Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Replay Public Safety Committee 22516 20160226

That were doing something about homelessness if its not going to something about homelessness in a visible way, that People Living on the streets feel the impact. That is ultimately what were talking about, more than real people, including many children live in our streets and in unstable housing and cars and tents and the city must absolutely do something about it. I would love to hear more solutions. I think we have done a tremendous amount and we should acknowledge the accomplishments that the city has already made in housing the 10,000 people that we have housed since 2004 and to identify and say this is what we really need to house the next 10,000, these are the resources to make it happen and bring the next Navigation Center online, the first solution that is actually making a difference on our streets. I think that as this moves through the Budget Committee process of which several of us sit on, well certainly have that opportunity. I do think more dollars are needed, but i think we need to be able to accurately account for how the current dollars are being spent and why . I do want to thank all the members of the public who came to speak. This is an incredibly important issue and frustrating issue. So i want to thank everyone who is a part and wants to be a part of the solution together with us. So mr. Chair, seeing no other comments from members of this committee, do we want to take a motion to continue this item . Supervisor cohen . To the call of the chair. To the call of the chair. Motion by temporary Committee Member kim to continue this item to the call of the chair. Colleagues, if there is no objection, well do that and continue to discuss this item. Thank you again to members of the public, and city staff, for your time and presence here today. [ gavel ] madame clerk, can you please read item no. 3. Item no. 3 ordinance amending the administrative code to create a cash Revolving Fund allowing the office of the clerk of the board to keep up to 100 in petty cash in the office. And making nonsub stant [kwroeufrp ] changes to other sections of the administrative code that establish cash Revolving Funds for city departments. Madame clerk, before you speak, let me just say that its going cost more than 100 to approve this item that is worth only 100. The floor is yours. In brief, mr. Chair, member breed, clerk of the board, this just restores authority that the Authority Office of the clerk of the board previously had that you have it. Exactly. Were just asking a 100 threshold and notice that the City Attorney worked with the other departments on minor amendments and actually nonsub stantive to the ordinance. Were just requesting your support of this ordinance today. Thank you, madame clerk. Any members. Public who would like to speak on item no. 3 . The 100 Petty Cash Fund in the office of the clerk of the board of supervisors. Seeing none, Public Comment is closed [ gavel ] colleagues, our pleasure make sure you account for every penny of that, because that could be the solution to our 8. 9 billion budget. Is there a motion to send this to the full board with recommendation . Moved by supervisor breed without objection. That will be the order. Madame clerk, is there any more business before this body . There is no further business. Were adjourned [ gavel ] good afternoon and thank you members of the public for your patient nsh. Apology for the late start. Had a meeting that went very very long and so now we are startic our Second Committee hearing, the pubplic safety and 2345irbd serbs committee for february 25, 2016. Im jane kim and will chair the mitty. To my right is john avalos and supervisor campos cant make it to the meelting today. Can we make a motion to exkoos supervisor camp pose. I would like to thank you the clerk and jim smith and jessie larsson. [inaudible] speaker cards and copies to documents included to the file should be submitted to the clerk. Items will appear on march 8, 2016 board of supervisors genda unless otherwise stated thank you mr. Clerk. Could we read the first item item 1, resolution authorize adoption of Mental Health Service Report for 20152016 the department of Public Health is here to introduce the item, charles mayor will present on behalf of the department. Thank you so much for being here today. Helly everyone, thank you. My name is charles mayor and acting director of Mental Health service act. Enacted through a Ballot Initiative prop 63 in 2004 and provides fund toog support new and expanded county health programs. Community services support, capital facilities and Technology Needs workforce development, education and training and prevention and Early Intervention as well as invasions. In order to access mhsa funding counties are required to develop a 3 Year Integrated Program and expenditure plan and subsequent annual updates in collaboration with stakeholders. The department of Public Health [inaudible] in fiscal year 1415. The 1516 report provides a overview of progress implementing the various component plans in San Francisco. This report act as a update on implementation and not for budget request approval for the components as the action takes place in the broader process. Legislation requires stakeholder plans be authorized be adopted by the [inaudible] collaboration was [inaudible] including Mental Health program directors, Community Members, Mental Health professions, Community Based organizations, Behavioral Health [inaudible] and family members. The updates are for 1516. The data was illicited by program reports, focus groups, participant surveys and other evaluation methods. Department of Public Health facil taiz bimonthly meetings to seek approval the implementation projoket and advisory members are comprised of client, family members and stakeholders. [inaudible] make strides in meeting the priorities and goals identified in the 3 year plan. Hi lites include strengthening integration, strentening entgration between child and Family Department as well as adult and older adult and dat saw Shows Improvement in areas especially those service juvenile justice youth. Funding allowed for expansion for intensive Treatment Services which includes housing Employment Service and [inaudible] 50 percent are homeless or at risk for homelessness. The aneral report was posted for Public Comment october 19november 19, 2015 and approve bide the San Francisco melthal health board last year. Thank you for your time and let me know if you have any questions that thank you very much. The report was interesting so appreciate [inaudible] important issue. Seeing no questions from Committee Members at this time well open up for Public Comment. Any members like to speak on item 1 . Seeing none Public Comment is closed on this item motion to approve move forward with recommendation . We have motion to approve and recommendation to full board and dhoot without opposition. Thank you very much. Mr. Clerk can we call itemactually letscan we please call item number 3 . Item number 3, [inaudible] applicants and membership on Board Commission disclose all felony convictions. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Um, this item is actually a continuation of ordinance that this board passed unanimously called the fair chance act, which added a amendment to had administrative code to delete requirements that anyone that applies for a job here in San Francisco for Affordable Housing doesnt have to check a box on terms of their arrest and conviction record prior to a [inaudible] or aeroof housing. This trailing legislation adds a additional amendment to the code to delete requirements that applicants for a membership on board and commission disclose all felony convictions and [inaudible] making decision about appointments and removal of members of boards, commissions and other bodies. This amendment also requires the city to follow certain restrictions when inquiring about or using conviction history to make decisions about appointment or removal. The amendments conform the Board Appointment and removal procedure with the fair chance act that regulate conviction history for purpose of employment and Affordable Housing in order to remove barriers for stable jobs. [inaudible] bring [inaudible] allowing nob nub on behalf of city and county that want to. That is actually my introduction of this amendment today. Colleagues are there comments on this item . Seeing none well open for Public Comment. Any members of the public that would like to speak on item number 3 . Thank you. My name is jessie [inaudible] live and San Francisco and serve on a board or commission and during the appointment process after the board of supervisors was kind enough to appoint me i was not asked whether i had a criminal quigz in the Application Form and the conversationwise Staff Members and the testimony i gave to the board of supervisors wasnt asked whether i had a conviction history and feel that is fair and appropriate to grateful to supervisor kim to introducing this amendment and encourage the committee to adopt the amendment so san franciscans will nev be evaluated for boards or commissions base oden conviction history because that is irrelevant and will screen out people who can give useful advice to commission. Thank you. Thank you mr. Stout my name is [inaudible] organizer with [inaudible] project of Legal Services for prisoners with children i we were one of the original people on the coalition to push out ban the box policies throughout california and throughout the nation. I just wanted to express my support for this. Im glad San Francisco is pushing this and grateful they are extending to board and commissions. I used to serve on the San Francisco Youth Commission and dont ask that question which is good because there are lot of people impacted by those questions so thank you. Thank you. Brittany [inaudible] staff attorney with Legal Services for prisoners with children and want to thank you supervisor kim for introducing the amendment and urge the board to pass the amendment. [inaudible] thank you. Any other Public Comment on item number 3 . Seeing none Public Comment is closed on this item i actually really excited to support this legislation. We have made the city to ban the box on employment, looking at our oun City Governance and important to do so so much want to support this and i think it is also important to consider how people who in the past or up to the present have been treated in applying to commissions. It can be a very different experience dependent on someones economic background, ethnic background and now we are make tg not a issue for the city it assess and that to me is important to create a lot of access for people in city government. I want to thank supervisor kim for sponsoring the legislation and ill be happy to move Forward Motion to move the item forward with positive recommendation, i think it is important we bring our policies in alignment with what we expect for providers and [inaudible] looking forward to moving the barrier for individuals that seek to be appointed to commissions and bodies thatp to serve the city in this capacity. Without further [inaudible] this item passes with recommendation. Mr. Clerk can we please call item number 4 . Item 4, review [inaudible] related to driver license [inaudible] lead to driver license restriction for Court Ordered debt. Thank you. This item was called for by the supervisor avalos and myself. I do want to hand the floor over to supervisor avalos to first introduce this item thank you chair kim and thank you for your support in working together on this hearing. Also want to thank members the community for bringing this issue forward. James tracey with Community Housing parltnership [inaudible] other people who come forward who ill acknowledge when they come forward for Public Comment. In 2014 we learned about ferguson missouri where a city was able to come together its budget through fines on every day people. This was something that cities that are small that dont have a lot of Revenue Streams actually deal with but it is also ways that very discriminatory way cities are able to create the revenue stream off the backs of working people. All of us have had the experience of our cars ticketed towed or to get in some infraction with the law from time to time in history of driving or history of navigating through our cities and if we are at a very narrow margin economically, often these fines can mean the difference between ability to maintain jobs and housing and maintain any level of security and where there are cities like ferguson where you have a great part the budget that is reliant on aggressive discriminatory and and ticketed San Francisco is different. We have Revenue Streams throutd the city that have a stronger budget. At the same time we have departments that are still reliant on dollars and have practices that are disproportionately impacting that lead to disenfranchisement and a cycle where people are limited in their ability to find work, housing and other things to keep themselves economically stable. So this hearing is brought about throughout the effort of Community Groups to bring this to our attention t. Is focused specifically on drivers license citations and suspensions and the result on peoples lives and the way the city can take corrective action. I have a number of speaker. Not sure if you want to follow up with before we start . I did want to make comment as well. I know we have many members that want to speakoon the item but want to thank supervisor avalos for calling for this hearing last year. The city and county of San Francisco should be in the job of impoverishing or working class. When we look that fines and think about what is in front of us today, the story and narrative i hear are about tow away fines because the price they cast and yet wree impoverish poor and working class families because they made one mistake. The average fine is between 5 and 700 dollars can be the difference for many house holds between paying for rent and being evicted. 5 to 700 dollars for one mistake is punitive and we as a city have to acknowledge these families dont have that money as the city becomes more and more expensive and Affordable Housing here is definishing here. We want everyone that our drivers and pedestrians and sit citizens to behave and understand the rule thofz rule and cities depend upon a certain level of order but we also have to balance that with fines that measure for the mistakes people made and make sure we are careful about what we talk about when we talk about Cost Recovery. Today i have a number of questions for oewd, the tax collector, sfmta and superior court to figure how we in San Francisco can look at our fines see how key can do better. Making sure people are able to follow rules and doing in a way that it doesnt impover rsh those in San Francisco. Im interersed in hearing from City Partners to it kwibe the impact thofz fees as we have a National Conversation on how this is going in ferguson and the south but authhere in the state of california with particular taeckz to the suspension of licenses. The implementation of states amnisty program regarding traffic fine debt, the option of community suvs in lou of fine squz the payment programs we have available for those that cant pay large chunks of fines. I should note there was a segment on the john alver show last year on the impact municipal fines are having and the disproportioninate impact on [inaudible] whether these fineerize the prorept source of revenue and what are the appropriate Revenue Sources and looking at more equitable ways making sure we balance the rules we have on the books but also making sure we are not paying for our City Services on the backs of our most vulnerable residence. This hearing is only the beginning of the discondition and hope to have conversation on chaichcks and amendments that can be made how the city look as that fine structure and get to actions that can truly help or most velinable in the city. Thank you for visor avalos. Thank you very much chair kim. It is very important we also align all of our city functions with goals that we have thats over arching for the city. Our over arching goal at San Francisco is stated not always in practice but stated we do a lot to enhance reinty service and rehabilitation efforts and the [inaudible] less and less should not be geared to punitive effort but rehabilitation effort, effort that help people find success and a path way to economic stuckt stability in their communities and lives so the hearing is part the process to explore how to improve the efforts as a city and align our debt and Collection System with goals for reentry and rehabilitation. We will have a few presentation from different parts the city. The Public Defenders Office will be here as well as the debt Collector Office and treshier office and mta and superior court. First up is a presentation on the cities amnisty program working group. Ruth [inaudible] from oewd and amanda read from the Treasurers Office. Good afternoon chair kim and supervisor avalos. My name is ruth supelt with office och economic and work force development. The Mayors Office and oewd work force decision looked at drive license suggestion possession sense twnt 14. First i would like to start with a couple point that may help you understand how a driver license suspension can prevent someone from being able to work. To begin when a license driver has access to a car they are able to work further from home and transit lines and or during non traditional work hours. But having a license is not only important for transportation. Employers require a drivers license to employment because driving is a part of a job or a way to screen applicants. A good deal of Research Points to the detrimental effect that suspended license can have on a person. One study found muthsers on Public Benefits were twice as likely to find employment if they had a drivers license. Have aglicense is more important for fipeding steady work than a high school diploma. Last year the state initiated a program to provide amnesty to drivers. The program is called the Traffic Ticket Infraction Amnesty Program in effect 2015 to 2016. Allows for 50 to 80 percent reduction on Court Ordered debt for unpaid fines due before january 2014. This means applicants are eligible for Debt Reduction if insureed before 2013 and didnt make paymentsism regardless of theidate of the debt or whether a applicant has begun to pay it down the program allow frz a drivers license [inaudible] to be lifted as soon as the applicant set up a payment plan. There are exclusions, parking tickets, reckless drivers, dui and other serious convictions are not included. Also [inaudible] in may 2015 our office established the working group comprised of a number of city departments with clients with a interest in the issue. Our purpose is coordinate across city departments to make sure amnesty is effective as possible. The group is made up of people from my office, adupt probation, Human Service age, the District Attorney office, [inaudible] hope sf, Child Support services and Public Defenders Office. We have work would the superior chort to coordinate around their implementation of the drivers license ammusty program. Our group has focused the rfts on teasing out the application and reinstraiment process and making the program as accessible as possible to local rez dnls. Nrfb of 2015 we hosted a training from 40 different organizations primarily those service the most impacted neighborhoods. There was a great deal of interest in the training and enthuseyism, however Many Service Providers remain confused about the process and thereat is because the process is complicated. There are several things that make the program difficult to suck side even with the hope of providers. Each county in the state administers the program independently. It is important to understand that many applicants have [inaudible] this means they have to navigate a separate application process with each county they have a hold in. Each county may impose a 50 dollar application fee. For client work wg multiple counties these means multiple fees. If the applicant is successful having the hold lilfted the dmv charges 55 to 92 dollars to reissue the license. Before a hold can be lifted a applicant must pie a initial payment. These amounts very but all told the fine may be a barrier. The application process is conducted entirely by mail and phone in San Francisco. This makeatize differ cult for applicant to track the progress of their app lication. Many residents dont have access to a phone which can make it dif wult for the court or contractor to contact applicants. Laestly, the superior court in San Francisco contracted with a private Collection Agency called alliance one to administer amnesty. The working group relied on the court to provide up to date data. We will continue to meet with the superior cort to insure the program is as successful as possible. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this important issue. Thank you. You are followed by the Treasurers Office . Whats that . The Treasurers Office is following up we collaborated on her statement. Just a few questions then to follow up. Can you talk about the Collection Agency and the efforts being made to make them much more easy to work with for low income folks and what kind of efforts are happening for Debt Collection . Aplanda freed from Treasurers Office. Our collection is distinct from the superior courts and amnesty. We collect a number of taxes and fees for the city and county of San Francisco, we do not collect anything related to drivers license suspension or the Amnesty Program i so we will have someone from the superior court that can talk about that when the time comes and have them present as well. Thank you. Next up we have a representative from the mta on [inaudible] citation work credit program. Good afternoon. Dillen [inaudible] sfmta local Government Affairs manager. I want to thank you chair kim and vice chair avalos for the opportunity to share information and collaborate on this important hearing. I also like to medication im joined by a number oaf mta subject Matter Experts who are available for questions. I will provide a very quick overview cochbing appreciately a dozen slides and with that let me start. So, equity is one of our core goals. Transit through your leadership and funding muni has been a equalizing force in the satey and helps working class communities live in the city. 700 thousand times a day across the sate people get on or off a muni vehicle. The free muni program is a source of pride. We would be remiss for not thanking the board of supervisor squz 2 member thofz come committee for supporting that program. It allows us to provide frumeanie for low and moderate income youth and disabled. We received 38 thousand applications that are processed for free muni for youth and 67 thousand for senior and kis abled. Half million trips are taken fremuni for youth and 1. 8 million for free muni for seniors and disibleed each month. The annual cost of the program is about 12. 8 million and something we are proud of. I would like to mention the Life Line Program established in 2005 and provides a 50 Percent Discount off the adult monthly muni pass. Appreciately 20,000 passes are punchsed each month and with recent changes we improve access by extending sales to neighborhood vendors. Another item we have worked clously with and need to thank the board and have to thank supervisors mar and campos, early on they put forward a resolution to urge the state to pass the decriminalization of youth transit violations at the state level which was paved the way for this to be implemented in San Francisco. Last week the mta board of directors approved the decriminalizing of youth trabzt violations and the next step is implementation legislation that will go through the mta board and will bring it to the board of supervisors. This means juveniles will not be sent to court for riding and paying or violation squz we are looking at opportunities through this to reach out to folks for free muni for youth to expand access to that program and also overall just increases in participation. As chair kim mentioned and i want to thank the both your offices and staff for providing and emphasizeing issues that are important to you, we want to quickly go into discussion about towing. So, we have good news, towed vehicles are down 45 percent since 2004, that is 35 thousand fewer week vehicles in 2015 so just as context, there were 77,000 vehicles towed in 2004 and are down to 42,000 as of the numbers we have in twnt 15. We believe Public Outreach has been part of that reduction. We improved information going out via how to park legally on mtas website. We also included reminders as part the Residential Parking Permit Program and renewal. The new tow times are easier to read. We have parking restrictions posted on data sf and use of technology such as spot angle which is a phone app that tells based on the location parking restrictions and provides reminders i think that is great you have Public Outreach effort but i think a lot of them you have in terms of data sf to be able to get the latest changes to me dont meet a lot of drivers needs, it is probably more the signage that will have more of that impact where people can see readily what the traffic issues are and where the parking is more available. It is good you have all those things but think it isnt the most salient efforts the mta is making to make sure people know where they can park point well taken and let me quickly go past these. On the tow fees, tow fees reduced in the new contract, there is a 5 percent decrease, that is 22. 25 cents less than the prior contract. Fees will not fl crease through fy 16. Through working with the board of pr visors we expanded the stolen vehicle waver to all folks. Before the previous waver was only for sf residents and autothreft victims wont pay towing fees how long was it that the towing fee was waved for San Francisco residence . I believe legislation went into effect earlier this year so you have that also include non residence . Exactly. Want to thank the board for working closely on that what was the reasoning behind lowering the fees . Was it the nexus with cost orwhat were the stated reasons for the new contract . The tow fees in the new contract have they taken effect yet . No. There are 22. 25 sent less and so what the reason behindwhat was the rational the mta to lower fees . It looked for efficiency for structuring the contract with the vendors so it isnt based on volume but performance and overall interest by the board of supervisors and meetings with supervisor kim and wiener. How close is mta to full Cost Recovery for that program . It is full Cost Recovery as it is set up there are lot of fees we have that will never be raised to get to full Cost Recovery and so with lot of other fees that we have in San Francisco there is kind of a arbitrary place where we land and where the fees are because we know that when a fee is trying to achieve full Cost Recovery they become completely unaffordable. To me the proposed 491 fee that will start the nex fiscal year is in the realm for a lot of people in San Francisco. For instance if i were to get as a supervisor in San Francisco if i get a 491 tow fee i would have to start cutting back on groceries and that is me as a supervisor who has a pretty good salary. I do have a lot of expenses, but that is probablyeveryone else who experiences aif you live pay check to pay check in the city, 491 dollars will be a dramatic hit to your pocket book, so was there a discussion within the mta board of directors to actually go even lower than 491 not that im aware of but your point is well taken and appreciate this opportunity to discuss more broadly policy considerations on how fees may be structured or offset by other means as part of your opening remark said generally there is also something on top the tow fee and that is a the ticket that caused the car to be towed in the first place. That varies from place to place or maybe if there is a parking violation that requires a tow maybe it 100 dollars, not sure exactly what it is. When you pick up your car at auto return there is a ticket so you pay your fee and you go to the car and there is a ticket on there another 100 so is there discussion about how to kind of not do double jeopardy on the towing and ticketing fees so people dont have the slap in the face when we pick up our cars . The parking citation that you mentioned, that is as a result of a violation and so that is separate from the recovery fee that you and i have been discussing. In terms of overall we are currently looking at tow fees as part of a way to implement our transit first policy, so the rational has been that the cost of towing is born by those who park illegally and to not have other funds that are available for transit and Pedestrian Safety be divert. To your point in terms of two differentdelineation between the two cost, there is one related to the actual vilailgz and one for recovery. In terms of the lowering of that, i know it has been a part of a inturnt discussion but in terms of maybe to the extent that i imagine you probably think it would require further discussion. Im in line with the transit first efforts in San Francisco and supportive of them, i think it is important to the extent we can still do enforcement but disentangle the level of fees from that effort because at some point it becomes very very challenging for san franciscans who bury the brunt of our affordsability crisis. I have been part of approving fines and say i have [inaudible] at some point we have to look at when they are having a detrimental effect over the entire city as we have seen the affordability crisis worsen it is probably thp point to look for restraction i would like to take the point to mention based on your good comments and other from other supervisors i know our cfo and serbject matter expercents working on the tow contract have looked atat altnchatives and options you conveyed to so we will circle back in not too long a time with more information on that and based upon your very good points that how do we address the amount of fees based on 3 factors. One we are currently configured as Cost Recovery and land cost and labor cost. Let me move forward to the amounts that you were mentioning. The current base tow fee is 491 divided between administrative and the tow and the new contract goes down to 469. As you pointed out, if there is a way of looking at that which we will do, how do we look at the cost which are also very important because they pay for parking control officer who has to be on site to actually call in for that tow. Right and transit first can also mean the general fund is paying for parking control officers but i wasnt done because our hearing doesnt talk about tow fees, it talks about project 20 and we are [inaudible] hear thg rules around project 20. I dont see that referenced in your document were you going to that next . Can i ask questions on the tow fee because i know the contract is coming up. Something i floated when i worked at the rise in the tow fee is the greatest increase in the tow away fee is actually the administrative fee assess by sfmta not the tow fee assess by the subcontractor partner in this case, auto return. Fees between 2004 and 2016 went up 100 percent so doubled. Sfmta administrative fees went up 5 times and so given that this is a huge part of the cost at 260 dollars, can you explain why sfmta raised the fees so dramatically . Thank you for that question. If i may i would like to bring up my colleague steve lee who has been the point person subject matter expercent exprtert that is my firs first question on why the fee rose 5 times when we claim this is purely Cost Recovery. My second question is of course on the fine rapidly goes up as the car stays in the lot longer. Once the car is on the lot, the expensesthat is the expense towing the car to the lot and we pay a monthly rent on the lot. It doesnt make sense that a fee goes up 58 dollars after the first 4 hours of storage. I dont know how many can get to a lot within 4 hours. I think that is unnecessary and differ kilt it meet deadline foremost residents. After the first day going up closed to 70 every day. That doesnt sound like Cost Recovery for me because the car is there and the cost is there and already fay frg the rent so why is it necessary to tack on these fees plus the ticket. Why it is necessary to give the ticket on top of the tow fee . They are already penalized on top of the tow. 3 question. Good afternoon supervisors. Stephen lee with sfmta. With regard to the Cost Recovery in term thofz administrative fee, over the years i dont believe that historically that it was 100 percent Cost Recovery in the past but we are looking at today is a 100 percent Cost Recovery and that cost with regard break down the 6700 dollars we charge. What is the cost km . Let me break it down for the total program. The total program for towing vehicles is about 24. 1 Million Dollars. The cost of the contractor and tow truck operators account for 12. 3 Million Dollars. The mta cost related to pco enforcement and overhead and 9. 1 million. The rent we pay for 7th street and bay shore long term facility is 2. 7 Million Dollars. When we calculate the administrative fee it really is the 9. 1 Million Dollars divided by the number of vehicles towed is what gets us to the 261 dollars when we have a reduction in tows, i forgot the number, sorry, 70 thousand to 40 thousand is that correct . Uhhuh the more residents and visitors that follow our rules the less cars towed and the less cars that are towed have to bear the brunt of paying for the entire expense of running the program. As more people follow the rules the remaining ones that do not have to pay more and more to cover the cost of enforcing the rule. That is correct. Unfortunately it is a vicious cycle for compliance. As coast goes up less people get their vehicle towed and it is spread among the folks that do get towed and the cost has to go up if we talk about a 100 percent Cost Recovery program if less carerize towedi think member thofz public dont always understand this, we pay monthly fee or annual fee for the contractor for the towing company regardless how many cars they tow, so there is no incentive on the Companies Part to tow more or less cars because they get paid the same regardless . The current contract is a volume based contract where the contractor gets paid base odthen fee and number of vehicles towed. Moving forward and before you next week at the budget and finance Committee Meeting is a proposed contract the sfmta board approved on the 16. This particular model is different going forward. We pay the tow contractor a flat fee to manage our facilities such as 7th street short term as well as long term storage and auction facility. Firs cost per tow fee so if the volume increases or decreases number one we are not overly compensating the Tow Truck Company as well if the volume declines the Tow Truck Company will still be able to operate at a level of service. Okay. I think that isthere are less individuals that are violating rules and that leads their cars getting towed so we need to consider a less expensive program versing spreading out the same cost among a fewer number of drivers that are violating the rule. I know there are hard cost like the lot rentals but maybe we dont need as many lots. We dont needif we dont have enforcement officers ticketing then why isnt that cost going down as well . So, on a regular basis we do evaluate the efforts with regard to enforcement and our partnership with auto return which is a very Innovative Company we try to find solutions that make the program more efficient and possibly less enforcement but the way it is today you look at the numbers necessary to clearory streets. There are about 46 pco, ftes that are allocated to this program. They clear commute lanes, driveways, abandoned vehicles, the whole 9 yard making sure transit flows and continues. If less drivers are violating these rules why do we need as robust a program . At some point i dontwe may consider consolidatedthere are two locations we run today, one is 7th street and harrison, the customer service. That clar location accommodates about 150 vehicles squl the rent dollar is 900,000 a month. That is centralized in the city where people can get to to get the vehicle. The other location we operate is long term storage at 2650 bay shore. That facility we store about a thousand vehicles and run the auction out of there. The cost of running the base shower and rent from bay shower isnt included in the cost of calculated the per tow cost. The per tow cost to the public is calculated based on the cost from 7th street and the tow cost that tow the cars on average how many cars are on the lot . 160 vehicles 160 vehicles for 2 lots that can fit a thousand and how many on 7th street lot . 160 vehicles. 160 vehicles fit on the 7th street and roughly 1 thousand on bay shower and have about 109 cars on a lot on any given day. To me that means we dont need all of that space. We need the long term storage facility. Why dont we let go of the 7th street lot . It is really a convenience for folks who centralized in downtone and next to the sfpd that provides wavers and inspections. It serves a service for the public to get to that location conveniently as well it is a price tag of 900 thousand a month. Correct that is close to a Million Dollars we spend to make the lives of the residence more convenient and charge them 700 dollars to get their car. I just think we need to really reconsider that. If we have roughly 100 cars a day on a lot and 2 lots that fit 1 thousand and 150 car squz one lot costs all most a million a month and spread the cost out among those car owners getting towed i think we need to relook at it the program because we are nie impoverishing people with this program i i dont think it is acceptable that this is the way it is always been so we keep it this way. Your point is well taken. I hope before the contract comes before us in march we are able to think about this. This sounds like a extraordinary waste. Extraordinary waste. I have to add something. There is a lot of talk about how working people bring in revenue through fines for departments, the other day we passed the developer fee to deal with impact that the Huge Development hass on the transportation system. We approved will bring 30 million in one time money and then 2 million annually. The mayor says he will veto i read in the paper the other day and so basically the mayor will veto legislation that would require edevelopers making huge buildings in San Francisco pay for the Transportation Impact so they are giving them a pass. At the same time we structure or fine and Collection System that impacts working people to pay for the transportation system. I imagine that administrative fee is in the mix the mta that deal with things beyond the tow and so to me we have to put our priorities in place so ill be pushing dramatically how we can make fee reduction a part of the effort especially if we are turning down money from Big Developers through vetoes. We have to find other ways to make it more easy for people in San Francisco to live here. We have mr. [inaudible] do you have a presentation on project 20 . Yes i do. Would you like me to yes. Thank you for opportunity to talk about the Community Service payment plan. So, the sfmta offers opportunity to Community Service or payment plan for parking and transit fines and penalties. A person can do a maximum two Community Service or payment plans per year and that is combined value of 2,000. This isnt available to citations that are already in collections or if [inaudible] booted or towed. So, per the questions from your offices, you wanted to know the amount of folks who are enrolled so 2,000 plans are enrolled as of fy 2016. There is a flat fee and sliding scale to Service Vendor and the new contract that goes into effect in april will have a streamline fee to sfmta to make it easier. In relation to the question, 50 percent of Community Service must be performed with public work squz credit is given 1 and a half times at the base rate, currently 7 dollars but the board will consider increase to the Community Service rate not clear what the base rate, what it means. Sure. It is the rate that a individual works to go against the actual fine or penalty to work down the fine or penalty. So, you all had requested that we look at increasing the rate so that folks for every hour that they do Community Service they work off the fine or penalty more quickly. So, the minimum wage is 13 dollars and next year 14, is dollar a discussion is there a way to [inaudible] to our minimum wage in San Francisco . Yes, there are discussions that go between 10 to i heard 15 dollars currently in discussion now. So, to me does the cityjust in terms of revenue that comes in, dethereis no difference in revenue the city is able to recover if you base the rate on 10 dollars a hour versus minimum wage that starts in july, 14 dollars a hour. Why not align it so that someone isnt working off a million hours but still working perhaps to pay off a fine . Great question. Let me refer this question to diana hamened who is the subject Matter Expert on the Community Service payment plan. Good afternoon member thofz board, diana hamman mta. In terms whether there is discussion about aligning those rates together basically i think [inaudible] money from people working off the debt but most of all by not aligning the actual work to what is the consistent salary in San Francisco, it looks like the work itself is a punitive thing versus something that is restorative thing. I absolutely understand the moint and a reason the item going before the mta board is proposal a 10 dollar hourly rate for Community Service outside of the city so non dpw work and 15 for dpw. Providing that it is a pretty significant step now at 7 dollar you 14 dollars a hour and in the Community Side it is 10 dollar a hour you can get credit for your work . 15 for dpw work. 15 dpw and 10 outside. Why is there a difference between dwp . I this can this is rez new the city is and [inaudible] that was a policy decision also preference people to work for the city. Sorry that also creates incentive for people to choose to pay thauf fine to dpw versus Community Organization yes. Currentsly one of the things also that the change is right now at 7 dollars for Community Service for non profits and 1. 5 which is 11 dollars for dpw mondayfriday and double time so 14 dollars on the weekends. We propose to eliminate the difference because peopleint provides more benefits for peept that work monday through fridough so a equal opportunity for everyone. Wednesday may be someones friday. Sure. Okay. And then our fees that you have to pay to perform project 20 work, that is a flat fee . Is that always a flat fee or being proposed as well . Im confused what is the Current Practice and what is proposed. There is a two step process. Project 20 is the vendor and did a competitive bid process so a new company is coming in. The way it works now someone pays us a flat fee and goes to project 20 and dependent if they do payment plan or Community Service pay a sliding scale fees dependent on the amount they owe. Based on feedback we received from the customers that was veryto have a two step process for enrollment is something they found frustrating so in the new rfp and program we have taken a look at the lot of the requirements we had and consolidate that fee and pay one fee to the mta and pay the vendor directly so we dont force customer tooz make two stops for the process. We are also looking into a lot of the rules and requirements that we had on enrollment of citations. It really just completely starting from scratch on the way we administered the program to allow a lot more people to participateen different points the collection process. We hope that it will be something more attractive to customers, but as dillen mentioned the one thing about this program is you cant wait until youre in a spot where maybe your vehicle is towed for more than 5 outstanding tickets so that is where we want to encourage people to come into the process early to provide the opportunity and help and looking at making the program more outreach on it and notices and thinks things like that. That is the one caveat. I think the improvement to the program we will see over the next year do you know if there is a [inaudible] difference between the number of people who may go through dpw versus community program, do we have firm numbers . I dont have the numbers from project 20. Um, what types of work in project twnt that are typical of peoples efforts . Public works or other agencies . Public works. Litter clean up. That is what i hear. So, one of our major goals is how we can have a system of fines collections or project 20 that can help people escape impoverishment and is it possible to align a project 20 program with efforts or provide to receive sofel service like education or rehabilitation our counseling that can be considered towards work of fulfilling a debt . Something we can reach out to Human Service agency or city departments to discuss. I think it is good to explore and make happen if we want to really make a huge difference rather than having a system that is punitive but one that can enable people to have pathway tooz greater stability. That can have fulfilling efforts to create strong change. I like to see how we can perhaps look at how such uses of Public Services can be utilized as part of project 20 effort. The last question i have [inaudible] qualification that other things or barriers that people have that eliminate the possibility of doing project 20 work and is there a [inaudible] how to remove the barriers . For instance, any type of non Traffic Violations people may have that would eliminate the possibility of working off their debt . Sorry, asking that specific violation there are violations people may incur, non traffic they would never be able to seek project 20 work to avoid a dbt they cant afford now there are no restrictions base oden the type of citation ayou receive. Adding on to what supervisor avalos talked about how the minman wage is higher than the wages we pay through project 20 and encourage to raise to the minimum wage level. You target folks that dont have jobs doing project 20 because if you make 13 dollars a hour you go to the job that makes 13 dollars a hour because you quickly pay off the debt to the city and keeping the job so the individuals picking select to go to the project 20 prm making 7 dollars a hour pick that option because that employment option isnt available to them so i think it is important that we maintain a consistent policy around our wages even though this isnt a wage program but i hope sfmta will bring our wages up to the ordinance operating in the city. Okay. Thank you. I think we are both in agreement on that supervisor kim. Next up we have michael [inaudible] from superior court. Good afternoon chair kim and supervisor avalos. Michaelueen, chief ecexative office off is superior court. I want to share a few comments based on what has transpired today and the general direction that i believe the city would like to head in. First and foremost, the superior court is between a rock and hard place. [inaudible] San Francisco superior court, the official name is superior court of california, county of San Francisco so we are a state entity with a local jurisdiction so i say that to preface my remarks in that our marching orders if you will, are from the state legislator and governor, so the reason why i think that is important is because supervisor kim you had mentioned a discussion on municipal fee squz highly encourage this discussion be more about fees by expanding to the state level and do have a handout and would like to share with you. So, i will try to walk through this as best as i can. What you see is a very complex chart of where the money goes that the superior court is responsible for collecting when it comes to traffic fines and fees. As you can see it is very complex, there are 37 different pots and these different sources of funds lie at both the local municipal level as well as the state level. So, i want to impress on you this is more a discussion on new nisple fees and should be discussion of state fees. Of the 37 sources of funds only one fund directly benefits the superior court so when we collect on traffic fines and fees, it goes into 36 funds that dont benefit directly the superior court while one fund does and that is the very last fund on the right. I want to impress on that but expanding also on how we are an entity that is a state entity with marching orders from the state but a jurisdiction locally. That means really what we do is predicated on the whims the state legislator. The state legislator has impressed upon us there is over 20 billion dollars of uncollected debt and the charge to the superior court or state branch is what are you doing to collect. In the more collected the more funds get benefited by that. In fact, about 15 months ago the legislative Analyst Office issued a report and in that report it stated that the superior courts throughout the state should be charged with Court Ordered Debt Collections not counties because in some counties San Francisco isnt part of the them but it is hybrid model where the county collects or combination of county and court. The lao basically made a recommendation that superior courts should take on this responsibility and there should be an incentive to incentvise courts to collect more. That is a fis sopical argument and can say while i may not agree with that argument, it gives you a sense of the conflicted nature the court is operating undr with the charges we have on collecting. I do want to say also that there was talk about rehabilitation around this i think you said 10 billion in debt . Close to 20 billion dollars. Million . Billion that is double. How much of that debt, 20 billion dollars is in dispute . Is that number based on all the bebt assessed or do we have a sense that a large part of that debt is being despited and litigated, will never be a real number and but that 20 billion dollar figure on the books is driving certain activity of the state that will never be useful. Wasteful activity and never recovered. That is a very good question and a question i dont have a answer to. I think the legislative Analyst Office is the best source to get a answer on thampt i can tell you based on our experience in San Francisco i would vercher to say that a good portion of that 20 billion dollar figure is disputed and the reason why i say that is because the way Court Ordered debt accumulates especially in the traffic arenala is failure to appear. The way the process works is the citation is issued by a issuing Law Enforcement agency and usually that agency has a date around 30 days after the citation was issued that the defendant to appear in court. When that citation is issued a promise to appear is actually signed by the defendant that received the citation. What we see with Court Ordered debt in San Francisco which im more well versed on than state wide is the failing to appear to that citation and promise to appear is a reason why Court Ordered debt is accumulating. Why there is that failure to appear is something we havent looked into but i can tell you that is the single biggest cause to why debt accumulates. I do want to make make note that you mentioned rehabilitation jerfts the superior court were caught between a rock and hard place and we are trying to be progressive and have opportunity for folks to have their fines lowered. Let me give a couple examples of this. Project twnt was mentioned by the mta and we have project 20 as well for currently it is available to any defendant who has a traffic case that hasnt gon to collections where in the process of implementing a new Case Management system and making the tweak to make it available to folks who had gone to collections and hope to have that in place in the next few months so that is one example. Another example is this speaks to the system is about Debt Collection or Case Managementthis is a big effort throughout the court and implement a new Case Management system throughout the court but the Traffic Division was the Traffic Division was the first to implement it. We implemented a new system since august of 2015 and there are always tweaks along the way. One thing we have on the list to do is make this change to allow for a case that has gone to collections to come back and go to projject 20 so [inaudible] his or her fine through Community Service. Another are there cases where debt is expungeed based on things outside projject 20 that a person made or forgiven based on assessment a person will never be able to pay off or work off a debt, is that a consideration or ability the court has to be able to do . Currently we arethis actually talks about amnesty. We have a policy in place where the lowest payment someone can make is 25 dollars. A amnesty now you apply for amnesty and the amnesty law requires that you dont have outstanding restitution and a active warrant. If that is the case and you qualify you ruproved. When you are approved you are sent to alliance 1 to have a assessment. They make a financial assessment and if determined you cant sustain a large payment then you are given a payment of 25 dollars per month. You make the first payment of 25 dollars and what will happen is sth Court Requests the dmv to lift the license suspension that San Francisco placed on your license. That doesnt mean that Everything Else is resolve said because you may have a license suspension from another county and have to resolve that. That was a contention with the legislator and believe there should have been a centralized Amnesty Program state wide but the legislator has spoken. There is paper work that is handled on the dmv side so even though the court requested the hold be lifted the dmv will charge [inaudible] when we talk about this debt, you mentioned 2 billion dollar and that debt is under superior court across the state but there could be another debt under the dmv . That is correct. So when you talk about barriers, that right there sums it up nicely. As progressive and helpful as the court can try to be implementing amnesty there is always some other barrier else where and that aert barrier could be with the derks mv or another superior court and that is because there are 58 different ways of running this. If there is no follow up question i would like to present just to be clear, 20 billion dollars is under the superior counterin terms of debt and dmv is separate the 20 billion dollar is a estimate the state of california legislative analyst is also assess what is outstanding in terms of that dmv debt, ityou are before me talking about your own process thof state, 58 counties debt and there is also dmv and imagine that can contract too if there were policies in place where people were able to forgiven or expengeed. The 20 billion dollar number is debt ordered by superior court and doesnt include debt outstanding at dmv or any other governmental entity. You also had a question earlier supervisor about other ways that a individual who does have a license hold can get the hold lifted. We have done something at the San Francisco superior court that at the time no other superior court in the state did. I dont know if fallowed our lead on this but we about a year and a halfmaybe a year ago implemented a petition to lift your license hold. So the way that works is if you need your license suspension lifted for any reason, it could be employment or housing or any reason why you need to drive a car but yet your license is suspended, we have a process for that. We implemented that after talking to several legal aid organizations including bay area aid and bay area civil rights. That is used and we have that visible. You fill out the petition and may Legal Assistance to fill it out because it is extensive but we do the research and review and it and if we can live lift your license holds we will do t. Now outstanding resitution or warrants can i ask how many individuals applied for this . I dont believe ithe last i looked which was several months there were 23 individuals only 23 since it was implemented it was implemented august of 2014 i believe. Implemented august 2014. Wow, so we are talking a year and a half. Out of how many license holds . The license hold number is a figure we dont track. We are going to track it with our new Case Management system but the Case Management system we have now is a system that far preidated the license hold process so dont have a data tracker field on it only 23 individuals in the last year and a half and it is a very complicated application which probably discourages many people applying for this. By the way, you know we talked about the difficulties most people have in coming to the courts and filling out the applications, i can barely pay my pg e bill and do that on line so imagine how difficult this is for folks income restricts d or those that dont have it time or resources or support to do this. Is there a way to simplify the application . I hope im out of line here but shares this with you, the San Francisco superior court has tried to be progressive thinking when it comes to justice. One thing we suggested to some Legal Aid Groups a couple of years ago, i think close to 3 years ago now because we have been in discussion with Legal Aid Group s about this problem and tried to come up with Creative Solutions and one solution we offered up and willing to put on the table once again is to hold some type of cooperative clinic. We do this in the restraining order world where anyone wants assistance there is a clinic where courtd staff that are there and have codes of ethics and staff conduct codes where we cant give legal advise so for the clinics to work well we need a advocate there, a probono attorney or Legal Aid Group and we are happy to put on the table once again to hold some type of cooperative clinic around the issue of traffic fines and fees to help folks clear any license suspensions they may have. The caution we have to live by is we cant be advocates and court staff. We have to be the neutral party, the court staff and if there is a Legal Aid Group out there willing to partner on this we are willing to hold the clin ics they partner out of their pockets, there isnt a contract to do that . That is right to go back to a Different Program mentioned the state amnesty for debt program, the number that i have here is as of february 3 the superior chourt received 1675 applications for amnesty and of these fair chunk 1100 are processed and 167 have had payment plans set up. About half of these include fee reductions, about another half are dl list only. Could you talk a little bit about what we can do on the county side and Community Side to support our constitcherants to take advant objective of the program . Is there something the city can institute on our own as well . Of this 167 cases in process, what do we need to do in regards to the back log or obstacles in place for the process the numbers have gone up in the 2 weeks since february 3. The number of applications is 1937. 1307 are approved and 287 made at least 1 payment so the license holds request to the dmv is submitted for the 287 accounts. The way amnesty works in San Francisco is amnesty only applies to cases that are current in collection so all that data is with our collection vendor, alliance one. In order to maximize efficiency to applicants woo encourage the way the process should work is Contact Alliance 1. Because alliance aurlds has the account information. If they call the court first the court would do the intake, we have to Contact Alliance 1 because we shifted the data to them to make sure the person is in collection status and then we would come back to research at the court side to make sure there are not warrants. Rather than put the applicant with the run around it is one stop shop. You Call Alliance 1 and the data asubmitted with the application and we vet it to make sure there is no restitution and send back to alliance 1 forficial assessment and do the steps. What i believe is happening and as a little side im hearing that numbers are low throughout the state. That is not a good reason why it is low in San Francisco but one of the things that i believe might be contributing to the low number of applicants in San Francisco is the misproception that by having to call a collection vendor first will put you in hot water for other debt. I like to clarify here that that isnt true. There are standards at alliance 1, where if someone is calling about a certain type of debt, in this case court ordards they are untable to pursue other debt such as private debt. Lets say for instance that i want to take advantage of amnuty and owe to San Francisco superior court and bank xyz, alliance 1 cant pursue i have for the debt at bank xyz if im calling for the Court Ordered debt so would like to careify that and that i think i can only assume that is part of what is going on here is folks believes by contacting alliance 1 first that will get them into suns quent collection efforts but confirmed that is the case and they cannot do that so that isnt happening. I also want to say that this is in line with progressive practice the court is we trying to make sure the back log doesnt build up and the way wree we are doing thatthe way the amnesty is set up is you can apply on old debt and if you are eligible and go through certain steps and meet the steps you can get the license suspension lifted. Nothing talks about incoming license suspensions or new license suspensions for new citations. At the San Francisco superior court we think it is speaking out of both sides of our mouths if on one hand we lifted license holds on old debt but on the other hand we implement a new license hold on new debt so just stopped implementing holds all together even though the legislation doesnt call for that. We think that is the spirit of amnesty. Why should we lift license holds in one area and continue to place on new cases so we stopped doing that in november so our hope is that will prevent the back log from increasing and can only go down because there isnt else feeding in the back logs and dont place new holds on it. Just a couple questions on bench warrants. Does the court issue bench warrants for cases out of Traffic Court and if so can this practice be discontinued. Bench warrants are rarely issued in Traffic Court. I would want to see some of the deta or example cases behind what has been issued in the past. There are other things which someone fails to appear . With amnesty and we shared this with bay area legal aid qu Lawyers Committee, with amnesty coincideing with amnesty we have stopped it so there is nothing now but previously we would be open to having discussion on what we did issue bench warrants on but as of october we have not. Do knroi know if for fairium to appear are there civilal assessments or bail requirements no, part of amnesty is civil assessment goes away. There is a 50 i think they call a administrative assessment so that is being assessed on cases that are eligible but civil assessment practice we stopped. For amnesty cases. The 50 is never a type of fee that result said in failure to pay because if you pay that you are working to remove something and it wont be on the books . Thats right. Okay. How often do you see failure to appear lead to a suspension of drivers license . Well, since we stopped the practice we dont see it anymore but prior to november that was very common. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate your presentation and you will be hear for Public Comment as well . Sure thank you appreciate that. Okay we are getting close to Public Comment and appreciate members of the public who are here and following along. Well get to you after this next presentation from debt free sf. We have brittany [inaudible] from Legal Service for prisoners and children and [inaudible] for civil rights. We have been told we have 2 minutes each. Are we allowed to do the entire presentation . If you can go between 2 minutesnot sure how long your entire presentation was. The wlole thing is 10 minutes. I think im fine with that if that is what you are prepared to do. I was prepared to hear that. If you can keep it no more than that because i want to make sure people that are waiting to speak. Thank you and im [inaudible] from legal suvs for prisoners with children and part of debt free sf which is a coalition of organizations made up of Community Housing partnership, Legal Service for prisoners with children, all or none, Lawyers Committee for civil right and coalition on homelessness. First of all, San Francisco court debt system disproportioninately penalizing people for being poor while it is true there are many Different Reasons court debt can be assess ranging from municipal fines to Traffic Court and probation and victim restitution many [inaudible] directly tied to being poor. Currently there are over 100 different quality of life citations handled by San Francisco Traffic Court and 23 ordinances that qualify as quality of life ordinance. These are things like jaywalkish, littering, sleeping in public, failure to pay muni fine, smoking in public park and costs on low income people and trapping people in poverty. People are penalized for being poor [inaudible] there is a disparate tickets so people of color are taketed more often than white people in San Francisco. Studies have shown black and latino people are stopped more frequently by police and in San Francisco black people are 7 times more likely to be stopped than white. They are also likely to receive failure to appear or pay because of income. When a person fails to appear or pay there 3 things that can happen, they get up to 300 additional civil assessment, have the license suspended and bench mark for arrest. Our experience is this 300 dollar civil assessment is charged to people who cant pay or appear so if you have [inaudible] hin San Francisco race is correlated to poverty. In San Francisco White Residence earn 3. 5 the amount of black residento people of color are less likely to pay off court debt and have license suspended for reasons that have nothing to do with the infraction. Also in San Francisco black residents make up 6 percent the population yet there is 70 percent the driver license suspension cases that is astounding. It is. Agreed i actually believe it but it is awful to hear. It is awful. The court debt in San Francisco represents community disinvest. When people are on a fixed income that means they may not be able to pay other necessities so People Choose between rent and food, childcare, medical care, transportation or paying Court Ordered debt. The 20 billion dollar mark our position is much of that is because these people dont have that money to give to the court. When the amount of citations and when it is not contingent on a persons aabout aability to pay we create a system where we punish people for being low income. Many the client that some the members of debt free sf represent are on Public Benefit said to forcing people it use their checks to pay back the courts is [inaudible] having to suspeneded license limits employment option because it limits their ability to get to work but also because many jobs require having a license so construction jobs, delivery jobs and the current ride share economy in San Francisco is barred to people with license suspensions. A study in jew jersey is 42 [inaudible] license suspension hurts not just the license suspended but the community because people can get their children to school and neighbor tooz the dr. S. Do we have a sense of when someone gets a license suspended how long the license is suspended . Is there a average . I dont have that information but heard it can be years because before amnesty there was no way to get your license back until you paid the entire out standing amounts which is the base fine and civil assessment and fines and fees added on to that afterwards. Not only [inaudible] it also contributes to the problem of mass incarceration. Creating pathway tooz incarceration and barriers for people coming home. When people are forced to drive to carry out necessities of ever day life, taking children to school or go to work they are forced to drive without a license. [inaudible] informal ecanomy to survivor that can also lead to incarceration. Supervisor avalos mentioned reentry is very important but condition of parole or probation is you have to make regular appearance with your supervising officer and remain free from new convictionsism if you cant travel and forced to choose between traveling and getting a misdemeanor or not traveling you are put in a difficult position and forced to evaluate your probation or parole. Similarly when people are reentering they still have outstaning victim resitution and you cant participate in amnesty and pay off the fines and fees so traps the people in a impossible situation. Thank you. Good afternoon members the board, stephanie [inaudible] and im a attorney with the [inaudible] so, you heard from brittany the background and want to present the policy proposals touched on by members or people who have spocken today but we codifyed them. Our first is supporting and expanding the Amnesty Program. We think San Francisco should have a goal of 100 percent participation of eligible residence. As already discussed, amnesty is a step in the right direction but a starting point and not ending opinion. It reduces the heavy burdens of fines for people that have tickets before 2013 and restores drivers licenses which is huge but there are major implementation challenges and the impact is limited. Starting the with the fact it ends in 2017. San francisco should do more to support and expand the program. There is still a back log and the city can support the administration of the program through the budget. A important thing is providing funding to Community Based organizations like [inaudible] bay area legal aid and many others here today to do outreach and help people through the application process. The 50 participation fee should be eliminated and that is the choice of the city to do that and the 50 dmv reinstatement fee. The fact of having to pay 50 up front is a barrier to them participating in the program. We heard there is a moratorium on license suspension but this should continue after amnesty is over squand [inaudible] for example just dismissing fines or non Payment Options like participating in Training Program and Community Service which you mentioned earlier supervisor avalos. The next point is we should eliminate the practice of suspeneding licenses. This puts people in a cycle of poverty and shouldnt suspend a license for failure to pay a fine which takes away livelihood and futher into poverty. Before you go into this section i was curious about the resources like bay area legal aid or [inaudible] the group mentioned how did the city support their efforts . I know we have sf [inaudible] and immigrant right jz legal education. What do we have for people in the Justice System . I cant answer what funding if any we get. There is state funding for the advocacy work is that correct . My understanding and dont have the exact numbers because im a fellow and noti dont get involved with our budget but my understanding is we dont get funding to amnesty outreach or a huge part of my day is helping people fill out amnesty applications and dont believe any of my work is from the [inaudible] Amnesty Programs and other efforts we may have that will expunge peoples debt so to continue we think it should be established as local policy that license suspension is a inappropriate collection tool and we should direct city agencies to seize reporting non Traffic Violation and the court can pursue this as well because they suspend license for failure to pay or appear but this is at their discrepgz and dont center to do that. The representative from the court i didnt catch his name mentioned putension for release from license hold. My understanding is that is suspended because it wasnt as benefit for the Amnesty Program. I helped working with people for that petition and they had to give proof they would be hired by a employer if they had a valid drivers license which is difficult to get a letter from a employer saying if they have a drivers license they would be hired in the job. That is less helpful to people than the current Amnesty Program and my understand is that program is suspended currently. We havent had anyone attempt to file one of those petitions. The representative that spoke made the point people need Legal Assistance to fill out the petitions and it is true. It isnt something people could do just on their own which they should be able to. They shouldnt have togo and get a lawyer like myself to write their petition. So our third point is that the city should terminate contracts with private debt collectors in this case alliance one which is a company outside of San Francisco that is profiting from the inability of low income people to pay off informs amounts of debt cht i dealt with thee agents thrrks are numerous agent not properly trained and give misinformationism one the biggest misinformation pieces that have has been going around and people think if their tickets are after 2013 they cant apply for amnesty and a lot are told that but the fact is you apply to get the license back you just dont get fee reduction. Instead San Francisco can establish a local policy for Debt Collection that would embody the prisple of access and fairness. There are be inhouse Program Based on ability to pay and payment plans that are manageable. Ill also say 25 dollars a month is the lowest people can get which on the one hand is good because some people can only pay 25 a month but that means they will pay off their debt for a long long time. There are problems on both ends of that. Our next suggestion is that there should be access to the court for all people and low income people shouldnt be locked out. People who miss a court date no matter what the reason are locked out of scheduling a new court date. As a result there is no meaningful opportunity to seek relief from past debt so expanded on the Amnesty Program and in the Collaborative Court model the county previously supported, San Francisco could establish a Debt Relief Court which allows a efficient and just system for dealing with infractions and Court Ordered debt. Short of having this calendar, there are incremental steps the court can take like allowing people who fail to appear to schedule a court date or a written request without having to pay the full amount up front because if you miss a court date if you want to challenge yourthafact you missed you are expected to pay the full amount up front. There is the issue of bench warrants issued for failing to appear and we heard they are not being currently issued but over the past 2 years more than 10 thousand people were booked in San Francisco jails for such warrants and this is a huge waste of resources but it is another way we are criminalizing poverty. So, we do applaud the courts action last fall to recall 7 thousand bench warrants issued for failging to appear in court to the extent arrests continue to occur sense the recall the city should direct Law Enforcement agencies to stop bench markets for failure to appear. My colleague meredith [inaudible] good afternoon. Mare [inaudible] i want to highlight these points were developed out of work representing clients in Traffic Court working with Community Member jz city and county agency squz the court. From years of doing the work we are convinced as San Francisco much confront the question how court ourdered debt is making fmlies and community worse office. Everything should be on the table to reduce harms including reviewing infaction practice and disproportioninate. End quality of life citations, dismissing waurnts and fines for these types of ticket squz all other types of tickets having meaningful options for low income people. A Debt Relief Court program would be one way to institutionalize and insure the system works and would like to accept the courts invitation to discuss a program but would like to see support for Legal Service programs that will be providing the services and also a program that does more than lift license holds because that doesnt get to the under lying injustice of the ownerous fines. Certain debt should just be expungeed and reduction on the table and alternative to payment and that means more than Community Service but doing things thaerate a benefit to communities like enrolling in a Education Program as a way to satisfy debt. It is great to hear from the court they are making that more available to those sent to Debt Collection but would like to see changes including increasing the rate. I believe the rate for Court Ordered debt is below minimum wage and there is a fee requirement to participate in Community Service which is cycle that you have to pay nords to prove you cant pay. In conclusion achieves these reform require the engagement of steak holders including county agency, courts, Law Enforcement and others but believe together this will bring us closer to something that reflects San Francisco value of fairness and justice and ends poverty created by Court Ordered debt. Thank you, that was very informative. Im very interested seeing what we can put in place but there is rule changes and creating new systems that dont exist that take resources as well so it is important to undertake and one that requires a lot of coordination not just member thofz board of supervisors by legislation but city departments under the Mayors Office to help rearrange functions. Are we Amnesty Program or effort that lower the impact of debt and remove it. Last up we have carmen [inaudible] from Public Defenders Office. Thank you supervisor avalos and chair kim. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I work at the Public Defenders Office a manager there and work for the misdemeanor unit so we see cases where people had licenses suspended on infraction. I want to focus comments on infractions and what is happening in the courts. Fair to say you cant squeeze blood from a rock which is a quote that has been used by several judges at the hall of justice and think the basic issue here is how to deal with when we have issues where someone has traffic citations leading to possible suspension of licenses and or fines and what we do with those cases. So, when somebody has a drivers license they rely upon for their live lihood and work and dropping off kids at school, and we see this at extremes with people that are undocumented in the country because now we have sort affamnesty as far aslicensing we still see people that dont understand that rule and they come in and out of the system on licensing issues because they dont have a license and they rely upon their license. Where see thatif you find someone or take away their license based upon just a mere fact that they owe a fine you take away their livelihood so what can we do in the alternative to taking away someones livelihood . I think good points were brought up by the Lawyers Community for civil right talking about having a Debtors Court where we reduce or where we forgive debt. We might talk more about having other opportunities for people to have their debt forgiven. Where we have people that have tickets and dont appear or they dont pay, we at the current moment are seeing people in San Francisco beinghaving warrant issues for their arrest which result in the suspension of licenses so it is kind of a cycle that starts to get put into place where our client where members the community are having their licenses suspended, these fees incured and as some of the other speakers noted, alliance one going after them for these fees and fines and i urge you as nothing else supervisors to take a close look at the contract between San Francisco and alliance one because what i know to be true is that if people are not paying their fines within 20 days, they are being assess a 300 dollar tax on that fine by alliance one. The way i look at alliance one and talked to a lot of people, there are terns mounting a federal case against alliance