Transcripts For SFGTV Commission On The Environment 20240712

Transcripts For SFGTV Commission On The Environment 20240712

That i was talking about before. I dont think that we can leave public bank to decide at this point. Thank you. Chair fewer thank you. Clerk that is the only caller. Chair fewer okay, Public Comment is now closed. Madam clerk, is there any more business today. Clerk no further business today. Chair fewer thank you very much everyone. We are adjourned. Disantsing. The second Corner Grocery store i went to, tables were set up. This means, you know, were in the middle of a pandemic, and i think my life is more important than having to pay a quarter for a paper bag. I think this should be suspended for Senior Citizens or suspended, period, until the mayor says that were going back to normal and. [beeping] thank you, caller. Are there any other callers in the cue operation . No more callers in the cue. All right. Thank you, operations. Thank you, charles. The next item is item 5, an update on the departments ongoing Racial Equity hish tive. The speaker is timmy [indiscernible]. This item is for discussion. All right. Director felled, take it away. Thank you. And good evening commissioners and everyone who is listening in. This is really exciting and im excited about todays agenda. And this particular agenda item is near and dear to by heart. You may remember, commissioners, at our last Commission Meeting in june, i stressed the importance of our continued work on Racial Equity in my directors report, i emphasize the work that all of us in the department are doing, in light of the murder of george floyd as well as our ongoing commitment of equity. And clearly, the need for this work is selfevident. Its all around us, covid19 is just the most recent example, traumas that are disproportionately impacting black people, indigenous people, and all people of color. So back in march of tween 18 you may remember that the commission passed a resolution to affirm our commitment to racial inequity. And allot over a year later in october of 2019, the city of San Francisco opened up an office of Racial Equity and also the supervisor, mayor, signed legislation that are mandating changes to City Department and alaska tifts, in order to refine City Departments, on Racial Equity in all the things that they do. In january, we welcomed that feel like hand years ago now but january of this year when, we had our inperson Commission Meeting, we welcomed our Equity Committee leadership and they came to the commission and delivered a presentation. That was talking about the work we were doing to develop a Racial Equity plan. We were vownlded by this critical need right now. And we are committed to examining our role in the department. As staff, and as Community Members of San Francisco so we wanted to bring to you, an update on what we have been doing in the past month and cindy combford, ive asked her to come and present tonight. She manages our climb 8 criminal justice program. Shes going to review with you, some of the work weesk doing on the department, as well as a survey that we have participate in, and qat future of Racial Equity looks like in the next few months for the department. Cindy [indiscernible]. I am the Climate Program manag manager. Debbie, talk about what im going to present today, so im going to start off with some reflection over the last couple of months. Reaffirm our commitment to Racial Equity. Talk about some of our immediate commitments. A survey that we participated in with the office of Racial Equity, and then conclude some next steps. So the San Francisco, department of environment, has reflected on Current Events of covid19 and its disproportionate impacts on American Indian communities, black communities and communities of color. The mores of george floyd, brieona taylor, and countless others, and the under lying government and economic structures that create the platform of these events. We have a responsibility to do better and continue making progress on this critical Racial Equity work. We have also seen an extraordinary mobilization across the country. Every walk of life, every race and every religion vocalizing that this is our time to do something. We see a legacy of white supremacy. Access to nature and other environmental benefits have provided to privileged Community Bus environmental harms continue to disadvantage neighborhoods of color. The environment isnt really about [indiscernible], its about water in michigan and about the air in new delhi. While were not going to solve all of these problems in one day, im proud to work for a department qoz a long history of the Environmental Justice work and we are continuing to grow together. We have so many other dedicated Staff Members that are continuing to address race for the environment. So pursuing Racial Equity say process and its something that we have all been going through together, as a city, as a department. And as a commission there office was founded under the human race comig a city wide gap to close the gaps of racial inequities, found in all fangt ors of city work and to look at our policies through a racial len. This is not something new to our department. Our cole core values is around equity and we have also had Environmental Justice program for over two decades the commission has also adopt aid resolution, affirming our commitment to Racial Equity, and we have been working hard on our Racial Equity plan after the george floyd traj, our director vocalized her commitment to our core values and [indiscernible] our director also identified three immediate next steps when im going to briefly review in the next three slides. Next slide. You may recall from our presentation in january, we provided a summary of our Racial Equity survey, that we administered about a year and a half ago and one of the findings from the survey was staff did not feel comfortable talking to a supervisor about race. And there were many suggestion that is key leereds have needed white [indiscernible] training. Our leadership team, at the department of environment, took a halfday seminar Robin Deangelo, she offered findings of her work, on analysis of white supremacy, work around whiteness and wight agility. Dr. Diangelo spoke about racism, and the specific ways racism manifests in ways progressive. Via workshops, offered a leadership team, trying for personal reflection which was really an opportunity to identify our complacency with the system of white supremacy. And why i dont want to speak to everyone on our leadership team, i personally walked away from that training next slide. Our next commitment we made was for every staff member to provide mile stoins into their Performance Plan around [indiscernible]. Like many of these other commitments, this is still a work in progress. Several weeks ago, my staff and i developed a template and my team has been pilot pressing work. That may be something within their personal journey or would benefit the Department Around hiring or recruitment and then also one external goal, that would be about engage wct community or around policies. We plan to share it with the rest of the department so everyone can have Racial Equity goals as part of their work plan. Next slide. Our last was training, continuing to make sure that all of our staff is trained on Racial Equity. Well be having staff trainings on our raicialg and social Equity School either next pont or in early september. And also, well be providing on our equity policy, which ill get an opportunity to discuss later in our presentation around the instruction. So that was the summary of our immediate commitment and well continue to develop more as we go through. Several weeks ago, the office on Racial Equity requested all City Departments, fill out a comprehensive survey on Racial Equity leadership and also, our programmatic efforts that support different populations. And also, provide very specific details on these efforts, and thinking was many of our community stakeholders, as well as City Employees believe that San Francisco is conflicted in creating personal laws, policies and institution that is perpetuate racial inequities in our city and to address these concerns. The office of Racial Equity wants the department to supt their engagement and under represented historically, marginalized communities. As the city prepares for its budget hearings in the next couple of weeks and given our mayor and board of supervisorser visoro focus on equity and support for marginalized communities. It also gives our department an opportunity to compile and accept this information. Next slide. So this slide shows some very highlevel key take aways from the surveys. I had the fortunate of compiling the survey, and i was really impressed by the diverse engagement that our department has done. There were over 20 Different Program initiatives that worked with 7 different communities of color and 20 dissent population groups. Some examples of new things that i learned about with our work with chinese daycare communities, providing toxic sleeping matts for children, also, our opportunity to expand through recovery and providing healthy [indiscernible] to San Francisco, and also work ache can American Youth by offering stipe ends to conduct gardening and composting. When we look at the budget adopted by our comitionz. If you remember, our presentation from january. We focused on phase 1. Which is really looking at our internal actions to address Racial Equity, such as measures around hiring, training or recruitment and well be back to present on phase 2 which looks back internally, towards our engagement strait strategy gees, our poltses and programs poo make sure we are promoting Racial Equity. That concludes my prohibittation,. That was great. Thank so much. I really appreciate your time and presentation and all the work the department is doing on behalf of Racial Equity. Commissioners, do you have any questions for cindy . Commissioner o. I do want to make sure we bring up something brought up in the past, Career Pathways department, and leadership pathways for particularly, people of color, staff who have started how to improve upon th that. That is one of our actions in phase 1 report. We are looking at different ways we can implement your suggestions. [indiscernible]. Start figuring out how we can have a better, more diverse [indiscernible]. Do we have request feedback. Is it better now . A little better. I should have gotten my head set figured out before that. Sorry about that. Specifically, around the budget item, when we talk about the Program Amount of work that we do as a department, we can certainly, its not easy. But its possible for us to take the lens of Racial Equity and apply it to the work that we do and make sure that when we get out there, we are always asking the question, who is this helping, whos this hurting. Whats the first step here. How do we make sure were not accidentally, stepping into institutional [indiscernible] et cetera. We can do that as part of the programmatic work. The work internally of the department, the work on ourselves isnt always funded by our grant funds. It isnt always funded through, you know, the work orders that we have from other departments and so it seems like, you know, im sort of struck by the idea that a lot of time when is youre creating womens groups at Big Companies its the women themselves who have to do all the extra volunteer labor to make sure the womens group flourishes and thats unpaid work they are doing above and beyond their own job. It seems like this falls into the same sort of trap of, you know, we need to have some budget, devoted to making sure we can keep this drum beat going and keep the work that were doing for our own staff going, and i just, i dont know if there are answers any to right now, but i want to throw that out there for something we should be considering, as is there a way for us to allocate something towards a more regular basis so we make sure were just not asking people for their own volunteer time to keep the work of the Department Going forward in Racial Equity. So thats an excellent point and your point about metrics and concrete feedback, on how were doing is heard and taken. We arent actually tracking everything from a Racial Equity lens, even if were doing work that way. So what gets measured gets managed, if you will, and feedback so what we are really trying to do is figure out how we institutionalize the work such that it gets trapped better. To your point, commissioner stephenson, its really such a good one. So this training we did with robin di angelo was not free and we had to find departmental funds to pay for it and therefore, it was only offered to Senior Leadership because it wasnt cheap for us and we didnt feel like we could ask for a scholarship because we were coming from government. Thirty two of us took a class oracial oppression, and that was free, in the sense we didnt have to pay for t but we had to take our own staff time. So i think what we will be looking for are what are opportunities where the training itself is not, doesnt have a cost. The cost is very much the Time Commitment that we will donate. So its not volunteer time. When that becomes tricky, is for our staff who are funded by grants, this is where we do need that pot of money to think about how we have among our staff, to get the training so those people do not need to volunteer their time. I of course transformed in the last five week theys never understood was possible because of the work i was doing and throofs personal. And so i think we have to start there. As well as looking at our own structures and so one of the things were doing, were also requiring that every team meeting thats from the Different Program areas, as equities as a standing agenda item and that the responsibility to fill that agenda item is with the team itself. So that they can ask for speakers. They can ask for article that is they want read and cared about so its just a way that were bringing that conversation, and that personal growth into the norm of the way the department operates. So, i guess thats a longwinded answer to something that is really a challenge that you bring up. It would be nice if the city had a way, a Scholarship Program or if the unions had ways that they could help support departments for specific trainings or dhr. It would be great if dhr would have sponsored these trainings. And maybe they will. Thank you. Any other commissioner comments seeing none, lets open it to Public Comment. To make Public Comment, dial 3 to be addd to speaker line. Pleads let us know if there are callers that are ready. Press 3 to be added to the queue. Those on hold tht queue. Please continue to wait until it is your turn to speak. We currently have no callers in the queue. Seeing that theres no Public Comment and no discussion, Public Comment is now closed. Next item, pleads. Item 6. Presentation to highlight the Green Business Program Support during covid19 to Small Businesses, sponsor is debra the direct omplet speaker is kevin green representative. The past few months of course incredibly difficult for our Small Business community. Thousands of Small Businesses, literally, have closed their door for good. Thousands are suffering and stugling to keep their doors open or to stay afloat, to be allowed to stay open. Just as president stephenson suggested, this slowdown time we should ask ourselves what can we be doing to help our small ms . They have always been an area of focus for us. How do we need to pivot our work so that it is particularly helpful in this moment . And we also want to look very particularly at our Green Businesses. That is the cohort of Small Businesses that we have a direct relationship with and its als

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