Transcripts For SFGTV Transportation Authority Full Board 20240712

Good morning and welcome to the San Francisco county Transportation Authority board for todays meeting of tuesday october 20, 2020. Im the chair, aaron peskin and our clerk is ms. Brittany milton. Please call the roll. [roll call] supervisor ronen this is commissioner ronen, im here, i might have to jump off. Clerk thank you commissioner ronen present. Commissioner yee . We have a quorum. Supervisor peskin Commission Er ronen when you need to leave, just let me know. Well excuse you until you come back. Well go to our Citizens Advisory Committee report. Mr. Larson, the floor is yours. Good morning chair peskin. Vice chair mandelman im reporting on our september 23rd c. A. C. Meeting. There was extensive discussion among c. A. C. Members regarding Program Guidelines, programming and allocation request concerning the Traffic Congestion mitigation tax or t. N. C. Tax. Given it was the first time a request related to this new source of funds, this come before the committee, c. A. C. Members inquired about the difference between projected amount of tax and lower amount actually collected even before the impact coded. Oversight of time lines and budget delivery of projects and the prioritization of quick build projects especially in communities of concern. Because priority is being given to quickbuild projects, defer to the sfcta tax goals. The c. A. C. Unanimously approved these recommendations. Equity and concerns about communities of concern were highlighted in the discussion of the prop k request for paratransit replacement in item 7. There was lack of familiarity among c. A. C. Members how services are provided by paratransit and whether communities of concern are adequately served by the reservation system. Because this item had to do we placing vans, the c. A. C. Recommended approval but requested a future presentation on Paratransit Service delivery with particular focus on population served and the distribution of service at its future c. A. C. Meeting. Another c. A. C. Member inquired used vans can be purposed safe option for transportation if they arent well served by Public Transportation. Even though the vans will be auctioned off, they will work with m. T. A. To see if theres other ways the van can bees used. The c. A. C. Had a verbal presentation. C. A. C. Members welcomed conclusion of the sewer and utility work and wonder if the knowledge gained, utilities in the area could be helpful to future builders of project on this corridor. Sfmta staff said the contractors doing the work has provided as built drawing reflecting what was found and done in the area. Accessible for anyone noticing a project in the area in the future. C. A. C. Still wish to see more data and information about this impact and use of mitigation strategies in the area. The committee was told that m. T. A. And the office of economic workforce development, will be preparing a more detailed report for future meeting. Finally, the c. A. C. Adjourned its meeting hurrican hurricane g ms. Ernestine who pushed for Public Transportation. Thank you. Supervisor peskin are there any questions for mr. Larson . Seeing none, are there any members of the public who like to comment on the c. A. C. Report . Clerk theres no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin madam clerk, please read the next item . Clerk before i read the next item. I like to make an announcement about Public Comment. Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda via telephone by calling 4156550001. When prompted enter access code. 1462531573 then pound and pound again. To be added to the queue to speak. When it is your turn to speak, you will hear a message saying your line is unmuted and the operator will be advised youre allowed to two minutes to speak. Calls will be taken in the order in which they are received. Best practices are to speak slowly and clearly. Please allow more audio, video delays during the course of the meeting. Item 3, approve minutes of the september 22, 2020 meeting. This is an action item. Supervisor peskin is there any Public Comment on the minutes of september 22nd . Public comment is closed. Is there a motion to approve the minutes . Seconded by commissioner yee oneonthat motion made. Roll call pleasely. [roll call vote] minutes are approved. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 4 appoints two members to the Citizens Advisory Committee, this is an action item. Good morning. Im the transportation planner for the Transportation Authority. The Transportation Authority has 11 members Citizens Advisory Committee. The board appoints individuals to appoint any open seats and staff or c. A. C. Make recommendations on appointment. To qualify for the appointment, applicants must be San Francisco resident. Attachment 2 in the packet is list of applicants. Vacancy is under consideration today. There maybe other candidates available to speak on the Public Comment line. I can take any questions. Supervisor peskin thank you. Are there any questions for ms. Smith . Supervisor fewer im delighted to reappoint david klein to the c. A. C. He has consistently demonstrated a passion about our Transportation System and ensuring that the system infrastructure and Services Work well for our district in our city. I appreciate that david bring touch questions to the questions and looks at the issues through data and metric with the lens on equity for how whether transportation is working for diverse transit dependent community. David has elevated the need for data points to prove what is working and not working, to helping solve our community needs. He spotlighted conversations regarding a Transit System efficiency and safety among other priorities as an Outer Richmond resident, i know david use Public Transportation regularly. David thanking you in advance for your support and thank you colleagues for your support. Supervisor peskin thank you. Commissioner safai you like to reappoint mr. Gaoer . Yes, sir, i would say very similar comments to supervisor fewer. Robert gower has been passionate about Public Transportation. Hes been active in Neighborhood Improvement Association first before he moved in district 11. Hes licensed attorney. Hes been involved in local government and very interested in public policy. He understands how heavily reliant many of the families in district 11 are on transportation. Understands the unique challenges that we face. He has been very engaged in many of our Community Conversations that involves him. Im very proud to appoint him today. Supervisor peskin thank you commissioner. Are there any other candidates for these or other seats that are not yet up who would like to comment . Clerk theres no one on the line. Supervisor peskin is there any general Public Comment on this item . Clerk theres no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin Public Comment is closed. We heard from both of you in the past. I will make it easy and ask one of my colleagues to make a motion to reappoint both of you, which one would you like to make that motion . Move. Fewer. Supervisor peskin moved by commissioner fewer and commissioner safai would you like to second that . On that motion made, roll call please. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. Motion passes on its first reading. Supervisor peskin congratula tions thank you both for your continued service. Next item please. Clerk item 5, state and federal updates. This an information item. Im pleased to connect with you today. I always seem to have some problems. I will report to you on several bills that were passed by legislature enacted by the governor towards end of session. Kind of give you a brief update on couple of major executive orders that are all the emphasis in transportation circles in sacramento in current month. In terms of legislation that did pass and was acted upon ab1286 which was the shareability device agreement was approved by the governor as was sb288 ceqa, expansion for transit and finally sb1291 by the Transportation Committee in the senate. It allows regional transportation agencies to skip this year in terms of submitting a ftip. Which is a federal mandated requirement but its also enacted in state law and state law is a little bit federal law. It gives the transportation agencies a break for turning in the paperwork necessary for that program. Last budget bill was approved by the legislature, ab107 in the last days of the session back in late august. It allows use of state repair funds which is transit funds. Instead of being directed entirely towards maintenance only, it broaden the uses for use by transit agencies so they can use it for operations or capital purposes given the impact the pandemic has had on ridership. Little bit more flexibility and its been greatly received throughout the state. Looking forward to the next session, i think the early focus will be entirely on the state budget as we sit here today, its uncertain what will be happening or not happening with extended recovery legislation at the federal level. State budget is predicated on anticipating some of the it coming and having triggers built in. Thats going to be front and center. Both chairs both committees can including your representative here whos heads up the budget committee, made very strong statements to organizations throughout sacramento that its budget all the time. Feels like weve gone back about 10 years back to when we had the budget problems decade ago. This is very serious and well see how this turns out. I did allude to the fact that there are executive orders that are very under scrutiny in sacramento. Last year the governor proclaimed executive order 1919 that required the secretary of transportation to basically develop a climatebased action plan for transportation funding. Trying to tie or align some of the funding discretionary pot that are available to the secretary or transportation commission, tie that to or align with climate goals. The pandemic did interfere with the work effort by cal sta. They brought forth a Climate Action plan. They were on a Conference Call with the secretary. They are conducting a workshop on updating their strategic goals with respect to their Climate Action plan. Tieing it more strongly into the executive branch of the governors executive order and 7920 which was introduced in september which dealt in terms of the Media Coverage of the order, dealt with zero Mission Vehicle requirements by 2035. No sales of Passenger Vehicles in 2035 or later if they dont meet zero mission requirements. There were other key elements in that executive order. One of which tied back into the september 2019 executive order and main date mandated that the secretary continues more work and move forward with a formal plan early in 2021. Thats under way now. Im engaged in it. Im keeping staff apprised as the workshops pop up from time to time. The next major public activity with respect to what is going ton with these executive orders will occur in november there will be a joint h. C. D. Resources board and California Transportation Commission meeting at which the secretary and his staff will present the Climate Action plan and strategies for the interest in approval of those organizations. Lot of activity going on in hat background. Back in the meantime, we are all starting to appear for next years session and looking for idea or followup ideas on bills that have been set aside due to the pandemic. Ill bring my presentation to a close. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. Supervisor peskin thank you mr. Weather. Watts, any questions . Good morning chair and commissioners. I wanted to give a quick update on whats happening at the federal level. Before the september 30th expiration date, congress did manage to pass oneyear extension of the federal transportation bill. This will allow Congress Little bit of breathing room to pick up negotiations on a longer Term Extension next year. Well continue to be working with sfmta and the Mayors Office and other organizations to advance San Franciscos priorities in this area. With respect to covid relief, hitting the refresh button on the computer to see if theres any late breaking news. On october 1st the house did approve a revised version of his covid relief proposal. Which will provide 2. 2 trillion in aid, which is 1. 2 trillion less than the original made proposal. It includes actually higher amount of funding for public transit, 32 billion, which is more than the prior version or the cares act that was approved earlier weve heard the speaker in negotiations but unless agreement is reached in the next day or so, its unlikely that anything will move forward until after the election. Even if something is approved, it will still have to go through the senate which theyve expressed its unlikely to move anything forward at the proposed spending level. Not hopeful it will happen before the election. It could be as late as early next year that they look at a relief effort. Finally, in late june, commissioner preston asked us to come back and report on the federal freedom to move act. Which congresswoman presley introduced. This will provide annual 5 billion Competitive Program Grant Program for jurisdictions to provide free fair Public Transportation and eliminate penalties. The funding will be available both to implement the system to expand service and then to do physical improvements such as painted bus lanes and accessibility improvement. One main challenge is that they provide the funding to implement the system. But then, its a question of how its funded wasnt the federal seed money goes away and Transit Systems are faced with needing to have the Financial Resources to continue the program. Unfortunately, this bill is not going to be considered this session. It did provide an opportunity for congresswoman to familiarize congress with the idea going into the negotiations over the federal transportation bill reauthorization next year. Mark and i will be happy to answer any questions that you have on the state or federal programs. Supervisor peskin i dont see any questions. From what i hear from our nations capitol, its looking more and more like february . Yes. I believe so. Supervisor peskin seeing no questions, thank you both for those very thorough presentations. Are there any members of the public who like to comment on item number 5 . Clerk i will check on that please. Im going to make a brief announcement. The Public Comment line is 4156550001. Then enter access code. 1462531573 press pound and pound again. When you are unmuted, the operator will advise you that you have two minutes to peek. At this time, chair, theres no Public Comment. Supervisor peskin thank you. Public comment is closed. Please read the next item. Clerk item 6, adopts Traffic Congestion mitigation tax Program Guidelines in t. N. C. Tax fund to two projects. This is an action item. Supervisor peskin good morning ms. Milton and ms. Lyons good morning. Not as lucrative as we expected. Covid has done that in different arenas. Nonetheless, the t. N. C. Tax is here. The floor is yours. Thank you so much for that introduction. Good morning chair peskin and commissioners. Im kayla lyons with the Transportation Authority. Just pulling up my slides now. We provided an informational update back in july on our approach to the t. N. C. Tax guidelines and now were ready to adopt those guidelines. As a brief background, this was passed by San Francisco voters on november 2019. Its the first of its kind in california. The portion of the trip that is in San Francisco after two percent goes to the city and county for administration, 50 comes to the sfmta for muni and 50 comes to the Transportation Authority for pedestrian and Bicycle Safety projects. The taxes is 1. 5 on shared ride and ab rides and three quarter percent tax on nonshared rides. Initial revenue estimate was 30 million annually. As you alluded to, the revenue is coming in drastically lower than that which ill provide information on in a moment. Since this is a new revenue source, we met a variety of stakeholders that we developed. Program guideline and incorporated their feedback. We have four programmatic categories to guide the allocation of funding. These has not changed. We have the quickbuild category so we can get funds out the door to safety projects that are reversible. We have the safe streets category. These are meant to go those permanent more complex and expensive safety improvements. This category will have an open call for projects. Then we have signals which can be new signals, upgrades retime and maintenance category as well. We have actual revenue totals from january 1st when collections began through june 2020. We have been anticipating 15 million in that sixmonth time frame and actual collections came in at 5. 2 million. Obviously, the shelterinplace order and pandemic have had drastic impacts on revenue. The 50 share to the Transportation Authority is just over 2. 5 million. Thats what we have that were able to allocate. For this fiscal year, 2021, were aligning with the Comptroller Office estimates of 15 million in collections for the year. That would be 7. 3 million coming to the Transportation Authority and after 3 for administration, Data Collection and analysis. We have another 7 million potentially available to allocate by next summer if revenues do come in as projected. I will say, since this is a new source that is very uncertain at this point. Were not allocating funds until they have been collected. Our recommendation is to go ahead and allocate the 2. 5 million that we have to the sfmtas vision quick bill program. That allocation is of the next agenda item at this meeting along with the prop k and doublea allocations. Also program the first 5 million in collections from this fiscal year to next years vision zero quick build program. These are high priority safety improvements, they are quick to implement relative low cost and weve heard feedback that these continue to be a priority. Well closely monitor revenues moving forward and if they are coming in as projected or higher, then we can revisit in may call for projects. In terms of administration, this is very similar to prop k and double a. Youll see allocation requests when projects are ready to go. Well allocate one phase at time except for projects like quickbuilds. This will be pay as you go. We dont plan to borrow or finance. It will be reimbursement base of other fund programs. Well ask project sponsors to provide quarterly project reports. Im happy to answer any questions. Supervisor peskin are there any questions from members . Supervisor yee youre projecting projections that the controller gave 15 million, is this a projection that was made further in the year or is it projection thats been upda updated . The projection i believe was made in may of this year and so original projections were 30 million. Its now 15 million for this year. They are projecting 500,000 a month for july, august, september. Then that bumps up to 1. 5 million for month for the rest of the fiscal year. Which is how you get to that 15 million. The projection is from may if i recall correctly. Supervisor yee are the projections pretty consistent with the collection that weve seen in july, august, september . We only have collections for july as of right now. That has been verified. Those came in right around 500,000 for the month. It is on point for july. I can follow up with what august and september revenues look like as soon as those have been verified and let you know. Supervisor yee thank you. Supervisor walton i wanted to add, do we have a copy of this presentation . Was it sent to us . Supervisor peskin i dont believe so. I assumed that earlier. I dont think so. Supervisor walton i would love to have a copy of this presentation. Absolutely. Supervisor peskin any other questions or comments from members . Executive director . I want to clarify that the website should have a link to the presentation. The website at sfcta. Org mee sfcta. Org meeting should have that. Supervisor peskin are there any members of the public who like to testify. I want to thank the voters of San Francisco for embracing this tax measure that was really first in the state of california, required authorization legislation from the state legislature and i really want to thank Assembly Members and entire Senate Delegation for getting that through. It came out of the state assembly with one vote to spare. It was opposed by general motors. Thank you to then Governor Brown for signing it into law and for the voters of San Francisco for voting by over two thirds to enact this tax the first in state of california. Are there members of the public who like to comment. Clerk there are two callers. Good morning caller, your two minutes begins now. Thank you. Good morning commissioners. This is janice lee. We had a long history with this measure dating back to Transportation Task force 2025. I echo all the things that chair peskin just offered. Now were seeing the revenues come in. I believe that the Program Guidelines are strong. We saw what happened earlier. I think its really important that we are building it in the program guideline. We strongly support the allocation to the program [indiscernible] i really appreciate the attention that sfmta has given this. Clerk thank you caller. Supervisor peskin thank you for those kind words about my involvement in that effort. Next speaker please. Thank you chair peskin and members. Good to be back with you. This is a very important item. I support the prudence fiscal policy of not allocating money until you have it. These are Uncertain Times and im a Firm Believer in paying for things with money that you have in the bank. We should keep doing that. Last time i read average cost a car in america is about 700 a month. I dont own a car. Im a user of t. N. C. And never came close to spending 700 a month on t. N. C. T. N. C. Tax are helping to bring money to the city and county of San Francisco. The idea of t. N. C. Tax is not new. In nevada it is 3 statewide. I pay various other t. N. C. Fees when i was in chicago. I think it was 5 i paid. That money goes to help ohare airport. As far as i know. The elephant in the room is there are too many privately owned vehicles that are taking up spaces on parking lots. I think all cars should be electric anyway. While my perspective maybe little harsh, t. N. C. Can help alleviate lot of the problems with car ownership and definitely can help people with disabilities. We should seek this tax going and manage it wisely. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Supervisor peskin are there any other members who like to testify on this item . Clerk there are no more callers. Supervisor peskin in that case, is there a motion to adopt Program Guidelines . Moved by mr. Mandelman and seconded by ronen. On that motion made and seconded, a roll call please. [roll call vote]. Supervisor safai did you call my name . This is commissioner fewer. [roll call vote] there are 10 ayes, motion passes on first reading. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 7 chair peskin, im now going to step out purposely and i will come back. Supervisor peskin i will make a motion to excuse supervisor ronen until she returns. Is there a second for that motion . We will take that without objection. Next item please. Clerk item 7, allocate 5,000,897. 303 in prop k funds and 2,505,686 in Traffic Congestion mitigation tax funds with conditions by request. This is an action item. Good morning commissioners an. Im going to pull up my presentation. Mr. Chair, are you able to see . Supervisor peskin we are. Great. Im pleased to present the first t. N. C. Tax allocation today. This particular request for paratransit is from the prop k program. This is for 1. 1 million to replace minivanvans that are currently in service for the paratransit sf access prescheduled ride doorto door Paratransit Services in the Maximum Capacity of these new vehicles is 14 passengers. This includes four wheelchair users while the minivans carry three passengers and one wheelchair user that are significantly more capacity, which is needed, especially during the social distancing time. The upper market safety project is a capital request in part, 500,000 of this 2. 8 million prop k request from funds. This is for variety of safety and accessibility improvements on High Injury Network about a miles worth of the network. Seven intersections for Pedestrian Safety and accessibility improvement. The next request you heard about in the prior item on your agenda today. This is the allocation of the t. N. C. Tax funds that are in the bank. Long with 936,000 request of prop k funds. This is for the improvements that are on six corridors that are shown on your screen along with programmatic spots and improvements. These are for safety Traffic Safety improvements and traffic signal changes. The work will be done by city crews. The next request is from the department of public works. This is for programs about 30 of them on manziel streets. It is a concrete street. There are a number of structural complexities associated with this construction contract including there are eight water meter locations, nine survey monuments that are required, all of this is triggering the need for additional oversight during the construction phase. Just so folks watching at home know, the curb ramp program, you can request a curb ramp in your neighborhood by calling 311. The last request is for the fifth street quickbuild improvement. This is a project that was awarded the safe route to bart Program Grant for measure rr funds. These are for safety improvements at fifth street between market and townsend. I can take any questions. We have a variety of project managers here as well. Supervisor peskin are there any questions on this double a allocation . Seeing none, must have done a great job, hannah. Are there any members of the public who like to testify on this item . Clerk theres Public Comment. Thank you. This is a very important allocation and i bring to light the transit ban request. Paratransit is an essential Bedrock Program in helping people with disabilities. Especially, it is vulnerable. I speak to that, im a person with disabilities myself. I Service Disabled veterans in the operation of desert storm. Im not a specific paratransit qualified customer, i have ridden in paratransit vans in similar programs. Paratransit is essential to helping people to get to essential business, whether its medical appointments or going to stores to purchase food and other essentials. This is rooted in the basic idea of [indiscernible] i would hope that the managers of this procurement have sustainment in mind procuring these vehicles. It comes from the emissions reduction and sustainability operating them overtime. Its good that we are going to buy these vehicles and that should be a regular part of our annual allocation. Thank you. Supervisor peskin thank you. Are there any other members of the public who like to testify on item 7 . Chuck therPublic Comment is clo. Is there a motion to allocate these double a and t. N. C. Tax funds made by vice chair mandelman and seconded by commissioner yee on that motion. A roll call please. [roll call vote] there are 10 ayes. Motion passes on first reading. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 8. Authorize the executive director to execute the utilitily relocation agreement rightofway certification with Treasure Island Development Authority for both rightofway and construction phases for the yerba buena island. This is an action item. Good morning chair peskin, commissioners. Let me get to my powerpoint presentation. Hopefully you can see that. Here to brief you and ask for request for action related to agreements to advance this critical project to construction for the westside bridges project. Related to the actual location, it is on the westside of the island. Critical infrastructure that is over 80 years old. It leads to the westbound on and offramps, coming off the bay bridge on the west side of the island. It leads to the eastbound on ramp to go to oakland. Just a rhymer reminder in cost, approximately 120 million. Primarily funded with federal highway Bridge Program and state proposition 1b program with some match for the engineering phase. Right now, as you recall, almost two years ago, we came to the board for an approval to deliver this project via the Construction Management and general contracting delivery method. Which is going very well for us now. The construction starts next spring and its over three years. Specifically were talking about seven bridges here that we will demolish. Well retrofit one bridge. Thats the on ramp, westbound on ramp to head to San Francisco. The plan calls for going ahead and constructing new retaining wall systems and moving to access the roadway into the hillside to avoid some geotechnical issues and constructing a new underground crossing structure as youre coming offer the bay bridge heading eastbound on the left off ramp to traverse down to Treasure Island. The delivery schedule im happy to report finalizing the 100 plans and estimates. The rightofway certification here. These next couple of months are critical for us to obtain these approvals that are in front of you today sonja w so we can awaa contract. We chose golden state bridge as the contractor that we currently are working with in the preconstruction phase. We need to basically negotiate the final cost for the contract and if we do so, we come with a recommendation to the board like i indicated next year. For some reason theres a problem in that regard, we would actually put it out to bid. Funding plan shown in front of you. Significant federal participation as well as the state participation. We are right now in the final steps of obtaining the final allocation for construction funding. All of the rightofway and construction of the project are within tida ownership. Final amendments for whats called memorandum of agreements with tida for rightofway and construction phase, thats if anything thats not reimbursed by the federal or state government, will be reimbursed by tida. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. Im open for any questions. Supervisor peskin major infrastructure project. Are there any questions . Any comments . Supervisor haney no comments. Supervisor peskin is there any Public Comment on this couple. Clerk i like to remind the callers on the line they need to press star 3 if they like to make a Public Comment. We have one caller on the line. Im not speaking on this item. I dont think it lowered my hand. Supervisor peskin well get back to you for whenever item youve calling in on. Any other members of the public for this item . Clerk there are no other callers. Supervisor peskin Commission Er haney you like to make the motion for the agreement certification . Supervisor haney so moved. Supervisor peskin is there a second . Seconded by commissioner fewer on that motion made and seconded a roll call please. [roll call vote]. There are 10 ayes. The item is approved on its first reading. Supervisor peskin next item please. Clerk item 9, update on the San Francisco municipal transportation of agencies Red Light Camera Program. This is an information item. Good morning. Im ricardo lea. We were asked to give a brief presentation on the Red Light Camera Program. I will now do the presentation. The Red Light Camera Program is a program that has been going on since the mid1990s. San francisco was one of the leading cities to advocate for red light camera enforcement in california. It was due to red light running in the early 90s. This chart shows the progress the city has made which updated lot of Traffic Signals. It started bearing in the late 90s and 2000s. However, if you look at recent trends in the 2010 reached a stabilizing pattern. Thats been some concern that we have not been able to make more progress. [please stand by]. A lot of the red light running happens in the first few fractions of a second after the light turns red, and in San Francisco, weve always tried to have longer red lights than the state or federal minimum rights. Another very effective tool to reduce red light running at our signal upgrades, which i mentioned the prop k sales tax has been very instrumental in doing in the city, this involves adding master arms when they. When theyre over the street, they can be larger or put in a more prominent place. Construction projects have been happening for the last decades, and theyve had a very important improvement in terms of red light running. When the situation is that people are unintentionally running red lights because they cant see them or theyre distracted, those situations can be he meal i dont remema signs. You can see that theres been varying levels of citation, between 3,000 and 5,000 a year. Just for reference purposes, theres about 1,200 signals in the city. And finally, the Red Light Camera Program. The program, like i said, started in the 90s. We have kept it going since then, despite many other cities having issues trying to maintain the programs due to opposition or legal challenges or lack of political support. In San Francisco, because the program has been very much safety focused, we have been able to maintain strong public support, including your support, which we appreciate. In 2018, we completed a major upgrade of the entire system. Until recently, our system was still running old, wet film technology, so we had to develop rolls of kodak film. Now, thats not the case. Theyre electronic, and we have a current contract, and we have been looking to see how the programs running and operating, and we will, as time goes by, producing more information about the current system. Its a partnership with the Police Department, which reviews all the citations and only accepts those that meets their criteria for for processing, so we have a fulltime person at the Police Department working on this program. Chair peskin and who maintains the technology . It is a vendor contract, so the vendor maintains the camera, processes the film, and makes sure its running properly. What the sfmta does is Program Oversight and also the Capital Construction oversight. In 2014, we did a major evaluation of the system. We looked at all the locations that at that point were in need of upgrade to make sure that we only spent Capital Funds on the locations that we at that point believed to be the most necessary for continued enforcement. This is just an example. One of the locations we did not continue enforcement at, 8th and harrison street. You can see how in the late 90s, a traffic light installed from funds from prop k and a Traffic Camera helped decrease citations, and we believed that public funds would be better spent enforcing new locations or doing other type of signal upgrade projects, so again, always doing upgrades, looking to see where the program could be best focused . Chair peskin did you pick up that hardware and move it to that location . No. The equipment was basically so old, it was at the end of its useful life. This was with a previous vendor, absorbed by xerox, and everything was just dismantled. And then, this is fourth and vanness, and were just waiting to get that active there, but all the other locations are active. This is just a graph of how the locations have been doing this here. Granted, theres been a lot of traffic changes because of covid19, so some of these locations have probably seen decreases in the amount of traffic by 60 to 40 . The one that we are monitoring is lake and Park Presidio. We gave is 8 180 citations out in august. Theyre doing a major signal upgrade at that location, and were hoping after that is completed, the citation count will go down. Chair peskin richard, can you go back to the last slide. Why, in four or five instances, is there no data for the First Quarter of the year . In the early part of the year, we were still activating locations. Chair peskin ah, i got it. Those were under construction at that point . Yes. Chair peskin and i mean go ahead, sorry. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify that there were a few locations at the start of the year that were not active, but since june, you can look at all the locations and compare them in terms of citation frequency. Chair peskin so, richard, what do you attribute the completely counter intuitive different trends at fourth and harrison which, precovid, was in the 400s, and after, remains at 20 or between 18 and 29, and the reverse at Park Presidio and lake, when in the early lockdown period, its doing the exact opposite trend . In other words, at fourth and harrison, weve gone from 109 precovid to 18 as of the end of the summer, whereas its gone exactly in the opposite direction at Park Presidio and lake . I will i will say that the most severe decline in traffic was around the aprilmay. Thats when most people were completely avoiding going out, so those should naturally be the lowest totals, as you can see that from Park Presidio and lake and fourth and harrison. Fourth and harrison was our first location to be activated, ask that was the first to improve. Were hoping that as people get used to this, the amount of red light running decreases. Theres some construction there. Were not aware of anything that would have caused the totals to be higher in januaryfebruary and june and july. At Park Presidio and lake, there is some construction going on right now, which would mean that the intersection is not in its final properlydesigned state, so the total there, im hoping, will come down once the construction is over. But yeah, one of the questions we get is when that happens. There is some degree of constant red light running that were noticing, and then, at that point, the intersection tends to stabilize. But if the location has a high number, we tend to look at it because our goal here is not to have a lot of citations. The ideal situation would be to have what were seeing at sixth and folsom, where youre seeing six or eight violations in an entire month. Were using the data that the Program Gives us to make adjustments, so were looking to see what other things we can do here. There was policy support in 2019 thanks to supervisor haney. There was a state of emergency resolution, and one of the urging clauses was the Municipal Transportation Agency should double the red light cameras. And then, we also made Program Presentations last year at the same venue, also at our sfmta policy and governance committee, and also at the Vision Zero Task force, and what we consistently heard from advocates, particularly walk sf, and they wanted to see us do more enforcement because they felt it was one way to be sure that people obeyed traffic signal lights, which was an important issue. Because of all the support weve gotten, were in the process of devoting 2 million of Capital Funds from the m. T. A. That will start design at the end of this year, and then hopefully be in design and construction by the end of 2022. We will be hopefully doing eight or so locations, and again, looking at those locations that havent had engineering changes being discarded and focusing, then, on the locations that have already had everything that we can do in terms of issues. [inaudible] these locations tend to have about one red light running a year, if not more, and well be making other presentations throughout the year that would be justified at other locations, and we need to make sure that the locations are technically feasible. Thats the end of my presentation. Chair peskin thank you, mr. Olea, for that really good presentation, and do we have any questions or comments from members . Commissioner stefani . Supervisor stefani thank you, chair peskin. Thank you for that presentation, and im happy to see that presidio and masonic and market in district two are being considered for locations. I did want to ask two questions about the cost differences from installing a red light camera versus physical road changes. So depending on the physical road changes that we implement, there is some significant cost involved. So the signal timing is probably the most Cost Effective in the sense that that can be done with city crews, and its basically the labor and time for engineering and electrician staff to go out and retime. Were in the process of retiming the entire city, not just for these purposes, but for the purpose that president yee ask for the pedestrian intervals, and we add a longer yellow right and red phases if theyre not to our current standards. The most expensive option is completely redesigning an intersection, awhich can range anywhere from 500,000 to 2 million. To put in the red light, its about 200,000. Obviously, the Construction Costs will be kind of a question mark as we leave covid19, but were kind of estimating that that 2 million will get us about eight additional. Supervisor stefani okay. And what are the differences in the timeline between the implementation of the red light changes and the ones that you just mentioned like the signal timing . Signal timing can be done much quicker. Red light projects are similar to a capital project. Theres an advertisement project of six months where the project is being put out to bid, and the paperworks being prepared for that, and then, the bid is closed and awarded, and then, beginning the project. It would be the same for the red light as the signal program. Unfortunately, theres long timelines for construction. Supervisor stefani okay. I just wanted to reiterate what i said at the Vision Zero Committee that we had with chair peskin and president yee, to consider installing a light at the corner of geary and goff, where one of my constituents was killed. Ive been out there with my constituents precovid. Its a route that i drove every day when i was taking my son to area. Its an intersection and area where its high injury. This has been known to the sfmta for quite sometime. The neighbors are absolutely devastated for what happened to mr. Ber mman, and theyre angr about what continues to happen at that intersection. I think you must absolutely consider a red light camera at geary and goff. Weve had an outpouring of support for all sorts of different changes, but i think this one would make a world of difference. Its my understanding that walk sf and my constituents agree. The walking plans for geary and goff, i appreciate those, but again, im going to reiterate my request that you seriously consider something, a red light camera at geary and goff. I think its absolutely necessary. So if you have any comments to that, i would appreciate it, but again, if theres anything i can do to help make that happen, i think the sfmta has known for quite sometime that this is a dangerous intersection, and i want to see that this request is taken seriously. Yes, commissioner. We have heard your question. It is possible to install a camera at this point. We would just, again, mention that we do have plans to update the traffic signal for the approach that had the red light running crash, so we are planning to make the signals n more visible and more prominent. There is an argument about intentionality and maybe the person intentionally ran the red light, which that only works in these situations. We will consider your request, and like i said, we have not finalized locations, and we will consider that, as well. Supervisor stefani okay. Thank you. Chair peskin and before i call on commissioners haney and yee, i just want to jump in a little bit on the funding side. The fines that are associated with the tickets that are issued, how how much money does that generate, and where do those moneies go . Are there any excess funds . Do they pay for any Ongoing Operations and maintenance under the contracts . Is there any leftover and what are those amounts . There is some that comes back to the city. I will try to follow up because i dont have the exact dollar amount at this point, but i have made a request to the City Attorneys Office to look at what the specific allocations are. What i do know as far as the sfmta is concerned or the Police Department, its selfsustaining at this point. We receive about 1. 4 million a year. Its the fines that are associated with the traffic school. The courts decided that that was the allocated formula that would give us about the amount of money which requires to run the program, so pay the vendor, and then have a Program Manager at the sfmta and a presence at the Police Department. So i would say, at this point, the program is selfsustaining, if its generating revenues, its not generating revenues to the m. T. A. That might be going directly to the general fund or to the courts, but that part, im going to follow up later. But for those who sometimes think that this is, like, a giant windfall for the m. T. A. , the m. T. A. Does not get a giant windfall from the program. We have to spend our money from the general fund for those projects. Its not like were getting the money from general programs or expansions. We have to spend our money. Chair peskin just as far as the money flows, is there an m. O. U. Between the m. T. A. And p. D. , and then the m. T. A. Allocates that for the p. D. . And while the violator has to go to traffic school, that this does not end up in points on a drivers record. Is that true . I have a vague memory from years ago that that was the case. I think if you go to traffic school, you dont get the points, but i think this would be a if you pay the accept the fine, i think it is a point its a red light running violation, but if you go to traffic school, you do not get a point. We will follow up on the financial end. Like i said, the program has been right stabilizing this summer in terms of the amount of citations we should be generating, so based on that, we can use it to project the basic program fine and fees that we may be doing, which is one of our goals, because with the digiacotal market technolo there was a question of whether we would be able to capture the images or photos of violations. Chair peskin thank you. Commissioner haney . Supervisor haney thank you, chair peskin, and thank you for this presentation. I first just want to support what commissioner stefani said, and hopefully, we can get one of these lights at geary and goff and just want to echo the concerns that there are a lot of intersections like that around the city that i think could use these cameras. I dont think we have enough of them. When theres a sense that theres only a handful of them, they dont they can be more limited in how they impact driver behavior, you know, citywide. If you have a sense that you might be at one where there is a red light camera, and you dont always know that, i think that can have a broader impact on on driver behavior. I did want to ask why it takes to long to put these up. You said that we have eight that we are going to put in place, and theres a design phase, which it sounds like its another year, and we might not have these cred lights up for another two year. Can you explain why it cant be done faster . I think its surprising for me, and i think its surprising for the public that, to put a red light in, its going to take over two years . Yeah, this is an issue generally with Capital Projects that we just have to go through the process where our staff has to work with other departments to do the detailed design. We work with public works to help us out with a lot of the electrical work. Sometimes, there are curb ramps that need to be built. We work with departments such as pg e for power, and we need to work with the vendor for location. Yeah, it is a frustrating issue. Its the same issue with pedestrian signal upgrades, with new signals. Sometimes, when your c constituents ask for new Traffic Signals, they ask why it takes to long. I dont know why its the delay. Part of it is a staffing at the city level, but even when we have the staff, the projects tend to move at that speed. And then, the construction project, if you accelerate that, you tend to pay more. If you give a contractor three months rather than nine months, they will charge a premium because that means they have to mobilize more equipment, more crews, and until recently, we are putting out as a we were putting out as a city so much contract work, we had to contract out the work. So theres a limit on how many people can bid for these contracts, which is frustrating there. So i think theres a problem there, but it is much bigger than just the Red Light Program there. Supervisor haney okay. Yeah, it just seems like all of this work request design and everything to put up a red light camera, maybe i dont understand why thats the case, but it does seem like a long amount of time. And i do just encourage us to continue to expand this program. The last question i asked, and i dont know if you had this in your slides, but did you are you also looking at red light enforcement that may be happening in other ways, like, by the police, and how much that is happening as a way to indicate where it might be needed . Do we know how many red light tickets the police are issuing and whereas another indicator for where these these red light cameras would be . Yes. I had a brief chart showing the annual totals for red light running, which tended to go down, which was an issue that this body discussed almost exactly a year ago with the Police Department in terms of resources. 2020 is going to be a pretty low year in terms of enforcement due to shelter in place, reduced traffic volumes, and other concerns. I think the number of red light running citations from the Police Department will be pretty low this year. In terms of where it occurs, we forward information about where we see the crashes, and the Police Department has access to those. We dont have data about where the red light running citations are being given, on, like, a dashboard, so thats something that the city has been trying to work on, in terms of having better spasht analysis in terms of where all traffic citations are being given out and if spatial analysis in terms of where all traffic citations are being given out and if theyre being given out in the correct location. Sometimes, some of these locations have five or ten violations a day, and its difficult for an officer to catch it because its a fraction of a second. I would let the Department Comment on where theyre focusing this effort in terms of this particular issue, but it is a case that the Red Light Camera Program is issuing the vast number of multiple citations, generally speaking, because it has been able to work. It is not affected by staffing changes. Its always able to work no matter what the fraction of a second of the violation of the red light is. At the same time, we need their help because we dont have coverage in a lot of cities, so we need to have patrols making sure where we dont have red light camera enforcement or a situation where a red light camera may not apply, that their presence is there, as well. Chair peskin commissioner yee . President yee thank you, chair peskin. Chair peskin commissioner or colleagues, im just going to step away for a minute, and vice chair mandelman will take over, and ill be back in a few minutes. President yee okay. Thank you. So quite a few of the questions have been asked already, but i guess in the relevant generation piece, it seems like theres 800 or 900 tickets at 400 each is probably 3 million to 4 million youre going to generate, which tells me, also, that the funding that youre getting is mixed in the program itself, but that theres excess funding from the tickets, and it seems that we should really invest into supporting more locations. I agree with our previous commissioners that have wants more locations covered, and one in my district on the west side or two on the west side doesnt cover anything, so im urging that we somehow find revenues to install these things, since the operation of this is going to be cost neutral. When the question was asked about where are these where are people running these red lights, im going to give you a simple answer. They run red lights all over the place. Its not just one intersection. Maybe some places, they arent as impactful, but if i stand on any corner where theres a light, within five or ten minutes, ill see somebody running a red light, so if theres a way to install more because right now, youre going to have a total of about 20, is that correct . Yes. Depending on how you define it depends on how you define it, intersections or approaches, so 19 approaches, but were looking at expanding to 25 or 26 approaches. President yee and are there any plans to try to expand beyond that . I know that people have been asking for it. The current expansion funding is 2 million. Once we complete that expansion, we could look at a further expansion. We are having a capital crunch at the sfmta in terms of losing some revenue streams, and so Red Light Camera Programs are just one of many other safety programs that were doing, including full safety programs on red light running, so we see it as a sort of balanced program in the sense in this program, we have other programs that are necessary to make signals be upgraded. I will say to your revenue issue, when the program originally started, all the revenues that were due to the city and county were given to the program itself. Overtime, that connection was lost, and so right now, we just get a set amount. So even if the program is expanded, the m. T. A. Doesnt get further revenues, but we could see if we could expand the program, but obviously, that would have some budgetary impacts that obviously, at this point, the m. T. A. Is not ready to speculate. But the funding that the funding could make sense we know kind of know what the average citation volume is for a location if we assume that the locations where were expanding, we can have the same amount, and we can make extrapolations, but at this point, were focusing on the immediate expansion for this year. President yee and can i ask what actually makes the determination how much order funding allocation goes to . The last allocation was negotiated between our finance department and the courts. The courts are the ones that receive the revenue funds from all sorts of traffic citations, so whether the citations being given out by the Police Department or the red light camera, each running red light citation regardless of who gives it out results in a certain amount of revenue coming to the city through the courts in a fee, and the city is the one that allocates that funding. So beyond that, im not sure where the money is going, but there are some revenues. We estimate about 10,000 citations a year would be what the programs going to be generating. So, like, if you extrapolate whether the city is getting 100 or 200, its about 1 million or 2 million were talking about. And again, the cost of the program is about 1 million or 2 million. President yee you may not have this answer, but if theres somebody that knows how influenced that Court Decision in terms of the allocation method, it would be interesting to know and whether or not we could actually influence that. In regards to the the Police Officers these tickets, i think your presentation showed that it went down dramatically, and its probably true for every other citation that its gone down since we started the initiative with our vision zero policy, and wed still like to bring back id like to hear from the Police Department, maybe not today, but for them to give us their logical reasons why thats going down and why theres no enforcement. We never heard any reasons provided to us as to why its going down over the last few years, so thats just a comment. Maybe something that chair peskin could bring up as an agenda item or maybe Vision Zero Committee could be asked to present it again. I guess one last thing is right now, you could probably put them at every intersection on 19 avenue and can [inaudible] chair peskin ahsha, turn mute your phone. Sava sorry. President yee whether its on 19 avenue or something else, id like to see something else. Chair peskin we can talk about that on the Vision Zero Committee or somewhere else, but lets talk about that littlater today. So with that, if that concludes your remarks, ill go back to commissioner stefani. Supervisor stefani yeah, thank you. I just wanted to follow up on one of the comments relying on enforcement on the front end, and i just wanted to reiterate what i said before on Vision Zero Committees that we have to make sure we have the resources to do that. And to take away, also, from what president yee just said, a decrease in resources to meet that need. Second, in terms of costs, if we are relying on Police Officers to enforce here on the front end, it would seem to me that, at least over time, a red light camera is a lot cheaper than Police Officers or police cars. Also, [inaudible] we need to examine whether there is something that could be taken care of with a red light camera. If youre relying on Law Enforcement at the front end when you could be using red light cameras for a lot cheaper and using the officers to be addressing other things, i think thats something we need to look at. I appreciate you said the person that ran the red light did so willingly, and nothing would have stopped him, but at the same, its a highinjury corridor. Weve known that for a long time. I believe that red light cameras are completely necessary and a lot cheaper in the long run than relying on Police Officer to see do it. I also believe that the question of resources cannot be denied and has to be examined, and we really need to focus on those issues if were going to be serious about enforcing speeding throughout San Francisco, so just my two cents on the enforcement piece. Thanks. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner. And with that, well go to commissioner preston. Supervisor preston thank you, chair peskin. Just a couple questions on the presentation. Thank you for your work on it. Just back to one of the earlier slides around the signal upgrade efforts, and i wanted to just follow up on that, specifically, on the 12inch heads and the mast arms. Where are we on what is left to upgrade and update . How far along are we, and how does your Current Situation impact the current timeline to complete those upgrades . Thats a good question. I recall that we have the the most pressing need is to add pedestrian signals, and we still have some locations that dont have pedestrian signals, so that would be one bucket. In terms of mast arms, im not entire leisure about how many locations are left. I would say about 10 of the system is in need of a significant upgrade, which would be about, like i said, about over 100 locations, since we have 1,100 locations. The other thing about Traffic Signals is you need to upgrade them occasionally just for aesthetic purposes. Theres a constant reinvestment to the system that we need to do. We are challenged now because Construction Costs have kind of sky rocketed, and like i said, it now costs about 1 million to do a traffic signal. When i first started with the city, the initial figure we would cite was in the 200,000. Just earlier in this presentation, we were talking about the t. N. C. Tax. We were looking to get about 5 million in t. N. C. Tax to do a lot of upgrade work, which now, with the covid situation, has been threatened. So were always looking for more capital funding. Prop k has been our backbone, so wed like to thank the voters and the residents for allocating those prop k funds to us. But there are more upgrades that were looking at, and when you have to work in basements and such, there can be a lot more Construction Costs that can be involved. Supervisor preston thank you. I hear you on the mast arms, about 10 , theres a need at about 100 locations. But just getting some clarity on where we are, how many weve done, sort of supplementing the presentation that you gave, how many weve done, how many weve got to do, and overlying that with the budget realities that we just stated, id be interested in Something Like that. What i will do is talk to our teams to track the capital programming. We have a history of which locations we need to touch and which we need to come to next, and maybe we can produce a map through the t. A. In terms of whats been done and what needs to be done, which i think is a great question because i think if were serious about safety and having systems in good state of repair, we do need to continue to invest in them. And like i said, because a lot of these projects take a long time to complete, we need to make these investments now to get those benefits as quickly as possible. Supervisor preston thank you. And on the switching back to the red light cameras, i was struck, as chair peskin was, by the variation between the different locations, and particularly interested in if you have any theories like, that sixth and folsom intersection, where you have virtually no or very, very low instances of red light running, what is the theory on that . When i say numbers like that, my first question is, is there a camera malfunction, and if not, if thats accurate, then, are we looking at a well designed intersection . It just seems like theres some potentially very important lessons for us around those ones that are or are they just outliers and not of statistical significance, so whats the theory and significance around sixth and folsom having such low numbers . Yeah. Were starting to scratch the surface. One of the pros is that we can look at the data. Theres a violation that happens right after the light turns red. So a fraction of a second goes by, and the vehicles are getting a citation. We have a grace period that we dont cite at the first 1 100th of a second. One pattern we see is that people are speeding, and the other is people are speeding after the lights have turned yellow. So three seconds have passed, and people are running the red light. There are locations that were seeing the violations are more on that range, so were looking at both to try to figure out if theres a lot of violations that are happening at the upper range, where the people are violating the range further into the red light, and what can we do to reduce that, and then, have a camera keep track of whether those interventions succeed. For the yellow lieghts, weve expanded that over time. When i started working for the county in the 1990s, it was three seconds, and now, its four seconds. A time like that may not seem like much, but in our terms, it is. The signals in the south of market were upgraded, and maybe the vehicles are not running the red light for that reason. So youre seeing the data, we have some issues in past issues that weve seen, but i will make sure that sixth and folsom is giving us accurate readings. Supervisor preston yeah, thank you. And if so, i just want to say that thats the goal, right . The goal is to have really low incidences and to really understand in terms of the design and lights and, you know, the physical design there, you know, what is leading to such low incidents there if its accurate. To me, that should be a really high priority as were gathering the data, is looking at those intersections. I would also say that its probably likely that the folks who are violating at an intersection with very low numbers are probably much more likely to be doing so intentionally and recklessly, whereas if you have another intersection with very high numbers, we can send out a lot of tickets, but obviously, something is driving or leading to such high incidents and, most likely being the intersection design. So i just want to make sure that we dont lose that as were ramping up and putting these more places, ramping up the number of tickets that were sending out at 400 a pop, that probably the biggest single impact is the design of the intersection, and we should be learning from the places where the incidents are low. Thank you. Yeah, our goal is to learn from the locations such as fourth and harrison that are having high incidences and see what we can do to intervene. Our goal is not to have outlier locations, so thats a correct analysis of how we should be approaching this. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner preston. Commissioner fewer . Supervisor fewer yes, thank you very much, chair, and thank you for the presentation. I think its basically a nobrainer to say actually, to have the cameras is more Cost Effective than having Police Officers give the tickets. After all, at lake and Park Presidio, 180 violations in one month, it would be impossible to have our Police Officers do that. But having said that, i also wanted to say there is an intersection in my district, geary and also Park Presidio, and wondering if we could get some information about that and if we need a red light camera there. So just wanted to mention that, and also, supervisor mandelman and i had worked with the Police Department to put new Training Classes through for our Traffic Division and so we have a substantial amount more i think Police Officers in the traffic unit to give out tickets than weve had in the past, and i hope that our tickets, that theyre actually giving out the ones running the red lights, actually, we have some correct data and up to date data on that. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner fewer. Commissioner yee . President yee thank you. I just wanted to make a comment in regards to i dont want our discussion to be these cameras versus Police Officers. I think they serve different functions. I think its a collective effort. Its not just one or the other. Its impossible to have a Police Officer or a traffic officer at each corner, but at the same time, you cant make a comparison and say that, you know, a camera gives more tickets than a Police Officer when we also have to take into consideration that Police Officers, if theyre really visible at an intersection, its almost impossible to give a ticket because people will see them, and theyll behave. So they serve very different functions in terms of the behavior. Im making this statement because i dont want this argument to become one versus the other when were also trying to advocate that we have Speed Enforcement system and people are against implementing that type of program in San Francisco, so i just want to make that statement. Chair peskin thank you, commissioner lee. What id like to do is ask our staff, miss tang, if youre willing to work with mr. Olea particularly around gathering the particular information that commissioner yee and i requested, so if youd be willing to do that, wed like that presented at a future meeting. Will do, chair. Thanks. Chair peskin are there any members of the public that would like to testify on this item . Clerk yes, chair. We have four Public Comments. Ill start with the first caller. Chair peskin first speaker, please. Clerk hello, caller. Your two minutes begins now. Thank you, chair peskin. Alita dupree, she and her. Ive always supported cameras. I dont know why anybody wouldnt. I know people who have been hit by a car, although i never have. I dont have a car, but i have ridden those little bikes and scooters around San Francisco, and so im very mindful of when were talking about future sites, id really like to see the data that supports that or more succinctly, the criteria used to select an intersection for candidacy in Something Like this. Were left to guess at what the bureaucrats and m. T. A. Are considering. We need transparency in that. Clerk thank you, caller. Your two minutes are up. Chair peskin next speaker, please. Clerk hello, caller. Your two minutes begins now. Hi. My name is jay bain. I am a Richmond District resident. Supervisor fewers my supervisor. Im also on the [inaudible] Advisory Committee, and i was planning on calling an Advisory Committee meeting this afternoon. [inaudible] sorry. Thats the vision zero Board Meeting agenda item. So ive been looking at the City Government on its scorecard for sftdled citations and looking it go down for several years. I appreciate we have a program to implement cameras citywide. Im very concerned that sfpd has essentially walked away from performing their role in traffic enforcement, especially when it comes to the hooked on five citation developments and how it can save lives. Im very happy to hear the comments made by supervisors stefani, yee, and haney, especially in regards to making the city safer and strategically placing those cameras where theyre needed the most and can have the most positive impact. Thats all. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening and for helping to make the city safer. Clerk thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Next caller, please. [please stand by] hell oh everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. Well, covid has changed our lives. The fact it is has changed how we go to work, how we go to restaurants, how we interact with each other but this year will change how we vote. We want to make sure here in San Francisco, we make it as simple as possible. Im excited to be here to announce that although we cant do what weve done in the past, and provide early voting in city hall, we are going to be doing early voting right outside on grove street in what looks like a Beautiful Party at the present time. I want to thank the department of elections, and he will talk about more about exactly the steps that his team has taken to ensure that we not only make voting accessible, we make it safe. We want to make sure that people feel comfortable if they need to vote early. They can come to this Voting Center and it will be opening on monday. If they want to vote on election day or drop off their ballots on election day, well have 588 locations all over the city. And, what is dont be alarmed if you dont receive your ballot you wont be able to vote. This department of elections has received everything. If you didnt receive it in the mail can you provide replacement ballots. If you are going out of town and you need a ballot mailed to a different location, theres a system in place to do just that. For whatever reason, you are not certain or uncomfortable accessing a paper ballot, theres just a lot of options. Theyve been sending things in the mail, sending things online to say our goal is to make this as easy as possible. In the last president ial election, sa san franciscans tud out in record number. It was a 80 turnout. In 2008, it was 81 . This is a city that prides ourselves on making sure our voices are heard. Were not going to covid stop us from making sure that you have access to vote in San Francisco at your convenience. Im excited and i know that theres a lot of confusion out there but this department of election has done everything it can to make sure that its easy to call the department of elections, call 311, go online if you need information for where to pick up a ballot or a replacement ballot. We thought of everything. So, theres no excuse for anyone in this city who is a registered voter not to vote. And in addition to that, if you are not registered to vote, and you would like to register to vote, you have until october 19th. So, make sure that you take the opportunity to go online and this center is open and you can come here and register to vote and you can vote on the same day. In addition to the dress up locations on election day, and this Voting Center right across the street from city hall, we will have a number of of drop off ballot locations the weekend before election day. Linda brooks Burton Library and the branch library. Because again, were trying to make it easy as possible and its ballots inperson or on election day. If you need more information, please visit the department of elections website at spelections. Org. Call 311 or call 415 5544375. So with that, i just want to again thank everyone for their cooperation, the work they do. I really want to express a special thank you so john arts and the department of elections staff because they have been working very hard to make sure that no question is unanswered. Anything or any scenario that could occur, they wanted to make sure they were prepared to support and address the public. And they work with the number Great Community organizations and to get out the vote and some of those organizations are with us today, including George Chance from the chinese Newcomer Service center, jackie flynn, the ex you director of and these are organizations who make sure that communities all over San Francisco have accessed to vote. And we appreciate the work that theyve done for many, many years. I also want to thank martha cohen, the director of special events, for taking such time and care with creating a warm and inviting space. Thank you, martha for your work. And with that, i want to turn it over to our special guest, joining us here today, you probably recognize him because the tallest person here. Our state senator, scott wiener. Thank you, madam mayor. And i also want to thank martha and also our department of elections and john arts for once again really stepping up to make sure that san franciscans can vote and vote easily. Thats one of our core values in San Francisco that we want people to vote and we want to make it easier for people to vote so i have complete confidence in our department of elections that we will run a beautiful election here and that we will it will just be a really strong showing and a really difficult period of time. This is a partnership between the state and our counties including San Francisco we took action at the state level to people being able to vote during a pandemic and we authorized global vote by mail o so everyone gets a ballot even if you are not signed up as a permanent absentee and not put barriers in order to get an absentee ballot and normally, it has to be post marked byelection day and i do want to ask people please, try not to rely on post marking on election day and sometimes you can mail it after whatever the pick up is at that particular box and there are unfortunately thousands of ballots each time where people just mail it too late in the day. It doesnt get post marked. Make sure you are going to mail it, please, troy t try to mail tractortrailer dait theday bef. Even if theres a problem with the post office, which i dont think there will be. You have plenty of time if you mail it right up to election day. It has 17 days to a arrive instead of three and that is a huge change in stay law that weve made to just make sure that every ballot can be counted. What this is really about is auctions. We want people to make choices that work for them and people can drop it off in different locations and of course, we have absolutely amazing voting facility here which will respond to our health needs in terms of allowing people to show up and vote safely. And to be able to do it efficiently. The capacity here, as you can see, is huge. Its going to start on monday and also be opening two weekends before the election. Were making it so easy for people to vote in a way that works for them and their family and their own health situation. I have a digital town hall last week with our secretary of state, alex padilla and with con on cause and a representative of the American Postal Workers Union and she was very, very clear that she has confidence that the mail is going to work well for this election. Despite some of the turbulence we were saying, theyve been able to move through that and she assured us our postal workers, who are some of our front line essential workers, who are putting themselves out there during this pandemic so we can do what we need to do as eye society theyre going to work incredibly hard and they will deliver the mail and people can have confidence in the mail. So, again, thank you, madam mayor, thank you to our department of elections and lets just run a great election as always. Thank you. And now, i want to invite up our director of elections, john arts. Thank you, senator werent. Thank you mayor breed and also for organizing this event. This is a great timing for an event like this, just before early voting begins. Early voting will begin october 5th here at the Voting Center located outside bill graham auditorium. This is an example of the mayor and the senator wiener have indicated and the department and city have take ep steps to make sure that voting is safe and healthy experience for all voters in San Francisco. The ballots we mailed actually tomorrow and voters will start receiving ballots on saturday and then theyll most will receive ballots on monday going through the election week. We have a full compliment of polling polic Police Station ple want to drop off or they dont want to mail their ballot back, just before elections day, is they are outside the voting area so voters dont have to go mud the voting area. They decrease the amount of traffic that voters would experience at election day. And everything that weve done since really the end of the march election going through the cycle for november, has been to plan in relation to conduct an election, while trying to respond to a pandemic. So everything that is happening here at bill graham auditorium, is organized so that people can maintain social distancing and theres ppes that our personnel are wearing and useing and the public has provided ppe and hand sanitizers and sanitizing wipes, face shields and things like that and the same for the polling places. The voters and coworkers can maintain social distancing as they go through the election process on election day. Weve had p. P. E. S available for the voters and the poll workers on election day. And the inperson voting here at the bill graham auditorium and the polling places theres a cleansing of the areas and materials and the commonly used items throughout the day so voters will go into a clean voting environment when they go to cast their ballot on election day. Also, i want to echo the comments about the post office. Weve had conversations and meetings with the post office before this election and to make sure there was no issues and with the processing and to support the conduct of this election for november. The post office of senator wiener noted, has put tremendous men does attention and focus on their abilities and their requirements to give ballots up to vote and he is get ballots to voters to elections here in San Francisco. I want to share the city and the departments of elections has put much time and thought into this and so theyre safe and secure and everyone has a good experience on election date ill turn it over to george chan. And even we call chinese and were helping everyone. So this year were happy to be receiving support from the city to continue the registered people. So, this year, we see the ballot we mailed to you and we help people register. We follow that many times they dont know if you change your address, make sure you update it, ok. So also, if you do know your status, we can help you to check it as well. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is jaclyn flynn. Im the executive director of the a phyllis randolf of San Francisco and were working with the department of the elections in the city to really get out of vote this year. So i ask you, how important is your vote . 2020 is a challenging year as a nation. We have lost over 200,000 american lives from covid19 and these fires, as you can see, continue to raise and scorch our state and homes and businesses and and the california economy and our air quality and and they leap gap in time with racial tension zoos tie that they spilled into our streets. So i asked again. How important is your vote . This year and you can help redefine our jail system you can help reform our Law Enforcement system. You can help fund our parks, you can vote for housing and healthcare and your vote is a vote for change. I ask you, what can you do to effect change and if you can, do it early. Send it in my mail. Drop it directly into a ballot box and thank you to the city for creating an accessible space for folks to do that safely. And if you must safely head to your poll, please wear your mask and vote. I encourage awful us to ask our families, our friends, our work colleagues, our neighbors to do something important, vote. This year has been hard on all of us. And as i think about why its so important, i think about my own kids. And i realize that i have the power to set a clear example that im not satisfied where were at in this nation today and im not going to sit back. I will be an element of change. The a phyllis randolf institute will be on the frontlines reaching out to our seniors and over 5,000 units of low income Family Housing across is this city. Well be facing this year of covid, hitting the streets to ensure education and access to voting. You can help us in that fight. Im inspired by San Francisco. A city that votes for change. Im inspired by inspired by a t looks like me. When i vote i celebrate my skin, my lips and my determination to be represented by someone that understanding my perspective. To all my asian brothers and sisters and to all my latino brothers and sisters, we need you. We need bilingual folks and to my caucasian allies, we are all in this together. I challenge everyone to get education and make a plan and vote. Thank you. Thank you to the press and the immediate why for getting the word out and most importantly, we want to make sure that voting is easy. If you have any questions or concerns, what is interesting this past weekend, i heard from a lot of folks that said i didnt get my ballot yet, what is going on . What is happening. So people seem to be very excited about voting. We also want to make sure that folks are able to get their ballots and theyre able to get their questions answered and we make it as simple as possible and we also keep everybody safe. When were showing up to our polling places, or our Dropoff Center or this particular center here across the street from city hall, were all using the wash center to wash our hands and were wearing our masks and complying with our Health Orders because thats how were going to be able to continue to not only get through this but adapt to the needs to make sure that we are able to not only vote but vote safely. Thats what this is all about and so thank you all so much for joining us here to the today. [applause] right before the game starts, if im still on the field, i look around, and i just take a deep breath because it is so exciting and magical, not knowing what the season holds holds is very, very exciting. It was fastpaced, stressful, but the good kind of stressful, high energy. There was a crowd to entertain, it was overwhelming in a good way, and i really, really enjoyed it. I continued working for the grizzlies for the 20122013 season, and out of happenstance, the same job opened up for the San Francisco giants. I applied, not knowing if i would get it, but i would kick myself if i didnt apply. I was so nervous, i never lived anywhere outside of fridays know, andfridays fresno, and i got an interview. And then, i got a second interview, and i got more nervous because know the thought of leaving fresno and my family and friends was scary, but this opportunity was on the other side. But i had to try, and lo and behold, i got the job, and my first day was january 14, 2014. Every game day was a puzzle, and i have to figure out how to put the pieces together. I have two features that are 30 seconds long or a minute and a 30 feature. Its fun to put that altogetl r together and then lay that out in a way that is entertaining for the fans. A lucky seat there and there, and then, some lucky games that include players. And then ill talk to lucille, can you take the shirt gun to the bleachers. I just organize it from top to bottom, and its just fun for me. Something, we dont know how its going to go, and it can be a huge hit, but youve got to try it. Or if it fails, you just wont do it again. Or you tweak it. When that all pans out, you go oh, we did that. We did that as a team. I have a great team. We all gel well together. It keeps the show going. The fans are here to see the teams, but also to be entertained, and thats our job. I have wonderful female role models that i look up to here at the giants, and theyve been great mentors for me, so i aspire to be like them one day. Renelle is the best. Shes all about women in the workforce, shes always in our corner. [applause] i enjoy how progressive the giants are. We have had the longer running until they secure day. Weve been doing lgbt night longer than most teams. I enjoy that i work for an organization who supports that and is all inclusive. That means a lot to me, and i wouldnt have it any other way. I wasnt sure i was going to get this job, but i went for it, and i got it, and my first season, we won a world series even if we hadnt have won or gone all the way, i still would have learned. Ive grown more in the past four years professionally than i think ive grown in my entire adult life, so its been eye opening and a wonderful learning [ ] i just dont know that you can find a neighborhood in the city where you can hear music stands and take a ride on the low rider down the street. It is an experience that you cant have anywhere else in San Francisco. [ ] [ ] district nine is a in the southeast portion of the city. We have four neighborhoods that i represent. St. Marys park has a completely unique architecture. Very distinct feel, and it is a very close to holly park which is another beautiful park in San Francisco. The Bernal Heights district is unique in that we have the hell which has one of the best views in all of San Francisco. There is a swinging hanging from a tree at the top. It is as if you are swinging over the entire city. There are two unique aspects. It is considered the fourth chinatown in San Francisco. Sixty of the residents are of chinese ancestry. The second unique, and fun aspect about this area is it is the garden district. There is a lot of urban agriculture and it was where the city grew the majority of the flowers. Not only for San Francisco but for the region. And of course, it is the location in mclaren park which is the citys second biggest park after golden gate. Many people dont know the neighborhood in the first place if they havent been there. We call it the best neighborhood nobody has ever heard our. Every neighborhood in district nine has a very special aspect. Where we are right now is the Mission District. The Mission District is a very special part of our city. You smell the tacos at the [speaking spanish] and they have the best latin pastries. They have these shortbread cookies with caramel in the middle. And then you walk further down and you have sunrise cafe. It is a place that you come for the incredible food, but also to learn about what is happening in the neighborhood and how you can help and support your community. Twentyfourth street is the birthplace of the movement. We have over 620 murals. It is the largest outdoor Public Gallery in the country and possibly the world. You can find so much Political Engagement park next to so much incredible art. Its another reason why we think this is a cultural district that we must preserve. [ ] it was formed in 2014. We had been an organization that had been around for over 20 years. We worked a lot in the neighborhood around life issues. Most recently, in 2012, there were issues around gentrification in the neighborhood. So the idea of forming the cultural district was to help preserve the history and the culture that is in this neighborhood for the future of families and generations. In the past decade, 8,000 latino residents in the Mission District have been displaced from their community. We all know that the rising cost of living in San Francisco has led to many people being displaced. Lower and middle income all over the city. Because it there is richness in this neighborhood that i also mentioned the fact it is flat and so accessible by trip Public Transportation, has, has made it very popular. Its a struggle for us right now, you know, when you get a lot of development coming to an area, a lot of new people coming to the area with different sets of values and different culture. There is a lot of struggle between the existing community and the newness coming in. There are some things that we do to try to slow it down so it doesnt completely erase the communities. We try to have developments that is more in tune with the community and more Equitable Development in the area. You need to meet with and gain the support and find out the needs of the neighborhoods. The people on the businesses that came before you. You need to dialogue and show respect. And then figure out how to bring in the new, without displacing the old. [ ] i hope we can reset a lot of the mission that we have lost in the last 20 years. So we will be bringing in a lot of folks into the neighborhoods pick when we do that, there is a demand or, you know, certain types of services that pertain more to the local community and workingclass. Back in the day, we looked at mission street, and now it does not look and feel anything like mission street. This is the last stand of the latino concentrated arts, culture and cuisine and people. We created a cultural district to do our best to conserve that feeling. That is what makes our city so cosmopolitan and diverse and makes us the envy of the world. We have these unique neighborhoods with so much cultural presence and learnings, that we want to preserve. [ ] good evening. [speaking foreign language] to this years latino Cultural Heritage month celebration. Im the cultural curator, San Francisco native, and im honored to be your mc this evening. We would like to take a moment to acknowledge the native people of this land, also known as San Francisco. We are in their sacred space, and we honor and thank them for allowing us here. Also, while we cannot gather in person here at city hall this evening for our regular reception, with lots of incredible food, we have a great list of latinoowned restaurants in our Facebook Event for you to choose from. Be sure to check them out and order one of their specials for this event. This years theme means always united. We have always been here, united by land, ancient trade routes, mother tongues, spirits and gods. [speaking foreign language] today more than ever in the face of adversity and injustice we must look at ourselves as a people and find strength in our multiracial, multiethnic, multifaceted identity, identities with deep roots in this land. We will still be here despite covid19, a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted our Latino Community, a community that is essential to the cultural and economic fabric of this country. It is our resilience, respect and love for one another that has helped us persevere throughout the century. This moment is just a chapter in our story in this land. Only together will we overcome the impossible once again. Now it is my honor to introduce our opening performance, a missionbased group of traditional dancers with origins from the valley of modern day mexico city. [drumming]. [drumming]. [drumming]. [drumming]. [indiscernible speech]. Gracias. Thank you very much. Gracias. [speaking foreign language] i want to thank today we are traditional dancers here from the Mission District. [speaking foreign language] viva las americas. We are here, its an honor to be here and we are very proud to represent all the cultures from mexico through all the south. Viva las americas. Gracias. I first met, gosh, over 30 years ago, and i remember the first time i met her, and here was this grand woman full of confidence and just this presence, and i thought, wow. Almost 20 years ago when she first began her journey through the department of public health. She had great capacity from the very moment i met her. What i saw in her was an ability to see things in a much higher scale than most people. She was on a quest, a vision quest. When maria would say i can help you with that, she was going to be full on making sure that she did what she promised she would do. Her was all about making sure that were heard. After her passing, there were ways in which i didnt even realize she was working with the people and the hath that she had. She just had joy. She walked through life with a sense of [indiscernible]. Certainly her passion for art and for the artists in her believed that art is essential to create change, to carry that through in whatever she did. Every community has something to offer to the city, and she worked very hard to make sure that that was echoed in the cultural centers. It was important for her to listen to artists and Cultural Workers and staff and bringing their ideas to the table and leading in that way. One of her biggest loves, her main love, espanola. She was raised to be the beautiful woman that she is, she has left so many gifts for palloma, and paloma was the greatest joy for maria. For sure when she left this earth, she felt loved. Its such an honor to speak to her today and to call her name, and i want to thank all the Community Members for this celebration, the latino heritage, that shes being recognized. Its very important that we never forget her and to keep her memory alive. And the passing of her from so many different people and all these different projects and within the health department, just about how much she meant to them in terms of her encouragement and her leadership and her mentoring of people, from all ages and all walks of life, and thats a huge impact and legacy that she has left. She had an ability to see things in people that sometimes the person themselves could not see. I certainly benefited from that. What she would leave that i couldnt accomplish, things at a time i wasnt sure i could accomplish, and i felt like maria believed in me, then i could do my best. Maria martinez was an incredible leader in our community, and we miss her deeply. A sincere thank you, gracias, to her daughter, paloma, who is watching tonight, for sharing your mother with the world. Your communities here for you and your familia as we grieve this tremendous loss. Now, i have the honor of introducing our host, the 45th mayor of the city and county of San Francisco, mayor london breed. Good evening. Thank you so much for that introduction, rodrigo. It is so great to have a reason to dress up. I wish we could be at city hall right now to celebrate together in the rotunda, but we are still able to have an event that celebrates and honors our incredible resilient and united Latino Community. Thank you again, rodrigo, for serving as our emcee tonight and for our Host Committee for their hard work. That tribute video for maria x. Martinez was absolutely incredible, and i know that her legacy and the work that she did for not only the Latino Community but for the arts and so many other people throughout this city will live on through her work. Tonight we are here to honor a community that has faced significant hardships and difficulties this year, but who has also stepped up to the challenge and showed the world what it is made of. This community has worked to minimize the impacts of covid19 in our Latino Community, but despite our early focus on equity and collaboration with the community, disparities have persisted. We know the numbers. Nearly half of all covid19 cases in San Francisco are in the Latino Community despite only being 15 of our citys population. These numbers are proof that what we are doing was not enough. This Community Organized and advocated for more funding and more resources, and i am proud to work with them and our City Department to deliver. And this is just the beginning. We need to continue working together, not just to minimize these impacts but to go above and beyond in supporting one another and creating longterm and impactful changes beyond covid19. This includes economic and workforce development, housing, Food Security and family support, and of course other resources for our residents and our small businesses. It includes making sure that our Latino Community is not only in the room but at the table when these decisions and policies are being made. It means supporting our latinoowned businesses from the mission to visitation valley to the excelsior. It means standing together, always united, to push for more equality and just in all of our diverse communities. Tonight we honor that unity and that spirit of community that fuels our work. And as one of our honorees might say, feed the soul. I hope you all order from your favorite latinoowned restaurant for dinner tonight in place of our regular reception. I have my tacos, my crispy tacos, from puerto alegra, which i absolutely love. We have a wonderful show in store for you tonight. Well be honoring three amazing leaders, roger, melva, roberto, people that i absolutely love and adore, folks who are doing incredible things in the community. There will be some more amazing performances, some spoken word, and even some comedy. The arts are how we truly celebrate and lift up our cultures, especially in San Francisco. While we recognize the immense hardships and difficulties that we all have faced over the years, but especially in our Latino Community, tonight we celebrate hope, hope that well emerge from this pandemic stronger and more resilient than ever before, hope that we will inspire future generations of leaders to step up and to serve like the many leaders who are stepping up today. Hope that well always be united. Thank you all again for tuning in, and i hope you enjoy tonights celebrations. Thank you, mayor breed. Now id like to take a moment to recognize an Incredible Group of latina and latino leaders and organizations that are working to meet the needs of our Community Members citywide, the San Francisco Latino Task Force on covid19 is collectively minimizing the barriers between latino and latina families and the Resources Available by the city and county of San Francisco, the state of california, and nationwide. They are the greatest example of community uniting to provide and support one another. Its a group of organizations that are working together to minimize the impacts that covid is having on latinos. We have a number of committees to make sure that latinos have access to resources, to make sure that latinos stay alive and healthy and safe, and they have what they need to not only be healthy but to just thrive in the city of San Francisco. The Food Distribution is one of the most crucial gifts that we can give as a community to our community. It is a matter of economic and financial survival. They dont have to worry about using the money to go to food. They can pay their rent or they can pay bills, so during covid, if we can keep our community fed and sustained in a healthy way, they can survive in other ways. They can figure out the other ways to survive. The need that were seeing spans across young people, parents, grandparents, immigrant folks, people who dont have access to technology, people who dont understand how unemployment works or how governmental systems and bureaucracies work, so one of the things were really proud about with lts as far as the resources is that all of the services and employments that we have, they are offered in person. Thats intentional, right, that theres somebody who looks like you who speaks your language who can explain things to you in a way that makes sense. We also have a testing hub. We try to target the Latino Community, the undocumented community, and also the essential services for this community. We try to make sure that we target that population because as the data shows we are 51 of the positive cases. One of the things about growing up in the mission and learning from our elders and our activists is that we do things in a way that is very its with selfdetermination, and our value system and our Guiding Principles are this community led, community implemented and community driven. With those three Guiding Principles, we decide how things are done in this community. Thats really how it works, is we call upon each other to come and support. We need volunteers to give away food, we show up. We need people to staff our resource hub upstairs, we show up. Thats just the nature of the community and thats the nature of the community that we lead. Good evening, everyone. It is an honor for me and i am moved to play the distinct role of introducing to you the recipients of the community award. Roberto has deep roots in the mission community, and throughout his life he had exercised passion in every single advocacy role that he played with our community. He is a father. He is a grandfather. Most recently a young congratulations, roberto, by the way. Roberto has a unique talent of feeding and quenching our thirst for culture and bands and music throughout San Francisco. However, most recently due to the covid19 pandemic thats mostly affecting latino families in San Francisco, he has taken up a role in distributing thousands of food bags throughout the city and primarily from 701 alabama street. Thank you, roberto. I appreciate you. I love you, my good brother, and most importantly i want to say that i take joy, much joy, in those calls that you make where you start the conversation with a couple of hilarious jokes that make it difficult to remember the rest of the conversation. [speaking spanish]. Were here at the Mission Food Hub which i started actually out of my house back in march, and through april, and then the need just kept growing, and so i was able to work with our Community Partners who own the building here. A shout out to them for giving us this space. Started in may on Cinco De Mayo and started with 500 families and the need just kept growing and growing and the lines kept growing, and so today we are now servicing 7,000 families three days out of the week. Whats really cool is that we provide latinoculturally appropriate food for our bags. For me, it feeds my soul, my heart, my spirit, my mind that ive been able to collectively work with hundreds of volunteers to provide the most basic human need for people during this crisis, and i really believe that food needs not only your stomach but it feeds your mind and it feeds your body. For me its been a miracle of how not one Single Person that i reached out to to come help have told me now, to this day, and in fact, people have told me thank you. I say, no, thank you, and its been beautiful for me to know that theres so much amore and so much love that is within the Latino Community, and even outside the Latino Community, of people that from all races have contributed in one way or another to get us through this crisis. This award recognizes the miracle that has happened here in the mission and that just organically grew and now supports people in the excelsior, the valley and the bayview, and its just, like, grown. And for me, its a blessing, you know, to be surrounded with so many people who just care and are dedicated and committed to human life. Our second performer is a social justice advocate who uses the power of art and spoken word to organize, educate and heal communities. She is a bilingual poet, muralist, Community Educator and organizer hailing from San Francisco, california. Her passions have taken her around the u. S. And the world to places like spain, france, belgium and morocco. You can also find her murals in art galleries, restaurants and various businesses throughout San Francisco, oakland and valejo. Please join me in welcoming her. I dedicate to the peacekeepers, everyone who put down the gun and picked up the pen to write, to make art, poetry and posters for rallies. This one is for you. And for anyone who fight against gun violence. I woke up at 2 31 a. M. To rounds going off. I dropped to the floor, heart beat accelerated. Are you okay . I checked for survivors and i skipped myself. Trauma, its an outofbody experience. And gunshots this friday night proved the plague of violence is a direct correlation with mattresses on the floor. Symptomology includes surviving by any means necessary. Encompass the death of children and young adults. Hurry, call 911, and tell them another innocent person got shot today by pain, desperation, poverty, racism and depression. The glock is still hot from setting off three rounds, pop, pop, pop nine left in the clip and nine millimeters never felt so big. Car scrapes off, burning rubber, leaving fingerprints on concrete, evidence blood shed and regret. Fast cars revving, making geometric landmarks. We call those hood scars. The Coroners Office is calling someones mama tonight to deliver heartbreak and trauma. Your child was identified by the coroner. You can pick up the body once you choose a mortuary. Call us back once youre ready. Case number, we dont care. You can pick up the body monday at earliest. Enemies are out for vengeance, blood for blood, eye for an eye, causing the same cycle to repeat again, same nightmare tomorrow, same time, same place. Living in hostile territory creates mutations in behavior where we dont sleep near windows, we dont stack bunk beds, we dont start fights we cant win. We close every curtain and shade. We lock every window and door before bed. We say our prayers before we sleep because bullets have no name. We close our eyes to dreams and just a moments sleep when another driveby wakes us up again, fire on both sides means is dead, can i get off this roller coaster of emotion . No im told bullets take no days off. So we drop the cover, palms sweating, heart racing, automatic responses to hit the pavement, so mattresses are purposely left on the floor for safety. Thank you very much. My name is sports to fly. Can you follow me on instagram and facebook at force to fly to see my tour throughout mexico. Thank you for your time. Good afternoon. Im here to introduce this years recipient of the neighbor award. Its my great honor to introduce roger. I go way back with him, when he was just a youngster, organizing his Mission District, organize his block, his family, his neighbors against an unlawful eviction during that time. And i got to meet him as an organizer, got to really see his revolutionary spirit, eagerness, his boldness to just, you know, fight for the rights of people, and i see it to this day as president of the twu, 258, and so im just proud of him. Im proud to introduce him. Hes my comrade, my confidentant, good friend. For many of us, a great source of pride, and we look forward to so we looked at him to do many more amazing big things, fight for the needs of our people. My name is roger moreko, president of the transport workers local 258. Ive been in this position for approximately two years now. I started working in driving about seven years now i believe, and one of the reasons why i got involved with the union is i saw that there was sort of a need to organize the membership and to mobilize our workforce, and so me being a grassroots organizer and a mass mobilizer in district nine, the Mission District, i decided to get involved, and i started pumping people up, getting them ready, getting them educated, teaching them about whatever the case may be, you know. Little things here and there. How to get involved, why to get involved, what actions to take and why its important just to get involved in general. Being an operator for me, i guess i would have to say that its a way to express the vital essential services that we as transit operators provide. What do i mean by that . I mean that i consider the transit operators to be givers of life. We give life to this city. We are the bloodline that gives life to this city. Without us, nobody goes to work, school, church, shopping, the doctors office, nothing happens without muni transit operators, and so thats what that means to me, that im a giver of life. I give life to this city in the same way that all my other Union Brothers and sisters, transit operators, give life to this city. Thats what that means to me. It means a lot being recognized for my work. I guess if i had to sum it all up, id have to say it gives hope, hopeful meaning that the struggle continues, the struggle lives on, and theres hope in terms of us continuing to educate ourselves, organize ourselves, mobilize ourselves so we can continue pushing our issues forward, pushing our agenda forward in terms of acquiring better working conditions, improving our overall General Health and safety, the wellbeing of our members. So i would say that this award means hope. I wasnt born in the city and county of San Francisco. I come from elsewhere, but i was pretty much raised here in district nine, the Mission District, and receiving this award as a latino man is once again i have to refer back to the word hope. It gives me and all my other latino brothers and sisters hope and an understanding that city hall is watching, city hall is listening and city hall is acting in some way, shape or form. So im very grateful. Im proud, and its an honor receiving this award. Congratulations, roger. Now its time for a few laughs. Our next performer is known for her work in Solo Performance and standup comedy, and for being one of the first openly lesbian performers in the nation. She has appeared on logo, showtime, Comedy Central and hbo. She also teaches Solo Performance in classrooms and online and is a tenured artist and resident at our beloved brava theater. Please join me in welcoming maria gomez. Im marga gomez. If youre bilingual, im marga gomez. Im sending you a big from brava theater, San Francisco to San Francisco city hall. I hope that you are all enjoying this ceremony, and congratulations to the honorees and that we are feeling the community, the power of familia and that we are motivated to take care of each other and this world. I am motivated. I am motivated today, even though i have a terrible headache. Ive had a headache since last night when i watched the president ial debate. Oh, oh, i watched the debate, and i dont know how you felt, but im like, oh, i wish this was on zoom because on zoom theres a mute button. So many insults, so many belittling digs. I felt like i was back in couples therapy. But i am single now, senoras. Senoras is a spanish word for ladies. Im trying to get whos spanish, check this out. [speaking spanish]. I am not just here to celebrate with my beloved community. Im not just here to ask you to vote, because if you are at this event, youre going to vote. Im asking you, everyone who can hear me and see me right now, if you have not volunteered already, please take a volunteer shift at a phone bank or a volunteer shift to send letters out to the contested states. And if you volunteered already, volunteer again. Im volunteering for a phone bank tomorrow. I havent done that in ten years when they sent me home because i was too temperamental. I just have a problem with the undecided voters, you know, and they set you up, and they tell you just read the script, and im an actor, i should be able to read a script, but i go off. I go off. I go rogue. Im like, yes, oh, thats nice, yes, oh, so much to talk to you, yes. Youre undecided, huh . Well, now that youve heard me, do you plan to go to the polls and vote on tuesday . And they are like. Make up your mind. Whats wrong with you . Thats not how you do it. You got to do it, like, you know who would be good phone banking . That singer adel. I know this is this latinx heritage month, but she has latino hair. Im going to go hello, its me the volunteer, i was wondering after these four years if youd like to vote. Because if you dont vote, we might not have four more years of anything, and i dont want to single i dont want to call anybody out in this debate, you know, because i know that its city hall and were bipartisan, so i didnt say who it was. Or is it bisexual . I dont know. I get so confused in San Francisco. Muchos gracias. Good evening. As we celebrate latinx heritage month, first i want to thank mayor breed for her leadership and support for the Latino Community. Im here today to introduce dolores puerto. Shes my mentor for over 50 years she has distinguished herself for her leadership around civil rights, immigrant justice and liberal rights, and im so honored to be here to this award for her legacy in our community and deep commitment. Shes so focused on centering the community at the forefront of the movement, and thats why im very honored to be here tonight. Thank you, and for your continued leadership. I want to thank the mayor, mayor london breed, for this honor. I want to thank all of those in the community who chose us to receive this incredible award. I want to thank the team which makes it possible for us to serve the people. And of course the board of directors of my organization which are amazing and supportive of everything i do. And this is not about today. Doing for the people is not just now under covid19. Beginning with my own family who has supported me in everything ive done for so many years. You know, like my husband, my daughters, my son. I have to have a special shoutout to my granddaughter vivien, and for my grandchild n grandchildren. Its the award im being honored today who coined that saying, and it means a lot. Yes, we can. And when you work in unity with your peers, when you work with unity with your city officials and you have unity in purpose, yes, we can. And for that we are eternally grateful. When we think about the people, just think about good trouble. We think about the time. We think about, you know, serve the people, and those, its exactly the struggle for so many years to do good, to do what you supposed to do, and to do whats necessary. And that for me is very important, and that is what has guided my trajectory in life in terms of seeing what makes the results and we listen to what people need. Its very important. At the same time, we have to be able to lead and to take that stand when sometimes it makes other people uncomfortable. But you know that thats what you need to do. So thank you so much and continue the struggle serving the people. Maria x. Martinez and other members of the Community Fought for response to the crisis at our border that was rooted in love and respect. Through this song, the artists are calling attention to the cruel and injust caging Migrant Children and families due to the zero tolerance policy put in place by the current administration. The project also demands the Immediate Release of all migrants held in such detention centers, and for a path to permanent status to be created for them. If this is really the home of the brave, may our kids not be hopeless for you have the courage to walk through a perilous fight with a child in your arms our children are sacred our children are beautiful our children are human our children are sacred [singing in spanish] our children are sacred, our children are beautiful, our children are human, our children are sacred here they come, arms wide open to the and they come. [singing rap style] [singing in spanish]. Our children are sacred we welcome and embrace them our children are sacred and give them the love our children are sacred we declare that sanctuary our children are sacred building bridges, not walls our children are sacred we must protect our children our children are sacred show them how, that love is really real our children are sacred they got to know, got to know, got to know that love, love is in the world our children are sacred our children are sacred our children are sacred our children are sacred our children are sacred our children are. All right, everybody, now were ready for some musica. Our next performer is not just a group of dancers, though. They also pride themselves on teaching the younger generations the traditions and techniques of brazilian dance and to develop confidence, discipline and cultural consciousness. They have won many awards for the performances in San Francisco, especially right here in the city. Their dances unite us in joy, spirit and rhythm. Please welcome them. [drumming]. [drumming]. [applause] to close out tonights celebration, im excited to introduce our final performers. Two cousins pioneering a new blend urban sound mixing hip hop, reggae and dance hall music. This grammynominated duo has set out to inspire fellow performers to become successful no matter the circumstances. They call themselves the businessmen. I call them the future. Please join me in welcoming them. [speaking foreign language] raka [speaking spanish]. Thank you, guys for having us. Make sure you look for us on our website, losrakas. Com. Thank you, gracias for joining us tonight as we celebrate our latino heritage month. I humbly ask that we all do a few things to stay united and strong. Shop local, support localowned latino restaurants and businesses, not just this month but year round. Businesses in the latino cultural district, the greater mission, the excelsior, soma, bayview, the tenderloin and all over the city. Stay informed and educated with sources like the newspaper, the oldest and longestrunning bilingual newspaper in california who this year is celebrating 50 years of resistance. Stay connected to resources through the Latino Task Force located on 701 alabama street where you can find resources related to covid19, food, free testing, financial assistance, housing resources. Vote and take the census. Let your voice and presence be heard and counted. We are essential, so let us not become invisible inside our own nation. And lastly, stay positive, focused and spiritually grounded. [speaking spanish]