>> clerk: mr. president, all members are present. >> president yee: thank you. please place your right hand over your heart and join with me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. ["pledge of allegiance"] >> president yee: thank you. on behalf of the board, i would like to acknowledge the staff at sfgtv, who record each of our meetings and make them available on-line. madam clerk, are there any communications? >> clerk: yes. the record will reflect that during this covid-19 emergency, members of the board of supervisors will participate to the same extent as if they were present in their legislative chamber. the board recognizes the pandemic has made the need for communication more acute and that those communities, with and without the internet, have the opportunity to participate, written and unwritten, in this meeting. we will accept your testimony via mail or public comment. you're welcome to send us an e-mail at bos@sfgov.org. if using your computer, you can livestream the meeting by going to www.sfgtv.org. if you're using the cablecast on your television, go to cable channel 26. please note if you're going to provide testimony, turn down your television. note that there is a public delay, and you may miss the prompt for public comment. your phone can be used to both listen to the proceedings and provide public comment. the number is crawling across the television screen and your computer. 415-655-0001. when you hear the prompt, enter the meeting i.d. 146-350-8583. press pound twice, and you'll have joined the proceeding as a listener. again, be sure to turn down your television, or you may have missed the prompt. we have interpreters today. please introduce yourself in concession to let them know you are here to assist them with their public comment. [speaking cantonese language] >> interprete >> interpreter: thank you. [speaking spanish language] >> interpreter: thank you. [speaking tagalog language] >> interpreter: thank you, madam clerk. >> clerk: just a quick thank you to the three of you. we very much appreciate your support. and now, a word on what agenda content is eligible for your public comment. there are three matters slated to begin consecutively at 3:00 p.m. items 4 through 7 is the items of mitigated declaration for 3516 and 3526 folsom street. if you're looking to provide general public comment, that item is 15. when that item is called, you'll be able to speak on the general minutes, on the items not specifically before the board, and items 12 and 13 on the agenda. if you're having any problems, call 415-554-5416, and we have someone standing by ready to assist you with problems you are having. and finally, pursuant to the a.d.a., we have a member of the public ready to make public comment, thanks to the efforts of mr. wilson ng, we have something ready to make public comment. >> president yee: just a reminder if you're not speaking to mute your microphone. and madam clerk, we have a member of the public who wishes to provide public comment. we will open public comment at this time for that individual. madam clerk, is the person ready to make the comments? >> clerk: yes, i believe so. mr. qu, please unmute the caller. thank you. >> hi. my name is zach karnazes. i want to thank angela calvillo for the work that she's been doing for me to be able to access these meetings. mr. wilson ng has repeatedly ignored e-mails and requests and things that i have mentioned for accessibility that i have tried to access for this meeting, including now a 15-minute precall-in time. the mayor's office for disability nor this board has not required such a time to call in for a disability accommodation. mr. ng tries to continue to make this as soon as possible. in the past, he requires multiple e-mails confirmations to allow this accommodation to be made. he continues to refuse to allow this approval on a rolling basis. mr. wilson ng is a very problematic a.d.a. coordinator, and i want his name reflected in the meeting minutes. please list his name to accurately reflect his name so that i can state the problem. he is not making this easy, he is not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. there are a.d.a. laws to allow equal efforts to allow people like me able to make public comment. please consider a call-in catch system on your website so that other disabled people will know how to attend. thank you. >> president yee: okay. thank you, caller. and madam clerk, thanks for arranging this accommodation. before we get started, i wanted to mention something about the adoption without committee reference. i've been remindied that this section was for noncontroversial items and things of that nature, and i think over the last six months or five months, things have happened where we needed to use any time we were given to address emergency issues and so forth, and that continued for a little while, where we needed to act quickly. and we probably settled into a pace of some sort, but then, many of us were involved with other things, whether it's getting things on the ballot measure, and more focused on that, and we were also focused on the budget process, where a lot of us were focused on managing things that we didn't want to manage. i think since we're in the middle of covid-19, we should go back to what this part of the meeting for, and that i'm asking all of us to think about what you need to pass moving forwa forward; instead of waiting last minute, to think these things out. we will not have a meeting next week, so all of us should be able to do a better job in this. and moving forward, now that we've settled in the space, i would go back to my decisions and if there's a movement to put these on the items without committee reference, it's up to you to manage these and so forth. so i'll just leave it at that. i think it's time to move forward, and hopefully, we don't have to go through another streak of where we have to make last-minute decisions, knowing what we're facing for probably another six months to a year. okay? colleagues, today, we are approving the minutes of the july 8 and the july 28, 2020 minutes of the meetings of the san francisco board of supervisors. any additions or corrections? can i have a motion? >> supervisor peskin: so moved. >> president yee: moved by supervisor peskin. second by? >> supervisor fewer: fewer. >> president yee: okay. moved by supervisor peskin, seconded by supervisor fewer. madam clerk, would you please call the roll on the minutes? >> clerk: on the approval of the minutes -- [roll call] >> clerk: there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. then without objection, the minutes will be approved after the public comments as presented. [gavel]. >> president yee: madam clerk, let's go to our consent agenda. please call items 1 and 2 together. >> clerk: items 1 and 2 are on consent. these items are considered routine. if a member objects, an item may be removed and considered separately. >> president yee: okay. colleagues, would anyone like to sever any of these items from the consent agenda? seeing none, then, madam clerk, please call the roll on items 1 and 2. >> clerk: on items 1 and 2 -- [roll call] >> clerk: mr. president, with your permission, we can pause. supervisor peskin is in his office, and my staff are already deployed to assist him to return. okay. they are making contact with him now. >> supervisor peskin: i have managed to rejoin. >> clerk: okay. and supervisor peskin on items 1 and 2? >> supervisor peskin: aye. >> clerk: there are 11 ayes. >> clerk: okay. the items are passed unanimously. madam clerk, let's go to new business. please call the next item. >> clerk: item 3 is an emergency ordinance to temporarily protect workers from adverse action or discrimination as a result of having symptoms or exposure to covid-19, whether from currently or previously testing positive or are in isolation or in quarantine. pursuant to charter section 2.107, this matter requires the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the board with only one reading. >> president yee: okay. madam clerk, please go ahead and call the roll. >> clerk: on item 3 -- [roll call] >> clerk: there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. without objection, the ordinance is finally passed unanimously. madam clerk, let's go to committee reports. >> clerk: committee reports. items 12 and 13 were considered by the land use and transportation committee at a regular meeting on monday, august 31. item 12 was recommended as -- i believe it was recommended -- it was a reenactment of emergency ordinance number 84-20 in response to the covid-19 emergency to establish protection for occupants of residential hotels to establish city policy making it city policy to place in solitary hotel rooms s.r.o. residents who might the criteria for isolation or quarantine established by the county health officer, and requiring the department of public health to develop a protocol to assist health care providers to identify s.r.o. residence dets may require protection against or treatment for covid-19. >> president yee: supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: yes. i would like to thank former supervisor katy tang and the department of public health. there are a couple of nonsubstantive amendments that the department of public health recommended to the supervisor earlier today that we are working on, and with your indulgence, mr. president, i'd like to continue this item until later in today's meeting. >> president yee: supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: i was just going to ask to be added as a cosponsor. >> president yee: okay. would you like to second the motion, supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: second. >> president yee: okay. roll call -- oh, wait. do we need to take a -- >> clerk: no, mr. president, unless there was an objection. >> president yee: okay. then we will continue this item later on the agenda. which is going to come soon. supervisor -- not supervisor, but madam clerk, item number 13. >> clerk: item 13 was not forwarded to the board as a committee report and is not before the board today. >> president yee: okay. let's go to roll call. >> clerk: okay. supervisor mar, you are first up to introduce new business. >> supervisor mar: submit. >> clerk: thank you, supervisor mar. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: my apologies. i am off of mute. i will keep my roll call focus to one item and to [inaudible] and i don't think there are any members of this board around 15 years ago when a long-running lawsuit was resolved actually by the california state supreme court which led my vote of the san francisco tenant and housing alliance to adopt a chapter of the code, 49-a, which is known as the residential tenant communications act, which codified the right of tenants to distribute literature relating to common interest of tenants. in other words, a tenant organization could go and put a leaflet under the door or in the mailboxes -- in the united states postal service mailboxes, but that was before donald trump [inaudible] i've come to learn that it's [inaudible] fundamentally, the tenants had already organized. this is about the right and admonition and encouragement for tenants. i'm not saying this relative to acts with organizations like the tenants union, but at the pointants of particular ideologies to organize nice -- but tenants of particular ideologies to organize. i'd like to take that a step further, giving these tenants of ideologies to have a seat at the table not only to disseminating literature but the right to cause and concern. the right to organize largely emanates not only from my work but my community's work and organization's work, namely, the veritas organization. the organization has about $3 billion, with a b, dollars in assets. as speaker pelosi reminded us all, received a 3.5 -- actually $3.6 million small business loan from the federal government, and the tenants furnished a list of demands not only to help those small businesses but to stabilize the tenants who are in so much pressure, and the partnership between these tenants and small business groups, including the council of district merchants has been, i think, tremendously important. at the core of that [inaudible] demand. tenants have asked to meet directly with veritas investments, to have a mediate discussion, which albeit, i'll admit that i am biased in favor of the tenants, but i think i could have been a fair mediator had i been offered to mediate. today, i am asking the city attorney to start drafting changes to chapter 49-a to expand communication to the fundamental right to organize in those building typologies, and i hope not to draft something controversial between tenants and landlords, but hopefully not only earns the support of all of my colleagues on the board of supervisors but from the tenant and landlord communities. sadly, i would like to, madam clerk, adjourn this board meeting in the memory of two individuals. first, and i think we all heard about this muni operators, tony cahini, who was with the sfmta just a little bit shy of 20 years, 19 years. antonio was born and raised in the richmond, and as a youth, he delivered newspapers for the chronicle back when we had papers in print. he served for four years in the army before becoming a pastry chef at marriott hotel near san francisco international airport, and ultimately became a muni operator and had a medical emergency and died at the wheels of his bus last week. our condolences to his family and to his brothers and sisters at t.w.u. local 258. and i note that his brother-in-law, ray, who i knew as a cable car operator, tragically lost his life when he stepped off a cable car and was run over by a motorcycle, so we have lost two muni operators from the same family. it is a stressful job that is remarkably dangerous. so to that family, extended family, on behalf of the board of supervisors, my condolences. and lastly, and i think only clerk calvillo will remember mary burns, who truly lived a life of service. maybe president yee remembers mary burns. [inaudible]. >> supervisor peskin: exactly. thank you, mr. president. after graduating from the institution that my father taught at for 40 years, san francisco state, mary began volunteering in political campaigns for notables. one of them extant, milton marks, and, in 1967, got a position in the california state assembly with later on mayor willie louis brown, jr. when he was a member of the assembly. she followed in that role with george moscone, and ultimately continued to serve under dianne feinstein. and as a teenager, mary had a fundamental san francisco experience. she served as a lifeguard and playground director at the recreation and parks department, where she ultimately became, i believe, the first woman to run that department before she got into a little fandango with her former employer, willie brown, who may or may not have let her go. but she continued that serve f for -- service for a number of other bear institutions. but an incredible loss. she played a huge part in fact golden gate master plan, and so many other things we take for granted. she is predeceased by her mother and father, her uncle, aunt, grandparents [inaudible] and she is survived by her sister of oakdale, california. our condolences to the family of miss burns, and the rest, i will submit, madam clerk. >> president yee: before we move onto the other colleagues, i would like to suggest that the in memoriams of both persons be from the entire board. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, mr. president. >> clerk: thank you, supervisor peculiar kin. supervisor preston? presley thank you, madam cle - >> supervisor preston: thank you, madam clerk. colleagues, i know that housing issuing are very important to you, and that's why i'm moving to have the week of september 15 through 22 declared national housing week in san francisco. our city is a national leader in the housing movement with nearly five decades of committed work by city and county government leaders. and san francisco continues to innovate and push the boundaries in advancing affordable housing to address the tremendous needs of low-income folks and people who are unhoused and insufficiently housed and also to address the ever-widening ranks of every day san franciscans shut out of the private housing market as we struggle to survive in our prohibitively expensive city. there's a lot more to do, but i appreciate the members for their advocacy on this board in their efforts to do more to make san francisco a more inclusive and equitable city. and every year, we take a brief moment to pause and take stock and be inspired and push forward. this year, as with many aspects of our lives, things are a bit different. affordable housing week was originally scheduled in may. it was supposed to be in early may and has been moved to september. it's also going to be scaled back a bit this year. there were originally going to be ten events planned this year. it's going to be shifted to a virtual setting with fewer offerings. that said, i think we need to keep this at the forefront as there is no chance for pause in the conversation about housing in san francisco. we've got on tuesday, september 15, a state senate housing forum that will be from 5:00 to 6:30 in the evening. on wednesday, september 16, there's a panel discussion of housing in the time of covid -- affordable housing in the time of covid-19. that's from 11:00 to 12:30 and then, on wednesday, september 22, there's a program on the h.o.p.e. program, and that's from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. lots more on the community organizati coalition for housing organization. last week, myself and president yee called on a hearing for efforts to maximize affordable housing on public housing sites. that has been scheduled to coincide with public housing week, and that will be presented in the rules committee on september 21. lastly, i'd like to thank fernando and peter for organizing this event. peter and fernando do tremendous work to advance affordable housing in this city and beyond, and they are in many ways the unsung heros of the affordable housing movement. so i know i speak for my colleagues in conveying our sincere gratitude to the community housing coalition and those who work so hard for affordable housing opportunities in our city. the rest i submit. >> clerk: thank you. thank you, supervisor. supervisor ronen? >> supervisor ronen: submit. >> clerk: thank you. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: submit. >> clerk: thank you. supervisor stefani? submit? thank you. supervisor walton? >> supervisor walton: thank you so much, madam clerk. colleagues, today, i am introducing four resolutions around equity and justice reform. the first one is a resolution in support of implementing black studies as a part of sfusd k through 12 curriculum. a version of this resolution was introduced last week by commissioner stevon cook at the board of education meeting. we need a black studies curriculum that honors black lives and fully represents the contributions of black people in the global society. sfusd has introduced initiatives for the past 40 years aimed at closing the achievement gap between black students and their peers, and despite our best efforts, the gap has not closed. we learn about history from a white per spspective, and it h painted a picture of black people as being enslaved, poor, or in poor health. black history is often limited to dr. martin luther king or rosa parks shared in a one-time celebration in blam history month. but there are much lessons to be learned, such as the role of a black man in the san francisco unified school district, to the great migration of southern blacks to the bay area, to support the world war ii effort, to the racist lending and hiring authorities of the federal, state, and local governments, to have urban organizations remove black residents from their home. learning a fuller history of black people has increased engagement of students and their education. learning about one's culture and history has proven to decrease the risk of students dropping out of high school and increase the desire to go to college. i would like to thank my colleagues, supervisor ronen, fewer, and preston for your support of this resolution. the second and third resolutions i'm introducing go hand ain hand in our efforts i redefining our justice system in support of sb 731, police decertification, and sb 776, release of records of police who commit misconduct. both of these bills will provide more public accountability of law enforcement in cases of misconduct, and both of these bills were recently passed in the state legislature this past week and is currently awaiting governor newsom to sign into law. i would like to thank my colleagues, supervisor fewer, yee, and preston, for signing onto support both of these resolutions. we know that there is a long-standing history of criminal bias and racial history nationwide when it comes to black people. law enforcement across the united states have a history of using excessive force on people of color, especially black and brown men. there has been a national crisis over repeated instances of police brutality and killings of black people and persons of color. to date, there have been 765 people killed by police in 2020, and 28% of those killed by police are black people, despite being only 13% of the united states population. last tuesday, august 26, the numbered were at 751, which is an increase of 14 people killed by law enforcement in the span of one week in the united states. there were only 27 days in 2019 where police did not kill anyone. here in san francisco, there have been over 70 officer involved shootings in the past decade. george floyd, breonna taylor, mario woods, oscar grant, eric garner, michael brown, and countless black people and people of color who have been killed at the hands of the police. in san francisco, alex nieto, mario woods, jessica williams, perez lopez, and shawn michael rosa are just a few people who have died at the hands of law enforcement more recently. most recently, jacob blake was shot in the back seven times while going to his car in front of his three children in ken owe shaken -- kenosha, wisconsin. this violence against black and brown communities, condoned by law enforcement and our national leaders needs to end. sb 731, police decertification, also known as the kenneth ross, jr. police decertification act of 2020, introduced by state senator steven bradford of los angeles will create a statewide process to automatically revoke the certification of a peace officer following a conviction of misconduct such as excessive force, sexual misconduct, and dishonesty. it will also correct the misinterpretation of an impediment to the tom bains civil rights act intended to perform civil immunity. it makes it nearly impossible for families to successfully sue police officers for civil damages in police abuse cases in federal court for police officers in california. sb 776, introduced by senator nancy skinner of the east bay, would disclose records of peace officers involved in any incidents of excessive use of force, unlawful arrest, and searches and [inaudible] of a protected class beginning on july 1, 2021. this bill is currently being heard in the assembly. sb 776 will require the retention of all complaints currently in the possession of a department or agency for a period of at least 30 years if they are related to a sustained finding of specified misconduct and will require that records relating to an incident in which an officer resigns before an investigation is completed to also be subject to release. oftentimes, officers quit when they have received several complaints for excessive force in a particular city and move into another city. there also is no accountability to the public. currently, there is no access of records to the public unless there is a very specific charge related to discharge of a firearm, sexual misconduct or percentage. this board unanimously passed resolution 29-20 to urge the civil service commission to institute a policy wherein san francisco we will never hire an individual to serve in the san francisco police department or sheriff's department that has a history of excess tiive force another municipality. yesterday, district attorney chesa boudin and i presented a resolution to ensure that those kinds of individuals would not be hired by the san francisco police department or sheriff's department. it is imperative that we not allow any of those individuals to become part of our city of san francisco. we cannot allow these individuals to serve and mistreat san francisco residents. san francisco is committed to comprehensive and systematic justice reform, and sb 771 and 776 are one of the many tools that we are utilizing to make sure that san franciscans are protected. finally, i am introducing a resolution in support of assembly bill 1185, sheriff's oversight at the state level. this was introduced by assembly member kevin mccarthy of sacramento, which will allow counties to create shared oversight boards either through the board of supervisors or vote by county residents. i want to thank supervisors fewer, peskin, yee, and preston for signing on. in 2015, the late public defender, jeff adachi, began investigations on incarcerated individuals who were forced in gladiator-type fights between each other. and [inaudible] because he did not agree on a policy from the board of supervisors, and there was no public accountability against him. in 2018, sacramento county sheriff scott jones locked the county inspector, rick ruzzilo, out of his department, and effectively bringing all independent investigations to a halt because he did not agree with the criticism of the sheriff's department from the inspector general regarding use of force cases. sheriff's oversight has been long overdue in the state of california and in san francisco. last year, february 2019, i called for a hearing on why san francisco did not have an oversight board for the sheriff's department following public notification of gladiator fights, lawsuits, people dying in san francisco custody and other misconduct in the sheriff's department. on july 21, 2020, our board submitted a charter amendment to let san francisco voters decide on establishing a sheriff's department oversight board and inspector general in the november 3, 2020 general elections. the state is following suit because sheriff's departments have been able to operate rogue across the state of california for decades. ab 1185 was introduced last year in the late assembly and finally passed last week at the state senate. it is currently awaiting the signature of governor gavin newsom to sign into law. on january 12, 2016, the los angeles county board of supervisors voted to implement a sheriff's oversight commission and inspector general, one of the first in the state, with the mission to improve public transparency and accountability over that sheriff's department. ab 1185 has already been passed. we hope that the governor will sign into law t. the rest -- and thank you so much for your patience, colleagues -- i submit. >> clerk: thank you, supervisor walton. supervisor yee? >> president yee: thank you. i'm not submitting anything. i just wanted to remind the joint select committee, i guess, that i had submitted a hearing request before the covid-19, and -- had postponed really wanting to hear it because of everything that we're dealing with, and i would like to have that hearing soon, maybe in a few weeks, to discuss, really, the mental health issues of our secondary school school -- in particular, middle schools and high schools. you might think why now, versus why not wait until they go back to class? and i'm realizing right now it was already a strain issue for many students why they were going back to class. and now, they basically have isolation, and whether we help them deal with some of the mental health issues now or when they come back, there will probably be an increased need for their services. i've talked to a number of mental health workers and individual practitioners, and they're saying there's been a huge uptick just for adult mental health services, so if that's any indication that children are not that different from adults who are going through a lot of stress. we're all dealing with this emergency, so if possible, i would like to have that hearing scheduled for this -- this month. the rest i submit. >> clerk: thank you, mr. president. supervisor fewer? >> supervisor fewer: submit. >> clerk: thank you, supervisor. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: thank you, madam clerk. and just on the issue that you brought up, president yee, we'll definitely get that scheduled. i have one resolution today that i'm introducing, calling for emergency money to provide critical relief to american families during covid-19 and calling on congress to support direct cash payments. i'm also, as part of this resolution, urging that we as the board of supervisors in san francisco explore ways to implement and expand various guaranteed income programs in our city. as we all know, the c.a.r.e.s. act one-time check of stimulus funding was not enough for those who needed it the most. we're hearing again and again that the programs established through the c.a.r.e.s. act are inadequate, and most families feel ignored and unaffected during the pandemic, while billionaires nationwide have enjoyed tremendous growth. the business impact felt nationwide are felt most by the poor and working poor of our city. and before the pandemic, most americans could not afford a single $400 emergency, which is heartbreaking. this is urging the federal government to support cash payments during the pandemic and beyond. and also, as i mentioned, it is putting san francisco on record in support of guaranteed income that focuses on racial equity and financial empowerment. this is not a new idea. cash payments through a guaranteed income has worked, and research shows that people use it overwhelmingly on their basic needs, housing, or unexpected medical costs. there are 20 cities that have signed on and are committed to exploring a guaranteed income model. that includes los angeles, long beach, chicago, atlanta, and san francisco should not be just a part of that conversation but a leader in it. we don't know how long this crisis will last, but we do know that millions of americans need cash on hand to survive. it's shameful that someone working two or three jobs can still be below the poverty line. direct cash payments or also known as universal basic income or guaranteed income, is a solution that our federal government should be providing for, and that we should be pursuing actively here in san francisco whether through a provide philanthropist foundation or something else. this is a priority that has introduced itself as a priority, and cities all over the country are taking leadership, and i hope we do, as well. the rest i submit. >> clerk: thank you, supervisor haney. supervisor mandelman? >> supervisor mandelman: i will submit my legislation. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. mr. president, seeing no new names on the roster, that concludes the introduction of new business. >> president yee: okay. thank you very much. if i talk really slowly, it'll be 3:00, so what i'd like to do is jump back into our agenda for our special order -- >> supervisor haney: president yee, you're muted. >> president yee: okay. there. it's 3:00. let's go back to our special order at 3:00 p.m. madam clerk, can you please call items 4 through 7? >> clerk: yes. [please stand by] given the extraordinary pressures on our fire department at the moment i couldn't justify pressuring the fire marshal to respond [indiscernible]. okay. i will continue. over the past few weeks, so i'm making a motion to continue the appeal once again to september 15. both sponsor and the appellants are aware of the continuance. >> okay, thank you. so is there a second for this continuance? >> second, supervisor preston. >> okay, seconded by supervisor preston. madam clark, before we take that motion, let's take public comments on the continuance itself. >> okay. >> are there any members of the public who wish to speak on the anticipated continuance? >> operations, do we have a caller on the line? >> operator: [indiscernible]. >> great, welcome, caller. weefr taking public comment on the continuance of items four through seven. this is appeal of revised final mitigation declaration proposed for the fulsome street project. are you with us, caller? if you are interested in speaking, please just express star 3 and that moves you into listening mode, if you haven't already. welcome, caller. all right, while operations is queuing up the next caller, the meeting identifier number is 1463408583, press pound twice and if you are interested in speaking on the continuance of items 4 through 7, press star 3 now. okay, we understand that the caller has been unmuted but you're not speaking. so if you're listening to your television, turn that down and listen to the phone. it's your turn to speak. welcome, caller. >> hello. can you hear me? >> yes, we can. welcome. >> okay, thank you. my name is madelyn mcmillan. i live in district two, and supervisor stefani, i am a member of ver taciturner association as well as the seiu union member. i am calling in support of supervisor preston's resolution regarding right to organize for tenant. i have three comments -- hello? >> is this the correct item? >> i'm pausing the speaker's time. i'm sorry, mr. president, i did not catch the topic. to the caller, just to -- >> it was the subject of my role call and is appropriately, i would suggest, madam clerk, mr. president, before the board. >> okay. >> supervisor peskin, i would agree with you if we were in general public comment, but because we -- [indiscernible]. >> [indiscernible] continuaceance, you're totally right. >> and to the caller on the line, i apologize. hopefully you can hear me. we're hoping that you press star three to go back into line, and when we call public comment, that would be the perfect opportunity for you to share your comments with us. we are taking calls right now on the continuance for the appeal of the revised mitigated continuation for fulsome project. the board is continuing those items. so i will hopefully get your acquiescence and you'll press star 3 and go back into line and we'll hear from you during general public comment. okay. so operations? is there another caller, please? >> operator: yes. >> okay. hello, caller. are you with us? >> yes, can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> all right. normally i would say you are wasting time, but with this, you know what, i respect this continuance. i support it. i yield my time. >> okay. thank you for your comments. operations, do we have another caller? we're taking public comment on the continuance for items 4 through 7. welcome, caller. >> hello. >> hi, there. welcome. >> hello. can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> hello. my name is herb feltenfelled. my wife and i have lived at 3574 fulsome street for almost 40 years. we are 25 feet away from the proposed project, and if approved without a full and complete eir, it has the potential to damage our own and our neighbors' life and home. the plan does not provide any relevant and important information about pipeline 109. in other words, when was it built? what was it made out of? was it welded together from smaller pieces, like the failed san bruno pipeline? what is its average and maximum allowable operating pressure? we would like to see the operational and maintenance history of this line. has there ever been any detected leaks on this pipeline? when was it internally inspected and how was that inspection carried out? the pipeline report, the emergency evacuation plan was similarly incomplete. i respect the continuance, and after careful review of what's been proposed for this plan, i'm sure we will be offering more information to the board on september 15. so far we're, frankly, terrified by what's been proposed for these two large houses. they are simply too -- there are simply too many unanswered questions, and we hope that the rfmd will be denied. our questions, concerns and issues will only be satisfied by a full and complete eir. thank you, president ye and thank you honourable members of the board for taking these concerns seriously. we look forward to your decision. >> thank you to the caller for your comments. operations, i believe we have one other caller. hello, caller. we're taking a public comment on the continuance of item 4 through 7 to september 15. >> is this me? >> yes, it is. hello. >> oh, good. my name is kathy idis. i live on bank street and i want to say that on behalf of the organization i would like to express appreciation to the supervisor for seeking more information from pg and e and to thank the planning department for getting first batch of the documents to us quickly. we look forward to receiving the rest that they said would be coming as soon as they get them so we can have a look. this is a high-risk project with potentially dangerous and life-threatening consequences, so the relevant data really does need to be analyzed to make sure we have safe neighborhoods, so thank you, supervisor, and we look forward to seeing what happens. that's all. >> thank you for your comments. operations, is there another caller? >> operator: madam clerk, that completes the queue. >> great. thank you. mr. president? >> okay. then i will close public comment on this item -- on the continuance. so we have a motion that's seconded to continue these items to the september 15, 2020, board meeting. so madam clerk, go ahead and call the role. >> okay, on the motion to continue items 4 through 7 to september 15 . . . [role call]. there are 11ayes. >> they are continued to the meeting on september 15, 2020. next go to the next and please call items 8 through 11. >> items 8 through 11, comprise the public hearing and motions for persons interested in the determination of statutory exemption from environmental review under the california environmental quality act by the planning department on april 21, 2020, for the proposed municipal transportation agencies those streets phase one project. item 9 is the motion to affirm the department's determination that the proposed mta slow streets phase one project is statutorily exempt from environmental review. item 10 is the motion to conditionally reverse that determination, and item 11 is the motion to direct the preparation findings. >> okay, colleagues, we have before us the proposed municipal transportation agency's phase one of slow streets project. this is related to the planning of department's determination of statutory exemption and the environmental review under the california environmental quality act. after the hearing, the board will vote on whether to affirm or reverse the exemption from environmental review. we will hear objections and proceed as follows. up to ten minutes for a brief presentation by the appellant or the representative. two minutes per speaker in support of the appeal, up to ten minutes for presentation from the city departments. up to ten minutes for the project sponsor or their representative. and then two minutes per speaker in opposition to the approval and in support of the project. finally, up to three minutes for a rebuttal by the appellant or their representatives. colleagues, are there any objections to proceeding this way? okay. seeing no objection, then the public hearing will proceed as indicated and is now open. colleagues, did you have any opening remarks you would like to share? okay, seeing no names on the roster from my colleagues, i will now ask the appellant to come forward and present their case. you have up to ten minutes. is murray myles or a representative here? >> mr. president, my staff are indicating to me that she may not be online with us. i would like to provide a little bit of information. on friday afternoon the appellant emailed to say she was not equipped to use microsoft teams platform. we offered ms. myles call-in instructions and looped in our ada coordinator in case there was a request for accommodations. by friday evening, the appellant provided us an email and a phone number, which we invited her with, but then indicated to us that she may call in from a completely different number than the number she gave us. she did not want us to publish her secondary number. of course we wouldn't, but then we weren't able to call her on a -- give her the invitation on another line. to our knowledge today, she's not picking up her phone. my staff have been trying to call her for the last 20 minutes, and they -- again, they do not see here in the invited list. i mean, she was invited, but she is not present in the remote meeting. unless she's being disguised by another telephone number, so i would pause for a moment in case she's trying to utilize the system. >> okay, let's pause for a second here. >> okay. and what i can do, mr. president, is if at the last second she wants to provide the public comment line, i will provide the telephone number now, 415-655-0001. the meeting id number is 146-340-8583, press pound pound to listen and star three if you'd like to speak. >> if she does come on, just in case she doesn't, i would like to ask the -- our deputy city attorney ann pearson what is the recommendation? should we continue this item because of technical difficulties? we don't know. we actually don't know if it's technical difficulty or if she doesn't want to make any remarks. >> deputy city attorney ann pearson. i'm aware that she was given the required notice of this hearing. her own materials state as much, so she's been given the 14 days' notice and has been in touch with the clerk's office to arrange to be here today. so i think that whether you continue the item is a choice for the board to make, but she has been notified of this hearing and provided with the information to appear. and she has also submitted her paperwork that you have received in advance and can use -- can rely on in making your determination. i'm not aware that she's expressed an inability to be here technologically because i believe the clerk has made it an option for her by providing her with a number of means of communicating. >> supervisor peskin? >> thank you, president yee, and thank you deputy city attorney pearson. i was going to say the written record is before us, and i believe the party in interest is before us and members of the public on either side have the opportunity to comment. i for one have read the pleadings and would like to proceed with the hearing in the absence of verbal testimony given that the record clearly shows that notice was duly delivered pursuant to the law to the appellant. so at least one eleventh of this board, mr. president, would encourage that this hearing proceed. >> okay, if there's any objection please express it. otherwise we will continue this hearing. >> mr. president, my staff have someone who has raised their hand in line. it is impossible for us to know if that's her, and we just request the opportunity to unmute her call. it would have to happen here with us to see if it is her in fact. >> why don't you go ahead and do that. >> okay, thank you. operations, please make contact with the caller. >> operator: hello, caller. can you identify yourself, please? >> umm, i'm not sure i'm on. can you hear me? >> operator: yes, we can hear you, ms. myles. >> yes, this is mary myles. i have been unable to access the number that was given by the clerk's office. it is not working. first of all, we did request a continuance and we would appreciate it if the board does hear our views on continuance and whether they want to continue this hearing. that should be the first order of business, i believe. >> you have requested to continue? >> [indiscernible]. >> [indiscernible]. >> approximately six days ago, and it is in the record, and we'd like to have the board continue this hearing. we have stated our reasons. i can state them here now again, if you wish. >> i believe that -- go ahead so everybody here will know, and i will tell you what the inclusion is. >> i'm sorry, should i speak to a continuance or not? >> i have determined that we will not continue this item, so go ahead, speak to -- >> i didn't hear any determination by the board to not continue the item. so i -- that's why i was confused. we have asked to continue it for several reasons. at least one would be that new developments have been raised by mta show that the project itself is not temporary, as they falsely stated, but is a permanent project to be funded with public money for physical barriers, permanent barriers to be constructed on each street. we submitted that as an update also to this board, and it's a very important distinction that should be made between a permanent project and the temporary project that mta and planning have falsely claimed most streets to be. secondly, we have not -- i represent [indiscernible] for adequate review, so when i use the term "we" i am talking about coalition. the appellant has not had adequate time to inform this board in a way that would brief them on both the factual and legal issues of slow streets, the reason being, again, the mta has made many changes, has implemented many phases and up to 50 street closures in san francisco under this project. the latest one being phase three. we appealed it separately, and we believed it was being prudent for the board to hear all the phases of the project on a continued date. that's because it's more efficient and because it would allow for informed decisionmaking as to the scope of the project, which this board does not have now. we have not had the opportunity, with my client, appellant has not been able within the three days allowed to brief this project, and the issue before you is whether this project in all its scope is statutorily exempt under the emergency exemption. it's not whether somebody likes to walk in the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk. it's about whether it's an emergency exemption. so we think that the correct course and public interest would be to just continue this so that the board can assimilate all the information it needs and have an accurate project description in order to objectively make an informed decision on it. so for that reason i would ask the board to reconsider the idea, reconsider our request for a continuance. >> thank you, ms. myles. thank you. so i had originally said that we would [indiscernible] i see this as one of several views, so the first -- i'm open to having any of my colleagues, if you would like to make a motion to continue, and have a second and we could vote on it. that would be fine with me too. so is there anybody, any of my colleagues that would like to make a motion? supervisor peskin? you're muted. >> my apologies, mr. president. no, i would not like to make a motion, but i would say that this appeal was filed, was duly noted, and i just checked the emails from the attorney for the appellant, and while there's certainly an email requesting a continuance and an email asserting new information, there's no email that attempts to reach out, at least to this supervisor, to brief the supervisor. but the written record is before us, and i said that earlier, which is i had read it and insofar as i don't think this warrants a continuance, but the appellant is welcome to bring new information into the record during the course of this hearing, has done so in writing prior to this hearing. so i think it is right for adjudication by this body, and i'm ready to do that fairly and without bias. >> okay, thank you, supervisor peskin. so i don't see anybody wanting to make a motion to continue, so we will go ahead and proceed with this hearing. ms. myles, you have ten minutes to present. >> well, i have to say that the public interest and the appellants are absolutely obstructed and hobbled in the public interest undermined by the board's refusal to continue this hearing as we requested. the board does not have accurate or complete information necessary for informed decisionmaking. we have been refused adequate times to submit a brief on this appeal that would fully inform the board that makes the decision. mta has changed this project many times since this appeal was filed. that's what a brief would inform this board of. it's now 44 to 50 streets, including both major corridors for transportation and neighborhood streets, streets that it may be for specific blocks as mta claimed, but many, many of them are miles long. several miles in length. they are big streets. for this reason and because there's been no public process by mta in phase one, as they are subsequent phases, of course you do not have the complete information in front of you. appeal only was filed to be timely in phase one. so you need to have a comprehensive view of the project and an accurate project description to be able to engage in informed decisionmaking. further, the public also needs full information, accurate information. the lies we have been told by mta and planning that this is a temporary project, it is absolutely a permanent project as we have showed with the city's request for funding to construct their permanent barriers on slow streets and make the project permanent. in answer the finite project descriptions [indiscernible] informed decisionmaking, i don't want to repeat, but it's just most important for preliminary consideration. you should have this to conduct a fair hearing and informed decisionmaking and to enable an informed participation by the public that hasn't been done. in fact -- and planning has both misled the public by stating the project is temporary, and that is clearly false. getting on to the subject of this appeal -- has exerted an emergency exemption, an an emergency under seqa can only be [indiscernible] clear and imminent danger demanding immediate action to prevent or mitigate loss of or damage to essential public services, and then it includes such occurrences as fire, flood, earthquake or other soil movements, as well as riots, accidents, so on. so in short, an example might be an earthquake or maybe a gas line rupture in the middle of the street. that would be an emergency where a street could be closed to repair it quickly without having to be subject to seqa, but that's not what's happening here. here we have the desire of some bicyclists and pedestrians to close streets to cars so that they can walk in the middle of streets instead of on sidewalks. that's not an emergency that meets seqa's definition in this project therefore is not exemption under seqa's emergency exemptions. as i say, that is the only subject of this appeal as to whether this thing meets or fits with the emergency exemption. it does not. the burden is on the city not on the appellant but on the city to prove that every element of that definition of emergency exemption, which is contained in public resources code section 210-60.3, every element has to be substantiated with evidence, and no evidence has been provided. we have no evidence that anyone's in imminent danger if they can't walk in the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk. we have no [indiscernible] say they should have -- we have no evidence that walking in the middle of the streets instead of on sidewalks, that sidewalks are inadequate for social distancing. there's nothing in the record that verifies any of this. there's no evidence that existing bicycle facilities are affected by traffic on these designated streets. there's no evidence that any public health or safety issue is addressed by allowing children to play in the middle of streets. there's no evidence that pedestrians and bicyclists are on quote unquote essential trips while walking in the middle of the street. there's no evidence that closing streets to vehicles will prevent or mitigate loss of life or essential government services. in fact, the mta director, mr. tomlon, has decided that cars are the safest way to travel during the covid pandemic. mta provides no evidence that it has consulted with the fire or police department on closing all these streets, each of them. they provide and the fire department and police and ambulance, emergency services, those are the essential government services [indiscernible] prevent or mitigate, and in fact it obstructs those services by closing public streets to vehicles. there's been a great concern here is there's been no public process by mta on any phases of the slow streets, especially on the first phase, which is [indiscernible] hearing. mta has excused itself from conducting public process with the promise that this project would be temporary. in the same respect, it has declared it an emergency exemption which would only apply to a temporary project, but it now admits and asks for money to make this project permanent, i.e., to close up to 50 streets so far so that people can walk in the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk. this is not in any way exempt as an emergency. it's not an unexpected occurrence. it doesn't mitigate or prevent the damage to public services that are caused by the pandemic itself. >> ten minutes, ms. myles. >> the project endangers everyone and increases congestion in surrounding streets. if there had been any real emergency which walking and bicycling in the middle of the streets is not [indiscernible]. public process is a very important part of seqa's requirements. it provides meaningful participation so that decisionmakers can have the full information they are required by seqa to have before making a decision on any project. instead, the public has been denied that process every step of the way, appeal to this board as the last chance for getting public process and public accountability on this project, neither of which had been provided by mta. it's an important point. the board is required under seqa to make informed decisions. the lack of an accurate project description, including the permanent nature and character of this project makes informed decisionmaking possible. the lack of meaningful opportunity for the public to inform the board's decision is also lacking. we need to say that by making this project permanent, there's not -- that is antithetical to a sudden unexpected occurrence. what's being proposed is a permanent project. so with that, i believe the board should find that this project does not -- >> thank you, ms. myles. >> thank you. now what i'd like to do is open it for public comment to the public. this is for those who want to speak in support of the view of the applicant, please come forward. you have up to two minutes. for those who oppose the view, there will be an opportunity later on the hearing. at this time, those who support the appeal, please press star 3 to be added to this queue. madam clerk, will you please call the first speaker. >> operations, can you please send the first caller through? >> i'm going to try this again. am i on item 15, public comment? >> not yet, ma'am. i'm so sorry. thank you for your patience. >> okay. >> we're taking public comment regarding items 8 through 11 and specifically on behalf of the appellant. >> okay. well, that's not me. >> no, but we would look forward to hearing from you later. okay, operations, is there another caller on the line? >> yes, there is another caller. i come here every week. you watch this and i expect you guys to represent the people. every time, every time -- you know, i think is this going to be a better week? are my supervisors going to actually represent me? but i'm let down every week. it's disgusting. i support the appeal because -- for tons of reasons. you know, it hurts traffic. there's -- i don't ever see anyone other than, like, kids playing in the streets. cars don't even care. they just drive down the streets, and there's no plan for enforcement. i've never seen anyone get a ticket. the project is a failure, and we've already seen that. but you're not going to listen because you love the project. i read through all of the communications received, all the emails, which i know you guys don't read, but i read them, and you should actually take a look at some things that are happening to people, especially on twin peaks. it's disgusting. so yeah, i'm -- i feel really let down by all of you. i yield my time. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. operations, is there another caller, please? >> hi, team. my wife suzie and i are homeowners in district 8. we live at 3 burnett avenue north. we're located just a few blocks away from the intersection of burnett avenue and twin peaks where the gate to twin peaks remains closed as a result of unilateral decisions of sfpd and parks and rec in attempts of slowing the spread of covid. my comments are a reflection of the negative consequences of closing automobile access to this point without a proper environmental study. as a homeowner and resident we are directly affected by the park closure, and i am speaking to you to respectively voice my strong opinion that the west side of twin peaks park gate be reopened to vehicles and not be considered for permanent closure. since the gate has been closed, i've been able to directly witness increased and stream of disturbing consequences due to what should have been a temporary closure. some of those include alcohol-induced revelry, late night noise, weed smoking, blatant illegal parking significantly increased local traffic and traffic incidents, car breakingins, private and public property vandalism, speeding, erratic driving down burnett. lots of noise and garbage in the streets and on to our property. i know that san francisco is generally affected by some of these issues, but these have substantially increased since auto access to twin peaks has been closed. my daughters have been affected. we are just blocks away from the gate closure. the late night noise regularly floods our complex, making my girls feel very unsafe and unable to sleep. all of these activities would otherwise be happening at christmas tree point, but the gate closure has pushed all these negative activities into our neighborhood, causing destruction. i'm certain that none of this was intended when the park gate was closed by parks and rec and sfpd. >> thank you, caller. i just want to indicate that this is public comment in support of the appellant for the statutory exemption from environmental review for the proposed municipal transportation agency's slow streets phase one project. this is not general public comment, so if you're in line and you're not speaking on this item, press star 3 to get back in line. operations? can you please -- let's hear from the next caller, please. >> hi, this is jeff. i live in lake street and 26 avenue in san francisco. i am mostly upset the fact that this happened without any public input, any public input as cities only prosper when there's collective voices instead of a land grab during a pandemic, which is primarily what happened. i have several points i'd like to bring up -- beach is now a big playground, as it should be, because there's nowhere else to go during this. it's becoming filled with traffic, especially 25th avenue. people are looking for parking that doesn't exist, and they are using lake street. so now we've got a collection of cars, strollers, emergency vehicles all thinking they own the same street. i know the law still streets under california the street is for the public, for the cars, not for the public, however, pedestrians don't know that and bicycles don't. i don't have a garage. i find myself looking for parking and yet [indiscernible] several times for people not allowing me to progress down lake street because of this. they think it's their street. i've seen muni take lake street when baker street is too crowded for that line to be able to function there. and contrary to the rhetoric, it's become a playground, the street. it's not just a sidewalk extension. it's a playground for families. i expect to see barbecues pretty soon out there. people learning how to ride bikes. it's all very pastoral, but it's not a city. and finally i am sure, just like the adults, this is going to be made into a permanent set of fixtures. i think we're over 30 miles and seattle started as a good nature thing and it's now a permanent fixture. again, they didn't have any input from the public either. i believe that this was a -- done without public input, and it's going to be permanent and it's not safe. there's a reason sidewalks were invented. thank you all for consideration of this matter. >> thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> yes, good afternoon, supervisors. this is barry toronto. i'm not speaking for any organization, but as one of the few cab drivers there are out there on the streets, it's very disheartening to all of a sudden come upon a slow street without any advance warning. i think the environmental review is necessary because of the fact that there needs to be communication measures as a result of impacts, especially on the ability of the fire trucks to get through those closed streets, and in an emergency, i -- hopefully i'm not going to be dying of a heart attack on one of the slow streets and not have an ambulance be able to get through very easily or have to get out and spend a minute or two to move the barriers. so i have to say, though, that page and lake street do work. however, the other streets don't have any rhyme or reason as to why they are there, and it would be great to have signage, and also to have advanced notice as to the proposals. it's been -- advance notice. i've told the mta that. it would be great before you do it that there's enough advance warning by email or by other announcements to elect people who are out there as essential workers trying to serve the public and make a living. there's been a lot of violations. not to stay in the bayview, there are some slow streets, but they are being violated all the time. i myself included because some of the streets don't make sense. they don't really have any residences on them, and yet they are made a slow street. it doesn't make sense. so i would appreciate it that you do add for some type of environmental review regarding the next stage of slow streets. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. operations, is there another caller in the queue, please? >> can you hear me now? >> yes. welcome, mr. pillpel. >> david pillpel. so this is not my appeal. however, i support the appellant's continuance request which seems reasonable to me. you've already heard that mta director tomlin spoke earlier today about permanent slow streets infrastructure and signage. mta is also requesting fscta funding for permanent slow streets infrastructure and signage. it appears to me that there is no emergency under seqa. we're now more than six months into this virus situation. i saw nothing in the file, on the record from mta or planning that these actions were necessary or required under seqa guidelines 15 to 69c. it exempts specific actions necessary to prevent or mitigate an emergency, and i don't have time to discuss all statutory construction, but you cannot read out the word "necessary" because the word "necessary" is in there somebody has to show that these specific actions are necessary and not just convenient or desirable. and i don't think that's happened. seems to me that this project is being piecemealed in several phases and should be reviewed as one overall project. i support the seqa appeal before you. i think that appellant has met their burden and presented a fair argument that additional environmental review is warranted. in the board file you've already heard from many concerned citizens around -- throughout the city who have articulated environmental and other concerns about the project, evidence of controversy that supports conducting additional environmental review. if you do not continue this item, i urge you to overturn and reverse the planning department's exemption determination, table item nine and approve items ten and eleven today. thank you. >> thank you, mr. pillpel. operations, are there any other callers in the queue, please? >> yeah, this is amazing to hear these comments from the fellow citizens of negative toward this. i just want to throw in some positivity. this slow streets initiative has been phenomenal. >> thank you, mr. president. to the caller, i'm pausing your time. this particular public comment is for those in support of the appeal. we are going to hear from the planning department and the real party in interest, and then we will hear from the members of the public in support of the project or the slow streets project. so if you don't mind waiting a little bit longer. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> thank you kindly. okay, so operations, is there anyone else in the queue? >> hi, my name is diane and i'm a resident on slow streets that have been affected [indiscernible] multiple blocks across the city. [indiscernible] bicycles that believe they have the right-of-way [indiscernible] they are entitled to the sidewalks [indiscernible] provided. i am very [indiscernible] california has now been convinced that single traffic lanes in each direction [indiscernible] slow traffic on california streets [indiscernible] this is inappropriate. it's a danger to people in our neighborhood. the slow streets are not adequately mapped out [indiscernible] cannot provide sufficient [indiscernible] covid-related activities, then we have to re-think how we develop our city. slow streets is not appropriate for safety, economics [indiscernible]. they are not made to have house parties, barbecues and to take away access [indiscernible] of this city. i think [indiscernible] environmental impacts, traffic impacts and most importantly second [indiscernible] suffocated by this inability to reopen. now that they are on the verge of reopening, i encourage you to allow access [indiscernible]. thank you. >> good timing. thank you for your comments. operations, please let's hear from the next caller. >> hi, i'm calling in support of the appeal. i think regardless of the feeling about slow streets, and it's important to have an environmental review insofar as there could be significant environmental attacks of having, you know, certain roads becoming more congested as other roads because, you know, if you block off certain roads, then as the caller said before me people will take other roads. i think there could be all sorts of different environmental concerns, especially if this is something that's supposed to be extended beyond the covid-19 pandemic, and so, like, for example, in golden gate park we have a lot of wildlife, so are we redirecting traffic to golden gate park? and yes, so i just think that an environmental review is really important, regardless of how one feels about the slow streets. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> hi, there, my name is wesley, and i support slow streets, but that's why i want to support the appellant and make them do a proper planning environmental review. i worry that future projects might be able to misuse the terminology in an emergency situation in order to get past any reviews. and i'm also worried that the appellant won a case in 2006 and set back the city's cycling lanes quite heavily when the charge went against the city. i would really suggest only going forward for this to let [indiscernible] otherwise i'd be really worried in the future a court might force all the slow streets to be shut down. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. operations, is there another caller? >> madam clerk, that completes the queue. >> thank you. mr. president? >> okay, thank you for your comments, and since there are no other members that will speak in support of the appeals, we will just go ahead and close that part of the public comment. now we will have up to ten minutes for representatives of the planning department. >> good afternoon. i had a presentation that i would like to share, and it is currently not allowing me to share my presentation. >> did you send a copy of your presentation to the office? >> yes, it just changed now, so i have the ability to share. i will do so now. thank you. >> thank you. >> and also can you state your name? >> yeah. it's laura lynch. i'm getting to it, thank you. good afternoon, president yee, members of the board. joining me today are staff members from the planning department as well as the sfmta. the item before you is an appeal of an emergency project statutory exemption for the sfmta's slow streets phase one project. on april 21, 2020, the planning department determined that the project was statutorily exempt under the california environmental quality act, ceqa, guidelines section 152-69c, also referred to as an emergency statutory exemption, which applies to specific actions to prevent or mitigate an emergency. as described in detail in our appeal response submitted to the board on august 24, the project qualifies as an emergency project statutory exemption. there are two main topics that the appellant has raised that i will address now. topic one relates to the definition of an emergency and how slow streets phase one project is mitigating the emergency. the appellant is implying that the covid-19 public health emergency does not meet the public resources definition of an emergency which includes a sudden unexpected occurrence involving a clear and imminent danger demanding immediate action to prevent or mitigate loss of or damage to life, health, property or essential public services. covid-19 involves a clear and imminent danger and can cause damage to life, health, as well as create challenges for the provision of public services, such as medical care and hospitals. further, the city and state have made public health declarations defining covid-19 as an emergency. the intent behind the slow streets phase one project is to temporarily provide limits to vehicular traffic on identified streets in order for it to provide individuals walking or bicycling with additional space to safely maintain necessary six feet of separation from others while making essential trips. as directed by the department of public health. social distancing mitigates the spread of covid-19, which has been affirmed by public health officials at all levels of government. this project facilitates social distancing. all materials are reversible and removable. the slow streets phase one project was properly classified as a project mitigating an emergency, and the statutory exemptions determination is valid. any further permanent project proposed would undergo separate environmental review where the planning department would conduct analysis to determine the appropriate level of environmental review and if any technical studies are warranted. additionally, a permanent project would require separate approval action. topic two relates to the appellant's claim that the project is part of other covid-19 response projects. the other projects mentioned by the appellant include slow streets phase two and three and the panhandle social distancing and safety projects. these projects are similar in the fact that they are all intended to mitigate the same emergency but suffer in terms of ceqa. these projects reflect different city actions taken at different times to respond to the rapidly changing circumstances on the ground in various areas of the city. the projects all have independent utility in that they are not dependent on one another for implementation, and each has its own separate justification. each project received its own ceqa determination and was properly posted and issued in accordance with ceqa in chapter 31 of the administrative code. in summary, the decision today before the board is whether to uphold the department's decision to issue a statutory exemption and deny the appeal, or to return the project to the department for additional environmental review. the department's position is that the project meets the definition of an emergency statutory exemption and that the department properly issued and posted the exemption pursuant to local and state requirements. we welcome any questions the board may have with regard to the ceqa determination. additional, shannon haik, the project manager, will provide you with a presentation that explains the project itself. thank you. >> thanks, laura. i also don't have the ability to present, so if it's possible to turn that on for me, i can begin sharing my slides. [please stand by] -- it was requiring san franciscans to shelter in place. in early april, the muni service was drastically reduced to just a small system. there were fewer options for transportation throughout the city. later in april, they had more choices for reduced muni service. the way that slow streets work is that they use temporary materials like you see here, like the barricades and signs, and allow space for socially distanced walking and biking. this is to provide a transportation space for essential trips and it does not affect things like on-street parking, driveway access, deliveries, or emergency services. it simply requests that traffic does not travel on this street to provide a shared space for people to walk and bike. as laura mentioned these were the streets that were included in slow streets, phase one. i will note that there are 12 streets here, only five of them were implemented as slow streets. the other seven were removed due to conflicts with other access needs. for example, emergency service providers or loading access or commercial zone. i also wanted to clarify that slow streets is part of the government's response to covid. and there have been several street changes. there have been shared spaces, which are more of a commercial aspect. and then street closures such as twin peaks which is a separate san francisco rec and park program. what makes slow streets unique is that it's residential streets only, using temporary barricades and signs. additionally, today we're just talking about slow streets phase one, which, again, includes 12 corridors with temporary materials. there are several other related projects that all also received independent -- that are all independent projects and also received ceqa clearance. in terms of public engagement, this has been an emergency program that was deployed very, very quickly. and our initial outreach was very limited due to the public health research. and we were all sheltered in lace, just like everyone else was. so outreach and engagement was something that we've evolved and worked to create. from the very beginning of the program, we created a project website, which includes a survey. that survey has been one of our best tools for interaction with residents. it has received over 5,000 comments and 85% of the survey responses are very supportive of the program. we also have a project email address, slowstreets@ftma.com and we're able to engage with residents who have concerns or questions about the program. and we also have a weekly email blast. we've attended multiple neighborhood meetings. and mail implementation notices to residents living along slow streets to let them know that changes were coming. additionally, our public outreach and engagement is a big part of our programs evaluation and before anything permanent is done, there would be a further review process with a much more robust public engagement process. so with that i would like to thank you for your time and i'd be happy to answer any questions as well. >> president yee: okay. let's see -- supervisor fewer, do you have a question? >> supervisor fewer: thank you, president yee. no, she answered my question. i wanted to know if it were to become permanent, if it would have additional review and it would be subject to more community input? and she answered my questions and the answer was, yes. so i don't have any further questions. thank you. >> president yee: okay. there's permanent barriers, and i didn't believe that there were permanent barriers for the pilot projects. this looks from the indications that most was temporary, movable type of barriers. is that true? >> that is true. that's what we've been using up to date. i will note though that those materials were deployed sometimesometime in late april e anticipated they would be out for a few weeks. it's four months later and they're still out. so they're not holding up as well as we wished. the related requests for proposition k money is requesting money to buy more durable materials that could include types of bea barricades. but those are just as temporary as we have been using. and they're easy to put in and to take out. >> president yee: and in the regards to one piece -- the gate was in the closed position (indiscernible) or out to deter certain behaviors during the pandemic. so this is part of the slow streets, are they there now in twin peaks? >> good afternoon, jamie parks, livable streets director with ftma. the twin peaks boulevard closure predates slow streets and has nothing to do with slow streets program. so that closure happened in late march. due to the concerns from rec and park and p.d. with what was happening at twin peaks. this is a wholly separate issue from twin peaks. >> president yee: okay, i was confused. i saw a lot of the letters coming in and many of the speakers talked about that particular closure and i wasn't too sure what was going on. thank you for the clarification. i guess that there's no other questions -- or any other questions, colleagues? seeing none, then, madam clerk, i believe that we should go to public comments for those that are against the appeal and in support of the project. >> clerk: operations, are there any callers on the line? you will have up to two minutes. we are now taking public comment from individuals in opposition to the appeal and support of the statutory exemption from environmental review for the municipal transportation agency's slow streets phase one project. welcome, caller. >> caller: yes, i have two callers. i will unmute the first caller. >> clerk: thank you. president yee: against the appeal and in support of the project. >> clerk: yes, mr. president. please turn down your television. you have up to two minutes. okay, welcome, caller. >> caller: hi, good afternoon, supervisors. my name is robert putman and i live in district 5. i actually live directly on page street, so i have a slow street right in front of my door. and, actually, i could not be more thankful for it. and i have walked on sidewalks where there were no slow streets and i noticed how little space there is for social distancing on lots with much narrower sidewalks or narrow sidewalks and little pedestrian access. so i'm very grateful. i don't think that this really needs a full environmental impact review which could take several years. all of the barriers are temporary and movable. in fact, i really have no issue -- i see no issues with, like, the streets being marked in any permanent way. so i struggle to see how anyone could see it as a permanent program. i really see no downsides to it. all of my neighbors love it. and all of my neighbors love the ability to social distance. frankly, i wish that it would be more permanent. but it's definitely not from everything that i could tell. so, yeah, that's everything that i have to say. thank you. i support the project. >> clerk: okay, thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: all right, yeah, some positivity. this -- this initiative is incredible, you guys. thank you so much for leading and for implementing this so quickly. i mean, it's been -- it's been a resounding success. it's amazing to hear the negativity from people. it's a glorious transformation of public space and a reclaiming of the city for people instead of automobiles for the first time in a century. this is something that should be done regardless of a pandemic, and should certainly be permanent. it's interesting that the planning presentation talked about an emergency being a sudden and unexpected occurrence. what about the climate crisis, which is a slow and well-known catastrophe? you are talking about an environmental impact review -- what about cars and the consumption of fossil fuels? you know, the environmental impact of that is well known. so if there's any way that -- i mean, do phase two, do phase three, absolutely. yes, it's a work in progress. yes, there are ways to improve upon it, absolutely. and that -- that will be an ongoing process and it is important. i want to say one other thing -- the great highway, i don't know if it's part of the slow streets. great highway transformed into a great walkway for people and children -- that section of real estate being public is glorious. i live near richmond and i go down there every single day and go back and forth for 22 miles. i'm getting exercise and it's mental health care. you just -- you guys have to think positively about this and think about the next century and not the previous century. and rethink about our public streets and infrastructure for people and children instead of for cars. i'm 100% into it. it's wonderful. i yield my time. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hi. my name is kristin tietch and i live in district 1. i also oppose this -- this appeal. and a huge supporter of slow streets. it has been transformational for the city. and i have been using golden gate park and j.f.k., cars-free since the beginning of the pandemic. it's done wonders for my own mental and physical health. i bike there without any fear of cars, you know, hitting me or even just telling me to get out of the way. so i see children who are learning how to ride a bike in golden gate park in the middle of the street and families from all around the city. it really is just the best thing that could have happened during this, you know, very challenging time during the pandemic. so i am a huge supporter of slow streets and i applaud, you know, that this is a program that has been put in place, you know, so quickly. and if you didn't know that the biking on j.f.k. boulevard in golden gate park is up 600%. so this is a huge need for people, you know, who are vulnerable road users like me. so i thank you for listening to my comments and i yield my time. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. we have two callers on the line. operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: hello my name is parker dale and i'll keep my comments brief. i am a resident of district 6, which is somewhere that has very little park space. fortunately for me, i live walking distance from the page and shotwell slow streets. and can i just say what a difference it has made for my mental and physical health during this pandemic. i can only imagine how important it is for people who have children or an even greater need for outdoor access. but as another caller pointed out, slow streets do not prohibit people from accessing their residents or business in an automobile. all slow street does is prohibit thru traffic. what i'm hearing today is that many people want to be able to drive through the neighborhoods as shortcuts. this is not fair or equitable use of this space, although that is admittedly the main purpose that these streets have unfortunately served prior to this pandemic. streets are public space. streets existed in san francisco before cars. streets do not only exist to serve car traffic. there's no rule that says that small side streets in cities have to serve as shortcuts for drivers. reducing thru traffic may be slightly less convenient for some drivers, but it can mean the world to people who live on these -- in these neighborhoods and on these streets. do not fall for yet another one of these ceqa traps. we saw what happened on polk street and how ceqa was abused there. and we saw the same people fight page street before it was a slow street. this is a thinly veiled attempt to stop anyone that doesn't cater to someone who exclusively travels in a car. the appellant is wasting city resources and i ask you to dismiss this. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hi there. i live in your district, president yee. and i wrote to you about the slow street boutiques closure. and my concern is that, you know, i spent my childhood riding golden gate park, with my dad every weekend. so i love the idea of closed streets. but with twin peaks boulevard closed, my street that i live on, panorama is like a freeway. and it's -- you know, we're all at home working all day. and there's a lot of craziness out there. so, you know, i'm just a little concerned, you know, about mitigating the impacts on the neighborhoods. maybe this is a unique one. but, you know, i am concerned about that. so i wish that i'd heard back from you when i emailed you about it. but i am concerned about the impact, you know, there are kids in my neighborhood too. and the cars are just flying down the road. it's a very quiet neighborhood. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. this is the last call for public comment in opposition to the appeal and in support of the municipal transportation agency slow streets phase one project and the statutory exemption from the environmental review. welcome, caller. >> caller: hello, hi there. i am a resident of district 7. and i wanted to call in in support of slow streets. both me and my partner make use of the twin peaks avenue, the kirkham slow streets, to get across the city. we both use electric -- small electric motor vehicles. and they're incredibly, like, useful in terms of the -- preventing a lot of the dangers from the car traffic. it's been wonderful to see my neighbors out and taking advantage of slow streets. i have seen my kids setting up basketball nets and basketball courts in the slow streets. and just being able to kind of use those spaces and to create a sense of community is just fantastic. i strongly am opposed to this motion that seeks to shut down the slow streets. and i hope that the program expands and becomes permanent. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: hi, good afternoon, board of supervisors. my name is dave alexander with the family transportation network. and this ceqa appeal is a desperate attempt to stop street safety projects along a traffic violence crisis -- so a traffic violence crisis that we have here. and fspd were consulted about accidents, with using large engines. so this is absolutely true. i think that you should speak to their rep and actually have the truth to be let out. and they're grasping at straws. cars can use all other streets in san francisco to get around and use the slow streets for local traffic only. i.e., 23rd and lake street. i agree that signage needs to be vastly improved. but shannon has responded to me when our group had tried to talk to her about the signage here in richmond and she was great. extremely tran transparent. also the concerns are so grandiose that i think it should go through each supervisor's office for review and not waste the government money and time with the ceqa appeal. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations. >> madam clerk, that completes the queue. >> clerk: thank you. mr. president. >> president yee: thank you. thank you for your comments. there's other members that would like to speak in opposition to the appeal and in support of the project? so i will close this segment of the public comments. okay, we are going to our last -- well, before i do that -- i see supervisor peskin, would you like to say something or ask a question? >> supervisor peskin: no, mr. president. i was putting my name on the roster but would like to hear the rebuttal from the appellant and then i'm ready to proceed. >> president yee: okay. so that's the next part of this hearing then, i invite the apellant to present a rebuttal argument. you have up to three minutes. >> clerk: operations are bringing her online. >> president yee: okay. >> clerk: and, miss miles, if you can hear this, when you come online begin your comment and i will begin the three-minute timer. >> thank you. mary miles here again for appellant for coalition for adequate review for the slow streets issue. first of all, the comments seem to believe that the covid crisis was the emergency at hand. but that is not what the emergency is. the emergency is for closing streets and the m.t.a. has a statutory emergency exemption to close streets so that people -- children can play, and pedestrians can walk in the middle of streets instead of on sidewalks or playgrounds. so that's what it's about. a statutory exemption. we were told falsely again -- this is a project that is temporary and there would be some process, even though there's been none so far with m.t.a. and i am looking right now at the allocation request by m.t.a. which was released on friday august 28th. it shows 17 -- not 12 as miss hague falsely claimed -- projects that will be made permanent with permanent barricades installed in the street. it also has 14 additional streets added to the project under phase three. and there are also another -- i believe 13 additional streets under phase two. we have to return now -- not to ride our bicycle in a recreational way but rather if these are essential activities. we have to return to if a permanent project could be exempt under an emergency exemption. and the terms of mutually exclusive, that it must be a sudden occurrence, not a permanent ongoing experiment or with agendas or something. as to the board's duty today, the board has to make a decision that is fueled by informed -- inaaccurate descriptions and inaccurate information about this project. it has just received a whole lot of false and irrelevant information. the project is about a statutory exemption for closing up to 50 streets here that we know about so far. they are listed in an official document that i have sent to you where m.t.a. has rejected funding to make this permanent. there's been no public process for that. it's totally been done without any public press. [buzzer] >> president yee: thank you, miss miles. so i guess that there are two callers on the roster before i close this hearing. i believe that supervisor preston was actually first. supervisor preston. >> supervisor preston: thank you, president yee. and i just want to make some comments on this. i was just in reflecting on this, it's pretty clear to me from the record and in the testimony today that this is squarely within the criteria for an exemption. i'm really hard pressed to think of something that could be more of an unexpected emergency than covid-19 crisis. and the transit impact of a pandemic on our city. and i think that the, you know, the conditio context here of out system really rendered -- only able to operate at a small fraction of its capacity. social distancing requirements that, again, came on suddenly. and we all had to adjust to but that make it exceedingly difficult for multiple people to walk in opposite directions down the sidewalk without walking into the street and endangering themselves with traffic. and the fact that people are cooped up at some of the public commenters stated, cooped up in apartments during shelter-in-place and looking for safe ways to travel and recrea recreate. and the -- as the streets emptied out, the speeding that was occurring and the increase in traffic fatalities that we have seen around the city. you know, all of these things together, or any of them, i think that more than warrants the response of slow streets. i think -- i also don't, despite the appellant repeating again and again that this is a permanent project -- i beg to differ. i mean, this is quite clearly launched as a temporary -- these are each launched on a temporary basis. and i think that it's important for folks not to confuse -- just because something is launched on a temporary basis and is wildly popular, and then people start to talk about maybe it should be permanent -- it doesn't mean that the planning department and m.t.a. erred in determining at the outset that it was a temporary response to an emergency and not a permanent project. there will be a process, either tand tobe made permanent. so i think even though not required, i should also note they think that m.t.a. certainly -- you know, the slow streets program got off to a bumpy start. but then pretty quickly after that i think that m.t.a. was working very closely on each of these with the supervisor offices and doing quite a bit of outreach, which is hard to do, amidst covid. and switching over to doing it via zoom. so i think that there's been a real attempt to do outreach, that i don't think that is regularlrolllegally required int in an emergency response, but, in fact, has been done. so i share the caller's comments on the positive impacts of this program. but i don't think that is what is before us today. i think that what is before us is a straightforward question of was this a temporary response to a sudden and unexpected emergency situation? and i think that quite clearly -- quite clearly is. (please stand by) >> the emergency provisions, under that stay law which were sudden and unexpected and it is true, it lists everything you can think of, other than a pandemic. there is no competent court that would not gro agree along with , blood, earthquake, geological movements, occurrences such as riots, accidents or sabotage that sudden occurrence like a pandemic, would certainly fall within the intent of this statutory exemption. the second argument was an argument around the temporary or permanent nature and i believe supervisor preston has clearly laid out that this is an action, albeit, we both agree, the m.t.om.t.a. got off to a bumpy . as for the commenter who cited signage, seige agsign, signage n temporary. we know these are temporary. there have been slow streets that have been implemented and removed under phase 1. this project has not been peace mealed. none of these things are implicated by the application of this statutory exemption. i'm happy to defer to supervisor preston, but i certainly am willing to make or second a motion to move item number 9 and table items number 10 and 11. >> supervisor yee: so let's consider this a public hearing as being held and is now filed. as previously discussed, we will take up the consideration and determination of sta statutory exemption under the california environmental quality act, which involves an analysis of whether it is from the planning department on this project was appropriate. to conditionally reversing the decision. six votes on the board are required. do you have any comments to make? if not, then i believe supervisor preston was about to make a motion. supervisor preston. >> pov to approve item nine affirming the and stable items 10 and 11. >> ok. and i believe supervisor peskin has seconded. it. go ahead and take the roll on the motion. [ roll call vote ] >> there are 11 ayes. >> without objection, item 9 is approved and items 10 and 11 are tabled. madam, i believe we are are at public comments. general public comment? >> general public comment and we still have item 12, i believe, that supervisor peskin is let us know when he is ready for. the board of supervisors will host remote public comment at this time. if you need assistance with access, please contact my staff (415)554-5184 if you need assistance. if you dialed in early and you wish to get in line to provide testimony, press star 3 now. when you hear the prompt, you have been unmuted, just begin your testimony. if you are calling in now, telephone number is displayed on our website and cramming on channel (415)615-0001 and enter the identifier number that is 146 340 8583. press pound price. when you are ready to get in line express star 3 and listen for the prompt for you have been unmuted and if you are listening to the television simultaneously, you will be lost. so we recommend that you turn down your television. your location must be quiet. the system holds up to 300 callers and if you feel your lost in the system, a rule of thumb if you are listening via the telephone you are still connected to the system and star 3 should work. a quick word on the agenda content that is eligible at this time for your public comment, approval of the july 21st and 282,020th regular board meeting minutes. the items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board than on this agenda, and items 16 through 19 without reference to committee calender. all other items have had their public meeting. there's no election hearing allowed at these meetings. address your testimony to the board as a whole, not to individual members. i'm ask the interpreters please introduce themselves in succession in language to let the community know you are here to assist them with their public comment. beginning with agnes, connie and fayla. [ speaking in foreign language ] [voice of interpreter] [voice of interpreter] [voice of interpreter] >> thank you, madam clerk. >> clerk: thank you to the interpreter force your support. operations, let's get to the first caller. welcome, caller. >> caller: thank you. oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. the board of supervisors is going to waste your time again with item 17. i'm sorry, that has nothing to do with san francisco, it has nothing to do with california or with this country. i don't know what got into call of your heads that made you want to every week you have to waste your time with your resolution and you waste time and resources and and they have nothing to do with san francisco or anything within your subject manager and callers have to stay speak within the subject and it has nothing to do with the board of supervisors. most of these resolutions, well, some of them do and 17 does not. on twitter, i just noticed the ma mellarky and it said the supervisor board of supervisors is just a bunch of ma larky, what a coincidence. it's the perfect time to say that. today has will be one of the worst days i've seen for the san francisco board of supervisors. this is ridiculous. i yield my time. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> linda chap lan. i'm here to say again that you are right, not about that item but your ordinance to house people who are homeless on the streets living in tents in vacant hotel rooms. and, you know, anybody who did not see the special hearing of the audit committee april 30th y supervisor haney really needs to watch the reports of the executives in our homeless programs and how they were really questioned and skewer and put on the coats and supervisor haney and yet they assert they cannot house homeless people in hotel rooms. although, when i was working as a federal benefit special they were all housed in hotel rooms. unless they lived with families or rented a room in someone else's flat. i see in the paper it's going to cost $250 a night for those hotel rooms and if they house them in residential hotels it will be $30,000 a month. they are right, because that's the way they chose to do it. at two minutes of throw i don't have time to go into a lot of details but i mentioned before a couple of books that i think would be helpful to you and understanding the way they misrepresent sent and misunderstands themselves. one of them is blaming the victim, i'm going to send a copy of the cover of that to the clerk of the board hoping that she'll be able to order it for you for $7. and a copy of the chapter from the brill activist happened book that explains how the homeless with the coalition or homelessness -- >> thank you ms. chapman. thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hello. >> clerk: the floor is yours, welcome. >> caller: can you hear me. >> clerk: yes, welcome. >> caller: hi, thank you. yes, my name is lena and i live in district 3 and i'm also a tenant association member. this is about respect and dignity. tenants should organize and talk to their neighbors about organizing and also tenants should negotiate and talk to the landlords living in peace. tenants should be able to organize without retaliation. just before the pandemic, i was outdoor knocking the buildings because they are selling 76 buildings all in one bundle and we had six out in the field out of the 16, three of the teams were stopped by veratosh managers because they were having us go to the neighbors and informing their rights as a ten apartment hertenant here in. they've been asking c.e.o.s to come to the table and have conversations for the last four months. so before this pandemic, they have flat out disrespected the d.t.a. and refuses to even meet with us. so i support supervisor peskin's announcements regarding to organize for tenants. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> good afternoon, supervisor. my name is george and san francisco land use coalition and market rate housing has been built in san francisco and it should not be increased and tair rada destroying the california environmental quality act ceqa, sb35 would authorize the development to submit an application for a multi family that are subject to and objected to a streamline ministerial approval process as provided and not subject to a conditional use permit. and there are thousands of approved sf building permits that are not being built by developers. after three years they should be rescinded. the permit is land should then be reserved exclusively for 100% affordable housing. please vote yes on gordan mar's resolution. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller please. >> good after, my name is stephanie and i'm a member of the san francisco land use coalition and i'm grateful to have the opportunity to speak in behalf of supervisor mar's resolution to reduce a market rate housing and just yesterday, sf gate reported that they are paying about $90 million to get out of their lease at 88luxum. they are joining from san francisco and people who can afford market rate housing. they're more than 2,700 market rate empty house and more thousands in the pipeline at planning so let's be practical and make sure we have housing for those who can't afford market rate housing. our healthcare workers, our firefighters, our teachers and so on, h. i watched san francisco change from being a city where blue collar workers can buy their own homes for their family to one of the most extensive cities in the world. hour housing is a safe place for the super wealthy globally to park their money. this is wrong. even before covid-19 there were signs of a slow down. the number ofen tightment of ens 6,097 units. the goals are unrealistic. if we don't meet our goals for market rate housing, all such developments in rh zones are by right, in san francisco. and that will be a disaster because that way developers could take advantage of the buy right claws and sb-35 to get their permanent applications approved ministerially in order to sell their properties to other speculators or hold them until they can make huge profi profits. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. we have about 30 listeners and 15 members of the public in the queue. operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: good afternoon, supervisors. my name is charles head. i'm the president of the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods. not of some neighborhoods but for all san francisco neighborhoods. my predecessor has already spoken so since it's the soul of whit, i will be brief. they are wrong. supervisor mar is right. vote to support supervisor mar's resolution. the rest is silence. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> caller: hello. >> clerk: welcome. >> caller: thank you for allowing me to speak on item 15. my name is debbie and i'm a senior and in a testify san francisco not and the lifelong renter. i live in district 3. i am also a member of the tenants association, as a rent control tenant i've had many landlords struggles over the years first with city properties and now always struggling ex always the one way street. i became involved with vta earlier this year with more focus efforts after covid specifically assisting spanish-speaking tenants, many with struggled to pay representative. you are aware of the vta efforts after these many months trying to get them to the table. only simple good faith, mutual desire and respect was needed for that to occur yet it hasn't. vta members come from all walks of life and neighborhoods with the simple common denominator, to have respectful, fair and transparent communication with their lapped lords and have issues that of course a their quality of life. this doesn't have to be adverse or contentious. participation is shown it's vital to have a recognized ten apartment association model and we acknowledge tenants rather than marginalize them and we're productive and have purpose. we're willing to do the work. this model can be achieved in our city and this measure would bring overdue support, education and inclusion to our neighbors. we deserve a voice in corporate lapped lords should do their part. please support tenant rights to organize. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> caller: it's david again. on item 15, general public comment, i want to reflect back on mary byrnes. she was a great recreation and park general manager, public servant and person. along with many others, including barney baron, phil arnold and deb la learner, many, many hundreds of others made the recreation and park department a great department in this city for many years and the legacy she leaves at golden gate park, our neighborhood parks and reply grounds and the many programs and people it serves are wonderful and mary byrnes will be missed. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments, david. operations next caller, please. >> hello, this is anna and i am in full support of supervisor peskin's resolution that he is proposing in support of the tenants and the tenant's right to organize in general. thank you so much. and i encourage every supervisor to support the resolution urging them to focus onen met needs for housing affordable to low and com rat income residents and not to increase the annual allocation of unaffordable market rate housing. it surgeries them to focus on unmet reena needs for housing, affordable to low and moderate income residents experiencing cost burden and overcrowding in our city and to maintain and not increase the current eight-year allocation level of a above market rate housing in the 2022-2030 reena cycle. san francisco needs to focus on homes forever our essential workers and their families especially those facing the unmet needs identified of housing costs and severe overcrowding. we need to provide stable communities for black and brown residents facing gentrification and displacement pressures associated with run away land speculation and unaffordable housing. we must work towards a truly racially integrated and just area and the regional segregation pushing people of color to the edges of the metropolitan area far from jobs, services and transit that are the result of concentrating unaffordable housing in our central cities and more over, as cities must not support reena allocation that would trigger sb-35 approvals because it would further distance incentivize land speculation with placement and regional segregation. thank you and please support. >> thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller. we have about 20 members of the public who would like to make public comment and about 30 in the queue. the listening queue. welcome, caller. >> thank you, madam clerk. good afternoon supervisors. san francisco land use coalition. first off, thank you supervisor peskin for your legislation to empower tenants associations to negotiate with their landlords. god knows we really need that. secondly, i'm calling in support of item 16, the resolution to urge san francisco reena goals for market rate housing for the upcoming reena cycle. you know the covid crisis has resulted in not an e an -- white collar professionals who have been given the freedom to work from home and people who lost their jobs and cannot stay at home, hoping for santa claus to pay their rent or mortgage payments. and even before the covid crisis, there why clear signs of a slow down. the number of entitlements at the end of 2019 was 2,044 units and the same number at the end of 2018 was 6,097 units. and this was before the economic calamity that resulted from the pandemic. the unrealistic reena goals that we have the 3% unemployment rate. what is the most disturbing is that in the event of not meeting our goals for market rate housing, all such development, and rh zones are finite in san francisco and that's a recipe for disaster. the consequence of unrealistic goals is only one thing. speculators will take advantage of the buy-right of sb-35 to get their permit applications approved and guess what, they can turn around and either sell these properties when they'ren titled to sell and they will hold on to them wait forgeron the opportunity where they can get their financing pencil out, make astronomical profits. this is not the san francisco we want to have. this is a recipe for disaster. i am going to stop here. i'm cure you are going to be hearing from the folks that are believers in market rate and million dollar homes and they can afford it. >> clerk: thank you kindly for your commence. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: hello, this is tessa from district 5. i'd like to support supervisor mar's resolution. it cannot let it give the city to developers and especially not all of our neighborhoods. people like to say that everybody in the sunset are the richmond has a million dollar home and therefore they're rich. well, i don't know whether that -- because if you could sell your home. the point is, living in your home isn't it. and what i'm concerned about is affordable housing. if we let developers be able to, as -- [please stand by] as he has already noted the bay area's arena has increased 2 1/2 times for a goal of $8.5 million over the next two years. second, san francisco has exceeded its above market rate arena by 140% through 2021. we're now in the midst of a covid-19 consequence with residential unit vacancies due to work at home elsewhere and job losses. significantly lessening the city residents' needs by any reckoning. the consequences are dead due to the heavy foot of sb-35. it prescribes that if the jurisdiction fails to meet its arena allocation first, the developer projects will be approved by right. that is to say, no public hearings to consider the merits. no ceqa or environmental review of any kind. and all of this would rush time frames of three to six months to final decision and if not decided within those deadlines, projects are automatically deemed approved. note that all projects 10 units or less there's no affordable housing allocation whatsoever. what this means, what all of this means is three things that you do not want. first, a huge incentization for land speculation causing, two, unnecessary resident displacement. and, three, a proliferation of market rate and affordable house. please vote yes on the supervisors' resolution. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: yes, this is barry toronto. i appreciate the time to speak. i first want to say a certain speaker at the r.n.c. last week gave some very false information about san francisco, and it is not fair. and i think that she should not be welcome in this town anymore. and the next topic, i want to thank the supervisor mandelman's office for help in trying to help expedite the new taxi stands and industry. the unceremoniously the sausage factory took away our taxi stand and we have two temporary, one at walgreens and one on the street next to marcellos. so i thank the supervisor office and the taxi division for making this happen. i'm hoping to get to the bottom of how shared spaces becomes the effect of taking away other people's businesses. i'll have to do some public records request. i want to also go into the issue of purchased medallion holders. they're still waiting for relief. right now they can't pay the credit union, and the credit union has a lawsuit and the case is passed on -- continued to march 5th. and i plan to be a witness to this because of the city clearly making moves to help to prevent the cabdrivers from making money, typically with how they handled the whole castro street stand issue. but i appreciate that you come to the table with the credit union and work this out sooner than later, rather than to make this a more drawn out process. please help to provide some relief. work with sfmta and provide some relief for those who are still owing loans and don't want to go bankrupt or go into foreclosure. thank you very much for your time. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. the. >> caller: hello. can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. >> caller: yes. this is gilbert crisbault and i live in district 8. it's been six months and four weeks and four days without muni, but a muni bus finally showed up today -- unbelievable. finally have bus service in my neighborhood. i don't believe it. i want to talk about transit and transit issues related to muni. muni is mismanaged and has clustered a culture of corruption at muni. we need to say that together -- muni is corrupt, muni is mismanaged. these dr draconian cuts during a pandemic has affected seniors, disabled and poor people. and people of color. the only people that had muni service during the pandemic were rich white folks. people at pacific heights, russian hill, diamond heights, westportal -- they all had bus service. but anyone else? forget it. these draconian cuts and red lining by muni must not be accepted. there's something every day with muni and muni disaster all the time. look at the subway. can't even get the subway working. i can't even pay the pg&e bill. muni is bankrupt. muni has no money. muni is a black hole, a financial black hole. who is going to take muni? don't go to voters. don't ask the voters to pay cash to save mon muni or caltrain or bart. we don't need service cuts, we need service to be restored. we need muni to run like a world-class transit system. not a disastrous system. muni was totally unprepared during the pandemic and it shows failed leadership at the top of muni. we need to get muni running again. and thank you. that's all i have to say today. >> clerk: thank you, mr. criswell. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: good afternoon, supervisors. my name is jeff reggo and i'm a resident of san francisco since 1976. my comments are about item 16, the resolution with supervisor mar. this year the california legislature introduced a school bills related to land-use and housing, many of which -- most of which are too complicated for the average person to fully understand. not to mention how they may be impacted by other existing or future legislation. the supervisor urged the association and the bay area governments and the regional housing union allocation process to focus on unmet needs for affordable housing, highlights unintended, or possibly intended consequences of the unrealistic arena goals for above moderate housing needs in san francisco. and it's likely speculators taking advantage of the clause in sb-35 to get applications approved ministerially. we need to prioritize affordable housing from the june 2020 resolution on racial and social equity. please vote yes on supervisor mar's resolution. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, i next caller, plea. >> caller: good afternoon, supervisors. this is katherine howard. please support resolution 16 to oppose the arena quotas for market-rate housing and here's a few reasons -- there are only so many building sites in san francisco. and it uses a plan and resources that should be used for lower income housing. every 10 units of market rate housing requires at least three units of affordable housing for the people who are providing the services for the wealthy in the market rate housing. if we build more market rate units, we will need more and more affordable units. this is a catch-22. we cannot build market rate housing as a way out of the affordability crisis. the covid pandemic and the desire for social distancing as well as the need for open space and backyards for families have prompted those who are paying market rates for housing to move to less defens dense areas. however, the people who do not have techie job options and cannot afford to move out of the city, are the people who we need in san francisco to keep it the diverse and vibrant city that it has been. we need to provide housing for them first. with more fires and lot a loss f homes all over the state and the price of building material and the shortage of labor are both going to increase. affordable housing cannot compete with market rate housing in paying for materials and labor. it will all go to luxury developments if they are encouraged and permitted. we do not need more market rate housing. our arena quotas for market rate housing should be decreased or eliminated. please support this legislation. thank you. >> clerk: operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: hi, my name is erica flag from district 4. i'm supporting gordon mar's resolution very strongly. it's an important resolution and it should be a no-brainer to support by all of the supervisors who care about the people that live here in san francisco. it's beyond me why we have to set any goals for market rate housing, let alone increase the goals and to put the city under pressure to build market rate housing. does that make sense? nothing stops market rate housing from being built in the best market in the whole world -- in the san francisco bay area. so i think that the resolution stands on its own. it's supported very clearly. and all of the supervisors should be supporting this. we don't need the extra pressure on market rate housing. not to mention the rollover into the legislation number 35. the drastic legislation. so, thank you, and i hope that i will be watching the vote. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: good afternoon, supervisors. this is peter kohn with the catholic housing organizations. i want to thank supervisor mar for introducing this legislation and i'm pleased to see so many of you co-sponsoring this as it goes forward. the arena as we call it is a projected vision of what the cities might look like in coming years and it's both responsive but it's also prescriptive in that the goals and all of those numbers can shape the demographics of our communities by prescribing not only how much housing development, but what affordability levels. and san francisco as you all know has struggled to meet the array of arena goals already. we are currently meeting about a third of our affordable housing goals with all of the great work that we do here in this city. but by contrast, about 140% of the market rate production needs have already been met. so, clearly, our local housing production system is out of sync with that vision and there's great implications for the demographics of the city. i think that all of you as leaders know the struggles of gentrification displacement on the ground that we have all been grappling with. so with this huge change that is on the table at the state and the region for san francisco, more than doubling the market rate goal for san francisco, it really runs the risk of even more dramatic changes to our displacement crisis. it's like pouring gasoline on a fire. so we just want to raise the implications for you folks to realize that the rena vision that is before us from the state and the region should be quite alarming. and, again, thanking supervisor mar and all of you for raising this to public attention. folks are starting to understand what this rena thing is all about. it's no longer as abstract. and the implications what it could mean for our communities down the road. this gives san francisco a strong position to communicate back to our state legislators about unintended consequences and certainly rena needs to be done right. so, thank you very much, and i hope that you will all support the resolution today. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. here's the stats. there are 34 listeners and 18 members of the public who have already pressed star, 3, and are in the queue, ready to provide their testimony. operations, please let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: hello, i'm barbara heffner and i'm a san francisco resident and i live in district 2. please vote yes for supervisor mar's resolution. i have listened to the previous callers and i'm not going to go on too long about this, i agree with all of the things they have said. we do not need more market rate housing. we need affordable housing. penalizing us for not meeting our rena quote as will encourage the developers to get out there and to wreak havoc. so, once again, please vote yes on supervisor mar's resolution. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: good afternoon, i'm from district 8 and the land use coalition. i thank supervisor mar to stop raising our arena goals for market rate development. and i think those co-sponsoring and to support the letter and spirit of this ordinance. you don't want artificial goals to trigger the harm that can be in sb-35. in particular from more market development and the undermining of projects that would contribute to affordable housing goals. it would be absurd to kick up our goals now, with the likely impact and the changes that we look for in housing demands brought about by covid-19. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. let's hear from the next caller. operations? >> caller: hi, this is barbara delaney and i live in district 4. and i am calling to support gordon mar's resolution. i hope that you realize that people who are not supporting it are probably the people who will benefit if it is not -- if it is not passed. because they will be the property developers that stand to make the most money. item number 18 is -- you're going to have enough affordable housing week from september 15, to september 22nd. and 10 of you have -- are sponsoring this. but instead of sponsoring an affordable housing week, why don't you just support gordon's bill and do something that actually might make a difference for people who need affordable housing? you have heard all of the arguments for this, and they all make sense. we have enough market rate housing. we don't have enough affordable housing. and this is an opportunity, and instead of having an affordable housing week, just support gordon mar's resolution so that people have to build the affordable housing and meet those goals before they can go on and build market rate housing. because you know that property developers hate to build market rate housing. they would rather buy their way out of their inclusionary requirement than actually build it. so relying on them to create any affordable housing is a pipedream. thank you. that's all i wanted to say. >> clerk: well, thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> caller:. >> caller: the jewish and evil and pandering -- >> clerk: ma'am, that's unacceptable. thank you, operations. the next caller, please. >> caller: the civil rights, we are living in a pandemic. and what is happening on the streets should reflect in what you are deliberating. the quality of life issues, including affordable housing. but also mindful that certain city departments are hoodwinking others in broad daylight. and about 30 subpoenas will be handed out to some crooks, that's what you should keep in mind every day when you come to work. don't be a crooked person. and supervisor gordon mar, i'm very happy to see you. every time you are there, it makes my day. keep up the good work. god bless you. >> clerk: lovely comments. thank you for your comments. next caller, please. caller: hi, i'm dan voight and i live in district 8. i'm calling to oppose supervisor mar's resolution on the abag numbers. as someone said earlier, the people who are opposed to gordon mar's resolution, still have personal benefits. i think that's true. i am a renter and i don't know a single developer, but i would benefit because san francisco has underbuilt housing for decades which caused the price of renting to skyrocket, while the speculators who own this housing have bought a house maybe 50 years ago and they've seen the price go up to millions of dollars. those are the speculators who own single-family homes. that's why we need to upgrade to build more housing for everybody. at the r.n.c. you saw the racist mccloskeys, and i don't understand why there's supervisors who claim to be progressive who are standing on the same side as those racist republicans who spoke in favor of single-family zoning. so, please, do the right thing, and oppose gordon mar's exclusionary and segregationist resolution. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> caller: good afternoon, supervisors. my name is sugar ogilvy and i'm a renter in district 9 and i'm calling to oppose gordon mar's resolution. i would strongly encourage the supervisors to adhere to the laws that were passed that dictate that -- and that a certain amount of housing units must come down from the state and to different cities, including san francisco. based on the data and based on the taxpayer-funded data and research and analysis that dictate that there's a housing -- jobs to housing imbalance in san francisco. there's a severe housing shortage that has persisted for 50 years. all i have heard are comfortable homeowners who stand to benefit from restricted market and a reduced housing production market. and i haven't heard -- and i did hear that the renters and the people who are seeking to hopefully to benefit and to become a part of the american dream to own something, to own a home, and maybe they don't qualify for affordable housing. maybe they'v they're just shy ad they're just over those affordable housing brackets. those are very -- i am completely for affordable housing. but i'm asking you to understand that all types of housing in a way that affirmatively furthers fair housing needs to come down. and for anybody worried about speculation, 8010970 passed. senator skinner's law passed that is going to go against speculation. and assembly bill 725, the assembly woman's resolution passed, which is means that we'll have to put housing units into wealthy areas. and that wealthy areas will be upzoned for such purposes. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: good afternoon, supervisors. i'm the chair (indiscernible) and on behalf of our membership i'd like to ask you to oppose supervisor mar's resolution, item 16. we have to say that it is one of frustrating things about san francisco politics. you all say that you want more affordable housing and yet you spend your legislative time banning market-rate housing. this doesn't address our affordable housing crisis. all it does is say, no, sorry, we'll push more market-rate housing out into the fire zone. that's irresponsible and unacceptable. san francisco should build more housing and san francisco is not over. if you think that san francisco is over and that we don't need more housing here, you can be the first ones to leave. finally going back to the point about the market-rate -- we need more housing of all types. we need sb-35 to come in and to make us build that housing. sb-35 has done more to build affordable housing in san francisco than anything that the board of supervisors has offered in the last several years. so you should look to our legislation for inspiration. to not take four years to get a project approved. and even if it is affordable and has an affordable component -- supervisor mar, in addition has been opposing either in public or behind the scenes of affordable housing in his district. that's a reason why -- a great reason why the sunset has built so little housing over the last 10 years. you look at our housing production it's clear that we're not doing enough and we need the state to come in and make us to do the right thing. please drop this legislation and come up with better legislation that will actually make it easier to build affordable housing. focus on building affordable housing and not market-rate housing. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. sorry, supervisor, i didn't mean to interrupt you. okay. all right, operations, next caller, please. >> caller: hi, thank you. i am cliff berger and i am a renter and i am calling in to oppose supervisor mar's resolution. i couldn't agree more strongly with the goal of building more affordable housing in san francisco and across the region. it's absolutely clear that we need more affordable housing. but we know that based on loads of imperical evidence that in san francisco and across the bay area we need more housing, not just at the low market rates but at all levels of affordability. decades of underbuilding his led to this historic housing crisis. and asking abag to push more market-rate housing to the urban fringes will only work in a climate crisis and it will lead to people taking ever longer commutes and living in fire zones. as we have seen in the last few weeks, we really need to make more room for people in our already urbanized areas, which will do what is exacerbating the climate crisis. so, please, i urge you not to vote for this resolution. san francisco needs to do our part, along with our neighbors in abag and to build more housing at all affordability levels. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. we have 35 listeners and about 18 members of the public in the queue. next caller, please. >> caller: yes, can you hear me? >> clerk: yes, we can, welcome. >> caller: this is david warfield talking on two topics today. the first is concerning the sad loss of city colleges campus at the park center. this was a place that was functioning for 45 years and had been pushed into being by a fellow burton, congressman burton, from a long line of burtons who were representing san francisco. and in 1975, that basically started. there was also a long line of wonderful teachers at that spot at fort mason, including some of whom have been continuing into the present -- well, until december. janet lore, and debbie george, toby clayman, and many others. unfortunately, the materials, the supplies, the printing presses, all of those were to be moved out as of the end of september by a unanimous vote of the board of trustees to basically to supply this terrific san francisco asset which the supervisors have contributed to operating. and which i would certainly like the supervisors to look into what is going on, especially with the financial issues that are claimed to be a part of a supposed problem. and to see about restoring this asset. with respect to library service, we have very partial library system, and we have today four new libraries added to the two that are already opened. it's not enough. and it's only a very partial service and it doesn't even include magazines and newspapers. look to make the library more friendly to serve the public. >> clerk: thank you, mr. warfield. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: this is teresa flagan, and a resident of district 3, as well as i work in district 6. i'm calling in absolute support of the resolution by supervisor mar. this is so important -- we have heard over and over from governor newsome about how the conditions vary locally. so one size does not fit all. how many times have you heard that? and it is very true here in san francisco. one size cannot fit us and fit other cities. we know that we need to focus on building affordable housing to meet the needs of the residents that are here right now, that will also be coming later. we have built a lot of market-rate housing alone, as has been very clear. obviously, we are all reading different data. i know that for me working with seniors and people with disabilities living for decades in the same neighborhood, i have seen all of these changes that have impacted the lives, the housing, of so many people here. so we need to focus on building the affordable housing that we need here in the city. and other cities should also have that same ability. and will i'm just so thrilled, supervisor mar, that you have put this forth. and i hope that all of you supervisors will think about the real needs of san franciscans right now, today. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: (indiscernible) [speaking spanish] [interpreter speaking spanish] >> caller: okay. [speaking spanish] >> interpreter: i will proceed to interpret the caller's message. saying, good afternoon, i am speaking from district 3. and i want to oppose supervisor mar's resolution, number 16. the reason being that rent is extremely high here in san francisco and it is also very hard to build new houses. we have been needing more housing and more development in san francisco for a while. and it is almost impossible to build a new housing here. and now this is aggravated by the wildfires that will be displacing many of our brothers and sisters. brothers and sisters that we should be welcoming with open arms, and i can't believe that this city is thinking about closing its doors to other people who may want to come here to san francisco. and in the same way in which president trump wants to close the doors to this country. so i urge you to vote against the resolution. thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you to the caller and thank you to you for making the interpretation possible. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: my name is jerry dradler from the san francisco land-use coalition. and i'm calling in support of super mar's resolution to reduce the city's rhna goal for market-rate housing. the last rhna goals were established during the tech boom. which has slowed down considerably. entitlements in 2019 were half as many in 2018, this is before covid-19 shattered our economy. it is irresponsible to abag, and h.c.d. or any authority, to double san francisco's rhna goals for market-rate housing when the favorable conditions that we had in the last rhna cycle no longer exist. if the board of supervisors approves overly aggressive new rhna goals and those goals are not achieved, sb-35 would impose the by-right approval process. this would be unfortunate. this would increase the current unacceptable level of housing speculation in san francisco. it would not increase the number of housing units produced. project entitlements would become a more attractive investment asset. thank you for hearing my comments. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >hello, caller? if you're on the line, just start talking. all right, operations, perhaps we'll circle back to this person. next caller, please. >> caller: hello. >> clerk: hello, welcome. >> caller: hi. i'm calling -- thank you. i'm calling in strong opposition to gordon mar's resolution. i think that a lot of the conversation around market-rate housing has been around gentrification and who are we building housing for. you know, i think that one thing that we really need to stop and think about is gentrification is here. we have already excluded so many people through living in san francisco because of the high cost of housing. that's a direct result of years of not building. the best protection a renter can have is options. you can see right now during this pandemic a lot of workers, you know, generally fairly affluent people are just picking up and moving to somewhere cheaper because they can. and, you know, their companies let them work remotely and this is driving down rents here, but it's actually driven up rents in other places like, you know, like lake tahoe or other areas. so really when we think that, upupyou know, that we're helpinr situation, we're just exporting our housing crisis to other cities. and also a lot of the vulnerable populations in san francisco don't have that option. so, you know, if we can build more options for them we're really creating the best rent protection that we can create. we failed san francisco without doing as much building as we could. let's figure out ways to fund affordable housing. but in the meantime we need to fix the years of not building that we have done by creating as much market-rate housing as you can. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >hello, caller? >> caller: hi, this is adam buck, i'm a physician that lives in d6 and i'm a renter. you know, i have heard a lot of the past comments that people seem to really sincerely care about building more affordable housing. i think that is wonderful, and i love housing. i love housing of all types. and i want to build more affordable housing and i want the housing prices to be lower for people. that doesn't mean that i want people who already own homes, their prices to go up. i want their prices to go down. i want housing to be more affordable for everybody. i think that something that i haven't really heard yet -- one, is that supervisor mar's district, i can say that i oppose this resolution and i very much oppose this resolution. now supervisor mar's district, the vast majority of it, it's illegal to board affordable housing. and also very little to almost no housing that has been built in the last cycle in his district. and i think that it's the people that were commenting really wanted to build more affordable housing, we should talk about how it's illegal to board build affordable housing in almost the entire westside of the city. and the other issue that i think that is really, really important, because i want to build more affordable housing is to talk about, well, who will pay for it? i didn't hear a lot of the past comments that people who claim to want to build affordable housing saying they wanted to pay for it by higher taxes. so i don't know who they think that will pay for it. i have a suspicion that they wouldn't want to pay for it with higher taxes. so i think that people are forgetting that the way that we fund most affordable housing in the city is by allowing market-rate housing to happen. and we allow that to happen -- and it's a beautiful thing. if you don't want to raise taxes, it's free money. you upzone in the city and that land is worth way more and you do value capture. i believe that now the city, what is it, 20% or 25% of the units have to be affordable? we create value out of thin air and then we have to take -- >> clerk: thank you, caller, thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: and you just unplug all of these goddamned gang bang -- >> clerk: operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: (indiscernible) hello, my name is carolyn kennedy and i am with the neighborhood association just west of delores park in district 8. i oppose the proposed targets of the san francisco bay area. it's the wrong targets at the wrong time. i am very concerned about the impacts on san francisco's work to preserve and to increase our supply of affordable housing. i thank supervisor mar for supervising this and for others for co-sponsoring it. other callers have had strong arguments in support of this resolution item 16, so i urge you to vote in favor of supervisor mar's resolution on your agenda. thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller. thank you. >> caller: good afternoon -- or good evening, supervisors. i am robert huffman and i live in district 5 and i oppose item 16. a great deal of our housing is from market-rate housing. to remove the main source of funding for affordable housing, and to displace low-income workers. the 2016 affordable housing nexus study said that if san san francisco were to stop building market-rate housing, they would occupy residents for low-income workers. employment data says that service workers have left 10 times the rate of the tech industry. and, further, a report by supervisor mar in 2018 projects that more will continue to move here for the foreseeable future. i want to note that our current zoning continues historical redlining patterns. i attended two days to the planning department and learned that most affordable housing is built on the eastside due to our zoning. so going forward the state of california, the requirement of housing plans to have this housing. our current housing plan in 2014 cites new homes in the redevelopment and industrial and commercial zones. it will almost certainly be illegal in 2022. so our city's next housing element will need to shift housing construction to our city's high resource neighborhoods on the westside as opposed to our high segregation and high poverty areas on the eastside. so i urge you to actually to fund more affordable housing rather than asking abag to do this with our current housing shortage. thank you. clerk: thank you, caller. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hi, i am calling to raise concerns about the department of health adding in last-minute changes to legislation. you know, the day -- the day that the legislation is going to be voted on so that the public, you know, can't make comment on it and i feel like this is very underhanded and does not allow for a lot of transparency. and so, yeah, i feel like if there's going to be last-minute changes to the legislation, that the public should be allowed to, you know, to provide feedback on legislation unless the legislation is a particularly urgent matter, it should be moved to a different day to vote on. or one of the two. i'd also like to echo an earlier caller's concerns about muni. although i will note that muni has improved. so, thank you to whoever is responsible for that. but, certainly, there's a lot of room for improvement on transportation. and so, yeah, those are my two concerns, transparency and transportation. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: i'm a renter in district 8. and i oppose supervisor mar's resolution. i think that we need to be building as much housing as possible here in san francisco. job growth has far outpaced housing. and people who can afford it will pay more for housing when it's available and that increases the prices for everyone. that pushes people further out, and even out of the city. it increases car use. and detrimental from a environmental perspective. and pushing people into zones that have been devastated here with fires in california. so i would like to see more public housing and affordable housing in san francisco. i would love to end the racist run here in the city where in parts of the city they do not allow multibuilding housing. as someone who lives with my family here, it's very, very tough to keep a large family together here in the city. (indiscernible) thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. we have 28 listeners and 10 members of the public in the queue press star, 3 to make their testimony. let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: good evening, supervisors. my name is kenneth russell and i live in san francisco in district 7. i'm calling in opposition to this resolution, item 16. i have moved to san francisco because i wanted to live in a city where great job opportunities alongside a tolerant, welcoming community for lgbt individuals such as myself. i'm beyond discouraged to see that our board of supervisors is actively pursuing measures to make our city a less welcoming place. we need to do our part to address overcrowded households of people being pushed out into communities and paying too much of their income towards housing. we need to plot a better course for our future. we have the ability to house people in a walkable city here in san francisco, with much less greenhouse gas impact and in a city without the fire danger that many of the outlying areas in our region have. please, do not support this measure. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. let's hear from the next caller, operations. >> caller: good evening, supervisors. my name is charles zasinski and i'm a renter in district 8. i ask you to vote against supervisor mar's resolution. we need to do the right thing and allow people who want to be there and want the opportunity to contribute to this community to do so. we need to be open to allowing people to bring their ideas and perspectives to join us, to challenge us, and to keep us looking to the future. my grandfather left home in 1939. they moved here, and i have been fortunate to make san francisco my home and i met my wife here and i had my first child in the city. but i'm unable to put down roots because the city's housing is not affordable. this isn't a question of more market-rate housing and more affordable housing. we need more roofs in the city for everyone. >> clerk: okay, thank you for your comments. thank you. next caller, please. >> caller: good evening, supervisors. my name is trish and i live in district 3. i'm calling to voice my opposition for item 16, supervisor mar's proposal to cap market-rate housing. i absolutely agree that we need to build affordable housing, but as others have mentioned, not just any new housing is what causes the current market rates to increase. i think a lot of people here want supply and demand operating and market data ties, that translates into that we should only build high-priced luxury apartments. and the reason that new construction is expensive is because there's a shortage. so, yes, we should build affordable housing. it's great, you still can't build it with density limits (indiscernible) that we have today. to build housing of all kinds, market rate subsidizes affordable housing. we can't just keep pushing the problem and the demand out because we're one bay area and one california. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hi, my name is adam bookbinder. i'm not from san francisco. i'm a planning commissioner in the south bay. i wanted to say something to supervisor mar's proposal, item 16. supervisor mar's resolution speaks negatively about sb-35 approvals for market-rate housing to incentivize segregation. sb-35 is the only planning department -- for projects that are 50% of subsidized housing. and look up what sb-35 has done, and (indiscernible) and it's mostly housing and at 833 bryant. and the community services that is providing 256 supportive units for formerly homeless people. all of these condemned by supervisor mar. i expect this kind of exclusionary reaction (indiscernible) and i hope that i wouldn't hear it here. the only way that you have affordable housing is when the state mandates it. this is a thinly veiled attempt to put the vulnerable residents to the streets. i vote a no vote on item 16. i give back my time. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. ops, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: good evening. my name is (indiscernible) and i'm a first generation immigrant. and i urge you to vote no on supervisor mar's proposal, item 16. i mentioned how there's the wild interface, and the wildfire season. and the comments to imply that i was lying or didn't care at all, but the wildfires are just one of the many reasons why we need to open our doors. san francisco is a wonderful city as we can all agree. and i know that more people want to live here. if we buil we have built enough market-rate housing already. and whether it's to inclusionary zoning, we cannot drastically increase our affordable housing production while reducing market-eracy housing production. we need to say to those who already live here, you don't belong. donald trump has made exclusionary zoning a campaign plan for his. and the city that can accommodate the current residents and domestic migrants and residents who want to live there like me. vote no on supervisor mar's resolution. thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. we have 30 listeners and 10 members of the public who are in line. they have pressed star, 3, to provide their testimony. let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: hello, supervisors. my name is scott fieney and i am calling to respectfully to ask you not to advance this resolution by gordon mar. and to rethink the approach here. fundamentally this resolution is not supporting anti-gentrification efforts in neighborhoods like mission. it's using our neighborhood as a hostage. what this resolution is basically saying is that if the state makes san francisco build more housing, then san francisco will put all of that housing in gentrified neighborhoods. that's what you're saying, because you, the city, the board of supervisors, you control the zoning. and our zoning allows multifamily housing almost exclusively in gentrified neighborhoods like the mission and soma and bayview. that's why almost all new condo development is in neighborhoods like these because it's not allowed to go into neighborhoods where there are more homeowners, where it's more affluent, and where it wouldn't be causing gentrification. so what i think -- the way i see it, you all have a responsibility to correct the zoning in our city that is leading to all of this gentrification. i saw some positive steps in that direction such as designating i think for the sunset and the marina as priority development areas. but with this resolution, you're kind of saying you're not going to do that, that you're going to keep things fundamentally the way that they are and development going only to gentrified neighborhoods. and then you'll blame the state for it and use that as an excuse to not build housing in more affluent areas. that's not the right approach. i think that a lot of the people who were calling in to support this resolution, you know, they have their hearts in the right place but they don't see that the zoning is not a -- like a law of gravity. it can change. and we're going to have the same problems of gentrification if we don't change the zoning. so i ask you to are think this approach and to vote no on this resolution today. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: hi there. my name is (indiscernible) and i'm with the community of housing organizations in support of this resolution. i think that it's important that our city really and truly begin to address the housing needs that we have. and part of that begins with the new numbers that are coming down from the regional housing need assessment, that tell us that we have a tremendous amount of unmet need based on overcrowding, based on rent burden, and we know from the planning department's own numbers that that is low-income people that. is moderate-income people who are facing severe rent burdens. who are paying more than 50% income in rent. and so i welcome that supervisor mar has taken the initiative to highlight where the true needs are. and to confront the segregation that we are seeing evolving in the region. i think that as others have called out the racism where small cities, suburbs, are not doing their part and have not done their part. where in the previous cycle, the suburbs were able to get away with a lot less than their share of a allocations in the big thre cities and it took much more than their share of population in housing goals. lastly, i want to say that i think that the interesting thing about this resolution is that it actually says nothing about stopping market-rate housing or even slowing market-rate housing. we have 70,000 units and title ready to be built if those developers and those investors were not shy to build them. so the question is, do we invoke more speculation when what we really need is affordable housing, deeply affordable, to keep our black and brown communities in the city that they helped to build. thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: good evening, supervisors. thank you for the opportunity to comment tonight. i am a proud progressive. i voted for bernie sanders twice in the last two presidential cycles. i'm also a lead with organizations that advocate for affordable housing and tenant protections in san mateo county, your neighbor to the south. i'm calling because i'm worried what is going to happen to tenants in my city and in my county, san mateo county, if you actually succeed in slowing down market-rate development. we don't have rent control. we don't have strong tenant protection beyond what the bare minimum established by state law provides. and i'm really worried that if san francisco does not catch up on all of the housing demand created by all the jobs that have been created in your city, it's going to deeply impact my neighbors and push folks out here. you can't find a two-bedroom apartment for less than $3,000 a month. every year that goes by the area median income for san mateo county goes up and up as more of our residents are displaced. it is directly a result of not building enough market-rate housing in san francisco where the jobs are. 75,000 san mateo residents commute to your city every day in normal times. i'm sure that similarly large numbers commute from the east bay as well. it is crucial that you make space to allow these folks to be able to live in your city. i take you all at your word that you care about low-income people. i think that this is the wrong approach. if you look at the resolution it talks about 49,000 residents who are rent burdened. they are by definition living in market-rate housing. it would be great if the highly paid workers that are competing with them for market-rate housing had brand-new units with a lot of amenities to move into, instead of bidding up prices for older ones. please take a different approach and please build enough housing for everyone. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >hello, caller, if you're there just start speaking. >> caller: i am sitting here and i cannot handle the first amendment violations that i see you, miss calvillo pulling on the woman attempting to speak on illegal aliens. she has a right to speak and it is not your job to decide what is and is not offensive speech. if she wants to use slurs, she can. you wouldn't cut me off for being deaf, would you? this board needs to stop taking bribes. we need to get some of you out of office, especially you, aaron peskin. nothing but a sellout cunt. >> clerk: yeah, public commenters may not make discriminatory or harassing remarks that have anything to do with harassing city employees based on race, color, ancestry or national origin -- i could go on and on. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: okay. whew. i spent so much time waiting. hello, supervisors. my name is make che mike chen ae resolution 16. i'm a renter living in district 2. and, you know, it's been interesting because for a long time people have argued that adding more housing supply increases demand or increases the ability of the people to move into san francisco. and the data has shown that demand is not constant there. and other things like the supply of jobs that -- and the ability of people to live in the city and the desire. the market-rate rents have fallen but it's still very high, still around $3,000 average. and that's prohibitive. and for someone like me who was a gay asian person born in ohio who wanted a place where he could feel like he was at home, you know, $3,000 is still tough to move to. and it's -- and we need to really think about that we've had 40 years of market-rate housing emergency, because the emergency act was passed in 1979. and that's also coincided with about 35 years of underbuilding housing. it's not just about this pandemic, but it's thinking about the next 40 years who we are as a city and who wants to live here and making sure that we're the most inclusive place that we can be. and the market-rate housing is a major funder for affordable housing as people have said. and it does not have to displace or have pressures if it goes into sensitive communities. san francisco is not a giant sensitive community. if you look at the prices, like presidio heights, the prices go over $2 million. and the prices in the sunset, and over $1.4 million. we can put market-rate housing in these neighborhoods without displacing people. and that market-rate housing can then fund affordable housing for people in sensitive communities. so i really urge you to think about the consequences of doing this. we have -- >> clerk: thank you for your comments. all right, operations, let's hear from the next caller. i believe that we have five in the queue and we're going to take this group to the very end unless you are in line you are one of the group in line, press star, 3, now and otherwise we'll take this group to the very end. welcome, caller. you have up to two minutes. >> caller: okay, thank you. my name is philip and i'm a renter in district 8. i'm calling to oppose supervisor mar's resolution. unfortunately, i listened to parts of the republican national convention the other week, and if you heard any of that, or have heard the news on that, you may have heard people saying things like keeping out apartments from their neighborhoods. and something that the president is promoting. i have to say that it is very distressing to hear our board of supervisors echo some of the policies that i heard from the president at the republican national convention. i also want to make the point that it's really a fundamental policy failure that market-rate apartments are not the more affordable housing option. and everywhere else in the country, they have more affordable housing and you live in an apartment. but that seems to not be the case here in san francisco. and there are a lot of solutions to deal with our housing crisis. i'm sure that there's lots of inventive ways to come up with more funding for subsidized affordable housing, which we should absolutely do. but denying that building more market-rate housing is a part of the solution really just denies the existence of the problem in my mind. and to the regional aspect, if we want others to build more housing regionally, which is, again, absolutely something that we should do -- every city has a role in fixing our regional crisis, what signal are we send figure we're saying that we need to stop building here? it says to other folks they can stop too. so san francisco has led by example on so many great progressive values and we should continue to lead on this one. so thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: well, thank you for taking the time. can you hear me? >> clerk: yes, yes, we can. welcome. >> caller: okay, yes. i was unmuted at the beginning and i waited all of this time. i am madeleine mcmillian and i live in district 2. i am a very tough tenant association member as well as a sciu 1021 union member. and i'm calling in support of supervisors peskin's right to organize for tenants. i feel that i am also a san francisco native and i feel that tenants should be able to organize and to talk with their neighbors and negotiate with their landlords. whether negotiating payment plans or rent reductions or just living conditions. i feel like tenant associations need to have a seat at the table in making decisions about where we are living in our homes and the conditions. i also feel like our tenants association can't get to the table if the laws do not recognize us. and we need to be able to negotiate whe with our landlord. my landlord will not come to the table with the tenant association. so, again, i am in support of supervisor peskin's right to organize for tenants. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: good evening, supervisors. my name is jordan grimes. and so i'm disappointed but somehow not surprised that the board is considering this motion. i have a few thoughts that i'd like to share. the first is that san francisco somehow become (indiscernible) without anyone noticing? the request under rhna, and it's been every cycle in recent memory. i can't believe that san francisco would want to put itself in lead with palo alto, but maybe they want to be seen this way. and wealthy cities have gone above and beyond their above market-rate housing goals. and some by 2600%, and the other by 600%. the rhna goals don't make you special or mean that you're doing well on market production. and third, market-rate housing is a harm reduction and can reduce displacement, including with a study from the anti-displacement project, berkeley. and i will say that as someone who considers themselves a socialist and i mention it because i know that supervisor peskin called me a libertarian, which is is fine -- that's fine -- it's not accurate but it's fine -- i too would love to expropriate the vacant units and have stronger rent controls and build mixed income housing. in will that blessed day comes, people are harmed by not building enough housing, including market-rate housing. the wealthy people who move here for high-paying jobs do not leave if there's not enough housing. they drive up prices for everyone else. and we should upzone areas and set a high rate, which we have done, and get rid of bear areas like discretionary review. and one thing i want to leave with you, for the first time san may theysanmateo county -- >> clerk: operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: good afternoon, evening, supervisors. corey smith on behalf of the san francisco housing coalition. urging you to reject item 16. because it will make building affordable housing harder in san francisco. since 2015, inclusionary units have accounted for 1,700 new affordable homes. that's about 35% ever the housing built in that time period. over the same period of time, 350 million-dollars have been paid in fees for 100% affordable housing. what this resolution is effectively saying is that all housing should be built as a right, except for th mixed incoe housing. and if we want -- (indiscernible) it doesn't make any sense. senate bill 828 went through the legislature and senate bill 35 went through the legislature. and the democratic process and the outcome is requiring cities across the state to have a higher target than if they're not able to meet those rhna targets, the process to approve housing in those cities should be streamlined. so this idea that we have a dilemma between the market rates and affordable and saying that we must choose one, doesn't make any sense. it's impractical. market-rate units create and fund affordable ones and supporting this is saying that the building the maximum amount of affordable units is not helping san francisco. i urge you to reject the resolution. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: hi, i'm john posco from district 4. i urge to you reject item 16. san francisco absolutely needs more greenhousing and housing in all forms. i urge you to reject this resolution. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: hello, my name is ted rackhall and i have been in san francisco since 1973, live in district 4. and i'm calling in to support supervisor mar's resolution. we absolutely do not need more market-rate housing. it's been overbuilt to 140%. what we need is moderate and below moderate housing so that we can have homes for our artists and our musicians, service workers, health care workers, and for these reasons i believe that you should pass supervisor mar's resolution. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: good afternoon. my name is greg miller and i strongly support resolution 16 by supervisor mar. i have a background in banking and as far as i can see, producing an overabundance of market-rate housing does little or nothing to support the production of lower-income housing and affordable housing for people who need it. as a matter of fact, the building out of all of these market-rate units basically ends up displacing the kinds of homes that people can afford. so, please support this. and stop supporting the neoliberal fiction that somehow we can produce market-rate housing simply by taking a few pennies off of the profits of the developers and giving them their sway on everything in the city. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hi, my name is tyler and i live in d4 and i call to oppose supervisor mar's proposal. many people have already called in to voice their opposition and they covered everything that i was going to say. so with that in mind i'll say this -- i'm tired of hearing supervisors talk about the problems in other cities or what other cities are or are not doing. you are elected to serve san francisco so stop blaming other cities for problems that you were elected to solve. let's cut the crap. let's just upzone san francisco. i don't care if it's market rate or affordable, let's build more housing and not these squabbles. so, please, do not vote for this. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. operations, next caller, please. >> caller: hi. calling again, not exactly in support. essential not in op-- certainly not in opposition. i am an organizer in district 3. a lot of the commenters here say that we need to build housing first for the most vulnerable san franciscans and we need public housing that suffers as reparations for black and brown communities who left because they can't afford old market-rate housing and they can't afford new market-rate housing. but i do feel that we have not had an honest conversation about how much is contingent on the market-rate housing construction. we are leaving our communities in the dark by not being honest about promises that we can't keep because at the end of the day our land trust and subsidized funding is dependent on construction to finance the low-income units through a ridiculous means tested system. as a former financial professional and a current tenant organizer, i feel that we're giving the conversation to neoliberals, by pretending that we have a financing that is independent of market-rate financing when we actually don't. we're letting those people eat our lunch. we need to look this in the face. we need to come up with creative solutions. we need to talk about consistent sources of funding through income and very much property before we make determinations to cut market-rate allocations. and we should. i absolutely believe that we should, and it pains me to say this as a socialist. i don't believe in filtering, i don't believe in trickle-down economics. but i believe that the funding question has become so opaque to the public that we need to have a more intelligent conversation about rhna allocations and about how much of our funding for subsidized housing is unfortunately currently determined by market-rate high-end luxury housing. before we can have a meaningful conversation about how to change that. and so i really hope that people think about how we change that. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> madam clerk, that completes the queue. >> clerk: thank you. mr. president. >> president yee: thank you. thank you for the comments. seeing no other speakers, public comment is now closed. okay, madam clerk, let's call the reference in item 16 through 19. >> clerk: item 16 through 19 were introduced for adoption without committee reference, a unanimous vote is required for adoption of resolutions today on first reading. any supervisor may require a resolution on first reading to go to committee. >> president yee: colleagues, anyone want to discuss any of these items? supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: item 16, please. >> president yee: supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: item 17 please, mr. president. >> president yee: -- saf >> supervisor safai: supervisor safai for item 19. >> president yee: madam clerk, call roll call on number 18, please. >> clerk: on item 18, [roll call] supervisor mar, aye. and i will state for the public listening this is a resolution to proclaim september 15th, 2020 as affordable housing week. mar, aye. supervisor peskin? peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor stefani. i believe that supervisor stefani -- hello. >> aye. >> clerk: on item 18, stefani, aye. supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. this resolution is adopted unanimously. madam clerk, go ahead and call item number 16. >> clerk: item 16 to urge the association of bay area governments in its upcoming regional housing needs allocation process to focus on san francisco's unmet needs for housing affordable to low-and moderate income residents and to main the rhna allocation level of above moderate housing in san francisco. >> president yee: supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: thank you for your time and consideration of this resolution and thank you to my co-sponsors, supervisors ronen and walton and preston and fewer and mandelman and peskin. and finally thank you to everyone who spoke during public comment today and previously and who also emailed us on such an important process in our region. we need to prioritize actually addressing the housing affordability needs of our residents. that begins with setting the right goals. while consideration of this resolution has been more complex and longer than i had anticipated, i believe that it is imperative that we get the framework and our goals right and that there are consensus among the stakeholders in san francisco. that's why i am introducing amendments today after conversations with abag representatives in san francisco. including my fellow abag board member, supervisor mandelman and his staff, and director hillis and his staff, and especially james poppis at planning and those who represent san francisco on the abag methodology committee. i sincerely appreciate all of the constructive input that has led to this set of amendments that strengthen the resolution's original language and intent and build consensus. my office has shared the amendment with all of you earlier today. but in summary, the amendments clarify that san francisco's position is that the rhna process should counteract the displacement of low and moderate income residents and communities of color in core urban cities like san francisco and oakland. it should prioritize the increases to the regions above mod really rhna allocation and in high jurisdictions, and for rhna allocations to bay area cities with concentrations of sensitive communities. it also clarified and really adds that san francisco urges abag to consider past performance in the above moderate income category to the extent possible by state law so that we are less likely to be subjected to sb-35 streamlining for new luxury condos and apartments. it urges abag to consider the potential sb-35 impacts in cities with concentrations of sensitive communities. to avoid the inequitable outcomes of gentrification and displacement of low-income communities, further segregation and increasing racial disparities. the amendments also provide more context to san franciscans' position that include the fact that we are losing low and mod really income residents at a faster rate than the rest of the bay area. the fact that the rhna has not considered the covid-19 mid and long-term impacts on the housing demand in our city and region and the regional trend of the suburbanization of poverty in resegregation as a result of the declining affordability in cities like san francisco. so in conclusion, the local context in which regional bodies make their decisions really does matter. here and at abag our housing affordability and our housing stability needs must be the center of our focus and not simply to build more and more at any cost, hoping that the need will be met without targeting the right goals. so, colleagues, i urge you to adopt the amendment that i presented today and also to move that the amended resolution to be referred to committee to be heard rather than at the next board meeting. thank you. >> president yee: supervisor mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, president yee. i, you know, i listened to some of the public comment about this item, you know, and i was struck by how often san franciscans topped over each other on land use. i want to thank supervisor mar and your office, particularly for being willing to engage on the substance and the complexities of the issues and to actually to come up with some legislation that i'm fully comfortable supporting that as you said that reflects feedback from our planning department. and i think that it is a good statement coming out of san francisco. i think that heightening the contradictions and vil tie vilig others is not a great way of achieving legislative progress. i think this is legislative progress, so thank you supervisor mar. >> president yee: okay. a motion to make amendments. is there a second? >> second, peskin. >> president yee: second, peskin. and supervisor peskin, go ahead. >> supervisor peskin: i just want to associate myself with the comments of supervisor mandelman. that's all i have to say. >> president yee: supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: i'm okay, i'm okay. i was just letting the clerk to know how i'm listed in the call right now. that's all. >> president yee: got it, got it. thank you. so a motion and a second to amend this item. madam clerk, could we have roll call on the motion to amend. >> clerk: on the adoption of the amendment to item 16, supervisor mar. mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. supervisor stefani's camera feed is frozen again. ops, can you see if supervisor stefani is still in the meeting? >> madam clerk, she is there but i don't think that she has a connection. >> clerk: okay. so i will continue with the roll call vote, mr. president. and we will just do the same thing that we did when supervisor peskin was getting reconnected. so then we'll go to supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. and supervisor stefani. >> supervisor stefani: aye, if you can see me and hear me. >> clerk: stefani, aye. there are 11 ayes. for the amendment to item 16. >> president yee: so the amendments are adopted. let's go ahead and call roll on -- no -- i believe that the amendments are subsidies, so we would have to hold this for another meeting. >> mr. president -- i would like to make a motion to continue this item as amended for one week. >> president yee: and to bring it out to committee. >> mr. president, i would defer to counsel, but i believe that if we continue one week and subject to public comment again, that it can be voted on next week, but i'll defer to supervisor mar. >> supervisor mar: yeah, i appreciate, you know, the motion, supervisor peskin. i actually dated a request that this be amended -- the resolution be referred to committee to be heard rather than to be heard at the next board meeting. i think that would be the more -- the most appropriate legislative process to have the hearing on the amended resolution in committee. >> i will withdrawal my motion. >> president yee: okay. and i would go ahead and if this passes, then send it to committee. a second? >> second. >> president yee: second, okay. roll call on the motion to send it out to committee. >> clerk: this is the motion to re-refer to the g.a. o. committee. supervisor mar. mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. we see that your camera feed is frozen. so we will just do the same thing as we -- there you are. hello, stefani -- supervisor stefani on the motion to refer to the g.a.o. committee? frozen again. well, we will come back. supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. and supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. and we are waiting for the return of supervisor stefani. always having technical difficulties, for the record. perhaps supervisor stefani, if you can hear me, when you return just turn off your camera feed and that might stabilize the connection. >> president yee: in the meantime supervisor peskin -- >> supervisor peskin: yes, sir? >> president yee: will you be ready for 12 in a minute? >> supervisor peskin: i'm ready for 12 and 17 and anything else that you have got, sir. >> president yee: i will throw you a bunch of things and see that you're really ready. >> supervisor peskin: all right, bring it. mr. president, are you asking that we go back to item 12 or 17? >> president yee: i am waiting for supervisor stefani, but as soon as she gets back on and finishes the roll call. so, madam clerk, if supervisor stefani cannot get back on real quickly we could end the roll call and she wanted to resume the vote, that would be fine. so we can move on to other ite items. >> clerk: that sounds right, mr. president. i will, however, mark her absent for the vote, understanding that it is a technical difficulty. and then we can circle back and clean it up in the appropriate manner. okay. >> president yee: okay. >> clerk: so there are 10 ayes. >> president yee: so we'll have a 10-0 vote and this motion to re-refer to committee passes. go to item 17. >> clerk: item 17 is a resolution condemning the arrest -- >> president yee: there she i is. >> supervisor peskin: to make a motion to rescind the vote on the previous item number 16. >> president yee: a second? >> second. >> president yee: roll call -- >> supervisor peskin: i think that you can do that without objection, mr. president. >> president yee: without objection. a vote on item 16 and re-refer this to committee. >> clerk: to the g.a.o. committee, supervisor mar? mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. stefani, aye. supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. so the motion passes. supervisor stefani, you weren't on -- the madam clerk suggested that you shut off your video so that maybe you'll stay on, okay? madam clerk, let's call item 17. >> clerk: item 17 is a resolution condemning the arrests of peaceful protesters in belaruse following the presidential election, which has been widely decried as illegitimate and supporting the belarusian community across the san francisco bay area. >> president yee: okay, supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, president yee. and, colleagues, as you know i rarely, if ever, wade into waters of foreign affairs. and i am quite aware of the fact that i sit on the san francisco board of supervisors and i am not a member of the united states congress. but we also have in this case -- and in other cases -- where we have weighed in in foreign affairs and registered on behalf of our constituents our sentiments. we have quite a robust belarusian community here in san francisco and the bay area. and amongst our city staff. including somebody from sfmta which many of us may or may not know, who really elevated in my mind the significance of this issue. and you don't have to read "the new york times." you can read anything to know that the spread of the authoritarianism that is happening not only in this country and other countries, is happening i in belarus. and i think that is appropriate for this board of supervisors, representing 850,000 people to weigh in and to say enough is enough. i have one minor but significant -- but not substantive change. which is that the demonstrators that disputed the august 9th election in the nation in belarus wasn't 100,000, it was a quarter of a million. so i would like to make an amendment at page 3, line 9, which would actually read 250,000 demonstrators -- not 100,000 demonstrators. and i think that this resolution declares our city's solidarity with those peaceful demonstrators for democracy against authoritarianism and it should be really be a sign that this city stands against oppressive governments around the world. so i'd like to make that one minor non-substantive amendment, mr. president. >> president yee: okay, a second? >> second, mandelman. >> president yee: seconded by supervisor mandelman. roll call please, madam clerk, on the amendment. >madam clerk, roll call on the amendment. >> clerk: sincere apologies. i was speaking through a muted microphone. on the amendment to item 17 supervisor mar. mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. stefani, aye. supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. so on the motion to amend pass passes. on item 17 as amended... mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. stefani, aye. supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. so the resolution as amended is adopted. madam clerk, let's go to -- call item 19. >are you muted? >> clerk: yes -- no, i needed to turn the page. item 19 is a resolution to urge the department of public health and san francisco-based public and private hospitals to not apply for any state waivers granting a reduction in existing patient-to-nurse ratios. >> president yee: supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: thank you, president yee, and colleagues. i'll be brief, but i think that this is a very important item today. we saw our frontline health care workers take to the streets recently demanding better protection, demanding that the care that they're providing for all of our loved ones in this time of crisis, that they're also given the respect and the dignity that they deserve. and so this item is simply saying that we're urging all hospitals, including our own san francisco general hospital, but all private hospitals in the city and county of san francisco to not apply for a waiver on nurse-to-patient ratios. some have argued that they might -- the hospitals -- we have heard some hospitals say that they might need the flexibility during these times. but there is mow way tha no wayn ask our frontline health care workers to take care of more patients and exposing themselves to more harm. so i want to thank the california nurses' association for working with us on this resolution. and as many of you know, they staged a national day of action in 17 states that kaiser and cpmc, and calling for better care, better p.p.e. and better respect for our frontline health care workers. so i want to thank also my co-sponsors, and madam clerk, they all contacted me today. you can verify when they take the vote if you like, but supervisor stefani, supervisor peskin, and supervisor mar and supervisor preston and supervisor haney and president yee and supervisor ronen and supervisor walton, thank you for your support, and if anyone else would like to sign on as a co-sponsor, i'd appreciate it. but thank you, colleagues, and i hope for your support today. >> president yee: okay. madam clerk, go ahead and call the roll. >> hold up. i think that i'm on as a co-sponsor but want to be added if not. >> clerk: okay, thank you. >> thank you. >> clerk: mr. president on item 19, supervisor mar... mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. stefani, aye. supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. >> thank you, colleagues. >> president yee: this resolution is adopted unanimously. let's go back to item 12. i think that you recalled this item, so supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, president yee, and thank you, colleagues, for your indulgence and thank you for voting unanimously for the first enactment of this emergency ordinance. and thank you to my co-sponsors and the members of the land-use committee for forwarding this to the full board as a committee report with the unanimous recommendation. and thank you primarily to the community advocates from our s.r.o. collaboratives for doing the hard work and to the department of public health and my former colleague, katie tang, for being a liaison between dphh and the supervisor and this board as we try to deepen the trust and the respect between the community and d.p.h. during this pandemic. having said all of that, i have one small non-substantive amendment, which would be in the original ordinance at section 3, sub[g] sub[4] and in subsection 4 we would insert "or compel the s.r.o. response team at the e.o.c. to provide the." so i'll read the entire paragraph as amended. "as soon as feasible, but not more than 12 hours after receiving such confirmation, provide or compel the s.r.o. response team at the e.o.c. emergency operation center to provide the necessary face coverings to all s.r.o. residents who occupy or access parts of the residential hotel that have been occupied or accessed by people who may or have been exposed to covid-19 within the prior 14 days. and to all workers to access the same areas to provide services on-site." it's not the language that i wanted but it was the language that the city attorney made me settle on. and with that i make said amendment. this is before each and every one of you in a copy. >> president yee: is there a second? >> if i may -- >> president yee: you may. >> this is the city attorney ann pearson. the language read into the record is different from the language that we had discussed in small part. and the language that we had discussed and that i had approved to form was that after receiving the notice, d.p.h. would provide or partner with the s.r.o. response team at the emergency operations center to ensure the provision of -- >> okay, we can air our laundry -- it's not dirty laundry in public -- which is the electric that i wanted was d.p.h. shall or shall cause to -- which apparently the city attorney didn't like, which i still don't understand. but i can live with your language. >> i have never been asked to review language cause to -- cause to is not the language that you just read into the record. >> no, the language that i read into the record is the language that i thought that you guys agreed to. but the language that i wanted was that d.p.h. would either -- and i'll say this in layperson's term -- either do it themselves or to work with s.r.o. collaboratives to have them to provide the masks. and i'm not sure why that language didn't go over real well, but that's the discussion that i had with the former supervisors tang this morning and i'm trying to accommodate your former client. but i can live with your language, deputy city attorney pearson. >> okay. >> president yee: deputy city pearson can you read the language. >> sure. this is supervisor peskin said an amendment to section 4, section g, which in the re-enactment ordinance and it says as soon as feasible but not more than 12 hours after receiving such confirmation, provide, or partner with the s.r.o. response team at the emergencymation center to ensure the provision of, necessary face coverings. so it would allow d.p.h. to comply with the duty to provide these face coverings by partnering with the e.o.c. to get them distributed. >> supervisor peskin: so i don't really want to have this negotiation in public. but what's the matter with "provide or cause to be provided"? rather than "partner with" and all of that other stuff? >> well, supervisor peskin, i don't have a problem with that language. that language was never sent to me and that language is different from what you originally read into the record but if that's the language that you would like to use, that is fine as well. >> supervisor peskin: a lot of things happen every day really quick. but i would say to "provide or cause to be provided." >> i have no objection to that. >> supervisor peskin: mr. president, i would like to rescind my original motion and say "provide or cause to be provided." >> president yee: is there a second? is there a second to the amendments to supervisor stefani raised her hand. >> supervisor stefani: a second, yes. >> president yee: okay. madam clerk, can you take the roll call on the amendment. >> clerk: on the amendment to item 12, supervisor mar... mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. stefani, aye. supervisor walton. supervisor walton. we'll circle back to supervisor walton. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. supervisor walton. operations, can you check to see 23 his connection is good or he's disconnected? >> madam clerk he does not appear to be connected right now. >> clerk: ah, okay. i will reach out to supervisor walton. or, mr. president, we can wait a moment while he reconnects. >> president yee: is anyone trying to contact him? >> clerk: i am, mr. president. >> president yee: okay. >> clerk: but if his internet connection has failed him with his computer, perhaps it failed him with his phone. or perhaps i can mark him absent. i can do that if there's an internet -- >> can you hear me? >> clerk: okay. so then we're taking the vote on the amendment to item 12. walton, aye. there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: motion to amend passes. roll call on amended item. >> clerk: on item 12 as amended, supervisor mar... mar, aye. supervisor peskin. peskin, aye. supervisor preston. preston, aye. preston, aye. supervisor ronen. ronen, aye. supervisor safai. safai, aye. supervisor stefani. stefani, aye. supervisor walton. walton, aye. supervisor yee. yee, aye. supervisor fewer. fewer, aye. supervisor haney. haney, aye. supervisor mandelman. mandelman, aye. there are 11 ayes. >> president yee: okay. so the ordinance as amended is finally passed. right. now we could kindly bring us to the end of our agenda. madam clerk, is there any further business before us today? >> clerk: yes, mr. president, today's meeting will be adjourned in memory of the following beloved individuals. on a motion made by supervisor peskin and yee and on behalf of the entire board of supervisors for the late antonio gah

Related Keywords

Russian Hill , California , United States , Oakland , Belarus , Oakdale , Wisconsin , Bayview , Togo , San Francisco , Berkeley , Kenosha , Pacific Heights , San Francisco Bay , Sacramento , San Mateo County , Spain , Chicago , Illinois , Spanish , Assemblymember Kevin Mccarthy , Dave Alexander , Michael Brown , Kenneth Russell , George Floyd , Mar , Gordon Mar , Willie Louis Brown Jr , Barney Baron , Robert Putman , Debbie George , Yee , Cliff Berger , Katherine Howard , Mary Myles , Haney , Mike Chen , Perez Lopez , Gordan Mar , Bernie Sanders , Preston , Robert Huffman , Madeleine Mcmillian , Katie Tang , Martin Luther King , Santa Claus , Mary Byrnes , Katy Tang , Los Angeles , Jessica Williams , Francisco Reena , Stefani , Walton , Jeff Adachi , Ann Pearson , Peter Kohn , Corey Smith , Madelyn Mcmillan , Willie Brown , Ronen , Greg Miller , Jacob Blake , Alex Nieto , Scott Jones , Antonio Gah ,