commission room at city hall is now closed. however, members will be participating in the meeting remotely at the same extent as if they were physically present. we ask for your palm beachsinger and we may experience some issues. public comment will be available for each item on the agenda. each speaker will be given two minutes to speak. comments or opportunities to speak are available via phone by calling 877-402-9756 or 636-651-3142. the access code is 5713184 #. when you are connected, dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the queue to speak. you will be lined up in the system in the order you dial 1 and 0. the slm notify when you are in line and waiting. all callers will remain on mute until their line is open. everyone must account for the time delays and speaking discrepancies between live coverage and streaming. we suggest listeners on the phone turn down your televisions or web browsers while you're listening on the phone. if, for any reason, the queue drops or the system drops a call, you are more than welcome to e-mail the commission at recspark.commission@sfgov.org. alternatively, if you are not on the call but still wish to submit comments or questions, again, recpark.commission@sfgov.org. you may also submit comments via written -- in writing to the s.f. recreation and parks commission to our office and know that it is being record and will be available on sfgov tv right now. we are now on the president's report, item two >> thank you, stacey. this is certainly an historic time and i believe the first time that the commission has tried to entertain having a meeting by telephone but we are up to the task and i congratulate all the commissioners for being present today. i want to just make one comment that, in these challenging times, i think we can all be particularly proud of the leadership of the city, starting with the mayor and the very early and decisive action that she took to provide the guidelines and the rules for orderly conducting of business and, at the same time, having everyone in residence and trying to be six feet apart from everyone. having said that, i want to particularly congratulate the rec and park department staff for rising to the occasion and add to the leadership of the department because i think that they've been working tirelessly with the city, many of these projects don't fall necessarily within the responsibility of the department, but it shows the flexibility and the ability to respond to these issues as they arise. so, with that, that concludes my report. and i will turn it back over to secretary. >> thank you, commissioner buell. we're now in public comment. please dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the queue to speak. you will have two minutes to comment. operator: you have five questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hello. my name is nancy buson. >> and your comment? >> caller: yes. thank you, commissioners. as someone who lives in san francisco and loves our parks, i'm asking recreation and parks department to prioritize car-free spaces in golden gate park and in parks city-wide starting now and expanding immediately after the shelter in place order is lifted. >> [inaudible] a. ms. buson, you can actually make that comment on item four, general public comment because that is something that is not on the agenda. yes. thank you very much. operator: you have eight questions remaining. >> i think, stacey, you are going to have to remind people that this is not general public comment, but you're asking for comments on the president report. >> i will do that. for anyone that is currently in the queue, we are now on item 2, the president's report. if you want to respond or comment or have questions on any item that is not on the agenda, you will have time to comment on items 4 and item 8. so, again, comment right now is only on the president's report. is there someone on the line? >> i think we can move on, stacey. >> yeah. operator: you have five questions remaining. >> so if you want to get off the queue and do not want to comment on the president's report, dial 1-0 and you will be put back in the queue far later time. ok? -- for a later time, ok? operator: you have two questions remaining. >> hello, caller. you have two minutes. how can i help you? >> i think there are technical difficulties here. waiting to comment on the report. >> ok. thank you. operator: you have three questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. operator: you have two questions remaining. >> for anyone currently in the queue, we're going to go on ahead -- operator: you have one question remaining. >> sounds like a good idea, stacey. [laughter] >> yes. we're going to go ahead and move on. operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> ok. hearing no further -- operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> hearing no further callers, public comment is now closed on item two. we're now on item three, the general manager's report. >> good morning, commissioners. can everybody hear me? >> yep. >> yes. >> good morning. >> hi. good morning. i wanted to take some time today to thank you for your continueded leadership through this ongoing emergency and also to obviously wish you and your families continued health and safety as our city meets this challenge head-on. obviously as president buell noted, no one could have foreseen the widespread and profound effects that covid-19 has had on our daily lives and on our park system. and while we have been in communication about -- with each other about the developments around the virus and its effect on our parks, i wanted to share with you an update on where our department stands. to date, the following facilities are closed pursuant to the current health alert, which is effective, i believe, until may 4. those facilities and park features include sport courts, which include all basketball, tennis and pickleball courts, picnic areas, which include barbecue areas, playgrounds, outdoor fitness courts, our golf courses, swimming pools, enclosed dog parks, archery ranges, skate board parks, south sunset mission playground, garfield and franklin athletic fields. twin peaks boulevard, twin peaks road, coit tower, parking lots at ocean beach, marina green and little marina greens. golden gate park ornamental gardens, including the botanical gardens, conservatory of flowers and japanese garden. [inaudible] facilities including angler's lodge, the lawn bowling club, disc golf, carousel and [inaudible] boat house. in addition all the regular recreation program, permits, community meetings and volunteer event have been suspended and we continue to evaluate other programs and events as the situation evolves and as we get further guidance from the health department. construction on many nonessential capital projects has also been suspended, although we're pleased to note that some projects that meet essential criteria have been allowed to continue and including the chalmers playground project, which is very close to completion and garfield pool, geneva car barn, which is close to completion, the golden gate tennis project, margaret haywood park playground project, west portal playground project, the marina sea wall project and the [inaudible] security project. many, many, many other capital projects in our system have been suspended until we get guidance from our public health officials that it is ok to pursue it. i'm very pleased to note that all other parks and open spaces are currently open, in which we have ample signage encouraging behaviors around social distancing, group play, the sharing of equipment and, indeed over the last three weeks, your recreation and park department has designed, produced and distributed nearly 1,000 signs to offer people safe guidance on how to use these spaces which remain open. i do want to note that the availability of parks teachers and certain spaces in our parks continues to evolve with public health guidance. parks are no doubt playing an incredibly important role in this health order as i think you noted, president buell, they are the space not just in san francisco, but regionally, statewide and nationally where people have been exempted from shelter place orders and have been permitted to get outside and connect with nature and get some exercise. indeed, parks -- urban parks may never have been more important than they are now. there is -- there are ongoing conversations with public health officials, about future health orders and we'll keep the commission updated as the guidance we receive changes. i do want to remind everybody, again, that while parks are playing an important role, we play a supporting role. this is a health pandemic and we follow our guidance and take our leadership from public -- from our mayor and from our public health experts. and in this response, we are one city and there is one city response and we have guidance from our public health experts and elected leadership and we will do what is asked of us, whatever is asked of us. to that end, i want to highlight one thing that was asked about very early on, which was to create an emergency child care program for families of health care workers and disaster service workers and other first responders. this program has been quite valuable in the city's ability to continue to deliver health care services. as you know, our schools are closed throughout the end of the year and child care has truly become an issue for many frontline and first responders and we're very pleased to be offering this service. in partnership with the department of children, youth and family, the office of early childhood education, the department of public health, the department of human resources and the department of emergency management, the city's emergency child program is now in its fifth week. the office of early care and education is focused on our 2 to 5 population, which requires slightly more different licensing requirements. but at over 28 facilities around the city, your recreation and park department and its staff essentially on over a weekend converted our recreation centers into emergency child care operations. we are also partnering with a number of c.d.o.s who are also providing emergency child care for the k-8 population. classs will not resume for the remainder of the school year, the program will continue to operate until june and we ensure that many of our facilities can now support distance learning initiatives and i really want to thank christine naff not just for making sure that this first virtual meeting was successful, but for working with her team, our team and the city's department of technology to ensure that we can accommodate distance learning at many of our facilities. we're working very closely with the partners that i mentioned, we're receiving feedback from the department of public health and all private hospitals and, to be clear, our spaces are open for any health care worker, public or private, in the city of san francisco and any and all activated disaster service workers. and first responders. at the request of certain hospitals and our department of public health, we have early child care facilities opening as early as 6:00 a.m. and closing as late as 7:30 p.m. to accommodate a variety of different 12-hour hospital shifts. we are receiving really good feedback from participants in the program. we have approximately -- we're averaging approximately 200 enrollees in our k-8 program each week. we had another -- approximately 100 to 150 enrollees in the c.d.o. program and nearly 200 enrollees in the early care program. parents did respond to a recent survey that we distributed in our own facilities and they were very positive, offer aed very positive readings about that, facility cleanliness, activities, safety and meals with our organized and distributed through our [inaudible] families. nearly 93% of our respondents gave the program a favorable grade. i wanted to share one comment, one parent said, quote, this has been a life-saver for me. my work has been all-consuming with covid-19 and this has allowed me to serve my unit and my patients with peace of mind. the program has actually received attention across the country because of the boldness of our city's actions, which you alluded to and because the school district shut down quite, quite early. we were the first major city to operate emergency child care operation and now several cities have followed and have looked to our program as a model in their own coronavirus response. now health care workers and first responders have bourn the brunt of the fight so far. our employees across the board, including our custodians, our guardians and laborers and structural maintenance staff, of course our recreation staff to whom i just referred and our administrative staff and domestic operation center have all stepped up to help and support our communities in this time of need. really the key to the child care program success has been the amazing staff. it has been incredible and i need to take a moment to say without our custodial staff, the rest of this all shuts down. if we don't have custodians coming to work each day, and coming to often difficult environments to keep our facilities clean and safe, to keep our restaurants open, i'm not sure we would be operating a park system today. so, they really desefrk our gratitude and a thanks. our park rangers have done a remarkable job, not just working to keep our parks safe, but they have also been involve in the education and outreach about safety of our parks, encouraging people to follow the guidance of our public health officials. they've often had to engage our -- and work with our in-house population to ensure that they are safe and following public health guidance and that the spaces around them are safe. and they've had to ensure that our infrastructure, which includes our land and our buildings r safe and protected. as you know that many of our buildings, some of which are in remote locations, are now empty. in short, and our gardeners have been out there and structural maintenance staff have been out there, in short this is a moment when our city and people around the country are truly understanding that parks are essential services and our workers are indeed essential. and you should be so proud of our staff and their response to this. our attendance has been extraordinary, commissioners. and i'm really so very proud of our department. in addition to just providing continuity of operation, we've had heavy equipment truck drivers delivering masks to all city agencies and driving in r.v. vehicles used for shelter. our property management staff has been working at the emergency operations center to make spaces available for food distribution points, for shelter, if needed. we've had our communications staff involved in the city's joint information center efforts. we have staff helping to stand up in emergency volunteer operations. in total, more than 450 of our employees have been activated as disaster service workers in the last month. it has been a great effort and i'm proud to work alongside these men and women each and every day with a proper six feet of distancing, of course. one of the interesting activities i've been involved in, i participate in two weekly calls with fellow park professionals. the first call happens on fridays and it has been hosted by the national recreation of park associations and i am essentially on a panel with the directors of parks from new york city, miami, denver, seattle, chicago, los angeles, portland and, over time, many, many, many other park directors from across the country are participating and we share best practices, we share implementation questions. we forecast, you know, what might be happening two to three weeks to come and it has been a really valuable experience, not just in getting a better appreciation for what's happening in cities across the country, but, you know, we've also been able to proudly share our own best practices. once a week, i participate in a call with our regional park directors from marines, san mateo, santa clara, alameda, oakland and our public health officers from those jurisdictions and there's been a really wonderful effort that i'm very grateful for, a partnership between our public health officers and our parks directors as we discuss how to keep parks open and activated in which our public health officers have really understood the essential nature and the essential physical and a mental importance -- or importance to our physical and mental well-being of keeping spaces open and we have made -- tried to make suggestions regarding existing and future health orders and we are continuing to discuss these issues at a regional level and offer input and guidance. of course, we've also had to deal with some disappointments. this was supposed to be the meeting when we were celebrating the amazing event we had planned for april 4 in honor of golden gate park's 150th birthday. it certainly wasn't the big berth day bash we hoped and planned for. but we're doing our best to celebrate the 150th anniversary online, at home and, of course, in our hearts. the celebration which will continue throughout the year and will remain virtual as long as we need to, includes online concerts, podcasts, photo albums and virtual tours and the ability of the public to share their own personal stories and memories and special moments in golden gate park. mayor breed recently called to congratulate and thank us for providing a welcomed distraction to the public during these uncertain times. she visited the current website so i really want to thank the commission for its support of this important milestone and, again, acknowledge our staff's incredible contribution in preparation for the park's birthday, for the months of planning, beautification, fundraising and communication that preceded it. you know, everyone's dedication, determination and nimbleness in the face of adversity are a test tom the strength of our team and collective success. if you haven't done so already, both for the commission and members of public, i encourage all of you to visit goldengatepark150.com and enjoy a look back at the last 150 years in golden gate park and look forward to the next 150 and the website, i promise, has surprises each and every week. speaking of surprises, golden gate park has recently doubled in size with the addition of five young female bison introduced to the herd as part of the golden gate park celebration. the 1-year-old animals arrived from a northern california ranch where they were born in march and after spending 30 days in their own quarantine separated from the main bison herd that allowed them time to acclimate, they entered the main paddock on monday. these are the first new bison added to the paddock in eight years and brings the total number of bison in the paddock to 10 females. the bison were purchased through a generous gift through the san francisco -- to the san francisco zoological society by senator dianne feinstein and her husband dick blum. the bison herd is cared for by staff at the san francisco zoo while the recreation and parks department gardeners maintain the enclosure and one of the bison which is taged with number 160 is actually named sesqui, in honor of golden gate park's sesquicentennial. it has been a remarkable time, commissioners, and i wish everyone well and there is a lot more to come. we've got some tough -- we're going to have a couple of tough budgets to navigate and a variety of other challenges. but i remain really inspired by our team, inspired by san franciscans doing a really wonderful job complying with the public health department's social distancing guidelines. and it is really important to note the essential role that parks are playing in this pandemic. and that concludes the general manager's report. >> thank you. >> thank you. we're now in public comment. please dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the queue to speak. you will have two minutes to comment. operator: you have four questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is helen hickman. i live here in the richmond district and i quickly wanted to thank recs and park for all this amazing work and all the online things for the celebration and just wanted to give a thumbs. up. thank you. as a resident of the richmond district. >> thank you. operator: you have nine questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, this is matthew blaine is s.f. urban riders and i wanded to thank the park and commission and city staff for keeping the parks open for these times. it's so important for everyone, despite the restrictions. i want to mention that i appreciate bill being on the regional and national conversations because i really praoernlt that our bay area and san francisco leadership [inaudible] being more reactive to their approaches for this when it's so important for people to get outside. thank you for all of it. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. operator: you have eight questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is elizabeth and i also want to thank you for keeping the parks open. they have been a real lifeline through this time. i would also urge you to prioritize car-free spaces, putting people first. especially after the shelter in order place is lifted. you know, i live in a tiny studio and going to the park is really the only chance i get to go outside. but unfortunately, with all the parking and the -- i understand the joggers are trying to also maintain six feet of distance. but when joggers are in the bike lane, i need to veer out into the car lane and, you know, this is the last time i would want to be going to the emergency room. i'd really like to urge you to prioritize car-free spaces in the park. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have nine questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first and, as a reminder, if there is any comment on an item that is not on the agenda currently, you will have item four to make those comments. so if you want to wait until item four, you can dial 1-0 now and then placed back on hold and then can be joined to the queue later. right now we are taking public comments on the general manager's report. hello, caller. please state your name. >> caller: hello. this is nathan getner. my wife and i are raising a 7-year-old and 5-year-old in the city. we live on visidero near the panhandle and i'm expressing my desire for everyone to close off golden gate park to car traffic at all times. i commute with my kids to school in the morning via bike and we just hit 5,000 miles on my bike odometer, biking with the kids. and we absolutely love golden gate park. thae ear at the age now where they're learning to ride their own bikes and golden gate park is the one potential place in the city where they can ride bikes safely. but tragically it is not safe for families. on a weekly basis, my kids and i have a danger encounter with a driver in golden gate park. to choose one example, last week a woman drove her car -- >> sir? if i can, i'm just -- i'm going to interrupt you really quickly. what i yield you to do is dial 1-0 to be put back in the queue. all of these comments -- and i know we're going to have a lot of comments about car-free golden gate park -- those need to be made under either item 4 or item 8. right now we're only taking comments on the general manager's report. so i'm going to ask you again to dial 1 and then 0. when we get to item 4 or item 8, whichever we can get through first, we'll take your call then and take your comments for that particular issue. ok? >> caller: ok. thank you. operator: you have eight questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi. this is biron holly. i'm going to wait and dial 1-0 for 4. >> ok. thank you very much. thank you. operator: you have seven questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, i'm sorry. i'll also going to wait until line 4. >> thank you. operator: you have nine question remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, i'm also waiting for item 4. >> just dial 1 and then 0. operator: you have seven questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. operator: you have eight questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. operator: you have seven questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. operator: you have seven questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. [laughter] >> caller: hello. mario. commissioners, thank you for everything that you eve done to the park all throughout the years and i grew up in san francisco and lived in the richmond and i was raised in golden gate park. thank you for continuing to keep the park accessible to all people and, yes, i'll be back in line for number 4 as well. thank you very much. and keep up the great work. i know it's not easy. but everyone making demands and requests that sometimes can be difficult in these times. thank you again. keep up the good work and keep that park green. >> thank you. have. operator: you have five questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: [inaudible]. >> hello? >> caller: hello. my name is fennel. i will wait for item number 4. again, wanting golden gate park that is free of traffic violence immediately. >> ok. dial 1 and then 0 and you will be put back in the queue. operator: you have four questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: that is nathan. i think we've gone full cycle and i'm waiting for item number 4. >> ok. thank you very much. operator: you have four questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: i'm waiting for item 4. >> ok. thank you very much. so hearing no further callers, public comment is now closed. commissioners, do you have any comments or questions on this item? >> stacey, i think you need to just be clear at the conclusion when you ask for public comment on an item that you make sure that you tell them it is the item that was just heard, not general public comment so they know where to stay in the queue. >> yeah. i had to do it in the middle of that, though. thankfully most of them listened. i'm going to make sure i reiterate it at the beginning of each item until we get to item 4 and then to item 8. so, commissioners, are there any comments or questions? please be sure to state your name first. hearing none, that item is closed. we're now on item 4. general public comment. at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction to the commission that do not appear on the agenda. with respect to agenda items, you'll have opportunity to address the commission when the item is reached in the meeting. the public will have 15 minutes for item four. the mrubl then have the opportunity to continue public comment on item 8. is there anyone in the queue? operator: you have 17 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: fennel. >> go on ahead. >> caller: yeah. i am a mother who lives near golden gate park of a child who is out of school as a first grader and we use the park eke tensively. right now we're struggling with tremendous tremendous traffic violence from people who are in cars. it's absolutely outrageous. it needs to be fixed immediately. the children need a safe place and i want you to honor the outdoor bill of rights that was set forth by the park alliance, that's also in accordance with the california children outdoor bill of rightsful please comment on how you're honoring the children who live near the park who do not drive cars, but have to face their grill every day. >> thank you. operator: you have 20 questions remaining. >> caller: hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, this is nay than again. just to quickly summarize. my wife and i are raising a 7-year-old and 5-year-old in the city. we bike our kids to school every day and just hit 5,000 miles of biking with the kids over the last three years. our kids are now learning how to ride their own bikes and i take them to golden gate park and it is a completely unsafe environment for kids to ride bikes or frankly anyone to ride bikes due to car traffic. on a weekly basis, we have some type of dangerous encounter with a driver. to choose one example, last week a woman drove her car up behind my kids and i as we were riding by the bison paddock and laid on her horn and yelled at us to get out of the way. these type of encounters are 100% unacceptable. even when drivers are being well-intentioned, cars are very dangerous in the park. there's a lot of traffic. there's delivery trucks commuting through. the app directs people across the park to get through town. when you compare this to sunday when j.f.k. is closed to car, it is a wonderful place for kids to play. i ask you what is a more appropriate use of our treasure that is golden gate park for families and other individuals to play safely, learn how to ride bikes and scooters and so on, or as a road for vehicles to zoom across town. i feel there is no reason for cars to be in golden gate park. they can take lincoln or fulton or 19, which are all full lane roads with lights to get across town. i implore you to permanently close golden gate park to traffic at all times. i'm personally willing to devote an unlimited amount of my time to national -- to make this plan a reality. >> thank you. operator: you have 21 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hello. my name is dan landy and i would like to echo the comments of the previous caller. so i can keep my comments short. basically i'm in favor of car-free space more of the time, as much as possible in golden gate park. new york city recently closed off central park to cars and i think we should follow their example. the mayor there said this park was not built for automobiles. i was built for people. and i think the same should be true of golden gate park and when you're there on a sunday, it's really beautiful to see a lot of people out there, families, small children, etc. and that's what a park should look like and awould like to see golden gate park looking like that all of the time. thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have 21 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, this is mario again. as i said earlier, i grew up in the golden gate park and i grew up there on my bicycle. however, as i got older, i have a harder time riding a bicycle. and i need my car. and i love my park. unfortunately, people want to shut me out of the park that i grew up in. when you guys talk about a car-free park, don't think of it for yourselves, think of it for the city. be good stewards of the city and remember that you are going to get old and you are not going to be able to ride your bike anymore, just like me. and what are you going to do when someone says you can't come here anymore because you're old, you're not healthy, you're not white anglo, you're not whatever it is. the demographic of the people who want to shut down the park represent the few thousand people. their ideology and their requests will lock out tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people. i'm just trying to say i'm not anti-bike, i'm an avid cyclist or was. but you really need to keep the park accessible to everyone. this is an inclusive city. this is a tolerant city. i don't understand what it is you have about locking people out. thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have 22 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: my name is julia. i'd like to speak also in support of car-free space in golden gate park and other parks. i live in the outer park side and formerly in outer richmond and in golden gate park specifically, i'd like to see car-free j.f.k. all the time all the way to the west including to the beach. i'd like improved infrastructure for bikes going eastbound from j.f.k. to the panhandle and both directions on chain of lakes drive so it is easier to share that road with car traffic. i'd like improved access for car-free -- to this car-free space from both the richmond and sun set sides, particularly west of 19th avenue. it can be difficult to get into the park safely. and lastly, i'd like improved infrastructure the entire length of martin luther king drive with special attention to the intersection at middle drive west, the intersection of the bike path leading to 34th avenue exit on the sunset side and in the area from 25th avenue to crossover drive, which is often filled with auto traffic from people trying to get to the sunset and to the richmond. so particularly on the south side of our park, i feel like it is important that we just make that space be a better shared use space. really as people have mentioned before, you have these traffic apps that have increased the use of golden gate park to be a series of stoplight-free parkways for automobile traffic and none of us want that. right? what we want is a green space for everyone and we should continue to protect it as a park. thank you for your time. operator: you have 22 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. operator: you have 21 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is leonard. i first of all wanted to thank rec and park for maintaining open parks at this time when we all need the safe space to exercise and decompress. i'm also calling to ask for car-free space in golden gate park as soon as the shelter in place order is lifted. i'm a cyclist and a walker in the city. i'm already well aware of how much public space is dedicated to cars and the pan democratic that we're in is shining a spotlight on the way that cars are creating a danger and degrading city life and making it impossible in some cases to follow social distancing guidelines. golden gate park on sundays is a respite from all of this. it's a place we can get outside safely and destress. saturdays and all week, car parking and thru traffic are creating dangerous conditions. put people first and create car-free space in golden gate. >> thank you. operator: you have 21 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: my name is charlie doris. i'm a member of the access advisors of the fine arts museum of san francisco. we opposed closing j.f.k. drive year round on saturdays because it will hurt the access of disabled people to the deyoung t academy and that part of golden gate park. this is a really important issue. it deserves the attention and the focus of the city and all the stakeholders and right now we're all focused on covid-19. and that focus is not going to go away when the shelter in place is lifted. we'll be dealing with the economic and health issues for some period of time. for example, first responders who use golden gate park will still be dealing with this virus after the elt shhher in place has been lifted. and then the city and stakeholders can sit down in a collaborative way and come up with a long-term access plan that meets everyone's needs. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. operator: you have 20 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is margaret bonner. i live near the panhandle in district 5. first off, i wanted to thank you for doing this meeting over the phone. usually i have to be at work during public comment and now i can just dial in between meetings so i get excited. and i also wanted to advocate for a car-free golden gate park. golden gate park, i'm in there almost every day and it would just be great to have a spaces that prioritizes people over cars. thank you so much for all the work you do. >> thank you. operator: you have 19 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi. my name is katie burns and i also want to start off by thanking you for your work during this difficult time. i hope you and your teams are staying safe during these unprecedented challenges. i'm echoing what some of my peers [inaudible] as a park lover and avid runner, i am joining the ask for the recreation and parks department to implement more car-free spaces in golden gate park. as a response to the shelter in place order. i live in district 5 so not directly add jay -- adjacent to the park but close it tos and use the park as my yard and outdoor space and it has been a respite and really echoing what was said earlier as parks do serve as an essential service during this time. one point i do want to note that hasn't been stated is the past week the city of oakland has closed many of their streets to allow for greater social distancing. and i think this is a great opportunity for the city of san francisco to do the same. the cars in the north part of the city that are part of the national park system have already closed their parking lots, including marina green and fort mason and you can see night and day the effects that that may have made and i would like the see the city-run parks follow similar and someone else mentioned that new york city has closed parks to cars and prioritizing people in the parks. i appreciate that supervisor mar has already requested that we keep the upper great highways from lincoln to [inaudible] closed and temporarily closed due to the [inaudible] and that has sheen a great effect. articles were published in the atlantic and "new york times" that really highlight a large number of reasons, including mental health and also really points around wealth class and disparity which i appreciated. somebody else had also spoke on. i understand that not everybody is able to access the park. not everyone lives in walking or biking distance and also it really is [inaudible] -- operator: you have 19 questions remaining. you have 18 questions remaining. >> hello, call kerr. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is jared luxembourg. >> wait. there's two callers. >> caller: hello? can i get that one more time? >> caller: hi, my name is -- >> sorry. >> we have two people on the line. let's see if we can correct that. i can only have one of you speak at a time. please state your name first. >> caller: i can go first. my name is jared and i live in district 5 near alma square park. i'm a cyclist and member of the san francisco bicycle coalition. and i would like to echo the comments of others calling in to support car-free spaces in our parks. i don't have too much to add to that, but i would like to say that great highway south of lincoln, i think, has been closed to traffic for over a week. i think it has been closed for maybe even a few weeks. it has been amazing to see how skate borders and cyclists, people walking dogs, people with their families have taken back this massive four-lane highway. and it is amazing to see the people using that space, especially in this time when -- in order to use outdoor spaces, we need to stay far apart. it is really important to have more space for people and not for cars. thank you again for running the parks and thank you for taking comments as well. >> thank you. operator: you have 17 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is mike. i live in the inner richmond. thank you for all the work they do on maintaining all of our parks over the years and of course thanks for managing through these difficult times. i understand there can be a strain on the budget, having been a former finance manager. [garbling] as a former roller skieer, i'm asking rec and parks to implement car-free space in the parks. cars are first all across our city. let's put people first in the park. let's stop prioritizing parking and speeding commuters when they could be out on lincoln and fulton. for example, i go to the park super early in the morning and sometimes cars drive even faster. often it's hard to see around parked cars. let's try to keep those people from circumventing traffic. thank you so much for taking comments. appreciate it. >> thank you very much, sir. general comment item number 4 is still closed. for anyone still on the line -- operator: your conference is now in question and answer mode. to summon each question, press 1 and then 0. >> hello again. for anyone on the line, general public comment and item number 4 is now closed. we know that we have a lot of callers that want to comment about car-free golden gate park. you will have an opportunity, again, to comment on item 8. we are now on item 5, the consent calendar. commissioners? >> do you want to get public comment on the consent calendar before we pass a motion? >> do we have anyone in the queue? >> [inaudible]. >> ok. we're on general public comment. please dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the queue to speak. you will have two minutes to comment. and, again, this is item 5, the consent calendar. so, all comments should be geared toward item number 5 on the agenda. thank you. operator: you have seven questions remaining. >> i doubt that's true. i think people just have to be reminded. >> hello? >> caller: hello? >> can you -- >> caller: for 8. >> caller: ok. dial 1-0 and you will be put back in the queue. thank you. operator: you have seven questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: i'm sorry. still waiting for item 8. >> dial 1 and then 0 and you will be put back into the queue. operator: you have six questions remaining. >> hello, call kerr. please state your name. >> caller: i'll wait until item 8. >> thank you. operator: you have questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: my name is fabricio and i don't want cars in the golden gate park. >> thank you. operator: you have six questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hello. my name is richmond and i'm calling about the zoological report. i think they should give a fuller report since there's no joint zoo committee on what's a -- the status of the animal as since the city owns the animals and what is the financial status of the zoological society. and i think they should -- if they're not going to have joint zoo committee meetings, then they should come to the full board and give a report about what's going on at the zoo. thank you. >> thank you. >> caller: you have three questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: [inaudible] i'd just like to say that i live in the sunset district. yesterday i was driving down fulton and grant highway -- >> i'm sorry, sir. i'm going to stop you right there. are you commenting on item 5 on the agenda? >> caller: no. >> ok. so i need you to -- i need you to dial 1 and then 0 and when we get to item 8 -- operator: you have two questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is steve. i'm calling for item 8. >> dial 1 and then 0. and we'll put you back in the queue. operator: you have five questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: i'm still waiting for item 8. i think we've come full circle. >> hold on for just a moment. dial 1 and then 0. operator: your conference is now in question and answer mode. to summon each question, press 1 and then 0. >> are there any other callers in the queue? >> the chair will now entertain motions for approval of the consent calendar. >> this is commissioner lowe. i move to approve. >> this is commissioner harrison. i move to second. >> thank you very much. it's been moved and seconded. all those in favor? [roll call] the ayes have it. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, commissioners. we're now on the general calendar. item 6, mclaren park,-mansell tai chi court. >> hi. can you all hear me? >> hi, alex. >> good morning, commissioners, general managers and staff and everyone else on the line. thank you so much. thank you, thank you for your energy and leadership and your service during tough times. [inaudible] document for this project titled item 6, mclaren park attachment and tai chi court at mansell. you'll notice if your staff report that the engineer's estimate for this project doesn't pass the threshold for formal award but we're bringing to you because it's a proposed land use change and also it's an exciting new project that we believe you will be interested to hear about. [inaudible] to get into the document? i take that as a no. please go to page two. this outlines how the spronl very much in line with the park's strategic plan and it promotes historic and cultural use of our parks and inspires active use of our parks far wide range of age groups and it is simply an inspiring project for our team because it represents an inknow evade t*ef -- innovative system in our parks. it will be the northeast corner of mclaren park. in addition to this wark, the same bucket of fund willing go to improvements at the opposite end of the park at crocker, which i'll speak about later. page four, please. the this spronl -- this project is a tier one project of the mclaren park plan, which through community process identified as a suite of projects identified as mclaren courts. the first objective was to provide a dedicated space for tai' chi. and also included is the goal to improve access and amenities at some of our existing courts, which are already being used for activities like tai' chi. page five. this image shows how tai' chi is typically practiced at the mansell courts. this is just south of project site. so clearly no great crime has been committed here. there is nothing wrong with this picture and this is a very typical scene in our park system. however, with the growing popularity of both sports, both tennis and tie chi, one can imagine the conflicts that will eventually occur and a by providing a space of their own, we're addressing a long-term need with innovative new type of amenity that can provide a precedent for future park sites. tai' chi has been performed in our parks for half a century. page six shows an aerial zoomed in on the mansell area. page seven shows the project outlined in blue just north and downhill of the tennis courts. you'll notice that the project area is essentially replacing an existing paved area, which currently is a demissioned parking lot. the primary access point for the new court will be from the west at john s. shellee drive. page eight, please. page eight includes site images. so, starring at the bottom right actually is that primary access point i just mentioned where we'll be providing an accessible parking space. and then from the upper left, as you come in from the west, from that entry, you'll come across the [inaudible] parking lot which will essentially be replacing and then if you were to turn left in the middle of the project site, that upper middle image, so it shows a great view of downtown and the city. and then on the upper right, if you were to continue on through the project site and turn around and look back, this is what you'd see from the east. page nine. page nine is an overview of the outreach process for this project, in particular, showing how the design evolve from one consolidated space which makes it more usable for groups and how we arrived at an option that avoided paving over an existing lawn area -- [coughing] for what is already there and which is an answer to the needs of neighbors and community. page 10. and here we are at the final concept design. as you can see, the pass has been realigned to the back of the plaza in order to provide uninterrupted views and the space has been surrounded by berms and planting. you'll see under the trees there, under the canopy benches lining the back of the plaza looking north, which make this is a usable space for groups like tai' chi -- [sneezing] food camps and also more practices, so like folks going for walks and stopping to enjoy the view. page 11, please. this is a look at how the plan relates to existing conditions. so you can see the existing paved area there and the dash line and the plaza will essentially replace that. the plaza, again, shown in gray. and then sections to the right that show how berms and planting will reduce the effects of winds for users and provide a really nice nice of enclosure in the space. page 12, this page shows another project that will be built using the same source of funding. images at the top show these bright newly surfaced courts that are well-used for a variety of things including tai' chi currently. and yet they don't have any accessible paths to them from moscow street. so, this project provides accessible paved paths from the street as well as some seating along the perimeter and trees to provide some shelter at the corners of the courts to really make them even more yaoublz than they are today. page 13, it's just to say thank you again and that concludes our presentation and i'll be happy to answer any questions that you have on the project. >> thank you, alex. we are now in public comment for item 6, mclaren park. if you are commenting on item 6, please dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the queue to speak. you will have two minutes to comment. >> wait 10 seconds. operator: you have one question remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: my name is catherine. can you hear me? >> yes. >> caller: ok. i want to speak on behalf of the tai' chi group that has been practicing tai' chi in mclaren park for over 15 years. i myself have been practicing in the park over 10 years so we see a lot of changes and the -- for the past 15 year, we've been using the abandoned tennis court to practice tai' chi, which was an unsafe facility for us. and our group was ranging from, you know, 30 to 50 people in different times. so, we are very excited that the park is going to have a new facility for us. i once, you know, tai' chi has become very popular in the city. it's not only people practicing in mclaren park, but golden gate park and also in chinatown. so, really excited. thank you, everybody, you know, for their hard work and we really look forward to the court in order to practice. one thing i do like to mention, you know, the court is fantastic. but we were worried about weather because right now we can only do it when the weather is nice, not rainy or windy as we know that part of the city is always windy. so unfortunately, you know, during the design phase, you know, we raised our concern. but didn't get any actions on that. but all in all, we're welcomed and can't wait for the facility to be opened to us. thank you so much. >> thank you. operator: you have one question remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, this is kelly torres. i'm a resident in the neighborhood and i just wanded to thank san francisco rec and park for coming out and listening to the residents that frequent that section of the park as well as the whole park and the park visitors in making changes to this vision. it is a really great plan. we are looking forward to having that section of upper mclaren park a little bit more manicured and, yes, you know, this is the portala. it is windy and we get the nice, heavy drizzly fog and that is just the nature of this neighborhood as well as other parts of san francisco. it's what makes san francisco fantastic. and all of us who go out to the park and stand in the fog and the wind, we are really excited to see this new plan take place. so that we can all do our tai' chi out at the top of the hill and overlooking the city. thank you very much. it's just a thank you comment to everyone involved. it is going to be terrific. it's going to be lovely. >> thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have one question remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: nancy buffham. thank you very much for all your work. i look forward to a continuing, healthier outdoor environment for san francisco when our shelter in place restrictions are lifted. i would like to reinforce the request of other speakers to end commuter traffic -- >> hello? i'm going to -- ma'am, i'm going to ask you to call back for item 8. this is public comment for -- >> caller: i'm sorry. >> no. it's ok. you can call back and we will definitely take your call. ok? operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> seeing no further callers, public comment is now closed. commissioners, do you have any comments or questions? >> hearing none. >> general manager, do you have any comments or questions? >> caller: no, other than to thank alex and my staff for really listening to the community and for what is a great design. >> thank you very much. seeing no further questions, the chair would entertain a motion and would the motioners please state their name and the seconder as well. >> this is commissioner allan lowe. i move to approve. we all need to take a deep breath and approve this project. [laughter] >> this is commissioner tom harrison and i second that. >> moved by commission kerr lowe, seconded by commissioner harrison. all those in favor -- >> aye. >>en and all those opposed? hearing none, it is unanimous. thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioners. we're on item 7, golden gate tennis center, renovation project contract increase. >> good morning, commissioners. i'm kelli ruddnick, project manager with the capital anden mraiing division. can you hear me? >> yes. >> great. >> thank you, kelli. >> thanks. please refer to the staff report for golden gate tennis center renovation project contract increase. today i'm requesting your approval to amend the construction contract for the golden gate park tennis center renovation project to increase the contract amount by up to $500,000, bringing the total to $2,057,500, which is greater than 10% over the approved contract amount of $2,075, 500. i was approved last year at the september 4, 2019 commission meeting. construction on the tennis center started last fall and is currently under way. the city administrator has deemed this project essential construction and, as of now, the project has not experienced delay. construction is estimated to be complete this year. this portion of the work is for the pg&e upgrades necessary to the site. pg&e did not release their contract to us until after the bids came in. once we understand the skoem of work, we realized in order to maintain the schedule and control costs, it would be better for the tennis center contractor to perform this work. when we received the cost proposal from the contractor, we believed issuing a change order for this work to the tennis center contractor would give us more control over the schedule and be more cost effective. note that this is not a request for additional funding. to recap, today i'm requesting your approval to amend the construction contract for the azul works to increase the contract amount by up to $500,000 bringing the total to $2,057,500 over the original amount. we are excited to move forward with this project. let me know if there are any questions. >> hearing none, let's go to public comment on this item. >> hello, we're now in public comment. please dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the queue to speak. you will have two minutes. and just as a reminder, the comment right now we are looking for is on item 7, golden gate tennis center. >> thank you, stacey. >> hear nothing further callers, public comment is now closed. commissioners, do you have any concerns or questions? hearing none, general manager, do you have any comments or questions? >> no. my thanks to kelli and team for managing this super exciting and important project. >> thank you very much. the chair will now entertain a motion and a second. >> i would like to move approval through this. this is commissioner anderson. >> thank you. >> this is commissioner bonilla motioned and will second that motion. >> and moved and seconded. all those in favor -- >> aye. >> all those opposed? hearing none, it's unanimous. thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioners. we're now on item 8, general public comment. at this time, members of public who were not able to address the commission on item 4 may address the commission on items that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the recreation and park commission and do not appear on the agenda. operator: you have nine questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: this is kristen lucky. >> ok. go on ahead. >> caller: perfect. good morning, president buell and commissioners. my name is kristen and i'm a community organizer on staff at the san francisco bicycle coalition. i'm calling in today on behalf of our 10,000-plus members to ask you to prioritize the expansion of car-free space in golden gate park immediately after the shelter in place order is lifted. this has been in the works for years. we've collected data time and time again to prove the case for car-free spaces in the park. including working with over 30 volunteers from the bike coalition and rec and park to collect parking council. in 2018, i personally hosted a site visit with the mayor's office on disabilities, rec and park and the disability council members and accessibility coordinators at both institutions to decide on a list of accessibility improvements that could be implemented in the park during closures. now it's up to rec and park to get these in place. we don't need another traffic study to tell us what we already know. there are too many cars speeding in the park and there is more than enough parking spots for those who need parking outside of j.f.k. drive. it's not just a small subset of cyclists asking for this space. the 350 letters that you received over the last two weeks are from neighbors, all ages and abilitis that bike, walk, drive through the park, business owners and families. i hope you really listen to those stories being shared today. i'm looking to you, our leaders, for park spaces in san francisco to be vocal, step up and create bold solutions. the parks commission is a vital piece of the puzzle. you must be responsive to people who have been speaking up and a engaging. we've seen folks like chronicle rider heather wright and supervisor matt haney and countless others asking the city to do more but it has been silent. you have the power to make the right decisions. you have the knowledge and background they need -- >> thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have 11 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> hi, my name is olivia. i first just thank you very much for keeping the parks open. it's been wonderful during this stressful time. i am a medical doctor a mother of two small children and richmond resident and as a physician i've been working through this crisis. i commute to work through golden gate park. and i think it is pretty ironic that the most dangerous part of my day is commuting to work. rather than covid-19. my physician -- my husband is also a physician and emergency room doctor. he also commutes to work through the park. and, again, we're asking for a safe park and car-free space so that people can get to and from work. people can enjoy recreation opportunities and we don't have to worry about traffic violence. we have seen many people in our medical careers who have been hit by cars on j.f.k. drive while they are walking and biking. i don't know if people appreciate the human toll, but people are getting hurt badly in our parks. people who are coming here for recreation and fresh air or to get from a to b are being hurt badly, some even killed. and i think that's a bad look for recs and park to have people being hurt when they're just trying to enjoy the outdoors. so i'm asking you, once sheltser in place is lifted, for more car-free space in golden gate park. thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have 13 questions remaining. >> hello, call kerr. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is jessica jenkins. can you hear me? >> yes. >> caller: ok. thank you. my name is jessica jenkins. i live in the lower haigt. i have a son whose name is otis. he is 5 years old. we don't have a yard and golden gate park has been a lifeline, especially during the shelter in place. thank you very much for keeping it open. we already were going to golden gate park on a weekly basis and now it is closer to a daily basis. he is 5 now and learned to ride his bike in golden gate park when he was 3 on a sunday when the streets were closed to traffic. and then he -- when he started school, he has been riding his bike to school every day. and so we have had some pleasant experiences in golden gate park but i wanted to share a scary incident that happened last week. we were biking from overlook to middle drive and ended up on m.l.k. and we were in -- driving in the middle of the lane as we're legally allowed to and now it is pretty important to take the lane. there are lots of pedestrians walking in the street to avoid other pedestrians on the sidewalk and maintain six-foot distance and as we were biking, a car came up and passed us very close on our right, actually. between us and a pedestrian who's walking in the street. and it was incredibly scary. a very close call. i've had many incidents with being endangered by cars in golden gate park so i'm asking, and as are many others, to please make more car-free spaces and build better bike infrastructures around places like m.l.k. and then also sort of addressing other issues of accessibility. operator: you have 13 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: yes. my name is zack benson. i've been living in san francisco for over seven years now. and i became a homeowner just one block south of golden gate park. i am very much in support of closing down j.f.k. to car traffic. [inaudible] the sunday closure to saturday, if not even more. and i'm sure you'll hear a lot of reasons why you should do so and i really appreciate you taking the time to listen to them. i do want to take a minute to address some of the concerns that others have expressed on -- from item 4. both from the fine arts commission, which i find to be a little bit troubling that the museums that are in the park do not have any other creative ways of making ways for their museums to be more accessible. the museums are great. i'm a member of both. but, again, the best way to get to those parks not to drive to them through the park. there are already underground parking structure which is would not be closed. there is ways that parking could be increased. and there is buss that go through the park as well. [inaudible] is probably less than 200 yards from street park on fulton avenue. also for those concerned about the accessibility of the park, if cars are not able to drive through, i think the main point is that we're attempting to have cars not drive through. that cars are having to park on the outside and people come into the park. i don't see why that would be different for anyone who has differentty walking. if anything, it would be safer to not be worried about crossing crosswalks where cars would be zipping through and injuring people. so i think it makes the park more accessible. it makes the park -- the museum specifically more beautiful. operator: you have 13 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi. my name is matt. i'm a father of a 2-year-old, husband of a pregnant wife and, until august, the son of a father who use add wheelchair. and i strongly support more car-free space in golden gate park. like the last caller, there's many ways to address the accessibility of our museums and other spaces in the park. i appreciated that whenever i took my disabled father to the deyoung that we actually got free admission. that was a great service from that museum. the way we access the park was by driving a car into the underground garage off of fulton street. and had very close, accessible access to the museum. i think we can both have car-free space and have access for people like my father. additional outside of golden gate park, i want to suggest to our director ginsberg to work with sfmta to modify things like fulton street where you can store a car for seven days without moving i. why not make this metered parking or four-hour parking? and then additionally, the panhandle path right now is unusable with people walking, running, biking and to be able to maintain social distance. can you please work with director tumlin to create a protected walking, biking running line. and then finally i want to thank you for what's happened at twin peak where is we now have a new park that is not a racetrack for people in their porsches. please never bring cars back to our great mountain park of twin peaks. visit carfreejfk.com. this movement is happening. operator: you have 12 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi. my name is helen hickman. i use golden gate park nearly every day. and i really like the car-free subjects. -- sundays. by agree with those who started golden gate park that this park should be for all people. i have a disabled neighbor that i take there and feel that this is the only way that she can get there. and there are other accessible ways i am hearing of now. i'm calling actually from a resident that, as a richmond resident, where parking on sundays is nearly impossible in my neighborhood when you do not have a parking spot and i need to use my vehicle. it takes at least 30 minutes or more to find a spot. we have parking meters that will ticket us if we park in driveways and we're not permitted. fi question is for those who will be coming to the park, if it is car-free, where will they be parking and how will their neighbors of the richmond district not be impacted by the extra use of cars coming into our neighborhood looking for parking and lyft drivers and the such. i also and the president of the san francisco tour guide guild and i'm seeing that we have about 26 million visitors that come to our city a year and we hope that keeps happening after covid-19 resolves itself. and i feel that every one of these visitors should be able to have the opportunity to come, even those that are disabled and be able to tour the city through a bus, through the city. i feel that it would be important before this is done that we have comprehensive studies for all of this, to make sure that the park should be available for all neighbors, bike ♪ ♪-bike-free and for tourism as well. thank you for all your hard work. >> thank you. operator: you have 12 questions remaining. >> caller: i'd like to remind everyone, public comment is two minutes. hello, caller. please state your name. >> caller: hi, my name is marcel moran, a ima san francisco resident and member of the s.f. bike coalition. today i'm joining the growing chorus of voices calling for the opening of j.f.k. drive to uk waters, runners, parents and cyclists. currently it privileges the automobile above all other modes. there are approximately 10 miles of free car parking in the park on top of the 13 surface parking lots. 13. not to mention the underground lots. at the same time, there is not a single mile of fully separated bike lanes class four. the subsidizization of car use works against many of san francisco's goals, including increased transit ridership, vision zero and improving our air quality. it is inconceivable if we were designing j.f.k. drive from scratch, we would end up with the car-centric layout that we have. as san franciscans elsewhere make great progress, it stands out. we're asking you in the midst of a global pandemic to match the ambition in other cities of reclaiming streets for people when the need for such space so high. thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have 11 questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is darby. as a biker and walker who lives in san francisco, i'm asking the recreation and parks department to implement car-free spaces in golden gate park immediately after the elt shhher in place order is lifted. i know that a lot of comments have already been made on this point and the only thing that i wanted to point out is spatially what happens in the park when there are cars. so what happens when there are cars is this space for the pedestrians and the bikers gets limited. and that is especially important in this time of coronavirus because we need to keep socially distancing ourselves after this is lifted and we need more space between the people to be able to do that. so, closing the streets in the middle allows for that space. in between beakers and pedestrians. i think that is especially important after this time because coronavirus is going to continue to be an issue for a while after the shelter place order is lifted. so, yeah. i would like to thank you very much for everything that you are doing. thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have 10 questions remaining. >> caller: hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, good morning. my name is carrie, a ima resident of the richmond district and i'd like to echo the comments of my fellow residents in advocating for a car-free golden gate park. the last caller mentioned something -- the only thing i have in addition to add is to add on to what she commend on, which is even in a time where we're sheltering in place, the use of golden gate park is not safe and it is extremely difficult and a bit impossible to follow a social distancing rule when a lo of the sidewalks in the park don't allow for that. so you have runners moving either into the grass, some of them are moving into the bike lanes and the bikers are moving into the car lane to maintain social distancing and that is where a lot of the problem starts. even though i know that there is a lot of motivation for a golden gate park, it's something for us to really look into today that the way that golden gate park is designed makeses it difficult to do social distancing accurately and correctly and it does create more danger. thanks. >> thank you. operator: you have 10 questions remaining. >> hello, please state your name first. >> caller: hi, i'm kristen potter and i'm a resident of the richmond district. i'm calling because i have two children, ages 3 and 6 and under normal circumstances, we would spend many hours a week at city playgrounds as well as visiting golden gate park and now that the playgrounds are closed we're able to go to the park every day, either running, walking and biking. we are so grateful to the park department for their work and for keeping the parks open. our full enjoyment of the space is hindered by the large amount of dangerous car traffic that goes through the park especially in the outer avenues along j.f.k. drive where cars tend to go really fast and don't -- they are not careful when it comes to looking out for pedestrians and bikers. so i just wanted to echo the other comments that have been made and say that i'm proud of our city's leadership and response to covid-19 and this is another area we can show some more leadership to open up more car-free spaces. we need to have a healthier and happier community and we need to be able to prioritize people over cars in this moment. that's it. thank you. operator: you have nine questions remaining. >> please state your name first. >> caller: operator: you have eight questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is courtney. >> go ahead. >> caller: hi. i'm an s.f. resident and proud member of the s.f. bicycle coalition. i strongly believe we need to expand car-free spaces not just on j.f.k. drive but in golden gate park in general. we should absolutely do that after the shelter in place is lifted but i also think that we should consider doing it now to give more space to folks who need to get outside, either for mental health or get to an essential job in a responsible way. as someone who bikes regularly throughout the park, i've been harassed by drivers asking me to stay in the bike lane, which on most parts of the j.f.k. drive isn't even a bike lane, it is a parking lane and i've been passed by cars spaoing through the park wrecklessly. the difference [inaudible] and we need to open up the park like that every day. i know that there are some concerns about access for folks with disabilities and i absolutely believe that we should and can take appropriate steps to ensure that the park is accessible to folks throughout the city, including those with mobile disabilities. but evidently the way to make that happen and has done incredible work so i'm grateful to them for that and the s.f. bicycle coalition advocating for this for years. i hope that you will support and approve more car-free spaces in golden gate park as soon as reasonably possible. thank you. thank you. >> caller: operator: you have eight questions remaining. >> please state your name first. >> caller: this is dave alexander. >> go on ahead. >> caller: great, thank you. i'm with the richmond family transportation network here in the richmond district. i have two children and no yard. i just want to thank park and rec for their leadership throughout san francisco. you've done such a good job. that is why golden gate park has turned into middle earth because it is so beautiful so thank you. the biggest issue that i'm seeing is due to a transportation management plan for people with disables. we can make this happen. the park can make this happen. also, my kid and families, use the park on a daily basis. we're not just weekenders who use the park. lastly is pollution and violence. do we really want the crown jewel of our park system to be known for pollution? absolutely not. lastly, we want to continue to work with deyoung and the academy around designing the park for all users. >> thank you. operator: you have seven questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: my name is rick girling and a member of the s.f. bike coalition. i live in bernal heights, which is a hill [inaudible] to get to by bicycle and i have two kids and i see the neighbor's kids all around. this is a place where a kid can't learn to ride a bike. we need flat areas with no cars that are protected like golden gate park. i would also like the say that i am old and [inaudible]. she is 83 years old whiz by me. so, these old people who want car-free golden gate park, speaking of tourists, i just [inaudible] travel to places where i can cycle freely. amsterdam, germany, austria, all of these places have places where you can cycle freely and we need to have that here in san francisco. just like they're doing in new york, london and i applaud oakland for opening up their streets. the panhandle is horrible. they need to open up a lane. going through the panhandle is horrendous. there is way too much traffic. lastly, i'd like to say that [inaudible] fantastic so many people will be enjoying it and really should be on a permanent basis. that has been so wonderful. i think we need to turn [inaudible] into a really good thing and learn from it and make these change permanent rather than temporary so people can enjoy the resources we have in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you, sir. operator: you have six questions remaining. >> hello, call kerr. please state your name first. er. please state your name first. >> caller: he low, this is matthew [inaudible] again and i wanted to [inaudible]. i think now that the general public understands the dire situation we're in, i'm hoping that the park department will work with public health and come up with some sort of system to identify places which can be closed to cars where there is overcrowding. this is happening in a number of places in the city. thank you. >> thank you. operator: you have four questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, i'm jodie and i'm the executive director of walk san francisco. i want to thank president buell and the commissioners for this opportunity to speak. walk san francisco asks that you prioritize j.f.k. and golden gate park after the shelter in place is lifted. the data has been collected. we know how many people are accessing the park, who's using the garage, the needs and services for people with disain'tses to access and we know that thousands of people have been asking for and advocating for car-free j.f.k. for more than a decade. we believe this was possible and also essential for our city. j.f.k. has speeding cars and dangerous conditions, community members have lost their lives because of these dangerous drivers. doing what's needed to save lives from interest-driving behavior should be nonnegotiatable. parks should be for people. we need more car-free space for our health, safety and well-being as a society. we have a new era. walking and biking is more essential for our health and well-being more now than ever. and this is an opportunity for the parks commission to be a true leader in granting more car-free space in our city and in golden gate park. thank you. operator: you have four questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, my name is shannon. thank you for taking this call. i just wanted to say i'm a runner, a biker, a dog owner and i live one block from golden gate park and i use the resource there is daily and i'm asking that you do not close it to cars. i live in the richmond and as a small business owner i have to have my car to transport my supplis to my business to keep it in operation. and i cross the park regularly and i unfortunately have to have my car and that is a reality for many of us. if there is true concern for safety, which i believe that there possibly is, please increase police presences to monitor both cars and bikers and pedestrians and to make sure that everyone is following the rules. our small businesses right now are really suffering and we beg you not to make it more difficult for us by eliminating our parking, our customer's parking and blocking access. so, please do not do this without further research on how it is going to impact our businesses. thank you very much. >> thank you. operator: you have four questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi, this is jay bane. i appreciate the last comment from the business owner who's concerned about access to the park for essentially driving through the park. as a thorough fare as well as utilizing the park for parking for customers and the business's customers. i understand that we need to balance the availability of parking throughout the city. to enable commerce, transportation and the use of all the available curb space by as many residence and business as pond. -- as possible. i live in the richmond district and i commute through the park on a bicycle and walk in the park with my family frequently. the thing for me is that when the park is full of cars, it's a dramatically different experience for everyone. i do appreciate that some people have to drive a long way to get to the park or use transit or however they get to the park. i don't think the park is the best place for them to store their cars while thae ear visiting the park. you see hundreds of cars lined up in the middle of what is a beautiful space. you can't really unsee it or which one of these doesn't belong here. so while i do appreciate the logistic side of things and before i lived close to the park, i [inaudible] in the parking lot somewhere. but i would gladly trade off my convenience for an opportunity to make the parks a greater place in the 21st century. i also wanted to mention i'm on the pedestrian safety advisory committee for district 1. and all too frequently, i see cars speeding through j.f.k. drive >> sir, your time is up. >> caller: thank you very much. >> thank you. operator: you have three questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hello, my name is mike and i'm a member of s.f. bike coalition and walk s.f. i'm calling to support closing j.f.k. drive and golden gate park to cars and adding more space that prioritize people, including people walking, people biking and people who use the park for all sorts of things. i really think this would improve safety and actually be a benefit to the park and increase the park's appeal to people. thank you very much. >> thank you. operator: you have three questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> i'm christian and i'm a resident on madison and irving and business owner. i use the park for walking, biking and by car. and i really think we need to come together. it's not just going to be one way, this is how it works. and that is because the park is used for everybody's purposes. everybody that rides a bike probably three quarters still have a car. and they probably use it for a thorough fare or some kind of need. but you have to think about what happens when you do something like that to close it. you have accidents, that are happening on the surrounding streets, you have parking that are heavily affected and you have businesses that are going to be affected including ours which you love and including a proposition. they frequent these businesses. they're going to be affected heavily. they're affected heavily now. and we need to think of it as a whole together to the absolutions that work for everybody. and having one direction, one thing happen, isn't going to work. including the deyoung, academy of sciences and all businesses around the area. that everyone frequents and loves. thank you. operator: you have two questions remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. hello? operator: you have one question remaining. >> hello, caller. please state your name first. >> caller: hi. this is byron holly and i want to say i'ming thatful for golden gate park and the rec and park association. you've done a fantastic job. i think given what other people have already said, i think in other words to accommodate accessible, there needs to be some ability for people to travel into the park. but closing off more space in the park makes a lot of sense. makes a lot of sense, given the fact that it's 150th birthday. i can't think of a better way to celebrate with him, to open it especially during this time for more people. i was just in the park this past weekend. i have been walking to the grocery store and going on bike rides with my kids in the park. and we had an auto driver [inaudible] me and i went out into the car lane, they were far back from us and i had to do that because there was so much -- there were people running in the bike lane and bicyclists coming into the bike lane as well and they yelled at me and my 6 and 8-year-old children, which is not acceptable. to open it up, to be more pedestrian-friendly and allow for social distancing or physical distancing, i think makes a lot of sense. but, yes, we still should be able to accommodate some amount of accessible for people with disabilities. that's it. thank you. >> hearing no further callers, public comment is now closed. commissioners, do you have any concerns or questions? >> no, i think we should move on to the next item. >> great. item 9, commissioner's matters. this item is designed to allow commissioners to raise issues that they believe the commission should address. commissioner? >> this is commissioner mcdonnell. is there a point plan where we'll have a discussion regarding the -- all that we just heard in public comment around parks including j.f.k. >> commissioner, i think we raised this over a period of time. there's been an extense tiff studying of the issue with m.t.a. with the bike coalition among others. once we return to normalcy, we can keep the commission updated on the discussion. >> commissioner mcdonnell, does that answer your question? >> caller: it answers what the process will be. it doesn't, candidly, satisfy my interest in not having a report back on the finalty versus an opportunity for discussion. so i appreciate being updated on process, but i don't want to get an update that says "here's what we decided." >> commissioners, i don't think we're deciding anything. i will remind you that more lengthy and permanent changes that alluded to during public comment are a caoefm of ordinance, not commission resolutions. so, the commission can weigh in or not, based on whether it wants to [inaudible] a particular direction. but the change needs to happen at city hall and so, you know, we've been [inaudible] a portal of information and convening and data gathering in partnership with m.t.a. and other park stakeholders for sure. i don't think i answer aed about process or resolve. we'll try to keep you apprised of the discussion continues. >> seems to meta -- to me that maybe we could get a report on perhaps what the mood of city hall is around this issue if it is going to be initiated there. if city hall is looking to rec and park to initiate something, we ought to have that discussion as well. hearing no further comments, perhaps we should move on on the agenda. >> yes, sir. we are on item 10, new business and agenda setting. >> commissioners? >> mr. president? commissioner harrison here. i don't know if this is under new business, by would like to take point of personal privilege in thanking our i.t. people and specifically stacey white, the general manager's assistant, for the work of getting this meeting together with such great success. and steering this ship through this. [laughter] so i'd like to get that on record. >> i'd consider that a fine idea and i second that 100%. stacey and i had -- >> and i third it. [laughter] >> stacey and -- >> me, too. >> stacey and i met two days ago in phil's very dark office, six feet separated, and it was clear that she and the i.t. staff had done quite a bit of work to gear up for this. so our first time at it was not too bad at all and congratulations. >> caller: not too bad. i want to specifically thank her for the great assistance with our folks downtown because i lost my connection. i -- a pass word was expired so it was getting -- stacey sat there last night, overtime till -- [laughter] and sat through this until, i don't know, whatever time, it was late, and the guy finally got me straightened out so i could have access to my board vantage and i certainly appreciate that. >> great. >> very good. >> excellent effort. >> dully noted. >> we'll give stacey the fourth of july and 30th of november off. [laughter] >> thank you very much. >> it was extraordinary. extraordinary. thank you. >> president buell? this is commissioner bonilla. >> yes? >> yes. i would like to thank you, stacey and our general manager for making this meeting possible. think it was a very timely meeting for us to be able to hear from the public, for them to be able to express their -- what they're feeling at this particular time. and i just want to say that i concur with the general manager's recommendation as regards some of the matters that were brought before us. >> very good. thank you, commissioner. let's -- hearing no more commissioner matters, let's move to new business and agenda setting. >> any items? >> hearing none, do we have any communications? >> this is a bit of an update. there were -- when the agenda were printed there were over 250 e-mails regarding the closure of golden gate park to cars. i believe now we are up. to about 4 -- somewhere between 400 and 500. but those were the only communications. >> stacey, i wonder if it wouldn't be helpful, if it's possible, for you to do or have someone to do to simply sort between those who support closure and those who don't just to give us some idea rather than anticipate that all the commissioners would read all 450 e-mails. >> i will work on that for you. >> thank you. have. >> you're welcome. >> any other communications? >> that's it. >> hearing none -- >> that item is closed can. we're on adjournment. >> we are. the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn this rather historic meeting, and before i entertain a motion, i want to thank all the commissioners forer -- for their patience and diligence and thank the general manager of the staff and stacey and the i. t. people. >> thank you. >> [inaudible]. >> this is commissioner lowe. move to adjourn. >> second. >> second. >> all right. >> seconded. all those in favor? >> aye. >> everybody stay safe. >> everybody stay well. >> stay well, everybody. >> all right. thank you, one and all. >> thank you. >> bye. >> good morning. the meeting mr. come to order. thithis is the april 17, 2020 regular meeting of the. commission. our clerk is here and i would like to thank jason from sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting. do you have any announcements? >> yes. due to the covid-19 health emergency, and to protect commissioners, staff and public, city hall is closed. commissioners will participate in the meeting remotely to the same extent as if they were physically present. public comment will be available for each item. cachannel 26 andsfgovtv will st. comments will be available by calling 18882045984. dial the access code 350-1008. then press pound and press pound again. when you are connected, dial 1 and 0 to be adde added to the qo speak. all callers will remain on mute until their line is open. everyone should account for time delays and speaking discrepancies between live coverage and streaming. best practice call from quiet location, speak slowly and turndown your television or radio. you may have submit public comment in either of the following ways. e-mail me. if you submit via e-mail it will be in the legislative file as part of the matter. written comments may be sent through the u.s. post office to city hall. 1 carleton place room 244, san francisco, california 94102. that concludes my remarks. >> thank you very much. can you please call item 1. would you like me to call the roll first? >> yes, please. >> chairperson fewer. present. >> commissioner pollock. here. >> commissioner haney. >> present. >> commissioner mar. >> not present. commissioner singh. >> present. >> madam chair, you have a quorum. >> thank you. can you please call item 2. >> approve of the lafco minutes from the february 21, 2020 meeting. are there any callers for this item? press one and zero now to be added to the list. >> checking our public comment. >> is there anyone in the list? >> no caller to speak. >> public comment is closed. would someone like to make a motion to approve the lafco minutes from the meeting of february 21, 2020. >> so moved. >> second. >> roll call vote, please. >> on the motion to approve the minutes. commissioner fewer. >> aye. >> commissioner pollock. >> aye. >> commissioner haney. >> aye. >> commissioner maris absent. you have three ayes. >> item 3 community companies activities report. >> thank you very much. we asked mr. hyams to present on covid-19 on clean power sf. he is klein joining -- joining us today. >> can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> great. once again. i am the director of clean powers sf for the san francisco public utilities commission. i want to say i hope everyone is healthy and safe and remain that way as we navigate through this challenging pendemic. as the commissioner mentioned the executive officer asked me for a short update how the clean power sf program is giving given current events around covid-19. clean power sf is fully operational. our electricity service will not be impacted by covid-19. we recognize that the society response has required sacrifice and many members of the community are facing economic hardship. i wanted to take this moment to emphasize we are here to help our community. we have created a covid-19 information page on our website. we continue to update this page with the latest information on covid-19 response and support service as it relates to clean power sf elect service. you can find it at our website. in addition to making sure that we are communicating efficiently with our members of the community and customers, a number of measures have been taken by the city and county and the state of california to ensure that electricity customers have access to electric service. first, if a customer is unable to pay the electricity bill, power will not be shut off. this is part of the emergency proclamation of march 13th and the governor's executive order of march 16th. pursuant to the emergenc emerger payment delinquency. flexible payment plans are also available to support clean power sf customers. customers interested in more information can find that on our website at the page i mentioned before. pg&e is providing additional support to medical baseline customers for the next 12 months starting as of the beginning of march. that additional support includes suspending all customer removals from the medical baseline program. customers will also be able to recertify -- excuse me. not need to recertify eligible through a doctor or other eligible medical professional during this period of time. customers will be able to self-certify eligibility to enroll in the medical baseline program. for information the medical baseline program increases the allotment of energy available at the lowest price to qualifying customers. if any members of the public are interested in applying for this program they can find more information on our website. some customers may qualify for monthly discounts on electricity bills through the california alternate rates for energy or care program. under care qualifying households save 20% or more each month on the energy bills. the public and members of -- customers can obtain information on the website about eligibility in this program. finally, i wanted to highlight clean power sf customers will receive a $35.73 credit and $17.87 on their may and june bills respectively under the california climate credit program. this program provides credit to customers using revenues from the state of california greenhouse gas cap and trade program. to help with the economic impact of the covid-19 response, the second of the two credits which is for october each year is provided this year in may and june. the october amount is split 50/50 across the months of may and june. that is where the $17.87 comes from. shifting gears to our staffing and operations. our staff is now mostly working remotely with only staff members reporting to the head quarters to support department mental emergency operations or complete tasks that must be done there. for example, receiving mail and sorting and distributing it. staff are reporting to the office or field operations are following personal safety and using protective equipment. on the power supply side. we have had no problems with our supply of power or our solver's ability to operate. however, shelter-in-place has impacted construction schedules and disrupted disapply chains for -- supply chains for new development. we are in communication with clean power sf. i am happy to report that neither of the two projects under construction this year have reported delays. these projects are expected to begin operations and deliver the power in september and december of this year respectively. on the demand side of our business, as you might expect, the shelter-in-place order was issued on march 17. we have seen a reduction in clean power surge of 7 to 9% relative to pre-shelter-in-place usage. as for the specific customer groups, we are seeing trends similar to what other community choice energy programs in the bay area are also reporting. with most households in place we have seen an increase in residential customer usage of about 12%, and with only essential businesses open we have seen when a 20 to 25% decrease in nonresidential customer usage. we will be tipping to track and analyze the customer usage and demand to understand the impact to our business and also to individual customer groups and will share further information as it becomes available. that concludes my prepared remarks for the meeting. i am happy to take questions from the commissioners. >> thank you very much. commissioners, any comments or questions? i see commissioner marhas joined us. any comments or questions for mr. hyams? seeing none, i have a question. >> i will go after you. thank you. >> please go ahead. >> thank you so much for the report. one of my questions had to do with whether or not customers would be sent back to pg&e for nonpayment. i am pleased to hear that clean power sf has decided to take the stance of not returning customers to pg&e and no shutoffs. that is all good news. i wanted to ask the decrease in usage. what do you attribute that to or do you? >> yes, the principal thing that i attribute it to is some businesses are closed. all nonessential businesses are closed for the time being. just the reduced traffic in our office buildings and other businesses throughout the city as a result of the shelter-in-place. the figures that i shared, we are seeing a pretty significant reduction in commercial customer or non-residential usage as high as quarter of normal usage has disappeared. as we know, people are working from home. we have seen residential usage increase. it hasn't compensated one for one. there is more commercial demand reduction than residential demand growth. >> that makes sense. i wanted to ask not included in your report is there a recovery plan? do you know in the city or if you have a sense of how economically we recover from covid-19? is there something built in, you know, future planning for recovery period whenever that should be? >> i think that planning work is being under taken right now as we speak. i think that we are coordinating clean power sf recovery planning with sfp city-wide planning. that is coordinating with the city and mayor's office. i know the regular budget process is suspended for the year so there is work done to forecast the expected impacts on the economy and what that might mean for the budget. we are similarly making our own sort of projections as we get what have been sort of realtime information about changes in our customers usage. the big challenge, of course, is uncertainty. we know what demand is now under shelter-in-place, but shelter-in-place will, we expect, be lifted in some way over time. we will start to see people go bacback to work in some form or fashion. from a clean power sf standpoint we do expect that demand will start to pick back up to normal levels. we just don't know if it will go all of the way given the economic impacts and what the pace of recovery will be. i know that doesn't directly answer be your question. i think the direct answer is we are working on plans right now, and we are also still trying to understand the magnitude of the impact that we will see as a result. >> are the plans connected to the irp and capital plans? >> absolutely. our budget in capital planner are connected. those will be going together to the board of supervisors for approval, my understanding as of now that will be late summer or early fall, but i imagine there will be more information on that coming fairly soon. we are looking at what those impacts may be or what the impacts may be to those plans. we will have more information soon. i don't have any at this point in time to share any new updates. >> i read that the irp was delayed from may to july. do you think it will be pushed out? >> i do have news on that. it has been postponed by the california p.u.c. from july to september. we continue to work on our power irp, integrated resource plan. a really big challenge we faced has been uncertainty around what the california public utilities commission is requiring of us. there was a decision voted out by the california p.u.c. a couple weeks ago that set in place the more or less final direction for the i rp. that decision extended the due date from july to september. it also identified mid-may delivery of final guidelines from the california p.u.c. energy division staff. those final guidelines will shape what we will need to submit to the california p.u.c. in the meantime we are getting ready to quickly do analysis, modeling work after that time and prepare a report to the stakeholders and run through the approval process. >> commissioner maxwell had asked about who was present for the roundtable in terms of the irp process, meeting with stakeholders. i know that is probably delayed as well starting in february and everything hit and is pushed out andy layed. do you know if you will be inviting some of the lafco stakeholders like 350 bay area and seand those groups to the rd tables? >> they are on the invitee list. we have delayed that engagement on when that is going to happen. i am happy to share more information as it becomes available. i am also happy to share through the executive office our stakeholder list. >> that would be great. if mr. gobbel could be brought in. i don't know if it started in february due to all of the shifting priorities, but if he could be brought in to identify the lafco stakeholders to be included and have those stakeholders and mr. gobble be included in the report review early to report out to lafco after your commission has been updated. >> yes, absolutely. >> that is wonderful. thank you. i know that i was on maternity leave in january. i know that the build out plan agenda item was continued to the call of the chair. you know, those items are tied together, obviously. when you start to do that recovery planning and the irp and how that looks and i think i would be interested to know if part of the recovery plan includes making some of those sites identified as a better site, if those might be shovel ready as part of the recovery plan. i am not asking the question now. i realize you are sort of on the spot and things are shifting and moving and pushed out. when the item is called again, i would be interested in hearing how that dovetails with recovery from covid-19. i know there is talk of getting the country back to work and those are essential jobs. that would be wonderful to be able to work, especially with building and trades and construction and electrical workers, just howther work within the city and that whole process. that would be great to sort of include in your report out on that. that concludes my questions. thank you so much. >> thank you. any other questions or comments? seeing none. i have a couple questions. the relief measures. what are we doing proactively to let customers know there are these things available to them? are we instead of asking them to look it up, are we putting things in mailings, sending e-mails out to customer base to let them know about not forgiveness but these efforts? >> we have not -- well, we have not been using physical mailinglers yet. although i will take that suggestion back, commissioner. we have been prepared a newsletter electronic newsletter to distribute. these opportunities will feature prominently in that communication. we are also using or intend to use social media messaging to try to direct some traffic to our website so people know it is available. you bring up a good point about making sure that folks know where they can get information to provide assistance. of course, we are arming our call center with this information. if our customers reach out to our call center looking for assistance, they will be able to get that information through the call center as well. i will take back this idea potentially for proactive physical mailinglers to direct attention to assistance measures. >> also, are we contacting any sf media to make sure the nonenglish speaking customers are aware of these relief efforts available to them? >> i will follow up on that as well. the status of our media coordination. >> i have heard from the chinese folks that they aren't reading newspapers but they are on the radio and, of course, seeing ads and public service announcements on television. television viewing has gone up dramatically. you might do a public announcement on the ethnic media. i think a lot of customers who may need these relief packages or opportunities might be the nonenglish speaking customers. >> yes, thank you very much. i will definitely take that back. those are great suggestions. >> thank you very much. no commissioners, no comments or questions? anyone who would like to comment on item 3, please get in the queue and press 10. could you please check to see if there are any speakers waiting. >> there are no callers wishing to speak. >> thank you very much. public comment is now closed. we don't need action on this item. it is informational. madam clerk please call item 4. >> item 4. consideration and approval of the proposed lafco budget for fiscal year 2020-2021. if there are any members of the public to speak please press 1 and 0 now. >> bryan goebel, i believe you have a presentation. >> i do, thank you madam chair and good morning, commissioners. i hope you are coping well during this crisis. thank you for your leadership right now. i do have a presentation this morning on the lafco budget. today i am proposing a status quo budget that is based on the latest city projections of a growing deficit. the status quo budget we are required to pass a budget, a draft budget by may 1st and final budget by june 15th. the budget i bring you today includes no increase in the amount requested from the city. it maintains the level of funding the city is required by state law to provide from the general fund. it is the same amount provided to lafco over the past 10 years. this slide is our work order balance with the san francisco public utilities commission for lafco's oversight of clean power sf. it outlines the balance through the years and the current fiscal year. we have spent minimal funds. we spent to pay interns and research associates like mr. parsons who produced the report. we will be ending this fiscal year with a balance close to $200,000. we are very close to bringing on a consultant to help us with oversight. in fact, that r.f.q. process is wrapping up. i hope to bring a recommendation for a consultant to you at our may 15th meeting. this will be providing expertise for oversight of clean power sf and help us analyze the local buildout report that you heard in january, and also providing feedback on the capital plan and the irp as discussed earlier. the process was disrupted because of the crisis. under your direction, i do anticipate a lot of work on clean power sf in the next fiscal year. this shows the amount of funds lafco was able to raise this fiscal year for the survey of on demand workers. it is about $330,000 -- actually $335,000 we got a $5,000 grant to help with our urgent covid-19 survey of workers. it will be possible to fundraise in the next fiscal year to support similar work we undertake. the climate for fund-raising has changed. however, i imagine a lot of what we are do in the coming year will be impacted by the impacts of covid-19. this shows the general fund balance. that is the budget we are talking about today. the amount we receive from the city and county. this is over the years and projected balance by the end of june. today we anticipate a $37,000 carryover to the next fiscal year. these are the expenditures to date as of april 7th. right now we have about $105,000 remaining funds to get to the end of the fiscal year. all spending is pretty much on track, maybe a little over budget. we have been calling on them a lot to do public bank work, that might be a little higher but not anything substantial. this is my proposed budget for fiscal 20-21. i have provided a description of each line item in your packets. similar to last year. increases for clerk of board's office based on this year's spending. they are critical and helpful. increase in the dues. it amounts to a little over $292,000. i would ask you to approve the fiscal 20-21 budget for that amount while reserving the right to the full statute amount of $297,342 lafco receives each year from the city and county. with that, commissioners, i am happy to answer any questions. >> are there any questions, commissioners for our executive officer? mr. global, i have a quell. i wonder, this is not the budget we submitted to the mayor as part of the board's budget, is that correct? >> that's correct i revised it based on consultation with your staff and in light of the city's deficit reverted to status quo budget to use the executive officer as an independent contractor and the status quo budget from all previous years. >> i think for the meeting in may where we will approve the budget, can you present the two proposed budgets for us so we have an explanation of the budget proposed to the mayor as part of the board's budget. this committee is able to see that and we are able to have discussion on that. >> i would be happy to do that, madam chair. >> thank you very much. i want you to know we had proposed, i think, a larger budget for lafco in light of for so many fiscal years we were so solvent and we thought it was time to add to the lafco budget as it has not been added to -- i think we have had this budget for many, many years and it was time to increase the budget but given the landscape now, i actually think everything is pretty much in the air. i am the budget chair. the budget land scape is undetermined now and we are trying to get numbers. it is too early to make a final determination on a status quo budget. i am going to ask mr. gobel to present two budgets to deliberate on. i am wondering any commissioners have comments or questions at all? >> chair fewer, this is commissioner mar. i have a few questions and comments. i appreciate the work that you have done with mr. goebel to come up with a new budget for lafco for next year based on the new budget environment we are facing throughout the city. i do have questions about what this means for the important work, looking ahead. if lafco is involved in work around clean power and on demand worker and lane important study where there is a need for important follow up policy work, and then the public bank work. i know the original budget that you referred to included more capacity to carry forward on these important priorities. i think my question is when we get to the presentation of the budget at the next meeting, it could include some explanation about how a reduced budget and staff capacity for lafco would impact the important work that lafco is doing in the coming year or years. >> mr. goebel, would that be included in your next presentation? >> yes. thank you, commissioner mar. i appreciate your input and i would be happy to analyze the impacts of cutting back that work abinclude as part of my presentation. >> i do see mr. global has fund raised $330,000 on his own for our labor study. i want to recognize and thank him for that work. we wouldn't be able to do that study without his initiative to get that money. thank you, mr. goebel. i want to appreciate that. commissioner martha could be included in the discussion. any further questions? >> thank you for the budget. i want to ask in past years the budget has been presented in april for approval and second approval in may. i wanted to ask is that tied to the city budget processor something legally we need to do by a certain date? can we extend tha that? >> is our attorney on the line? >> good morning. it is nice to see everybody. yes that is required under thelas co-statutes. we have to look at the budget twice. we also, of course, are coordinating with the city since the lafco budget comes through the city. it is a lafco requirement, not a city requirement. does that answer the question? >> is it tied to the date of april and mayor can it just be approved in two meetings, you know, with a date to be determined by the san francisco lafco? >> i believe we have until july to hold the two meetings. >> that is great to know. our own budget process is delayed and won't start until august. >> that goes together nicely. i just really think we should give it more thought. as commissioner mar talked about the important work, i feel like covid-19 impacts on the economy will be huge. they are huge now. that work is so important that we continue, and also in terms of clean power sf, people needy electricity. how does covid-19 impact clean power sf and how it moves forward with the m.o.u. expiring with the san francisco p.u.c.? that money will be part of what we use as what we get from the city and county of san francisco. we need to just think about the fiscal impact of the budget and what that means for the important work that lafco can do. at this time i wouldn't feel comfortable voting on the budget. i agree with chair fewer this needs to come back in the next meeting or may would be a great time unless that was pushed to june. with a june and july approval process that it could go to the city for the full budget process. chair fewer is wil is -- well positioned to advise lafco. i can't vote on a budget today. the second part of the question is with our executive officer's services being transitioned from contract to a city employee, does that impact the budget or does salary plus benefits equal $150,000? >> i believe we have done that calculation, mr. goebel, if you can respond with the proposed budget. it included mr. goebel being considered a city employee rather than contracted employee. >> thank you. the line item budgeted for that which was given by the clerk of the board's office is $193,000 total, $80,000 of that, i believe, was benefits. that is the figure for that. it would impact. it is about a $43,000 increase. >> if i could interject. i just want to point out government code 56381 requires lafco to adopt the proposed budget by may 1st and final budget by june 15th. i don't know if there are suspensions of that government code but i want to point that out for the commission. >> thank you very much, madam clerk. >> back to our attorney we need two hearings but not two approval voting. is there something to delay this vote since the budget process in san francisco is delayed also. >> today you were asked to adopt the proposed budget. this would not be the time budget adoption. you will have one hearing where you adopt proposed budge eat and then the final budget. we did look into what would happen if the deadlines were pushed. we did not find anything in terms of a penalty that lafco would suffer if it had to adopt the budget later. there is a legal obligation to adopt the final budget in june, however, there doesn't seem to be any negative ramifications for pushing that deadline if necessary. we did feel we would not want to do so without clear rationalization for that missed deadline. >> this is also in light of what madam clerk just explained about the government code, that is correct? >> is that correct. >> is it your opinion we may be able to continue this item, then commissioners are holding a vote on this budget together since we have time because the city budget is not to start discussions until august. would we be able to in your legal advice be able to continue this item until the meeting in may and have mr. goebel continue the discussion with both proposed budgeted and what the implication for the reduced budget might mean for the work we are doing. >> am i understanding that we would review the proposed budget in may. what is the date of that meeting, bryan? >> may 15th is the next scheduled meeting. >> would the commission entertain a final budget in june or later in the summer? >> if we could have a discussion with both budgets and then at that time the next may 15 meeting have a deep discussion on the we were to reduce and prioritize but increase the budget so that the board had an opportunity to see what the impact might be on the work we have already done and are doing, i think we would have a discussion in may. tentative approval and final approval in june. does that sound like that would give you enough time? >> that makes sense to me. >> that is great. i also think that by that time we will have a clearer picture on the covid-19 impact on the city and county of san francisco's budget and as budget chair we are pushing hard for the numbers. if we could do that, i shy that would work well for us. >> when is our june meeting and would that be in time to meet the june 15th deadline? >> yes, i am looking at my calendar here. i believe the june meeting is -- just one second. i believe it is june 12th. >> my question in terms of government code to have take extended would that go to the board of supervisors budget and finance and then to the full board? >> i don't understand. what was the question? >> i think i can answer that, commissioner. it would then be going to the board's budget. lafco is part of the board's budget. the revised budget would go the board's budget and be part of the overall process under the board of supervisors budget. >> then it would be miss ca c.e.o. who would present it. our our numbers would be pushed forward as well? >> yes revised numbers. >> okay. great. thank you so much. >> mr. goebel are you sure it is the 12th? i look at the calendar. it could be the 19th. >> itant correcte -- i stand co. it is the 19th. it is a mistake on my part. >> to our attorney if it is four days later or how many days later than the statutory requirements, that is actually we wouldn't suffer any penalty by submitting it four or five days later? >> i see a delay of days rather than weeks or months being fairly low risk. as i noted there aren't any legal ramifications for delay. we don't want to be seen to be blowing off our statutory obligations. that said, i think four to five days sounds like we can easily rationalize that. >> commissioners, i would like to make a motion to continue this item to the meeting of may 15th where mr. goebel will bring the proposed two budgets to us. proposed budget in the board packet before the covid-19 crisis and also he will bring to us a discussion on the impacts that the budget cuts would make to the current work that we are doing. madam clerk, would i need a vote? i assume yes, is that correct? >> yes you need a roll call vote. >> i need a motion. could i have a second please. >> thank you. roll call vote, please. >> who was the second? >> i was. >> the name? commissionier singh. >> you are an alternate. i need another second. >> i second that pollock. >> if you could state your name it would be helpful. we can't tell who is doing it. the motion to continue item 4 to may lafco meeting. commissioner fewer. >> aye. >> commissioner pollock. >> ice. >> commissioner haney aye. >> commissioner mar. >> a ye. >> we should rescind this vote. i make a motion to resend this vote. second vote. >> commissioner pollock seconds the motion. >> madam clerk, roll call vote. >> on the motion to resined commissioner fewer. >> aye. >> pollock. >> aye. >> haney. >> aye. >> mar. >> aye. >> there are four ayes. i would like to open up for public comment. any members to comment on item number 4? >> there are no callers to speak. >> i would like to make a motion to continue this item 4 until the may 15th meeting. could i have a second, please. >> commissioner pollock second. >> roll call vote please. >> the motion to continue. commissioner fewer. >> aye. >> commissioner pollock. >> aye. >> commissioner haney. >> aye. >> commissioner mar. >> aye. >> there are four ayes. >> can you please call item 5. >> item 5 approval of a resolution to accept and expands a grant from the san francisco foundation in the amount of $5,000. any members of the public to speak please press one and zero now. >> thank you. mr. goebel you are going to walk us through this? >> yes. straightforward item. when we pivoted to a covid-19 survey of gig workers, i sought additional funding for staff time and also the worker incentives for the survey. we did receive a grant from the san francisco foundation in the amount of $5,000 for this purpose, and this item would allow us to expend that money. i would recommend your approval. >> thank you very much. open this up for public comment. any members of the public to comment on item 5. >> there are no callers wishing to speak. >> public comment is closed. any comments or questions by colleagues? seeing none, please roll call vote. i make a motion to approve this item. second please. >> commissioner haney second. >> thank you very much. could i please have a roll call vote. >> item 5, commissioner fewer. >> aye. >> commissioner pollock. >> aye. >> commissioner haney. >> aye. >> commissioner har. >> aye. >> there are four ayes. >> thank you very much. >> these call item 6. >> item 6 is executive officer's report. >> mr. goebel again. >> thank you, madam chair. we are running late. i want to give you a brief update on our gig worker survey. the work our new intern is doing on public bank. hopefully you can see my screen. my powerpoint so on both of these items, we have shifted our focus to assess covid-19 impacts. the results will be a series of timely reports not only to report much needed data but give recommendations to help and form and guide your local policy decisions going forward. first i would like to talk about the survey of on demand workers. for those who are not up-to-date on this. lafco was in the process of a large survey of on demand survey of 1200 workers to get the city good data about the vulnerable workers who are front line workers. they were struggling before the virus. now it is much, much worse. before shelter-in-place was issued. the survey team suspended the survey a month ago. when that work stopped they managed to get about 700 completed surveys up until then along with a number of in depth interviews. we suspended the survey three weeks to a month ago, and quickly pivoted to do a survey of covid-19 impacts. the survey addressed these four categories. how is covid-19 impacted the number of gig jobs? we know that there is a shift. we know uber and lyft is down. it has impacted pay as well. there are more workers out doing delivery. many of the companies have waiting list for folks applying for these jobs. we know it has caused a big impact. we are also as in the broader survey asking about the lack of access to health insurance and paid sick leave. we are also asking what do you most urgently need now? emergency funds, healthcare, pro protections from exposure, how are the companies doing? what are you doing to prevent spread of virus? how likely to work while sick due to the financial situation. before this with some of the focus groups and results the team was getting, there were workers that said they would work even if they were sick. the plan here with the covid-19 survey is to get around 300 responses. combine that analysis with the 700 completed surveys the team has already. they are going to follow up or have been following up within depth interviews combined with research. we expect to have a preliminary report on the findings on may 2 and present those to you at the may 15 meeting. along with those findings, working with the survey team and collaborating with stakeholders, lafco will produce a number of recommendations based on the findings. they will address these categories. improving economic security, promoting accountability and lawful operations among the at base delivery and ride hailing companies, improving safety and health for at base workers and promoting public health and safety. these will be short and long-term recommendations. we are going to put out a table of ideas to comment already existing emergency measures taken and considered now by the board of supervisors. also, we have a u.s. tackling best practicing to address these. how are other cities responding to protect workers? what protections are being put in place around the globe? what kind of health and safety regulations are developed? what will the virus mean for the delivery industry and workers? what are the best practices around that? to comment the resolution passed calling on the city attorney and the office of labor enforcement to enforce ab5 considering other aspects of ab5 or even force meant to protect the delivery industry. this will all come together in time for the may 15th meeting. we will have three presentations at that meeting. combined findings of the survey and the team is pouring all resources into that preliminary findings. we will have the report from us f class on delivery services and lafco recommendations based on the combined findings and research. that is the latest on the gig survey. i do have one other item. i want to pause to see if there are questions from commissioners? >> any comments or questions for our executive officer? >> i have a question. this is commissioner pollock. for the may 15th meeting, when do you anticipate we will get the three reports in draft form? >> thank you for the question. may 21 when we -- may 2 we will have the draft. april 30 i expect a draft from usf. when i receive those i will send to you and your staff so we can get your feedback on those. we will be sending them out to a variety of other folks who have been involved in the research, various worker groups, unions and stakeholders. >> the gig workers, jobs with justice. >> jobs with justice is doing a lot of outreach. they have been in touch with a variety of community organizations through this process. >> thank you. >> any more comments or questions for mr. goebel? >> is it too late to add a question to the survey? >> i can check with the survey team. the covid-19 survey is going to wrap up next week. i could ask the survey team that. >> i wanted to know the federal relief package included gig workers. i wanted to know if they applied for that, what is the status, do they know about it, have they going to apply for it? i don't think the checks have been issued. they are coming, and if they had received any relief. that was my question. i had another question and i forgot about it. sorry. that was the question. >> it is a very good point, madam chair in terms of unemployment. i have been reading reports about gig workers having difficulty accessing it. it is delayed until the end of the month. all kinds of problems. they might ask some of the workers they are doing interviews with. i am happy to do additional research and add to the presentation i give you on ma may 15th. >> because we are just hearing, also, issues about the small business funding and the glitches there. i am wondering if the workers have gotten relief. my second thing is among your recommendations are you going to include legislative recommendations for the board of supervisors and the commissioners it is on the board of supervisors to actually put in some legislation to help these workers and protect these workers? >> we are crafting the recommendations with that in mind. putting the ideas on the table to be legislated to protecting workers. yes, we are very much considering that as we draft the recommendations. >> thank you so much. any more comments or questions for mr. goebel? >> i have one other item, madam chair. >> go ahead. >> i am very excited along the lines of small businesses and, particularly the banks' responses to covid-19, as it's relates to small businesses. our newest intern is working on some related topics to that. kara has a public policy background and will attend law school this fall. she is a fellow in public affairs and has produced work for a number of agencies, including the mpc and office of management and budget in washington as well as working with immigration legal resource and graduate of princeton with a degree in public policy. i am excited to have her. i am going to turn it over to her to talk about the scope of work we have ask can see her to undertake. she came to work on public bank. she is working on related topics. i will turn it over to kara to talk about what she is doing. >> thank you. good morning, commissioners. great to be here with you. as i am sure you are aware another focus area of work is the public work. this is putting that public bank in perspective of bank accountability. i believe moments like this like the one we are in now magnifies areas that need changes. arguably i think the current pandemic is the perfect storm to evaluate bank accountability. i am looking at response by private and public actors in live time and assessing their epactions. the report has three key questions. in brief the report looks at incentive structure driving the large corporate banks andrews lessons to form forward solutions to immediate community needs and the report will look at what covid-19 means for accountability community actors like small banks and credit unions. given this present moment, i think we need the san francisco public bank initiative in the changing system of needs. this will be completed by the end of the month. i will share the recommendations with you at the next lafco meeting. with that i am happy to field questions or comments. >> thank you so much for your assistance with this. we look forward to that report. any comments or questions for kara? >> i just want to say thank you, kara, for putting this together. i am very, very excited to see what you come up with next month because we think we need to start thinking at a public bank at this point like something to help us get back on our feet with regards to affordable housing and issues that are going to be adversely impacted by a deep precision or depression with budget cuts. i am glad we are framing the public bank as part of the covid-19 response. >> commissioner haney. >> thank you, chair fewer. this is exciting. i am glad we are doing this. thank you for coming on. one of the things we have been looking a lot at is what banks have been doing for people who have struggled to pay mortgages or rent, and what policies are set up across the different be banks and what opportunities there are. that will continue to be an issue after this is done just to put a word in there if that is something to look at forgiveness and interest rates and all of that for folks having challenges repaying loans or mortgages. that is an important piece. it sounds like that is included. i wanted to flag that. >> definitely. thank you. >> thank you, kara. we also at the board of supervisors my office have been working with the public bank. we can use that information. thank yothank you for your your. i echo what commissioner heavy y rain me said -- haney said. open this up for public comment. any otheany other items. >> that concludes my executive officer's report. >> any public comment on item 6. >> there are no callers wishing to speak. >> public comment is closed. thank you both. we look forward to hearing from both of you on may 15th, our next meeting. madam clerk please call item 7. >> public comment. >> are there any members of the public to offer public comment? >> there are no callers wishing to speak. >> thank you. public comment is closed. madam clerk can you please call item 8. >> future agenda items. >> colleagues any future agenda items you would like to see us discuss in the future? seeing none, madam clerk is there any more business? >> we need public comment for this item. >> public comment for item 8. >> madam chair, no callers are wishing to speak. >> madam clerk any more business before us today? >> that concludes the business for today. >> thank you everyone. we are adjourned. the director of the department of public health, dr. grant colfax. the director of the department of emergency management, mary ellen carroll. the director of the department of human services trent rhorer. the director of the department of homelessness and housing, abigail stewart-khan and our police chief bill scott. thank you for joining us this afternoon. i want to start by providing the most updated numbers currently. we have 1,058 cases here in san francisco of those diagnosed with the coronavirus. and sadly, we have 20 people who died from this illness. and for more information, please visit data sf.org/covid-19 for our full tracker and more information that you may be interested in reviewing. today i just wanted to talk about the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake. this weekend marks the 106th anniversary of the earthquake. when we all can look back on our history and remember during that time, not only did the earthquake hit and it really physically destroyed buildings and many parts of our city, there was a very devastating fire that occurred. and, in fact, over 3,000 people lost their lives. and during that time, san franciscans didn't throw up their hands. we took to our feet, we came together with businesses, with people from all over the city and we focused on rebuilding. we got through that because we came together. we got through the 1906 earthquake because we worked together. because we didn't throw up our hands. we focused on recovery. and that really is the spirit of what it means to be a san franciscan. it really does represent who we are, because we focus on how do we get through this and how do we move forward and how do we become better than ever? this is a resilient city because of that. and just like after the 1906 earthquake, the work that went into rebuilding our city and making it stronger for future earthquakes that we knew were coming, we also really rebuilt this city and we have been through a number of challenges that have made us even stronger and better. this is a pandemic like no other. and this is a challenge that we will get through. and just like in the 1906 earthquake, we will rebuild and thrive. today i want to talk a little bit about our new directive that dr. colfax will provide more information about. and that is a new requirement to wear face coverings. we recommended face covering in the past and now as of midnight tonight, it will be a requirement. but i don't want you to be alarmed. i want to make sure that people know our goal isn't to enforce until april 22nd to give people who may not have access to face coverings the opportunity to get access to them. we are working to distribute some to many of our vulnerable populations, but we want to ask members of the public to do this now if you can. whether it's a mask -- and there is no need to wear an n95 mask. those should be reserved for health care workers, but any type of mask, face-covering, a scarf, something that covers your nose and mouth, this will be a requirement for people who are standing in line at grocery stores or any other places open for essential services. it's going to be required when you're inside of those locations. any time you're indoors or within close proximity of others within an essential business or at work, like many of our city employees who are essential workers on the front lines, you will be required to wear a mask. now, if someone is out walking and they're with other folks, someone is out and they're with other people in their household, or you're running or exercising or doing something out in the open and you're social distancing yourself from others, that is not as problematic as when you're standing in line and in other locations where there are a lot of people. we want to be clear that the requirement to wear face coverings does not take the place of social distancing. maintaining six feet regardless of this new requirement. and i also want to make it clear, if you are not a police officer, don't act like one. we're not expecting people to police one another, because the fact is, you can't control what other people do. you can only control what you do. and what we ask you to do is, if you can obey the order and have a face covering on and keep your distance at least six feet from anyone. i want to be clear, what we don't want is more confrontation, more stress and more drama in general as a result of this order. we don't expect anyone in this city to step up and police anyone other than the people who work for the san francisco police department. so, please, do your part to follow the order and worry about what you need to do and not what someone else is doing. and we'll do our very best in order to manage this situation. and dr. colfax will talk a little bit more about the face covering requirements, but this does not -- this does not change the need for us to social distance ourselves from one another, it does not change the existing rules, it does not make it better, it's just an additional requirement, an additional allayer that is -- an additional layer that is necessary to help us flatten the curve. so far you've been doing an amazing job. so many people in the city doing an amazing job of keeping your distance, following the order, respecting one another and your space. and we want to continue is that and we're just adding an additional requirement that will also help in this effort. speaking of staying at home, i just want to remind people that during 4-20, we are going to be add golden gate park. we're going to fence up golden gate park. we'll have police officers out in force. and we will not allow any large gatherings of any kind at golden gate park. so i am asking you to stay at home for 4-20. it is not going to happen at golden gate park. so, please, follow this order and not just as it relates to large gatherings for 4-20, but for any other large gathering. i just want to remind people, for example -- and i talked about the choir where they practice social distancing and they had rehearsal and 45 people were infected and two died. situations where people and families have gotten together anyway and only to discover that they are now infected with the coronavirus. this is real. it can hit you at any time. and even if you don't care, if you get infected, please care about your family members and the other folks that you come in contact with. you know, i always bring this back to my grandmother who raised me. there is no way that if she was still alive today that i would want to be the reason why she was infected or i would want anyone to infect her because of being irresponsible in this effort. so just keep that in mind. so many people are counting on us to do the right thing. stay home for 4-20. don't come to san francisco. we are not welcoming any large gatherings of any nature, not just during 4-20, but any other time as long as the stay-at-home order is in place. thank you, all, so much for your understanding and your cooperation. i want to also take this moment to talk about a few expanded resources, because we know that our seniors and our disabled population, they are probably struggling in some instances. they have neighbors who are looking out for them or family members or folks volunteering to run errands and do grocery shopping, but the fact is they may need to take essential trips. for health reasons or what have you, they may need to go somewhere and they're concerned about getting on the bus and they're concerned that because they're part of the vulnerable population about getting around the city and there are mobility challenges that exist that make it difficult to do so. the sfmta has created an essential-trip card program which provides reduced cost taxi trips for older adults and people with disabilities. so while this is an important resource for people who may have limited mobility and who don't have other transportation options available, with this program, people can get a card that allows them to take 2-3 trips per month at 20% of the cost of a regular fare. so, for example, if the fare is $10, then the person only pays $2, which is really incredible for our senior population and those who have disabilities. we want to make sure that transportation for essential needs or things you may need to do, that it's not a barrier during this time. it's important that we provide creative solutions for our vulnerable populations. and that's exactly what we're doing with this program. if you want more information, please call 311, or you can visit the sfmta website. we are here for you and we are here to do all we can to take care of the residents of san francisco. i want to, again, express my appreciation to each and every one of you. it is the people of san francisco that are following the directives, cooperating and doing the best that you can -- you're the reason why san francisco is a model for so many other cities to follow. you're the reason, your cooperation. and i want to be clear that as difficult as i know it is for you, i know that we have parts of our communities that are not complying with the orders that we put forth, whether they are being defiant or they may not have the mental capacity to really understand and follow the directive, there are challenges we know that exist with people who aren't able to follow the order. again, we are going to do everything we can to get people to comply, but the fact is, what all of you are doing, how you have all participated by following the order, has put us in a great situation, but we can't let up. we can't let up because the fact is, sadly, 20 people have already lost their lives. we have over a thousand cases in our city and growing. and we can't let up because that could mean the possibility of other people getting infected and seeing the numbers surge completely out of control. that is the last thing we want. and that is why i want to remind you as the weekend comes, make sure that you are keeping your distance from people who are not a part of your household. make sure you're not making this one-time exception of getting together for a dinner party or any other event. make sure that you are using the telephone or other resources to call and check on family members to make sure that their mental health and well-being is okay. but we need you more than ever to continue down this path so that we cannot only flatten the curve, but make it nonexistent. thank you, all, again for your cooperation. at this time i would like to introduce the director of the department of public health, dr. grant colfax. thank you, mayor. thank you, mayor breed. i'm grant colfax, director of health for the city and county of san francisco. as we work together across the city to flatten the curve, and even as we all do our part and even as we see signs of progress, i want to acknowledge the grief, anxiety and perhaps for some even anger that we are experiencing during these unprecedented times. the department under the direction of the mayor with other city departments, with key community stakeholders, and from people like you, the department is doing all it can to address and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. in doing so, the department of health will always listen, welcome feedback and strive to refine and improve our response. this is particularly important as it becomes increasingly clear that the coronavirus will exploit longstanding challenges and disparities as it spreads, whether this be related to other health issues such as mental health and substance use disorders, or broader inequities, such as homelessness, housing challenges, or income disparities. this is why we must continue together to be unified and vigilant to slow the spread of the virus. and to make difficult decisions and to prioritize our actions. we must continue to follow the science, data and facts as we move forward together. i would like to provide an update on the data, including city-wide cases as well as at the jail, the msc south shelter and laguna honda hospital. today as the mayor said there are 1058 san francisco residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus. out of a total of 10,077 tests reported. sadly, 20 people have died and i send my condolences to their families, loved ones, community and friends. there are 91 patients with coronavirus hospitalized across the city and about 30% of these cases are in the intensive care unit. our hospitalization numbers for covid-19-positive patients have been holding relatively steady for the past week, which is welcome news, but again, that could change at any time, especially as we expect to see continued outbreaks. across san francisco's hospital system today, there are 1,048 acute care beds and 445 intensive care beds available across the city to meet the demands of a surge. yesterday the city had its first positive case confirmed in our city's jail. the person showed no symptoms, but was tested and isolated as part of routine testing of all new bookings that are housed in the jail. a contact investigation is under way. as i reported last week, there was an outbreak of coronavirus at msc south, the city's largest homeless shelter. as of today, 95 guests and 10 staff there have tested positive for the coronavirus. and at laguna honda hospital, there are 19 confirmed cases of coronavirus. 15 of the confirmed cases are among staff and 4 are among residents. there have now been no new cases among residents since april 7th. all the residents are in good condition. and, again, we are doing everything we can to reduce the spread of the virus in our community, protect vulnerable population, health care workers and first responders. now i would like to provide more details about the new action that san franciscans -- that we are taking to help san franciscans fight the spread of the coronavirus. because even as we respond to outbreaks now in the homeless community and in long-term care facilities, we are also looking ahead. today, as the mayor announced, we will -- residents and workers will be required to wear face coverings at essential businesses and public facilities and on transit. this requirement is a legal health order and takes effect at midnight tonight. it strengthens a recommendation we made on april 2nd and is informed by the centers for disease control and prevention guidelines. like our shelter in place order and many of our approaches, this is a regional effort. the face covering requirements have already been announced by sonoma county and several other bay area jurisdictions will announce similar orders today. by wearing masks or face coverings when interacting with other people in public, san franciscans will be less likely to transmit the coronavirus to one another. it is important to understand that today's order is part of a broader strategy to establish new ways of interacting and behaving. this will help us now and it will help us in the future as we hope to be able to relax the stay-at-home order. by then people will already be in the habit of wearing face coverings at the grocery store, in lines, while riding a bus, taxi, or über. it is likely that we will need to continue to do this for some time, even after we start to emerge from our home. and, please -- and i can't emphasize this enough -- please know and please remember that wearing a face covering is not a substitute for staying at home, staying six feet apart, and frequent hand-washing. the purpose of covering your nose and mouth is to protect other people. face coverings help to stop droplets that may be infectious, even if the person wearing the mask has no or mild symptoms. in other words, my mask -- i want to assure you i was wearing a mask until approaching this podium -- my mask protects you and your mask protects me. covering your face is a great way to show you care for your neighbors, your friends, your community. we are going to have to continue to work together to slow down the virus and reduce transmission. the virus is still out there, so we must continue to be vigilant. i want to emphasize that the face covering is just one part of an effective response infrastructure. other components include aggressive outbreak investigation, expanded testing, contact-tracing, and adherence to isolation and quarantine orders and continued prevention. all of these -- all of these will be critical in the future to maintaining any gains we are making due to our current efforts to flatten the curve. there are good signs that we are, indeed, making progress, but we still have a long way to go. thank you for everything you are doing to protect the health of our community. together, every day, we are saving lives. thank you. now i'd like to introduce the director of mta who will make a few remarks. >> thank you, dr. colfax. once again, my name is jeffrey tumlin. i'm the director of transportation at the sfmta. i have four key points to make. one is a reminder. muni is for essential trips only. this means essential workers and people making essential trips like going to the grocery store, going to the pharmacy or going to seek social services. if you have another means of making your essential trip, please choose to do so. it's very important that we save seats for essential workers that have no other means of getting to work. the second point -- and this is again to emphasize what dr. colfax and the mayor have said -- if you're riding muni, please wear a face covering. this is incredibly important and again, it is not about protecting your health, it's about protecting the health of the other passengers and our operators. please wear a face mask when riding muni. my third key point is something that the mayor mentioned, which is our new service offering. we know as muni cut back its service to the 17 most essential routes that serve the majority of our riders, that we left parts of the city behind. so my team has worked rapidly this week to develop the essential-trip card. this works effectively as a debit card and if you're an older adult over the age of 65 or somebody with disabilities, you can order your essential-trip card by calling 311 or going to our website at sfmta..com/covid. the card works for any taxi service. call the cab and use the card like you would a debit card and it gives you an 80% discount on essential trips. trips to the pharmacy, the grocery store or other essential services. at the same time, it supports our taxi operators who have been hit hard by this crisis. we have partnered with the taxi industry to support them in making sure that all drivers have personal protective equipment as well as cleaning supplies for their vehicles so they can make sure the vehicle is clean on every trip. we're happy to have announced this partnership with the taxi industry and hope it will help provide important connections to members of our community who have suffered from the decline in muni service. my final point is about our muni ambassador program, which we also started piloting yesterday and goes into full effect today. we're having teams of sfmta employees stationed at the main bus stop throughout the system. they're wearing yellow vests, so you can see them. and they're helping passengers with a variety of health-related objectives such as standing six feet apart at the bus stop, making sure that passengers are wearing masks. we're partnering with other departments to distribute masks and other face coverings to our riders. they're also making sure that our buses are not getting too crowded. we set passenger caps on all the buses. we're limiting the 30-foot buses to 15 passengers. 40-foot buses to 20 passengers. and our 60-foot are limited to 30 passengers. what this mean is, you may be passed up by our operators if the bus is already full. it may also mean if you're not wearing a face covering, that the operator may also pass you up. please be patient with us and wait for the next bus, or if you have another trip alternative, choose that alternative. we're so happy to be partnering with the health streets operation center as well. in order to direct people in need of homelessness services and other social services to those services rather than taking refuge on our muni buses. the sfmta is proud to be able to keep essential workers moving, making sure that the nurses and janitors and cooks and cleaners are able to get to work to keep all of us happy. and we're relying upon all of you to do your part as well in order to keep our passengers and our operators healthy. with that, i'd like to introduce the chief of the san francisco police department, chief william scott. good afternoon, everyone. i'm chief william scott, the san francisco police department. first i'd like to again thank our mayor london breed for her leadership during this challenging time and thank our public health director, dr. grant colfax for his leadership. i want to update you on the enforcements efforts of the public health order. with the good weather we've increased our presence in city parks and other popular places where we know people enjoy walking and getting out of the house for exercise. with the park rangers from the parks and rec department, we've been able to educate the public and continue to warn the public to make sure they stay a safe distance away, the six feet that has been recommended by our public health officials. with that, we're still enforcing where enforcement is appropriate and i'll get to that in a minute. as i stated before, our officers found that the vast majority of the public in san francisco have been compliant. i'd like to reiterate what mayor breed said a little while ago. we also would like to thank the members of the public who have vastly been compliant with this order. there are still some challenges and we continue to work through the challenges, but the men and women of the san francisco police department want to be part of the solution and we are here to help and help keep our city healthy and safe. with that said, our citation has not changed from the last press conference on wednesday. we still have nine citations in connection with violating the county's public health order. we have issued a number of warnings for the non-essential businesses since wednesday and that continues. also we are still receiving calls regarding social distancing at essential businesses. i must say most of the businesses, the majority of the businesses for that matter, have been compliant with that. in terms of crime, we are still where we were as of wednesday. same report. our total overall crime, we have 25% reduction which equates to 130 fewer crimes than the week before. and that breakdown is a 29% reduction in property crime, which equates to 130 fewer crimes, and a 0 change for our violent crime. so we are exactly the same as we were the week before on violent crimes. compared to march 31 through april 5, the third week of this reporting period, we're still seeing overall decreases in crime. that's both year-to-date and week to week. we want the public and the people who would take advantage of people during this challenging time to know that we take crime seriously. nothing has changed in terms of our enforcement of the law, although, the jails have had to make adjustments and other parts of the criminal justice system have had to make adjustments to keep everybody safe, laws are still being enforced and we will make arrests and working with the sheriffs and the sheriffs department, they will accommodate violent offenders and people who threaten public safety. so we want to make sure that message is reassured. that the public knows we're out there and we'll continue to be out there. we're still seeing some challenges with burglaries. and we're working through that. with that, i'd like to thank partnership with the district attorney and his team at the district attorney's office. we've made a number of arrests and the district attorney's office has charged looting charges. i would like to thank them for their attention to that matter. this week i also want to give a shoutout to our dispatchers. this is basically national dispatchers week. our dispatchers work 24-7 to reassure the public when people call and sometimes the most difficult times in their lives, those dispatchers are there to reassure them that things are going to be okay as much as we can make them okay. they do a phenomenal job. they're by our side and we want to reach out and thank them for the work they do in this challenging time as well. also, this week is actually the crime victims week and it's a time to remember those survivors who have lost their loved ones to victims of crime such as murder and other violent crimes. and i want to reach out to our victims and remind them, we are there for you, the san francisco police department and the city of san francisco will always be there in your time of need. we know this is a time there are normally activities surrounding national victims' week in the state capitol, and those festivities were not able to happen this week, so we want to let you know, we do remember what you all have gone through and we're there for you as well. couple notes to reiterate about 4-20. i want to, again, thank the mayor for her leadership on this and reiterate what she said. we will be out in full force this weekend, including 4-20, the date of 4-20. you will see officers? the parks, street clothes. you will see us out with the area fenced off. we want to remind people, please do not engage in 4-20 festivities. we can't afford to let up right now. the city is doing well. our public has responded to the calls to stay at home and we really need you to heed to that advice and stay at home. and if you don't follow that advice, we'll be there. and, again, we will cite, we will arrest if we have to, but we'll be there to make sure that we keep this city as safe and healthy as we can. just a reminder again, please do not engage in 4-20 activities in the city or anywhere else for that matter during this pandemic. with that, i close and thank you again, and turn this over for questions. >> reporter: okay. our first set of questions are for dr. grant colfax. >> reporter: dr. colfax, the first question is from fox news. today the first antibody test results showed an infection rate in santa clara county up to 85 times higher than the number of people who actually tested positive. for an infection fatality rate of 1.2%, what do you make of the numbers and how might they be used to formulate adjustments to the current recommendation? >> so i think that those data are important and certainly significant. i think it's too early to generalize them with regard to how they'll apply to our recommendations. we're reviewing that study and i'm hopeful there will be other data similar in other jurisdictions that will be produced to help us make more informed decisions moving forward. as i've alluded to in previous conferences, we're working hard with scientists at ucsf to conduct similar studies to get better data on the prevalence of coronavirus in our community. right now, remember, the numbers are based on the number of people we are testing. it does not represent the total number of coronavirus circulating in the community. those are important data and we are working hard to obtain them as quickly as possible with scientists in the -- at ucsf and other institutions. >> are there exceptions for face coverings in public like kids? how should parents get their kids to wear masks? >> we'll be releasing frequently asked before the order goes into effect tonight. there will be clear guidelines on how to support your children in wearing masks. i also want to emphasize that in very young children, our recommendation, we strongly discourage the use of masks in very young children. there is a risk of suffocation, so you want to make sure that young children do not wear masks. those guidelines will be provided. children under 12 are not required to wear masks. children under 2, we do not recommend mask-wearing for children under 2. >> reporter: and from shannon lynn, how is san francisco testing homeless populations both in shelters and encampments? >> so with regard to testing in those situations, we follow our policy with regard to testing people in general. with regard to focusing on people who have symptoms. if people are positive, we focus on doing intensive contact investigation and testing people who have had close contacts or who are otherwise at risk or who show symptoms. this is what we're doing, again, across the city as we continue our number of outbreak investigations. >> reporter: okay. thank you, dr. colfax. the next questions for trent rhorer, human services agency. >> trent rhorer, human services agency. >> reporter: how are the shelter hotels run? are they safe for nearby neighborhoods? >> thanks for the question. first, let me say that because there has been some confusion. when the city enters into a contract with the hotel, we're taking 100% of the rooms in that hotel. there has been some confusion that we're taking or contracting a portion of the rooms in a particular place. we're not. we have the entire hotel. and we staff it accordingly. specific to the question, individuals who are placed in hotels who need to be isolated or quarantined are -- arrive to the hotel and they're counselled by the department of public health staff on site about the need to remain in their rooms. in addition, all of the needs that the patients might have when they're in the hotels are met in their rooms. most notably, the food. we bring three meals a day directly to the patient's door. the patient, when they're done, leaves the empty -- or the dirty dishes outside where they're picked up. same with laundry. everything is sort of oriented towards keeping that individual in his or her room in order to satisfy the quarantine or isolation requirements. >> reporter: just iterate, after moving confirmed cases, contacts or vulnerable populations to hotel rooms, are they allowed to leave the room? lastly, are there professional staff on site in each hotel? >> there are professional staff on it in each hotel. the case of isolation and quarantine rooms, there are clinical staff from the department of public health to support the patient's medical needs. in addition there are hotel operational staff, largely coordinated by the human services agencies. these would be basic hotel operations. there may be nonmedical type staff to support the staff as well. as i said earlier, individuals who are there to isolate or quarantine are counselled at the beginning when they're placed. they're to remain in their rooms. there are wellness checks in the rooms throughout the day, in addition to dropping meals off. so the patients that are there are seen many times throughout the day to make sure they're in their rooms and complying with the directions to remain. >> reporter: thank you. the next question is for director abigail stewart-khan, homelessness and supportive housing. >> reporter: okay. this question comes from shannon lynn, can you share why there is a delay with placing more homeless people into hotel rooms? >> there is no delay. we are placing people into hotel rooms on a daily basis. we have opened four hotel rooms for the non-covid homeless population in a very short period of time. there is another one opening today. and more opening over the course of the next week in rapid -- in a rapid approach. >> reporter: okay, thank you. that concludes all the questions for today's press conference. a . >> clerk: and sfgovtv is on here, so why don't we push "live," christine? okay. we are now

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