Transcripts For SFGTV SFMTA Board Of Directors 20240711

We have concerns about the accountability section of the plan. Specifically the lack of clarity around how feed paback will wor. Furthermore, we would like to see key indicators and metrics for successful implementation of the Racial Equity action plan shared at the beginning of each quarter with various Infinity Groups within the agency. Thank director borden for your comments. Sfmta executive team and our m. T. A. Board of directors on the implementation of the plan including proactive plan to report on key indicators and metrics as well as the opportunities to address challenges within the plan as they arrive. We know this is a draft. We might have to pivot. We want to make sure that Infinity Groups are part of that conversation in office of engagement. We are supportive of the plan and ensure right processes in place to ensure effective implement takes. Director tumlin, you mentioned you havent been able to meet with all at the groups. We to look forward to you attending your first latinx meeting. We will be very happy to have you there. Chair borden thank you so much. Board members, did you have any questions . Vice chair eaken i want to pick up on your comment around idea of more staff. Understand, i hear that loud and clear, we have heard a lot about the Budget Constraints and reality. I think its in los angeles they have an office of sustainability with a very small staff. The various departments are also ask to designate lead for their department. I want wonder if were in position where we dont have funding for other staff to build out that gap. Can you look at interim strategy of designated like a Racial Equity lead for each of the division at least touch point for the different areas of the agency who could meet with with the Racial Equity lead with some frequency and put some portion of brain space towards this topic. Its not a perfect solution. I wonder if it would help take a step providing more capacity for that person . I think thats a great point. We started like that what happened because the pandemic, lot of the Staff Members that were involved in the Racial Equity action plan, lot of us have done quite fine because of the pandemic. During this time, its been really hard, even under the model what youre describing, to add this work because were trying to do essential government work. Pandemic aside, that can be a great model. Pandemic with the do of the challenges, it adds another challenge to implement effectively. If i may chime in. Board members, you understand the situation that were facing. Director tumlin were working quickly as possible to shrink the agency. We have to shred as many workers as attrition to avoid layoffs. What that means reducing our services. Were having to cut back on every single thing that the agency does. We need to cut back further in order to allow existing staff to be able to do this necessary Racial Equity work. Im grateful to the project Management Team, the Racial Equity action plan, many of whom have been working far beyond their usual 40 hour weeks to accommodate this plan. That is not sustainable. In order to do this work, weve got to reallocate staff time and reduce the amount of services we deliver to the public. That is decision that we need to make in an era of constrained resources. Particularly given m. Complaints that you heard from the public and well continue to hear about increase the services that we provide to the public and reducing the cost of the services to our customers, we are operating in an era of constrained and rapidly shrinking resources. Im committed to continuing to do this work. It does come at a price. Chair borden are there any other questions . Thank you so much for your presentation. We look forward to hearing from you more frequently on our action plan. Thank you all for supporting each other. Its a really critical work. Thank you. Next up we have tracy good afternoon everybody. My name is tracy nagucci. The work we do is a group as not in isolation. Its coordinated with colleague of color and Infinity Groups. Were here to support request from our colleagues and baag and the latinx Infinity Group. We like to acknowledge all the tremendous work that our colleagues put in this plan. We like to recognize the current climate and context for this plan. As mayor pointed out, city data shows persistent inequities with respect to wages and promotional opportunities. Most notably black employees with lower paying positions its only as good as execution, it is not the end of the work we need to do towards Racial Equity at sfmta. It became clear that not everyone was on the same page about the state of our agency or the need to improve outcomes. Many of those who wrote this plan were low level staff who approached the work close whichs outside their normal work. They have not always met universal support. This shows the need much more normal station around antiracism, how to recognize racism when you see it and what to do when its pointed out to you especially if youre white. We recognize this is constrained project. We urge the board to hold the agency fully accountable for the implementation and progress were counting on to make this plan a success. We support this plan. We look forward to real change at sfmta to improve the outcomes we see. Some of the truths weve heard of the inequities at sfmta make us uncomfortable as white people. We urge all of the white people in the highest positions of power listening here today, t to sit with that discomfort and instead of pushing it away. When our colleagues who are black and indigenous or people of color tell us they are experiencing racism, believe them. When outcomes are statistics show us that racism here at sfmta recognize that and dont try to argue it away. James ball wi baldwin, nothig can be changed until it is away. White supremacy largely manifest itself in tiny judgments we make. They stack up. Our approach to interviews and approach to promotions, things we let slide from other white colleagues, thing we dont back up black and brown colleagues on. We would like likely argue their experience or diminish. We need to be able to see White Supremacy in our decisions and actions as white people or we will never change the system that we created and maintained. Resist the urge to defend the status quo. It wont be comfortable. Thank you. Chair borden thank you so much. Thank you for being such a great ally. Board members you have any questions . Thank you so much. Were going to have Public Comment. There might be questions. I want to ask grace, who presented the Racial Equity plan if she wanted to add anything to the Infinity Group. Generally, i agree with everyone that spoken from the other groups. We stand in solidarity. Definitely support the plan. Im looking forward to seeing accountability and making sure the plan goes into execution. Ill leave it at that. Chair borden great. Are there any pressing questions . If not i will open to Public Comment. Moderator, open the line for Public Comment. First speaker please. Good afternoon. Im a Transportation Planning manager who has been at sfmta for other five years. Im part of the white people working against racism group. I want you to know that racism is a alive and well at sfmta. You might miss it as a white person and you can see it everywhere from the lack of diversity of leadership and Management Team to the shocking disparities in discipline. Im here to ask you to listen to black and brown colleagues. The agency is facing a tough budgetary situation. Please challenge us to do more with the resources that we have and prioritize Racial Equity work. Challenge us to fully staff office of Racial Equity and inclusion. What i hear my black and brown colleagues saying, what sfmta doing now is not enough. I see the data showing the same thing. Please expect more of us, please listen to what they are asking you today. Thank you. Chair borden thank you very much. Next caller. My name is devon anderson. Im the employee with sfmta 9160 transportation operation specialist. Im calling to im also a part of the baag group as well. Im calling to relay my support of the Racial Equity action plan. It is important and long time coming. We need the board, the director of transportation and rest of the team to invest their support and dedicate funding so that the plan can be realized. Thats all i have to say. Thank you. Chair borden next speaker please. As an m. T. A. Rider, i think its great that you guys are making this effort. I want to touch on something regarding equity being extremely important. I think the idea of calling discipline may not be the best. Pulling back from that may get us to a point where we have issue like with police union where its nearly impossible to discipline folks. The core issue is now the hopefuls are applied. This falls on your managers, if you have a manager with high level of direct reports, any company that indicates a poor manager. Is should not pips should not be a common thing. One thing i didnt hear constitutes is ensuring that the union is diverse among leadership and who it represents. Just as you can have managers who discipline unequally, they can be enabled by a union that defends its members. I would encourage sfmta when youre looking at an overall Racial Justice plan, not only look internally look at the composition of the Union Leadership that you are partnering with. If the union itself is heavily white, you can run into the same sort of subconscious conscious issueissues that you trying to eliminate from yourself. Chair borden next speaker please. Hello. I wanted to say on this item, i think lot of the issues start with the disconnect between management and front line employees. I seen it happen at bus terminals will inspectors will sit in their truck and not say anything to an operator, two weeks later theyre in the office. Theyre getting written up for being not having correct sign and they got it from it inspector. Instead of getting out the truck, they sat in the truck wrote a report without communicating. Its key of communicating to people and instead of management hiding in their offices and truck and not ever connecting with employees. I think its really important to get the board, get managers, riding the buses and connecting with front line employees, seeing what its like. As much as you can thank the employees, if you dont really know what it is that they are dealing with, you cant make informed decisions on anything. Thats my comment. Chair borden thank you. Next speaker please. Im a member of the black and africanamerican Infinity Group. Im also part of the communications division. I want to support all the Infinity Groups that i want to uplift the comments made from councilmember earlier. Especially looking to equity as part of a subcommittee. I want to get your support and other Board Members to ensure that we have open communications from the executive team as well as all the Infinity Groups. Thank you so much. Chair borden next speaker please. My name is charles. I use pronouns, he, him. Im 24year employee at sfmta and member of sfmtas white people working against racism. These comments are my own. I support the statement and presentation of the sfmta black and africanamerican Infinity Group. If black sfmta employees were the only ones impacted by Structural Racism at this agency, it would require that we address and eliminate antiblackness at this agency. It goes further. Individuals who perpetuate antiblack policies are also harming themselves and are harming our public. Antiblackness is preventing this agency from putting out its best work by forcing us to direct the energy that could be spent serving the public into dealing with the effect of antiblack actions. I believe the time spent on eliminating antiblackness and other racism from the agency will be more than covered by improved productivity from staff who can focus fully on their work. I urge the sfmta board and sfmta director to support this change both by policy and by deed. Especially Restorative Justice process. I support the statement and presentation of the sfmta black and Infinity Group. Thank you. Chair borden thank you for calling in. Next speaker please. Let me first begin by thanking the Infinity Groups for their hard work and also i long have mentioned to others that support is integral in this process. Jeff tumlin has been somewhat, i would say, truthfully supportive. As i stress to him from the beginning, communication is key in the organization over 6000 and transparency. Most i want to thank donte king for his work. Wearing five hats, one person, i was surprised they didnt have a nervous breakdown. We have to have adequate staffing. He did not. I ask more than three times mr. Tumlin and ms. Kimberly ackerman when that position will be filled. Lot of progress was made with donte king. He touched on subjects that normally and now still make people uncomfortable even though he provided extremely high quality education information and helped us come together as a team as coworkers to without rancor, understand and become educated as how racism works, how systemic and builtin it is in the sfmta. I totally support the Infinity Groups with their work. I support the plan but theres much more work and accountability to believe that. Thank you. Chair borden thank you so much for calling in. Next speaker please. Hello sfmta board of directors. My name is jesse moore. Implementation of the Racial Equity action plan and regarding implementation of the Deloris Blanding report. You will hear presentations Current Conditions can are better than they are. Its too hard or too expensive. I watched best colleagues leave sfmta. Theres outrage. After having been at the agency and seeing the crises around john haley and seeing lack of action to address the harm that john haley inflicted. I watch my colleges breakdown and cry at work. Now another crises is occurring at e. E. O. This is the backdrop trying to put our best foot forward and service to the public. I thank you. Chair borden thank you for your comments and sharing your experiences. Next speaker please. Good afternoon chair borden, Board Members. My name is dustin white. Im also an sfmta employee, i work as a transportation planner. Im also a member of the white people working against racism group. Im here today to lend my voice and support for black and brown colleagues and ask you urgently prioritize every tool at your disposal to address the ongoing racial inequities. As we continue to cope with the pandemic, difficult tradeoffs must be made. As we consider these tradeoffs, i believe we will do a great disservice, look to our employees and public if we fail to adequately resource the Racial Equity action plan. Prioritize continued actions to dismantle Structural Racism within our agency. Im very grateful for the dedicated staff who have gone above and beyond far normal job duties to develop the Racial Equity action plan. To gather feedback from across the agency. It is unrealistic to expect this plan to be successful if we rely on existing staff to implement, update and track progress. As a starting point, i believe this work requires the hiring of Racial Equity and inclusion officer along with a team of supporting staff. I look forward to your leadership to ensure that we do not continue to fall short of our agencys values of racial outcomes. Thank you. Chair borden thank you. Next speaker please. Good afternoon. Directors, im tracy lens. Im the acting chiefly equity strategic within the sfmta Emergency Response team. Im also member of the asian Infinity Group. I speak personally for myself. Im in support of the six action items with the black and africanamerican Infinity Group as shown in the data conveyed by sfmta staff and my lived experiences and the experiences of my black and brown colleagues, theres much work to do to address racism. There must be concrete action and there must be true decisionmaking power for the office of Racial Equity and inclusion. This is the nature of all equity work within our agency as well as within our daytoday job as staff of color. We deserve to have our work to be respected, heard and acknowledged and have narrative believed and prioritized. Even worse, talking about change without meaningful action is equivalent gas lighting everyone who helped develop that framework. We have lot of to do but installs the right organizational structures and taking the right action, we can greatly advance sfmtas antiracism work today. Thank you. [please stand by] i urge the board and the executive team to acknowledge and address this in advance of onboarding a race Equity Inclusion officer so we do not cause the same harms to any other employees of color working at Racial Equity. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. You have two questions remaining. Clerk next speaker. Caller hi, yes, good afternoon. My name is mareiany maguire with the sfmta, and with white people working against racism groups. I want to commend the truly heroic work that is taking place over the course of this year to initiate meaningful change and in the midst of a pandemic, no less. Many of my colleagues have put tireless effort to address the racial problems at sfmta and set up on a Critical Path with much work to do ahead, work that requires investments, support, commitment, encourage and peace. I would like to associate myself with the many comments by and in support of my black and brown colleagues. And ask that you urgently prioritize the policies and practices for dismantling institutionalized racial inequity within the agency. We have seen and heard the data and some of the lived experiences. These are not new, which is why we need to tackle these issues with vigor. And in the last eight months, the agency has proven that it can overcome obstacles and drive hard changes with innovative approaches. We can dismantle racism at sfmta if we want to. With that in mind, i encourage that the draft i want to mention that the draft and Racial Equity plan is a thoughtful piece of work. I encourage the board to support adopting this robust plan in full and ask for the agency to do the hard i thinks, not just the easy ones. The Racial Equity officer, the r. E. A. Officer is responsible for supporting the implementation of the plan and as you have heard, to be successful the position really needs to be supported with staff. So as we look ahead to our future budgetary needs, please prioritize this staffing, whether by existing staff and then eventually hiring fulltime positions. Chair and board, i am so glad that you asked the Community Groups to be part of the structure. And director eaken, thank you for thinking about discipline. And kathys comments are spot on about this, we need to move away from a primarily punitive concept. Lets ensure that changes will be real and systemic and institutional this time as a model for the city. Clerk thank you so much for calling in. Next speaker, please. You have two questions remaining. Clerk next speaker. Caller hello, i am assistant engineer at sfmta and i wanted to just call as a member of black and africanamerican affinity groups in solidarity with kathy and the presentation that she did today. And i am happy to see the implementation of the Racial Equity implementation plan. Thank you. Clerk thank you so much for calling. Next speaker, please. You have one question remaining. Clerk next speaker . Caller hi, this is kristin michael. Im a principal planner for the development and transportation Integration Team of sfmta. I want to highlight the importance of hiring support staff for the Racial Equity inclusion officer. Dante was a transformational leader for sfmta and created a safe space for people of all backgrounds to face the racism around us, to examine our own bias and to take action to make the agency a better place. However, one person alone is not responsible to change an entire agency. It needs a staff that can translate that into policies and as you have heard from the analysis of disciplinary actions presented today, colleagues of color continue to be harmed by existing system. As you heard from grace, and the sfmta staff are doing this work their nights and weekends in addition to the normal workload. And we know that when agencies value is found in its budget. I urge you to recognize this is a key moment are moment for the sfmta to build trust with colleagues of color that have been harmed. A new Racial Equity office with at least two staff has a safe space for support and protection and represents personnel dedicated to building antiracism within sfmtas culture. It also gives the ability to empelement the action plan that so much good work has gone through. The staff at all levels are committed to antiracism. We need our leadership to challenge that into permanent change. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Are there any other final callers on the line for this item . You have one question remaining. Clerk next speaker, please. Caller hi, good afternoon, chair borden and Board Members. I am Travis Richards and a transportation planner in the Transit Division of the m. T. A. I am calling in today because of someone who receives unearned privilege because of my whiteness. I wanted to echo the words of my black and brown colleagues today who have spoken about e. A. O. And d. H. R. Processes and also the disproportionate burden that black people at the sfmta are experiencing when it comes to disciplinary actions. As an agency, we are always striving for transformative multimodel solution whens it comes to the planning of our transportation projects. For example, when it comes to advancing vision zero, we work across the departments to make our streets safer. As you know for years we have been even been attempting to change state law to empower us to use a new tool of automated Speed Enforcement to save lives. As part of our response to covid19, many m. T. A. Staff are part of the multidisciplinary teams that are innovating programs like slowed streets and shared spaces to keep us all healthy to face a challenge that none of us have ever encountered before. I urge you all as Board Members to listen to what my black and brokebrown colleagues have shard today and look for transformative solution whens it comes to addressing the harm of our black colleagues they are face will it matters that their health and their wellbeing and their lives matter more. Thank you for your time. Clerk thank you. Moderator, any additional callers on the line . You have zero questions remaining. Chair borden thank you, we close Public Comment. Thank you for calling in, and for sharing your thoughts. We are listening, we are interested, and we will be working on this. So i just want you to know that we want to thank you for your dedication in making the agency better and we hope that you will have faith to work with us. Work on the Racial Equity action plan. And with various groups to make sure that the m. T. A. That we want to be does become the organization that everybody wants to work for and everyone feels that is inclusive and opening and welcoming environment. So i want to thank you all for that. Move on to director comments. I see director lai was nice to hold her comment from before, but now well start with you. Commissioner lai great, thank you, chair board. And i also want to just echo thanking the staff for putting this very detailed and robust action plan together. And for all of the commenters that we need your participation and partnership in this very important work. And i feel that i probably missed part of the development of where we, you know, how we got to this point. It sounds like there was some request and work that was asked of asked of m. T. A. Even before july when the citywide policy came into effect. And i look forward to i think retroactively learning more about that, how we got to this point. But i think that im going to start by asking, you know, part of the the dynamic that i think that i am starting to appreciate is as a lot of people have already pointed out, that we certainly have a resource challenge here and, jeff, you very much already so touched on that point. But i think that most of the action plan resource asks are really related to level one and two staff time. Which i think that if im remembering it correctly from reviewing the plan, its really using existing staff time. So i guess that i have a question for jeff or whoever else is managing this. What does that look like if we were to carry out this plan in its current form, current draft form. Do we have any vague ideas of what it would mean in terms of what we would have to sacrifice . I dont know if thats even a fair question to ask at this point because its still a draft. And, secondly, multiple speakers mentioned the need the urgent need to fully staff the Racial Equity office, not just hiring an officer. What does that mean . I dont think that i saw in the materials what a fully staffed situation looks like . So ill try to tackle all of those those questions. So, first of all, the report that was referenced is the delores blanding report who was an ombudsperson appointed by the mayor of sfmta who delivered a report just under two years ago. And h. R. Director Kimberly Ackerman will give a report in the next item on what has been accomplished and the work that remains to be done, the work that remains to be done, folded into the Racial Equity action plan. As far as how well accomplish this work, back in january when we were first working very, very quickly to try to make permanent the race and equity action im sorry the Racial Equity action officer and create a staff around that person, that work obviously got interrupted by covid. And now were in a very different financial situation. So as one of the speakers suggested, one of the things that we have gotten extraordinarily good at during covid is forming Multidivisional Task forces to get stuff done in the agency. Covid forced us to be a lot more efficient and a lot more collaborative. I believe that that is also the right approach for dealing with our Racial Equity problems. Dealing with Racial Equity problems requires Touching Every division in the agency and its going to require the engagement of a broad diversity of our workforce. So, obviously, we are continuing to move forward with hiring our Racial Equity officer. We are interviews have been rescheduled several times and i believe that they are finally on my calendar later this week to start. So the our Racial Equity lead will be responsible for convening and it will be my task as well as the Division Lead task to figure out what are the crossdivisional teams that are necessary in order to implement the work. And what work burden needs to be taken off those peoples shoulders in order to be able to actually do the work. And what that means is that we will be able to deliver less service to the public. All of these considerations need to be balanced against each other. Much of our equity work for dealing with the deep equity needs of san franciscans is all about our service delivery. And we know that budget is going to force us to scale back our delivery of service and dealing with our internal Racial Equity work will also require us to scale back our services. So what i am suggesting, however, is that our Racial Equity action work internal to the agency is absolutely essential for us to be skillful at delivering our external work. So were going to need to sacrifice a little bit of our service in order to be able to clean up our own house in an era when we are having to shrink the number of people at the agency as quickly as we possibly can. Commissioner lai okay, so it sounds like its too early to put it in terms of quantifiable staff hours. But i hear you. That makes sense to us. I think that the necessary to right the ship. I think that one of the very insightful things that staffs presentation included was this difference of experience between managers and nonmanagers. I didnt see anything in the action plan and i was hoping that this might come up in the next items presentation but perhaps we can briefly address it. Is there currently, like, a 360 review from staff to managers . For the senior for the executive team, there is. So our executive team has something that is actually new that i imposed this year. It is all of us got a 360 review, including myself. And that 360 review includeddor executive peers, and also our direct reports and in some cases some other people in the organization. That 360 review did not, however, necessarily include line staff. So we are in the process of well, if you go in and you look at the Racial Equity plan, the majority of the work tasks occur in Human Resources. Human resources was down to about a 50 staffing level when Kimberly Ackerman joined the agency. The still significantly understaffed. And so that is actually also one of the areas where one of the few areas in the organization where we will be increasing staff, is in h. R. Because having a strong h. R. Division is essential whether were growing or shrinking as an agency and it is essential for all of the equity work that we need to get done. Commissioner lai thank you for that context. That is helpful for me to kind of frame the understanding. I think that part of my concern is that i actually, based on past comments and in discussion, it seems to me that its really, really important for to us make sure that we integrate this work at all levels of what we do, and all levels of management, not just with h. R. And so although i am absolutely in support of the plan and i do think that we should move forward with it, i hope that we will have additional opportunities to make sure that we are having representative and i think impactful action not just with h. R. , you know, because historically h. R. Has not helped solve all of these Racial Equity issues. So i just want to make sure that we are tapping into all divisions to participate in this. And that we are thoughtful and thinking about how, you know, the line workers, the group that you mentioned, you know, their issues are definitely being observed and addressed and regularly reported. I think that the comments that have been made about, you know, even what has been stated in the plan supporting regular recording is really important. We certainly shouldnt be waiting until the end of the year and then realizing that were not meeting our objectives. I definitely also support the recommendations for the m. T. A. Boards commitments, those all make sense to me. I think that one more thing that i just wanted to highlight is that, you know, even the way that we are doings this current hearing and for the public to engage although very important is problematic. And inequitable in itself, because only those with flexible jobs can really call in. And they cant call in at 4 48 in the afternoon. So i want to make sure that as we continue to do this that we are making sure that we are being fair with our outreach and being very, very mindful that the data is proving to us that the majority of the actions is really taken against our Transit Division who, again, i dont know if theyre being reached the same way as our professional classification staff. So i just wanted to make sure that we keep that in mind. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And the issue of all of our frontline crews who work specific shifts and not only in the Racial Equity action work but also its more challenging for them to participate in training. So that obstacle is specifically identified in the plan as something that we need to dreatsz. This is not unique to sfmta. So its another thing that we will be doing is looking at how other organizations have solved these problems. Chair borden thank you, director lai. Any other comments before we move on to director eaken . Director eaken . Vicechair eaken so, yes, just to build on director lais great question. I want to think about building out even a lauded team to support the Racial Equity officer. Clearly, you know, its additional staff and staff cost money but, i guess that the request is in the context of december 1st well have a budget, director tumlin, a workshop conversation i dont know. I think that it would be worth having the conversation if we wanted to price out, like, two additional staff or something to support this person, to give them a fighting chance of success. It doesnt seem that it would break the bank to have two additional staff. So if you could run the numbers and bring that to us and something that we could all discuss. And were all saying the right things and yet, you know, it would be a very, very tough position to just have one staff and not have a team. So i would like to have that conversation, whether we think that is worth a decision to just resource this office to start with with a couple more staff. I am certainly happy to have that conversation. It is also a conversation that we can have and make a decision on that later. So, for example, we have an interesting array of candidates that well be interviewing. Each whom would like to take a different approach to applying our work in the agency. And so one possibility might be to if if you are certain about the assessment of risk in creating new positions now, we can create them, and then not actually fill them until we have more confidence about our financial viability as well as direction from the new Racial Equity action leader about those priorities. I have a question related to that staffing, actually. The role that dante king vacated, is that now an open role plus the new role that were hiring for. So is that only a new role . We created a permanent position and in addition were finalizing the process of creating a separate ombudsperson role, recognizing that as many speakers pointed out, dante king ttook on one more responsibility than any one human could possibly take on. That is one thing that we should actually clarify. Is that the current budget and our hiring process includes two individuals. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Director eaken, any further comments . Thank you, madam chair. Just two quick followups. And i realize that i believe that the second phase of this work is dealing with external issues and this one was internal. But i believe, and someone can correct me if im wrong, that the data that we got from the black Employee Group on the disparity in disciplining, doesnt some of that come from complaints from the public as well . And not just internal disputes of one kind or another . Yes, so well be dealing with the details on discipline in the next presentation, including a detailed breakdown of where the discipline is occurring by group, by demographics, and then also by pods. Including understanding some of those discipline causes are more subjective than others. So, for example, customer complaints have a lot more opportunity for bias than, say, a safety violation like running a red light. Right, look, i just think that the scope of this work is appropriately, not only inside of the agency, but outside. And we have a responsibility to try to provide our employees an environment where theyre not subject to racially motivated accusations or the like. So thats good to hear, that well be getting to that. And, quickly, i do want to second what i have heard from i think many of my colleagues already about not being pennywise and pound foolish with implementation of these new strategies. I think that the worst thing that we could do is to get peoples hopes up and then not deliver. And i certainly agree with the strategy of lets avoid layoffs to the extent possible, but if we were just, for example, avoiding the layoff of three people when three people here three new people would mean the difference between success or failure, i think thats a tradeoff that wed want to talk about. So i look forward to the Budget Discussion as well and i hope that we can tease this question out separately and to examine and consider those tradeoffs. Thank you. Chair borden thank you. Any additional questions . Or comments from Board Members. If not, i think that at this point theres no action to be taken at this time on this item. So well move on to our next item. But, again, i want to thank all of the affinity groups for all of your hard work and helping to push the agent on the Racial Equity plan. I want to thank all of the staff and the team and everyone involved in the Racial Equity plan. We have a lot of work to move the ball forward. So we all look to you to help to keep us informed and we will be paying a much more vigilant role in Going Forward to ensure that these issues are at the forefront of our work. Clerk that puts us on number 12, and discussion and possible action with the sfmta quarterly report, including the blanding report. Chair borden we have Kimberly Ackerman, our h. R. Director and virginia harmond, with contract and procedure, and the e. A. O. Officer. Miss ackerman . Hi, good evening. Thank you so much i appreciate it chair borden and directors. I appreciate the ability to update you on the blanding report updates. And im going to also talk about what we have accomplished and things that we have to accomplish moving forward. And as director tumlin mentioned, there are the things that we havent accomplished and we are actually leaving those in with the Racial Equity action plan. Well talk a bit more in detail about that. please stand by i want to thank virginia harmon for her collaboration and support and bringing framework of Racial Equity action plan. Im going to share my screen so we can move into this. Well jump into it. He did great job setting up the report and how it came to be. We took the blanding report, the recommendations and we put it together and defined key main focus areas. One, is area of hr in the organization. Third area is h. R. Staffing h. R. Training and the responsibilities within h. R. The fourth area was training support in the workplace culture. We talked about that today and were going to talk little bit more detail and answer some questions that has been asked. In the fifth area is discipline and corrective action. I will take each one of the objectives and broken them down these five focus areas. As we go through them, youll see if theres a check mark beside it. It means we have addressed it. It doesnt mean that its just addressed and done. Its means its addressed and ongoing. If you see a circle, it means its an action item pending, maybe theres some framework that begun to be developed. Theres lot more work that we need to accomplish. Well jump into h. R. Visibility. She said that in her observation that h. R. Was not responsive to information requests, there seem to be issues regarding emails and there needs to be better improved Customer Service and improved visibility within the organization. I thought it was really important to mention how thats something that really we have been focusing on in terms of visibility, especially during time of shelterinplace and during this pandemic. We have taken staff within other units within h. R. We have five different areas that i mentioned and five different Business Units in h. R. We assigned them and put them in our return to work so we can provide better visibility and better Customer Service to our employees. It was interesting to note that from march to october, during the covid19 shelterinplace, really intense period, they return to work team has respond to over 9000 emails from march to october. In october alone, have responded to 425 calls. For fy 19 and and 20 they responded to 5500. Thats is a staff of six people who done that. Its interesting, i heard lot about staffing and you mention that one of the things was the shortage in staffing. There has been and the team has been dedicated to make sure to try to provide enhanced Customer Service. One things that we have been committed is communicating. I hear lot about communicating, making sure there are updates. We sent over hundred emails about benefits and telecommuting, employees went to shelterinplace, what about their laptop, how did they get supplies, can they take equipment from their office. Benefit changes. We sent tout updates before we went into shelterinplace. In march, we worked to rebrand our internet so that each Business Unit within h. R. Unit has presence on the internet. Its another way to include that connection, that engagement and that visibility with employees. Employewhat is their function. Who works in h. R. , who do i call if i have a problem. Who can i reach out to . Those are services that we want to communicate to our employees if they have that knowledge. Another service that we offer within, hr, i call in unsung heroes. Its our peer assistance program. We have three peers on staff in h. R. For fy 19 and 20 they responded to 161 cases. They work actually at the division level. They work at the division satellite and offices. They are there to be another resource to employees. Of the 161 cases some of them wanted to have someone to talk to. Sometimes they wanted to talk about life work issue and wanted to know to call for Employee Assistance program. They provide one on one services to front line employees. This year, they offer specialized presentation to field operations. Just one example, they had several sessions. We talked being visible to our shift employees. They will give presentations about deescalation, about how to handle certain situations. Providing service and information regarding the Employee Assistance program. Im really proud of their engagement and the support they did provide to front line employees. Another thing that im proud of in terms of visibility that we have accomplished at sfmta, we have created data policy. There are several data metrics that we are committed to h. R. Team as well as in conjunction with e. E. O. And virginia harmon and her relationship. Commit to providing biannually and we post on our internet and various demographics whether its discipline, whether its information how far they commute, about the general demographics. We have this all identified in our policy and were committed to communicating that twice a year. We do post that on our internet as well. I think its another way that we are showing commitment to our employees in terms of enhanced visibility, transparency and Customer Service. Small thing and important, employees need to know who to call. We do update and provide resources to managers. I want to mention, one of the things too Deloris Blanding mentioned, news letter is another way to updating employee. We have biweekly news letter that we send out to all staff through email and Communications Team helps with that. Its important to mention, we dont just communicate via email, we also have an operator portal where we post information. I make sure that employee engaged with our union leaders. This year, probably four or five months, able to get another group of employees and get them email access. Another way were trying to make sure that were visible and using our technology to the best advantage that we can. The other area that Doris Blanding focused on was e. E. O. Compliance. This part,ly turn over to my colleague virginia harmon who is our e. E. O. Officer. She will provide the update on the rule of the e. E. O. Is defined with the sfmta. In compliance with the regulations is condition receipt of federal funds. It requires that we do several things, including resolving e. E. O. Complaints. That function for sfmta is handled outside of our agency through a work order with another City Department. The Citys Department of Human Resources. Were also obligated to report demographics and employment practices, review and hiring process, set goals to adjust workforce gaps and recommend corrective actions and provide e. E. O. Training. These functions are handled by the internal sfmta e. E. O. Office which is myself, tony battle, who handles hiring reviews and training and supervisor training support and unit the sfmta e. E. O. Office is subject to review by the federal Transit Administration every three years during the f. T. A. Training and review. With respect to the blanding report, number one, f. T. A. Regulations require that the e. E. O. Officer reports to the department of transportation. We long established that reporting relationship to the department of transportation. Number two, one of the recommendations of the Deloris Blanding report was to separate e. E. O. Compliance from e. E. O. Management. E. E. O. Complaints are investigated outside of the sfmta in a citywide process by the Citys Department of Human Resources. Given the issues that have surfaced regarding e. E. O. Investigations conducted bethe City Department of human resource, including the frauder waited by the staff, the mayor office developed a approach to improve city wide function to audit performed by a law professor, Professor William gold and city comptroller office. One of the issue we continue to struggle with referral is none. E. O. Complaints but the e. I. Re. E. O. Complaints process. Number four, we presently received quarterly and annual reports from reports on sfmta complaints. Our Human Resources section is working to further improve the process by working with d. H. R. To establish Mediation Program providing an alternate process to resolve complaints. Next slide shows the proposed new reporting structure for adjusting complaints. Lets hope that this new reporting structure will create visibility and accountability and improve complaint referral for prompt resolution. Director brinkman in response to your earlier question as manager of supervisors, we need to take responsibility for our handling of our internal employee complaints both e. E. O. And none. E. O. With regard to complaint followup, the corrective action, complaint followup is built into corrective action which is implemented by sfmta management. Ill pass presentation back over to director kim ackerman. Thank you. Chair borden does that conclude your portion for now . I will go to the next slide. The other area that deloris talked about h. R. Staffing and training. One that you heard a lot jeff talk about in terms of h. R. Staffing and need to hire more h. R. Team. One of the things i wanted to start on number four on here, this slide, which talks about Employee Relations team. I want to mention this first and foremost. That really has been very important for us to move forward to make sure that we had that team properly staffed. Im please to say that our manager started on monday. Im very excited. We actually since i started last september, i gone through four specific posting and interviewing. Its four posting to get to this point. Im excited to have her on board. We have three additional vacancies. We have seven staff. With her, we have eight and well have plenty more to complete and round out that team. Deloris blanding mentioned the about documentation training and specific training for the h. R. Analyst. Thats going to be a priority for the e. L. R. Manager moving forward. Well be focusing on additional training for them regarding employee misconduct, the whistleblower complaints were handled through chief of staff. That will go through the e. L. R. Team and we have someone focusing on that. Couple of other things that are important on this slide that i want to point out. Deloris blanding talked about the h. R. Liaison. She really wanted she mentioned about what is their role. Im proud to say that we have worked hard on that. We developed an h. R. And does help to define the h. R. Liaisons role within the organization. Talked about really how they varies and really helps the manager through the hiring process and the bureaucracy of the agency. Theyre also more than that too. They are critical. They help keep the h. R. Team engaged with the field staff and whats happening and whats going on. They have been instrumental as we go through the covid19. They will be lifelong with us. Say, these are some things that are going on in the field. We identified h. R. Recruitment policy that we workeed on together. Whenever theres a position and a manager wants to fill a position, that manager has to go through the hiring process just like everyone else. So it is a competitive process. That way Everybody Knows everybody playing by the same rules and everybody has to go through the same process. Virginia and i really committed to that and since that policy has come in place, we have not been doing direct appointments, engaging managers with the competitive process. The last thing that i want to mention on this slide number seven. One of the recommendations of the Deloris Blanding report was establishing office hours within the different divisions and basically having an e. L. R. Analyst go to different divisions. This is something you can see. Thats really something that we have really pushed on for couple of reasons. We dont have the staffing to do that at this point. We are in shelterinplace and lot of our staff is working remotely. Then thirdly, one of the things that im tasking my e. L. R. Manager with, how can we make our profits more efficient so that way we dont necessarily have to be out if the field but we can use technology. We are working through that. I know thats the priority that past e. L. R manager does. Well be providing more information. Another area that Deloris Blanding talked about in addition to h. R. Staffing and training but to training to support our workplace culture. Im really excited about this. Workforce Development Team has been working hard on these specific areas. One of the things that Deloris Blanding says, we need to have all of our m. T. A. Supervisors and managers complete 24 plus. Its a Training Provided by d. H. R. Right now, we say that it is mandatory. You can see theres circles here on this one. That is one of the things that we want to do next year as we want to make it mandatory and make sure holding managers accountable and have them attend the training. It wouldnt be for new managers it will be for current managers, make sure they are attending but its not just one time. Its also refresher training. The reason i have circles, i want to get my e. L. R. Manager and workforce manager to collaborate. It is important to mention, i know Deloris Blanding talked about the training model for unacceptable conduct. The d. H. R. Does offer the online 24 plus training for managers and supervisors which does has module for conduct. Workforce Development Team provides specific training for our senior managers on identifying, responding to immediately to inappropriate conduct. Thats one area Deloris Blanding talked about. They provide training on respect in the workplace, emotional intelligence, they have workshop for senior managers. We provide senior managers training once a month. E. E. O. , virginia harmon and her team going through training to field staff as needed. I want to mention here, for fy 19 and 20 we have 660 employees that receive respect in the workplace training. We want to make that have all 6000 employees trained. We will move the ball forward on that. One of the things Deloris Blanding talked about was brown bag training sessions on various topics. Thats something we are doing. We are doing lunch and learns that we offer to employees on stress management, managing employees and supervisorring employees while working remotely. Weve had lot of conversations today about the Performance Management. We did roll out a new Performance Management tool and policy this fall. Its been four months ago. We also incorporated assessments part of that. We want to meet that need. Definitely moving in the right direction on that. Weve had training develop. I want to hold employees accountable. One of the ways to do that holding managers accountable. Incorporate those metrics and those goals with the Performance Management evaluation tool. Well provide more information to our manager and supervisors, to provide training and support to them but also holding them accountable through the Performance Management process. We are going to be providing Community Training on gender inclusion and communicationing across cultures. Workforce team is really doing great job in terms of providing training support. Well be providing leadership training for midlevel americasa managers as well. We want to provide training to our managers. The next area that i want to mention discipline and corrective action. Also Deloris Blanding three areas that she recommended that we provide that m. T. A. Need to provide some Additional Resources for. One of the establish new system to direct corrective action. She recommend a Case Management of disciplinary action. She wanted also to recommend to blew workman comp. These three have all open circle. All of these are really kind of wrapped up recommendations as part of the Racial Equity action plan. Weve identified time frame for these as well but for all of the objectives. We also identified parts responsible for it. In this one here, it will be my e. L. R. Manager. We will be responsible for putting together corrective action policy, a form that managers will use, a process to make sure were retaining that information. One of the things we have to look at is the metrics. Who are are the managers that are giving the discipline. Is it manager giving it one manager in one division have significant amount of disciplinary action as opposed to another manager and why. What are the corrective action look like they are giving. We have to make sure that we have all of that and were retaining and we have record of retention process as well as i want to make sure that we have process for e. L. R. Review and approval. Once we get pulled this together, we have this as an objective in Racial Equity action plan which will be accomplished next year. Second part of that is to make sure once we get through that process, make sure were training our managers. They understand the policy, they understand the expectations. They understand the process for retention and engagement with e. L. R. And what that, looks like. We mentioned in the Racial Equity action plan, better Case Management module. Making sure we evaluate the discipline. It will be kind of Case Management model looking to take e. L. R. Staff and managers and staff within the different televisions and working with them to review the disciplinary action before its actually given to the employee. Thats going to be another phasedin process that well have to work through with our Management Team to get their buyin to get an understanding and move forward with that recommendation. The third one i mentioned about itsing up internal process of compliance and investigation intervention, virginia, really mentioned this, thats going to involve person who will triage the complaints and triage them as an e. E. O. Or through e. L. R. That will involve that complaint tracking tool. We also reference in Racial Equity action plan. That we have in place for next year for 21 to have accomplish as well. Those are the various five areas that Deloris Blanding really focused on. I think its important for us to mention our next step too. We want to make sure that were communicating our accomplishment and who were doing and not doing. What were not doing, meaning what we havent accomplished yet. We are working with the Performance Group and working on a blanding report card which we will show our progress and well post it on the m. T. A. Internet. Well be working with my Management Team and Performance Team will have that in february of next year. Well update that periodically. E. L. R. Team will start working in january on all the various disciplinary action. We are committed to providing blanding report update in march of next year. Well up date employees on that. Continue working with the team to accomplish justice. We have objectives in that document, not just from the discipline but improvement and hiring and promotions. It goes back to the first thing, which was one of my first priorities which director tumlin talked about, to fulfill all h. R. Vacancies. Were working toward that. Thats overview of where we are and i thank you for your time and your engagement today and your support. Chair borden thank you very much. I know this is the report has been something people have been eager to get an update on the status. Well start off with ms. Broussard. And what we need to do to get to the finish line. Thank you for letting me speak. Thank you director for your report. I wanted to piggy back. I know i spoken about Racial Equity action plan, i wanted to find out, im speaking on behalf of the baag, b and africanamerican Infinity Group members with the statistics reported with regards to the Human Resources department in the statistics are incredibly high. They show that black and africanamerican employees continue to be aggressively disciplined. I didnt hear anything about that i in the report. I hear that everything will be a continuance and looked at later. The Deloris Blanding report came out in 2019. Were going into 2021. The black and africanamerican Infinity Group finds issues with that. Digging up a sea shelby the ocean. It was buried in the Deloris Blanding report was never implemented. To say everybody is looking for buyin and it needs to be discussed. I think Deloris Blandings report was the finding discussion and it should be implemented. The black and africanamerican incident if infinity, when u have policies and procedures in place, we will continue to see the same harmful outcome. That brings up another issue whereas black and africanamerican employees were 100 of the sfmta population that were on the Performance Improvement plan. This is another avenue that has been weaponized against blacks and africanamericans. Is sfmta, Human Resources department, are we looking at what managers and supervisors did with black and africanamerican employees. Is it matter of manager and supervisors own racial bias showing up. Thats where corrective action is needed. Thats a big issue for the black and africanamerican Infinity Group. The statistics showing otherwise. Is there something that h. R. Is looking at where they look at where the bias are coming in . We also express that all managers and supervisors be mandated to take donte kings training. This training proved to be very effective and continue to do to have a major impact. As it allows, many employees of all races from across the agency to understand, address and selfreflect on their individual bias and how those biases impact black employees which leads them managers and supervisors as of statistic reflect now, we are being disciplined because we exist. This is a very serious problem. We spoken to countless black employees, we sat at the table with you and director tumlin and weve had a seat at the table but statistics have not changed. Weve heard complaints from vast amount of the employees where theres just a very serious problem inherent bias towards black and africanamerican employees. We are not only mistreated in the workplace, we are degraded. Even in the h. R. Process. Meaning were not chosen, even when weapon rank higher than our nonblack counterparting when we rank one or two on the list. Why is there a scientific methodology needed to understand treat and black africanamerican employees with the same integrity in nonblack employees. Were constantly put in position to show how white people how to treat black people. These are the people who assume the role as leaders at the agency. Were tired of telling upper management members how to treat black and africanamerican employees. We will no longer how these individuals hide behind the unconscious bias when the statistics shows implicit bias. When sfmta do better and it becomes to choice to remain implicit. These are not the only instances of antiblack racism within the agency that keep black and africanamerican employees on high alert. This is happening everyday. Fighting against bias and fighting structural and institutional racism. This is not only impacts the employee but the family of those employees that depend in most instances, on their single income to provide for their family. Stress levels for antiblack racism impact have remained high an continue to increase. As we see more black employees treated for high blood pressure, Mental Health issues and even diabetes, for being some of the lowest paid group of workers and not being able to afford healthier food for their family as nonblack employing employin colleagues can eagle do. Easily do. We also heard issues about managers going after employees video taping the employee cubicle and berating the employees. Employees are not passed up for jobs, theyre being asked to train the new person when they are capable of holding that job. Creating more pathways is one of the things thats been talked about. We need less talk and more action. Accountability, there needs to be a level of accountability against all managers and supervisors to comply with the citywide Racial Equity action plan that Deloris Blanding report and all other policies and procedures set forth by the city and county of San Francisco. Starting with the Diverse Panel to oversee that all disciplinary actions are properly managed before the employee is charged with the offense. As it stands current, the Labor Relations department is not that diverse. The same type of review panel should have also have oversight for the applicant Selection Process during hiring. Having to deidentify a person just to get selected for an interview doesnt help. When they show up, that candidate that was identified will show up as a black person. All applications need to go through a review panel that is diverse to ensure fair selection. The problem lies with the people doing the selection. All bias loop hopes and gaps need top filled is this what we call fit . How can we fit in if we can never get in . With regard to securing future employment, its not happening. Bringing on new person that will report to e. E. O. Rather than prioritized as director reporting instead directly to the directors of sfmta, thats how it should look. This structuring will allow all sfmta employees to be better served by placing the ombus person. When the rebuilding about trust, how can you rebuild something without knowing the history behind it . It needs to start with the root. You need to understand how it started. Rebuilding cannot and will not happen if we do not have black voices involved in these narratives and transparency. Not black voices that can be manipulated to speak from a white adjacent perspective but a black voice that can be helpful. Trust is very peculiar. Thats a very peculiar word in the black community i see that in the report. Black people have been very trusting at sfmta and it has been weaponized against us. Trust has been weaponized black and africanamerican employees. Trust can lead us to getting fired and trust has also gotten black people killed. We have trusted far too long and it hasnt worked. If you do not have strategic trust, you will not have personal or organizational transaction trust. Asking managers and supervisors to treat employees fairly. Nothing is fair. Its subjective and depend on who its coming from to determine whether or not its there. Without proper training and understands, fair is just a word to fill just on paper. With the recent spotlight on the e. E. O. And d. H. R. Process as it pertains to black and africanamericans and cases reduced and dismissed and black persons complaining. The entire process needs to be revamped. The problem and issues will remain the same. I close with this. People often talk about what their legacy is or what its going to be. I can say that i would rather be remembered for standing up for those that were disenfranchised and marginalized. People speak about the last four years of this presidency and how its been oppressive and host he this. Persist our this is our dayin and day out. This is what our lens looks like for the last 400 years. This is our experience in the workplace. We are labeled, we are targeted, dismiss the, stereotyped, reduced, overlooked, isolated, dehumanized and unsupported in our role by managers and supervisors within the agency. For those of you that have the power to reflect change, lets join forces to mission because in the end, the cheapest price to pay is attention. I mean that. The cheapest price to pay is attention. Thank you. Chair borden thank you very much for those powerful words. I do have a question. I know i talked but and others is about implicit bias training. I know theres creation of tools in the various reports. I had mentioned to board of directors. Every year we have to do training. What i mentioned in our conversation, there are tasks where you can find what your biases are like you take answer these questions and it tells you that youre biased and do that before the training. It helps people to identify that they have an issue. It becomes a thing where people discover something about themselves. Where would that live . How are we going to implement that . Is there a plan to do Something Like that . That is really kind of grouped together. One of the things we want to work on that and we want to meet where Union Partners for next year. Absolutely. Chair borden are there any questions before i move through Infinity Group leaders to express their concerns about the report . Im here as a representative of the asian Infinity Group. This is a fresh group. We came together just couple of months ago building on the momentum that donte king helped cultivate. Were looking to use the space to speak about personal experiences, learn from one another and share resources. Also come together to support and advocate for Racial Equity in our agency. We share the concerns already stated regarding lack of representation and leadership. For asianamericans we continue to struggle as the bamboo feeling. We maybe perceived lack in communication or lim skill leadership skills. Theres misconception that asianamericans are monolithic group. Together, however, we stand in solidarity with the other Infinity Groups. We thank you for the opportunity. Thank you also director ackerman for the progress update on the Deloris Blanding report recommendations. Human resources, visibility and responsiveness has improved and consistent updates are appreciated. There has been many accomplishments from the h. R. Team including collaborative work on the corrective action plan. Chair borden were all getting sounds. Theres been many accomplishments from the h. R. Team including the collaborative work on the corrective action plan that the pandemic presented. While we acknowledge all of the he wa efforts, we still have g ways to go in addressing some of the concerns that the initial blanding report recommendations were meant to resolve. In regard to e. E. O. Reporting compliance. We have to acknowledge the e. E. O. Process. A black employee was targeted. This situation is another example of racism and specifically antiblackness that we need to address. While this specific situation is a d. H. R. Issue, it does further add to the distress among m. T. A. Embrees regar de employees ro the e. E. O. Process. To reiterate, there needs to be systems implemented to prevent this situation from happening again. While mayor breed has called detailed investigation, any recommendations that follow will not be available for quite some time. State leadership to push d of d. H. R. To identify immediate steps. Employees still feel since of unease. This leads to our second request on the matter that of the ombus person. It was noted that the m. T. A. s new ombus person will report to the e. E. O. Officer. The asian Infinity Group finds this unandabl unacceptable and contradiction to Deloris Blanding. Let me read that remdesivir bay recommendation. The current plan to have have the ombus report to be e. E. O. Officer with certain individual in a difficult position to audit direct Supervisors Program and responsibility. This undermines any gains in trust, especially considering the d. H. R. E. E. O. Concerns mentioned. The asian Infinity Group stands on this issue, the ombus person should report to the m. T. A. Director so that they can effectively do their intended job. We have all staff call yesterday by far, one topic received the most reaction from staff. Director tumlin spoke on that call about distrust in the e. E. O. Process. Unfortunately not all staff share that same confidence. When every single one of the blanding report recommendations has not been implemented. The m. T. A. May have guidance regarding an e. E. O. Officer but our understanding is theres no guidance regarding the ombus person. We hope that these concerns conveyed by staff yesterday and the recommendation by Deloris Blanding are not dismiss the. Discipline and corrective action. As i noted earlier in the Racial Equity action plan piece, theres disparities how the agency handles disciplinary action. I will share some fiscal year 2020 disciplines. Black employees relate 28 of our workforce but account for 50 of discipline. Some of my colleagues have taken exception to referencing this date point. Let me just isolate the stat to the Transit Division. Black employees represent 32 of the Transit Division, yet account for 52 of the total discipline in transit. Lets break that down by gender. Black employees represent 20 of the Transit Division but 30 of transit discipline. As noted in my presentation earlier, black female employees represent 12 of the Transit Division and 20 of transit discipline. I know im sharing lot of numbers. I want to highlight one last one. Disproportionate discipline really does impact our black female employees the most. Even looking at just female transit employees within the very specific section of the workforce. Black female employees represent 73 of all transit workers but 90 . 90 transit discipline. These are statistics given to us by h. R. E. E. O. That was lot of data but my point is now heart now you want t no matter how you want to slice it and dice it, theres issues how the agency handles discipline. What the numbers equate are actual people. We have documents of inconsistency application of discipline in which black employees received harsher corrective action than white employees that committed the same infraction. While the Racial Equity action plan identifies the need to eventually form policies we have to acknowledge the immediate action, employees than air livelihoods are impacted. We have many conversations about how to present all the data i just shared. It will be great if we spent as much time and energy on Time Solutions and addressing the problem. While there are plans to address the landing blanding recommendationing, theres no clear identification of immediate relief. Its colleagues that are already interested and invested and in engaged in equity work that shows up for corrective action update. These are the employees providing us early and continuous feedback on the plan. This is just an observation since we dont currently have numbers of data on training and attendance. The office of Racial Equity need to have decisionmaking power separate from the other m. T. A. Workers so accountability can be realized. Ill end by speaking to my own personal experience with our workplace culture. As someone involved in the Racial Equity action plan, project management as well as the formation of the asian Infinity Group, i can say that we still have quite some ways to go. Im fairly new to the agency. I started not too long after director tumlin in late january. Every City Department has issues. But the m. T. A. Is truly special. We have equity issues exacerbated by staff and history of toxic documented behavior that people trying to heal from. As i carry this as a new managr of the agency. It can be debilitating and at time its find yourself speechless. There was recommended action that fell into their team scope of work. She said she owed the project Management Team and staff no explanation. Her position in the agency was so high up that she didnt owe the staff an explanation. Lethis is just one example of te kind of interactions that the project team has to deal with. Just negotiating for change at the agency. I hate to call out our team members and publicly but i feel like it has to be said. I share this from a point of love and care for the future of our agency and for the black and brown colleagues that do not feel safe in sharing their experiences for fear of retribution without accountability to Racial Equity action plan as well as the Deloris Blanding report becomes more meaning of words. I thank you all for taking the time to listen to me again and allowing me to share and being open. Thank you so much for director lai for reaching out few weeks ago to connect asian Infinity Group. We hope to continue open dialogue with you. Director lai we extend that invitation to the rest of the board. Chair borden thank you all for the hard work and bringing to our attention the issues than i realized. Culture is a big word and it doesnt mean necessarily anything specifically it means lot of different individual things. The issue around race and equity wasnt discussed part of the racial issues. People just boiled it down to moral problem and understaff. It was not a real genuine conversation, it really had to do with race and gender. I really thank you both for talking about this. It does bring up couple of questions, i do have a question for jeff. I know we still have anna and tracy who want to speak, i have a question about ombudsman and talk about what we can do related to discipline. How quickly we can get to doing something there. I will let anna and tracy if you want to chime in if you want to address the issues. Thank you director borden. We latinx and Infinity Group stand in solidarity with black and american Infinity Group. We shouldnt have to wait for corrective action for stuff to take place. We share concerns with other Infinity Groups within the action, that ombudsman should not report to the e. E. O. Officer but directly to director tumlin. Current reporting structure puts the ombudsman in difficult position. This is very concerning and should be corrected. We request quarterly. Dates to the various infinite ity groups within the m. T. A. With regards to the Deloris Blanding. We would not only appreciate to being kept up odate, we appreciate the opportunity to share feedback and thoughts to help address challenges and communicate progress to our colleagues. This is a concern raised at our latinx meeting yesterday. It will be great to need to have someone to speak to and more comfortable expressing. That will be great for employees to speak other languages as well. Thank you for taking the time to listen to us today. Latinx Infinity Group hopes to continue open dialogue with Senior Management and board. We hop you take the opportunity to engage with us and all of the Infinity Groups within the agency. I want to say, i really appreciate the Board Members that have met with the respective Infinity Group. We appreciate much of the progress that has been made on the Deloris Blanding there are few issues. Her report indicated that the new ombudsman report to the e. E. O. Officer. This is unacceptable. In order to be effective they must be able to work independently and report to the director of transportation. This does not demonstrate commitment to the ombudsman. Lack of independence for this role is a bad idea. Weve seen alarming outcomes for black colleague around discipline at the sfmta. Black men and black women are disproportionately impacted. We call for commitmenting and building new processes and practices that will reduce racism in the agencys disciplinary outcomes. Ones that dont rely on punitive measures. We should move towards more effective models. We believe that it should be required that all division directors, managers, supervisor supervisors undergo implicit bias training. We believe the agency should incorporate racial bias competencies. We advocate for the planning and dedication and Adequate Funding and Staff Resources to create a fully functional Racial Equity team. Its too much work for one person. Chair borden i want to thank you all for sharing your comments. This is a very personal issue. Im a black woman. I have been called threatening aggressive, all kinds of things for standing up for myself, for speaking out, doing things that other men will do. Ive been ignored in conversation where i spoken anarchal thought iandi understa. What its like to walk in this world and not to be taken seriously as you should to be in the role that youre in. Looked at like a token. I get it. I want you to know that we are here today because we get it i think as a board, we want to advance making this agency place to work. It shouldnt ever be that way. I want you to understand that we are 100 in your corner. We are 100 want to agency to be best employer within the city and county of San Francisco. Were going to be hard time. Its not going to be easy. Were listening to you. We want to implement the things that youve been talking about. One of the first questions for jeff whats the rationale around the ombudsman . Its an important question. I do not accept the future in which the Citys Department of Human Resources e. E. O. Process is completely broken and dysfunctional. It has problems now. Which is why im taking the direction of the mayor and working with d. H. R. Director and her team of outside experts in order to reform the city wide e. E. O. Process. Similarly, i feel very strongly that here at sfmta, our e. E. O. , im trying to give the ombudsman strong team and location it needs. In the way that i manage and also through the dotted line on the org chart, its important to me that the ombudsperson have direct line of communication straight to me. Part of the ombudsperson function is also Holding Confidence around issues around the e. E. O. Officer. Im trying to have things both ways. Knowing that ultimately what i need is a team of people who are responsible for making sure that every employee in this agency is respected, feel safe, have someone to talk to and very importantly, someone who is responsible for carrying out the functions that are necessary to avoid having e. E. O. In place to begin with. When we have an e. E. O. Complaint, thats an indication of complete management failure. The e. E. O. Process the way its structured is fundamentally unsatisfying. E. E. O. Process is not managerrable problems its a legalistic process. My goal is ombudsperson will take care of the mediation, who can do the deep listening, who can recommend additional training for the manager, who can improve communication and importantly, talk to the managers who are directly responsible and also the managers who manage the people who are spik so we can solve these problems from the root rather than simply punishing those who misbehave. That punishment mechanism has to be there. Chair borden the ombudsperson needsly to report to you and they can have direct line to e. E. O. I dont see a conflict there. Think its making sure that this person feels empowered to do their work without fear of the other people around them. That is the reason that i think that everyone else feels strongly in this area. I wanted to get a sense of i understand what you trying to accomplish, i understand the larger picture. For immediately moving things forward, if we can structure is differently to be direct report to you, i think that is far better. When Deloris Blanding brought in, she was oh she didnt report in to anybody. I think that made a lot of sense. I dont know if other directors have anything to say. Director lai actually, trying to follow the train of conversation. Jeff, i do respect your opinion and director ackermans evaluation. I think what i am not quite understanding is what is the downside of having the ombudsperson under you as a solid line direct report. What are we losing by doing that . I want to make sure i understand your concerns. Director tumlin part of its a concern of my own. Im failing a manager because i have to many direct reports. Theres a belief within this agency that one does not get attention from me unless one is a direct report. Im resisting additional direct reports for selfish reasons and span of control reasons. The larger reason is really about the need for the ombudsperson to not be isolated. Its a huge role and Needs Support Team around it. There is an existing support team built in to the existing e. E. O. Office as well as Technical Support there in order to help make sure that person is successful. I recognize that i may be thinking imperfection that were not right yet. Director lai i appreciate that. I think that your concerns around capacity and your Attention Span capacity is a legitimate one. My limited ability to absorb the dynamics here, i think the important thing about the ombudsperson position, it has strong access to you and be independent, very independent. I think theres fear, correct me if im wrong, it sounds like theres fear that the ombudsperson is too closely tied to the e. E. O. Structure that there will not be sufficient process in trust. Im struggling for ar the words. To me i think what Infinity Groups are asking for is that we keep the e. E. O. Ombudsperson separate. Thats pretty clear. They are insisting to have very direct access to you, which you already responding that, regardless of the line, theres going to be strong seas access o that. Base the on constraints and concern and us hearing ombudsman position. S there another alternative structure that would address the concerns . We certainly dont want to force more direct reports under jeff and nobody gets enough attention. That will probably be the worse case scenario. Multiple managers are not going to be able to function well. I do think that is something that warrants a little bit of thought and discussion. I want to make sure were thinking through the issues. Chair borden did you want to Say Something to director lais comment . I think having an additional direct report, i know that you have a lot of people that report to you, jeff, if you see it as being really important and top priority, i think having an excellent ombudsperson come on staff, they will not be reporting to you with lot of the other critical departments problems. I think this person would have the expertise to handle it. I think that having one additional person to report to you, we dont feel it will be challenging to you. It will be better served that the person does report directly to you. I dont understand one additional person and the priority. Youve always said that you want to make this a priority. I think now is the time to do that for us. I say that with all due respect. I think that person should be allowed to report to you because we deserve better. We deserve it. It felt like all these years walking in a job and youre walking into a place of employment and feel not wanted there or youre mistreated. As a black person, a black woman and a person that just went through so much and im still able to stand. I need you as my leader to stand up for us. I lived a life of watching countless africanamericans be harmed in a lot of ways and quite frankly, im tired of being harmed. Im tired and my colleagues are tired of being harmed. I think that this person should report to you. I think you should prioritize us as people that have been marginalized. See us as important. Thats all i have to say. For years, no one has. Now is the time. We can talk about coming back out of covid, well go right back to our same issues. Our issues as black people, has never ended. The opportunity when it comes for someone like you in power to stand up and stand up for everyone at the agency. The ombudsperson is going to represent everyone but more importantly the people that have been impacted the most are us. I ask as our leader to do whats right. At the end of the day, that will be your legacy. What did you do for the employees at sfmta. I want to let you know that we are here. Were here to help in any other way we can help the ombudsperson to do our job. Im part of several groups. Im part of the outstanding workplace committee. Were doing our job. Weve aligned with other Infinity Group. I wouldnt have met half of these people if it wasnt for the work like donte king. I met so many great people. The foundation is there. We need to build a house. You hold the key. Chair borden thank you. I dont know other Infinity Groups want to add anything to that. Just briefly, i understand jeff is extremely busy and has been extreme it will overworked. This is important enough that we should prioritize in particular this position and reporting structure. I dont have an alternative. Were having the strongest reaction that solid line to e. E. O. If theres another option, we can look at, that person should have the authority and direct access to jeff. I think that should be prioritized. Chair borden i think what was mentioned, the response from the Infinity Groups make a lot of sense to me and jeff you had earlier stated that is one of your top five priorities taking this office. Taking this position. I think i would agree with the consensus here, there needs to be a direct line to you. My other question has to do with the training that has been brought up by the groups, the request that we require all managers to take mandatorily, the implicit bias training. What is standing in our way to implement that, to require it as a mandatory requirement and when can we really implement it, what would that timeline look like . We did talk with the City Attorney office about that. We do have to go through a meeting. Definitely that and also too, jeff, we will talk in terms of budgetary considerations. Those things would have to happen. Director tumlin also other organizations i worked in, of course all managers and supervisors have to go through that training. It seems quite logical that we should find way to make that happen. Director lai to your previous comment, its so interesting to me how our understanding deepens when were able to meet even at this level of facetoface and have a conversation that accommodates emotional intelligence. I recognize that my thinking about the ombudsperson role been unnecessarily tec technocratic,i misunderstood the ecraving for an organization that is worthy of our trust. What becomes so clear from the people who have been speaking this evening. While theres a lot of frustration and rage coming through, all of that is rooted in a love for this organization and what it does and the gap between what we should be and what we are. At least for some period of time until were and to demonstrate that were worthy of some trust, its right that the ombudsperson reports to me. Im happy to change that recommendation. Kathy broussard thank you to you for how clear you have been in your words to very much expand my thinking on this topic. Thank you. To add to all of that as a lesson, ive never turned down a meeting with our Infinity Groups. Ive not ever met with some of you. Its been months in the black and africanamerican Infinity Group. I want to insist that we get on a regular schedule of meetings. I think again, facetoface clear communication, openhearted, fearless communication, will be necessary for us to understand each other and solve these problems from the root. Thank you so much for speaking raw truth here at this meeting. Chair borden thank you for listening everyone. This is big. This is where the start is. We can build a house and we can build it together. We can do it. Chair borden i want to say, if all want to send an invitation to the group, for all of us, the point is, we all want to be involved regardless whether or not were of that specific group. When i was at ibm, i supported all the Infinity Groups in the western united states. I know how important it is that this work is done and how important it is to have executive leadership and people at the top advancing support for the groups and the organizations to support. You have our commitment and invite us to your meetings, if we can make it, well be there. Thank you for that. Director lai, do you have another question . Director lai not really a question but a followup. Im so grateful and thankful that we were able to come together on the ombudsperson position. I also heard clearly that the request for urgency is very real. Although i understand it will take a time to figure out the next steps of the training, i want there to be like a clear Time Commitment and turn around as to when we will know for certain. I think the without a clear turn around, its hard to hold ourselves accountable. I understand you wont have an answer at this minute. Im hoping the next meeting, maybe even during the directors report, you can give us a quick update on the timing expectation. Chair borden i know thats director ackerman i asked about the reports. If we can just in terms of discipline, have a better sense of, lot of discipline it from a few managers with ethnic and gender backgrounds. We can look and identify patterns. I feel like if we can quickly identify that there seems to be a pattern, we can address those issues. Especially if there are certain number of people who generating all of the its also helpful to know what kind of complaints or disciplinary actions. Theres some things are crucial having your cell phone on the bus. Theres other things that sounds like are not so detrimental. Lets look at those and how severe those punishments are. We can come to conclusion on some managers that might need more training or more directive action. Right away. So we dont have to continue to write up and discipline more people. If we can try to get a plan in the next 30 days and see what patterns we find and talk about the course of action related to those patterns, that will go a long way. I dont want to stop someone using their cell phone on the bus completely unsafe, im not saying that. Virginia and i started looking at that data. We will followup on that. No problem. Chair borden great. Director heminger, i know you have something to say. Director heminger it sound like many years ago, we had little breakthrough few minutes ago. Ill quit while im ahead. Chair borden are there any other comments before i open up Public Comment . We havent had our Public Comment yet . I contribute so much to in develop Racial Equity action plan and ensure the agency is in a place where it is now where very serious issues are brought to the forefront and addressed. My hope remains that in it agencys effort to diversify not just the agency, its very diverse. At the top level in terms of leadership, that the agency will not only recruit capable and competent leaders who are diverse that cross black, latinx, indigenous and other racial lines, nonwhite people, there will be equitable consideration and support for those individuals and those individuals will be allowed to lead and be the experts in assisting rather than being overwhelmed at times by wellmeaning white people who are unwilling to yield their top position. I enjoyed all my time working at sfmta, it was very challenging being the only black person reporting to director tumlin and not necessarily being seriously with the all encompass experience that i have over span of 15 years that encompasses h. R. Management experience and lot of academic and professional work in antiracism realm. Im very gratified and thankful. What i seen here today, i want to wish the agency well, im thankful to all of you directors, director borden, vice chair eaken and all of you. Thank you so much for your continued commitment to this work. Chair borden thank you for your service. We heard so many great comments about the work that you did and how transformative it was. Were sad that youre away from us now. Next speaker. Hi. Too many mute budge buttons on s item, i wanted to ask again that the board provide strong support for expediting processes and practices that will reduce racism in the agency disciplinary outcome. For example, the Deloris Blanding report as written. Im so deeply grateful and heartened for the thoughtful question and approach towards equity items that have to revise the statements and comments that i want to make going through the items. Theres been so much great discussion happening. I want to thank director tumlin for agreeing having ombudsperson report directly to you. Its major signal to staff of your commitment, courage and leadership advancing sfmta and very grateful to you for that. This is raising the prior item as well. I want to reiterate a point made by the latinx Infinity Group, as soon as possible to staff the office hours. To ensure some of the staff to feel more comfortable. Lastly, there are six positions, budgeted i want to make sure that we have the will to staff those positions if they are budgeted. Thank you. I work for the sfmta. Im a member of the latinx Infinity Group. I want to thank the board for their insightful comments questions, commissioner lai, i really think you just cut to the chase. I want to advocate that the 360 review of managers should be done by staff. It should be included in the training schedule of Kimberly Ackermans proposed plan. I agree that the ombudsperson should go directly to jeff tumlin. I no you took this on. I know youre capable. I know you can do it. Your spirit is good. I know you can handle it. Also, i think that h. R. Should not be sole arbitrator to develop r. E. A. P. Anything having to do with conducting any type of planning to address the Deloris Blanding issues that not covered by the feds. I have yet to hear any details regarding areas of concern in the workplace that are not covered by these categories. That i would like to see a plan, including the Infinity Groups involved planning and addressing that issue. Thats a real deep one you have to dig deem. Youre going to need Infinity Group to help you. I dont think youll be able to get all the nuances. Youve only been here a year. That does not mean that youre not good or capable. That means that you need their history and experience. Thats why were here. Were here to make things better for everyone. I like to thank president borden for the question that affects cover issues that are right. Chair borden sorry your time is up. Next speaker please. Hello. My statement is more so of the e. E. O. Process. The e. E. O. Process cannot be trusted. My personal experience, my complaint has been closed out without investigated. The e. E. O. Process off the federal statute that the complaint this means that i can be called the norder or be harassed. As long as condition of employments do not change, then e. E. O. Will not further investigate or close the complaint. Nobody will be held accountable. The e. E. O. Process is a floor. In my case, im an Master Sergeant in the army reserve. E. E. O. Assigned h. R. Manager to my case who alleged being one of the persons wrong doing. This represented a classic example, conflict of interest, hoe. E. O. Did not have anyone to investigate or identify. This person down played their role to make conclusion that my complaint was nonee. E. O. Issue. I was mailed letter of termination. The army put me on full duty. Since i have a few seconds left, because e. E. O. Process so broken, only way employees can be heard is through lawsuits. Which i do have a lawsuit against the agency now. Its a approved Class Action Lawsuit and its now in settlement talk because the agency refuses to support its employees and listen to their employees and hold their managers and supervisors accountable for their wrong doing. Chair borden this is really important. Everyone gets equal time. I have to your time is up. Thank you. Im so sorry to hear about your case. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker please. I weigh into this topic as a well meaning white guy. Good luck to me. Just a few brief things. Ive always liked chair borden, since we met more than 30 years ago. I dont dismiss her at all. Maybe i wasnt clear in my earlier comments on the consent calendar. Buried in the item 10. 4, page 54 and 10. 5, john haley as part of the subcontracting team. I liked john. Lets remember he was allowed to retire despite complaints and litigation alleging discrimination and harassment. The board shows concern for Diversity Inclusion and Racial Equity and the other hand the board allows on call consulting with john haley. Im having tough time reconciling these two positions. Or some other enterprising journalist will explore that. This maybe unnecessary, i agree with director tumlins concern about the number of direct reports and span of control, the importance of this issue at this time suggest to me that ombudsperson should be a direct report for the moment. That reporting relationship can be reevaluated in six months or at another time. The new chief of staff position may help bridge the gap here and a fair tradeoff maybe having capital programs and construction. I will save my ideas about a greater reorganization to reduce the number of direct reports for another time and thank you. Chair borden thank you. Next speaker please. Hello. I wanted to say that i hope everybody is really listening to the staff who are on the calls. That the sfmta can actually move quickly, which you guys have been doing decent job during in the pandemic to make sure those positions get filled and budget money gets allocated and that we listen to staff about their needs to report. Also what mr. He mentioned about john haley. I have to look at the report now. Thats really disturbing that we will be continuing to work with john haley. Thats a whole another rabbit hole. It does seem disturbing. Chair borden thank you. Are there any additional callers on the line . With that Public Comment is closed. We are now there is no action on the item. We do will be hearing back from staff on thee items that ewith brought up. Specifically the disciplinary action. If we can get something in early december what action we can take quickly to stem the tide of those things. Youll present updated chart for the ombudsman role. We have another report at our board workshop for sure. I want to thank everyone from all the different incident if i Infinity Groups for your feedback and the work you are doing is important. We will never be the agency or the city we need to be without the people like you that are champions. Thank you for educating us and make sure that hold us accountable. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful blessed evening. Thank you. Bye. Clerk item 13, encouraging the metropolitan Transportation Commission to amend strategy en7 institute telecommunication mandates. Chair borden we have sarah jones the planning director here to present. Thank you. Good evening directors, im sarah jones, planning director for sfmta. Thats quite an item to follow. I feel incredibly honored to work with such stellar people. Were shifting gears in a big way now, talking about plan bay area and one strategy thats considered thats gotten lot of attention around telecommuting. Just little bit of background. I will try to keep this brief. Theres a lot of background here. Our Regional Planning agency, the metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Association Area of government are preparing a regional plan entitled plan bay area 2050. Its the bay areas required Sustainable Community strategy which regions in the state need to prepare. One of the purposes and requirements of this planning effort is for the plan to include achievable strategies and investments to meet the region Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction target. That target is 19 per capita reduction by 2035. Its a pretty wonky and also pretty ambitious target that we need to achieve. M. T. C. Voted to adopt the final blueprint for plan bay area 2050 which they are describing the first draft of the plan thats going into Environmental Review for consideration. As mandated, that plan contains 35 cost constrainted strategies in the areas of transportation, housing, economy and environment. These strategies include a lot of the concepts and investments that this board and the city as a whole talk about a lot including pricing, seemless mobility, infrastructure investment, jobs, housing and transit balance. Our focus today is on one of the strategies which is enentitled, en7. Its it requires large employers to have 6 of their employees telecommute on my given work day. This sparked pretty strong response from San Francisco and from other jurisdictions from Industry Groups and from partners within the city. Because of the reaction to en7. This has been a topic lot of discussion, subsequent presentations, m. T. C. Staff have indicated that strategy en7 is necessary for us to meet that target. Its needed beyond the other strategies. In other words, with all of the strategies that are already in there, the other 34 strategies around transit investment, land use and other measures, theyre not getting quite far enough and need to look at further action to meet this target. Thats particularly the case. The plan includes some highway projects such as key interventions at bottlenecks and express lanes that some of the other counties in the region are particularly interested in. Those are also included in the blueprint and kind of need to be compensated with other strategies. Weve also had discussions with staff and theyve made key and helpful clarifications around strategy en7. I think one of the most important ones for us to understand is that the intent of the strategy was to be added in with the other strategies. Its targeted at reducing the remaining car trips. It was not intended to target transit trips. We very much support and should support the notion that employers and other large trip generators do need to also play a proactive role in the travel choices that people make. In San Francisco, many of our this is a huge catalyst for change. It will be over 530,000 gross square feet plus two levels of basement. Now the departments are across so many locations it is hard for them to Work Together and collaborate and hard for the customers to figure out the different locations and hours of operation. One of the main drivers is a one stopper mitt center for permit center. Special events. We are a one stop shop for those three things. This has many different uses throughout if years. In 1940s it was cocacola and the flagship as part of the construction project we are retaining the clock tower. The permit center is little working closely with the Digital Services team on how can we modernize and move away from the paper we use right now to move to a more digital world. The Digital Services team was created in 2017. It is 2. 5 years. Our job is to make it possible to get things done with the city online. One of the reasons permitting is so difficult in this city and county is really about the scale. We have 58 Different Department in the city and 18 of them involve permitting. We are expecting the residents to understand how the departments are structured to navigate through the permitting processes. It is difficult and we have heard that from many people we interviewed. Our goal is you dont have to know the department. You are dealing with the city. Now if you are trying to get construction or special events permit you might go to 13 locations to get the permit. Here we are taking 13 locations into one floor of one location which is a huge improvement for the customer and staff trying to Work Together to make it easy to comply with the rules. There are more than 300 permitting processes in the city. There is a huge to do list that we are possessing digital. The first project is allowing people to apply online for the a. D. U. It is an accessory dwelling unit, away for people to add extra living space to their home, to convert a garage or add something to the back of the house. It is a very complicated permit. You have to speak to Different Departments to get it approved. We are trying to consolidate to one easy to due process. Some of the next ones are windows and roofing. Those are high volume permits. They are simple to issue. Another one is restaurant permitting. While the overall volume is lower it is long and complicated business process. People struggle to open restaurants because the permitting process is hard to navigate. The city is going to roll out a digital curing system one that is being tested. When people arrive they canshay what they are here to. It helps them workout which cue they neat to be in. If they rant to run anker rapid she can do that. We say you are next in line make sure you are back ready for your appointment. We want it allinone location across the many departments involved. It is clear where customers go to play. On june 5, 2019 the ceremony was held to celebrate the placement of the last beam on top of the structures. Six months later construction is complete. We will be moving next summer. The flu building the new building will be building. It was designed with light in mind. Employees will appreciate these amenities. Solar panels on the roof, electric vehicle chargers in the basement levels, benefiting from gray watery use and secured bicycle parking for 300 bicycles. When you are on the higher floors of thing yo of the buildt catch the tip of the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear day and good view of soma. It is so exciting for the team. It is a fiscal manifestation what we are trying to do. It is allowing the Different Departments to come together to issue permits to the residents. We hope people can digitally come to one website for permits. We are trying to make it digital so when they come into the center they have a highquality interaction with experts to guide then rather than filling iin forms. They will have good conversations with our staff. Resolution that would simply. Encourage the direction that you believe m. T. C. Already going in terms of revisiting some of the concerns . I feel personal, im sold that we should go ahead and wait until friday and revisit this at a subsequent meeting. If we had to move forward today, i want to say if theres language amendments that you will feel comfortable with. Director heminger director lai sort of opened up new front in the battle in talking about some of the other issue. This is the first plan bay area i havent worked on in 20 years. Im thankful thats true. The work is harder and harder every time. The governor now wants to make sure that all new vehicles sold after certain date will be zero emission. When you do that, you make this whole exercise with plan bay area that much more difficult. Youre trying to influence the behavior of people who are largely driving around clean cars. I think you have it right, director eaken, it will be more relevant and i think more friendly for us to make our comments after m. T. C. Comes out with version 2. 0. Theyre not going to adopt version 1. 0. I think we ought to stop talking about it. In that sense, in terms of if you wish to act tonight, i did read the resolution. There are some things in the staff report and the resolution i think are incorrect. I wouldnt suggest include asking all of those. In my view, the resolution is still looking backwards too much and ignoring that there is a version 2. 0 that is now before that body for action. We ought to stop talking about version 1. 0. Director lai im not clear on the inaccuracy that director heminger is referring to. I dont think we want to put out something thats inaccurate. I want to know what those are. I wish we had put out a resolution or statement much earlier. Right after the m. T. C. Voted on it that next hearing when we talked about it under new business. Yes, this is a bit late. My fear if we dont document our current position, keep in mind, director heminger saying, they have a lot of voice to balance, particularly lot of suburban voices to balance and those membership for a outwake the urban centers. My concern is really just that we dont put anything in writing, i dont know what we have to officially document our position as an agency. Im really relieve to hear that they have been so open working with our staff. I want to continue to foster that. Thats just my concern. If maybe director heminger or staff has any other information to help reassure that our revisiting exercise and other municipalities are not going to reverse this momentum that we have. Modifying en7, i think thats what im looking for. I would not fear that the direction on en7 will be reversed. They got lot of feedback around it. They heard pretty loud and clear what the concerns are. I would say that it is very important for San Francisco to weigh in as you have noted. We are a really important Regional Voice for the level of our commitment to the kind of transportation and land use patterns that we need to be perpetuating. Certainly the issue of electric vehicles is a wrinkle around it. Industry groups trying to push for electric vehicle car trip to be recognized as sustainable trips as well. Which is something that i would it will be consistent with our policies to push back around that. Just what that target level is. I think there are some areas for us to continuation weighin conte weighing in on. We have a pretty robust structure for San Francisco to be involved these discussions. There will not be silence from the city and county of San Francisco for sure. Director heminger i do apologize for taking so much time here. Were at the end of the agenda. The first point i would make, the mayor of San Francisco, you dont get higher than that. Shes already made the city concerns quite clear i think in large part reconsidering course of action. Perhaps, our staff here at m. T. A. Has reviewed it and i have not. Its in print, teed up for consideration. There ar they are a board juse are. I believe based upon some conversations ive had with folks over there, theyve been talking to their board all along, just like jeff will talk to us all along. I do believe that were sort of acquainted what the direction this will go. I think she said it in fewer words that ive been using. Director eaken had it right, we will have more influence after they act than before. Before, were one of the list of 50 folks. Chair borden thank you. Anybody other directors . I agree director lai what you were saying. This does need to be more robust and this plan doesnt address the reality in San Francisco and it doesnt address reality for the dense and urban areas. If they are listening to that and theyre coming up with a new wording with a new format with a new plan, i do agree that we should weigh in on the next version. Thats the problem with our board. We can be kind of slow. It takes a while to get something in front of us. Whereas the mayor can formulate a response and be right out there. Sarah, are you confident that staff you and your team are working with the m. T. C. And they are listening to what we have to say and they understand our concerns . Absolutely. On the staff level and then also weve been working directly with m. T. C. And also directly. Chair borden we are within our rules, we dont have tabling. We can continue it. And revisit this time at a later time. We can continue it. We can vote today to continue the item as staff depending on what happens at m. T. C. s meeting this week. Whether or not we need bring us back for secondary resolution. Thats what the direction will be. Lets make it for december 2nd meeting. If necessary, carve out a space and ms. Jones if you can be ready to bring it back to us, that will be great. Meeting in december 1st or 15th. Chair borden i meant december 1st. We have a motion and a second. Please call the roll. [roll call vote] that motion passes 50. Chair borden on to our final agenda item, which is not really the final. Clerk item 14, discussion and vote pursuant to the admin code as to whether to invoke attorneyclient privilege and conduct a closed session conference with the legal counsel. Chair borden i just realized i didnt open Public Comment on the last item did i . Clerk you did not. Chair borden lets go back to item 13 my mistake. See if theres any Public Comment on item 13, which is the m. T. C. Resolution which the board has voted to not take action at this time but to continue the item. Are there any Public Commenters . First caller please. Thank you board chair. I appreciate the comments of director heminger. I think you took a wise action tonight. This is a complicated issue. Theres lot of acrimony in the community about it. Im not a fan of mandates. This is a plan. I do believe in telecommunicat telecommunicating because it helps people with disabilities. However, nobody is going to get arrested for not doing telecommunicating. Only state and cities counties can enforce that and its probably unenforceable anyway. I think whats more important is to work on a San Francisco that is affordable because really when you offer people permanent telecommunicating, they can move to other places with much lower cost of living and no state income taxes, like nevada. Lets continue to work collaboratively a plan is a plan. Lets focus on the big eelephants in the room to achieve our climate goals. Thank you. Chair borden next speaker please. Hello. Im steve smith. I understand that m. T. C. Goal reducing Greenhouse Gas emission. I do not think they understand mandate it will have on San Francisco downtown. There are many other modes of transport that m. T. C. Can offer. The m. T. A. Shouldnt approve this item and ask that the m. T. C. Change its policy. Chair borden next speaker please. Now i feel little dismiss the because you didnt take Public Comment. Chair borden i caught myself. It was okay. It was good. It maybe appropriate to rescind the vote after you take Public Comment and vote again, which would set the record straight. Thats up to you. In my earlier comment, i apologized for reading the packet material. I assume that director heminger can fully participate in this item and has no conflict of interest here. I do think that sarah jones did a great job summarizing a complicated plan. In my view, this particular item should have been presented to the m. T. A. For their comment to get full picture about plan bay area. I agree with staff and think that the existing language is a problem, there are clearly a number of different ways to fix it and continuing it item to the next meeting to see how things go on friday is a fine approach. In any event, i was going to ask that you bring back plan bay area and discuss more aspects of it in the future because it does have pretty significant implications and if not, all of the assumptions, many of the assumptions which made sense a year ago, challenging at that level, we dont know what we dont know. To try to plan where were going to be in 30 years, let alone where well be in 30 minutes given the stat of the world now is incredibly difficult. Chair borden next speaker please. Good evening. This is edward mason as the guiding principle to minimize and reduce transportation pollution, seeks a consensus but it ignores the private commuter bus Environmental Impact. A pandemic benefit almost eliminated 100 authorized commuter bus serving culture of convenience one seat commute for a few. Environmental comparisons are made between the 700 private buses and a single occupancy commute vehicle and not a two or threeseat Public Transit commute on caltrain. Private commuter bus program escaped an Environmental Review and the environmental consequences of fuel consumption of the buses returning empty for another load for the 9000 prepandemic workers. Few private commute buses continue to operate and dock the landscape. In summary, employees leaving bay area and private commute bus culture of a convenience with the Environmental Impact must be evaluated when seeking a final plan bay area 2050 guiding principles. We need to reevaluate where were going to be a year from now. Thank you. Chair borden thank you mr. Mason. Next caller please. Good evening, i wanted to call in today to voice my concern from work from home policy. The pandemic will take years to recover and preventing people to continue will make matters worse for Small Businesses that rely on this traffic. [please stand by]. If i decide that im going to mute out of the city and live in the suburbs, im now driving more to do everything that i would do on a daytoday basis. I respect a lot of what director heminger just said, but i would also disagree with him on how the n. T. C. Board has presented this, because at the meetings they heard this feed diagnose back and still feedback and still went on with version one. They could have had more information and revised a good policy. I think that it is important for you as a board to not blame them or to say, hey, youre doing this wrong but to come out with a statement that says this is the goal and this is what were behind, and this is how we would encourage you to get to the goal. Clerk 30 seconds. Caller doing it in basically bringing what director lai had said in a supportive way. Dont cut them down but dont ignore the issue and be clear that working from home does not address the goal of reducing Greenhouse Gases. It can, in fact, make it worse. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. You have zero questions remaining. Chair borden so with that we will close Public Comment. We will rescind the previous vote as if it didnt happen and, therefore, i need a new motion and a second and a revote on this item. So you need a motion to rescind . Chair borden okay. I have a question about that. So even though it wasnt a legal motion you still have to rescind a legal motion . My understanding is that, yes, you will need a motion to rescind. Perhaps we can get some comment from the City Attorney. It seems to me that its not valid and did seems weird to rescind something that was not valid. Hi, we are trying to determine because we made the motion and second and voted before we had Public Comment. I know that we need to rescind the motion and then redo the vote. But my question is that we need to formally vote to rescind the motion if the motion wasnt legally technically legal, since we didnt do Public Comment . I would recommend that you make a motion to rescind the vote and at the same time make a motion to continue the item to december 1st. You can make a motion that includes both okay, okay. Great. Perfect. That makes sense. Great, so do i have a motion from my colleagues to rescind our previous vote and to potentially continue the item to december 1st, assuming that this item still remains at that point . So moved. Second. Chair borden great. Secretary can you please call the roll. Clerk sure. [roll call vote] that motion passes 50. And now places you on item 14. Discussion and vote pursuant to the admin code whether to invoke the client attorney and conduct a closed session conference with legal counsel. Motion to go to closed session. Second. Clerk i do believe that we need to take Public Comment. Chair borden right. You have zero questions remaining. Chair borden with that well close Public Comment and well move into closed session. Clerk madam chair, a roll call vote. Chair borden yes, sir. Clerk [roll call vote] thank you, that motion passes 50 and the board now goes into closed session. Clerk all right. Directors, that places you on item 15, announcement in closed session. The board met in closed session to discuss issues with the City Attorney. The board voted unanimously to approve the case. That places you on item 16, motion to disclose or not disclose the item discussed in closed session. Motion to not disclose. Second. Do i need to take Public Comment . Clerk i dont have that noted. Me, either, but i feel like i have to because david pilpell told me. Clerk i dont believe we have any callers on the line, but we should try to. Okay. Mr. Kennedy, i dont know if you want to weighin on that. Moderator, is the line open for Public Comment on item 16 . Operator you have zero questions remaining. Great, so can you call the roll on the motion to not disclose. [roll call] clerk thank you. That motion passes, 50, to not disclose. Great, and well see you all here again on december 1. Enjoy the rest of whats left of your day. Thank you. We have private and Public Gardens throughout the garden tour. All of the gardens are volunteers. The only requirement is youre willing to show your garden for a day. So we have gardens that vary from all stages of development and all gardens, family gardens, private gardens, some of them as small as postage stamps and others pretty expansive. Its a variety all of the world is represented in our gardens here in the portola. I have been coming to the portola garden tour for the past seven or eight years ever since i learned about it because it is the most important event of the neighborhood, and the reason it is so important is because it links this neighborhood back to its history. In the early 1800s the portola was farmland. The regions flowers were grown in this neighborhood. If you wanted flowers anywhere future bay area, you would come to this area to get them. In the past decade, the area has tried to reclaim its roots as the garden district. One of the ways it has done that is through the portola garden tour, where neighbors open their gardens open their gardens to people of San Francisco so they can share that history. When i started meeting with the neighbors and seeing their gardens, i came up with this idea that it would be a great idea to fundraise. We started doing this as a fundraiser. Since we established it, we awarded 23 scholarships and six work projects for the students. The Scholarship Programs that we have developed in association with the portola is just a winwinwin situation all around. The Scholarship Program is important because it helps people to be able to tin in their situation and afford to take classes. I was not sure how i would stay in San Francisco. It is so expensive here. I prayed so i would receive enough so i could stay in San Francisco and finish my school, which is fantastic, because i dont know where else i would have gone to finish. The scholarships make the difference between students being able to stay here in the city and take classes and having to go somewhere else. [ ] [ ] you come into someones home and its theyre private and personal space. Its all about them and really their garden and in the city and urban environment, the garden is the extension of their indoor environment, their Outdoor Living room. Why are you here at this garden core . Its amazing and i volunteer here every year. This is fantastic. Its a beautiful day. You walk around and look at gardens. You meet people that love gardens. Its fantastic. The portola garden tour is the last saturday in september every year. Mark your calendars every year. You can see us on the website