Transcripts For SFGTV Public 20240703

Members of the public wishing to make comment on an item from outside the hearing room, you would. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting id. Of 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then to raise your hand to speak, press star three. Unless you are speaking under general Public Comment, please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed first. If commenters do not stay on topic, the chair may interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the agenda item at hand. We ask that Public Comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. Please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff. The public is always welcome to submit comments in writing via our email address of public works Dot Commission at sfpd. Org. On behalf of the commission, we extend our thanks to govtv Building Management and Media Services staff for helping make this meeting possible. Chair post. Thank you. Before calling the next item, are there any requests from the commission to amend the order of todays agenda . Hearing no requests, we will move on to the next item. Announcements by chair. I do have several today since our last meeting there were a couple of news articles regarding Illegal Dumping in the bayview neighborhood, which of course weve heard about before at the commission. One article was discouraging, one was encouraging. I thought the discouraging piece described the breadth of the dumping breadth of the dumping problem and San Francisco public works heroic work to address it. In an effort to give residents and businesses a neighborhood in which they can take pride while there is Illegal Dumping. In every San Francisco neighborhood. The problem is worse by orders of magnitude in the bayview area. The article referenced the cameras the department will be installing to help identify perpetrators in trim. Director short, what is the status of the camera project . When can we expect the cameras to be installed. Good morning, chair. Post commissioners carla short interim director for the camera project excuse me, has been a little bit challenging. We had a identified vendor who knew we were in the process of entering into a contract with that vendor and then during that period of time they were purchased by another company who then basically, i guess, eliminated that function that they had. And so it took some time for us to find a new vendor. We found a new vendor that can do the same basic work. And i am looking for my cfo. We have run into a snag with a new vendor as well, so im going to ask bruce to describe that because i dont want to get the details wrong. Good morning, commissioners. Bruce robertson, cfo for public works. The overview from interim director schwartz. Absolutely correct. We have run into an issue where with the new vendor that weve identified, theyre not currently a city vendor. So were really just going through that process of making sure that they comply with the various ordinances. Um, i dont have a timeline at my fingertips, but we can certainly report back. I do know that this is a priority for our Contract Administration team. And alex burns, the contract manager, is personally working with the vendor and our partners in oca. The office of Contract Administration, to make sure we can get this up and running as soon as possible. So let me get the exact date and timeline and then well certainly report back. But thats really the holdup at the moment. Its just making sure that they meet all of the city requirements. Thank you very much for that clear explanation. Well look forward to updates on the program as i mentioned, the second news report was encouraging. It profiled Brian Johnson on a resourceful bayview resident who was designed and built a drone Flight Program to identify garbage hotspots in his neighborhood and in the mission. And this more quickly deploy Public Works Department resources to clean the areas up rather than relying on 311 calls. Mr. Johnson is partnering with public works to run a pilot of his system. Interim director short, will you please tell us more about this Drone Pilot Program . All so if the pilot is successful, will our colleague, commissioner turner suggested this might be a very good program for Workforce Development whereby young people would be taught to fly drones and learn related technology skills. Is this something the department will consider. Thank you. Chair post carlos short, interim director. The Pilot Program is basically using this technology. To alert our crews to where we have debris to pick up in the bayview more quickly than relying on neighbors to call 311, although we will still track the work through the 311 system. Mr. Johnson has actually been doing this independently for some time and has found that his technology can identify the debris and call it in and then weve been responding pretty effectively to that. So hes been weve had a couple of meetings with him to talk about specific areas that we would like to have him fly more frequently rather. So basically , you know, looking at operationalizing this to get the best possible data, which will then also allow us to identify potentially when people are dumping and we may be able to follow up and try to prevent that dumping from happening. And or catch people in the act. So in terms of Workforce Development, i think the technology hes developed includes, you know, some built in ways to ensure that were not identifying people, that this is focused on garbage. So i think we would need to explore the possibility with with the developer about whether theres, you know, its a fairly lean operation at this point. And the city also has these rules around the use of drones. And we for this project we did present to the Citys Department that reviews that and explained know they want to ensure how were protecting public privacy and things like that so that were not identifying individuals. So i think those would all need to be kind of worked through. But certainly if the if the if the developer of this would would be interested in teaching folks the technology, then we would thats an interesting idea that we would be very happy to pursue. Thank you. I realize its early days here, but never hurts to start thinking about these things early. Good. Thank you very much. Recently there have been media reports on alleged illegal actions by the director of the citys Community Challenge Grant Program and the head of a local nonprofit who was awarded city contracts for public improvement projects. S does it . The Public Works Department have any contracts with Rj Enterprises or any of its affiliates and how do we work with the citys Community Challenge Grant Program . If we do . Thank you. Chair post carla short, interim director. As this is an evolving investigation, we are working with other city departments and the City Attorneys Office to review the complaint that was that was issued against Rudolph Dwayne Jones and lanita enriquez. We will continue to review contracts and grants that may have been implicated by mr. Jones and miss enriquez. We did learn through the just released indictment that there are a handful of additional business names that may have been used. So we are going to be reviewing our contracts for those as well. And then were exploring and pursuing all appropriate remedies and enforcement actions. I think ive been advised to be rather general in comments this morning as the were still reviewing with the City Attorneys Office, but but we are looking at all of those grants and contracts that may have involved those individuals. Thank you. I felt thats a very satisfactory answer. Could you just explain for a moment, does the Department Work with the Community Challenged Grant Program in the past . We have worked with with the Community Challenge Grant Program and that a number that that program serves communities as as the name indicates. But eight city departments would along with public works potentially send funds to the Community Challenge grant to support those community initiatives, says thank you my final announcement on a cheerier subject is to highlight the august edition of in the works. The departments newsletter. It comes out every month and can be found easily on the departments website. This recent issue highlighted two Capital Projects that weve had presentations on previously at the commission, the Historic Mission Library Renovation and upgrade, and the castro Muni Muni Metro station, elevator and plaza renovation and upgrade both of these projects show off the talent and skill of the departments architecture and design teams, and well be hearing about both of them again when we receive annual updates on significant, significant Capital Project contracts that the Commission Approves in the works also highlighted the departments clean corridors program, an initiative that each week provides a deep, clean and sprucing up of a select commercial corridor in the city. The first phase of the better Market Street improvement program, which is upgrading the streets and sidewalks of the citys signature boulevard and the july love our city neighborhood beautification day, which took place in the sunset district. We do any commissioners have any questions on my announcements . Do any commissioners have announcements of their own today . Hearing none. Secretary fuller, please open this item to Public Comment. Oh if possible. I have a couple of announcements. I beg your pardon. Please continue. Oh, so my announcements are very brief. The sanitation and streets Commission Meet the next sanitation and streets Commission Meeting will be monday, september 18th and their august meeting was canceled. But the next meeting will include performance measure reports from the bureau of urban forest and Street Environmental Services is on a different note. Ill be surveying commissioners with potential meeting dates and times for the 2024 calendar year. It being september 1st, were already looking at the new year. So commissioners, please look for a message coming from me in the in the next week or so. And then also to point out on the calendar that we do have a special meeting of this commission that has been scheduled for wednesday, september 13th at 8 a. M. To hear a person matter in closed session. And that meeting will take place in city hall room 400, which is not our normal meeting room. And all of this has been posted to our website and notice has been posted and at the library as well. And that concludes my announcements. Thank you. Now please open this item to Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item one. The announcements by the chair, commissioners and secretary may line up against the wall furthest from the door if you are in the chamber. If you are calling in, please. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access code. Of 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to raise your hand to be to be recognized and in the chamber we do not have anyone who has approached to speak on this item and govtv is indicating that we. Have one caller in the queue and please go ahead and please go ahead and mute that, unmute that caller and caller. Youll have three minutes to speak and i will provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. The great can you hear me now . We can hear you. Excellent. David paypal i hope i havent expired, although my time may at some point so three brief comments on this item as to the drones issue. Just wanted to remind the department and perhaps the commission that the city has a Surveillance Technology policy that requires a Technology Like drones to be approved by both the committee on information technology, fauci and the board of supervisors. And theyre kind of way behind on approving department requests. So i dont recall that dpw has an approved Surveillance Technology policy for our drones. And if thats the case, then they would have to write one up and get it approved prior to the citys use of drones for these purposes. Anyway, i will let other folks figure more of that out. I did note in the public materials that the advanced calendar is missing. I always look forward to the advanced calendar and hope in the future that it will be included with all regular Commission Meeting packets. And finally there was a hiring memo that said that it was off calendar but was included publicly. Actually, maybe thats under the directors report. Anyway, i found the hiring memo to be very encouraging and wanted to appreciate hr director hill and the work that shes doing and throughout the department on hiring two key vacancies. Those are my thoughts on item one. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller. And that is our only caller looking to speak on item one. So that concludes Public Comment. Thank you. If theres no further discussion on this item, secretary fuller, please call the next item. Item two is the directors report and communications interim director carla short is here to present this report. And this is an informational item. Good morning again, commissioners. Carla short, interim director. I just i have a few brief updates today. Not too extensive. I wanted to start with the hiring update, so we provided the off calendar memo, but a quick summary, as you probably recall, we set a very aggressive hiring target of 250 hires by the end of fiscal year 2023. We were able to meet that hire by having 200 sorry, meet that goal by having 265 hires complete within the timeline. Overall, the hiring has continued with a total of 297 hires, and public works is processing 85 additional new hires. These important employees have already made a significant improvement in our ability to develop, deliver the Critical Services that we provide of the new hires. Theres a combination of positions to the department and internal new positions to the department and internal promotions. I wanted to just highlight a couple of the key areas where weve made progress by our Human Resources bureau. So bureau of Street Environmental Services, one of our most public facing bureaus. Its the bureau responsible for our street cleaning staff, our functional vacancy rate is 13. 9 as of august 2023. However because were in the process of onboarding an additional 41 staff, once they are hired, our functional vacancy rate will be down to 5. 3. I think thats the lowest that weve had in many years. So thats a huge achievement that we wanted to highlight. Another critical position that youve heard a bit about in our meetings is our 9916 Public Service aid, and these are our block cleaners. So theyre the folks you see out in the orange vests with their brooms and their rolling garbage cans, and they are out on the streets cleaning, assigned blocks all day, every day. Thats been a really, really Important Program for us. And they are part of our Workforce Development program as they feed into our apprenticeship programs. In an ideal world. So weve hired an additional 45 staff in this classification. We have another 18 hires all additional staff to the department in the hiring process. So 18 new folks coming in. I also wanted to note our 6230 street inspectors. Weve approached full staffing for this classification when we have a just a handful of vacancies remaining, we have 11 additional hires in this program. So i think we are seeing the results of that improvement. They are responsible for not just looking at street cleaning, sorry, sidewalk conditions and street conditions around the city, but also implementing the illegal vending program which has been, as you know, a challenging program. But having the staff available to be able to rotate through the assignments has really, really helped with that program. So the focus there, as you know, is the mission in particularly un plaza, chinatown , some areas working with partners along the port and then we also have a few of the street inspectors who help with our graffiti program. So notifying Property Owners of their responsibilities to clean up graffiti and also assisting Property Owners to opt in to our proactive Graffiti Abatement Program for commercial corridors. So another really critical all our positions are critical, but wanted to highlight some of the essential positions that we filled. Other essential positions include our Human Resources staff, so our newly created public works Human Resources program is fully staffed with 47 positions filled and a functional vacancy rate of zero. So that youve got to hire the people who can hire the people. So were really proud to have that completed. And we also have filled several key leadership positions, such as our finance manager, our new Housing Delivery coordinator, and our Performance Program manager, and then one last kind of category of positions i wanted to highlight are our analyst positions in march of 2023, the citywide vacancy rate for the administrative analyst series was 32. 3 and for Senior Administrative analysts, the vacancy rate was 16. 5 and we had similar vacancy rates within public works for these series. Since january 1st, weve hired 14 new staff into these two critical classifications and there are another seven positions in the hiring process. And as you know, well be providing a more detailed overview at an Upcoming Commission hearing. But i did want to highlight those great achievements by our hr team. Um i also wanted to let you know that starting next week actually we and continuing through, through the week through september 8th, public works will be undergoing the final step of reaccreditation by the American Public works association. Apwa is an independent. National organization of professionals with a mission to support those who operate, improve and maintain public works and infrastructure for through advocacy, education and member engagement. A accreditation provides public works, formal recognition that the department complies with the current recommended National Practices that are established by the epa for the re Accreditation Process helps our department make continuous improvements to better support our mission of providing the best possible service to San Francisco, its residents and visitors. Public works was first accredited in 2010 and accredited in 2014 and 2018. The 2022 assessment was postponed due to the pandemic and uncertainty over proposals to split the department to prepare for the current re accreditation. More than 100 people in every division and bureau of the Department Spent more than a year conducting a complete review of our procedure manuals to ensure that our practices are updated to current standards and for the past two months, weve created document station to submit to apwa, showing how the department follows more than 280 individual apw practices. Next week. The apwa evaluators will conduct virtual visits with the Department Leadership to examine our processes and audit our procedures to ensure that we meet the highest standards of performance. Re accreditation is expected to be achieved by the end of september. And i should note that while we spent more than a year, that was clearly not full time, these procedures are really a good way for us to validate our workflows and make sure that theyre up to date and that were taking into consideration new technologies and so its a good exercise for us as a department chair. Post. As you noted, we celebrated the groundbreaking for the major renovation of the Historic Mission branch library, the library at the corner of 24th and bartlett streets is one of the citys seven carnegie libraries and steeped in history in San Francisco lore. Built in 1915 and designed by and funded by the philanthropist and industrial at carnegie, the Public Works Team has been working with the San Francisco Public Library and Community Groups to redesign this beauty of a building. It received landmark city landmark status in the early 2000, even though the building was renovated in 1997 to make seismic improvement and accessibility upgrades. The makeover led to the loss of some of the librarys most recognizable features, including its historic entrance and monumental stairway. Now, more than two decades later, public works architects, Landscape Architects construct managers, project managers and engineers are looking to restore the showpiece reading room and the rest of the Historic Building to some of its original glory. While adding much needed upgrades to transform the facility into a less cramped, more accommodating and more climate resilient space for staff and patrons. Public works also handled regular affairs, Site Assessment and remediation between providing a 100 Person Community room, constructing a dedicated teen room, restoring the main entry to its original location, and replacing the lost historic main staircase. Building additional restrooms and adding a fenced courtyard and sustainability features such as rooftop solar panels and air conditioning. The project packs a punch, an array of robust improvements that have fit together like a jigsaw puzzle for construction, which just started in august, will cost 23 million and is expected to wrap up by fall 2025. Until then, a temporary branch for the Mission Community will continue to be housed nearby at 1234 valencia and the renovation is being executed by sj amoroso construction company, a San Francisco based company. The construction project generated roughly 2 for art enrichment funds, which helped the San Francisco Arts Commission hire. Celebrated bay area artist Juana Alicia Araiza to create a new public artwork in the form of a large fuzed glass window for the main reading room. The design called nopal de la mision, features a monumental prickly pear cactus nopal with flowers and fruit that symbolize resistance, sustenance and regeneration. When we actually got to see one panel of this at the groundbreaking and it is just stunning, its going to be an incredible feature. Public works and the San Francisco Public Library have been long time collaborators on Capital Projects to upgrade the citys network of 27 neighborhood branches and work on the Mission Library, supported by the Library Preservation fund, which was overwhelmingly passed by voters last november, as well as a 5. 3 million grant from California State Library building forward initiative. We are designing this renovation to be leed gold certified to align with our Climate Action plan goals to achieve net zero Greenhouse Gases gas emissions by 2040. It is going to be a stunning project. Im very excited about it. As you can see by my lengthy report out. Lastly the sunset district, as you noted, chair post, we had our love our city neighborhood beautification day on a foggy, chilly morning in the sunset district, but we had quite a great turnout. About 100 volunteers joined us. We worked on on sunset boulevard. We did medians, planted trees, us spread mulch. We also worked on sloat planting new cypress trees and the youngest amongst us were able to dig and prep soil for new plants. So we do want to thank Sunset Elementary School for hosting our kickoff and providing some of our enthusiast volunteers. The mighty team of neighborhood stewards wrapped up the saturday event. Seeing and feeling that they had made the sunset more beautiful while strengthening our community ties. And next month, our love, our city neighborhood beautification day will be in north beach, chinatown, russian hill and other district three neighborhood boards and that will be on september 16th. We hope to see some of you there. That wraps up my report. Thank you very much. Thank you. Interim director short. We congratulate miss hill and the department for these great hiring news. We look forward to the more detailed presentation when we see her for her regular presentation. This fall. Im sure your report was music to commissioner zombies ears. Also we wish you the best of luck on the apwa audit next week for the reaccreditation. It does sound like it was probably a useful exercise and that the department is well prepared to pass that. So let us know what happens. We will. We will update you. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions for interim director short . Its not really a question, but a comment. So i had the privilege of serving on the Arts Commission Civic Design Review Committee when the Mission Library was under design. And i did want to share with everyone in the community that its going to be a beautiful addition. Rio addition, if you will, to our community. Other cities might have taken that beautiful edifice and sold it and turned it into private housing, which would have been an easy reach. But San Francisco kept one of the most beautiful buildings in the Mission Neighborhood is renovating it, bringing it up to current standards and current needs for the community. Its going to be an incredible reedition back into San Francisco, cityscape and intellectual scape. So i just wanted to highlight the wonderful things that San Francisco does for our our community. And just a remark on that. And i hadnt seen the final art because they were still looking at artists when i termed off the Arts Commission. So thats exciting news here. Here commissioner zarb. I want to start by wishing everyone a happy labor day and thank you for the report today. Coming giving us let us know that because to me, i really felt its a huge priority to get all the vacancies filled out. So thank you. And good luck with the reaccreditation. Thank you. Please open this item to Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item to the directors report may line up against the wall furthest from the door. If in the chamber. If youre calling in. Dial 415 a6550001 where you use te meeting number access code. Of 26622546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to raise your hand to be recognized. We do not have any inperson commenters at this time and sfcv is also indicating we do not have any callers interested in speaking on this item. So that concludes Public Comment. Thank you, secretary fuller. Please call the next item on the agenda for item three is general Public Comment, which is for the public to comment on topics under the commissions mandate but not related to a specific item on todays agenda, members of the public who wish to make three minutes of general Public Comment may line up against the wall furthest from the door here in the chamber here, or if youre calling in dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access. Code 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to be recognized. And we do not have any members in person who have approached to speak on this item. But as govtv is indicating, we have one caller. Please go ahead and unmute that. Caller and caller. Youll have three minutes to speak and ill provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. Great. David pilpel, you can hear me again. We can. Excellent. So i mentioned at the last meeting a brief comment on the refuse rates impact on dpwhs budget and i believe the board, the refuse rate board acted yesterday to adopt the new rates. Little ambiguity on some things there. But assuming that it settles either yesterday or soon, i believe that will have some impact on the dpw budget. Moving a few things around. So i once again suggest a memo or update to this commission in the future that might actually require an amendment for all i know. So i assume that Deputy Director robertson is all over it and getting it right. So anyway, just wanted to be sure that that gets caught at some point. Thats all for general Public Comment. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller and that is our last caller under general Public Comment. Thank you. Please call the next item. Item four is the consent calendar of routine matters. Includes the minutes from the august 18th, 2023 meeting of this commission and two contract awards. Both contract awards are eligible for the consent calendar in accordance with the contract delegation policy adopted by this commission. Please note that corrections for clarity have been made to the draft minutes to items. 154j6s, 7n8 and nine, and all consent calendar items can be heard individually upon request by a commissioner, staff or the public. An adoption of the consent calendar and all resolutions contained in it is an action item, and i wanted to inform the commission that Department Staff has requested a postponement of item four c to a later date and so suggest a motion for that separately from the adoption of the consent calendar. Thank you very much. I will move to postpone item four c to a later date. Second secretary fuller, please open Public Comment on the motion. On the motion to postpone item four c members of the public who wish to make comment on that motion. If youre in the chamber, you may line up against the wall for this from the door. If you are calling in, please. Dial 415 a6550001 and use that sae meeting. Access code. Of 26625460028. And then pound, pound and star three. And we do not have any callers or we do not have any members of the public in person wishing to speak on this. And an sf govtv is also indicating we do not have any callers on this motion either. Thank you. Please call the roll on the motion on the on the motion to postpone. Item four c please respond with i or nay. Paul wolford. I fatties rb all right, warren post i we have three votes in favor of the motion to postpone item four c so the motion. The motion passes. Thank you. Before entertaining a motion on adopting the consent calendar, i did have a question on item four b interim director short. I dont know if you could answer it. There may have been a typo in the staff memo. Is this project expected to be completed by summer of 2024 . Do you know . Or if anyone in the audience knows us, i think it is us, but in the cover memo that i saw, it didnt say completion. Im sorry. I dont know that off the top of my head, but we can certainly double check and let you know. Thanks to clarify, i actually did pose that question to the project manager and they did clarify that the construction completion would be summer of 2024. Yes thats what i expected. Thank you. That was updated on on the document posted to the website. So perfect. Thank you. Are there any questions on the consent calendar from the commission . If not, is there a motion to adopt the consent calendar . So moved wolford ill second, please open this item to Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item for the adoption of the consent calendar and all resolution is contained within it. Aside from item four c may line up against the wall for this from the door. If here in the chamber, if youre calling in. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access code. Of 266 a2546002 8 pound poun. And then press star three to raise your hand to speak and we do not have any members of the public who have approached to speak about this item in person. Sfcv tv is indicating we do have one caller wishing to make Public Comment on the consent calendar for please unmute that caller and caller. Youll have three minutes to speak and ill provide you with a 32nd notice. Great thank you. David pilpel. So yes, on item four, b on page three of the Public Document that i downloaded this morning, it does have construction completion of in summer of 2024, near the top on item four, a the minutes i have a number of nonsubstantive edits. Ill run through them quickly and i can review them with secretary fuller after the meeting on the top of each page it indicates a recording of this meeting is available at a website address. I would only include that once, either at the beginning or the end of the minutes. I dont think it needs to be on each page on page one, the chairs report, the sixth bullet says chair asked interim director short i would insert post so it reads chair post asked. Interim director short on starting on page three, i gather that there were a few divided votes, but the way the votes read is a little confusing. So i think i would reword that somehow. So it indicates that there was a motion and a second and then the votes in favor and against. Im not sure that it needs three lines for that one for each. Commissioner, i think you can just say, you know, the ayes and the noes and whether the motion passed or failed, there was Something Else related to voting. No on page five, item seven, Deputy Director of finance, Financial Management. I think it should be Financial Management and administration. Bruce robertson so substitute and for the comma after management and i cant remember if there was Something Else. But anyway, if i see anything further in the nonsubstantive department, im happy to communicate that to secretary fuller. But i think clarifying the minutes, particularly as relates to the votes, is important for the record that is all i have on the consent calendar. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller and that that is the last Public Commenter on the consent calendar. Thank you. If theres no further discussion from the commission all in favor of adopting the consent calendar, please say aye or yes. Aye aye. The consent calendar is passed unanimous. Secretary fuller will post the corrected minutes and the pertinent resolution to the commissions website. But mr. Fuller, please call the next item. Item five is the award of the pit stop Workforce Development agreement with mission hiring hall. Warren hill, assistant manager of central operations, is here to present the Grant Agreement. And this is an action item. Thank you, mr. Hill. Before you come to the podium, i have a few comments since the motion to approve this item and the other grant award on the agenda today did not pass at our last Commission Meeting. These items were continued to prepare for the reconsideration on the commission asked public works staff to provide answers to a number of questions. Commissioner turner raised regarding Department Grant rfp and awards. Id like to thank the Department Staff for answering commissioner turners question and providing the Additional Information he requested. Those answers and information will be posted to the Public Works Commissions correspondence log. Also, between our last meeting and today, commissioner turner and i had a lengthy discussion with public works manager of Contract Administration alex burns and deputy City Attorney Yadira Taylor to discuss public works contracting and competitive selection period policies in general. Commissioner turner and i found this session very helpful and even more of our questions were answered in the weeks ahead. All of us on the Public Works Commission look forward to a deeper dive into the departments grant making function and the Workforce Development program that is being scheduled for a regular Commission Meeting later this fall. Regarding todays agenda, since we heard presentations on these two grants two weeks ago and the presentation options have not materially changed since then, i would like to suggest to my colleagues that we forego the same formal presentations today. The presentation materials are posted on the commissions website and we have all reviewed them. That said, commissioners or commissioner wolford, do you have any questions on this item . The pit stop Workforce Development grant award before we entertain a motion on it . No. I also have no questions. I will move that we approve the pit stop Workforce Development grant award. Is there a second . Ill second it. Thank you. Secretary fuller, please open the motion for Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item five, the pit stop Workforce Development Grant Agreement may line up against the wall for this from the door. If here in the chamber. If you are calling in, please. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting access code. 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to raise your hand to speak. No members of the public have approached to speak on this item in person. Sfcv is indicating that we do have one caller who would like to speak on this item as if govtv. Please go ahead and unmute that caller and caller. You will have three minutes to speak and ill provide you with a 32nd notice. Uh, great. David pilpel again, so im not particularly concerned about this or the next item, but nor did i listen to it at length at the last meeting. But i did note in the page one of the item five memo, it says, since the august 18th meeting, in response to questions raised about this grant recommendation, staff have provided Supplemental Information. And i think i just heard from chair post that that Supplemental Information will be posted to the website with with the commission correspondence for the next meeting. The problem is the public has not seen that Supplemental Information and that might be material to approve all of the this item and the other item today plus commissioner turner is not present and i for one, would be interested in commissioner turners views publicly on whether the on the Supplemental Information and how it responds to his concerns that led to his vote against so i think i would respectfully request that these items be continued again to the next meeting when commissioner turner is present and that Supplemental Information is available to the public. I think it does a bit of a disservice to only share that information with the commission and not have it publicly be available in connection with consideration of the items, however important these Workforce Development grants are. Those are my thoughts and that applies to the other item as well. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller and that is our last Public Commenter on this item. Thank you. As i normally dont respond to Public Comment, but i will hear i do appreciate the callers concerns and apologize that the information was not posted prior to the meeting. I would like, though, to be very clear that i was very conscious about not having an end run around our colleague, commissioner turner. He and i have discussed at length this vote and i feel confident that i dont know how my colleagues will be voting, but i feel confident that my vote will not betray commissioner turners views on the matter. All right. Theres no other discussion. I know there are people here who have taken the time and trouble to attend the meeting. Mr. Hill, or if anyone else in the audience wants to comment on this motion , please feel free to come up. Otherwise, well get to the vote. All right. Secretary fowler, please call the roll on the motion on the on the motion to approve the. Pardon me . On the motion to approve the pit stop Workforce Development Grant Agreement. Please respond with yes or no, paul wolford. Yes commissioner wolford votes yes. Fatty zabi yes. Vice chair zogby votes yes. Warren post yes. Chair post votes yes. With the with three votes in favor of the motion pass. Thank you. The resolution awarding the pit stop Workforce Development grant award to and hiring hall will be posted to the commissions website. Secretary fuller, please call the next item. Item six is the tree watering Workforce Development grant award with the San Francisco conservation corps. Acting superintendent Nicholas Crawford is present to present this item and answer any questions. And this is an action item. Thank you. I have no questions. Are there any questions from the commission on this item before we open or before we take a motion on it . Um, no questions for me. I actually have just a comment. We did go through, um, i had a meeting also with, um, a director, carla short, and we discussed, we talked at that, that this is a marathon. Its not a sprint. And i would like to, you know, i requested that, not requested. I thought it was a good idea just to have more conversation, more with the commission about the process itself, because i felt that the process is the one that caused the confusion in the. But other than that, i dont have any more questions about about this item. Thank you. I will move that we approve the tree watering Workforce Development grant award to the San Francisco conservation corps is there a second . Second wolford thank you. Secretary fuller, please open the motion to Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item six, the tree watering Workforce Development grant award may line up against the wall for this from the door. If here in the chamber, if you are calling in, please dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access code. Of 26625460028. And then press star three to raise your hand to speak. And we do not have any members of the public who have approached in person to speak on this item. Sfcv is indicating let me just check that. Oh, sfcv is indicating that we do not have any callers on this item either. So that concludes Public Comment. Thank you. Before voting on this motion, is there anyone in the audience that wishes to address the commission or speak on the on the item . All right. I dont see anybody. Secretary fuller, please call the roll on the motion on the on the motion to approve item item six, please respond with yes or no. Paul wolford. Yes commissioner wolford votes yes. Fatty zogby. Yes vice chair zogby votes yes. Lauren post. Yes chair post votes. Yes. With three votes in favor. The item passes. Thank you. And secretary fuller will post the resolution regarding the Workforce Development grant. San francisco conservation corps to the commissions website. Secretary fuller, please call the next item on the agenda, item seven seven. Is new business initiated by commissioners. And this is an opportunity for commissioners to suggest business for a future vendor for a future agenda. This is an informational item. Thank you. Do any commissioners have new business to initiate . Commissioner zarb i um. Thank you. Chair post. Um everyone. I mean, whoever knows me and knows my background as a lot of it is being involved with the Business Community of San Francisco, especially the very small Business Community like moms and pops, i serve on the board, served on the board for a long time on north beach business association, which automatically got me, you know, made me a member of the council of merchants, been working, worked with the chamber of commerce of San Francisco. And i just wanted to remind everyone of the sacrifice that Small Businesses did during our recent pandemic back in 2020 when they had to shut down and, you know, the source of income took a took a long break. Weve had businesses that never closed in the past 50 years that First Time Ever they had to close for the sake of the community and to be part of the whole pandemic emergency rules. And if everyone remembers when we when the city reopened at 25 capacity for businesses and businesses started and a whole process of outdoor seatings where they they were they put tables and chairs in the Parking Spaces in front of their storefronts and they had to also, you know, get it to a point where its comfortable for their clients. They built those structures and now were going through a process of permitting , permitting some businesses they decided to keep to either keep or rebuild, remodel and get a permit and do everything legally, which was which was great from the city of San Francisco to allow those Small Businesses to keep that at shared spaces or or we call it parklets. But in the past couple of in the past meetings, weve been weve been approving projects in in the consent calendar to repave certain streets. And i wanted to see what is what is the department doing in coordination with the permit process and the repaving thing from, from talking to a lot of Business Owners, Small Business owners tell them we ask them, what do you think about that, you know, shared space outside . Are you going to keep it or are you not . Theyre all thinking theyre all scared about getting the permits built wing it, which is right now after the pandemic is costing over close to 100,000. And then. And then, you know, public works will come and say, we need to pave that street. Now i will. I wanted to just bring it to the table here to at least have a conversation, have a discussion on about what is the department doing to coordinate these and, you know, prevent businesses from getting permits, spending the money and then having to do at their own expense, having to remove it for the street to be paved. Um thats a very interesting question. Do you want to respond to today interim director short or do you want to look into it with Deputy Director coe and get back to us maybe at the next meeting, the september 15th meeting on it sounds very worthwhile that that were repaving, but then i guess Business Owners are going to have to pull these permits pretty soon and dont want to, of course, do it if theyre going to be repaved maybe next year or something. So its an interesting question id like to hear the answer to. Sure okay. Carla shaud, interim director, i can make just brief comments now and then we can get you more information at the next meeting. So we do do our best to work with businesses when the paving projects are upcoming, we notify the businesses that have shared spaces and ill use one example from your neighborhood where we adjusted the paving schedule to accommodate the use of the shared spaces during their highest time of year around the holidays. And then the businesses indicated that they it would be more convenient for them to remove the parklets during their slower period, which is just after the holidays. So the original plan was to basically pave november, december, we postponed that to try to accommodate the best time for those businesses. Many of the parks hits are not entire rebuilds. Theyre modifications ones to the existing structures. So i think there there is not a like theyre down to zero and then they build a new thing and we come through and pave right after that. Having said that, i think our goal is always to provide sufficient notice. Thats why we have a five year plan. We while things change, you know, we want to make sure that we give people notice of our intent so they can plan around it. The permit applications were actually already due and, you know, theyre actually supposed to be completed by september 27th. We have received quite a few permit applications. Were in the review process. Some of them still need modifications. So theyre not 100 necessarily code compliant yet. But were working with them on that. So those are my general comments. But we can certainly look at if there are ways to improve our our notifications or coordinations. I think certainly anyone who has paving coming up should have already gotten notices about that because of our our efforts. To let people know the notices of intent of intent that go out fairly early in the process. Yes. So i dont know how easy it will be to overlay, but it seems like thats something we can do. We have a map of where these applicable zones are. We know where were going to be paving. So we could try to do a little bit of extra outreach in those areas. Thank you. Um, i would, i would. You said that there was incidents where you had to postpone. Were there will there be any consideration to expedite a street that has permits that are ready to go just to get it out of the way . I mean, we would happily look at that. I think the challenge is, you know, if its an as needed contract, that might be possible. Part of the challenge is that we have of course, are getting our contracts approved, getting things done. You know, through through the commission process. So it all depends on where we are with the contracting capacity and then mobilizing for the contractor. Obviously, there can be additional costs if were pulling them from one side of the city to another. But we absolutely want to work with our Small Businesses so we can certainly look at that. If theres a case like that and if its possible to expedite, we certainly would do that. You know, i would like to follow up on that and just say if its a permitted parklet, youre not parking there anyway. So it does call into question the reason for paving underneath it and destroying the parklet. So perhaps there could be just one more layer of scrutiny and investigation into that, because if its a permitted parklet, no ones going to park in the space. It might it could be a green space for all that matters, you know . So it would be really important because those businesses that are doing that are hanging on, as we all know. So the last thing we want to do is, is kill another local business because of wellintended policy. Certainly i think we can and do look at that option as well. There are there are a lot of complications, as im sure you know, with your experience in terms of, you know, being able to have the pavement hold you know, drainage issues there are a lot of complicating factors. But i know that there have been examples where weve looked at just basically trying to pave around the existing structure. Um, how much time i mean, i know its going to, you know what, september 27th is the, the, the cut off for, for approving all permits. Do you think we can get back to us with a presentation beforehand or after or how, how much time would we need. Um in terms of approving all permits. I think the city is working through its an iterative process and so theres a lot of back and forth with applicants. So i think there its likely that all those permits will not be 100 finalized by the deadline. Um, were working as quickly as we can with the applicants, but a lot of times we need we need more information or things are correct on paper. And then when we go out and inspect, theyre not actually built to the exact same specification. So its, its ongoing in terms of when we can come back to this commission on, um, i, i am looking at our Deputy Director. You think two weeks is sufficient. He seems to think we can come back for the next Commission Meeting with a brief presentation on on what our findings are. Thank you. That would be great. Thank you. All right. If theres no other new business, please open this item to Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item seven new business initiated by commissioners may line up against the wall for this from the door if present in the chamber. If youre calling in. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access. Code 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to be recognized. And there are not members of the public in the chamber who have approached to speak on this item and govtv has also indicated we do not have any callers on this item. So that concludes Public Comment on item seven. Thank you. And we can forego item eight, isnt that correct . That is correct. We did not exceed the 15 minutes of general Public Comment. And item three. Thank you very much. Our next regular meeting will be on friday, september 15th at 930 am. Five minutes over where i promised wed be out. It is 1035, but we are looking forward to giving everyone an early start on the Labor Day Holiday weekend and wish you all a very nice one. As commissioner zogby expressed earlier, we are adjourned and. Our chair is onr is onr is onr l just just just just just get us started untild untis here, and thenand thenand thena. So so so so so lets start withart withart. Member member member member m catalano here. Good morningmorn, memb cunningham. Dennym. Dennymt vice chair dantonioantonioan. Member. Friedenbachdenbachdenba. Member. Prestonprestonprestonpre walton hereon hereon hereon hera. Be latebe latebe latebe lateb. Grea so now well movell movee land acknowledgment. Soent. Soee acknowledge that we are we are e unseatedunseatedunseatedunseatef the the the ramaytushamaytushamaytushamr original inhabitantsabitantsabin franciscoanciscoanciscoancisc pe indigenous stewardstewardsteward and in accordance with their tradition, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the ramaytush community and by affirming their sovereignty rights as the first people. So now well vote to excuse absences at this or future meetings. What what exactly is that . Okay, cool. I will not be available for the september meeting. Yeah. I have prearranged a travel that i cant change. Okay any other non attendees of september myself as well. And i alerted ivy to that. Oh okay. So are we were taking a vote on that or is that a new policy . Im not exactly sure. Um the bylaws have always included the requirement that members vote to excuse current or future absences. I think we havent typically, ill make a motion to. Okay, great. I love the two members within the rules. I will second that great. Lets take a vote. Okay. Um member catalano . Yes. Second i believe we will need to take Public Comment before on this item. Before we vote. Okay. So lets take Public Comment then. Okay okay. Members of the public who wish to provide inperson Public Comment on this item, please line up at the podium now. Each person will have two minutes to speak. Good morning, commissioners. My name is richard perino. Im a lifelong san franciscan 77 years. I live in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood and i represent the Lower Nob Hill neighbors alliance. Last meeting that i attend, i made the commission aware of a man named michael who has been in a shelter at bryant and pitt for five years. He is 74 years old and hes been caught up in the bureaucracy of the nonprofits as he today he has a meeting with his caseworker where after four weeks of waiting, he will text me about the results, whether hes going to be looking at another home for himself or not. The person that gave me this card, i emailed her twice as she is a deputy Deputy Director for i wont mention her name here. She did not answer my emails even though she gave me this card. I want you to be aware of that, about how dysfunctional ill sometimes not all the times, but sometimes the system is. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do we have any more Public Comment . Maybe over the phone. Oh theres one more here. Okay, good morning. My name is evelyn and i live in district six in the summer west area. Im here on behalf of myself and several residents and Property Owners on natomas street in the last few years, we have seen our neighborhood assaulted by people with bad behavior. Some of them in encampments, which persist and diminish our quality of life and safety very seriously. The entire block smells of urine and my front entry needs to be hosed down practically every day. This is due to an encampment thats either side of my block. I believe on a daily basis i have to hose it down in a few words. My safety and qualit