No. Thank you very much for your comments. And just for the opportunity to continue to have a dialogue. The science is evolving and the diagnostics are evolving. I know well continue to work to figure out the best way to do this. And really appreciate that weve gotten the chance over these months to try to think about that together. Thank you. Supervisor peskin i really appreciate that youre taking this legislation seriously and that you are spending moments of your precious time, as youre triaging and stratifying, to actually engage with the board seriously. It would be easy enough for you to say, thats the thing, were going to blow it off, because were resourceconstrained. So thank you for that. With that to my colleagues, hold on, let me press a button. Either one of you have any questions or comments . I did, chair peskin. Thank you. And just concur with your the remarks you just made. I did have just a question from the d. P. H. Perspective what does trigger, under the current understanding of the mass testing, in a particular building. I understand what youre saying, dr. Cohen, about the difference between the setting and the s. R. O. Congregate living situation. Im curious. I understand from the perspective of the department at this point in time, some disagreement around whether one case should trigger that or not. And this legislation addresses that. But what is two cases in the site, what are the set of circumstances from your perspective . And i think to chair peskins point, to me its less relevant for what the Community Wants is clear. But as chair peskin notes, i think well 30, 60, however many days be out once again looking at this issue. And it will be helpful from my perspective just to know from d. P. H. s perspective what does, from your perspective, trigger mass testing in an s. R. O. Context. Well, the California Department of Public Health definition of an outbreak in a Congregate Community setting is three cases in three separate households within 14 days. So we would always define that as an outbreak and report that as an outbreak in terms of not the specific address, not the privacy thing nourishments terms of how many outbreaks we have in s. R. O. S and we would test. The threshold is lower than that. Our threshold is two cases in two separate households within 14 days. And some risk criteria for interbuilding transmission. When we have two cases in two separate households, we either go on site. We may have already gone on site previously, which may give us a sense of what the building is like and whether theres risk. We havent gone on site, we would go on site and there are things that contribute to that risk stratification. Things like crowded households. Is this a building with a lot of family or a lot of we see a lot of buildings ra theres multiple young men sharing one room, who are all frontline workers. We know in shows settings covid starts very quickly. Did we learn that the case was actually infectious on site for more than seven days total, between the two cases. Maybe one person was three days, one person was four days. Thats concerning. Thats a lot of days of potential spread. We know that theres certain communities that are disproportionately impacted in San Francisco. Are those folks highly represented in the building. And we also look at the risk of morbidity. Are there a lot of elders in the building, people over the age of 60, a lot of comorbidities. So those are some of the criteria we do have the matrix that we use. But basically has to be two cases in two separate households in 14 days and at least two of those several criteria that i mentioned. Supervisor preston, i really appreciate that comment. I think what dr. Cohen just told us is that we, in this case d. P. H. , can actually have Higher Standards than the state does, which say lute i salute and appreciate. Everything that dr. Cohen just said, relative to assessing risk is absolutely right. Do you have higher comorbidity factors. Do you have, you know, folks who are living 10 to a room instead of two to a room. Are they more likely to have to go to work than be retired or on a fixed income. All of those things could lead to a spread. But i think where the rubber hits the road is, and i mean no professional offense to d. P. H. Is how well do they know the residents in that building. How do they know what i have come to learn or have knowledge access to on and off in my 20 years, as to who lives in that building or what Community Members know then. I dont think that d. P. H. Can figure that out in 24 hours, unless they start working with the community to quickly under then do triage. Because you cant triage unless you know what the whether the victim is about to be in deep trouble or not. But this is very helpful conversation to me at least. Supervisor preston, do you have any more comments . Supervisor preston i dont. Thank you, dr. Cohen. I just want to echo really the point you made, chair peskin, really thank you for your leadership on this. Proud to be cosponsoring this this time, as well as last time. And i think that, you know, where we have really proactive and engaged communities representing and Community Groups representing some of the most Vulnerable People in the city, i see this kind of legislation as really honoring their expertise around the community their serving. But also as you say, but facilitating and trying to deepen the conversation between d. P. H. And those Community Groups, so that as we sort of in some ways the beauty of having these emergency ordinances as ways to sort of temporarily deal with things, but not cement them permanently and look forward to it sounds like ongoing discussions happening to arrive at whatever makes sense on a more permanent basis. It certainly resonates with me that where theres doubt, being more careful, preventative and, you know, we have for whatever reasons avoided certainly outbreaks that would have otherwise occurred through taking proactive steps. So certainly i appreciate that this, you know, we continue i hope to err on the side of over testing and overly taking precautions, rather than the opposite. But understanding that theres further conversation to figure out what that, you know, what should be in place on the longerterm basis. Supervisor peskin thank you, supervisor preston. Supervisor safai, anything to add . Supervisor safai something who is a city planner by training, you know, not many cities have this type of housing that remains. It is one of the things that makes San Francisco unique, to have a Single Room Occupancy Hotel and being used obviously in a different way than they were originally built. You know, we have multiple families, multiple generations, many members of the same family sharing space. And some for me it makes sense, under these circumstances, that we would want to err on the side of extreme caution. Because as we know and as we learn from the assisted living facilities, that was where this virus really began in the United States, in multiple cities. In new york, and in washington and all over. I dont want the same to happen. And i know supervisor peskin has been out in front of this. We had conversations in the very beginning of this pandemic about individuals and their patterns of travel and their patterns of obtaining medicine and going actually in many ways to the heart of where this pandemic began in the world, into wuhan, china. And so that is no longer a risk. But the risk is this massive amount of people in these buildings living in very close settings. And so im proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation. I think if it pushes sfdph to work aggressively with advocate communities, that is on the ground working with individuals in these settings, i think its a positive thing. And in the end if we dont have an outbreak, good. And we put the resources in the right place. So i appreciate your leadership on this and being a part of this conversation, supervisor peskin, along with the advocates from the community. And thank you, ms. Cohen, as well. Supervisor peskin thank you, colleagues and cosponsors. Before we open this up to Public Comment, while this is a reenactment of the emergency ordinance, i do have a couple of nonsubstantive tweaks perform before i open it up to Public Comment, i want colleagues to go through that. Youre both in receipt of those, as is the clerk of this committee ms. Major. On page 2, section 2, at line 22 insert and amend section 3 of such emergency ordinance to read as follows, even though both ordinance no. 8420 and this reenactment emergency ordinance are uncodified, for purposes of clarity, the respective fontses for additions and deletions of the municipal code as stated in the note that appears at the beginning of this ordinance are used to show the amendments to section 3 of ordinance number 8420. Thats the original source ordinance. In the tweaks to the original ordinance, in section 3, would be in subsection g to insert a new subsection 5. And that so let me just take you to the top of that subsection g, which is already in the existing law that we are reenacting, upon confirming that an s. R. O. Resident has tested positive for covid19, d. P. H. Shall to the extent consistent with state and federal laws governing the confidentiality of medical information and heres the new subsection 5. As soon as feasible, but not more than 12 hours after receiving such confirmation, promptly post in common areas of the residential hotel, where fire Safety Information is required to be posted, a notice to advise s. R. O. Residents of their rights under this emergency ordinance to access i q, isolation Quarantine Hotel rooms and face coverings. Such notice shall include, but not be limited to, the number of the language accessible hotline for s. R. O. Residents, that residents may call to access those resources. This is making the implicit notice requirements explicit. That was my insertion. And in sub l, under sub 2, the total number of confirmed positive covid19 cases, this is under what data d. P. H. Shall produce, the total number of confirmed positive covid19 cases in San Francisco insert Residential Hotels, delete at the rate of cases by population size in San Francisco. So that the sentence now reads, the total number of confirmed positive covid19 cases in San Francisco Residential Hotels, organized by zip code. So those are the amendments that i would like to make, subject to Public Comment. And with that, are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item number 1 . Madam clerk. Clerk thank you. Thank you, mr. Chair. Operations is checking to see if there are any callers in queue. Noting that we have nine listeners. Arthur, please let us know how many we have in queue. There are currently five callers in the queue. Supervisor peskin first speaker, please. Caller thank you so much to d. P. H. And the board for giving time and attention to this ordinance. My name is tria. Im a tenant organizer with the mission s. R. O. Collaborative of the dolores street. We want to address the Landuse Committee to shed light on the practices of d. P. H. , in accordance with the emergency ordinance that was adopted on may 19th. Im here to ask that the land use and Transportation Committee renew the s. R. O. Emergency ordinance and not dilute any of the protections. In San Francisco, s. R. O. S provide homes for over 18,000 extremely lowincome seniors and families, people of color, people with disabilities and formerly homeless people. Many of the people we serve are also immigrants and some identify as undocumented. We believe that the impact of covid19 should not only be measured in terms of the number of deaths, but the impacts that the virus has on income and mental health. From the time the emergency ordinance was enacted, d. P. H. Has only implemented a portion of the elements and we call on them to recognize that the tenants have a right to receive a notice if theres a confirmed covid19 case in their building, the right to full and Accurate Information about the rights to recovery program, that for tenants that test positive and the general location of i. N. Q. Housing available to them. We have worked directly with tenants, for example, from tenants in the grand southern that in the last 50 days the legislation has been active, that health and sanitary measures have not been implemented, despite tenants contacting d. P. H. And shes been struggling with test problems and rats and cockroaches and ticks on top of the pandemic for the past 50 days, to the point to which she had to replace her own sink becausest inaction and unresponsiveness. And in another case, an s. R. O. Tenant at the albert struggled with the affordability of the living situation, as hes unable to pay rent monthtomonth. 23 latinx have tested positive for covid19, including the grand southern clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Caller hello. Clerk hi. Youre on the line. Yes. You may speak. You have two minutes. Caller okay. My name is eric markoo. Im a member of senior disability action in soma neighborhood residence council. Im just saying that testing s. R. O. S should be made for the entire building in a place thats been infected. I heard other speakers in other days say that some of these rooms have, you know, selfcontaining bathrooms and kitchens. But the vast majority of them dont. And when if someone gets infected in these places, it could spread like wildfire, especially in crowded communities like the mission and tenderloin and chinatown. It just seems i mean, unimaginable to me that when we consider scaling this back at this time, when we have such an epidemic. I mean, we need people that are infected or exposed to be put into hotel rooms, selfcontained hotel rooms, not in a congregate area. Thank you kindly. Clerk again youll be notified if you have been unmuted and you can begin your comments. Hi, my name is dana foot. Im with the mission s. R. O. Collaborative program for Lotus Community services. I wanted to first say that theres currently a demand for testing in San Francisco. And through our outreach and education work, the need for the continuation of the s. R. O. Emergency ordinance. Testing allowing us to connect with services and to the programs that we have also asked. Our main concerns is that currently were assessing the impact of this pandemic in the number of cumulative deaths. And thats not an accurate number of what were hearing, tests in high levels of stress, depression, and general anxiety. We know that currently theres a timeline and challenges to the turnaround to Access Programs such as [indiscernible] we also know the importance of having transparent information about what are the services connections, Community Organizations on the ground can link people to. We know that theres a flu season approaching us and we cannot actually afford to water down any of the provisions of the legislation. We are committed, however, to continue to figure out how we support proactively testing communities and accurately investigate those possible thinks to spread. And understand the use of i. N. Q. Thank you again for the time youve given this morning. Supervisor peskin thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. This is anna stage. A member of San Francisco tenants union, an antidisplacement coalition. I really appreciate this conversation the supervisors had today, with d. P. H. And dr. Cohen. I am encouraged with the doctor and the d. P. H. Staff are going to kind of make some overtures and steps to work with the s. R. O. Collaborative communities, that are in there doing the work with the tenants. Its the only way this program will work. And as previous speakers have said and supervisor peskin has said, not knowing that your fellow residents have someone has a case of covid is really scary. So if there could be some information that tenants could have of where to go to get tested, and then what to do once they test positive, so that theyre not afraid to go to the d. P. H. Staff or to do what they have to do or to tell their worker that,. Commissioner haney , i hey, i got tested and i have covid. If dr. Cohen cant do it or they dont have the resources to do it, these people need to be tested. Thank you. Supervisor peskin thank you. Next speaker, please. Caller supervisors, director of policy at the Community Development center. I want to thank you for working on behalf of s. R. O. Residents, not only in chinatown and district 3, but citywide. This is really important legislation. And while we are reassured by dr. Cohens words to reflect that they dont support a wartingdown of the legislation, we do continue to insist on testing being a critical need. We have seen that testing, when its done at the building, is effective. We have also seen in many neighborhoods when testing is offered offsite, it is less effective and people are less interested in being tested. We really want to frame this as a tenants righ righttoknow perspective. This ordinance is about what the tenant needs to know in terms of the citys covid response. And what the city and what the tenants, you know, has a right to know in terms of what is going on in their buildings. We have testimony a little bit later, thats going to show you that, of course, when d. P. H. Comes around and does outreef and says that, you know, theres covidwide testing, kind of sounds stupid. They know that that means that theres an outbreak or there are cases. So we hope that we can get behind, get beyond the concerns and really look at what is best to protect those communities and our s. R. O. Residents. I look forward to working with d. P. H. In the coming weeks and months, you know, relationship that builds decades back when the s. R. O. Collaborative was first funded by the department of Public Health. So were looking forward to working together and continue to strength our defense of our s. R. O. Residents. Thank you very much. Supervisor peskin thank you, mattias. Any other members of the public who would like to testify on item number 1 . Yes. Two additional callers. Ill unmute the next caller. Supervisor peskin next speaker, please. Caller hello. Can you hear me . Supervisor peskin yes, i can. Please proceed. Oh. This is trudy. Im calling from center city collaborative, part of the housing clinic. Thank you, supervisor peskin, to extend this legislation for another 90 days or more. One thing i do agree with all the speakers who spoke in front of me before me about the emphasis of testing and the outreach. One thing that i definitely felt that is terribly lacking and im hoping and willing to work with d. P. H. On it is like the reaching out to the communitybased organizations thats already working with tenants in various buildings. Because we bring the relationship, we bring the approach. So im hopingle this legislation will push d. P. H. To partner with many of us, so that we can make this legislation effective. Thank you very much. Supervisor peskin thank you. Next speaker. Yes, please go ahead. Hi. Madam clerk, im a staff person with chinatown c. D. C. I have a recorded testimony by a witness speaking in cantonese and i will be playing ard roing and then translating. This is a tenant who lives in the chinatown s. R. O. With the present outbreak. [speaking cantonese] [caller speaking cantonese] hello, im a chinatown s. R. O. Tenant. We are among the affected families in the pandemic. Recently my husband got the virus. At that time he developed a fever in the evening, after taking the pills and sweating all over his body. The fever got lowered. It was later that we found out that someone had been infected in our building. People in the building were not notified of this virus infection. Everyone was kept in the dark and so the virus spread to others. This was frightening because our household included grandparents and children. Thank you. Madam clerk, ill be submitting the written translated version of the entire statement for the record. Thank you. Supervisor peskin thank you. Any other members of the public who would like to testify on this item . Caller i would like to thank the last speaker for providing that testimony. And i find it unfortunate that we seem to have so few actual s. R. O. Residents speaking today. It seems very paternalistic to have these decisions made by people who, you know, dont actually live in s. R. O. S and, you know, some input from the people who are on various boards and stuff. So im wondering like, you know, was were s. R. O. Residents notified that this meeting was being held . And there arent any interpreters at the meeting, as far as i can tell. So the residents of s. R. O. S are very linguistically diverse. There should have been more outreach to s. R. O. Residents to get their input on these decisions, instead of the topdown manner. Supervisor peskin are there any other members of the public who would like to testify under Public Comment . Yes, hello. This is theresa with senior disability action. I so appreciate all of your work on this, supervisor peskin. I also hope it will not be diluted. I am also thinking of a resident in an s. R. O. That i visited and the issuing about that he had only recently come home from the hospital, is having an occupational therapist go in to visit him. And so when d. P. H. Talks about, you know, people, indeed, do come and go out of s. R. O. S, that may be the difference. However, it is the difference that makes it even more important for people to be tested. People are going out and working and getting their groceries, et cetera. So they may not know that they have been exposed and they need to know that. They need to protect themselves. And protect the people outside that they may encounter. So i just want to support this. Again he is a resident who could not speak today. And so i am speaking for him. Thank you very much. Supervisor peskin thank you. Are there any other members of the public who want to ite itemr 1 . Hi, yes. My name is freddie. Im with senior disability action as a housing organizer. And since covid broke out, i have been doing a lot of work with tenants that live in s. R. O. S and participating and facilitating several tenant groups and meetings within the community, within s. R. O. Working groups and collaboratives. And there is a fear of the emergency protections being through the somehow and i appreciate and im glad of the fact that that doesnt appear to be happening. And supportive of these protections that are in place will be reenacted fully. There is a fear amongst people that live in the s. R. O. S, that i have spoken with, that if they dont know that someone is infected, that they wouldnt be able to adequately protect themselves. So just one person getting it has the potential to affect so many people. Just, for example in the building im living in, its not an s. R. O. Building. It is partially subsidized. There was one tenant that was that came up positive and the entire building received notices on their doors. And for those that were nervous about being in just the hallways or the elevators, because we dont share public areas, other than the hallways and the lobby, there was several people that were able to get tested, because of that. Had they not known and been exposed, there potentially could have been many more cases. So it is important to fully reenact this and thank you for your support. Supervisor peskin thank you. Next speaker, please. Are there any more speakers . Mr. Chair, that completes the queue. Supervisor peskin all right. Public comment is closed. And to the speaker three speakers ago, let me say theres definitely a difference between dilution and delusion. Every once in a while we get speakers on the land use Committee Meetings that dont identify themselves and they dont have to. [ please stand by ] [roll call]. You have three ayes. Commissioner id like to make a motion to send the item as amended with recommendation as a Committee Report for a meeting with the bull board of supervisors tomorrow september 1. On that motion, madame clerk, roll call, please. [roll call]. Commissioner the motion is auto approved. Madame clerk call the next item. Clerk [reading item] members of the public who wish to comment call 14156550001 the meeting i. D. Is 146 466 4627 and press , and then a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. When we get to Public Comment the system will indicate you have been unmuted. Commissioner id like to make a motion to continue this to september 14, 2020. Is there any Public Comment on that continuance . Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. Were check forg callers in the checking for callers in the queue. There are no callers in the queue. Commissioner Public Comment is closed and on that motion, madame clerk, a roll call, please. Clerk the motion as state. [roll call]. D. [roll call]. Commissioner the item is continued to september 14. Next item, please. Clerk the next is a conversion of certain limited restaurants to restaurants north beach neighborhood amending the planning code. For those wishing to provide Public Comment call 14156550001 and meeting i. D. 146 466 4627 and press pouve po pound to line up to speak. Commissioner this is a carefully crafted piece of legislation that will help up to a dozen defined in the code as limited restaurants in the corner of the city i represent that really in every way behave like full Service Restaurants but due to changes in the code that precede me that happened when i was off the board prohibited from applying for beer and wine licenses. And in short, it rendered uncompetitive before the pandemic and now is an imperative for them and these Small Businesses include outfits like family cafe, which is a chance cafe and the portofino, not the old one the fbi raid 20 years ago but a new one which is a new one on grand avenue. Masala which was originally i think in your district, supervisor peskin and may be the only west african restaurant in district 3. Essentially, we are addressing a glitch in the code that evolved from complications from not when i was on this board which in fact made Small Business regulations in some cases murkier and more complicated and in this particular instance pretty goofy. So i really want to thank the Planning Department staff and the Planning Commission for their unanimous recommendation of this ordinance and with that, i do have a series of, i believe, nonsubstantive amendments. First as to the short and long titles an amendment to clarify we are amending the special use district and on pages 4 and 5, im expanding eligibility by reducing the number of months a business must have been in operation from four to three months and page 5, lines 3 and 4 including businesses in operation in the eligibility window that have been in business a longer period of time, between november 1 and september and moving the conditional using requirement for liquor licenses and page 5 lines 11 and 14 moving the section 3 and removing the line that made supervisor safai happy that is over the counter relief for eligible businesses. This has streamline the process and my thanks to the City Attorney and my staff for the work on this and in fact, colleagues, if you have questions or comments id be attempt to answer them and if not we can go to Public Comment. It does make me happy and we did something very similar as you know in my district where the change of use was facilitated quickly. The times necessitated this and an appreciate your hard work on this. Supervisor safai and supervisor preston is nodding his head. Madame clerk do we have members of public who wish to comment on item 3. Ill check if theres callers in the queue. Arthur, let us know if there are callers ready. If you have not done so press 3 to line up to speak. You only need to do this one. Commissioner well go to Public Comment and then aaron starr in planning. Mr. Chair, there are no callers in the queue. Commissioner Public Comment is closed. Mr. Star. Planning commission heard this item last thursday and voted unanimously to approve it with modifications those applying and describe a prohibition on [indiscernible] in section of the ordnance do not place it in a codified ordinance language and the prohibition unlimited restaurants looking at former restaurant spaces and the north beach and north beach sud to allow the conversion of certain number of restaurants and increase the time from three months to six months and the application must be submitted to the Planning Department by the deadline and do not delete the provision from the code until at least one year after the Effective Date and to encourage the board to expand this program city wide through an amendment to the legislation ordinance. Thank you, supervisor peskin for considering these amendments. Im also available for questions. Thank you, mr. Starr. Commissioner this is an appropriate comment i want to make for myself and you that starting tomorrow we can get our haircut on the sidewalk. You dont think i should keep it . Looks great. I appreciate that. Colleagues, id like to move the amendment on that item. Madame clerk, roll call, please. [roll call]. Clerk you have three ayes. Commissioner id like to send this item to the full board with recommendation on that motion a roll call excuse me, if i may. Im sorry but the amendment is substantive. Commissioner never mind. Madame clerk, ill resend rescind that and continue it to the meeting september 14. On that motion roll call please. Clerk we dont need to rescind but i will take the roll call. [roll call]. Commissioner the motion has passed. We are adjourned. My name is doctor ellen moffett, i am an assistant medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco. I perform autopsy, review medical records and write reports. Also integrate other sorts of testing data to determine cause and manner of death. I have been here at this facility since i moved here in november, and previous to that at the old facility. I was worried when we moved here that because this building is so much larger that i wouldnt see people every day. I would miss my personal interactions with the other employees, but that hasnt been the case. This building is very nice. We have lovely autopsy tables and i do get to go upstairs and down stairs several times a day to see everyone else i work with. We have a bond like any other group of employees that work for a specific agency in San Francisco. We work closely on each case to determine the best cause of death, and we also interact with family members of the diseased. That brings us closer together also. I am an investigator two at the office of the chief until examiner in San Francisco. As an investigator here i investigate all manners of death that come through our jurisdiction. I go to the field Interview Police officers, detectives, family members, physicians, anyone who might be involved with the death. Additionally i take any property with the deceased individual and take care and custody of that. I maintain the chain and custody for court purposes if that becomes an issue later and notify next of kin and make any additional follow up phone callsness with that particular death. I am dealing with people at the worst possible time in their lives delivering the worst news they could get. I work with the family to help them through the grieving process. I am ricky moore, a clerk at the San Francisco medical examiners office. I assist the pathology and toxicology and Investigative Team around work close with the families, loved ones and funeral establishment. I started at the old facility. The building was old, vintage. We had issues with plumbing and things like that. I had a tiny desk. I feet very happy to be here in the new digs where i actually have room to do my work. I am sue pairing, the toxicologist supervisor. We test for alcohol, drugs and poisons and biological substances. I oversee all of the lab operations. The forensic operation here we perform the toxicology testing for the Human Performance and the case in the city of San Francisco. We collect evidence at the scene. A woman was killed after a robbery homicide, and the dna collected from the zip ties she was bound with ended up being a cold hit to the suspect. That was the only investigative link collecting the scene to the suspect. It is nice to get the feedback. We do a lot of work and you dont hear the result. Once in a while you heard it had an impact on somebody. You can bring justice to what happened. We are able to take what we due to the next level. Many of our counterparts in other states, cities or countries dont have the resources and dont have the beautiful building and the equipmentness to really advance what we are doing. Sometimes we go to court. Whoever is on call may be called out of the office to go to various portions of the city to investigate suspicious deaths. We do whatever we can to get our job done. When we think that a case has a natural cause of death and it turns out to be another natural cause of death. Unexpected findings are fun. I have a prior background in law enforcement. I was a Police Officer for 8 years. I handled homicides and suicides. I had been around Death Investigation type scenes. As a Police Officer we only handled minimal components then it was turned over to the coroner or the detective division. I am intrigued with those types of calls. I wondered why someone died. I have an extremely supportive family. Older children say, mom, how was your day. I can give minor details and i have an amazing spouse always willing to listen to any and all details of my day. Without that it would be really hard to deal with the negative components of this job. Being i am a native of San Francisco and grew up in the community. I come across that a lot where i may know a loved one coming from the back way or a loved one seeking answers for their deceased. There are a lot of cases where i may feel affected by it. If from is a child involved or things like that. I try to not bring it home and not let it affect me. When i tell people i work at the medical examiners office. Whawhat do you do . The autopsy . I deal with the a with the enou with the administrative and the families. Most of the time work here is very enjoyable. After i started working with dead people, i had just gotten married and one night i woke up in a cold sweat. I thought there was somebody dead . My bed. I rolled over and poked the body. Sure enough, it was my husband who grumbled and went back to sleep. This job does have lingering effects. In terms of why did you want to go into this . I loved science growing up but i didnt want to be a doctor and didnt want to be a pharmacist. The more i learned about forensics how interested i was of the perfect combination between Applied Science and criminal justice. If you are interested in finding out the facts and truth seeking to find out what happened, anybody interested in that has a place in this field. Being a woman we just need to go for it and dont let anyone fail you, you cant be. With regard to this position in comparison to crime dramas out there, i would say there might be some minor correlations. Lets face it, we arent hollywood, we are real world. Yes we collect evidence. We want to preserve that. We are not scanning fingerprints in the field like a Hollywood Television show. Families say thank you for what you do, for me that is extremely fulfilling. Somebody has to do my job. If i can make a situation that is really negative for someone more positive, then i feel like i am doing the right thing for the city of San Francisco. Coping with covid19 with chris manning. Hi. Im chris manners, and youre watching coping with covid19. My guest today is tanya peterson. Shes the director of the San Francisco zoo on sloat boulevard, and shes here today to talk about how the zoos managing during the pandemic and how theyre reopening. Tanya, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Im really pleased to hear that the zoo has reopened again. Thats great news. Can you tell us what changes youve made to make visitors to the zoo feel comfortable and safe when theyre there. I understand now you have to make reservations, and theres only a limited Number Available each day. We were making changes before shelter in place. Fortunately, because we work with animals, and we have a vet hospital onsite, we have the safe coverings before the shelter in place. While we were closed, we made some internal and external changes. The first one, i guess, would be online reservations. You now need to make reservations to visit the zoo, just like your favorite dinner restaurant. That is an effort to slow down congestion. Try to keep everything smooth, and we can control the number of families coming in over the course of time. Thats great. What about the indoor exhibits and the playground. Are those off limits now . Well, theyre not off limits, but the playground, we had we had started Child Care Program for essential workers even when we were closed, and the playground is used exclusively by our Child Care Programs. So if you can think of the zoo, 100 acres, about a good third of it right now is reserved for child care, so what we do is we have the weve got the children in their safe pods. Theyre with each other for three weeks. Theyre in a controlled environment, and in the morning, one pod has the playground, we disinfect, and in the afternoon, another pod comes. All indoor spaces were closed before the shelter in place. The one thing im asked most frequently about is the train. We have a 100yearold train, and as soon as we can disinfect that, well get that open, because thats the number one question i guess, when is the train reopening. Is there a map how youre supposed to walk around the zoo . Yes. In certain areas, we created a oneway path. We try to make it fun. Theyre generally in the shape of bear paws and colored you know, follow the blue bear paws, follow the red bear paws but weve tried to make it fun. When children have not been out for three months, they were climbing anything and everything. We didnt anticipate that, so we put coverings open water fountains, statue signs. Kids had been cooped up, so they went crazy the first few days. More control in place. That sounds great. How did the zoos residents respond to a lack of visitors. Did you observe any behavioral differences . Absolutely. We have some shy residents, gorillas and orangs. We have a male orangutan, he would blow me kisses. The rhinos, they would come out when i would feed them. How does it feel to have the zoo open again to the general public, even if its a limited fashion . It feels fantastic. Im a mother, and i know its been hard on kids. To be able to open safely outdoors were one of the few zoos on an ocean, so youve got the coastal air coming through. We see families or selfascribed pods coming through. Its been great for our staff and for our visitors. Its been heart warming, all the true experiences the first few days. Clearly. You have a lot of mouths to feed. How did you cope with the pandemic so far . Were you able to get some financial assistance, and how can viewers contribute if theyd like to . Well, thank you. We received some help, but we burned through that quickly, and we received some financial donations. We burned through a lot of our funding, and we were really feeling it. All of the people who supported us and hung in there, i thank you. You can join as a member. Its a tax deduction. David attenborough said it best. If the zoo becomes extinction, we all do. In the wild, poachers are getting the best of the wild anima animals, but i think with the help of the zoo and the community, we can save the animals. Where can i go if i want to donate . You can go to sfzoo. Org. You can join, become a member or make a donation. It takes about 30,000 a day to feed all of our 2,000 animals, so you can pick how you want to help. Well, i appreciate you coming onto the show today, miss peterson. Thank you. The animals and i thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Youve been watching coping with covid19. For sfgovtv, im chris manners. Thanks for watching