Im shawn sex ton. Im a captain with the alameda sheriffs office, and i had significant roles in urban shield in the last few years. And i just wanted to talk about one component of urban shield. Yell command is an exercise that prepares all of the Emergency Management and manage Operation Center staff for any kind of disaster, whether its man made or natural. And the whole purpose is to create an event that tests our regional capablities. And weve had these tests since 2013, and each year, we test a certain event. This last year, we tested our community or our availability to distribute our commodities in an event of an earthquake, and these are the types of things that yellow command prepares all of our regions and our Emergency Management centers to respond to. Thank you. Supervisor cohen thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good morning. Members of the committee. My names philip white. Im a training and exercise planner with the bay uasi thats based out of dublin california. Like mr. Massey and the speaker before me, ive had specific leadership roles in the urban shield programs. Specifically i have over 30 years of experience in the fire service, but what i want to talk to you today is about how urban shield has modified or changed from its origin, which was primary Law Enforcement, as mentioned, to today, where its multidisciplinary. We have fire, police, we have Public Health, and more importantly, in response to some of the concerns that were raised earlier in the year by the stop urban shield folks, we put together the green and gray area commands, which for the first time we now started bringing into this unique training opportunity, citizens from different teams, as well as creating a fair zast disaster fair for people to come learn about how they can be more prepared, so id just ask you to consider the items before you with the modifications that have been made without further amendment so that we can go ahead and continue to see this exercise occur every year. Its a unique training opportunity. One of the things is that theres some things youll obl get one chance to go ahead and get it right. This isnt like sports where theres next year. You can create a new team or do something different. When you have an emergency, you only have one time to get it right, and our goal here with urban shield is to make sure that they have an opportunity to do these things multiple times so that the one time they have to do this, they come to house or a friends house or a family members house that theyre going to go ahead and save the lives, create greater security and ensure that everyone goes home. Thank you very much. Supervisor cohen thank you. Next speaker. Afraid im going to say a lot of the same things that people in front of me said. My names craig denton. Im with the San Mateo County sheriff ease office and member of Homeland Security division. Im here representing san mateo fire agencies, san mateo ems agencies. On behalf of those entities, i would like to express our support for the urban shield Training Exercise. Planning, training implementation and evaluation are some of the cornerstones of Emergency Response. The urban shield exercise creates this environment and we must develop strategies, work together, coordinate Emergency Responses and evaluate current Emergency Operation plans. Urban shield is an all hazards multiple jurisdictional training that leaves all those participate in an overall state of readiness. Communities and local governments are given the opportunity to activate their Emergency Response units and trarn for the betters. All officials request use the exercise to evaluate the processes and repair the deficiencies they may find in their response and recovery plans. Were all aware of the recent disasters that have affected alarm and small communities across the country, and we are under obligation in strengthening our communities and mitigate against, prepare for, respond to and recover from threatened or actual Natural Disasters, acts of terrorism or other manned made disasters. Its for these reasons that San Mateo County supports urban shield project. Thank you for your time. Supervisor cohen thank you. Sharif, tashwen, nick. Hi. Good morning, everybody. My name is sorry. Sorry. Laura, mengarni, and laura irwin, youre free to cue up in line. Sorry about that. My name is sharif sakut. Im a resident of San Francisco where i was also born and grew up here, and im here to tell you urban shield is incredible racist and islamophobic. It is also using military weapons that have been tested, used and perfected in our homelands homelands and brought over here to use in our communities. In addition to any of this racist programming, just this year, the oath keepers were present at the program. Sheriff ahern himself has supported pahrumps policies, and the alameda retweeted earlier this year White Nationalist richard spencer, and these are the kind of policies that theyre put forward. What we really need is housing, we need Community Based alternatives, when we talk about sanctuary, who are sanctuary for. An emt, when he was speaking, he said he did not agree with the terrorism nexus, but thats the way it was, but thats throwing our community under the bus. Theres a very real fear here. We need these Community Based alternatives. Urban shield is racist. You have the power to pull out completely, and i hope you make that right choice. Dont be an accomplice to this racist islamophobic program. Thank you very much. Supervisor cohen thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is tariq. We believe our city, our countries should be well prepared to respond to emergency and Natural Disasters. Thats exactly why were opposed to urban shield. Approving urban shield youre approving programs that support violence against minority communitied. In germany, they killed 8 people by police, and the u. S. , by cap ird ta ita is hundreds. Paragraph prf urban shield is built on the belief that we are at war with a domestic enemy that must be neutralized. We have seen how this results in Police Treating our communities as the enemy, particularly black people, arabs, muslims, and poor people. Urban shield is supposed to exclude International Teams from countries that with the documented rights violations. This should be extended to u. S. Teams from departments with documents civil and human rights violations. People, we people in the bay area are actually afraid and scared to just walk by police when we are in kaffia, the picture that you saw, we wear it all the time, and i am proud of it. When im walking on the street, and i pass a police, i am terrified. Thank you. Supervisor cohen thank you four your testimony. Next speaker. Good morning. Supervisors, my name is mohamed shek. Im with the stop urban shield coalition. This was at this years urban shield expo. This was a sniper rifle that was raffled off to participants, and not juchlt law enforcemen juchltjust Law Enforcement, but anyone who was present was able to buy a ticket for the raffle. Urban shield started off as this Law Enforcement thing and has evolved. Now, the urban shield fair that you saw a picture of earlier, with the oath keepers, now, the oath keepers are an Extremist Organization identified by the southern poverty law center, extreme antigovernment organization that came as a result of president obama being elected as the first black president. These are the kind of organizations, these are the kinds of politics that the sheriff of Alameda County represents. Recently, the Sheriffs Department got a reward from the federal government, 1 million because of his participation with federal Law Enforcement agencies, particularly around immigration, so participation with ice and encouraging that participation. Now, the San Francisco board of supervisors, in february of this year, voted almost overwhelmingly with the exception of yee who actually wanted the legislation to go further, called on Alameda County to suspend urban shield. What were calling on you today is to make good on those values, on that vote, and to pull out of urban shield, but also to reject the mou as it stands and to amend it so that you all have the power to not participate and to not actually fund these this kind of highly militaryized racist program. To say you cant fund the mou [ inaudible ] supervisor cohen thank you. Thank you. Last group of cards that i have, tessa, david sparrow, dennis n. Barrett. Good morning, supervisors. My name is woods irwin, and im a member of the stop urban shield coalition, and like others here, im also here to urge you to reject and amend the mou with the bay area uasi. So as has been mentioned, the primary architect of urban shield is Alameda County sheriff ahern. As has also been mentioned, the support of racest and xenophobic policing determine straight demonstrated through the recent receipt of 1 million because of collaboration with i. C. E. , the inclusion of the oath keepers in this years expo, and the inclusion of teams from countries with hone human rights abuses. It is imperative that San Francisco continue to show leadership as it did in february , and that when it passed the resolution to urge Alameda County to stop funding urban shield. As the fiscal sponsor is dangerous to continue to participate in a program that the residents here regularly articulated militaryizes Emergency Response, making our neighborhoods more terrified places to live and work in. Its dangerous to capitulate with a program such as this seen by clarifying movements like black lives matter as black identity extremists. Today, you can vote to reject and amend the 340d u as it stands, pull the city and county out of urban shield. Urban shield cannot be reformed. Alameda county released its recommendation in this supervisor cohen thank you. Your time is up. [ inaudible ] supervisor cohen thank you. Next speaker, please. Any way, trying to get that up there. My name is eleanor le vine. Supervisor cohen and eleanor le vine, you need to clip your document. Its upside down. Never like being upside down. Supervisor cohen okay. Okay. I work for code pink for peace, and many of you know our organization has worked hard over the years, beginning with the start of the iraq war to end war and to replace war with peaceful solutions, and we feel the same way about urban shield and uasi funding, that militarization never brings peace, it never brings democracy, it never brings freedom to people, and what id like to address just quickly is the issue of a culture of fear that exists in this country which has led to the increased military spending around the world that our defense department, our militaries have unimaginable amounts of money. And that kind of culture of fear has now trickled down to cities and to counties like uasi funding and urban shield. Do not be fooled by the thought that we are going to be overcome by people trying to get to the United States by ferry boat, by foot, if thats imaginable, by airplane, by whatever means necessary we have for the democracy we have in the United States. Do not be fooled by the calls to faear that we are increasingly seeing in this country. Exercise your right to speak up and to look at alternative ways to maintain a democratic system and to make sure that freedom and democracy are extended to everybody. Do not succumb to a culture of fear, because if you do, you are going to go down a road where theres nothing that a military response that you are rely on and will bring you to the kind of response that you can rely on [ inaudible ] supervisor cohen thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is laura kaswani. Im the president of the arab organizing center. I was also a member of the Alameda County task force on urban shield and a member of the stop urban shield coalition. I dont want to repeat a lot of whats been said. I just want to make clear that the issue at hand here is urban shield, and the other issue directly related to that is Alameda County sheriffs ahern who have proven to be incompetent at addressing the ongoing issues of racism going on here. We have heard about the oath keepers, we have heard about his rayist comments and tweet. On a personal level, as a member of the task force, the person that was recommended by the sheriff to be part of the task force, mike grant who is connected to the oath keepers, participated in the task force with very many months with some of the people here in the audience and myself and others, and after the task force sent me an extremely racist email, and directing that hatred toward myself and the organization that i represent. This is the type of mentality that the Sheriffs Department holds and emboldens and in terms how urban shield allows to play out. You have the chance, when we found out sf was a fiscal sponsor of urban shield, we were pretty excited to know that our city would take a stand and make sure that this racism would not continue. We dont have four years to waste. We need you to do something now. Reject this mou and make a difference. Thank you. Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is angela jay. Ive had the privilege of serving on civic boards here in San Francisco. Im on the polices Community Policing work group, and ive been on the Veterans Affairs commission. I stand here as a citizen very concerned. Many times San Francisco likes to see itself as the humanitarian in the group. The Police Departments to say were going to keep forwago fo were going to keep working on the issues that are plaguing our Police Department, but to see it struggling to find humanity in its citizens, to even think about bringing in a militaryized frame of mind is a step backwards. One thing that im very troubled with, i dont want to see this, we dont want to have Emergency Services people thinking militarization is the way to move forward. I remember learning that we wanted to move to be a guardian, moving away from the warrior culture. I remember sitting here in this same chamber watching us vote on tazers, why are we always coming up here concerned about weapons, where are those weapons going . My concern is if we move from a warrior mentality to a sanctity of life caregiver culture, why do we need any weapons . Why do we need to militaryize anybody . Only a warrior needs a weapon. Only a warrior city needs a weapon. A peacemaker sees this human being. They dont see threats. So id ask you to pull out completely of any urban shield situation. Thank you. Supervisor cohen thank you. Next speaker. Hello. My name is nick, and im a resident of San Francisco. Just want to repeat and encourage the board to reject the current mou and to demand as a fiscal sponsor how the funds are used and San Francisco should pull out of urban shield if we plan to be continue to be the humanitarian that we want to continue to be, we should not approve urban shield. There are residents that were here that were living in the east bay, as well, and we should look out for them, as well. Supervisor cohen next speaker. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is humberto desilva. Im here representing a Community Based Organization Called 67 suenos. We represent mostly folks that are undocumented themselves as well as mixed heritage families. So one thing that i want to provide testimony to is the various stories that my students have shared with me of experiencing swat raids of experiencing ice raids or things that come directly from the influence of urban shield and so ive heard the stories of my youth that have experiences of flash bang grenades being let off in their homes, the front doors of their homes being tored down, as well. Paragraph so i heard from other folks that theres a shift in the program to move away from this type of militarization and to Emergency Response, while i hear that, i think that the positivity that they are, i guess, suggesting doesnt necessarily makeup for that, so one thing that im also thinking about is how at the end of the day, the funding comes from the department of Homeland Security and has that requirement of nexus for terrorism, and so thats one thing that worries me because if the concern is really Emergency Preparedness and helping folks out in that matter, i would hope that then maybe that type of programming might come from a fema, for example, or center for disease control, right . But if the fundings always going to come from dhs, its always going to have that hook to it, and that desire, and that need to respond to terrorism, so thats one thing that i want us to think about. While we heard that theres a move away from that, i feel that based off where the money comes from, its always going to have that piece connected to it. Thank you. Supervisor cohen next speaker. Hello. My name is masa larson, and i live in the richmond district. My supervisor is sandra lee fewer. Im a member of jewish force for peace, and i see San Francisco known as a community of kindness, of culture, of kindness for its people. We are a sanctuary city, and what i see with urban shield is a method by which were militaryizing police, were heightening racism. You heard this from many people who reported that, so many people from people of color, from muslims, islams, and people of color, and poor people. I just dont understand why we even want to be part of this. Theres no part of it that really is good for us, because it comes in a package. It might have some good parts, but it has a part thats so bad, that we should not be part of it, so i ask you not support urban shield. Hello. My name is colleen irwin, and im petitioning the board of supervisors to stop urban shield. Most recently ive worked as a Nurse Practitioner orthopaedic at San Francisco general. Ive experienced Disaster Preparedness firsthand. Health care workers are on the front lines. The california and the National Nurses association have come out to stop urban shield in part because of the swat Team Training competition. The outcome measure is not the effectiveness of deescalation of violence or the most live saved, the winning team or outcome measure in the training is the most deaths. As nurses, we recognize that our patients are our community. They are also our neighbors, theyre workers, theyre grandparents, theyre friends, and i think the board of supervisors, its disturbing to think that our greatest threat is from our members of the community. Thats not the point of view that we hold as nurses, and i dont think thats the point of view we should uphold in Disaster Preparedness, so i urge you to stop funding urban shield. Supervisor cohen are there good afternoon. My name is amina coleman. Urban shield is nothing more than a swat team, weapons hosting and training fair. Those their for profit vendors may say their equipment is necessary for emergencies, Research Shows that police use swat raids in things like warrant deliveries and drug raids. Communities of color should not be terrorized. San francisco has has committed to deescalation and the minimal use of force in policing. Urban shield undermines that. This mou expiration provides San Francisco to recommit to moving away from warrior style policing and further criminalization of communities of color. We urge you to follow through and take the opportunity to amend the mou. Thank you. Supervisor cohen thank you. Next speakers. Thank you, supervisors for listening to us. My names david sparrow. Im a member of jewish voice for peace, but im here as a long time resident of San Francisco. I hangout a lot in the mission district. Im old, im white, and i dont have to worry about police violence, for the most part, but you know that other people do, and as an activist, ive seen the effects of that on people. Like, a couple years ago when the San Francisco police were gunning people down at a pretty good rate, like six people in three years, the voice in the streets was obvious. People were scared, people were angry, and the police chief was removed, the shooting appeared to stop or slow down, it made a major difference. Same thing. If police are coming down the street in tanks, like they are in some places, if police are armed for combat, and you walk down, you feel like these people feel threatened by us, these people are not here for us. Theyre scared, and it totally changed or greatly changed the whole atmosphere of living in the city, and so while i really sympathize with the fire people and the emergency medical responders who feel theyre getting some help from urban shield, but as has been pointed out, it doesnt seem like you can separate those things from the main core of what it is, which is militaryizing the police, so we need to somehow dramatically change it so those two things can be separated or pull it out. Thank you. Supervisor cohen thank you so much. Next speaker, please. My name is dennis, and im currently serving as the police chief in the city of dublin, and prior to that, i served at the u 15d i, assigned as the program manager, and i was closely involved in all the planning and all the training. Id like to say that youve heard a lot about urban shield, and thats thats what a lot of concern here, but we have to look at the bigger picture. This Training Exercise including plaining, training, and the exercise, so if you step back a bit and look at the training part of the program, the training serves Law Enforcement, ems, has met, and ordinary citizens, and what happens in the training is first we identify deficiencies and weaknesses, and then, we improve the training. During since the inception of this program, over 1,000 courses have been provided. Over 26,000 students have been trained, and we go through the cycle over and over. After urban shield, we go through a cycle where we identify weaknesses and areas for improvement where we change the program for the next year, and we go back to the planning cycle, and we have all the disciplines and treatments to help plan the training. So this is part of a cycle thats very important, so if you do not improve the authorization today to enter into the mous, then this will stop the training portion of the program until this is completely approved, so i would urge you to approve the mous today so we can continue with the training and begin planning the next urban shield and other exercises. Supervisor cohen thank you. Next speaker. Good afternoon, madam chair and supervisors. My name is brent catelis. Theres no doubt in my mind and from the perspective of thousands of people that have been involved in this scenario, and im sure that the majority of the 8 Million People in the bay area that urban shield has been greatly involved in disasters, whether its natural related or terrorism. The fact of the matter is whether the particular incident, Natural Disaster or earthquake or a bomb going off in a building, we still need that collaboration between the first spoenders, and we did not have that before urban shield. Other cities have seen it, taking the benefit. Im always mazed at the relationships that have been built among private sec ton Public Health trauma doctors, fire, ems, emergency managers, those did not exist before. I didnt have relationships with the managers over here in San Francisco or the sheriffs office, san mateo, previous, even neighboring jurisdictions, it was pretty common for there to be tenuous relationships. There is a place for tabletop exercises that used to be the norm. There is a place for that and disaster management. However, the real benefit is having the real boots on the ground, having real world exercising and implements resources and equipment to ensure that theyre working to best protect our citizens, and i appreciate your time with this. Thank you. Supervisor cohen thank you. Next speaker. Hello. My name is charlene. Im speaking on behalf of tashnuanin, who had to leave. Im part of the stop urban shield coalition. I just want to speak briefly about recently, i had the opportunity to go up to santa rosa in the wake of the fires to volunteer there, and my experience there was really powerful in seeing Community Members stepping up and taking care of each other during this crisis, and volunteering at the shelter and not the military. So the military presence there was very strong when i was up in santa rosa. There were National Guard members around, and what i experienced with that was a lot of fear at the shelter that i was supposed to be at was supposed to be a sanctuary shelter, and yet, their presence was known, especially in the wake of the hurricanes happening recently and i believe it was the florida sheriffs are coming and talking about shelters being places to round up undocumented folks . It you know, so just keeping that in mind and linking it back to urban shield, i want to call on San Francisco as a sanctuary city to take the lead and set the example for other bay area cities . And to to show sheriff ahern, whose priorities are clear, that he is stands with the racist and xenophobic trump administration, and its pretty simple. Urban shield is a racist and xenophobic program that prioritizes militaryizing our communities [ inaudible ] supervisor cohen thank you. Your times up. Are there any other members of the public that windould like speak . Has everyone spoken whod like to speak . All right. Thank you. Public comment is closed. Supervisor yee . Supervisor yee thank you, chair cohen, and i want to thank the public for coming out. Thank you, i guess not so much public, but people from the different jurisdictions to come out and express your your point of view. I heard many things that were pointed out today. What most folks are concerned about is the things that some of the speakers, that out of towners talked about other aspects of uasi, and those are very beneficial. We know that. The urban shield what i didnt see, and it could have happened happened elsewhere. I just didnt get the information that earlier in the year, there was a lot of talk about how this helps coordinate everything and so forth, moving our departments, and i didnt see any evidence from the urban shield weekend that there were actually interdepartment interdepartment collaboration between San Francisco Fire Department and the Police Department and the and so forth. It seems like they were only individual teams that went out for these exercises that had no coordination between our own departments. Thats something i would love to support if that was the urban shield. The there were other comments earlier in the year and that really wasnt brought up today that this urban shield training is the only unique opportunity for us to be involved with it. Im just talking about San Francisco. I cant for those out of towners, if thats what their values are, thats fine, but im talking about us in San Francisco. But i realize that in the last six months, theres been opportunities for us the different departments the Police Departments and so forth to get further training in pretty similar stuff, whether it was for the mass demonstration piece, there was opportunities there. There were so in a way, its there is he aa ls a l contradictions when people come and testify. Id like to say, in my point of view, some of the things that public speakers pointed out is that urban shield is sort of a conflicting issue for us in San Francisco. On the one hand, it promotes Public Safety through tactical training, and on the other hand, it instills fear in every community it aims to protect, so i dont know how to resolve that. And im as i mentioned earlier, im totally really unhappy about the timing of all this stuff, and it seems to happen over and over again. Supervisor yeah. Supervisor yee so today, i would like to do something further, but i think what im going to try to do is at least continue to reflect our values or at least my values, and hopefully, our values in San Francisco around these issues by not necessarily modifying or amending the actual mous and so forth, but to look at what we did was look at the the resolutions that accompanied these mous. Id like to amend those to have some reflection of hopefully, what i think we value in San Francisco. So let me point those out. For item number 18, id like to make a motion to amend the corresponding resolution with the following language thats already which is already reflects in the whereas clauses, provid clauses, provided by the department of Emergency Management, restating San Franciscos option to the militarization of police, so at the end of page 5, id like to include to further resolved clauses, one that read that the board urges that no city or county of San Francisco personnel shall attend any exposition or vendor shows or vendor shows that include military grade weaponry or semiautomatic weapons as part of this grant. And be it further resolved the San Francisco board of supervisors intends to establish a set of guidelines for the city and county of San Francisco personnel to participate in exercises funded by this grant. So thats for item number 18. And for item number 19, same thing to amend the corresponding resolution with the following language to reiterate, San Francisco stands on the problematic elements of urban shield. I would add, after line 18, on page 3, whereas clause clauses, the city and county of San Francisco does not condone training that promotes militaryized policing or stereo types pertaining to race or religion in Counter Terrorist programs. Whereas the board of supervisors is concerned about the San Francisco serving as the fiscal agent for programs that are incompatible with our values and goals and have signal interests in in cooperating our principals as priorities for uasi programs in the mou. And whereas if uasi funding is used for programs that are incompatible with our value and goals, the board of supervisors may consider legislation restricting the citys participation in the uasi in the future. So those are my motions to make amendments to the to resolutions. Supervisor cohen all right. Thank you. Supervisor tang . Supervisor tang thank you. Thank you, supervisor yee. I really appreciate the amendments that you have brought forth, and i want to thank the public commenters. I certainly hear you on your message. I think i can speak for everyone here at the board of supervisors that we do not support our public Law Enforcement officials targeting certain communities and so forth. But personally, i do support us being prepared in handling emergencies, being able to respond to acts of terrorism, whether they are committed by foreign individuals or even our own u. S. Citizens, which has happened in this last year. In any case, one of the things that i am i want us to actually separate out is the fact that the training itself is very valuable. I know i saw these pictures. I dont know that this is happening in San Francisco. I heard a lot of comments about Alameda County, other jurisdictions, but i do feel that we in San Francisco, we do have specific guidelines that we abide by. Not wanting to target certain communities, is important, so again, i wanted to say, that not knowing the specific photographs and where they came from. But the expo, i do not like what is going on in the expo. I like what supervisor yee has put in here, that were restricting personnel in San Francisco from participating in the expo. I could not believe when i heard that people are auctioning off weapons. That is absurd to me. Now with that said, i also propose to the group, is it any better to have Alameda County be a fiscal sponsor instead of San Francisco . This Grant Funding is going to continue to be provided to other jurisdictions, so do we want San Francisco to be the fiscal sponsor, where we have, again, certain values that i think are in line with what yours are, or do we want a county like Alameda County to take over that, and thats something that actually scares me and frightens me, so again, i know weve kind bundled the issues about the expo versus the training, and i think we need to separate that out. I wish we could tell other jurisdictions what to do, and that they would listen to us, but certainly, i think our message is loud and clear at this board of supervisors. So i support the vast majority of supervisor yees amendments, but i think to item i think its item 19, on page 3 and 4, the two whereas clauses, where it says that we are concerned about San Francisco serving as a fiscal agent, and also, where if you that we would actually consider restricting our participation, again, that frightens me about another jurisdiction that has values that we dont agree with would be a fiscal sponsor of this, so again, i heard a lot of the public comments. A lot of it was centered around other jurisdictions. I didnt hear anything about San Francisco per se except the fact that we are a fiscal agent. I think its really important that we equip all of our different departments, whether its dm, Fire Departments, Public Health, police, you name it, i think its really important that they not only get the skill set on paper but also hands on training. I think its really important that when an emergency situation arises, that they know how to respond to it, and they dont just kind of think about it in theory, but they put it into practice, so all that said, this is a very difficult situation, i think, for all of us, because we share all the values that all the public commenters said when they came up here and have said in the past. But at the same time, wanting our city to be well positioned we are a huge target here in San Francisco. We are a big city, very dense. People may want to commit things issues here and problems here, and i want our city departments to be able to be well equipped to respond to that. So so again, i will be supporting the vast majority of supervisor yees amendments, but the ones on for item 19, the two whereas clauses, those those give me a little bit of pause. Supervisor cohen supervisor yee . Supervisor yee thank you, supervisor tang, for your comments. I i want to explain a little bit. For the two whereas clauses that youre referring to, the one the second one or the first the first one that youre concerned with, which is the second one there, i think its part of my thinking right now that were going to try to my approach seems to be moving towards trying to influence what urban shield may be in the future, in terms of, as i mentioned earlier, i saw one exercise where it actually incorporated the deeffectratsc methods. What id like to be doing in the future is having the legislation thats going to come forth to say that we want a bigger percentage of the exercises to reflect that. I mentioned that i didnt see any opportunity for our city departments in San Francisco to coordinate things. Id like to see stuff like that being incorporated also, so were coming up with a list were looking at alamedas set of principles, also to see what we can say for urban shield, for us to participate, we need to see some some movement that can change it in the next few years, so thats just to explain this whereas clause, theres going to be some follow up legislation, and that follow up legislation is what im describing as my approach tack tang thank you, atack supervisor tang thank you. And i understand your approach. Were trying to encourage other counties what we consider to be the appropriate thing here. Again, my worry is that these other jurisdictions will very happily want to be a fiscal sponsor, happily take the money, do what they want and still not actually change anything about what they do in these trainings and the expos. That is my concern. And so thats why i think it actually is really important that we are the fiscal agent, the fiscal sponsor, so that we can actually have a little bit more leverage, whereas we pull out of all of this uasi funding, do we have a seat at the table . Im not even sure, at that point. So im trying to get at the same goal that you have, but its just if we dont have a seat at the table, how do we instill all of the different values that we have onto other jurisdictions . Supervisor yee im just as sensitive to your comments. Thats why i put it as a whereas clause, and the third one is probably more questionable for you in regards to if were actually going to consider legislation, you know, that was restricting us as a fiscal agent. So i think what we can do, then, is for maybe the amendments from item 19, that we vote on each whereas clause. Supervisor cohen all right. Im going to jump in here and share a few of my thoughts as this whole conversation has been unfolding in a past here. First of all, i want to say that dem, you should have done a better job in working with supervisor yee who voiced a y concern in wanting a say in the mou, and he wasnt offered an opportunity to have his voice in it. Its always easier to do it in a meeting. But here we are, in a committee, so theres a couple things in observations that ive seen. Thank you to everyone thats come out to participate in this discussion who have sent emails and who have taken the time out of their own personal schedule to join us in todays conversation. One thing that really has struck me is the level of diversity for the people who are against urban shield. You saw young people, you saw old people, you saw skrifgss, you saw jews, you saw muslims, and they were all advocating on the same thing. What was more concerning are the people that are in favor of the uasi training all fitting the same profile, and that really concerns me, because i think it speaks to the ethos to the mindsets of the persons that are making the decisions in the spending, putting the budgets together who are thinking about training. Now, in this almost yearlong conversation that we have had about this item, ive done a tremendous amount of due diligence. Ive reached out, and ive spoken to every Alameda County supervisor. I have spoken to sheriff ahern on the phone multiple times. Ive met him in person, as well, as supervisor scott haggertys event in south county, so the point im trying to make is ive left the comfort and security of the city and county of San Francisco to peel back a very complex issue. There is something that i want to reinforce, and that is that i believe that training and exercise is important. I personally go to the gym every single day, and i push myself to the limit because i want to increase my strength, and i want to increase my flexiblity and increase my endurance, and cannot do that by sitting on your butt and thinking about exercising. With supervisor yee, we both witnessed exercises several months ago. I will admit, though, i think one of the flaws, supervisor yee is we were witnessing exercises with our friends, our friends that are in the Sheriffs Department, people that we know and see on a regular basis coming in and out. Perhaps during the next exercise, we will actually go to dublin. To be fair, dublins exercises started at like 6 00 in the morning, which was a deterrent for me, but ill work through that the next year. So what i saw in where were we . San mateo county . Is that right . Supervisor yee san bruno. Supervisor cohen san bruno. What i saw were lechblth latrice exercises, legitimate scenario, coming up with a plan, coming up with a strategy, and then debriefing. I saw measures take to deescalate, i saw actors who were contributing their time so that our regional First Responders have an opportunity to be the best that they can be. Now, what does concern me is when you take it to the take it too far. Why do you have to wear a hijab . Why do you need to wear i think its a kaffia . If im mistaken in my terminology, i apologize. There is still room for you to lead to your imagination. I dont think that those extra props help the situation. I think it exacerbates and plays out into the fear that is very real that particularly communities of color that have the highest interaction with the multieilitary and police structures, and it plays into the role of whos administering and making these decisions and who came to speak. And for me, that is where the challenge lies. How do you strextrapolate and n the acknowledged value of the exercise from the bull . And i hope my words havent offended anyone, but thats what i think it is. How do we begin to tease that out . Now, if we relinquish our authority as a fiscal agent, then, i think, to supervisor tangs point, grossly undermines our ability to be an authority and a leader. This is the first time that ive ever seen anyone from Alameda County come to talk about this, and i think by virtue of their presence here, and thank you for being here that that speaks to the importance of San Francisco in the entire region, so i support us being the fiscal sponsor. And as i have said in comments earlier in the year, i think thats a very serious responsibility and that we have a leadership role to play in this. You heard me chastise the leader of the law library lacking leadership. From my perspective, leaders are built over time, and through experiences, good ones and bad ones, and those experiences need to be passed down, and at some point, you need to stand up, even, and make difficult decisions, and so we are faced with difficult decisions, and im not interested in San Francisco leaving that role as being the fiscal sponsor for this. Supervisor yee has made several amendments. Some, i support, some, i do not support. Supervisor yee, when it comes to item 18, i do not support the last resolve clause that the San Francisco board of supervisors intends to establish a set of guidelines for the city and county of San Francisco for a set of exercises to participate in this grant. I do urge that no city and county of San Francisco shall extend any expo or vendor shows that include military or automatic grade weapons, but iible thati believe thats redundant. Ive had comfortable conversations with our own sheriff, and she and i have not seen eye to eye on every single item, but shes shared with me her perspective and that there is very little, little to none of San Francisco personnel participating in the exposition. Now, the exposition, i understand, is a significant revenue generator. Thats what brings the money in that allows us to move forward with these exercises, so its kind of like a catch 22. Can we exclude the vendors but still hold the exercise . I dont know. Ive posed that to someone from the controller or someone from the mayors Budget Office so we can somehow extricate ourselves and have a true exercise that is void of commercial influences. It is concerning when you have an Assault Rifle weapon being raffled off, and i assume that is to entice people to buy tickets so they can get a free rifle. Thats hard to stand here before you and support. Thats really hard. And in in a lot of the work that ive done in the year and in trying to better understand whats happening, ive had many conversations who with elected leaders in emoryville, in the smaller cities that makeup the larger Alameda County, and theres a diverse perspective. I think one thipg that is uniform that is everyone values the exercise, and i value the exercise, so my question to my staff at dem is how can we as the fiscal sponsors extrapolate the vendor portion of of of the exercise . How can we exercise more oversight and influence and ensuring that there are none xenophobic, racist, islamophobic sexist comments
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