Transcripts For SFGTV Small Business Commission 20240711

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Speaker ares requested but not required to share their name. I will take the time to eare mind all of our presenters and commissioners to please mute themselves at this time. Sfgov tv, please show the office of Small Business slide. Today well be gin with a reminder that the Small Business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the Economic Vitality of Small Businesses in San Francisco. The office of Small Business is the best place to get answers about doing business in San Francisco during the local emergency. If you need assistance with Small Business matters, particularly at this time, you can find us online or via telephone and as always, our services are free of charge. Before item number one is called, i would like to start by thanking Media Services and sfgov tv for coordinating this virtual hearing and the live stream. And special thanks to jim smith for assisting with the Public Comment line. I would like to acknowledge the announcement from the mayor and dr. Colfax made today regarding the reopening of certain businesses late they are week. Were making great progress towards containing the virus in the city and managing the surge of cases. We are hopeful that we are finally on the road to recovery. Please call item number one. Item one, call to order and roll call. Commissioner adams. Here. Commissioner dooley. Here. Commissioner huie. Is running late. Commissioner laguana. Here. Commissioner ortizcartagena. Here. Commissioner zouzounis. Present. Mr. President , you have a quorum. Great. Thank you. Next item please. Item two, presentation, Small Business and Public Safety. Update and report from the San Francisco District Attorneys Office and the San Francisco Police Department on Public Safety and Small Business concerns. Discussion item. The presenters are San Francisco District Attorney chesa boudin and deputy chief of police david lazar. Welcome, District Attorney, and deputy chief. We are pleased you are with us today to talk about this critical issue affecting our community. We are grateful for you spending time with us, and the commission is interested in having a dialogue with you. I know it is a sensitive and difficult subject in the community and the city as a whole, but we are here to be on both of your sides and to be as supportive and provide constructive advice as best as we can. So with that, deputy chief lazar, i know you have another commitment shortly after this item, so we can begin with you. The floor is yours. Good afternoon, commissioners. And thank you very much for the invitation to the Small Business commission. I am pleased to be here. I know that i have been here before you once before. One of my roles in the department is to chair the Small Business advisory. I have about 15 Small Business owners that i work with on a monthly basis that advise the department and sit as chair on behalf of the chief. I am greatty to be here today on behalf of chief scott. I am david lazar, a deputy chief in the San Francisco Police Department. I oversee the investigations bureau. So essentially im responsible for investigators that work throughout the department that investigate crime, which also includes our crime scene investigators and our crime laboratory. And today im just grateful to be on with the District Attorneys Office. I know commissioner laguana that weve worked very closely together over the years and you mention about size. Its very important that the Police Department and District Attorneys Office work closely together. And we skill actually do work very closely together. I work the closest with the d. A. s office just because investigators bring cases forward to the d. A. s office for presentation for decisions about prosecution and that sort of thing. But were both in it together in terms of Public Safety. Coming up with creative ways to figure out how to prevent crime and how to address crime. I know that during the pandemic, things have changed a little bit for us in San Francisco. We were up on homicides last year from 48 homicides the year prior we were at 41, which is still some very historic lows in terms of homicides for major cities such as San Francisco. That 2019 number was a 59year low which were pleased to report one homicide is one too many. But during the pandemic, we have seen an uptick of Violent Crime. We have seen an uptick in shootings. I think this is also something that were seeing across the country and major cities across the country are experiencing gun violence and Violent Crime in general. And so were definitely working to address that. We have seen numbers are down and we have talked about auto thefts down by 50 last year. Still we had 13,000. One of the main areas were looking at, however, now is the burglaries. And i am sure that as a Small Businesses and folks have been affected by burglaries, we are up almost about 50 so between 45 and 50 and many are up against this year and we had about 561 reported case this is year. We know sometimes people dont report. We ask everyone to report crime, but were up significantly as well. Last year at this point we didnt have a pandemic. Well, we did. We just didnt know it. And so we had less of this event. And now were seeing the trajectory and all on the same path as it did in 2020. And its really i am grateful for the d. A. s office and i know that were all trying to wrap our heads around how to address this crime. And one of the things that i want to say briefly before i conclude is Crime Prevention is the key and deterrent is the key. And we can talk about how to try to arrest our way out of situation. And sometimes that is not the case. It is criminal justice coming together. And we do make arrests and the District Attorneys Office does charge cases and how do we prevent this from happening . If i am a Small Business owner, do i have adequate lighting . And do i have do i take out the most valuable items out of my window . Do i take the trash out of the business . Do i have a good alarm system . And really how we make a lot of cases is from Video Evidence. Do i have a good video system that i can turn over to the Police Department or i request register the camera with the District Attorneys Office. And it is really the public, the community, Small Business coming together thinking about how can we prevent crime and when we are not able to do so, how do we report crime . And how do we work with the criminal justice partners to ensure that these cases are taken care of. So that is my opening. Again, very excited to be here with everyone and i definitely dont want to take up too much time and hear from the District Attorneys Office and field any questions that the commissioners have or the public may have about this. So thank you for the invitation. If i can just jump in, i am not sure if there is Something Else in between and i want to echo what deputy chief la zar said. Were in this together and we Work Together closely every day. I was really honored that he was honored to serve on the transition reAdvisory Committee and with the District Attorneys Office and every step of the way as we collectively respond to historic, unprecedented challenges as a sfif and we know this because it is affecting every one of us in our personal lives and in our professional lives. And the ways in which the pandemic and this year, this past year, have also impacted business at the hall of justice and crime trends as well as the challenges that hardworking men, women, and the Police Department face every single day when they are out there trying to deter, prevent, and detect crime. Just to give you one concrete example of something that i talked about with chief scott about over the past year. And it used to be that video footage, good quality video footage and enough to identify the suspect in the case. And it used to be that police saw someone running down the street and suspicious and it means video footage and is still essential and deputy chief la zar said and it makes it much harder and for police to identify someone they are looking for. And these are new challenges and plaguing hand stopped and declined dramaticcally and 50 decline last year and compared to the prior year. It doesnt mean that committing those crimes stop committing crimes. We all go inside and so have they in many cases. It means that some people commit crimes or daylight in businesses that were open for businesses. And breaking in hours after garages and restaurants and those are trends that we have been working as hard and as cooperatively as we can with the Police Department. And havent done enough for Small Businesses. And the separate parts and processes to do with the support and the critical feedback. And hopefully with the advocacy, not just with the Police Department and the d. A. s office but with tore justice partners to rely on to get the job done. And the first thing, the most important thing is prevention. And to prevent crimes and deterrents through simple adjustments we can make in terms of our own home or business security, were way better off. It doesnt matter how many Arrests Police make and how many cases and team of lawyers successfully prosecute and are always better off when they are not victims in the first place. Lets focus on prevention and strategies and d. C. Lazar mentioned several of those already. And second thing when somebody is a crime, and my office is committed to doing as much as we can to provide Victim Services to help make you whole, to help you get back on your feet. And the harm and crimes and this past year we launched a Pilot Project in district five and supervisor preston where Small Businesses in district five suffer from vandalism or broken windows can submit a claim to our office which we can process for reimbursement up to per calendar year. It may not cover all the expenses but is a step in the right direction. We would love to expand the program and make it citywide. We love to expand the program and make it a higher deductible amount that people are eligible for. When the police show up and document vandalism or broken window, submit the Police Report to my staff and help fix the window through city Victim Compensation fund. And when you make that Police Report, please report crimes. If you dont report them, we cant do anything about them. When you report to the police, they are going to do their best under difficult circumstances to identify the suspects, to identify the evidence. And to gather all that together and make an arrest and present the team of lawyers with the investigation. And to arrest 100 of people who commit crimes and San Francisco is not realistic. But if you report quickly and have video footage and other evidence and to do their job and in turn it will make it easier for my team to do their job. And just like the police cant arrest the crimes and cant prosecute the arrests to prosecute and hold people accountability and we know there are a number of people who are committing crime after crime and are in close communication and get the case to struggle and make it stick. And hold accountable and break the cycle of recidivism. We know for decades county jails and state prisons have effectively been Revolving Doors of recidivism. People going in, coming out, often worse off than they were beforehand. My commitment and my vision is to make sure that our criminal Justice System treats every single arrest and the hardworking men and women make as an opportunity for intervention and to turn people away from crime. For crimes they have committed and set them on a path and whenever they are released from custody that protects all of us from future crime. That is the partnership to get there and we love for you to join us in the process. Thank you. Thank you. I apologize for not properly introducing, but i was on mute. No problem at all. You gave me a warm introduction at the beginning and i appreciate the opportunity to speak and thank all of you for your service on the commission. Sure. Commissioner, comments or questions . Okay. I guess i will jump in here. Commissioners and as always here we go. Commissioner adams, please. First off, thank you. Mr. District attorney and officer lazar, i appreciate all the comments. And especially when you said District Attorney about stopping that revolving door. And in the castro and we see people who get arrested. And they are at the same shop and getting arrested again. And the words that stated and to work on together and the prevention part is something we have to work on better. The more we have on prevention and around the businesses and the first story and Small Business and second story and prevention, prevention, prevention. And i really appreciate both of your comments today. That is all i have. Thank you. And to respond and please feel free and move on to the next commissioner. To remind everyone about the organization and affiliated with the department and fund the nonprofit and sf state and many of you are familiar with them. To facilitate watches and Security Service at home and for free and they do charge a fee to conduct the surveys on the businesses. And commissioners and talk about prevention and that is the service that is available and where you can look at the material that they have on prevention and schedule the appointment to come back with the security survey. And make sure he wasnt aware of it. Commissioner zouzounis. Thank you, both, District Attorney, and deputy chief lazar for being here. We appreciate it. That was part of my question. So i would love to see a comprehensive list of the nonemergency numbers and intervention and nonviolence services and dpw and hot team and Fire Department teams that are on the street. I would love to have Something Like that that we can give Small Businesses so they know their only recourse and calling police and for the less invasive issues. And part of the reason that i bring that up is because to promote Community Trust and a hard time presenting camera footage and intel and on their community and there have been theres been cases of retribution and Small Business owners and providing information regarding crimes that may not even happen in the business but outside in the thoroughway outside their business. I would love to keep that in mind as a way to make sure that Small Businesses arent implicated in situations that are going to break trust with communities theyre situated in that do have concerns with the regular Police Presence and increased criminalization of neighborhoods. So alternative numbers would be and the different purposes for those would be great. With that, i have a question as to how both sfpd and the das office as it relates to property crime triage with other departments such as d. P. W. I know that there is nuisance abatement fees to be incurred from other agencies and whether that be graffiti and loitering that can lead to a need to involve police. I am just curious how do the departments interact and when it comes to property crime issues and how it overlaps with ordinances. Thank you for raising these issues. I will jump in briefly. And primarily from the San Francisco Police Department. And from c. H. P. And the overwhelming majority of the cases that we consider filing charges are brought to us by the San Francisco Police Department. And they are the primary investigative Law Enforcement agency in the city and county. And they see the vast majority of criminal complaints and as you point out nonemergency and may not be the best use of Police Resources to have them to send a patrol car over immediately and may be another agency that does the initial investigation in certain instances. If it is believed that a crime was committed and that investigation is completed whether its the department of building inspection and d. P. W. , sfpd, that investigation can always be presented to my team for evaluation of charges. The agency with the real expertise and the mandate for doing criminal investigations and is sfpd. And thank you. A couple of things to mention on what i brought up. And one is to back up and mention about who to call and the numbers and all that. And the Small Business advisory to the chief and the Small Business advisory has come up with a onepage document that answers who to call in circumstances and just for the very reason that Small Business community didnt know who to call. And to all the constituents and the video and talked about the video camera and Video Evidence. As a Small Business advisory this year. And to figure out how to get Video Evidence to the Police Department. And i know thats been kind of an issue and the to put together for 2021 and how to something to come and definitely try to figure out in terms of retribution and work closely with the community to prevent that and if i am a Small Business owner, i want to know the local Police District and getting on the newsletter and subscribing or attending the Community Meetings and getting to know the station and staff and working on volunteer problems that may be happening. And outside the same individuals and the connection and in terms of what the d. A. Mention and as far as being primary and with regard to public works, they sometimes levy fines and talk to Business Owners and residents about graffiti and that happens at the district station level or the district station officers will work in partnership with the resident of the business and is a foot beat officer that works with public works to make sure graffiti is cleaned up and to prevent it. And if we have a case and to bring that to the District Attorneys Office for evaluation. I hope that answers the question and addressed everything that you raised. Thank you, both. Great. Thank you for coming today. It is always nice to see you, former captain lazar, who did a great job in north beach and reappreciated what you did for us. It is very nice to see you again. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. I work in the tenderloin and i never see these officers where i work which is at post and larkin. And i know myself as an employee and i have my car broken into frequently. I never see anyone patrolling around there with the beat officers and nothing. And is just an ongoing thing there. I know the people at the glass repair and i get my car smashed, the windows smashed constantly. The same thing in another part of the city and live nearly vice plaza and we live there know we can never park our cars on the street below philbert street because they will be smashed again. And once again, countless times, windows are smashed. Is there any way to get some security cameras up . Is there any way to have something we do to contact business, large buildings down there because its just such a huge problem to the point and i wonder whether the vehicle will have a window broken even though theres nothing to steal. It is out of control. And just resigned to the fact that i will have the windows smashed a number of times each year. And i am wondering if you have any suggestions. And broken class ever morning and i have come out of the business i worked in and sitting in my car and unlocked the car and are sitting in there rifling through it. Nothing ever happens. Can you just give me give us any suggestions . Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much for raising the question. I do miss the northeast community and my time at the station as a captain which was a very memorable time. And the same district and north beaches for the same district there and vallejo street station. And a couple of things to think about and this is for everyone. And nothing of value and saying nothing at all. And even the cell phone charger and may want to leave in out of convenience. And individuals who get in it cars and get in the trunk as well and nothing is valued. I will communicate with the captain and making sure there is no footbeat officer but there is a patrol that is 24 hours a day. And does patrol that neighborhood and the whole lower knob hill area. I will talk with him about making sure that the officers are therement and mention on levi plaza, when you talk about glass and cameras and Environmental Design and what is happening down there and no cameras, what is making it attractive to those that want to break into cars . That definitely is something that the captain and i was the captain of the station and needs to concentrate on to work with the businesses on installing cameras and the city doesnt and register with the District Attorneys Office and share with the Police Department and surviving the lighting issues and secluded and commit robberies in and out of it real quick. And we do our very best and hopefully they wont break the window and sit in and they will break into my cars and everything that we can do to prevent is definitely the business that were in. I thank you for the question. Thank you. Let me echo and thank you for the question and how sorry i am to hear that is what you are dealing with day in and day out. It is not acceptable as a status quo for this city or or any of the residents. I want to echo d. C. Lazars comments. Prevention and deterrence are critical and from the auto burglary cases we prosecute about 30 , but it is not clear and never will be possible for police to make arrests in auto burglars and they are crimes of opportunity. People commit them when they think they can get away with them. Sadly, sometimes they are right. But i also want to be clear about what happens in all the cases and where we do file charges. For better or worse and the constitution of the United States prohibits us from punishing people and being convicted of a crime. And what that means in cases that are nonviolent that are property crimes, for example, and will not mean we dont get them to prosecute and hold people accountable. And violence and weapons are not involved, judges and anywhere in the state of california and are required by law to release people who are presumed innocent. That is not always the case if they are on probation or parole and we have a little more leverage and numerous prior open cases, we have more leverage and all things being equal, police making an arrest and my Office Filing charges in the kind of frustrating and unacceptable behavior that you have described will not usually be enough to hold someone in the jail pending trial. Were going to continue to hold them accountable and it takes months or years for the wheels of justice to turn. And jury trials and conduct the normal business and we will do our best to keep the cases moving and once we secure conditions and lawfully impose consequences of incarceration and limits on peoples freedom. Thank you. Commissioner huie. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming today. And looking forward to having this on your agenda. And i know many people that i live around and work with are also very excited to have this opportunity and my questions are really large arenaed broader scale. One is i am curious to what resources you would recommend on comparative data. And i am sure you are very well versed in the crime rate and the Different Things that are happening in terms of crime trends in other and similar scale or size of San Francisco and as well as other cities within the bay area. And curious and point to for Small Business owners and get a sense of how San Francisco as a city. I will start by saying that within the last two years we need completely reengineered our website. And the website is in multiple languages and working on putting the coming months and years and as far as Crime Statistics and clearance rate and information and from the San Francisco police. Org and you can find the information that they are looking for and the Crime Statistics and see them by neighborhood and things like that. Definitely everyone stay to Pay Attention to what is happening in the community and get the statistic and subscribe to the local district and find a lot of information with what is happening in the crime and Community Engagement wise. And stay up on stage form and it is changing and changes all the time. I definitely check out your crime stuff and noticed the different types of crimes. And curious how San Francisco there n your mind would rank against other cities. A lot of what we hear is San Francisco is filled with crime right now. We are living within this kind of bubble where i think we, even if you look at the you tube videos and which we dont want to promote in my way and about what people perceive as we start to recover as an economy and as a city. So i am curious to how you view the system as a National City or maybe how far we are from the ideal version of what San Francisco should be. Do you feel like we are at an ideal place in terms of our crime . Is this a good place to be right now . I just am curious to what the city kind of things because we have done a lot of prevention. I think everybody kind of moves their garage door things and we have reinforced everything in steel and trying to live in castles, but it is just like, i think, i am curious to whether this is going to improve in your life and is this the status quo or is this going to be what are my expectations as a resident and as a Business Owner . Let me just jump in and say, first of all, absolutely not. The status quo is not acceptable. The Police Department and the District Attorneys Office and many others in City Government are working hard day in and day out to improve Public Safety. That is what we need all day and the apartments do all day every day. And to love if we could organize ourselves out of a job and live in a society the District Attorney and police that would be great. It is not realistic and in terms of the expectations and the short term and the fear and anxiety and that people are experiencing is related to Public Safety issues tied to the pandemic. The crime trends in San Francisco are similar to what we have pointed out across the country. You can compare as the San Francisco chronicle tomorrow and other bay area cities to oakland and san jose. That means some good thing. And every homicide is one too many and as you look at data and the lowest number of homicides and San Francisco history and that is a huge accomplishment thanks to all the folks day in and day out over the 50 years. And is not a huge surprise empirically off the 56year low. And especially when every other big city and the fact that the rate went up less than other nearby citys is a good thing. Similarly with the lives of residential and commercial burglaries and increase in 2020 and in terms of a couple thousand with a Business Owner and suffered economic and emotional harm and increased fear and vulnerability because of what happened to them. And we need to remember as the individual people behind the crimes and look at the big picture data. There was Something Like 20,000 and overall crime in San Francisco and 25 decrease reported crime in San Francisco. And moving things in the right direction is uneven. Even though some of the property crime has been replaced with residential burglaries, for example, and increase in Violent Crime and my priority and the Police Departments priority isnt going to move in lock step. With record highs for reasons that we can understand. And living with increased fear and anxiety and despite our best efforts and at any point in the last 40 years and the war on drugs has not worked to address that problem, and we havent stepped up to the medical alternative and treatment on demand and to roll out and have the specific training in dealing with Public Health crises and free up Police Resources to respond more quickly and we have a long way to go to improve. And the picture is rosier than it feels. And there will be a normalization and will be the increase in gun violence and working closely with police every step of the way to stay ahead of the trends and changes to keep you safe. And echoing the comments and we have work to do and the District Attorneys Office and the Police Department are in it together. To make sure that we have resources as a Police Department were visible with the budget allows for it and the staffing and having footbeat officers and the bicycle officers out there and being a deterrent and having the presence there. And getting to know the community and Building Trust with the community and building relationships. And in the year 2020 and to build the relationships with the question and Violent Crime and the pandemic and in the city and having been a native and born and raised in Public School and the Police Officer for nearly 30 years, no other place i would rather live or work. This is a world class city. Overall its a safe city. And we have to address the crime of the day is the residential burglary and we have to deal with it and get it reduced. And whatever it is, next month, next year and when the community is engaged and the Community Call police and they have the cameras and are involved in prevention and coming to the meetings and were hearing their voice and were a safer city. That is what we have to do now. I really appreciated that and with the sense of what the larger picture would be like. And a lot of anecdotal evidence and the stories of what is happening like what happened to commissioner dooley is not the only person in the whole city who experiences that. And to hear it from merchants who have gotten broken into repeatedly. Its tough n. Our neighborhood, we are trying to work on preventive measures. I totally appreciate that if we can systemically kind of get through this base layer of protection for the merchant communities, that would be a huge help and i am totally supportive of making sure that the Small Business communities and corridors are safe and that is what we need right now is a sense of community. I do appreciate the perspective that you brought to the committee. And deputy chief lazar. From the future and especially in my situation and being a minority Small Business and formally incarcerated myself and appreciate that sensitivity and the complexity of trying to communicate and every side and angle and Small Business and crimes and increase in crime. From the pandemic and i do want to highlight what is going on in my community and immigrant and specifically against businesses and seen the increase and feelings extortion happen now in the business corridors and. I really love this area and with the documented format. This is a quiet problem and from the commute leaders and having extortion and from San Francisco and to play out here. And i would like to briefly address that so thank you for bringing this issue up and how the Business Community and the merchants are working with the captain. To me that was a v very serious offense that we not only pay close attention to and bring the cases to the District Attorneys Office and not to speak for the d. A. And they take those particular events very serious as well. The most important thing is this is a sanctuary city and we, the San Francisco Police Department, do not ask individuals what their immigration status is. Frankly, it does not matter to us at all. And we did not report the immigration and dont corporate with ice. And we are safer because of it. And when people know that they can report crimes and they can come to the Police Department and speak with officers and not have too much fear of immigration and reporting crimes and to put the case together. And suffering from this and they need to work with us and report it and we need to put good cases together and bring those cases to the District Attorney that extortion and dealt with this for many, many years and another part of town and we are able to really reduce around the safety aspect of it and organize around being able to trust the police. I would love to talk more offline to talk about what to do to help solve the problem. Let me echo and the same policy and thank you for your dedication to the immigrant Community Commissioner and it is absolutely essential that every Single Person living in San Francisco regardless of language, regardless of gender and race and regardless of country of origin. And that is from the full protection of the rule of law. And we dont care where you were born or how you got here to San Francisco and you are a victim of crime, we have your back. If you are a witness to crime, we want you to feel safe, to come forward and report and cooperate and do justice and if our victim or witness of the crime and legal status in the country and if you come forward and we have your information and know we need that visa. We want to encourage people to come forward and cooperate and help relocation if it is a serious crime in serious danger. Moving expenses and we have robust Victim Services in the most serious cases. We are absolutely 100 dedicated to equal application of the law and regardless of citizenship or legal status in the country. Great, thank you. Commissioner ortizcartagena, are you done . Yes, thank you. Thank you, both, gentlemen. Thank you, commissioner. So first up, again, i cant thank both of you enough to carve out time to speak with us today. And i think what precipitated bringing this to the commission and as an agenda item, certainly in the wake of the pandemic and i think we have heard anecdotally and there is some evidence to indicate an increase in burglarly rates and smashed windows among Small Businesses and there is an article in the chronicle about a significant uptick in the richmond, i think it was, and certainly that dovetails correlates to things we hear anecdotally from the Small Business community. So much like commissioner huie, in preparation for the meeting, i tried to get as good an understanding of the lay of the land as i could with the caveat that i am a layman and certainly dont have either and experienced and something that came up for me and that you eluded to in the remarks. And how confident are we in the stats that we currently have . And so by means of explanation is commissioner dooley relaid and we all know and residents of San Francisco, there is a degree of of a lack of confidence that a crime and the perpetrator will be caught from the property crimes and a lot of folks that dont choose to take the time to file the report. And do we have a sense of how large that data set would be . And is there any effort on the part of this or either of the departments to get a sense of what were not seeing . I will start and say that the Police Department has really user friendly gnashboards and both reporting crime and i think they are really useful and historic numbers to compare anymore than my office can and talk about the in house data problems in a minute. And recreate and accurately estimate the crimes reported. And crimes that occur that dont get reported and lots of reasons. Some are property crime and tourists and to not speak the language and other times maybe because people dont like cooperating with police and distrust and past negative experiences, whatever it may be, people for the same reasons dont want to come to court to testify and sometimes doesnt happen and to understand the resources from city hall to promote Public Safety. And when we look at historic comparisons of crime of reported crime, we can see changes. But unless we believe that one of the changes is fewer people reporting crime and that is still looking at data and to compare the same crimes and is the that is from the data is a useful set of data. And in terms of my office, we dont have the level of confidence in our data that i wish we did. There are a couple of reasons for that. One of them is that we rely very heavily on the courts and on other justice partners for data. We have a criminal Court Case Management system that is many decades old. I am not kidding you when i tell you it is a mainframe Computer System with a dosbased that my staff dont have full queries to run searches on and we have to generate to the private vendor to generate data sets. It is tremendously antiquated, out of date, and ined a quad to the needs of a modern system and as does the sheriff. To give you an example, my lawyers file a motion, that motion has to be filed and served on a court in quintuplicate and five copies hand delivered to the court, stamped and hand delivered to the other parties that have to get a copy, the defense lawyer, sometimes the Police Department. That is what we are working to modernize the interface, but until we do that and until the system called justice, justis, comes into effect and until the court allows us to file the paper work electronically, we will have data problems. We just are. It is a frustration of all of ours. If i may, a quick question there. The budget or allocation would come from where . The city, state, or county . I dont want to give information i am not certain is accurate, so i dont know what portion of the funding comes from the city and what portion comes from the state. I dont know if if d. C. Lazar and a large portionover it is local funding. And some portion of that may be through either federal or state grants and superior court is technically a state rather than the local function. Sand the Case Management system and the limiting factor of the data inquiries. And one thought that occurred while thinking about the stats and what is missing and i agree with you and ordinary university to expect the data sets and the reasons for not reporting that and where that might change is where the sample sets themselves are changing. So if we think about criminals pivoting and the Business Models and previously targeting tourists that have a high proclivity to file Police Reports and start migrating to residents and businesses who are less likely to file reports and we may actually see a change in the distribution or the ratio of the reports to unfiled reports. And there is i agree with you it is a difficult number to get out. And i will say in my business rerun into the problems, too. And when were trying to assess how customers, how happy they are and how well satisfied they were. And listening in and thinking about a very simple and almost like a Net Promoter Score for residents and businesses and like a simple 1 to 10 and how safe do you feel they are and try and capture worried we might be missing. D. C. Lazar, i have a similar question for you. And comparatively to other cities and it seemed like the closure rates were not as high as other cities and i can imagine there is probably a lot of potential Different Reasons for this and is a lot closer to do and expand on why that might be and why if there is something wrong with the data in terms of how we are assessing or analyzing that. Thank you, commissioner, for the question. And something that you said, commissioner s we hit the nail on the head. We can talk specifics all day long and the d. A. s office and Police Department work very hard to get it right as far as the statistics. We do have a portion of the population that doesnt report crime and not to be a broken record on todays call, but we definitely need everyone to report crime. We do have language access. We talked about immigration. We want individuals and it doesnt matter where they are from and not an issue for the Police Department and the most accurate picture possible and budgeting and goes toward staffing, deployment and strategic plans around crime and addressing crime and all this is really important for reporting. And numbers aside, you can say that the average person, well, theres been a decrease in robberies and decrease in auto burglaries and if you have been a victim of one, you dont care what the numbers say and the perception of crime and if you have a fear of crime and Walking Around in your neighborhood in the day or nighttime and it means we have more work to do to make sure that we are doing our job to make the Community Safe and to make communities feel safe. And thats good and no Community Engagement events and not in person and having Different Community events where we are organized or we are programming and looking forward to the pandemic and getting more engaged with the community. And the question around the case clearance rates and statistics has been a topic in our department for some time as we work on that particular issue. And we did find one little glitch in our system to make corrections to with the recording that may affect our clearance rates and we are fixing that to make sure that were accurately reflecting that number and that being said, clearance rates are really important for the public and those that are watching. What that essentially means is that how many cases we get x amount of robbery reports in a month. And out of those robbery reports, we assign a certain percentage. And how many of those get solved or clears or closed . Or basically cases presented to the District Attorneys Office. And that is whats meant by a clearance rate. The same uniform rate we give to the same that we report out to nation and every city reports out on the clearance rates and the uniformed Crime Reporting and right now our numbers are what they are. And i will say this. Investigators are working very hard to solve crime and work on crime. They do a great job of making cases all the time. I have no and a chance for me to go on about how great our folks are, but they are great and do great work and they do solve cases and are innovative. When you have a large number of reported instances as the District Attorney has mentioned, we cant arrest everyone, but we certainly do try to make and clear every single case. I look forward to the numbers. I look forward to numbers going up in 2021 based on the work we are doing now in the department. I appreciate that and thank you. Quick question. And when i was reviewing the literature on deterrence theory and total layman and just out here trying to do my best and make sense of stuff. And one of the things that came up is fairly robust evidence that crime response to Police Presence and policeman power and given the spate of breakins and smashed windows in the sunset and richmond. Can you talk about reallocating the resources . And address the issues and try and get in front of them. And i will have a followup. And studies have shown randomized control and doesnt prevent crime and it is not necessarily a deterrent and goes to the bigger conversation we have been having about reporting crime and being strategic to where it is happening and when and who is involved and what is the method of operation and then we develop a plan around that. And for example, if there is a corridor that is broken into. And we have officers specifically in that area looking to detect crime or prevent it or address the burglaries that are taking place. If its prolific and if we can narrow it down even more and may have undercover surveillance and break in the business and when we are present and make that arrest and doing that and successful with it with the garage burglaries to know of an individual with the bicycles and selling them to the south bay and linked them and watched as he broke into a garage and took him into custody. And so we have to be smart and based on the limited amount of resources that we have. We dont have a Police Officer on every corner and we dont have an unlimited amount of the city and partner and strategic and communicate with the community. And reports come in and community and speaks with the station and opens up the line of communication and address the issues and the conversations internally all day long. And where and who is involved and with the search warrant and arrest warrant. And 24 hours a day and seven days a week and involved in bringing the crime rate down and serial crime. And the night before last and is a string of windows broken into that was around 9th and irving street at some point and close to a dozen businesses and windows smashed and out of curiosity, and for the benefit of Small Business community, if somebody was able to catch somebody for this, this is more or less a pure vandalism of crime, and how would you charge that with, i guess, typically charge that and two, how would you charge that if it was like a repeat offender and that you encountered multiple times before and recognize nooizing the constraints that you outlined earlier that you cant just put them in jail until there is adjudication on the case. It really depends on the detail. 9th and irving is in district five, and that means those businesses are eligible for the pilot reimbursement program, and i would encourage the owners on the district five side of the border instead of the district four, and i think its right around there, to reach out to the Victim Services team and let them help you carve the cost of replacement win dose and when it comes to offender accountability, it is a critical part of what we do as well. Assuming the police have done what they do best and brought us an investigation and believe that is provable and we know the identity of the person who did it and prove what they did and establish they did it for malicious intent. Those are the elements to prove the vandalism charge and under 950 and generally be a misdemeanor. If the damage is often the case with the business windows and a lot more than 950 and one of the important things and we want the defendant or offender who caused the harm to be legally liable. We know a lot of them wont be able to do it and may be indigent and judgment proof, but we are still going to get that order as part of a conviction in every case and get an order called the cr110 and the business and victim in the case is entitled legally to collect that money from this offender and if at any point down the line with the money to pay and is a civil judgment and survives life of probation in the case. When i took office and inherited about 500 to the open cases and 20 of them and pretrial and the time it takes to a case like you are describing through the Justice System before covid and far longer than anybody should accept or tolerate. And the median life of a case in superior court before i took office is over a year and of course with covid is a lot slower and longer. But to be realistic about how soon were going to see the kind of accountability and i think this goes back to the first point about d. C. Lazar about the criminalologist research that shows a visible, active, engaged community Police Presence and is the best deterrent scene and them to prison for a long time. And it will for some time. Lets agree and all of you and hopefully every Single Person comes in and not to commit a crime and if we were and couldnt do it and thought we were going to get caught. And behaving rationally and believe that police will arrest you. It doesnt matter what happens next. And if you are behaving rationally. I am all for having following the lead of the Police Department in terms of how to most effectively use the limited resources to have a visible presence in our merchant corridors, in the high crime neighborhoods and move as fast as we can and the felony vandalism and is up to three years in county jail. If you have serious prior convictions and a spate of other similar conduct recently. And the maximum punishment and the first offense and much more likely to ask for probation and slg much more extreme allowable by law. In every single case my commit suspect to understand the root cause and bas driving that kind of antidestructive social video. And lets face it. And comes to the challenges and that they face and if someone is back on the streets a year later and we have problems again to make sure the time they are in jail or pretrial release is being used and root causes and Something Else in the life trauma and focus on that issue and hold them accountable in ways and all save money and be safer. And its a question and the public at large and there is a sense of concern about high repeat offenders and i think there is two things we are struggling with and one is this sense and doing it over and over again. And walk into jail and come out and come out the same day or a couple of days later. And two, the resources that i have been viewing and the rational actors and a lot less tools and repeat offenders and outside of incarceration. And get the other part of this and that came up for me and the research is that immediacy maters and punishment happens a year or a year and half, two years later and connected from the crime itself and accordingly t it doesnt enter into the mind of the offender and to be present. And i am wondering nonincarcerating options and opposed to waiting a year or two or three for communication. And the research is spot on. And one of the challenges is if you wait as you said years before the punishment and incarceration and otherwise and is so attenuated from the conduct who can feel arbitrary. And really defeat the deterrents purpose that we need it to serve. And we need more tools and we are not simply relicing on incarceration. We have a lot of tools and use them every day. And let me give you a few examples. And let that destructive property damage. And in the ninth and erving corridor and bookstores in the city and are if someone gets arrested for that and we can file charges and the police and to get the file charged. And at the first court date, we would can for and almost receive from the court a stay away order and an orreder that prohibits from coming within 150 yards usually and of the area where the crime occurred. And back on the street and sees them there and can be arrested on site and gives police an extra enforcement tool and merchants and see someone who is a known problem and if and when we have a sense of what is driving behavior and we know the person has a history of drug abuse and their crimes are committed when they are using substances and we have a specialty Collaborative Court thats existed for years in San Francisco. I wish i could take great for it, but drug court and we send lower level cases and generally felonies and lower level felonies, not murders, where we believe that the criminal conduct is motivated by criminal Substance Use and we recognize that if we can get the person to change the relationship to illegal substances, then they will stop committing the crimes. We created incentives for them to engage in rigorous Case Management and a wide array of courts and a Veterans Justice Court for veterans who struggle with post Traumatic Stress disorder and one called Behavioral Health court and Young Adult Court for our youth that are often quicker to act than think when it comes to committing crimes. And every one of the courts puts clinicians in the drivers seat and use the leverage on the charges we file based on Police Investigation to incentivize people to engage with the kind of treatment and services and Behavioral Changes before we secure the conviction. That make us feel comfortable reducing the charges and agreeing to not ask you to go to jail at the end of the case and use a carrot and stick approach and provide incentives and have the hammer of the criminal charges hanging over their head and the experts in the drivers seat and with the clinical or Mental Health background. And that is an example of what we can do in these cases before the conviction is secured. Appreciate that. Thank you. And i know d. C. Lazar has to go here soon. A quick sort of closing thought. And i am hearing from Small Businesses more than i ever have that are experiencing crime or dealing with the impacts of crime. And we all need the spirit of cooperation and discussion and offering the commission. I know we are all committed to being partners in that discussion. We love to continue to be partners with you because certainly this community has been so hard hit from the pandemic and folks have really lost so much. And then to experience crime on top of that is incredibly tough and damaging. And we have to link arms and work hard to make real material improvement there. And some of this criminals and different audiences and the unlucky recipients of that. And nonetheless, we have to find a way to seek improvement and the other thing i will note for policy makers and to make sure that people have jobs. Small businesses employ half of the people did at least prior to pandemic and getting the Small Businesses back on the feet and back to employ people as quickly as possible and another way to have a Material Impact and i know dr. C. Lazar has to go and you can stick around and will there probably be Public Comment. And afterwards and to offer any closing thoughts. This is an honor today to talk to you and the small public Business Commission and the public grateful to the partnership. And my heart goes out to the Small Business community and live in San Francisco and spent and spent a lot of money and resources on Small Business. And patronizing a lot of businesses in the community. And all over the city and Small Business and i chair on behalf of the department on ways to become safer and Work Together. And i think to summarize todays conversation is that were headed in the right direction. We do have a lot of work to do. And i cannot emphasize enough the importance of the Police Department and the d. A. s office to promote and not my issue and not my problem and no news is good news. And the vibrancy and the pandemic and us working together is to get involved and stay informed and connect with the captain and the officers and we will continue to work as hard as we can with crime in the city. Thank you. And i leave it up to you with no obligation. And i also have a bunch of other calls and meetings and not stick around for all of Public Comment, i am afraid. And this was in the calendar for half an hour and glad we were able to make it more like an hour and a half because these are Critical Issues and we cant have the city we are all proud and dont have the job creation and fun places to go and spend the money and that is what Small Businesses do for us. And we do that and more. And this is tremendously difficult year and we are not over it and that is a few months of hardship to go. And the Small Business Community Helps the most. And triple whammy and shut down again with the Public Health dynamic and to have crime and vandalism that affects your business on top of it is too much. And we are absolutely to do everything we can and we want to hear from you and report crimes and help us expand the victim reimbursement programs and solve crimes to change behavior and hold people accountable and so you can continue to thrive and make this city as great as possible. Thank you, all, so much for your work. Great. And unless there is any other commissioner comment. Is there any Public Commenters on the line . Is anyone on the line for Public Comment . Five people online and i will unmute the first one. Thank you. Go ahead, caller. Actually, i am here for item four. No problem. Please call back. Next caller please. Hello. Thank you so much for having this meeting. I really appreciate it and i have owned a store since 1989 and one of our greatest concerns and is definitely impacted by restaurants being closed. And crimes and stay at home orders and immediate sites and crimes in addition to the streets being dark and empty. And the recycling resources that restaurants offer to be unhomed are gone. And another concern is prosecution of crime. I firmly believe that city crime does not result and results in prosecution. And i understand that reported crime and we see a delayed or no response at all. And with the positive results and crime. And long felt that crime should result in Community Service with time equalling the value. And from theft and destruction of property to not allow to be unchecked. I appreciate comments about punishment needing to happen in a timely manner. That goes both for the submiters of the crime and also the community to see that anything is happening. And one of the main problems that is being happening. And the variety of ecosystems that are out of balance in the city with so many businesses being closed. Restaurants sensibly reopened immediately. The longer they remain closed, and the closure impacts the communities the longer bars and restaurants are closed and the more retail accomplishments will be impacted and people earn more and more to Online Services. And soon the retail corridor will be conflicting thank you for taking my comment. Thank you. Next commenter, please. Next commenter, please. This is sunshine powers and i own love on hate as well as i am i am Vice President of the ashbury association and i would like to really say thank you for the safe sleeping site and that helped out a lot during the pandemic and i had a heavy issue outside of my shop. And they have helped out and what we are dealing with now and a new fresh round of Homeless Youth that i havent seen before. And i am wondering to encourage people to do something to get these new Homeless Youth into the safe sleeping sites and i am going to reopen the next few days. And the condition of the street just really matters being able to not have to walk around feces, not having to walk around people. And it would be really helpful if we could get the conditions of the street better and the difference made since we have insurance and everything. And giving more than 1,000 which isnt the deductible for the broken window. And things that i personally would like more effort given to the conditions of the street as my personal opinions. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next comment please. Good afternoon, commissioners. And the cochair of the sfpd School Business forum. And with the Vice President of association and a number of other things and the issue with the crime and predominantly repeat offenders and notice the revolving door and just go in and walk out the door. And from that sort. The commissioner said. And all kind of things getting out there. And vandalism. They are not stealing anything and most of the time and is really crazy and consequences and you cant keep doing this over and over again. Somebody comes and in is an assault and is really terrible and i know its terrible and i bet every one of the folks and what they can get away with. And until there are consequences, it is really terrible. And just want to mention some of the homeless situation. And the trash and everything. And so dpw says, well, we can clean up around them a bit. And you have the thoughts and outside of the Small Business and provide a place to, fine. And help them clean up and that also impacts and more concern and as we have the impact to get back to resolving door and consequences. Next caller please. And good afternoon. My name is steven cornell. I am a former owner of the Hardware Store on polk street for 40 years and a member of the polk Street Merchants Association and member of the Council District merchants. I have heard the stuff this afternoon and heard it for many years and we have to rely on what we read in the newspaper and big corporations and walgreens and c. V. S. Have closed their businesses and mainly because the crime issue that people come in and steal things and nothing happens. And that is pretty devastating to us. And we end up thinking, if they cant do it, what can we do. And so a lot of times crime gouz goes unreported. And nobody bothers with it and we all perceive that nothing is going to happen. And the board president shark shark mentioned earlier, a lot of this stuff seems to go unreported. And with the to talk about the clearance rate and the report isnt taken initially or gone or followed through, and keeps the clearance rates much better. And i think we have to look at how much crime is out there. And next caller please. My name is charlotte and i have three gyms in San Francisco and i have been broken into and vandalized and customers assaulted and seen people masturbating on sidewalk, and drug dealings and overdoses in front of my business. And the Small Business owners have probably also experienced it as well. [inaudible] crime is getting worse and moving out of lower income neighborhoods and maybe its the d. A. s approach to crime and i dont know if there is a problem that is getting worse. And i have a few questions related to the past experiences that i have had with police. And the first is about Police Reports. When i need to file a Police Report and to dealing with the aftermath of the crime with the broken window. In order for the report to be filed and the person that was a victim, sorry, and. Most people and they are busy with work and getting the business fixed. Why isnt this process automated for the police . And the reports are automatically filed at the time of the crime to speak out with the police. And the police say the best defense is security cameras and this is a huge expense for Small Businesses. And this cost is usually more expensive than any of the damage that we have experienced. If you multiply this by all the businesses on the commercial corridor, it is the small fortune for all the private surveillance each year. And why isnt the city installing Police Cameras on commercial corridors that this is what is needed by police to solve crimes which i have been repeatedly told. Thank you. Thank you. Next caller please. Caller, please mute your device. Caller, can this caller be muted . Thank you. Caller, im sorry to have muted you, but the tv was on. Next caller please. That was the last Public Comment. Do you want me to try unmuting them again . I guess so. Lets it sounds like they were at the end of the prior commenters comments. Hello. Please mute your computer or tv in the background. Thank you. You are here. Please make your comment, caller. Hi. Lloyd silverstein calling. And i have three different devices trying to get in. So first of all, thank you for letting us participate in this. Im sorry that d. C. Lazar and the d. A. Are not here because i feel like i am preaching to the choir a little bit. I wanted to repeat some of the things that some others have said regarding prevention more than what can count on from the police. We have heard the same thing in our neighborhood. I am in hays valley and head of the Merchants Association with autumn. People dont want to report crimes and dont feel it will go anywhere and is a cumbersome process and my daughter lives in the neighborhood and she has given up and if you look next door and from that neighborhood and we have one out of every three businesses that were vacant. And nobody wants to be in the neighborhood and step over drug addicts and dirty streets all the time. And privately fund this enormous undertaking and throw out there and there is a Safe City Camera Program that is Chris Larsons program. And i smoke to him several months ago because his program is active in the b. I. D. And civic center and is not in the right area here in hays valley, we dont qualify. One of the things to find private financing for this. And as a Small Merchant Association which is still in formation, and we dont really have that kind of access. And wondering if the Small Business to help us and video is what is needed and hang out with the understand the rights to privacy issues and what we are talking about constantly is getting access from our videos to the police. And if you dont have a video, you cant give them anything. From what i understand in neighborhoods with these program, it is video take that is difficult to get the breakins to police. And i want to stamp my name with hays valley to get the help we can get and cars, broken windows in front of my store two or three times a week. We had a beat patrol for a minute and a half and theyre gone. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Was that our last commenter . Yes. That was the last Public Comment. Commissioners, did you have any other additional thoughts before we go on to the next topic . Commissioners, Vice President zouzounis. Thank you. Thank you, president laguana. Thank you to the Public Commenters and the presenters. I just kind of wanted to sum up some of my thoughts around how were going to some next steps i think for our commission. Im glad we have this high level conversation about the landscape and the tools that sfpd and the District Attorneys Office has and i would like to have a followup conversation around how d. P. W. And d. B. I. And sfpd and maybe the cbds are coordinated with ease of business and wonder with solving and trying to prevent property crime. And what i see is that businesses need to board up the win dose and install a gate and running into a slew of issues that fall into d. B. I. And d. P. W. s hand that are preventing them from protecting and i think we need to advocate to get rid of the abatement fees and businesses not occurring with fines and the new sense of abatement at the time. [please sta then be told, theres nothing that can be done because the crime has been committed. Im just thinking couldnt we find a way to have some sort of Online Service that says, you know, car breakin in front of my business that would capture some of the information. But, you know, i dont blame for not reporting it, they know nothing generally is going to happen unless it is pretty major. But the Little Things for all of our businesses really add up. Im just putting that out as an idea. I just think it would be helpful. Get the stats to be more realistic. I think president laguana is having technical issues. Vive president zouzounis did we have any other commissioners who would like to give comment before we close this item . Can we call item 3 please . Clerk item 3 presentation, local and regional stay at home orders and vaccination plan and update on regional and local stay at home orders and vaccination plan and discussion item. The presenter is dr. Susan philip, San Francisco department of Public Health. This is susan, if you can give the control over to me, i will share. Clerk absolutely. Thank you. Good evening Vice President zouzounis and commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to be here, i hope president laguana is able to rejoin. Im dr. Susan philip, and im happy to share an update with you today. I still dont have the button available to me, but maybe it is coming. Clerk its on its way. Thank you. Are you able to see the presentation . Clerk yes. Great. Thank you so much to be here. I have a brief presentation. I want to have you all know where we are and then looking forward to questions and discussion. I want to start by saying, i know what a difficult year this has been for the community, it has been difficult for everyone. And i have been listening to some of the conversation, i know that there are multiple ways it has been challenging and the Public Health restrictions were trying to balance preserving life and health in San Francisco are very, very difficult. I know that the community has really been enduring a lot and that people are challenged and frustrated. Im so happy i can come here today and we are going to be moving to open up many of the businesses according to the purple tier in the states system. That is great. And we can certainly talk about that. We really appreciate your patience as we have tried to make our way through the pandemic and realizing there are no true right or wrong answers to this. There are only tradeoffs and all of the decisions have come with a cost. I want to show you the data though and show you the sacrifices everyone has been making over the past year has saved so many lives in San Francisco and now we have the promise of vaccines. It is not immediate but it will be our ticket out. I wanted to go ahead and start the presentation and just to say this is our picture of our first mass vaccination site at city college in San Francisco. Well talk about our plan. The first piece of what we hope is a massive citywide effort to get vaccine to every citizen and person who works in San Francisco who wants it. We want everyone to want it. Well need your partnership with that. Im going start with just giving an update of where we are. Well talk about where we are with reopening and then talk about vaccines. So where are we by the numbers . All of these are available on the sfgov website for people to review and updated daily. We have just under 30,000 cases reported in San Francisco. Unfortunately 293 San Francisco residents have died of covid19. We are now averaging about 261 cases per day. We are testing more than any other city or county in california and we have been doing about 8,000 tests per day on average. And 195 people have been hospitalized as of the 21st. So, you know, the numbers are not as meaningful, except in comparison to what we could be, so when we look at San Francisco compared to many other major metropolitan areas, what we see with the exception of seattle, we have the lowest cases per population. What we really care about is death, preventing having our hospitals overrun and preventing people from dying from covid19. When we look at that, by far, San Francisco compared to all the other cities here by far have the lowest deaths and people are less likely to die in San Francisco than other cities when they become ill. Our testing is very, very high and explains why we see so many cases. Covid19 is asymptomatic 40 of the time. Unless youre doing a lot of testing, were likely to miss many cases and it will just be the percentage of people who have symptoms or become very ill. All in all San Francisco from a Public Health standpoint has done very well because of the collective actions and sacrifices of all of your members, of the Small Business community and so many people throughout San Francisco. But with that good news and the good news of opening, we have to continue to remember that our case rate remains very problematically high. What that means, theres more virus circulating in San Francisco now than there ever has been before. One of the key messages we want you all to share with your constituencies as leaders is that just because we are reopening, doesnt mean that all activities are now safe. Its going to take a great deal of care and caution as we proceed to ensure that we dont have, again, a rise in our hospitalizations and very sick people who go on to die that could cause us to have to roll back yet again. So we use a series of Health Indicators grouped across five areas to monitor our covid19 status in San Francisco and we want to know how our cases are doing and we want to know is our Health System able to handle the pandemic. What we dont want to have happen is what we saw in the spring in italy and new york city, where the hospitals were just overwhelmed with the number of sick patients and no one was able to get adequate care, whether you had covid19, a heart attack or Motor Vehicle accident. We have to preserve that healthcare capacity. When we look right now to see where the acute care beds are, is there a hospital bed if you need it, we are exceeding our goal here and if you need an icu bed, is that available . That is also exceeding our goal. That is very good. What gives me pause, and make us all feel cautious, the number of new cases per day is 30 and, again, out of context it is difficult, but just to say it is twice as high as the last time we were in purple and we were opening. So youre twice as likely to encounter someone with covid19 who may be asymptomatic than you were the last time we were starting to reopen businesses, Outdoor Dining, personal services and other things. A lot of experts will say if you have greater than 25 cases per 100 a day, that is the Tipping Point for uncontrolled spread. This is to say were at a very precarious point. We understand that Economic Health is Public Health and people need we need to have people employed and have economic engines that Small Business provides as quickly as possible. But we have to do it with caution. And so that is going to involve all of us and you as leaders messaging that, reinforcing that with employees, peers and across the city as well. So if we look at where we are, i talked about how our case rate here during this peak were way higher than the summer or spring peak. You can see that here. What we saw as we expect, this virus takes opportunities and advantage of when people come together and we saw this surge in cases right after thanksgiving and then we saw somewhat of a decline and then another slight surge at christmas and new years. Fortunately because of the care people were taking and because they were heeding messages, we didnt see as much of a peak as we were concerned we would. Unfortunately what were seeing now, the case rates are coming down. That is very good news. But we are still in a tenuous space and this could easily tip up again into a higher number unless were doing the things that we know decrease the threat. That is, keeping distance as much as possible, keeping face coverings on and really trying to do hand hygiene, the most important thing is masking and keeping distance. We have seen the hospitalizations peak and come down. That is excellent news. We dont want to strain the Healthcare System we all need. We have 194 hospitalized patients and 53 in the icu and three were taking care of that have come out of care. I think some of you have heard of this concept of the reproductive number. We want it to be less than one. If the number is one then for every one person who has covid19, they are transmitting to one other person. If it is above one, it means theres going to be growth if each person is transmitting to more than one person, it multiplies. If it is below one, that means the pandemic locally is shrinking and numbers are getting smaller. We do that by each person, if they test positive, isolating away from other people so the virus cant spread beyond that person. By distancing and people isolating when they get tested positive, by doing the amount of testing, the sheer amount of testing we have done, San Francisco as a whole has been able to bring the reproductive number down below one. That is good, that means the numbers are shrinking as we saw in the graph. That is what we need to keep happening but we were above one right before the holidays, the december holidays. We need to be very aware that keeping the number below one is so important. As we go back up, thats when we threaten our reopening plans we want to stay in place. Lets talk about reopening. I know its so important to the group and im glad i can come here on a day that mayor green and dr. Colfax have been able to announce the good news. We are no longer subject to the california regional stay at home order and that was the state order that really prescribed what we could and could not do. We tomorrow will find out what tier well go in, we expect well be in the purple tier given the very high case rate. That is the most limited tier. And that will happen tomorrow. Our goal is to very much match as much as possible all of the sectors and activities allowed in the purple tier. In some cases we may have additional safety limitations to stop the spread of the virus in San Francisco, but for the most part, well follow the tiers. If you remember, the last time we had tried to open, we had been trying to stay one tier behind. We were sort of artificially going behind what the state would allow us to do. This time we want to match what the state is doing and thats going be the region as well matching the tier. We know it was challenging previously and were hoping this is a little more simple to understand and to follow. Again, i have to say that cautious approach has saved lives in San Francisco and we know it is very challenging for Business Owners and residents. Were going to try this approach going directly to the tier and it is going to take all of us doing our level best and influencing everyone to keep it going. There will be the quote unquote 10 00 p. M. Curfew or close will be in effect at the time being and hotels can resume for tourism but local travel quarantine is going to stay in effect. If you leave the bay area and come back in for certain non exemptions for essential travel. If its vacation, people have to quarantine for 10 days and some of that is because of the new coronavirus variants and concerns of bringing in additional cases. We want to give San Francisco the best chance to be able to succeed with reopening and we dont want to import additional cases from outside of the area. Recognizing that our neighbors, Southern California and other parts of the country have rates much higher than we have here. Well issue the final health order on wednesday and become effective the morning of thursday. Thats the timeline we can expect. We are reopening again at such a high case rate because we recognize that Economic Health is Public Health. I want to say that directly. We know it is very important to do that. People have been struggling and challenging for so many months. And again, this is only going to help if work if were all helping and putting in a new level of effort into it. I know it feels overwhelming, people are so tired right now. We can see the finish line with the vaccine so individuals and business vs. To Work Together in ways perhaps we havent done before to make sure it is successful. This is the most ambitious Distribution Plan weve had in citys history. Some of this is not at our control. Were trying to control every aspect we can but the chief thing were facing right now is not having enough vaccine. This is not just San Francisco. This is true every where. We are hopeful well see changes and better understanding of where the doses are and when theyre coming and but we havent had that kind of insight right now. Its challenging for Public Health. The state and federal government control the allocation and we are required to follow their recommendations for tiering and for how we ask and invite people to get vaccines. We are ensuring healthcare workers per the states guidelines and expanding to older adults, most at risk for dieing if they become infected. We are creating a lot of options for people to get vaccines. They are safe, they are effective. These are very large and rigorous trials. Some people may have concerns about how did it happen so quickly, how did it happen in less than a year and that again is unprecedented but it is not because any of the steps in the usual Vaccine Development process were skipped, its because of the fda used the same requirements but allowed the manufacturers to overlap some of them. We were starting in the phase 2 trials before they realized the initial phase 1 studies would work but got good signal at every step and allowed them to compress the timeline and they werent starting completely from scratch. The coronavirus causes the common cold. So they were starting from a good base of knowledge and then had innovative help in the regulation to do it as quickly as possible. Serious side effects from the vaccines are rare. The general population is likely going to have access to the vaccine the summer and latter part of 2021. Some of it depends on how quickly the manufacturers ramp up and when we find out if there are other vaccines in the pipeline that are effective. The more plants we have making vaccine and bringing them online, the faster we can get them out. All vaccines for covid19 are free. Thats an Important Message to say. It doesnt matter the type of insurance or if you dont have insurance. This is available to everyone who works and living in San Francisco. How does it come into San Francisco . This is important to understand from a concept standpoint. We dont control all of this at Public Health. Were happy to give these slides for everyone to look at them afterwards but starting here in the blue on the left, the federal government purchases and allocates the vaccine supply from the manufacturer. For their federal entities like veterans affairs, va medical center, the federal government allocates those directly. It goes straight from the federal government to the federal entities. We have a va in San Francisco and it is getting its own vaccine from the feds. And theres a federal Pharmacy Partnership with cvs and walgreens and that has been those have been contracted to go into the most at risk facilities for the residents and staff of the Skilled Nursing and longterm care facilities. That partnership is directeded by the federal government but happening in San Francisco. Another portion of the vaccine goes to the state. And then they go on and allocate a couple of different ways. They give vaccine directly to multi county entities. These are the large Health Systems. Kaiser and dignity, they all receive vaccine directly from the state. It doesnt come from the San Francisco department of Public Health. But then another part of the vaccine from the state does come to local Health Departments like dph and get the allocations to distribute to remaining Healthcare Partners and we can direct back to the larger multi county entities as well. Just to say theres a lot of complexity to the logistics and allocation, this starts with control of the federal and state government. And we are following the guidelines. Were required to accept and follow the guidelines set up by the state. So we are sharing with one medical group, Chinese Hospital and we do have a dph of San Francisco network that has a hospital at zuckerberg general and primary care clinics and doing vaccinations for those patients as well on medicaid or uninsured. There are phases to the rollout. That is necessary now because theres not enough vaccine. As the supply increases, the restrictions are going to loosen up as well. But right now while vaccine is limited, we need to target the vaccine to first the healthcare workers to preserve them to take care of any of us for any reason and the people most likely to get sick and die. If you look at the age distribution here on the right in San Francisco, the median age of people who die of covid19 is 82. 83 of deaths are 65 and older. That is why we are prioritizing giving vaccine and the state has said this is the correct priority to help healthcare workers first and then 65 and older. This is phase 1a, which is really where we are now. And that is the phase we are on. No other populations right now or phases are currently eligible. There are about 90,000 people in San Francisco in phase 1a and more than 110,000 people age 65 and older in the city. Our challenge because we have a Large Population and still working on them and we dont have enough doses. But our strategy is going to be to build the capacity to get the vaccine out quickly to people once they come. We have to build the infrastructure and when we get the vaccine, well be able to give it out. And the state and federal guidance is always evolving. Were monitoring closely and setting up systems. So this is in San Francisco, the eligible population that needs the first dose or a second dose. Remember both of the approved vaccines, moderna or pfizer require two shots. If there are more than 210,000 people in San Francisco that are currently eligible for vaccines, 65 of age or older or in phase 1a, each person has to receive two doses, so we need 420,000 doses to complete 1a but the city has only received 123,000 doses total. That is every where. Its in every state, every jurisdiction right now. In general our goal is the vaccine is available from where people get Health Services from and ways that are most convenient. It could be a large drivethru or clinic or local pharmacy, your Doctors Office, vaccination site that might be at a transit hub. Were in the process of building those out now. The high volume sites are being done in unprecedented collaboration between the city and our Health System partners and were Building Sites such as the picture i showed you at the beginning, a partnership to staff and really set up that site and there are others coming online as well. The high volume sites are for everyone. When it is your turn to get vaccine and were at the tier that youre in, theres the semi permanent access point. If its too difficult to go to a high volume site or they would rather be in their neighborhoods. And were partnering with our Community Partners who best know the neighborhood. Were going to look at this with the neighborhoods with the highest rate of covid19, primarily in the southeast part of the city. And were working to make sure uninsured populations receive it as quick as possible. This might be through an existing clinic or mobile vaccination teams and there might be hubs or different ways, non traditional settings where people can get vaccinated. With the pharmacy partners, we talked about how the pharmacy is going into Skilled Nursing and longterm care facilities for the elderly to provide vaccine there, thats really important. But additionally were going to provide pharmacies like walgreens and safeway with additional vaccine where any of us could walk in and get the vaccine. Were not there yet. But as we stand up the processes, this is just a flavor of the options youll have in additional to potentially your own Doctors Office or Healthcare System set up. Supply, supply, supply is our biggest challenge. Theres no National Approach thats unified yet. We are hopeful that will be coming. We are not sure how much vaccine well be a lotted and when. And even the state doesnt know when the federal government is going to distribute. The unpredictable flow is impacting our city Healthcare Systems and partners and providers as well. Our priority for the allocation, just a small amount. We dont see how much is going right now to the pharmacies or longterm care facilities. We dont have full insight right now into what our Healthcare Partners are receiving directly, all they they have been great partners working with us. We have a health order in place as well that gives a picture to the data. The counties around us are moving at different speeds and i know sometimes that can seem confusing. Part of that, San Francisco is such a mecca for healthcare and we have large Health Systems and our population of healthcare workers is much higher than anywhere else in the region. We have that volume of people to vaccinate in that group. I will tell you that we work very closely across the region, our goal is to get everyone in the bay area vaccinated as soon as possible, which is why all of the counts are vaccinating people who live or work in our county. There are options for people who live in other counties but work here. We have a partnership and collaboration with other Health Partners that we have not done before to stand up the unique and large systems to get vaccines to people. But there are multiple issues to do that. We would like unified scheduling so it is easy to figure out where they can go. But theres scheduling issues. We need two doses for now. There are issues with transport and storage of the vaccine at ultra cold temperature for the pfizer vaccine. And we dont want to waste any vaccine. All of these things make it an operational challenge. The mask has to be on unless you are drinking or eating. Its a different sense of urgency. Restaurant patrons should have masks on unless actively eating and drinking and it is a different type of behavior so it will take all of us reinforcing the messages and being able to do that. It is important to also feel comfortable with the information about the vaccine and safety because when we get a High Percentage of people in San Francisco vaccinated and i know we can do that in the prevention effort, we are then going to be able to achieve herd immunity in the bay area and be much more able to open freely and then deal with small pockets of infection that may come up one by one but rather than taking large measures to shut down businesses and schools and other activities we know have to stay open for our communitys health. And to let us know, i know we have good lines of communication through our leaders and partners and being able to really know what youre hearing from the community so we can adapt the Public Health messages and hopefully have you as messengers with the key messages as well. My goal is to keep moving forward with opening. There are so many Things Unknown and remain unknown with the virus. I issued briefly the issue of variants and whether they can spread easier and make people more sick. Were in a race to vaccinate before we find more of the variants spread. Anything we can do now to decrease the spread will decrease the likelihood of having the variants. The more we have circulating mutates and then we get the variants. Everything we can do now we need to do and prepare for vaccine as the ultimate answer to this pandemic. I want to end there. Thank you very much and looking forward to the discussion and i will end sharing now. Thank you president laguana great. Thank you and i am back from a mysterious power outage. The entire neighborhood was flickering on and off. Thank you. So, commissioners do we have any questions for dr. Phillips. Well, sometimes it takes people a little bit to formulate the questions. I wrote down a few to get started and if somebody wants to jump in. Here we go. Commissioner dooley. Commissioner dooley yes, i have a question, which is were still seeing a lot of resistance to mask wearing. Especially with the initial situation from the Mayors Office saying if youre outdoors and exercising you dont have to wear a mask, which people are taking outrageous liberties with. I would say no more than 50 of people on the street i see are Wearing Masks. Im just wondering if something could be done to make that something that needs to be enforced a bit. I know where i work, we get resistance from people to the point where theyre yelling and screaming at us because they dont want to wear a mask when they come in to shop. So it just seems like theres a bit of a message missing right now in the city that we need to sort of address. I just wonder what your thoughts are on that. Thank you so much. I think mask wearing as youre saying is such a crux of what we have to have people do. I dont know, i would be interested to hear from you commissioner, do you think as we have talked about today, this is really the key to being able to move back towards keeping things open, opening further, keeping cases down. I dont know if you think that would be enough we do have a health order in place that requires masks outside of the home except in certain situations and that includes for kids older than two. So, im hope to hearing if you have suggestions for what else could be helpful to do. Commissioner dooley im not sure what it would be. When i try to politely address it, ive had terrible incidents with people where they told me they wanted me to die. We have all experienced that kind of thing. And i just would like to have us figure out how to get a handle on this and with our businesses, it puts our businesses in a very difficult position. President laguana commissioner dooley, i just want to say, i know and interact with some folks who are antimaskers if you will and thats a pattern we saw back in 1918 during the initial flu. There seems to be a mindset that really struggles that doing something simple and small is such an imposition to protecting Public Health. Commissioner adams. Commissioner adams thank you. To commissioner dealys thing, in our neighborhood, we have seen more people wear masks in the castro. If youre not wearing a mask, it seems like the other people on the street are maskshaming you. And that just something im proud of this neighborhood that we have seen more and more especially lately, since this last surge, i can tell you more now people are Wearing Masks than three months ago. Three months ago we had the problem that commissioner dooley just spoke about. Something happened, especially in december, now somebody is on the street not wearing a mask, the rest of the public starts coming out. And i know we shouldnt be vigilantes in the world but maybe thats what you have to do. Im seeing it more and more, im grateful because i think people really want this thing to be done and taking the measures to make sure we can end it. I think what youre doing at the department of Public Health, its rough. To say the least. Im happy about restaurants being open for Outdoor Dining now, not only here but in other parts of the state. The holidays were very, very rough. A lot of people didnt even know about ppp until two weeks ago. I appreciate your comments and were all in this together and if we all dont get in it together, commissioner dooley, i would start the public shaming and maybe its the tenderloin. I have seen it over there. But in this neighborhood, people really started to get down on people not Wearing Masks and it seems to be working and im very proud of that. In a weird way. Commissioner dooley its not working here. I would say less than 50 are Wearing Masks. Commissioner adams wow. Commissioner dooley i feel it is getting larger, the amount of people not Wearing Masks and yes, i do work in the tenderloin, two nights ago we had an incident where someone wouldnt wear a mask and spat all over our guard before they left. Im not seeing the compliance with the mask thing, im just not. And i sure would love to get some advice because when i personally have spoken to people, they havent spat on me yet but they have been extremely aggressive. Frightening. So, you know, now i never say anything to anyone except our poor guard at work is the first line of defense and he just deals with abuse constantly. Im sorry to hear how challenging it is. I think that it is helpful to have other messengers but we dont want them putting themselves in difficult positions or in a position to be spat on. Thats terrible. Any ideas you have i think people are doing this, our reproductive number have gone down. Maybe the norm that commissioner was speaking about is true in some parts of the city and maybe if we can amplify that a little bit, there will always be people who refuse to do what is in the publics interest but im open to ideas about how we can partner new ways to try to reinforce that. Thank you so much. President laguana thank you. Vice president zouzounis. Vive president zouzounis thank you. And thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. Logistically we know the layout you described of how its going to be given out to the public, the idea that you need to sign up is not a precedent for receiving a vaccine, correct . Thats not going to put you in a different order or anything . Thank you for the opportunity to clarify that. So, there is on sfgov website, if you google San Francisco Covid Vaccine notification, youll come to the correct site, if you put in your information, you will get on the list to be notified. All that says there, it says it on the website, when it is your turn, when you are eligible based on a set of questions you would answer, then you get notified. You might get several notifications because your Healthcare Provider might notify you. This is just an additional way the city will say as we go through the tiers, you will be notify. It doesnt jump you to the head of the line but puts you into the group that gets the email when we get to your particular time to get vaccinated. We do appreciate thats challenging for people because they dont know when their turn will come, but i want to make clear our goal is to get vaccines to anyone who wants it. We are hoping 100 of people who live or work in San Francisco will want the vaccine and as it comes in, were pushing it out and trying to move down the tiers. We have a ways to go but were building infrastructure. Vive president zouzounis im worried about those not through a city plan, how theyre going to be accounted for. In terms of receiving vaccine and getting vaccine, anyone who works in San Francisco no matter where they live to get vaccinated at one of our campuses when it is their turn. I would say that those individuals may whether or not their usual healthcare is could be getting notified through that route but should sign up to get notified through the city as well. Here are all of the options you have in the city, there may have additional options with their provider and pick the one that is best for them and their family. That is our goal to get people all of the options. Vive president zouzounis would you recommend to the public listening that if youre an essential worker to make sure to have your Healthcare Provider know that information and if youre part of the city, to know that information im worried about people not identifying to Healthcare Providers that theyre essential workers. When we get to that point, past all of the people over 65 and healthcare workers, we will be putting out as a city more information about how people can seek that. We are not at this point, we are not expecting to have people show us proof theyre essential workers. We will likely partner with businesses that do essential work and associations that know who those people are to make sure we invite the right people. Were not going to require proof of someone to say whether or not they qualify. Well lay all of this out. I think its not a bad idea to open the line of communication with your own Healthcare Provider to find out how is the system notifying people when vaccine comes available but its a little off in the distance right now. The providers themselves for the most part aside from the very large systems dont have vaccine coming to them. Being provided to know what is my Healthcare Provider planning to do is good and you have the city as the other backup to know the city is going to be informing people when they are eligible for vaccines. Vive president zouzounis thank you. President laguana thank you. So, a couple of follow up questions from that. Is the Notification Program just really a notification of eligibility or indication that if you go to the city testing vaccination site, youll be able to promptly get vac put thatted. Thank you for that question. Efforts for vaccines, we can have people line up and do this. Most likely, make it through an appointment and theyre probably going to be really quick appointments. So what the sign up for eligibility does, it really just notifies you, hey, youre now in a Group Eligible for vaccines, here are the ways to access vaccine. But then it will guide you through heres what you need to do to sign up at the time of your choosing and place of your choosing. We dont want to put people into something that doesnt work for them because its across town. It allows that flexibility when it is their turn. Thats the goal. President laguana that makes sense. So its not specifically looped into supply at any given location or what have you. Its purely eligibility notification in case you missed it. It is. And the partnership we have with the Health Systems, the city, this is all to say it should matter. Thats an important distinction. If you are not uc patient and you go to city college run by ucsf, you will get vaccine. This is why its unprecedented. You can go to the site that kaiser may run and get it even though youre not a kaiser patient. In this way, we are trying to make it any door is the right door for a San Francisco resident or worker and we think that the right way to do it. President laguana thats good to hear. I didnt know that. You talked about allocating the mts and local Health Departments allocating to enterprise i think it was. I was wondering if it went the other way, if kaiser was sitting on more supply than they could put out, would they allocate to local health distributors. They might but were designing it over the large through put center. They would get as many people through as possible. Rather than the Health Department were going to have a focus on communities, equity and doing sort of very smaller scale but focused work to get vaccine out and these large sites are for everyone. So i think it would be very rare that kaiser or uc or dignity or any of the large places would be allocating to the Health Department. They would probably do it at the site in which they are working and anyone they process there, it serves us well as the city to have that approach. President laguana and you mentioned during your presentation, you think we all know there was a pretty lack of guidance from the federal government and i guess a hope that that is going to change soon. Are you hearing any rumors or rumblings of anticipated change in federal policy or more guidance on the way . I dont have any special insight into that other than what the administration has publicly announced and we have every reason to believe thats their intention, do everything they can to increase accessibility of not only vaccines but testing and ppe and all that. We are hopeful but i dont have any specific information at this point. President laguana one thing i think we have all noticed, theres an uneven distribution of covid cases specifically in the mission. Talking with some of the Community Leaders there, they have indicated that they really need an expansion of low barrier testing. Is dph, is there progress to report here, can we expect to see more in that area and can we expect to also see resources in terms of vaccinations being deployed where the its the highest . Yes, the sites mayor breed and dr. Colfax have announced are in the middle of the city, city college and bayview. It is really recognizing just what you said. In terms of testing resources, we have the most recent for high volume sites. please stand by. i totally recognize that the incident rate among essential workers is much higher than among the public as a whole. By virtue how closely they are working with each sore. It is certainly a vector for disease transmission. With respect to the public and Outdoor Dining, have you seen or are you aware of any tracing that indicates outdoor diners . There have been those types of studies. They are very involved. They are not the data we get from the usual Public Health work. We are focused on reaching as many people as possible and telling them what to do to stay safe that is our focus. There are case control studies for those that are positive and those that dont. You find out what activities they did or did not have in common. Cdc has published in the premier journal about studies of different activities that people have done among a large group. There was Outdoor Dining not as strong as Indoor Dining but higher than other activities. I believe the data are convincing, also, based on my sign terrific training why that might be so is also there. I understand outdoors is safer than indoors. We start there. Anytime two people from different households are together and removing masks, that is a time for a set up for transmission. There is some risk. It is not completely safe. It is safer than Indoor Dining. I think that is what we have to accept. There are tradeoffs. We will make it as safe as possible for people who are older than 65 or people who have Underlying Health conditions. It may not be the right time for them to outdoor dine. They need to think about their risk if they become infected with covid19. You know, i want to emphasize, you know, we have had an epidemic, if you will, volunteer epdemmologists. I tries to not be infected by that and not substitute my judgment for people like yourself who have devoted their entire lives to studying these issues. I am very respectful of what is weighed here. In our role on the commission, i ask questions on behalf of the community. I hope it comes across and iscomming from a place of deep respect and appreciation for the work that dph does. Couple followup questions on Outdoor Dining. To what degree are we worried about the emerging variants, particularly from california and how that might impact some of this loosening orreopenning . How deep is our concern right now. I touched upon that in the talk. It deserves discussion here. We dont know. The california variant is called l452r. Certain mutations have occurred in the virus. We dont know. It is concerning it popped up to a higher percentage in the specimens tested by colleagues. We dont know if it means because we are not testing every specimen with that specialized testing. We dont know if it is the specimens that tested. It requires more investigation as to whether it is truly becoming more prevalent in our community the way the u. K. Variant has. It is likely some of these variants because they are transmissible will be the predominant strain in the United States by march is what experts are saying. I think we are waiting for vaccine. Now we believe the vaccines we have will be effective against the u. K. Variant and the california variant as well. There is evidence of decreased effectiveness against the south african variant, but they believe the initial efficacy is so hi, the vaccine will be good on the population level and the manufacturers pfizer and moderna are adjusting the formula in case they need the additional dose. The scientists in Vaccine Development are thinking the right way. We have in our hands the ability to really tamp down these variants right now. We dont have to wait for the vaccine. The less transmission occurring. Every time the virus goes to a new person and circulates that is when the mutations happen. If we tamp down the numbers the way we have done in San Francisco that is the best thing to do to improve the chances of holding the line until we can vaccinate everyone. The question. I have to be careful how i phrase this. This is sometimes used in bad faith by folks who just want to complain about masks or generally dont agree with health policy. I think there is a good faith question in here which is to what degree i will use the fancy word exogenous factors weigh . Outside the context of the virus and illness. For example, rates of depression or suicide or economic impacts, you know, inability of people to get access to edd or funds, food insecurity, housing insecurity. To reemphasize this is a question from a good faith perspective to get an understanding to what degree that this impacts dph Decision Making around Public Health policy . You know, on the slides you did put the Economic Health is Public Health. Mental health is Public Health. I should say that as well. The mental benefits, social benefits of being connected to feeling secure in your business or paycheck, those things are important for Public Health as well. There is no absolute answer. We could save every life by locking down from here until everyone is fully vaccinated. That is not the best way to Optimize Health in San Francisco. We are trying to walk a very difficult path, which i know this group appreciates. I know it feels like we are going too far in one direction and forgive us for this. We are trying to reevaluate the data and weighing lives. This is an issue of livelihood. I want to say i hope all of you know in the commission in Public Health in our department we value this very much. We know that Economic Health and Mental Health is such a part of Public Health in San Francisco, and it is not a small thing. It is not just about what we have in the neighborhood. This is about being able to maintain the health of the residents. I want to say that. We will start from that point and consider it. It is very, very hard. We are moving forward at a higher case rate than before because we recognize at this point we can try to engage people around masks. Not everyone will do it. We can engage around vaccines. We are at a different point when we had to shut down again in the spring. We are moving forward with optimism but we need buy in 110 from everyone to make this work. To that point, i think, San Francisco has had extraordinary success for a city its size. That is no small part due to the participation of the Small Business community who have really taken it on the chin and then some. You know, like i said, the question was asked in the best possible faith trying to get a better understanding of the decisionmaking process. A couple quick questions. Thank you for your time. I know this is probably late to meet with us. I appreciate that as well. For our restaurants without door dining, there is now a six foot rule that is very frustrating for folks that have the dining spaces within six feet but a size barrier. Can you walk me through what the thought process is there and is there a likelihood that or is a possibility the barrier could be judged sufficient at some point . I want to give a Public Health answer. I want to say i did reach out to state colleagues. This is one of the state requirements in their outdoor structures. It was not an individual decision. I will tell you the reasoning for that is that again trying to maintain as much as possible a different ventilation, airflow between parties seated at different tables. Recognizing the closer we get to those barriers, first of all, if they are low, they are not effective between tables. If they are too high they might increase the concentration of virus at the table itself because now we are allowing up to two households, party of six to it is together for Outdoor Dining. The concern is the barriers are too high you increase the risk. It is a tradeoff. Those are the Public Health and scientific reasons. What i hear from colleagues at the state. This is a challenge and concern for Small Business owners across the state who have invest understand the barriers. They were permissible previously. I apologize. That is a complete frustration and difficulty. It is yet another challenge. I certainly appreciate you asking about that, and i would appreciate you continuing to ask about that Going Forward. For folks that invested in shared spaces and outdoor spaces it is not something to change very quickly, and if the risk differential is not hi, then i think this might warrant consideration of the Economic Cost or impact. Really my last question, and thank you for your patience. I know so much what is happening right now is based on projections, kind of the sense we are skating where the puck should be and not where it is. Do we have a sense, and i know nobody can predict the future. We are Small Business people and we hope to have as much insight into planning as we possibly can. Do you have a rough sense assuming there is no rapid new variant that changes the picture. Do you have a rough sense of when we might reach the next tier down . When we might get to red . I think that is a great question. We knew the minute we announced purple that is what people want to know. That is good. We have to push as a city to get there. I think some will depend on what we see happening. We know that it is very likely cases will go up. That is not a problem. It really depends on the speed at which it is rising. Does it seem to have an impact . We are meeting as a Scientific Team in the city to think about that. To think what might that look like . In terms when we might be able to get to red, i think you have got to look at the parameters of the state. We have to acknowledge that by reopening, resetting back a little bit. We hope between all of us masking. I will say we will get there. Then increasingly getting vaccine as more and more supply comes into play that decreases the virus circulating in the city. Actions not safe now dining closer than six feet may become safer and Indoor Dining may become safer. Less virus because fewer of us will get infected. That is the goal. I dont an exact time, but i am happy to come back to the commission and give updates where we are to reproject that. I think i would be doing a disservice if i tried to guess at this moment. I have to ask you. There are so many people dying to know. I did have one more quick question. A lot of people were relieved to see the city largely stick to state criteria. Do you have a state on the dph intends to continue with sticking to the state tier system Going Forward . That is our goal to be able to do that. We know it may beings it so much easier for Small Businesses, large businesses, residents to understand what we are doing and why. We are frying to do trying to do that at this point. There are reasons for not doing that. There was a lot more uncertainty with the winter surge. Now we are on the down slope and we hope to go into purple with optimism and full determination we are going to make this Work Together. Great. With that, i appreciate your time. We are going to go to Public Comment. Thank you so of an again. So much again. Caller, please proceed. Good evening, commissioners, i am the president of the council of district merchants. Thank you for having this meeting and thank you for attending and for the department of Public Health. Thank you for everything you do. I know you catch heat from us. We all understand we are partners. I have two remarks and one question to make. One is that please keep in mind there are over 200,000 Chinese Business employees, 43500 Small Businesses with less than 10 employees. If you average that to five each that is 200,000 people that somewhat arent part of the big picture. Many are essential workers and many are front line workers. Not only are they exposed. They can be part of the problem if the vaccination is not a priority. Remember the little guy because they add up to big numbers and can be a big part of the solution since they works for smaller businesses without the best outreach, infrastructure, p. P. E. Applies or anything like that. Please keep that in mind. One other consideration is that Small Businesses dramatically impacted when announcements are made in the negative effect of shut done shut downs. This has many businesses scrambling to get open, call back employees, come back if they left the city or have gone elsewhere. Vendors are overloaded with supplies to get their economy back up and running. The last thing to hear is two day notice. The businesses are shut down with two weeks of supply of inventory and one week supply of perishables in refrigerators. If there is a way that we can watch the needle moving as we progress towards shut down or hopeful expansion of the openings, Small Businesses can be more prepared and something that can be broadcast on a broader level. We would have less panic and frantic and more effective openings. Other than that, thank you for your time. Thank you for your hard work. I look forward to seeing us getting into the lighter colors. Thank you. Before we close the item. Any last commissioner comments or questions . Okay. Dr. Phillips, thank you for your time and patience. We appreciate you so much and look forward to hearing better news in the future. Thank you. Looking forward to the partnership with the commission and constituents in the next phase. Here we go. Next item, please. Item 4. Approval of legacy business registry applications and resolutions. Discussion and action item. Legacy Business Program manager. You should be able to present. Rick, you have the floor. Good evening. Richard carillo Business Program manager. Before you today are five applications for consideration for the legacy business registry. Each includes a staff report, draft resolution, application and case report and draft resolution from planning department. They were submitted to planning december 9th. Heard by Historic Preservation commission on january 6th. Item 4a is 24th street dental. The business of the dental practice in the Mission District owned by dr. Gonzalez. He became a fixture of the local music scene and known as dr. Rock. He served as manager of the Mountain Group and organized the annual benefit voices of latin rock for 10 years. He is involved in significant Mission Cultural activities. In 1981 he helped produce the 24th street fair for the merchants. He became the president. He created the culture association. He produced a fundraiser event for autism for the influential voices of latin rock book which was very successful. This started to latin look to preserve the Music Associated with an ongoing basis in different forms from past to present. It must maintain on the registry. Item 4b american conservatory feature foundation. Business is a Nonprofit Organization founded in 1966. It is the governing body of the American Conservatory Theatre which opened in 1967. Act is a Theater Company which includes the geary and strand treatter and conservatory offering educational activities for adults and young agoors. The geary theater purchased in 1967 is the flagship theater seats over 1,000 people. 3,000 students every year. Danny glover and dan sell washington are among the former students. The program moved to the americans actor training serving as an engine for local talent. They partner to introduce students to live theater as artists and members. Act has been severely affected by reduced sales due to covid19. The core feature must retain is theater. Item 4c is bladerunners hair studio. Hair studio opened by david wilson 1981. He founded the salon to carry out exemplary client service. It is to the neighborhood identity. In addition to the salon, it has served a Large Clientele it offers an apprenticeship which allows students to get paid while they learn the craft of hairdressing. They have hosted local artists for art shows. Donated Gift Certificates to school and fundraisers, purchased in merchant discounted and donated use of soace to nonprofits. It has an iconic english bulldog. First jake the bulldog and currently gabriel. It is a hair salon. Item 4d. Central hardware and supply company. This business is a retail Hardware Store opened in 1946 with roots dating to two Hardware Stores founded in San Francisco in the late 1880s. They became as center hardware. It is one of the largest independent Hardware Stores in San Francisco. Hosting aninventory 100,000 different items from a diverse aware of hardware brands. There is a wide range of customers, businesses, Property Managers and more. They donated materials and tools to local high schools, space for makers tosem products sell products and events celebrating trades. Center hardware maintains a collection of antique tools and machines which is displayed within the store. Center hardware is family owned by the family since 1980. The core features tradition it must maintain the store. 4d is pipe dreams. Retail smoke shop in hate ashbury opened in 1978. Pipe dreams is the oldest smoke shop and among the five oldest smoke shop in the United States. Strong connection to the former business called the phoenix, the first smoke shop in country. They sell tobacco and glassware and accessories crafted by local artists and clothing brands, greeting cards and photographers. Pipe dreams has a wellness corners for the health items including cbd based products. They have been active in the events including first friday and other events promoting local businesses. They donate to the larkin street youth and Homeless Youth alliance. They must maintain the smoke shop business. All five businesses met the criteria for listing on the legacy business registry and received positive recommendation from Historic Preservation. We recommend adding to the registry and we drafted five resolutions. The motion in support of the businesses should be a motion in favor of the resolutions. Thank you. This concludes my presentation. I am happy to answer any questions. I will bring this to business representatives on the line to speak on behalf of the applications during Public Comment but i do have comments from two of them to read in case they have difficulty getting online. Rick, in the interest of time. Can you introduce the written comments into the record. We have had a long meeting. If they are able to make it we will hear from them. Commissioners any comments . Seeing none. Are there Public Comments on the line . Two people in queue. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you very much for doing this for us. I am the Operations Manager for american matthew american conservevatory theater we thank you for helping us with our application. Next caller, please. Please proceed. Hello. Sorry i know you have had a long meeting. I will be brief. Written statement. I wanted to say thank you. It is an honor to be considered a legacy business in San Francisco. The best city in the world and we are proud to represent the eight ashbury district. Call in if you want to use the whole time. It is the best city in the world. Any other callers on the line . No other callers. Commissioner. [indiscernable] congratulations. [indiscernable] thank you for that. Thank you. Any other commissioner comments . I will just say it is wonderful to see american conservatory theater in front of us. What anincredible cultural institution. Certainly we want to do everything we can to support our cultural institutions. With that do we have a motion . Motion that we approve them. Second. Motion by commissioner adams to approve all four resolutions. Seconded by commissioner dooley. Roll call vote. [roll call] motion passes 60. Thank you so much. Congratulations everybody. Very much appreciated. Next item please. Item 5. Office of Small Business budget fiscal year 202122. Update on the proposed budget. Discussion and action. Just to be clear. Is it through the participant drop down . Commissioners, good evening. I will try to this is not very brief. I will be as concise as possible. I will share my screen. All right. What i am presenting for you today, while the item is an action item. I am actually not requesting any action from you this evening. We will we having one more hearing. We are now obligated to have two hearings at the commission with the departments budget. What i am going to present to you is an overview. First step in the budget process due to the exceptional situation we are in as a city. We will be taking a look at what is being asked of each of the departments in terms of budget reduction. We will be looking at fiscal year 2122 that starts july 1. You will often hear it referenced as fiscal year 22. That is the year that the fiscal year ends. Then also fiscal year 2223. I am starting out with you to just review the rent stabilization grant. What is ahead of us for the two fiscal years coming up. 2122, 2223. This has relevance in relationship to the considerations that i will present to you soon. As you can see, we have this column here, and hopefully you can see the cursors i am using. Right now we are in 2021. The Legacy Business Grant Program has 1 million in the program. We have funds enough funds to be able to fund current obligation for rent stabilization and projected new grants coming in on average 171,000 around 12 new grants each year. Excuse me. Just to clarify. We are looking at the rent stabilization grant for legacy Business Program, not overall budget for the office of Small Business . Correct. You will see that in just a moment. We are just looking at rent stabilization grant. Fiscal year 2122. We will be adding 12 new legacy businesses eligibility to receive rent stabilization grants will then exceed the 1 million so in fiscal year 2122 if we just have a Budget Allocation of 1 million in the legacy Grant Program we will be short 16,000, a little over 16,000. Moving into fiscal year 2223. If we follow sort of the same trajectory. We will have a budget shortfall of 204,543. I just want you to keep in mind the projected budget shortfalls that we will have with retaining the legacy Business Grant amount at 1 million. Next, i am i thought i had sized it to see everyone be at once. We are moving into the budget. Excuse me. I have a screeching dog. At the top of the budget Disability Access funds. This is part of the budget operations but separated out because this fund is a fund that comes through a state mandate where the local municipalities required to collect 4 with every Business Registration annually. Right now, and we are required to send those spend those funds by either supporting certified access certification to the employees that do accessibility work as with the department of building inspection, department of public works, Mayors Office on disability. We do some of that funding does go to those departments. We work order it over per the request and on average that is about 8,500 per year. Right now we have about 500,000 in the budget that we need to allocate through our Disability Access or programs that support businesses that do disability work. It is prescribed anniversary strict prescribed and it is restricted. It specifies the funds are spent in those two ways. What i have done is in most cases as the city we would probably set up the fund to be administered by a thirdparty. If that were the case, there would be some administrative costs associated with the administratorring those funds. Therefore, since we are doing that in house, i have set aside 54,600 to help offset one staffs salary to administer these funds. Moving down into and you will see excuse me. Is it visible . Moving down, we have been told by the mayors Budget Office the amounts of funding we need to cut. That is 7. 5 of our budget for fiscal year first fiscal year and then combined an additional 7. 5 for fiscal year 2223 which is a total amount of 15 . I have been given these exact budget dollars of which i need to work to account for. I have provided subtotals, and this subtotal in this row is just the osb, operational budget with the Commission Work and i am so sorry. Not my strong point here. So i have provided the subtotal for the Department Operations minus legacy Business Program and that is 1,257,000. Which that cut would be 14 of those operating funds, adding the legacy business brings the total Department Budget to 2,353,000. If you move to the fiscal year 23, again, it is pretty much i dont anticipate any radical changes to our budget, increases, decreases, but we are being asked to have 15 budget reduction. Moving to the operating budget, our labor and personnel. This is including the 7 staff of the office of Small Business and funding one person in the spdc Small Business Development Center to assist with Technical Assistance and helping businesses with Technical Assistance for those businesses that may need assistance in drafting their narrative and as assisting rick on the rent stabilization grant. That is the cost for the personnel. In the column to the right, im calculating the projection where i might where we can do some budget cuts. I am doing this i apologize. I am doing this on my home computer. I have a different Adobe Program i am not used to working with. I have projected that i can do budget cuts and salary savings of 90,000. That is due to the offset from the Disability Access funds of the 54,000 of administrative costs and then in discussion with the position at the abdc sbdc that is not utilizing its entire time doing just legacy business work. They are doing other general support work with the Small Business Development Center, that is about 25 of their time. Another 45,000 being offset from that position to help do the salary savings. Again, i wont be able to do i cant cut personnel any more than that or offset the salaries any more than the 90,777 so looking at fiscal year 23, it is the same amount. Budget and overhead. I have put in the overhead which pays for the shared administrative costs with oewd for hr services, payroll, finance, contracting, other things. I am cutting our amount of our overhead contribution. I do think we are being charged a little too much since we have very little contract work. Much of the oewd work and the work force side, their work is done through contracts with nonprofits to facilitate their work. Most of ours is done through our staff. Again, it is the same projected overhead and so i am calculating the same reduction for fiscal year 23. I dont see that we can make any budget cuts in our nonpersonnel services, which is more like operating costs, which is for things like translating, copy machines, printing, various things like that, materials and supplies pays for Office Supplies and for our technology software. Then other Services Falls underpaying for the commission meetings, paying for other Digital Services that provide ongoing support to the office. For the legacy Business Program, we have this years fiscal year 2122. We have the Legacy Business Grant Program at 1 million. Nonpersonnel services which are operating costs that pay for the things like the window clinics, certificate, other supportive items and we will be applying this funding to help pay for the plaques that are in design or actually in development. They are designed and are in development and within the next few months we will be able to start placing them on the outside of our legacy businesses, which is very exciting. Rick and i have taken a look at this budget, and we have determined that for this next fiscal year we could if required we can reduce by 10,000. Then we have the programmatic project. This is a new budget that came about through the ad backna supervisor peskin provided last fiscal year intended for a staff position to help support with the Business Assistance grant. That position did not materialize because of the current budget situation that we are in, but because it was there was funding for three years we have the 75,000. We are currently, rick and i, are currently working with commissioner huie on a marketing and Promotion Program for the legacy businesses that is lacking right now from the program. We have determined that for our project needs, we still do need some funding from 2122 year but we could reduce by 33,000. Going over to fiscal year 2223, again, if we must, we could reduce the 20,000 by 10,000. Again, this might start to slow down our ability to be able to pay for plaques. Right now it is important for our office to be able to pay for plaques to put on the front of legacy businesses while we are in the economic situation. If must, we can then afford to not spend the 75,000. With those reductions, we are still for the 2223 year we need to find 137,000 to reduce our budget by. That means the only place that one can look to is the Legacy Business Grant Program. We the Legacy Business Grant Program with this program just so that you are aware is that we cant just say we are not going to be accepting any new applications the way it is written in prop j. Each year any business or landlord that is interested in applying, they can if we dont have money in the budget they dont get funded that year, but they get added to the pool of grant award des for the previous year. If we are still working with 1 million it starts to beginning to shrink down the amount of funding each grant recipient applies for. I will leave this up. Well, i could stop sharing and go back to sharing if needed. Actually i will open it up to see if there are any questions that you have. Are there any commissioners with questions . While i wait for them, who determines the size of lsb budget overall . Where is that determination made . Is that at the Mayors Office, oewd . Who decides what the gross budget is. Before i answer that, this is all general funded except for the Disability Access fund. That is an Important Note in terms of all of the funds that our Office Operating with is general funded. In terms of who makes the decision, it is the commission that actually has working with me and also working in consultation with the mayors Budget Office. Because we are under this larger umbrella of oewd it happens simultaneously as well. It is really the commission who has the final authority on stating whether you want to. Final authority or direction to me, i should say, as to how, one, we deal with budget requests, reduction requests and two, another phase with the budget process is dealing with you can it enhancements that dealt with it separately than this particular process. Budget enhancements are things a proposal is put together and then, you know, it needs support and backing from the commission and then discussed with the mayors Budget Office. There is a budget reconciliation coming up next month, i think, then the next serious bit of budget work happens june, july, towards the end of the fiscal year, is that right . The next, well, the mayors phase is where the first step is departments discuss with the mayor in terms of budget situation. Even with the reduction requests and or enhancements. Next phase is with the board of supervisors. The board of supervisors are still when you go before them with your departments budget, they are still asking for you to and i am saying the department but this situation with the board of supervisors phase they are looking at the office of Small Business is a small department. We are part under oewd to have shared resources for hr, payroll and finance team to help monitor stuff. Usually the board of supervisors will look at oewd. There is the commission, the work force side. Look at it globally. They have a goal that they want to cut the mayors budget by a certain number. They use that number for their add backs. I know how that part works. That is where the supervisor money from the cuts. In terms of the goal for our office with the Mayors Office, anything finalized in the mayors budget needs finalized by the end of february. Got it. I feel like i have looked at enough of these budgets now that, you know, one thing i am surprised by is it doesnt seem like the operations cost changes very much from year to year. Is that fair to say . It doesnt, but i will say that it may, particularly one thing that has transpired is i would say Operations Costs dont change much year to year, though if the commission is interested without adding staff, if the commission is interested in having more policy research done, then that often can be accomplished by contracting and having a contracting entity do some of the policy research for you. Then if that is the case and not adding a position you may want to add funding into the operational section. That is one example for the commission. It is the volume of work that needs to increase but you are not going to increase the volume by adding more staff, then generally you add some money to be able to do that work by contracting it out. I have some more comments. I see that commissioner huie requested to speak. Thank you. I guess i am wondering what type of feedback or opportunities we have. I am new to the commission, in terms of like analyzing and digesting the budget. I feel like i am looking at the budget and cuts in the context of the past year, and in the past year, i feel like the office of Small Business has been doing a tremendous amount of work to be able to support all of our communities and really support the anchoring of our neighborhoods through the work that the commission has been, you know, doing through the office. I am kind of wondering are there opportunities to make any sort of pleas or adjustments to this . It feels like in my world, i feel like a budget is kind of a guide to your priorities. It shows where your priorities are. Wherever you spend your money, and i think if we have been having conversations with our legislators consistently for the last support of execution, i feel like for us to be looking at cutting programs such as the rent i am sorry the rent stabilization grant when we just had a meeting on how we want to expand the legacy Business Program, i feel like, you know, where is the real world . Where is this all going to happen in the real world . We are going to expand the legacy Business Program but we are going to reduce the amount of, you know, good stuff that comes out of the legacy business. I feel like this should be an opportunity for us, and i am saying this out of how i dont know how all of this works and i am just kind of putting it out there as a newer commissioner, but, you know, i feel like if it is indicative of our priorities and values, this is an opportunity for us to say that where are we going to do this . How will we get this done . We are having meeting after meeting to support Small Businesses and we are the one office of Small Business. I know there are many entities that support Small Businesses throughout the Mayors Office and our citys structure, but we are the one called the office of Small Business. We are the one that is the commission of Small Business . I think there should be some sort of, i dont know. I am not the wordsmith. What i am trying to say but i would love to see us walk the walk as we talk the talk. I am laughing at myself. The idea that anybody would say i am a wordsmith. I think you are exactly right. I think what i am struggling with here and maybe you can hear it in my questions is the Small Business community is in crisis where the department is tasked with helping that community. Why is the budget the same . I people like this is the feel like this is the third budget that looks more or less identical to past budget plus or minus 50 grand or 100 grand or whatever. I think there is a lot to do to prepare for this particular meeting with dr. Phillips, and i guess i didnt have much time to devote to thinking about the budget. We are going to spread this. There is no action item tonight that is the good news. I think a few phone calls need to be made and better sense of what the options are out there, what the possibilities are out there, how our stance is with respect to how we are allocating resources. I think i need to, you know, each commissioner should take the time to review the budget. I get you are having problems with the app. I think if it was printed in front of me, it would be easier to digest. I think where i am headed is i am much more on the enhancement side of the fence than i am on the cut side of the fence. I dont see how anybody in their right mind could look at what we do and not come to that conclusion or look at our output over the past year or even just surmising what is likely to happen to the Small Business community if things come back online. They will need help, support, services. Probably at a higher degree than they did in the past. There will be a lot more people that are impacted than we have ever had in the past. I think we really need but before i get in front of the cart, i would like to have a better understanding of what a plausible recommendation would look like from the recipients and i would like a better understanding of the balance. This is going to take offline work to get to the bottom of this. Most definitely, and i think it is important for you, commissioners, to share a sense of direction. Commissioner huie, you shared a sense of direction knowing the economic crisis that we are in. This seems contraindicated to reduce our budget at minimum so hear from the commission and that this is something both with the president and the Vice President we can dive into this deeper and look at the budget. If there are ideas and suggestions that you have interest in terms of on the enhancement side, then this is something, also, to share with either ideas if anything comes to your mind now or offline. I have Something Real quick. We can parking lot this. I really dont know if i have the knowledge to understand staffing right now in the city and what we have the ability to manipulate. I understand that departments were called on to send staff to the emergency staffing for covid and not all departments were doing that. I would like to inquire about the funding for those emergency services. I could advocate that we are part of that. I think there is all kinds of. That is a perfectly fine articulation for where the money could come from. Frankly, i think to cynthias point, commissioner huie. We are the department of Small Business and there is a Small Business crisis happening. Commissioner adams. I agree with commissioner huie, with president laguana and commissioner zouzounis. We should be getting more funding on an emergency basis. The city needs to really look at the priorities. I have always thought in the past the budget was too thin to begin with. As i look at a lot of the you know, city workers, not that they dont work hard. They got raises this year. There arent a lot of regular people who got raises this year. We are in a crisis. With that said, too, the city is in a horrible financial crisis right now. One of the things we may want to do. I have been thinking about this. I read this budget this afternoon when director sent it. I started brainstorming how to get more money in here. Maybe with the new administration in washington, we can work on grants. We have a great new advo cat now at the Small Business administration. If the city would allow us, maybe the commissioners could lobby to get more money directly to our office to address these issues. Like you said, now is not the time to cut the budget. We are in an emergency state here. You go down the streets here, and it breaks my heart. We are at a Small Business crisis before covid. We are in a worse situation now. We about 200,000, 300,000 people. That is priority one. With the jobs comes other things to help the city. One of the things we may want to think about and i will take this upon myself. Dealing with the federal government now that we have a change of administration. Lets try to start to get some of these funds. We have a Vice President from San Francisco. Speaker of the house from San Francisco. Could on. Help the people in your own backyard. We in a horrible, horrible financial crisis. I dont think any of us realize how bad it is. I come to the realizezation months ago. We are in trouble. Not to be the bearer of bad news. We will see reductions in police, fire, we will see reductions across the board. I think we have to all come together as a commission to figure out what to do to save what we got. That is my two cents. Thank you. That is very well said, commissioner adams. I appreciate that context. I dont want to spend too much time on this. It is clear to me that offline work needs to happen and phone calls need to be made, some discussions mead to be had around the best path forward. I want to get in the path of promising the moon and not being able to deliver anything at all. I just dont know what constraints we are up against, but it seems to me again going back to what commissioner huie said. We are the office of Small Business and there is a Small Business crisis. This is selfevident we need to be more aggressive. I dont see how anybody can look on at the out pit in the past year and say we werent doing our job or the office wasnt doing our job. It is ridiculous. We need conversations. I think we should move to Public Comment because i think we are all on the same page about this and we all agree. I see commissioner dooley headache as nodding her head. Move to Public Comment and close this item and have more discussions and reconvene at the next meeting on this. There is nobody in the queue for Public Comment. Public comment is closed. Next item. Commissioners, i am going to call items 6 and 7 together and will provide some background and direction for the elections of the Commission President and Vice President. Item 6. Election of offices president. In according to the rules of order 2 section 3. It must occur at the regular meeting of the Small Business Commission Held during the seconds meeting in january of each year. A term of one year elected upon a vote of the commission. That is an action item. Item 7 is election of officers Vice President. According to the Commission Rules of order article 2 section 3 election of Vice President must occur at the regmeeting of the commission during the second meeting in january of each year. Vice President Shall eleven a term of one year and shall be elected upon a vote of the commission. The Commission Shall vote to elect a Commission President and Vice President under separate agenda items. For each office the Commission Secretary will call for nominations. Nominations require a second to be considered. Nominees will be provided an opportunity to make a statement in the order in which they were nominated. After the nominee statement other commissioners will be provided a chance to comment. Following the statements the secretary will open Public Comment. When Public Comment is closed the secretary will conduct a roll call vote on each nomination in the order each nomination was made. First to receive four votes for each office shall be deemed elected. The no nominee receives four votes it will be reopened and the process repeated. If no nominee receives four votes the Commission Secretary may after not less than three rounds of nomination continue the election for one or both offices to the commissions next regular meeting. Commissioners, item 6. Election of the Small Business commit president. Is there a nomination . Vice president the zouzounis. I would like to nominate commissioner laguana for another term of president of the Small Business commission. Am i allowed to embellish or just straight nomination . You can embellish. I just wanted to say thank you, commissioner laguana for leading us through a land mark year. I am thankful for your leadership on and over line and encouragement of collaborating with Small Business and community organizations. I move to nomination commissioner laguana to serve another term of one year of president of the Small Business commission. Thank you. Is there a second for this nomination. Second. Thank you, commission near dooley. I am going to open up for Public Comment. Jim, is there anyone on the line for Public Comment . There is nobody in the queue for Public Comment. Public comment is closed. Is there another nomination or are we able to move on to roll call . I will begin roll call. Commissioner adams. Yes. Commissioner dooley. Yes. Commissioner huie. Yes. Commissioner laguana. Yes. Commissioner ortiz cartagena. Yes. Congratulations, president on your election to another term as Commission President. Thank you. Would it be appropriate to make a brief comment . Sure. This has, i think for me and all of you, been the most challenging year of my entire life. I have had a lot of challenging years, but this took the cake. I just want to say i have learned so much from each and every one of you and have so much respect for each and every one of you. At least from my perspective to do my best to represent everything that each of you bring up, even just passing comments that you think arent that big of a deal, i try to make sure they are followed up on and supported. It is an incredible honor working with all of you. It will be an incredible honor to continue to work with you. I cant do this forever. I am not sure i have more than another year in me. This is a lot of work, but i am committed to doing this with all my heart for this year. Thank you all for being such fantastic colleagues and making my work look so good by virtue of the amount of intelligence and experience and wisdom that you bring to it. It is a reflection of the body as a whole. Thank you very much. Next item, please. We are going to continue on with item 7. Which will be the election of the Small Business commission Vice President. Is there a nomination . I would like to nominate mirian zouzounis. Her leadership in the last year is phenomenal. I am so so proud of her. Can other people make comments . Is there a second . I second it. Okay. Great. Yes, you may make a comment. I have had the privilege of working closely with Vice President zouzounis. She is really fantastic. You know, i just want to say that in a year where it is going to be absolutely critical how sba interacts with the Small Business community, the fact we have somebody with both feet planted within sba is a huge asset to this commission and to the community. I have seen her put that to work behindthescenes helping, for instance the venue Community Get situated with webinairs and trains. Her attention to details, you know, particularly with respect to how it affects the smallest businesses. I am so grateful for her lived experience, managing these and through the Family Business and her advocacy work on behalf of those folks. We have a fantastic group. It is an honor to serve with her. I want to second and echo and amplify everything commissioner adams said. Thank you very much. Commissioner zouzounis, do you have anything to adds for your nomination . I am honored to take on another year of leadership for the Small Business commission. It is a privilege working with all of you and fighting for the livelihood of Small Business in the city. I do consider myself still a student in many regards, however, i am surrounded by mentors and i believe that we have a lot ahead of us in terms of Leadership Development in the Small Business community i am excited about. I am confident we can do this and we are accountable. That is most important our authenticity because we are accountable to the base of Small Businesses. I thank you for the kind words and for everybodys hard work including the hardworking staff. We appreciate you so much. Thank you. Anyone on the line for Public Comment . We have no Public Comment. Okay. Thank you. I will take a roll call vote on the nomination of commissioner zouzounis to the position of Vice President of the Small Business commission. Commissioner adams. Yes. Commissioner huie. Yes. Commissioner laguana. Absolutely, yes. Commissioner ortizcartagena. Yes. Commissioner zouzounis. Yes. Congratulations commissioner zouzounis. It is a unanimous vote. Next item . Any closing administrative work related to this . Administrative work related to these items is complete. Next item. Item 8 approval of draft Meeting Minutes january 11, 2021. Action item. Members of the public to comment on this item . We have no Public Comment in queue. Public comment is closed. Commissioners, a motion. I motion to approve the motion. Second. Motion by commissioner adams to approve minutes january 11, 2021, seconded by commissioner laguana. Roll call vote. Commissioner adams. Yes. Commissioner huey. Yes. Commissioner laguana. Yes. Commissioner ortizca take gina. Yes. Commissioner zouzounis. Yes. Motion passes 60. Next item, please. Item 9. General Public Comment to allow members of the public to comment on items not on todays calendar and suggest new agenda items. Discussion item. Any members of the public to make a comment on an item or matter not on todays agenda . There is nobody in queue for Public Comment. Public comment is closed. Next item. 10. Directors update and report on the office of Small Business and the Small Business Assistance Department programs, announcements from the mayors. Discussion item. Thank you and good evening, commissioners. A good deal of not a good deal but a significant chung of the report was to review the key items from todays announcements. Dr. Phillips covered a good portion of it. I do want to note we will also likely have updates to signage and some minor changes to operational requirements. As we are out talking with new businesses about moving with the reopening and moving to purple to make sure to encourage businesses to read both the social distancing protocols and different appendixes that govern businesses. My staff will do its best to outline those changes as they become available, but i like to remind businesses this is something that is to be done. I am not sure if you have read in the paper the flavor tobacco ban at the state level is on hold because of a ballot measure. I indired with the City Attorney to get clarity inquired with the City Attorney for the local measure. It is not affected by the state bill. Therefore, our local measure is still in place. It still holds. The state bill did not prevent local municipalities from being more restrictive. As a reminder that usually when San Francisco takes the lead on these types of matters that there generally is a clause in the legislation that deals with our law will stay in place and be will be preempted by state action. I asked the City Attorney whether the City Attorney is going to provide public clarity about this and also ask that they speak to the department of Public Health City Attorney. The department of Public Health make sure they reach out to tobacco permit holders to ensure that they dont get confused by what is being stated in the media. No real updates legislatively at this point from legislation that you have heard and no new items of legislation that have been introduced since the commission meeting. I do not have anything in addition to add on that front. Since the meeting is running fairly late, i will conclude my remarks there. Thank you, director. Appreciate it. Any commissioner comment or questions . Any Public Comment . No Public Comment in queue. Public comment is closed. Next item, please. 11. Commissioner discussion and new business discussion items. My power got cut off. One of the Public Commenters on the police. I didnt get a chance to talk about this. We are talking about automated Police Reports when you talk to the Police Officer. That was a good idea. The idea of Grant Funding for cameras. An idea i have been tossing around with Small Business advocates is trying to identify actual city funds for street beautification. All the different commercial districts certainly would appreciate having Funds Available for stuff to make it more inviting to the public. Now that we have more people eating and doing commerce outdoors, that has more elvens than in the past relevance than in the past. One thing for the attention of all commissioners and this is very important. You can ignore me the rest of the time. I think many of you recall that the mayor introduced 62 million loan program which includes 12 million in grants. In the fine print it said up to 62 million. That means that there is not a big pool of funds at 62 million that is just part of that Grant Program. There will have to be at some point an allocation request from the board of supervisors. I just want to flag this for all of you. This is something we will have to activate the Small Business community about. This is the biggest i forget what they call it Financial Aid or plan. This is the biggest thing we have had since the pandemic started. We do want to make sure it gets complete and full allocation of funds. That will mean turning out all people in support of that. There are a few other items coming down the pike. I think in february fairly early in february you may recall supervisor stefanis fee waiver legislation. That needs to also get support from our board of supervisors. As commissioner adams pointed out, we are heading to very treacherous waters from a budget standpoint so it is very hard to free up money. The only way the Small Business community is going to get anything if we addvo indicate loudly and repeatedly. I want to flag those two things. Fee waiver we need to really support and make sure there is an allocation for that loan and Grant Program. That is what i got for now. If i skipped somebody, i apologize. Commissioner huie. Sorry. I was writing notes. I just wanted to revisit a few items that we had spoken about last year where one was i know we skipped a retreat last year. I wanted to put it out there that i would love to have some sort of tie to be able to strategically plan and Work Together as a commission body. I feel like i got shafted and i didnt get a retreat. I want to push for one this year. I have only been to one retreat myself. It was great. We got sandwiching. It was exciting. I want a virtual sandwich. I wanted to push for that. Second thing was i had really good conversations with Community Members who really felt like they wanted to give up their time in a greater capacity than what they have been doing. They have been providing Technical Assistance and watching the work we do as a commission body. I want be to revisit the yard of advisory the idea of Advisory Committee especially around policy analysis. We have the funds to digest the work we need to go through. There are members of the community who reached out and want to be part of that so hopefully if we can put that back onto the agenda at some point this year, i would love to tohelp to recruit. Something came up in my mind as you were speaking about opportunities. I think something that continually comes up is the opportunity for Small Businesses to be able to find meaningful partnerships with larger businesses in the community. If there was a formal way to make introductions in relationship to be able to find needs. Can we identify resources to meet the needs within the same community . That would help the city narrative of big and Small Business and everybody working together. I would love to see more communications and more, i think, you know, unity to Work Together. Whatever you offer if it is a Large Service or if it is a neighborhood service. Bringing larger and smaller businesses together in a more formal introduction is a piece of new business i would like to add. That is it. Thank you. Those are all great suggestions. I appreciate you reflagging the idea of Advisory Committee without side folks that have a lot of interest in the policy work that dont have a seat but can make a big contribution. I think that is we have spoken about a number of different committees. I know that sometimes a formal committee can introduce a layer of bureaucracy so perhaps like Advisory Group might be aframing to make it easier on staff so we dont have to do all of the things. I am thinking out loud about that. I really like the idea, and i think i am completely open to it being a committee. I want to be careful that we are not over extending ourselves in terms of resources. I know that has come up before in conversations with the director. Lets proceed on that. On the partnerships, that is really good. I think we should flush that idea out more. This reminds me of another idea and opportunity for an update. What is going on with the survey . I think we got like quite a strong start. I havent been able to speak with the professor. In the first week we got close to 300 responses. I think that was through some of the emails and conversations and things like that. I think in the coming week i am hoping to be able to get some more outreach to business leaders. We all did that early on as well, but i think there is a lot of leaders in our city. We are grateful for everybody. I think there are a lot of voices that want to be heard. I think that we are all happy with that response level so far. I thought it was very impressive, and i think much like what the shared spaces Impact Survey a rolling survey and they are constantly asking for input we should do more blasts around the survey. Commissioner adams. I want to comment on the survey. I sent it out to a large group of people, and my surprise i did a follow up a few days later and every single one of them filled it out. They allstateed how much they appreciated it. It will be very interesting to see what comes back out of it. Some of them used it to vent. That is good. This is what we want to hear. I was very pleased, at least at my responses that i got to participating. You just dont know when you put something out like this. Who is going to respond, whether anybody is going to respond. It is getting a lot of buy in. I was pleasantly surprised. When i did the followup, i am doing it this weekend. You know, the Small Business owner said did you do it . He says i filled it out. It is in. Thank you. You know, i got a lot of responses back through email or text saying, yes, i did it. People are excited to do it. I want to mention that the survey was filled out in several languages as well. I think the language component was phenomenal. That is something that to me was a little bit of a test. We are putting a lot of effort into this. Is it fruitful . And the language was an important piece of this. I suppose we should give a shout out to the staff and tikely rhea in work facilitating that to make it happen. Director, if you could convey our thanks to the staff. We would like to acknowledge the hard work that went into this to make it possible. While we are on the subject, do we have a sense of when we should start to pull out results . Has the professor given an indication . Not a final statement of results but here is where we are at . Let me talk to her about it. I will get a better answer, better game plan. I know the end product is supposed to be but i will speak with her about it now. I dont want to rush her. I just want a sense of what kind of timeline you can expect. It is nice to be able to talk to our partners. One other thing to mention is and i believe we have anincoming commissioner being sworn in this week. Director, is it prepiate to talk about this . I think the protocol is to make a note the plan is right now that anincoming commissioner is being sworn in. That is good. Just leave it there. We will make the official announcement when that transpires. Great. I am glad i didnt jump the gun. I guess you learn a couple things after you do this awhile. Pretty soon you dont say anything at all. You are being appropriately careful. Okay. Anybody else . Anything else . Public comment . No Public Comment in the queue. Public comment is closed. Next item, please. Sfgovtv please show the office of Small Business slide. We will end with reminder the Small Business commission is the Public Public forum to voice opinions and concerns about the Economic Vitality of Small Businesses in San Francisco. That the office of Small Business is the best place to get answers about doing business in San Francisco during the local emergency. If you need assistance continue to reach out to the office of Small Business. Item 12 adjournment. Action item. I move to adjourn. Second. Motion by commissioner ortizcartagena to adjourn. Seconded by commissioner adams. [roll call] motion passes 60. Meeting at adjourned at 8 45 p. M. Thanks to sfgovtv. Many, many thanks. Thank you. Goodbye. San francisco is surrounded on three sides by water, the fire boat station is intergal to maritime rescue and preparedness, not only for San Francisco, but for all of the bay area. [sirens] fire station 35 was built in 1915. So it is over 100 years old. And helped it, were going to build fire boat station 35. So the finished Capital Planning committee, i think about three years ago, issued a guidance that all city facilities must exist on Sea Level Rise. The station 35, Construction Cost is approximately 30 million. And the schedule was complicated because of what you call a float. It is being fabricated in china, and will be brought to treasure island, where the building site efficient will be constructed on top of it, and then brought to pier 22 and a half for installation. Were looking at late 2020 for final completion of the fire boat float. The historic firehouse will remain on the embarcadero, and we will still respond out of the historic firehouse with our fire engine, and respond to medical calls and other incidences in the district. This totally has to incorporate between three to six feet of Sea Level Rise over the next 100 years. Thats what the citys guidance is requiring. It is built on the float, that can move up and down as the water level rises, and sits on four fixed guide piles. So if the seas go up, it can move up and down with that. It does have a full range of travel, from low tide to high tide of about 16 feet. So that allows for current tidal movements and sea lisle rises in the coming decades. The fire boat station float will also incorporate a ramp for ambulance deployment and access. The access ramp is rigidly connected to the land side, with more of a pivot or hinge connection, and then it is sliding over the top of the float. In that way the ramp can flex up and down like a hinge, and also allow for a slight few inches of lateral motion of the float. Both the access ramps, which there is two, and the utilitys only flexible connection connecting from the float to the back of the building. So electrical power, water, sewage, it all has flexible connection to the boat. High boat station number 35 will provide mooring for three fire boats and one rescue boat. Currently were staffed with Seven Members per day, but the Fire Department would like to establish a new dedicated marine unit that would be able to respond to multiple incidences. Looking into the future, we have not only at t park, where we have a lot of kayakers, but we have a lot of developments in the southeast side, including the stadium, and we want to have the ability to respond to any marine or maritime incident along these new developments. There are very few designs for people sleeping on the water. Were looking at cruiseships, which are larger structures, several times the size of harbor station 35, but theyre the only good reference point. We look to the cruiseship industry who has kind of an index for how much acceleration they were accommodate. It is very unique. I dont know that any other fire station built on the water is in the United States. The fire boat is a regional asset that can be used for water rescue, but we also