Transcripts For SFGTV BOS 20240703

Connected, you will hear the meeting discussion, but you will be muted and in listening mode only when your item of interest comes up and Public Comment is called. Those joining us in person should line up to speak and those on the telephone should dial star three to be added to the speaker line. If you are on the telephone, please remember to turn down your television and all other listening devices. You may be using. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in writing in either of the following ways. Email them to myself, the rules Committee Clerk at victor dot y o u g at sf gov. Org you may also send your written comments via us mail to our office at one in excuse me our office in city hall at one. Dr. Carlton b goodlett place room 244 San Francisco, california. 94102. Finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda on october 23rd unless otherwise stated. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Would you please call item number one . Yes. Item number one is the motion approving rejecting the mayors nomination of amy campbell for appointment to the Historic Preservation commission term ending december 31st, 2026 . Thank you, mr. Young. The mayor has nominated amy campbell to seat six on the Historic Preservation committee. Ms. Campbell is joining us in person this morning. We have a fairly packed agenda today, so i will, as always, ask applicants and nominees to limit their remarks to no more than a couple of minutes and then be available for questions and answers. Ms. Campbell, welcome to the rules committee. The floor is yours. Thank you and good morning. Supervisor dorsey and supervisor walton. Its really such an honor to be standing here today with this nomination. And i will keep this brief, but would love to just take a quick opportunity to just say a few things and then take any questions you might have for the record. My name is amy campbell. Im a licensed architect in the state of california, and ive been practicing for 16 years, almost my entire career has been committed to working on the built environment. Unlike other architects who do ground up construction that comes in the form of adaptive reuse projects, rehabilitation of primarily existing commercial buildings. Fortunately, i work for a global firm, but fortunately most of my work is here in the bay area and right here in San Francisco, so i feel quite lucky to live and practice in the same place. Some ive had the chance to work on some jewels of San Francisco, including the bank of california at 400 california street, right across the street, Merchants Exchange and most recently 170 valencia street, which is the home of the gay mens chorus, where we are reimagining the home of for the lgbt q center of the arts. Its been a real personal pleasure of mine collaborating with them. Buildings like this are what i call the belles of the ball. Theyre really what make San Francisco so special and so different than other cities. They tell the story of people and neighborhoods of our past and its really something we want to try to carry forward. I also want to recognize this is a transformational time for cities, especially cities like San Francisco, and that usually translates to transformation, personal change. These are two facts that i think make the work that the hbc does extra important. I think we must ensure that we can adapt and progress during times of change, but still preserve that special patina culture and stories of our city. Its such an honor and privilege to be considered for this role and i would look forward to hopefully being part of that dialog and to serve my community as best i can. Thank you and ill take any questions. Um, thank you so much. I was very appreciative of with someone of your caliber is willing to serve our city so i want to say express my gratitude to you for that. I was also interested because i know there was a story about some Downtown Office buildings and the possibility that some of them could be made into housing, you know, given some of the challenges. And i appreciate some of the expertise you brought to that. And id invite you to talk a little bit about it. I really appreciate what you just mentioned about where we are in a time of transformational change and given you know, i realize theres a lot of challenges that we are facing as policy makers, but the Silver Lining to that is that we also get to shape the San Francisco of the future in ways that are going to preserve our heritage and solve problems creatively. So i and i thought you touched on one when you were quoted in that and id invite you to elaborate on it a little bit about how Historic Preservation and housing can be can work together. I think good urbanism and preservation are not mutually exclusive. Things i think we can we can progress our city and still carry parts of the past forward. And i do think when it comes to our empty office space, which i think is maybe what youre alluding to downtown is quite extraordinary. Its remarkable when we think about how far the pendulum has swung in terms of Office Demands prepandemic to where we are today. And i do think a lot of those buildings can move forward in new ways. I think we have to be careful about which ones we select for that. And i do know that theres a lot of restrictions in terms of our abilities to do that. And also financial restrictions that are not allowing for it to happen at the moment, given the cost of construction. I do believe that downtown San Francisco could be our next flourishing neighborhood. And i dont think it has to be exclusive office use. Our neighborhoods did quite well during the pandemic and San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods. I think its well teed up for being that next vibrant, sustainable neighborhood. Its got all the transit there. Its got the waterfront. And i think if were smart and selective and do some conversion and bring residential downtown, it could be the beginning of a new downtown. Great. Yeah, i agree. Okay. Seeing no one on the roster right now, mr. Clerk, can we open this up to Public Comment . And thanks so much for your time. Yes. Members of the public who wish to speak on this item and joining us in person should line up to speak at this time. For those listening remotely on the public, call in line, please press star three to enter the speaker line for those already in the queue, please continue the way until the system indicates you have been unmuted and thatll be your cue to begin your comment. Can we have our first inperson commenter . Thank you and good morning supervisor myers. My name is woody labounty. Im the president and ceo of San Francisco heritage. Since 1971, San Francisco heritage has advocated for the preservation and enhancement of San Franciscos unique architectural and cultural identity. As part of that mission, San Francisco heritage has frequently and actually has frequent and significant engagement with the Historic Preservation commission. Im there almost every two weeks, and its Important Role protecting the citys heritage while ensuring preservation contributes to the growth, revitalization and appreciation of San Francisco are members of our board and i had the pleasure of meeting with miss campbell to discuss her experience, use her skills and her interest in serving on seat six of the Historic Preservation commission. San francisco heritage finds that she meets the requirements of seat six, including meeting the secretary of interior professional qualifications in historic architecture and she possesses extensive experience with preservation and adaptive reuse of historic structures. We were impressed by her preparation for the nomination and our meeting, her enthusiasm to serve the city and her interest in perspectives on intangible preservation, as exemplified by the citys legacy business and Cultural District Program aims. So San Francisco heritage supports amy campbells nomination for seat six of the Historic Preservation commission and we ask for your approval of her nomination to the full board. Thank you. Thank you. There being no other in person speakers, we will move on to our telephone call in line. And please note that this is Public Comment for item number one. Can we have our first caller. Caller has been unmuted. If youd like to make your Public Comment. Okay. Were not getting a response. Can we go ahead and move on to our next commenter . Um, that line was unattended. We have no additional public callers on the telephone line. Okay, great. Thank you. Mr. Clark Public Comment on this item is now closed and i would like to make a motion to strike the words reject wherever they appear in the motion and send our recommendation for approval of this appointment to the full board of supervisors. Mr. Clark. Yes. On the motion to delete, reject from the motion and recommend as amended. Vice chair Walton Walton. I supervisor safari absent chair Dorsey Dorsey i the motion passes with no objection with supervisor saphire being absent. Thank you, mr. Clark. Without objection, then item number one mayoral appointment Historic Preservation commission. Amy campbell goes to the full board as amended. Mr. Clark, can we please call item number two . Yes. Item number two is a hearing to consider appointing one member term ending march 1st, 2024. Two members terms ending march 1st, 2025, and four members terms ending march 1st, 2026 to the Inhome Supportive Services Public Authority. We have seven seats with four applicants. However we are. Id like to note that the administrator has informed me that Shannon Steneck has is no longer able to serve on this body. Great. Thank you, mr. Clark. Uh, the Inhome Supportive Services. Public authority is a body required by state law and is responsible for providing assistance in finding personnel for the ihss programs through the establishment of a central registry and related functions. And to perform any other functions as may be necessary for the operation of the authority or related to the delivery of Inhome Supportive Services in San Francisco, there are several vacant seats on the Public Authority and today we will be hearing from three applicants to three seats. I would note, as the clerk just mentioned, that one application for seat one was withdrawn on. I will call the applicants up one at a time and id like to once again remind everybody that given our agenda today, well politely ask applicants to keep their remarks to no more than two minutes. So first, lets hear from adam johnson, who is currently serving and has reapplied for seat number one, for which the qualifications are a consumer over the age of 55 years, authorized to represent organizations that advocate for aging people with disabilities. Ms. Johnson, welcome to the rules committee. The floor is yours. Okay, so i understand that they are in the building and on their way here. Um. Is it okay to take would you like to call them out of order or would you like. Yeah. Why dont we . Given that supervisor chan is here, why dont we talk about the. Can we take item number three and well come back to item number two. Item three. Yeah. All paypal. Item three, can we call item number three . Yes. Item number three is an ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the graffiti Advisory Board to advise the board of supervisors and the mayor on issues related to the graffiti prevention and abatement and setting forth the membership and duties of the Advisory Board. Great. Thank you, mr. Clark. Supervisor connie chan is the sponsor of this item and she is joining us today. Thank you. Supervisor chan, welcome to the rules committee this morning. The floor is yours. Thank you, chair dorsey and thank you. Committee members for scheduling this item for our hearing. It is and also that i just want to thank board president peskin for waiving the 30 day rules for this. We understand that you may have some charter and ballot measures coming up in this hearing, so wed like to get this out of the way, so to speak, as you know that this is a graffiti Advisory Board establishing the body to really look at the graffiti around town, but mainly the focus is, though, we have really switched the body from originally 25in vigils to shrinking it down to 15 to allow the each member of the board of supervisors to appoint their appointee for their district. And then allowing the mayor to also appoint the appointee and then to work with specifically three appointees from the department of public works Arts Commission and the police departments. This is in the goal where we can identify structures and buildings that actually suffer graffiti, but not really having be able to have any vendors in custody, so to speak. Instead to understand that the problem still exist. And so what can we do to find alternatives to clear up graffiti by beautifying our neighborhood . So that is what this Advisory Board is going to be about, provides us the recommendation. I do understand that there is Sanitation Commission action that will be doing similar work, but we understand that they definitely have this will this body will specifically focus on just graffiti alone and hopefully to be able to support us with some recommendation and with that, i colleagues, i also want to point to you that we do have some amendments today that really is the on page three, lines one through four refers to back to the board rules. We understand. We want to make sure that this advisory body is productive. And so we want to describe the process for the clerk to confirm the body has met at least once every four months and to ask the City Attorney to prepare legislation repealing the ordinance that create the body. If the body has not been meeting. So again, we also want to make sure that while we establish or renew this body, we still want them to be productive, active. And if theyre not, they will not be meeting and functioning. So with that colleagues, i hope that you will support it and move forward with the motion to amend and to approve and to full board with recommendation. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Supervisor chan, i really do appreciate the and thought this was a good idea. Actually, this is something that might be a good model. This amendment that if advise board or task force hasnt met within four months that the City Attorney would be directed to prepare legislation to terminate it. I think that is something that we should always value participatory democracy, but we also, as you said, want it to be productive. So i think this does a great job of threading that needle and seeing no questions or comments from my colleagues. Mr. Clerk, can we open this up to Public Comment . Yes member of the public who wish to speak on this item and joining us in person should line up to speak at this time for those listening remotely on the public, call on line, please press star three to enter the speaker line. For those already in the queue, please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and that will be your cue to begin your comment. I i do not see any Public Commenters for our item number three in the room at this time and we have two callers on the line for Public Comment. Can we have our first caller. Hi, my name is amy cleary and im calling on behalf of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association in support of the reestablishment of the graffiti Advisory Board as i think all of you know, graffiti has been a huge issue in our Restaurant Community and other businesses across the city. We believe that the reestablishment of the Advisory Board would be a step in the right direction to address the overwhelming number of complaints and concerns. We also appreciate that the committee will include a broad crosssection of the community and look forward to having restaurants and Small Businesses represented. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please . Good morning. David pilpel so i have some thoughts here. So specifically to possible amendments on page two of the version thats available to the public lines six and seven must be an officer or employee of an organization. Et cetera. Et cetera. I would suggest have that read be an officer, employee or member of an organization, etcetera. In both cases. You might add two more seats to expand it from 15 to 17 members to provide for the District Attorney and the Municipal Transportation Agency to have a seat on this body. That may be particularly relevant for both abatement and prevention and consequences anyway, i acknowledge that you dont want to make it too big, but i would consider those two possible expansions on page three, line. 18, i would only require the body to have regular meetings at least quarterly, i. E. They might meet more frequently like 6 or 9 times a year. But i think rather than requiring regular monthly meetings, i think at least quarterly or four times a year seems seems sufficient to me. And finally on page three, line 20, it says may establish bylaws and rules for its organization and procedures. I would substitute shall for may and require the body to establish bylaws and rules for its organization and procedure as those are my hopefully thoughtful comments, you might consider them today. Or if this advances to the full board to make those amendments at the full board. To the extent that you see fit. Thanks for listening. Thank you. That completes our list of, uh, telephone callers. Thank you, mr. Clark. Public comment on item number three is now closed, and i would like to make a motion to accept the amendments. Supervisor chan read into the record and send this item to the full board with a positive recommendation as amended. Mr. Clerk, do we have a roll call on that motion . Yes, on the motion to accept the recommended, uh, excuse me. On the motion to accept the amendments proposed by the excuse me to accept the proposed amendments and to recommend it as amended on that motion. Vice chair walton i. Alton i supervisor sapphire. Sapphire chair. Dorsey i. Dorsey i. The motion passes without objection. Thank you, mr. Clerk. On a unanimous vote then item number three administrative code and establishing the graffiti Advisory Board moves to the full board as amended with a positive recommendation. Thank you. Supervisor chan. Uh, mr. Clerk, could you please call item number two again . Yes item number two is here. Consider appointments to the Inhome Supportive Services Public Authority. Okay, great. So we already. I already sort of introduced what this body does, and i mentioned that there are two vacant seats. We are going to be hearing first from adam johnson, who is currently serving and has reapplied for seat number one, for which the qualifications are a consumer over the age of 55 years, authorized to represent organizations that advocate for aging people with disabilities. Ms. Johnson welcome to the rules committee. The floor is yours. And as i had mentioned to just because we have a fairly either either microphone is fine. Okay, well, thank you very much. Thank you for introduction because that does help me in explaining why im here. Okay. So im here for the reappointment for seat one. My basic resume and qualifications were submitted last year at this time. So i wont go extensively into those. I have a extensive and strong background in Early Childhood and Child Development and teaching in Public Schools for special ed, severe through resource room. I have used those skills to apply by and apparent iep rep and those skills have been extremely beneficial in working as an advocate for seniors or or kind of getting through red tape appeals fling. Thats all very similar to basic california iep rights and responsibilities, but beyond that, as far as serving, i have been active participant for one year. I have enjoyed. 100 attendance in all the meetings i have participated in three governing board, Public Authority training sessions for the board that were presented as part of our meetings. And i have also in support of the Public Authority, ihss, we had many opening seats and i was able to actively recruit successfully from the paratransit board and a few others by visiting, attending meetings and bringing fliers, fliers and it worked. We got a response, um, an important response ability for this position is its a learning curve. So as now, now i better understand after a full year of whats required, all materials sent in pdf need to be extensively reviewed. Past meeting notes need to be reviewed and upcoming agenda is important that the seat at the seat on the Public Authority take that time because its a lot of oversight, a lot of fiscal growth graphs that need to be followed. And someone in my position may not clearly understand everything. So a great deal of review is required. The other qualifications is in the in the community. Im actively trying my best to as much advocacy and support of disabled and senior years. I believe i meet those qualifications through both volunteer and my paid employment that i participate for the past five years with the sf 250 disabled worker program. I have been a long Term Employee for saint marks lutheran. Prior to that, the lutheran schools. Im also on the board for Martin Luther towers, our senior, and also saint marks square, which is kind of a triad of groups. I was very happy and youve all read that the i wrote it down. Sb four yes. In gods backyard has passed just passed. You have a recent update from the governor and scott wiener, and that would be our elder roth senior disabled building will be breaking ground very soon. So that took a lot of work, a lot of forums, a lot of support to get that off the ground. But its going in that capacity city by living now in Martin Luther towers, im able and working. Im able to attend a variety of volunteer opportunity causes for the community. We have homeless connect where we work and we have specifically workshops, uyghur lee this week well have medicaid, a eyeglass free eyeglass well have. So im able to even just host those, which is event hosts at saint marks. Im the nursery coordinator, so. So i believe i meet in that respect as far as my goals, victor young had asked, i would just like to continue to participate and support votes with public authorities that increase provider benefits, increase provider participation and training in this has been something that is just not being utilized. So we need to explore incentives and to increase consumer access, to provide orders with more, more reasonable share of costs. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And seeing no questions from colleagues. Next up, i want to bring up ms. Mack and just as a reminder, because we have a really crowded day today, im asking folks to hold their two limit limit. This two, two minutes and then just be available for questions if we have any. Good morning. Im mara math. I ive lived in San Francisco for 32 years and been a Community Activist for that entire time. Im a journalist as well as a former union organizer. I was a member of the i was a counselor at the Tenants Union for 17 years and a member of the Steering Committee for that time. More recently, ive been a member of the Paratransit Coordinating Council and its executive committee for the last five years. Im currently chair of the group van subcommittee and also chair of the Recruitment Committee with jane. And we recently made our first concerted effort as a committee and with the help of staff, we drew 41 new attendees at our last meeting. Ive been an ihss client for, i think about the last 14 years. Ive hired independent care providers through Public Authority and for the last 12 years or so ive received services through the subcontractor homebridge and these services have been crucial to me as a disabled person, allowing me to live independent early and with dignity. Id like to contribute to maintaining and improving the services of Public Authority and ihss. And thats why im here. And i was nominated by, i believe, Eileen Norman of Public Authority. Thank you, miss math. And now lets hear from jane jane redmond, who has applied for seat ten. And the qualifications for that are consumer over the age of 55, authorized to represent organizations that advocate for aging people with disabilities. Ms. Redmond, welcome to the rules committee. The floor is yours. You speak just into the microphone. Thank you for having me here, sir. I have been on the paratransit board for 20 years and several leadership positions. Uh im really nervous. Im sorry. Um, ive also take your time. Youre doing great. Okay. Ive also volunteered at San Francisco general, and as a mother of a multiethnic, multiracial children in. I know peoples bias is and i really tune in on that. And i think theres a lot of improvement that need to be made. And im here for the long haul. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your remarks and your willingness to serve to especially to, you know, folks who are coming in to serve our government in volunteer capacities, you know, to know that when you come to the rules committee, youre among friends. When you are leading a department, then you should be nervous. Uh, so lets see. I dont see any questions for or among my colleagues. So, mr. Clerk, can we open this up to Public Comment . Yes. Members of the public who wish to speak on this item and are joining us in person should line up to speak at this time. For those who are listening remotely on the public, call in line, please press star three to enter the speaker line for those already in the queue, please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and that will be your cue to begin your comment. Seeing no persons in the room for Public Comment double checking our call in line. There are no callers for Public Comment on this matter. Great. Thank you mr. Clerk. Public comment on item number two is now closed and i will make a motion to recommend to Etta Mae Johnson. Oh, my apologies. Supervisor. I just want to say just really quickly, um, really appreciate all the folks that came out today. This is such an important body for our city. We have one of the most well developed and competent staff that are dealing with aging in place and providing such an Important Service to our seniors and disabled. And so just want to say thank you for everyone that came out here today and thank the Public Authority for the tremendous work that they do. And i know that in San Francisco, we set the trend in many ways for the rest of the state in terms of how we provide benefits to staff, how we provide treat the inhome care providers themselves and how we make seniors and those with disabilities a priority in our city. So just wanted to say that and thank you for everyone that came out today. Thank you, mr. Chair. Great. Thank you. Supervisor safai this very well stated and i associate myself with those remarks so i would like to make a motion to recommend Etta Mae Johnson to seat number one math to seat three and jane redmond to seat ten on the Inhome Supportive Services Public Authority and to send those appointments to the full board. Mr. Clark can we have a roll call on that motion . Those that motion, yes. On that motion. Vice chair Walton Walton i, supervisor sapphire. I sapphire chair. Dorsey dorsey i. The motion passes without objection. Thank you, mr. Clerk. On a unanimous vote, then three individual are recommended to the Inhome Supportive Services Public Authority and their appointments moved to the full board with a positive recommendation. Congratulations mr. Clerk. Can we call item number four . Yes. Item number four is a motion amending the board of supervisors rules of order by revising rule 1. 3. 3 input in person. Remote Public Comment to discontinue remote Public Comment by members of the public at meetings of the board and its committees except as legally required to enable people with disabilities to participate in such meetings. I would like to note that we have made arrangements for interpretation at todays meeting, and id like to defer announcements regarding this to our interpreters today. Arturo carranza for spanish, vivian liu for chinese, and Raymond Burris for filipino. Great, thank you, mr. Clark. I like to let them make their announcements in their language, if thats possible. Thank you very much, mr. Chair. Mr. Contessa, would you like to make your announcement . Sure assunta de cuatro. Buenos dias. Me llamo arturo cosenza soy empleyado de la oficina de participacion civica de asuntos de inmigrantes esta representando servicios de interpretation al espanol hoy para esta audiencia relativa a la enmienda del codigo de reglas de orden para poner un acceso publicos para los miembros del publico salvo aquellas personas con discapacidad es por tienen el derecho a participar de esta manera para ingresar a la reunion su comentario publico marquez cuatro cinco, cinco 000 uno seguido por el codigo de la reunion dos hace dos 003 cinco 006 mas alla de numero dos veces marquez carrasco para su comentario cuando su cuatro el asunto Numero Cuatro cuando sistema linea activada or you have been unmuted in ingles es su comentario para el cual solo dos gracias. Thank you, miss lu, would you like to make a your announcements also . Yes. Thank you. Hello hi. Man thank you. Massimo pangong. Satya. Thank you. Come up. Taichung. How long time you. Go . La you say hong kong. England thank you. Say m m ling ling ling yun yi id hi yi yi ling ling san ling ling lok dong zheng zi thank you. Thank you very much. Civic Civic Engagement. Immigrant affairs. Filipino para. 415 a6550001 and meeting id po natin sa. Ito 266200350067. And along at capulong kapag na magsalita apat na ang ang remote public calling natin sa three at hintayin pong la lamang magsalita been unmuted. Salom dalawang minuto Maraming Salamat po thank you. Thank you very much. Great thank you, mr. Clark. This item is sponsored by board president aaron peskin, who is joining us this morning. President peskin, i appreciate your leadership on this. Welcome to the rules committee. The floor is yours. Thank you. Chair dorsey members of the rules committee. Let me start by just setting forth what this change to the rules of order of the board of supervisors states and what it would do. It would be an amendment to the rules of order provision. 11. 3. 3 where are in. That first paragraph would remove the two words or remotely and would read where opportunity for Public Comment is required under rules. 3. 84. 19 and 4. 2. Two members of the public shall be given the option to comment in person at a meeting of the board or a committee. The clerk of the board of supervisors shall offer opportunities to provide remote Public Comment to members of the public as necessary to enable the participation, participation of people with disabilities to the extent required by law. That is what the language that i have proposed before you states at and would sadly terminate the use of remote Public Comment and colleagues. You will recall that at the start of the covid 19 pandemic in march of 2020, the clerk of the board seamlessly. We moved our meetings online to remote meetings seamlessly, was able to accommodate remote Public Comment, which was an extraordinary effort on the clerks part, and allowed the smooth functioning of government with Public Participation, for which i am deeply grateful, as you will recall, that when the governor terminated the state of emergency, this board of supervisors had to take an action as to what we wanted to do with Public Comment. And there was a diversity of opinion on this board of supervisors ranging from members who wanted to terminate and eliminate remote Public Comment to members that wanted unlimited remote Public Comment to members who had ideas about a hybrid inbetween version. Ultimately, in my role as president of the board, i landed on the side of unlit emitted remote Public Comment participation in the decisions that we make is, i think, very important to the functioning of a democratic government. Having said that, we noted in this time of extremism and hate in other cities and counties, not only in northern california, but around the country, the participation in remotely of people who hide in anonymity and use this public forum as a form for the most horrible types of hate speech. And thankfully, San Francisco co did not expect that to any extent or any great extent as counties like sonoma and napa were already terminating remote Public Comment because years of being bombarded by antisemitic, racist, misogynistic hate speech and recently colleagues, as you know and members of the public know San Francisco was not immune from that kind of just horrible behavior, which required the clerk to repeatedly terminate antisemitic and racist hate speech. And i, for one, came to the conclusion reluctantly that it is time for us to join those other public bodies that have found it necessary to terminate remote Public Comment and i say i speak to my reluctance because a handful of hateful, horrible people are ruining public particip option for others, having said that, i also know that as as somebody who was first elected to these chambers in the year 2020, that that there has been no shortage of Public Participation in our committee meetings, in our full board of supervisors meetings in person. Yes, it is differ ficult for people to do it is less inclusive of. But i profoundly kindly feel that we cannot use this forum for our hate speech and it is intolerable and for the time being i think it needs to be ended. Let me also say that, as with the original efforts, this is also an experiment. This time may pass and we are free to reinstate remote Public Comment. I think that we also, though, have a responsibility to lobby the state of california and see if we can get changes in law that would allow municipalities like San Francisco to block anonymous callers, to block callers from lines that we know have been the source of this kind of behavior. Right now, we cannot do that. But i think with some sensible amendments to the brown act and other laws that govern on remote participation, this could be done. I have recently spoken to the clerk of the board of supervisors about other possibilities, and i just want to elucidate those, including having remote delays which may which whose time may come but is not here yet. Both as a function of cost, but because right now in this atmosphere here or this fiscal climate, money is hard to come by. Some seven years ago, actually, the clerk of the board queried our department of technology as to whether or not we could do to delayed Public Comment where we could actually vet that Public Comment before it went live and the cost of that was a. Shocking 10 million. So we are not in a position to do that today. There are also practical concerns as relative to the time that that would take and how we would deal with that. So i think for the time being, we need to continue to monitor that. But it is a time that is not yet come. And with that, colleagues, i would recommend that you forward this to the full board. Of course, subject to the Public Comment that we are about to hear as a committee report. Great thank you. President peskin, and i really appreciate your leadership on this. I will say that i landed in the same place you did when it came to Public Participation and im saddened that saddened that our better angels created an unintended platform for anonymous hatred and toxicity. I think we have no higher obligation than affirming the legitimacy of our Democratic Institutions and im saddened that this step has been made necessary. But im going to be very much supportive. And i also support changes in state law to remove the cloak of anonymity, which i think will go a long way toward improving the tenor of our public debates. I appreciate to the statement you made about the work that the Clerks Office did and stepping up at a time when we really didnt know what we were dealing with with covid 19, and to keep our democracy, our local democracy, functioning and participatory, and one other unsung hero in that was the folks at sf govtv, who really stepped up. So i want to give them a shout out as well. Colleagues, i dont know if theres any question or comments. Okay. Seeing none. Mr. Clerk, can we open this item up to Public Comment . Yes. Members of the public who wish to speak on this item and are joining us in person should line up to speak now along the side of the room with the windows. For those listening remotely on the public, call in line, please press star three to enter the speaker line. For those already in the queue, please continue to wait until the system indicates youve been unmuted and that will be your cue to begin your comments. I like to note that Public Comment is limited to two minutes per person today. Thank you very much. Can we have our first inperson Public Commenter . All right, thank you. My name is tina martin and im a member of transit justice. I feel very privileged to be here today. And i just want to point out that not everyone has the privilege that i have. And i think we really do need to consider the people who cant be here for i know that youre making accommodations for people with disabilities, but its not just people with disabilities who need to speak remotely. Sometimes you know . In fact, sometimes maybe its a stereotype because sometimes people with disabilities do make it here, others cant. And some people who are caregivers or or have paying jobs are also not able to come. Im sorry to hear about the hate speech that is coming remotely, but it seems to me that and i didnt know that you couldnt shut off people who were starting to Say Something hateful. But i really think you need to reconsider this. I think its a very big move to actually cut off Remote Access to commentary, to making comments because of this hate speech. I dont think you should let that rule the decision down. Thank you. Good morning. My name is jordan. My pronouns are she her . They them. First i want to say fuck the nazi shitheads who use the remote Public Comment to troll our meetings. They are losers and the clerks were right to cut them off. But with that said, we cant throw the baby out with the bathwater and respond to oppressive language with oppressive policy. And thus i cannot support boomer peskins motion to limit remote Public Comment as a disability rights activist, i say the era of reasonable accommodation as a default is over. Fuck that shit and we must do universal design when possible. Also there are a lot of people who dont live near city hall who are poor working class people of color and are busy with families or might be caretakers. Although i may disagree on a lot of issues with some people who live in outlying neighborhoods, i will still fight for their right to remote Public Comment. Whats next . Are you going to have civility and decorum requirements . Are you going to tell me not to use fbombs during meetings because youre going down that fucking path of censorship . Let me tell you something. If you pass this amendment to the rules of order, i will come back meaner and nastier than ever. I know my rights when it comes to Public Comment, and i am the queen of malicious compliance. And i live right near city hall and i can come here in person and haunt you any time to paraphrase a former member of the board of supervisors, you and remote Public Comment. Its on like donkey kong. I yield my time. Fuck you. You thank you. Is there anybody else in the room for Public Comment on this matter . Please approach the podium and line up. Hi, im a math. I like aaron. Im horrified at the grotesqueries that have been inflicted on us in Public Comment. But i dont think that ending remote comment is the answer. I had come to suggest Something Like a ten second delay, like they do on radio. I did not know it was going to be so expensive, but i think we cannot let the nazis defeat democracy. Nothing would make them happier. And if they can shut San Francisco down, they can shut anywhere down. I would suggest that we have at least two people monitoring. And be really quick on the draw to just cut them off and i agree with the idea of ending anonymous comment. Anonymity empowers the trolls. Unfortunately but it would be a huge disservice to many people as other speakers have pointed out to end it altogether. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anybody else in the room for Public Comment . Yes i could not. Not come up here and speak on this as ive been a part of making this this system work in the background. And its hard to come up because you know, im an employee here. But so much money has been spent to get this up and running. There are other commissions that have just got gotten their hybrid systems installed last week. Just last week. And were talking about, hey, you just spent over 100,000 or more and thats going to go to waste. Thats going to happen at at least two commissions in the city. We should be appalled. I cant get to work without stepping through meth smoke every day. We should be appalled. Bringing my kid up the street to school. I cant get by the sidewalk. Meanwhile, my car gets towed. We should be appalled. So its very simple. We can cut people off, period. This is San Francisco. We spearhead. We dont follow. What other cities do. Lets do us. They follow us. Thats it. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the room for general for Public Comment on this item . Seeing no additional speakers in the room, i like to move on to our telephone speakers for this matter. We have approximately 22 people in line for Public Comment. Can we have our first caller. Good morning. George wooding was a twin peaks central council. Ill have known aaron peskin for quite a long time. Usually i agree with him, but not in this case. Case i think first off, you have no information to base your fallacy on. I dont hear of any report on bad Public Comment versus a good Public Comment. Are you basing this on one person versus 51 . What are your numbers . I see this is non sensical. I am in a wheelchair. I have to rely on paratransit, which is awful because it is so unpredictable. Last week you got the rules committee to one minute. It would have taken me an hour and a half to get to the rules committee to testify, and then it would have taken me at least an hour and a half to get home if i were to take Public Transit , id like a cab. It would have cost me over 36 for my one minute and probably. 45 hours while you text while im testifying. Given all of that, i think the city still owes the handicapped among us and the elderly and disabled a chance to participate out in Public Meetings. Otherwise we did appear and you never get our input. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please. Yeah. Good morning. Its patrick monetza. I strongly oppose antisemitic comments in any setting, especially during Public Meetings. But this motion to end all Public Comment is an overreaction and goes too far into antisemitic comments were actually made by a person attending a Board Meeting in person, eliminating remote Public Comment will not fix the problem of speakers attending in person and making repugnant comments, said another way and remote Public Comment in order to punish a speaker who spoke in person seems to be a punishment that doesnt fit the crime in. Instead, a more appropriate punishment. It is refreshing. Part4 suggested, is that greater care should be taken to immediately cut off the microphone. Speakers attending in person who make antisemitic remarks remarks that quick, quickest and most effective means to abhorrent abuse of Public Comment now is not the time to follow neighbors and countys civil rights or peskin. Now is the time to follow the lead. A straight up was arlington, where governor jay inslee signed into law last year a bill allowing remote Public Comment permanently. You need to follow what other jurisdictions like the state of washington are doing and the real punishment for people who violate board rules should be that they are barred for a year from making Public Comment. Thats the solution, not ending remote Public Comment. And was no procedures outlined. Sorry for cutting you off, but id like to remind people that we are allocating two minutes per person for Public Comment at this. For this matter. Can we have our next caller please. My name is art persico. I live in San Francisco. Im with the sf gray panthers. I really respect and thank board president peskin for his support of the idea of a few seconds of delay in remote Public Comment. But i think the cost of implementation should be investigated further. Please dont allow the misbehave of the very few to curtail the respectful participation of the vast majority of san franciscans for access to remote Public Comment, which can provide helpful feedback to the board. This is a problem that can be solved with the without the drastic action of almost totally ending Public Comment. With a few exceptions, that will be allowed for which most of the public will not qualify. It can be solved in a more fair, equitable and beneficial way that allows san franciscans to participate in San Francisco civic life who have good reason not to come to city hall but still desire to participate via remote Public Comment. It can be solved with a technical fix. As president peskin mentioned, the use of a seven second delay, which is commonly used in radio broadcasts. A seven second delay would give the board an opportunity to monitor and bleep out remote Public Comment calls for the purpose of screening out hate speech. A City Employee whos trained to bleep out only hate speech could perform this Public Service for the benefit of all. So please dont allow the irresponsible actions of a few to end the participation access of the responsible, many remote Public Comment is an improvement in Public Access and Civic Engagement that should not be curtailed if there are ways to preserve it and there are, please use available improvement methods to preserve remote Public Comment for the good of the public and the good of San Francisco governments. Free speech and accountability via feedback from the public is the lifeblood of democracy. Lets maximize it, not curtail it. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please . Uh. Good morning, supervisors. Catherine howard, with all due respect to supervisor president peskin, i do oppose limiting remote Public Comment. Covid 19 has forced the modernized ization of Public Participation in City Government by allowing people to call in instead of having to come down to city hall to spend three, two or sometimes one minute to express an opinion before the board. Of course, insulting or derogatory language should not be allowed. But ive heard this language at inperson meetings. The speaker was cut off. No one at the time suggested that all public in person comment should be eliminated because of the few obnoxious people. For People Living far from city hall, it takes over an hour on muni each way. In addition, you got to get there early so you dont miss your item. So to go down to city hall, were talking 3 to 4 hours and that is for those who are able to make it to the meetings, which leaves out most people who have a job, seniors who may not be officially disabled, and people with small children or of their obligations in the home. Im a puzzled by the cause for a delay. You know, there is a delay. If i watch this on tv, i can hang up the phone now and listen to myself talk. So the delay is already there. Its free. Just find somebody who can punch that button. Maybe the chair can confirm it should be cut off. And you have other letters offering suggestions on how to deal with this in a positive manner. But please preserve the right of the broader public to participate in our government. Please do not support this amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please . Good morning. Chair and Committee Members eliana binder, policy manager for glide. Glide is an opposition to this motion discontinuing remote Public Comment for everyone except for people with recognized disabilities would be an unacceptable obstacle to Community Participation in democracy. There are ways to address recent unaccepted incidents without discontinuing access to everyone. Remote Public Comment has made it possible for some Community Members to participate in meetings for the first time, and it should be allowed for all rather than only as a burdensome, reasonable accommodation option. Government should desire and encourage more participation from constituents, not less, and be looking at ways to promote equity and inclusion and remove barriers to access for working people. Parents and people with immunocompromised household members all have legitimate reasons to make it difficult for them to come to city hall in the middle of a weekday in including work schedules, transportation challenges, child care responsibilities and risk of exposure to covid 19. Glide serves many of these populations, and it is already difficult for them to call in for Public Comment, but is nearly impossible for some of them to come in person. In glide also works with survivors of Domestic Violence and they deserve a safe, secure and private way to engage in meetings during a time when we need to increase connections and trust in government. Ending remote Public Comment will only widen the divide between the community and its elected leaders. Eliminating this avenue to participate in our government would effectively shut down the voices of those who are unable to participate in person. At city hall, we respectfully request a no vote on this motion. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please. Hello, my name is leah mckeever. I live in San Francisco and San Francisco cannot claim to care about senior and disabled people and then take away their ability to give Public Comment to abled bodied people are able to provide instead of a knee jerk reaction, you could remove the disruptive individuals from meetings virtually remotely or in person as long as the person is given a warning beforehand. And this is completely allowed. If you go through with removing remote Public Comment, youll be punishing many constituents because of the hateful words of White Supremacists. No its the same White Supremacists did infiltrate the march for life earlier this year, and no one on this board even said anything. So what the fuck . It feels like women and queer safety comes second when to them, when the promises come after you. So everyone else here has put much more thought and consideration into their Public Comment and i just strongly urge you to listen to the senior disabled people, caregivers, parents, etcetera, who do not have the time or resources to come to city hall for one minute. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please . Yeah yes, hello. My name is aaron. Im with parents for public excuse me, parents for public Public Schools of San Francisco. Im the assistant director of policy and learning and i am horrified by the thought of limiting remote Public Comment. I am a person living with multiple disabilities, so i appreciate you taking that into consideration. However, it is ableist. To i dont know how you would decipher a whos disabled and who is not. That is not what i lead with. I lead with who i am. Why im attending this meeting is for my work. I dont want to have to. I, i mean, im okay saying claiming my disability, but i dont want other people who are not comfortable with that to have to claim that. And then everybody in the board room, Everybody Knows thats a disabled person. And then there lies. Therein lies implicit bias. Um, perhaps of people taking the comments, Public Comments remotely seriously. Um i, i do not want the our legal right to freedom of speech to be tampered with and. I think that if you, if someone is starting to make a hateful comment, what i do notice even in this meeting, someone in the room there is able to cut them off, at least if they want to keep talking. The person in the room could talk over them. So the hate speech is not easy to hear. For and parents for Public Schools. San francisco, we are. We support families. We provide all the resources, help them find all the resources they can. Thank you. I just like to remind everyone we are allocating two minutes per speaker today. Can we have our next caller. Hello, this is jessica lehmann. I was really proud to work with you all in the spring when i was working at senior and disability action. Im no longer at fda, but i care deeply about this issue. Remote Public Comment during the covid pandemic turned out to be a wonderful thing for not only disabled people, but also seniors, working people, parents and so many others. A reasonable accommodations procedure is not adequate for people with disabilities and certainly not for anyone else. You may recall at the hearings in the spring, there were dozens of callers. There was one from a High School Classroom room who obviously couldnt get here in the middle of teaching. We heard from Domestic Violence survivors who said they are not safe coming in person. The hate speech is absolutely awful. A handful of people should not be able to take away the right of thousands of people in San Francisco to have their voices heard. That would be letting them win. And they could call and say that theyre disabled. And once they learn that that is their only way in cutting this off does not eliminate racism, antisemitism and transphobia. San francisco has always been proud to be more inclusive than other areas, and there are other actions you could take. You heard the talk about cutting people off sooner. We could bring people together, do some research on possibilities. This is a city full of smart people. Lets figure out some other solutions. At the very least, if you do end remote Public Comment, please add a sunset so that our communities dont get forgotten as is usually the case in the spring. You all on the board of supervisors voted to keep remote Public Comment open to everyone by a vote of 10 to 1, because, as you know that it is so important. Please take into account what you are hearing from so many different speakers today. Do not end remote Public Comment. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please. Yes thank you. This is peter warfield. You usually hear from me as Library Users association head. In this case, i think its extremely important to continue remote Public Comment opportunity for the public. It has extended and can continue to extend opportunities to make Public Comment for a whole range of people who otherwise might be unable or extremely inconvenienced in making Public Comment. Such people include, as others have said, those with differing, those with difficulty coming for example, those who are working, those i havent heard mention of students except once, but students themselves. But a whole range of people who might also have difficulty. As youve also heard, to punish essentially a whole class of folks, a whole method of access, just because on one apparently occasion youve had a problem that you think needs to be fixed in this way, i think is very, very wrong. In the past, youve had a clerk who has done a very nice job of handling folks who have made unwanted Public Comment, including not hate speech, which i have never experienced to my recollection, but it also when there talking about an item that actually isnt on the agenda and what Angela Calvillo has done very nicely is shell say, im stopping your time and she could cut somebody off. And then she explains what the problem is and what the solution is. She gives the person another opportunity to Say Something, whether its a general comment about an issue instead of a particular piece of legislation, or whether its something else. We perhaps you might want to wait until another item and so on and so forth. Please dont cut off an opportunity for many people who otherwise couldnt come to make Public Comment. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller . Good morning. This is anastasia of annapolis, a member of San Francisco. Tenants union. I really appreciate listening to general Public Comment and hearing somebody swiftly being cut off when they were starting to use hate speech. I think thats really important. You can cut it off immediately and throw the person out. And that was done. That was only one time that i heard it. But i really appreciated it because people should not be allowed to make offensive comments and hate speech on our our general Public Comment line. However i am pushing 77 years old and its hard for me to get downtown. You hear from me a lot at meetings. You know, planning land use, transportation motion, even, you know, civic matters at the board of supervisors and i would be totally cut off. You would never hear from me again if you remove remote Public Comment, as would a lot of my associates. So you need to hear from us because we are important. We have valuable information to share with you and you wont be hearing from us anymore. More. And its really hard for me to take that. Youll be hearing from like a whole list of yimbys coming in in person who can make it because they get paid to do that. Im sorry. Please do not remove remote Public Comment. Itll be a really hardship for me and a lot of others. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller. Hi, im a knoxville rama with senior and disability action. I have disabling hiv. I dont tolerate my meds well. I have social anxiety and ptsd. I didnt want to have to tell you all that, but it isnt easy to participate in person for people with disabilities and Mental Illness is remote participation should be allowed for all rather than only as a reasonable accommodation requiring people to identify as disabled and ask for an accommodation ahead of time as a barrier that makes it less likely for people to participate. And nondisabled people also have valid reasons to participate remotely. People with full time jobs cannot take off work to come in person, but we can all benefit from remote parties. Option. We already have ways to limit comment stop comment when its not the item called. So we can apply that to people who use hate speech. If elected, Decision Makers need to hear from people with disabilities, people with Mental Health challenges and people with jobs. Keeping remote comments keeps the peoples voices in the chambers. Please keep remote comment. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Can we have our next caller . Great david pilpel again. So im speaking as an individual, but i refer you to the letter from the Sunshine Ordinance Task force. Its in the packet. I agree that this proposal is an overreaction to some specific negative and in completely inappropriate remarks. However, i believe eliminating remote Public Comment would severely restrict participation to those who can be there. And youve heard from other speakers about that, other public agencies have effectively dealt with the small number of problematic commenters. I think there are legal, practical and technical ways to do that here, including more active moderation and muting and requiring a real name, email address or phone number for remote Public Comment. This should not be an either or choice of how things are now or not at all. We should find a way to fix things and the Sunshine Ordinance Task force would like to help solve the problem. I urge you to reject the motion here or lets mend it and not end it. Item seven today would codify remote Public Comment for meetings. I think thats a much better model than whats proposed here. And finally, the efforts, intentions and work of the board of supervisors Clerks Office. Sf govtv the City Attorney and others has been extra ordinary and is greatly appreciated by me and many other people. Thanks very much for listening. Thank you. Can we have our next caller. Hello hello. Am i on . We can hear you. Please proceed. The. First amendment for the United States constitution reads Congress Shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances. I agree with all of the people who made these comments on this hearing, but you must also respect the right of privacy of all callers, anonymous callers are permitted hid under the law. Everything i hear about identifying people is unacceptable. The government in general doesnt respect peoples privacy, nor does private enterprise respect peoples privacy. So this is another important aspect of what were doing dealing with here. I could not more oppose supervisor peskins proposal to limit or eliminate Public Comment. It is the worst thing ive ever heard come from the mouth of this otherwise very respectable supervisor. Uh, lets have a lets make sure we stop this matter before we waste any more time of the peoples assembly. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please. My name is sarah french. I live in San Francisco, and i work for senior and disability action. And im calling in to oppose the current measure and that we need to keep Public Comment. Remote Public Comment. I think there are a lot of really great things that other callers have said. I think that one of the things that is at stake is that so many of the issues that are discussed at these meetings really affect people with disabilities. Seniors lower, lower income people, working class people, parents and caregivers and other people who cant make it to city hall. But when we dont have people contribute, we get policies that dont work. We get housing that doesnt take into account the accessibility needs like Chemical Sensitivity or autism, um, that arent required by federal guidelines. We get decisions about education without parent or youth input, and we just solve problems in ways that dont work for the people theyre supposed to help, that some other folks have said only allowing people who are say theyre disabled to give remote Public Comment is not good enough. But there are many disabled people valhubert in the commission and previous jobs. I didnt want to publicly identify myself as disabled that there might be employment consequences for that and that there are many people who are immunocompromised or have concerns about covid or have long covid who arent really identifying as disabled at this point, who still cant leave their house, who cant make it to city hall and still deserve to have their voice be heard. I think the people who are calling in and saying racist and antisemitic comments, they want to limit democracy. They want to prove that democracy doesnt work. They want to harass people. And i think that eliminating remote Public Comment is giving them what they want. Um im curious. I dont want semitic speech either, but im sure there are many theres Better Options to deal with this issue and that i think there needs to be time spent on figuring out what Better Options we can come up with. Uh, my apologies for cutting you off, but were allocating two minutes per person today. Can we have our next caller. Hi my name is danielle deibler. I live in district one. Um, im opposed to this measure because i think its exclusionary and its an overreaction to a few poor comments that were made in a few different meetings. I was in a meeting where some antisemitic phrasing was used and the clerk was able to cut that person off very, very quickly. I think thats a much better way to deal with it. I respect that. Supervisor peskin had a was kind of going into this, looking at it and saying, hey, lets make sure that we preserve Public Comment. You mentioned making some changes to the brown act and some other things that would be great. Dont cut off Public Comment and then make the changes, make the changes and fix the process and find ways around it and keep Public Comment going. I dont see any reason why you would want to do that, and i kind of i support a lot of the other things that people have said. Id like to see some data on this, like a report on how many of these types of comments have you had to field in different meetings before a decision is really rendered . Id also like to explore that 10 million. I work in the tech space and i or 100 million or 10 million. So i cant believe it takes 10 million to do insert a delay into audio. And if it does, maybe we should look at something besides webex or we should talk to cisco and say, look, this is way too much money. We need a way to put this into our system and have a discussion with them. You had an it guy on earlier, im sure that he seems like he would probably be willing to do some exploration on that. And thats pretty much about it. I just i think it excludes too many people from the process. I would almost never be able to participate in Public Meetings like for the Redistricting Task force. I participated in that, but it was because i was allowed to give remote Public Comment because i work. And i think a lot of people who have children or are caregivers who are elderly, they cant. Can we have our next caller, please. Good morning, supervisors. Herb mintz here. I live in the parkside neighborhood. Im opposed to limiting remote Public Comment. Not everyone can make it downtown in a timely manner in order to wait in the legislative chamber of the city hall, so to speak. I support remote Public Comment as it increases resident participation in City Government matters. Now i understand supervisor peskins concerns. No one wants to be on the receive end of hateful or racist speech that kind of behavior is totally unacceptable. Able however resident access to the workings of local government takes priority. And thats why i do support remote Public Comment as supervisor peskin mentioned, there is equipment available today to delay offensive called in Audio Content Public Participation in the working of local government is worth the price of the equipment. I cant imagine its worth 10 million, but to contain costs, my suggestion is to allow the staff of sf govtv your government access cable tv channel staff to assist in the research, the purchasing, the installation and the testing of the proper equipment to contain unwanted speech. Sf gov tv can perform the same Audio Content monitoring and eliminated and eliminate unwanted speech from disruptors as corporate broadcasters do now. Now limiting Public Comment promote Public Comment is a broad brush stroke that punishes the vast majority of the users of remote Public Comment. Please keep us in mind when you vote today. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller. Hi, good morning. This is joe kunzler. I am extremely appalled that the only response to hate speech is to cause the skies to everybody. What about inperson hate speech . What about that trans person who shows up and yells expletive you at some of your members like gods like, well, supervisor stephanie, you know how i feel about her and her bravery. So im going to say what may be the last comment. Im going to pay tribute to her and im going to tolerate those type of comments. So please, mr. Clerk, if you hear Something Like that, cut them off immediately and just to anybody elses in the queue. Those comments will not be tolerated in this committee. Thank you, madam chair. Well well, thats the solution to all of this right there, my friends. And i ask that you please adopt that policy. Then i want you to adopt a policy that bans anonymous comments. Thats not okay. And then you should say that anyone who violates the rules twice in a month, theyre done for a year. You dont need to put up with abuse. Nobody here whos calling in supporting remote comment is supporting abuse. I want to conclude with this fight. You need to stand like a stephanie against hate. I just played video. How you can stand up against hate and you know something ever since supervisor stephanie did that, these guys stopped their attacks. So you guys need to park this resolution in the same file as appeasement. Thank you for your Public Service. I yield. Like stephanie, i the rest i submit. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller. Good morning, supervisors. This is sherman. Am i am i on hearing. Yes, you are. Please proceed. You this is debbie lehrman from the San Francisco Human Services network. We condemn the horrific comments made by a few during Public Comment. We understand the desire to eliminate that avenue for discriminatory speech, free speech can be messy and ugly, but we remind the board why the Community Fought so hard to preserve the remote calling option in those with resources and privilege can participate in person. But that excludes working people, parents, seniors, caregivers, people without transportation, people at higher risk with greatest impact on communities of color. Remote comment also may be the only safe choice for people fearful of attending like undocumented immigrants. Domestic violence survivors and even those with unpopular positions. Remote Public Comment has enabled accessible democracy for those who have never been able to participate before, and eliminating it will shut down the voices of the very people attacked by the trolls. As judge Louis Brandeis said, the remedy for bad speech is more speech. This is an issue of Equity Inclusion and Civic Engagement and we respectfully urge you to seek a balanced approach and explore alternative legal and functional measures to mitigate these comments and that is particularly true during general Public Comment on tuesdays, when speakers arent constrained by the requirement that comments be germane to the agenda item, we ask you please do not let the trolls win. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller please. Yes. Good morning. Tracy rosenberg here on behalf of Media Alliance and our thousands of constituents, many based in San Francisco, where our organization was founded in 1976, i ask you not to engage in collective punishment by banning remote Public Comment based on a few jerks taking advantage of the opportunity to spew hatred. Remote Public Comment has been a huge boon to civic participation all over california and the whole country. Instead of centering the perspectives of people who happen to be able to spend hours at city hall in the middle of the day remote Public Comment genuinely lets everyone weigh in whether employed or retired blessed with Flexible Work or not, free of child care or elder care responsibilities, disabled or able bodied, just look at todays session when you had three Public Comments in person and i believe it was 22 on the phone, thats seven times as many as someone who who represents an organization, even with members across all nine bay area counties and who was personally priced out of San Francisco quite a while ago, remote Public Comment has let me represent my San Francisco members much more frequently than i could otherwise do. Please dont let your anger at a few people who are seeking to disrupt, motivate you to disempower. San franciscans and to make city hall much less accessible. Thanks thank you. Can we can we have our next caller, please . Good morning, supervisors. This is evie parmentier. Im calling from district eight. We cannot let the haters win. We cannot let the score be haters. One democracy zero. Please dont let the haters destroy or deeply damage our right to know and our right to be engaged in our democracy. At the very least, empowering the haters by shutting down Public Access is shameful. This trauma, trauma driven and impulsive response to those trying to endanger this is very, very unhealthy and dangerous. It is trauma driven and we need to recognize that we must live up to these cowardly haters. We must pull the plug on the haters, not the rest of us. Surely we can do this. There is no choice. We cant back down. This regressive motion must not be moved forward to the full board. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can we have our next caller. Hi. My name is erica zweig and i live in district four from the group d forward, and were also affiliated with rep. And i think all of the commenters have made all of the points already. And id like to just address the equity issue here for um, in that how it was before covid, um, working people , especially poor, you know, lower income working people, cant leave the job to sit for any number of hours in city hall. And there was already a move on to talk about rescheduling so many meetings so that people in the evening or on weekends so that people could have more parties, celebratory democracy, which i heard mentioned on another item. So i think this i think board president peskin needs to pull this. We recognize that you may not like all of the comments or stay late for the comments, but its the job you took so and you were elected. You wanted to win. So be sure to just throw this one in the garbage today so we dont have to waste more time. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller. Hello, this is Michael Petrelis calling in. I want to strongly oppose Aaron Peskins proposal. You already have a time delay on sf tv. And i think that you have the capability right now of turning off speakers who are making hate speech that should not be allowed during the meetings. Id also like to point out that it took people dying during the covid pandemic for the board of supervisors to finally give us remote Public Comment. That is a blot of shame on this body that it took people dying of covid before you gave us remote Public Comment . Um not everyone can take hours out of their day in the middle of the day to first of all get to city hall and then wait around. I have long complained that at your tuesday meetings you dont have a set time for when you take Public Comment. We have to wait around sometimes 3 or 4 hours to get either 60s or 100 and 20s of Public Comment. It is not okay that a small group of haters have abused the remote Public Comment system for you to end it for everyone else. I am asking reasonable people on the board of supervisors to reject what aaron peskin is proposing. There are other ways to handle speech of remotely that you do not like. Please do not end remote Public Comment. It is a definite asset to democracy. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please. Hello i feel my name is brandy markman. Im a Public School parent. I feel really sad about this proposal by president peskin in to feel very anti parent people may not realize this but if youre a San Francisco parent its almost impossible to get downtown and to city hall. For three for 2 to 3 hours to wait in line for Public Comment. This seems really unfair. It seems really unfair to our City College Students. I stand with the staff person for parents of Public Schools and asking that this this option of remote Public Comment be kept so that our parents and our City College Students and all who arent able to come in person, which is really a very small segment of the population, can have the opportunity to be heard. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller. Hi, good morning. My name is vanessa marrero. Can you hear me . Yes, we can. Please proceed. Okay great. Im the executive director of parents of Public Schools of San Francisco and we believe in access that that is a fundamental right. So im really hoping that you all are going to tell supervisor that this is not quite the great fix to the make sure that we dont experience hate crime. Which communities of color experience every day at parents of Public Schools . We want to support communities. We want to make sure that people with disabilities, people who are elders, people that are not able, such as our parents, to work some of them 16 hours a day can express their their voices in the Public Comment as participatory democracy. Thank you for hearing from me. Have a great day. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please. Supervisors, this is lorraine petty, advocate for seniors and people with disabilities. If you ban remote Public Comment for all, you will have allowed the few haters to win. Just set some rules and announce them at the beginning of the meeting and fully enforce them. If its a 10 million seven second delay could solve the problem, then the partial salary of one person could also solve it with a warning after seven seconds and cut off after another seven seconds. Thats a total of 14 seconds and we will be rid of them. Please continue. General remote comment or i could not have really. I could not have said it better than george wooding. Otherwise we will disappear. Thank you very much. Can we have our next caller, please. Hi. My name is israel romero. Im a housing organizer at senior and disability action and i deeply oppose this legislation and fully support remote Public Comment. We need to move democracy in San Francisco forward, not backwards and the actions of a few should not limit Public Comment for everyone. There are so Many Solutions to prohibiting hate speech and so many people have listed them today and this is not a solution that benefits san franciscans and especially people with disabilities. Seniors caregivers, students and youth parents and people who are not in those categories. Please do not pass this legislation. Thank you. Thank you. Can we have our next caller, please. Good morning. My name. Is leah montano. Im with senior in disability action. Im calling because i want to urge you, as the city representative, to commit to continue q and a telephone and video option for all Public Meetings, complete with an American Sign Language captioning and interpretation. Public comment is the most democratic element we have in this corporate system. We dont have the large amount of money that lobbyists do. We only have our voices. So please allow us to continue to participate. Many disabled and immuno compromised people and their family members and caregivers cannot risk coming in person and getting covid. For many of us, transportation and other barriers prevent inperson attendance. Many low income people and black Indigenous People of color live far from city hall, making it hard to come in person to have their voices heard. So please, i urge you to make the right decision and continue with advancing. We have technology for a reason, so please use the Technology Wise and allow Public Comment. Dont allow the hater to govern what our democracy is. Thank you. Thank you. Can we get our next caller, please. Supervisors my name is francisco costa. If you all have rich the stage that you want to challenge the citizens of San Francisco, go ahead and do it. All of you. All. All of you. All have something that i can say about one person dared to tell the fire chief how to do the work when there was a fire in the in the north beach. Another supervisor tried to steal some property. He had another super visor called the sheriff, a candidate, the nword. Get your act together. I challenge you to stop Public Comment. Remote Public Comment. You guys will never get it. You guys will never get it. And those of you who roam around go here, there and everywhere. While the Public Comment is given, showing disdain for Public Comment, Public Comment is sacrosanct. Its our right as citizens. You all are not citizens as you may think you are represent it, but you all are not citizens as. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can we get our next caller, please. Hi, my name is curtis wu and i oppose removing Public Comment. I just want to say remote Public Comment is something stuff should be proud of and should be fighting to make better, not remove. I get that there have been real issues with hate speech and of course we need to address that. But the answer is not to entirely remove remote Public Comment. You know, in my opinion, we already have ways to address this, which is what the clerk has done so well, which is to immediately cut them off. I dont see how this is any more complicated than that. And overreacting kind of plays into the hands of punishing the majority of people who are just exercising their civic duty. I just want to remind people, Public Comment used to be three minutes and now its two minutes. And oftentimes now its one minute. So ever since covid, were living in a new time where i feel remote options are now part of the normal as it should be, because it is more inclusionary and it brings more access to people who otherwise couldnt have it. And i just want to say i echo the point about seeing some data behind this. I would love to see a report on actually how many comments were made even like the average total time Public Comment, remote takes, because i think if you look at it, my guess is the data is pretty much on average with how its always been. And without that data, it just looks like you guys are just annoyed about doing remote Public Comment. So i just want to echo that and yeah, please keep remote Public Comment. Thank you. Thank you. We do not have anybody else in line for Public Comment. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Public comment on this item is now closed. Um, vice chair walton, thank you so much, chair dorsey. And i do want to thank president peskin for proposing this change and i just want to be clear that this change will not negatively affect anyone with a disability or anyone with mobility issues, as we will still 100 make accommodations for that population. And so i want to eliminate any narrative that we are completely eliminating Public Comment, particularly for those with disabilities and mobility issues. Thank you. Chair dorsey. Thank you. Vice chair walton, supervisor safai. Thank you, chair, and thank you. Supervisor walton, for saying that. I think thats really, really important to emphasize. The disability and Senior Community will still have access is in a way that they havent had before. And i think thats one of the best outgrowths of this process. The other thing i want to remind folks is that we definitely, you know, that email and letters are still a strong and available option. We spend a lot of time reading correspondence that we receive from individuals. So anyone thats not able to make it here in person would still have that available to them. The clerk does a tremendous job of not just ones that are sent to us directly, but ones that are sent to the clerk conveying that to us. And its an important part of the public record, so no ones voice will be muted in that way. And i think thats important point to underscore. But as has been noted, the rise in in hatred and hate speech is something thats been abused and its something that that we need to put an end to here at the board of supervisors. Great. Thank you. Supervisor safai and i spoke earlier on this. I you know, came down where i think aaron peskin came down on wanting to be more inclusive. But i think this is a necessary step and i think we will still have the options after this goes forward of making amendments to it that will preserve inclusion. But i appreciate everyones participation on this committee. Id like to make a motion to send item number four to the full board with a positive recommendation as a committee report. Mr. Clerk, do we have a roll call on that motion . Yes. On the recommendation to recommend as a committee report. Vice chair Walton Walton i supervisor sapphire. Sapphire chair dorsey. I dorsey i. The motion passes without objection. Thank you, mr. Clerk. On a unanimous vote. Then item number four. Amending the rules of order limiting remote Public Comment opportunities is sent to the full board as a committee report. Mr. Clerk. Mr. Clerk, could we please call item number five . Item number five is ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the library laureate programs and authorizing the library to grant stipends to individuals selected through a competitive process at laureates or finalists in recognition of their achievements, leadership and cultural contributions, and in exchange for their services to the city. Thank you, mr. Clerk. This item is sponsored by the mayor in collaboration with the San Francisco public library. We are joined by library ceo Mike Fernandez and chief of Community Programs and partnerships, michelle jeffers. Welcome to the rules committee. Ms. Jeffers, the floor is yours. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us today. I will be brief. I was prepared to talk to you about our Literary Community , but i will i will shorten some of those remarks. Certainly most people are familiar with our Laureates Program through the poet laureate. We have had an official poet laureate of the city of San Francisco since 1998, when Lawrence Ferlinghetti was named. Before that, of course, San Francisco was well known for its poets for hundreds of years. Im talking Ina Coolbrith or bret hart or george sterling, who coined the term the cool gray city of love. But in in recent memory, again, we started with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Weve had eight poet laureates since that time. They were janice mirikitani, devorah, major jack hirschman, diane di prima, alejandro murguia, kim shuck, and of course, our current poet laureate, who is a really a city treasure and a city native tonga. Eisenmartin unfortunately, over the last few years you may know that we have lost four of our citys poet laureates, and thats been a tragedy. But we are prepared and hoping to be able to select our ninth poet laureate sometime very soon. The process to select a poet laureate and any of our laureates that we have done is a public nomination process. Of course, we solicit the public to nominate anyone who is a native san franciscan who is a poet with a published body of work to be submitted that a poet can nominate themselves, but usually its a community nomination. And we work with many of our local literary communities to solicit those nominations. They also have to have a vision of what they will do with the role of poet laureate and many of our poets, our past poets laureate have done wonderful things with our School Children teach bringing poetry into the schools, encouraging Community Participation and encourage senior participation in creating poetry and just making us a more literate community. We have a map of local poetry now. Weve had a poem of the day that ran through the entire covid pandemic, thanks to our poet laureates. Over the years, weve also, because of our success with the poet laureate, we ended up advising as the library and helping with the selection of the drag poet laureate. So we got to use the same process we use for the poet laureate in a similar way to select our first drag laureate. Which of course was Darcy Drollinger, who was appointed by the mayor earlier this year. I should have mentioned that in addition to the requirements of what they do as poet laureate, it is a nomination process that then goes to the mayor and the mayor makes the ultimate selection of our poet laureate. We believe that its been truly valuable for the community. We there is talk now from some of our partners at the library, like youth speaks and a26 valencia to do something for youth as well to create perhaps not one single youth poet laureate, but a series of youth poet laureates that would all take a role in that. And i hope that our Community Wants to do that. I do think we cant rest on our laurels with the poet laureate or rest on our laureates that we need to continue this Program Going forward. And ill let mike take over. All right. Thank you very much, michelle. Um, good morning. Committee. So the reason why were here is really the way that the changes to 21g has impacted kind of the laureate process and the program and so while these changes were staged and work well in most cases there are in this case it kind of creates a difficult hurdle for us to clear. As michelle described in many ways, our laureate Selection Process and program does mimic the grant program. We have noticing it is a competitive process and all of those things. However, within the definitions of 21g, especially 20 1g2 definitions is the stipend that we would that we offer the laureates is has a really strong aspect of call back to the body of work theyve already theyve and the accomplishments theyve already achieved as well as to the tangential work they may also produce as opposed to kind of furthering a public purpose the way the 21g currently contemplates. Also, the laureate may not be a registered business, which is currently a requirement in 21 g as well as far as the grant terms, as far as performance requirements, as a cultural ambassador is a little bit tricky and sticky to do as well as, you know, really. 21 g contemplates reimbursements for as they perform work as opposed to kind of the way that our stipend is set up to really empower them to be these great ambassadors and further their work that theyre already doing. And so for that really, weve proposed this legislation to really were trying to square fit a square peg into a round hole. And were just trying to fix that through this legislation, codify what were already doing and we really appreciate your consideration and hopefully you recommend and were here for questions. Great thank you so much. I really appreciate both of you for the presentation. And i will say that i really appreciate the work that you did on the drag laureate program, not not just as a member of the lgbtq community, but as a district six supervisor. It means a lot that we have a local business in oasis and a Business Owner in Darcy Drollinger to be our inaugural drag laureate. So i really appreciate all the work that the library does on this and many and other things to come. So seeing no one on the roster, i think we can open this up to Public Comment and thanks so much for your presentation. Yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item and are joining us in person should speak at this time. For those listening remotely on the public, call in line, please press star three to enter the speaker line for those already in the queue, please continue the way until the system indicates youve been unmuted and that will be your cue to begin your comment. I do not see anybody in the room for Public Comment on this matter and we have one caller on the line for Public Comment. Can we have that caller, please . Yes hi, this is peter warfield, executive director of Library Users association. Library users 2004 at yahoo. Com. Com i, id like to say that first of all, i havent had any difficulty at all with the Laureates Program as its gone forward. I think its actually been run well. But im very troubled by a number of issues here for and first off is that this legislation has not been apparently proposed by nor. Or discussed in any presumably to this board of supervisors. We meaning the library, not Library Users to pass legislation that has some considerable aspects that also, as far as i can tell, are quite unclear. The first question is, is there any amount or limit to the stipends . And second of all, what exactly is the process for select an we heard that its a public process. Well, the nomination is are public, but i dont believe that the Decision Making or the decisions are public until theyre announced. Thats a question as that should be considered by the librarys primary purpose is to provide as they say in their slogan, free and equal access for our diverse community. And i dont believe that the libraries job should now increase to be a major job of selecting and paying without apparent limit. Those that are approved for these positions. I think there needs to be a lot more clarity about the financing of the choosing. And ultimately the mayor chooses. Is this a way for the mayor to give favor to those with whom the mayor agrees . Big question. Thank you very much. Thank you. There are no additional callers on this matter. Thank you, mr. Clerk and Public Comment on this item is now closed. Mr. Clerk. Id like to make a motion to send item number four to the full board with a positive recommendation as a committee report. This is not on the list of committee reports. Oh we only had one item listed as. Oh, my apologies. Sorry. Yes on the motion to recommend this matter on that motion. Vice chair Walton Walton i, supervisor sapphire. Sapphire chair. Dorsey i. Dorsey. I the motion passes without objection. Iron. Great. Thank you, mr. Clerk on unanimous vote, then item number five administrative code library laureate programs is sent to the full board with a positive recommendation. Congratulations mr. Clerk. Would you please call item number six . Yes item number six is a ordinance amending the administrative code to remove the authorization for cash revolving funds for certain city departments accounts and reduce the maximum amount of cash revolving funds for the port of San Francisco. Great. Thank you, mr. Clerk. This item has been brought to us by the office of treasurer, Tax Collector jose cisneros. And here to present is eric manke. I hope i pronounce that correctly. You did. And policy and communication manager for the treasurer and Tax Collectors office. Mr. Mankey, welcome to the rules committee. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good morning, supervisors. Eric mankey with the office of the treasurer and Tax Collector. Im also joined here by elisa lucero, whos our banking manager today. Im presenting an ordinance that allows our office to close or reduce cash revolving accounts. The administrative code authorizes cash revolving funds for city departments to keep cash on site and sets a maximum amount for each Departments Fund as a part of the citys transition to a new banking partner. Our office worked with and reached out to all departments to review their needs and standardize process across the city. And through this work, we identified several accounts that have been inactive or severely reduced in activity for the last 24 months that we think should be reduced or closed since these accounts are authorized by the administrative code, were seeking board authorization to close or reduce them. If any of these departments do have emergency needs, they do have access to a city issued credit card, which is monitored by the controllers office. Thank you for your consideration and im happy to take any questions. Thank you. Mr. Mackey. I have i think this is pretty straightforward. Yeah. I really appreciate your presentation. I dont see anybody on the roster for questions or comments. So, mr. Clerk, why dont we open this up to Public Comment . And thanks so much for your presentation. Yes. Members of the public wish to speak on this matter and are joining us in person should line up to speak at this time. For those listening remotely on the public, call on line, please press star three to enter the speaker line for those already in the queue, please continue the way until the system indicates youve been unmuted and that will be your cue to begin your comment. Theres nobody in the room for Public Comment at this time at and theres nobody on the telephone line for Public Comment at this time. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Public comment on item number six is now closed and i would like to make a motion to send this item to the full board with a positive recommendation on. Mr. Clerk. Can we have a roll call on that motion . Yes, on the motion to recommend. And vice chair walton walter, absent supervisor sapphire sophia i chair dorsey i. Dorsey i the motion passes without objection with vice chair walton being absent. Thank you, mr. Young on a without objection then. Item number six, administrative code cash revolving funds is sent to the full board with a positive recommendation. Mr. Clerk, would you please call item number seven . Yes. Item number seven is ordinance amending the administrative code to authorize the assessment. Appeals board to hold remote hearings and conferences at which the at which no member are physically present and hybrid remote hearings and conferences at which some but not all members are physically present. Thank you, mr. Clerk. This item has been brought to us by the assessment appeals board and here to present is alastair gibson, administrator for the assessment appeal boards. Mr. Gibson, thank you so much for coming today. Welcome to the rules committee. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. Chair dorsey and thank you very much. Supervisor sapphire. Again, my name is alyssa gibson, administrator for the assessment appeals board up here. Before you to request that the rules committee and the board of supervisors support the for ab to continue with remote hearings and hybrid remote hearings. The assessment appeals board is regulated by the board of supervisors. Excuse me, board of equalization, state board of equalization and we would like to localize, i would request that we localize the same rules that are already with the board of equalization during covid and beginning in december of 2020 and until present, we have successfully scheduled and held approximately 600 remote hearings. The assessment appeals Board Members appear through Video Conference and they participate in the hearing as they were physically present. The procedures of the hearings remain the same as if they were conducted in person. Currently majority of our hearings are proceeding virtually, but taxpayers and or their agents have the opportunity to request inperson hearings. The in fiscal year 2223, we commenced with nominal inperson hearings and scheduled approximately 30 hearings during that fiscal year , 14 inperson hearings for this fiscal year. Thus far, since december of 2020, ab has scheduled over 10,300 applications and finalized nearly 5940 applications appeals with with members issuing about about 1270 decisions as remote hearings have been effective and efficient for the assessment appeals board. And we respectfully ask you for your consideration and support of this amendment. Thank you and i welcome any questions. Is great. Thank you, mr. Gibson. Ive read this. I have no questions seeing no other questions. I appreciate your presentation and what we will, i think, open this up for Public Comment. Thank you very much. Yes members of the public who wish to speak on this item and joining us in person shall allow them to speak at this time. For those listening remotely on the public, call in line, please press star three to enter the speaker line. For those already in the queue, please continue the way until the system indicates youve been unmuted and thatll be your cue to begin your comment. There being no members of the public in the room for Public Comment at this time. We have one caller on the line. Can we have that caller please . Thank you. Clerk jo kunzler here. Im just going to say this very delicately this morning. I find this to be wild theater of the absurd that were about to end universal remote Public Comment, remote, universal, remote Public Comment and at the End Assessment appeals board is going to keep remote comment. I dont know why the board supervisors cant just do what the assessment appeals board is doing. I dont know how that works. That to me is just totally wild. I can assure you, if you cancel unlimited Public Comment, you know, there are some people like me who feel like their disabled only Public Comment should be for those who truly are disabled or 100 disabled and need that emergency access and superfans of a certain supervisor who shall go on nameless certainly should not be using that system to protect the truly disabled, to be noble. I just want to absolute truly ask if you be consistent in closing and moral and upstanding and sound like a stephanie for whats right. Thank you for your Public Service as always. Thank you. Just double checking. There are no additional callers on the line. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Public comment on item number seven is now closed and id like to make a motion to send this item to the full board with a positive recommendation. Mr. Clerk, can we have a roll call on that motion . Yes on that motion, vice chair walton. Walton. Absent supervisor. Safaei sapphire. I chair dorsey i. Dorsey i the motion passes without objection with vice chair walton being absent. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Without objection, then. Item number seven, administrative code assessment appeals board, remote and hybrid remote public hearings and conferences moves to the full board with a positive recommendation. Mr. Clerk, do we have any further business that completes our agenda for today . Thank you all. We are adjourned. Thank you. [music] so, can you tell us what it was like for you during your First Encounter with the San Francisco Fire Department . Yep. It was super cool i got to learn about the dry standing pipe correction. It is actually called, dry sand piper just stand pipe. Tomato. You know. Yea. So, what is coming up next for what is that for . Oh , firefighter backsterinvited mow to a fire station to see the cool stuff firefighters use to put out fires. You have seen the had doors open like a space ship from out of nowhere. I close my eye its is like im there right now wow whoa. Watch out, man. What is that for . What is this . These are fire engines they might look alike they are both red. White top and red lights on top. This is a new 2021 fire engine and this is an older 2014 fire engine. If you cant tell, this one is shorter and narrower than our older fire engines. They have cool things like recessed lights. Roll up doors. 360 degree cam ares and more that is important as the city is moving toward slower and safer streets adding parklets and bulb outs and bike lanes we need to decrease our footprint to keep us and the Community Safer on emergency scenes. Whats back there . When is not guilty fire engine. Great question. I want to see, sure. Lets go back and look at the equipment and the fire pump on the fire engine. This is a fire pump. It is cool all the colors and all that. This fire pump and this engine holds 500 gallons of water that is a lot. A lot of water. It is push out 1500 gallons a minute of water. We can lose our 500 gammons quickly. Why we use hoses like this to connect to a fire hydrant and that gives us unlimited amount of water to help put a fire out temperature is important we have enough fire engine in San Francisco to put fires out. So we can reduce the injuries and minimize loss of life and minimize property damage. [music] mr. Will. Mr. Will. Will oh. Daydreaming. Thanks, everybody for watching bye [music] i am iris long. We are a Family Business that started in San Francisco chinatown by my parents who started the business in the mid 1980s. Today we follow the same footsteps of my parents. We source the teas by the harvest season and style of crafting and the specific variety. We specialize in premium tea. Today i still visit many of the farms we work with multigenerational farms that produce premium teas with its own natural flavors. It is very much like grapes for wine. What we do is more specialized, but it is more natural. Growing up in San Francisco i used to come and help my parents after school whether in middle school or high school and throughout college. I went to San Francisco state university. I did stay home and i helped my parents work throughout the summers to learn what it is that makes our community so special. After graduating i worked for an Investment Bank in hong kong for a few years before returning when my dad said he was retiring. He passed away a few years ago. After taking over the business we made this a little more accessible for visitors as well as residents of San Francisco to visit. Many of our teas were traditionally labeled only in chinese for the older generation. Today of our tea drinkkers are quite young. It is easy to look on the website to view all of our products and fun to come in and look at the different varieties. They are able to explore what we source, premium teas from the providence and the delicious flavors. San francisco is a beautiful city to me as well as many of the residents and businesses here in chinatown. It is great for tourists to visit apsee how our community thrived through the years. This retail location is open daily. We have minimal hours because of our small team during covid. We do welcome visitors to come in and browse through our products. Also, visit us online. We have minimal hours. It is nice to set up viewings of these products here. Neighborhood in San Francisco are also diverse and fascist as the people that inhabitable them were in north beach about supervisor peskin will give us a tour and introduce is to what think of i i his favorite district 5 e 3 is in the northwest surrounded by the San Francisco bay the district is the boosting chinatown oar embarcadero financial district Fishermans Wharf exhibit no. North beach Telegraph Hill and part of union square. All of San Francisco districts are remarkable im honored and delighted to represent really whereas with an the most intact district got chinatown, north beach Fishermans Wharf russian hill and knob hill and the northwest waterfront some of the most wealthier and inning e impoverished people in San Francisco obgyn siding it is ethically exists a bunch of tightknit neighborhoods people know he each other by name a wonderful placed physically and socially to be all of the neighborhoods north beach and chinatown the i try to be out in the community as much as and i think, being a the cafe eating at the neighborhood lunch place people come up and talk to you, you never have time alone but really it is fun hi, im one the owners and is ceo of cafe trespassing in north beach many people refer to cafe trees as a the living room of north beach most of the clients are local and living up the hill come and meet with each other just the way the United States been since 1956 opposed by the grandfather a big people person people had people coming since the day we opened. It is of is first place on the west that that exposito 6 years ago but anyone was doing that starbucks exists and it created a really welcoming pot. It is truly a legacy business but more importantly it really at the take care of their community my father from it was formally italy a fisherman and that town very rich in culture and music was a big part of it guitars and sank and combart in the evening that tradition they brought this to the cafe so many characters around here everything has incredible stories by famous folks last week the cafe that paul carr tennessee take care from the Jefferson Starship hung out the cafe are the famous poet Lawrence William getty and jack herb man go hung out. They work worked at a play with the god fathers and photos he had his typewriter i wish i were here back there it theres a lot of moving parts the meeting spot rich in culture and artists and musicians epic people would talk with you and youd 1234e7b welcome, everyone to the 35 and heritage month at city hall i id like to 2457k i take it and the San Francisco Sister Committee and my office and before we begin id like to call up a dear friend and intruder member of our italian county to sing the National Anthem of the United States and i take it clapping