>> good morning, everybody. the maoe willing come to order. welcome to the october 8, 2020 regular meeting of the public safety services committee. i'm rafael mandleman, the chair of this committee, and i'm joined by our vice chair and supervisor, our clerk is john carroll. as usual, i'd like to thank the folks at sfgov tv for staffing the meeting and i.t. in lending their support. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> i do. thank you very much, mr. chair. in order to protect the public, board member and city employees during the covid-19 health emergency, the board of supervisors legislative chamber and committee will close v. this was pursuant to declarations and directives. community members will participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically presentment public comment will be available for each item on this agenda. there a public comment call-in number across your screenful your opportunity to speak and speak during public comment speder available via phone by calling 415-655-0001. once you're connected and prompted, enter the meeting i.d. of 1469328582. then press pound twice to be connected to the meeting. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussion, but will be muted and your line will be in a listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star followed by 3 to be added to the speaker line. a system prompt will indicate that tough raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates that you've been unmuted and may begin your comments. best practices are to call from a quiet location to speak slowly and clearly and turn down your television, radio or streaming device. everyone should can the for speaking delays and discrepancies between the live coverage and the straoel,. alternatively, you may submit public comment by e-mailing me, the clerk of the public safety neighbourhood and services committee. my e-mail address is john.carroll@sfgov.org. if you submit public comment via e-mail i'll include your commentary as part of the legislationive file, whichever you're commenting on and you may send written comments via the u.s. postal service and the address is 1 dr. carleton goodlet place. and finally mr. chair, items the acted upon today will appear on the board of supervisor's agenda of october 20, 2020 unless otherwise stated. >> great. thank you, mr. clerk. can you call our first item? i can. a hearing to consider the transfer of a type-21 off-sale general beer, wine and distilled spirits liquor license to golden state food and liquor incorporated, located at 1859 market will serve the public convenience or necessity of the city and county. members of the public that wish to provide public comment should call the public comment now. that number is 415-655-0001. enter the meeting i.d.. it is 1469328582. press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting and then press the star key followed by the number 3 to enter the system to speak. a system prompt will indicate that you raised your hand. please wait until it indicates that your line will be unmuted. mr. chair? >> thank you, mr. clerk. colleagues, we continued this item on september 24. at the time there was some ambiguity about whether the applicant had agreed to all of the conditions of the license. i understand that we have [inaudible] from the a.l.u. >> good morning. >> good morning. go ahead. did we get documentation of agreement of the conditions? >> yeah. it looks like as of october 1, the applicant signed and agreed to the condition that we presented at the last p.c.n. >> great. thank you. if the applicant is here, we can give you a moment to say anything else or if the applicant is not here, we'll go to public comment. >> yeah, i'm here. we signed the conditions and we sent it out to the abc. >> ok. thank you. let's open this up to public comment. >> thank you, mr. chair. operations is checking to see if we have any caller in the queue. please let us know if we have any callers that are ready to speak on agenda item number 1. if those who have already connected to our meeting via phone, please press star followed by 3 to be added to the queue if you wish to speak to this tome. for those on hold, continue to wait until you're prompted to begin. those watching our meeting on cable channel 26 or streaming through sfgov tv.org, if you wish to speak, please call in now by following the instruction on your screen. that would be by dialing 415-655-0001 and then by entering the meeting i.d. of 146-932-8582 and pressing the pound symbol twice. you will connect to our meeting followed by press star followed by 3 to speak. do we have any callers? >> operator: mr. chair, there no caller in the queue. >> great. public comment is now closed. colleagues, i am prepared to direct our clerk to prepare a resolution to transfer this license and will serve public convenience and necessity and i will move that we forward that to the full board with positive recommendations. mr. clerk, please call the roll. >> on the motion offered by chair mandleman that a resolution [inaudible] necessity be recommended to the board of supervisors -- [roll call] mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> and the motion passes. congratulations, mr. sharif. and mr. clerk, please call the next item. >> agenda item number 2 is an ordinance amendsing the police code to make it unlawful to cause a peace officer to contact a person swt specific sfwoenlt discriminate against the person on the basis of the person's race, colour, ancestry, ethnicity, national origin, place of birth, sex or religion or gender identity. members who wish to provide public comment on this ordinance should call the public comment number. it is still 415-655-0001. then press pound twice to be connected to the meeting. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussion, but will be muted and your line will be in a listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star followed by 3 to be added to the speaker line. a system prompt will indicate that tough raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates that you've been unmuted and may begin your comments. >> we will hear public comment before we vote. but i understand that supervisor walton may have remarks that also has a speaker for us. supervisor walton? >> thank you so much, chair mandleman. thank you, again, committee. as you know, we have two amendments from our last public safety and neighbourhood services meeting for the [inaudible] and today we are going to close the loop on this and forfeit to the school board. before we do, we have mr. sal -- salvador to speak about assembly bill 5050 which is a similar bill that was introduced at the state legislature. i believe yurio is here and mr. salvador, you are on if you are here. >> there we go. >> yes, a imhere. sorry. i was on mute. committee, committee and supervisors. i'm a legislative aide and i'm here to speak in support of item number 2 relating to discriminatory reports to law enforcement which is sponsored by supervisor walton. this year at the california state legislature, as the supervisor indicated, we introduced similar measures, ab-5050 to address this issue. we subsequently merged with 8070-75 to join the efforts of our public safety chair. the aim was to provide that intimidation by threat of violence, including knowingly or recklessly making false claims or reports to peace officers alleging that another person was engaging in unlawful activity merely because of their particular [inaudible] such as race, ethnicity, racial profiling and so forth. it is an unlawful activity and should not require law enforcement intervention and so we basically try to balance not allowing discrimination of marginalized communities for basically living their lives out in public spaces, by providing a disincentive and legal accountability for those residents. the bill passed with strong bipartisan support as to both chambers and got assigned earlier in september by governor newsome. we think that this is very important step to ensuring that we have equity and making sure that our emergency responders do work for all of our constituents and i strongly urge a vote for item number 2. >> great. thank you. >> i want to thank you for introducing this. i want to thank all of my colleagues here on the board of supervisors for sponsoring this legislation, which is important. we need to do everything to fight racism and discrimination and stopping people from weaponizing 9-1-1 and using police officers against the community. ... dining resumed. it is now set to expire at the point of 50% on site dining. but we know even then, as they were before the pandemic, restaurants will be struggling and while before this was about protecting restaurants, now it's really about allowing restaurants to giving them the flexibility to build their own model. it sets a cap on the commissions and our legislation originally proposed a 10% cap among the amendments i'll make this morning or present to the commission -- committee this morning, is to raise that from 10% to 15%. and then it addresses a whole host of other practices that we've seen emerge over the past year, year and a half. it would allow restaurants to set their own prices in the app on menu items. we were looking at contracts earlier this year, at the end of last year, that were actually setting a 30% cap on commissions and on top of that, prohibiting restaurants from having the flexibility to even recover some of that commission by setting a slightly higher price in the app. and i think what we were missing there was that food delivery services were actually competing directly with the onsite dining experience on restaurants. and by saying you can't charge a higher price in the app than you charge for indoor dining, they were actually saying we want to peel off some of your consumer base that enjoys the on site dining experience for the delivery app and we don't want them to face a higher price and that was kind of a problematic -- a really problematic point we're addressing in this legislation. there were other really key parts in the legislation. this morning i'll talk about an amendment that requires third party food delivery service companies to terminate a contract within 72 hours of receiving notice from a restaurant, that they would like to terminate. and on top of that, one last piece that actually was the subject that state legislation recently, which prohibits delivery services from providing services to any restaurant without first having a written agreement in place. and that addresses the problem that we were observing where restaurants are being lifted on some of these food delivery service apps and their menus were inaccurate. the restaurant would receive an order and have to hustle around and figure out how to make the order that was no longer reflected on the menu. that was because of the accuracy of a informed and apparent written agreement between the food delivery service app and the restaurants. so i'm happy to walk through the amendments now. we can wait until after public comment in the chair prefers. this is genuinely about restaurant recovery to that end, we have -- i am also proposing -- and this is the subject -- this has been the subject of a lot of conversation with our restaurant industry stakeholders and the food delivery service companies, a two year sunset in this legislation. really -- and that two-year flash point has become relevant in a few other context. whether that's shared spaces, fee waivers. whether that's prop s. that two-year recovery thing is reflected in a lot of other policies and i'm proposing we introduce that here. i think this is a fast moving conversation. these are quickly evolving conversations both on the delivery side and i think that two years provides restaurants the space they need to recover while respecting we might live in a very different world and this conversation may look a lot different in two years. with that, i'll stop talking or at the chair's recommendation, i will walk through the amendments, or i can do that after public comment. >> why don't you walk through the amendments? >> sure. so first, there is a new finding which we would like to insert at the bottom of page 4, reflecting the rationale of the legislation to require the restaurant's express consent and also giving third party food delivery services the option to terminate contract promptly. moving through this legislation, at the bottom of page 5, the amendments that are circulated reflect our -- the place where we are at right now, which is to raise the proposed 10% tax to 15% cap. again that reflects the 15% in the mayor's supplemental declaration and the understanding there being that 15% has actually been working for most of the restaurants that we're talking to. moving down on page 6, a new subsection c, this would make explicit an allowance for food delivery services to charge a point of sale processing fee up to 3% of the purchase price. and further require that 3% point of sale be itemized separately in the agreement so that it is distinct from the 15% commission cap. moving down at the bottom of page 6, a new section, 5305, prohibition on services without written consent by a covered establishment. now this was, again, the subject of state legislation, so this merely reflects what the state legislature just passed and requires that third party food delivery services enter into a written agreement with a restaurant before offering delivery services to that restaurant through the app. on page 7, a new section, 5306, termination of the services within 72 hours of notice by a covered establishment. again i spoke this to this. this allows the flexibility to provide written or oral notice to a food delivery service app and be able to remove themselves off the app within 72 hours of that notice. and in the interest of trying to ensure that there is a person available to issue that communication to, we've issued -- we've included a variety of options. whether that is an individual whose name is in the written agreement with the restaurant. i think the best-case scenario is it's an easy customer service point of contact in the app itself. or the agent on the california secretary of state's website. i think amendments on page -- bottom of the page 7 are non-substantive, just correcting the code citation, the numbers to reflect the proper cross references and that continues through page 8 as well as page 9. and then lastly, on page 10, as i spoke to, we are proposing a sunset date and that occurs -- and this will be removed from the police code two years from the effective date of this ordinance. of course, the board can act in that interim two years to further extend this or to modify this based on whatever conditions we're observing in this quickly evolving space in the next two years and that concludes the proposed amendments. >> thank you. i notice that we have here as well, and wanted to see if you wanted to add anything. are you just here for questions? [please stand by] [please stand by] there for theo review, but the commission did take action on this item and chose to unanimously support it to give an indication of the direction of which the commission determines that we need to go in to support our small businesses. i've reviewed amendments that mr. hepner has provided the committee, and these are very much along the lines of these additions are welcome additions and are along the lines of needs expressed by the commission and our small businesses. so just to provide you with that information as well. and with that, i will be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you. >> well, i think we can -- well, i will just say that i -- this is legislation, this is the kind of legislation that makes me proud to be a san franciscan. this seems like local government is identifying a vexing and real problem for our small businesses, particularly for our restaurants, and stepping in and doing some smart things to try and address those, those needs and those challenges, and i certainly want to thank supervisor peskin, and as come to be known, the lovely lee hepner, mr. hepner, for all of your work on this as well. and with that, i think we can open this up for public comment. >> thank you, mr. chair. operations is checking to see if we have any callers in the queue. please let us know. please press star followed by 3 to be added to the queue to speak if this is your item of interest. for those already on hold in the queue, please continue to wait until you are prompted to begin. you will hear a prompt that indicates your line is unmuted. for those watching online or on tv, if you wish to speak on this item, please call in now. you would do so by following the instructions on your screen, 415-655-0001. when prompted, you would then enter the meeting id of 146-932-8582, and then you would press the pound symbol twice. then finally to queue up to speak for this item, you press star followed by three to enter the line to speak. could you connect us to the first caller for this agenda item? >> members of this committee, good morning. my name is brent wescot and i'm a legislative policy advisor at a san francisco-based company which also includes the caviar grand. i want to thank the committee for this thoughtful consideration of this important issue. this conversation is occurring at a critical moment for restaurants, and we know that we have a special responsibility to them, our customers and delivery drivers and diverse communities we serve. i also want to thank supervisor peskin for his leadership and willingness to engage stakeholders on this issue. we look forward to continuing this work over the next few weeks. our goal is to give restaurants choice. many of our restaurant partners offer delivery using door dash drive, which allows orders received directly by the restaurant in exchange for a flat free. others use the marketplace in exchange for a negotiated percentage of the order subtotal, and through our main street strong initiative, door dash now helps restaurants create their own online -- pick-up or delivery for a flat fee and no commission, and those restaurants with fewer than five locations will pay no fees at all for this service through the end of 2020. these products and services are available today to restaurants in san francisco and throughout the country. in addition to offering delivery and pick-up, restaurants on our platform have the option to pay for a varieties marketing program that helps restaurants attract new customers and drive sales. these marketing programs are completely optional and door dash never charges a restaurant a fee or commission for these programs without the restaurant's consent. going forward, we hope that this committee and the board will consider clarifying the ordinance for restaurants who wish to pay more could participate in these optional marketing programs may continue to do so. restaurants who choose not to participate would still have the option of arranging for delivery and pick-up at the 15% rate. this clarification would allow restaurants to continue to choose the option that works best for their business. and lastly, we suggest that formula retail use restaurants be excluded from the ordinance as in the mayor's current order. thank you for your time. we look forward to speaking with you again soon. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors, i am the director of public policy at the golden gate restaurant association. i am calling on behalf of the incredible restaurant community we represent. thank you for hearing this item. we are very supportive of this legislation and the longer-term commission cap to level the playing field for san francisco restaurants. we are comfortable with the 15% cap amendment added as it is generally been working during the emergency period. we are also comfortable with this two-year sunset as we anticipate 2021 to be another -- year and hope 2022 can be rebuilding. with no federal relief on the horizon, this cap is necessary for our livelihood. we want to thank supervisor peskin and legislative aide hepner for working with us to faunt find a solution to support our restaurants. we want to continue to have dialogue on all sides. we have been working on this legislation prior to the pandemic and i'm glad to see it move through the legislative process. thank you for your time today. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hey, everyone, i am calling as the president of the san francisco entertainment commission, but today i'm speaking as a civilian and on behalf of the san francisco bar owner alliance and san francisco small businesses. we are very much in support of passing this legislation as it currently stands. it's hard to describe how devastating the pandemic has been for our small businesses and for our small restaurants, and in many cases it's made them more reliant on delivery apps than ever, and you couple that with the fact that delivery apps have traditionally shown themselves able and willing to engage in predatory practices in price gouging in order to maximize their profits over our small businesses, so we're hoping very much that you will pass this. and as a final note, you know, i just want to say, everybody's being very diplomatic and that's great, but i have deep reservations about the commitments that these delivery apps actually have to our communities. i think they spend a lot of money on marketing, but when it comes down to it, they are focused on market share and building profit and gaining footing in all costs for their investors, and i would just indicate that one of the largest delivery apps, the person who benefits the most from its growth is somebody who had a "washington post" journalist murdered and cut up with a bone axe, a bone saw just a year ago. so i think that would give anybody some skepticism as to how much they truly care about our small restaurants and neighborhoods in san francisco. so thank you very much and we hope this will pass. >> thank you. next speaker? >> hi, my name is peter, and i live in district five. please ignore the door dash ad and that the rep cited earlier and -- delivery app companies -- voluntarily for a limited time should exempt them from legislation [indiscernible] forever. please make that fair playing field regardless of what the app companies promise. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> mr. chair, that completes the queue. >> great. public comment is now closed. mr. hepner, do you have any final remarks? vice chair stefani, you're in the queue. >> great. i do have a question, and it's based on enforcement in penalties. it looks like that's in section 53089(c), and i'm looking at the penalty amounts, and it looks like it's $1,000 per violation, and i'm wondering if that's not enough and how you came up -- how we decided on that amount, and i ask because we know that we've had penalties in other ordinances that didn't work, you know, with the store front, vacant storefront ordinance, which was just 750 and a lot of people just thumbed their nose on it and could easily afford it which led to another measure, as you know, mr. hepner. so i'm wondering how did you come up with the 1,000 per violation? and basically based on other comments as well, is that enough? >> right, and you know, i will be the first to admit that the amount of that penalty has not been at the center of the conversation, so i really appreciate the question. i believe that $1,000 amount has been used in other contexts, and i would look to the city attorney for advice on how high that needs to be. i am happy to engage in that conversation. really what we're hoping is that, you know, we can reach an agreeable point with third-party food delivery service apps so that compliance is really at the center of this. i mean, i think with all of our legislation, ensuring a seamless implementation of compliance obviates the need for enforcement, and certainly that $1,000 will be a deterrent to bad apps, but i think we've really been kind of focusing on something that people can comply with. i'm happy to engage in that discussion over the next couple of weeks before the next committee hearing. >> great, and i think it can pass at $1,000, and if there is abuse, then we can revisit it and increase the amount if we have to. i was just curious if there was a rhyme or reason, but i appreciate that answer. and i just would like to make some remarks that i want to thank supervisor peskin for bringing this forward. it is so absolutely necessary based on so many of the restaurant owners that i know that have talked to me about this situation, and you know, as amazing as it is to see all of the outdoor dining in our streets right now, we know that i think, anyway, and what i've heard, it really paints a deceptively rosy picture of the state of our restaurants. like our small businesses, neighborhood-serving businesses, we know that they are clinging to life, and so many of our restaurants are. according to a report from the chamber in august, restaurant sales are down 91% compared to last year, and half of our restaurants don't have any sales at all. delivery we know is one of the few lifelines available, and it could continue to be that way until our residents feel safe to eat indoors and employment returns to normal. food delivery services that engage in price gouging will destroy the industry they rely on for survival. prior to the emergency order limiting delivery fees, all of the restaurants i've heard from say that they are powerless to stop these delivery services from siphoning off what little they make from each transaction. so i think putting up more permanent anti-gouging controls in place is incredibly necessary, and i would like to be added as a co-sponsor. thank you again, mr. hepner. i think this is very -- legislation, and thank you to supervisor peskin for bringing it forward. >> thank you, vice chair stefani. i do think a thousand dollars per violation if the app companies don't get their act together could add up very quickly to quite a lot of money, but anyway, it sounds like that conversation will continue. so with that, i will make a motion that we accept the amendments brought to us by supervisor peskin's office. >> on the motion as offered by chair mandleman to accept the motion, vice chair stefani? >> aye. >> member walton? >> aye. >> chairman maendelman? >> aye. >> so the motion passes and then those are substantive amendments and i believe we need to continue this item, and so i will move that we continue this item as amended to the october 22 regular meeting of this committee. >> on the motion that the item be continued as amended to october 22, regular public safety neighborhood services committee meeting, vice chair stefani? >> ayn. >> member walton? >> aye. >> chair mandelman? >> aye. >> mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> great. the motion passes. thank you. mr. clerk, can you please call our next item? >> agenda item no. 4 is a heerg on essential front-line workers in both the public and private sectors and to explore their working conditions and treatments with an emphasis on the covid crisis and racial disparities. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this hearing should call the public comment number, 415-655-0001, enter the meeting id for today's meeting, 146-932-8582, press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting, and then press the star key followed by the number three to enter the queue to speak. the system prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted and you may then begin your comments. mr. chair? >> thank you, mr. clarke. do we have supervisor safai here? >> i do not see that he is connected to the meeting, mr. chair. >> the chair: so items four and five are supervisor safai's. why don't we recess for five minutes and get supervisor safai over here. and so -- well, let's say we'll be back at 10:55. >> 10:55. the committee will recess until 10:55. >> great. [short recess]. we are reconvened. item 4 has been called. this is supervisor safai's item. supervisor safai has joined us. take it away. >> thank you, chair. thank you, folks. i was just clicking on when you called the recess, so i appreciate taking a moment to give me a time to join. but today's hearing is about we have been going through this crisis, as all of you know, for the past eight months, and there's been a lot of conversation at this committee and at the board of supervisors and with the department of public health talking about our front-line essential workers, the treatment that they receive by the city, the treatment in terms of how they have been impacted by covid, looking at the racial disparities, but there hasn't been a lot of conversation really about private sector essential front-line workers, and so we called our hearing. we had to postpone it a couple times because committees were canceled or a little bit full, and i know that folks have been waiting for this for some time, so i appreciate your patience, but those front-line workers have a story to tell, and they have questions to ask, and they would like to see what the city's response is as it pertains to private sector front-line workers. today we're joined by jim araby from local 5 that works with our retail clerks and front-line essential workers in grocery stores all across the city. they are joined by siu local 87, janitor. we're going to hear from vice-president theresa rutherford. we are also joined by local 2015, daisy mccarthy, in-home health care workers, support service workers. we will hear from [indiscernible] 15, multiple sclerosis kayla samborn hums, and she's going to talk about some of the experience of workers at mcdonald's, along with we drive progress, mckayla edwards, a gig driver, talking about the treatment that she has and her experiences. we're also asked the department of public health to come and present, as well as the office of labor standards and enforcement. so we're going to start with the two departments today, ask them to say some -- to give some opening remarks, and then we will go to the folks that i mentioned. i just wanted to underscore that we want to hear directly about the existing working conditions of these workers, of their treatment in the workplace, any racial disparities as they help us navigate and survive this ongoing coronavirus. and as you all know, folks, covid-19 is on track to unfortunately take the lives of over 211,000 individuals in this country, and as we learned in the past week, even our nation's current occupant of the white house is not immune to this disease. so we know that no one is immune or exempted, but unfortunately there are many millions across this country who don't have the same resources that many of us do of funding, the protective equipment or the ability to stay home and work remotely, like we all are right now. and to shelter, to either quarantine, recover if they have been exposed at all. and the folks that i'm talking about, as i've mentioned today, are our front-line essential workers. and so we have, as i said, we have antors, grocery store clerks, service providers, we've asked all of them to come today, share their story and ask questions. so we're going to start with mr. pat mulligan, the director of the office of -- and standards. we'll have him speak, and after we'll have the principal environmental inspector from the department of public health go, and then we'll hear from the respective folks in the different groups that i've mentioned. >> before director mulligan starts, because there are so many speakers for this hearing, which is important, we have worked with supervisor safai's office to agree on some time constraints, and so director mulligan, i think you should be aware that we're going to ask you to keep your remarks to eight minutes or fewer and a little alarm will go off, and if you're still going, i will probably ask you to try to wrap up at that point. >> thank you, supervisor mandelman, deputy walton and supervisor safai, i assure you i will be brief and make myself available to respond to any questions that come up. just as kind of some background, in october 2000 san francisco board of supervisors voted unanimously to establish the office of labor standards enforcement, so it's 20 years this month as an action of the board of supervisors. we enforce local labor laws adopted by san francisco voters, like the san francisco minimum wage ordinance, currently 16.07 an hour, one of the highest in the nation, as well as san francisco's paid sick leave ordinance, the first of their kind in the nation, as well as laws passed by the board of supervisors, approximately 30, including san francisco's health care security ordinance, paid parental leave ordinance and retail employee rights ordinance as well as many others. many of the laws apply city-wide with various thresholds of employment. some apply to all employers, and employers of five or more, employers of 20 or more and recently with one of the emergency ordinances of 500 or more. so various thresholds of application. other laws apply specifically to city contracts, leases and others doing business with the city. those would include san francisco's health care accountability ordinance, san francisco's living wage ordinance or mco, and prevailing wage retirements, both the traditional prevailing wage as well as the ten classifications that are unique to the city and county of san francisco. for san francisco's contract laws, we do proactive outreach and monitoring as there is a higher standard for any businesses that are directly contracting with the city or using city services or resources. for all other labor laws, osc enforcement is complaint-based. typically the complaint is made to our office. there is an initial assessment and intake of those within one business day. so that's typically same day or within 24 hours, depending on weekends or public holidays. there's -- additionally there is some assessment complaints come in from outside san francisco, people trying to assert that, you know, san francisco's paid sick leave law in alameda law or san mateo, certainly it's not within our jurisdiction, and there's always special circumstances. once we've determined that there is potential violation, we'll initiate a comprehensive investigation and audit that would be business-wide, and with a three-year audit period for those periods. at that point we would make a determination for penalties and restitution. employer-supported due process through an appeal hearing or [indiscernible] one or the other, and then finally collections and distribution. regarding essential workers, which is the topic of today's hearing, san francisco's office of labor enforcement is very busy during this period of pandemic and state of emergency, so the only workers that have been active through much of this time has been essential workers. in addition to that, we are implementing several new policies established by the board, and one from emergency provision by the mayor, including san francisco's public health emergency leave ordinance, the employee protection ordinance, health 10 requirements for specified covid-19 essential service contracts, and covid-related employment protection ordinance, and then also as you're all aware, pending board of supervisors the healthy airport ordinance. i am excited to say that just during this period of state of emergency that the office of labor standards enforcement has issued over $8 million in restitutional workers for labor violations just during this state of emergency. and that's my summation. thank you, supervisors. >> thank you. mr. mull began, director mulligan, you can just hang tight because we're going to have questions. so the next person that we're going to hear from i think is the principal environmental health inspector terrence hong, and i know we also have dr. jessica bloom and dr. susan stokes. is dph here? oh, we can't hear you. you're on mute. >> oh, i -- >> hi, sorry about that. >> you're going first, jessica? >> -- present is -- can i share my screen? okay. great. >> and again, we're going to ask you to keep your presentation to eight minutes. >> sure. thank you all for allowing us to present today. my name is jessica bloom, and i have been working with the department of public health within community mitigation branch on the workplace response to covid-19 and will be presenting some of our work with terrence hong today. so just a quick overview of the community mitigation branch. this is a branch that works with impacted areas in the community to provide education and technical assistance in covid-19 prevention and mitigation. and you can see workplaces and businesses are one of the hubs within this group. not every workplace is covered by this hub because some groups of special populations, including home care workers, workers at senior facilities for health care institutions are followed by other groups. so the workplace hub has several activities. the overall mission is to work with employers in san francisco to implement department of public health recommendations to reduce the threat of covid-19 in workplaces. the hub has been very busy since march following up on workplace exposures, meaning when someone who tested positive for covid-19 worked during their infectious period. they are -- bay area jurisdictions in calling every workplace that they are notified about to provide mitigation guidance in this instance. they also staff the employer and workplace phone line to answer questions and provide guidance. they follow up on workplace outbreaks, which we define as three or more cases within 14 days at a san francisco workplace. they follow up, investigate and provide consultation to reduce transmission and protect workers. they also refer [indiscernible] of two or more cases to environmental health, and terrence hong will speak more about their inspection protocol. finally we follow up on data to help guide our answer. so how do we identify workplace exposures? the main source of data for this work are people who test positive themselves and their voluntary cooperation. so when san francisco residents test positive for covid-19, their laboratory provider is required to report to the department of public health. these cases are assigned for an interview and a trained case investigator will call each case. we reach over 80% of people who test positive. they are asked about exposures, including whether they worked during their infectious period, and if they consent to have their workplace notified, the workplace hub will go ahead and follow up on that exposure notification. that's the main way that we find out about people through work. other sources of that information include other bay area health departments for people who live outside of san francisco. we also hear directly from employers who find out about their workers who tested positive, and of note, construction cases in san francisco, we require their general contractor to report. we also sometimes hear about cases through complaints to 311. [indiscernible] about exposures in the workplace, they follow up. once the case reports that they worked, they are asked to provide permission to contact their manager or hr supervisor. once that permission is granted, the workplace hub will follow up and provide prevention and mitigation guidance to their provider, including advice on masking and social distancing. importantly identifying close contacts in the workplace to the case, as well as the san francisco guidance, including mandatory employee system and contact screening, isolation and quarantine guidance, return-to-work guidance, and mandatory reporting of outbreaks. finally, the employer is asked to send a list of close contacts to our contact tracing team who will follow up and ensure that contacts are tested and offer them resources to assist with their quarantine. this is a summary of exposure notifications on a weekly basis since march the shelter-in-place first started, and you can see the workplace hub has been very busy calling workplaces and providing technical assistance to employers since the very beginning. i will note again that this is not a comprehensive list of all workers since we rely on people self-reporting and on other local health jurisdictions reporting about their residents. i'm moving on to workplace outbreak identification. we follow the california department of public health definition of a workplace outbreak of three or more cases in a 14-day period. we also follow up closely in the case after two or more cases in a food preparation facility. we in san francisco have decided to do that based on concerns about the risk in food preparation facilities. and on the right you can see a summary of outbreaks starting in july. the most impacted industries have been construction and restaurants or some other front-line industries. so workplace hub response to outbreaks once they are reported. two or more cases in a food preparation facility we immediately refer to environmental health who will conduct an inspection site visit. in the case of outbreaks of three or more cases, hub [indiscernible] and provide consultation, primarily focused on determining whether the plethora of cases workplace transmission or community transmission and provide mitigation strategy to reduce ongoing transmission, including assessing the physical space and ensuring physical distancing is implemented but industry-specific guidance is implemented that employees are notified and supported and that close contacts in the workplace are referred to testing. and finally if there is any evidence of sustained transmission in the workplace from a site inspection, an interview or epidemiologic data, the outbreak management team is notified, and once we have staffing we plan to also conduct site visits in addition to the environmental health inspections. and with that, i'll turn it over to terrence hong to present on the environmental health aspect of the work. >> thank you, jessica, good morning, supervisors, and thank you, supervisor safai, to bring this important discussion to the topic of discussion. most of you already know who the environmental branch is with the various -- there's 45 articles in the sf health code. this branch probably touches on all of them to some extent, and we have 30 programs here i think just a two-second overview, the most notable ones are the ones that are kind of in the media the most, the cannabis program, the massage program, hazardous materials and then [indiscernible] probably the most [indiscernible] is the food safety program, and today i will talk about our involvement with covid. the first screen you see kind of indicates -- [ alarm ]. -- our involvement in a variety of ways. you see there are 524 single occupancy rooms that were inspected, sros were inspected by this department. i think that's an under-reported number with 2,808, but that was the most recent number i could get, food facilities. the phone calls should probably be switched. the number i want to highlight first is the 43,000. those were all the food facility correspondence we made in sharing the health order and sharing the health directives with them, with the operatives out there, where the front-line workers work. and then the free mask distribution was also something we participated with them, and that was distributed to any of the food facilities that may have had a need for such. can i trouble you to move me to the next slide? thank you. so you know, in our background with food safety, you know, what's been helpful is that we do have a multilingual inspector base. not only can we give our food safety presentations in spanish, english, chinese, arabic, russian, punjabi and hindi, but we thought this would be good use too in this covid time. so when we go out to the facility, we are more than happy to explain something that didn't translate properly in an email. some of the orders and directives get translated by the covid command center, but even that might be too comprehensive for potentially a mom and pop -- i don't want to stereotype, but our services are open to any of the people that we regulate and try to help. the next bullet point speaks about non-compliance food facilities that might be issued cease and desist orders and permit suspensions. this is true to the extent that we have a recalcitrant operator. the first mode of operation is always education. we're [indiscernible] jessica's group, and we go out there and we try to see the real world conditions out there, because you can -- you know, you can sort of academically understand that everything jessica's group is teaching or explaining to you and receive all their documentation, but unless you're actually implementing it, it doesn't do you any good. and because we have a relationship with these operators out there, we sort of for the purposes can go out there and start this dialogue with them and answer their questions. and then to the extent that we really do have someone who may be choosing to operate willfully against the orders, we do involve the city permits. and i have one more slide, jessica. can you get me to that one, please? and so how do we respond to -- you know, so we haven't -- since day one, the eighth months that supervisor safai [indiscernible] we ourselves are essential workers. we have not -- there is not one day where we haven't been out of this. we are boots on the ground. we are in those same locations with all these essential workers, so there's a lot of empathy and understanding on what risk they expose themself to, because in many ways we expose ourselves to those same risks. when do we go out there? we go out there for any public 311 complaint. we do that typically by the order that it comes in. that could be from the public or it could be from an employee, and i'm sure we'll hear more of that from the front-line workers in a moment. the city attorney referrals do jump the line to some extent. what this tells us is that this is a recalcitrant owner or operator, and they are getting closer and closer to enforcement. again, our -- this is new to everyone, the new normal, so we do want to focus on education. but there is a point where public health trumps the learning curve and we have to cite a permit, like we saw in the previous slides, that the city attorney plays a role in that regard. the biggest one that jumps the line is community mitigation. that's part of jessica's group. now we're not talking about someone complaining. this is a lab-tested, confirmed, covid-positive case. for all the reasons i mentioned earlier where you really need someone at the facility because they are not cookie cutter, the information jessica's group gives them is excellent and if they follow all of that i really believe that, you know, we would be able to mitigate the spread of this disease. but sometimes understanding it academically is not the same as implementing it. so when we go out there, we do a complains check, and we would do this for any restaurant, but on top of that, we're talking about referrals from the community mitigation center, we're also talking about making sure that they understand what they have to do with contact tracing, that they understand the difference between isolation and all the different parameters of how many days, because it can get a little -- it can get a little bit complicated when they are also trying to run a business as well. i think we play a role -- we are aware a lot of [indiscernible] so we're the familiar people because we do their food safety, but we're also trying to usher in this kind of unknown information that is relevant and important that allows them the ability to stay open. with that i'll switch myself back on mute. >> you may be muted. >> is anyone else from dph going to present or is that everybody? >> i think susan may have something to say. >> you're on mute. >> thank you. no, i don't have any additional presentations, but i am here to answer questions if that's helpful. >> okay. well, yes, please. we will -- there will be questions. okay, so we're going to start with the first speaker, the president of sciu local 87, also the secretary treasury of the san francisco labor council, if she's online. >> and i think we're asking the remainder of the speakers to try to keep themselves to four minutes, if they can. >> yeah. that's right. >> hello? >> oh, there she is. >> can you guys see me? well, what a great morning. what a great way to start the day. i'm standing here with our members who are getting ready to go out and picket. >> hi, good morning. >> we figured that in the fact that they couldn't speak, at least they could get behind me when i'm doing this presentation, very brief. i want to thank supervisor safai for doing this, calling for this hearing. i also want to thank chair mandelman, vice chair stefani and also one of our resolves as well, i would say it's just really incredible that the work that we have done. i know that our supervisor walton has been somebody that is all about community and family, and the signs that people, our members are holding is today we're going to be doing a commemoration of ten of our members that have already passed away in the industry. it's not something that we wear the crown or something we're proud of. these are things that could have been prevented. right now we are in the middle of a huge contract campaign with building owners in san francisco and the san francisco contractors association. i want to be able to tell you that two minutes cannot -- i can't wrap up everything that our members have been going through for the last eight months. i can tell you -- >> you have four minutes. >> thank you. i can't tell you how challenging and difficult it's been that my position as a labor president has evolved into also helping families plan for the what-ifs and a lot of funeral arrangements. we are essential workers, and we have been sent back to the buildings to clean. we believe, and it is our opinion, and experts have also confirmed this, that the reliance and opening of our industry is going to really rely on the hands of the janitors. we want to be able to work to live, but we should not be fighting our employers able, abm, genesis, we should not be fighting them to give us gloves, to give us face masks. a lot of the members standing behind me have had to bring their own gloves, their own masks. there are a lot of protections that they are being afforded, and right now we have members, as i mentioned, that have passed away, and i can tell you that all of that could have been prevented. employers are soo scared to want to be -- too scared to want to be able to tell a building owner that there are people that need these supplies. right now in these contract negotiations, building owners have said that they will give us six shirts, but they are not willing to give us a raise. they are not willing to give us gloves, protections on the job that we need. it's embarrassing that the majority of the covid-19 cases, the numbers for latino, black and minority immigrant communities are the highest numbers, and think about who is cleaning those buildings. that is us. building owners and the san francisco contractors association have to do better than just give us shirts. we appreciate that the board of supervisors is having this hearing today. we celebrate that, but at the same time, our families are being put on the -- a sacrificial, whereas other people who are more affluent and rich have been able to take to the hills and leave us to be able to clean everything up. we understand that after every national epidemic, after every national tragedy, it has been immigrants and people of color that have rebuilt this country, this state, this city. but what we are asking today is nothing unreasonable than to be able to get a fair contract, fair pay and protections on the job. we want to be able to assure office workers that they should be able to come back to work safely, and that is going to be reliant on workers. [ alarm ]. like our members to be able to have what they need. we, our families, are also on the line, but we want to be able to reassure office workers that they too should deserve to have those protections because we will be taking care of the hygiene and cleanliness in the building, and in order to be able to do that, the companies instead of leaning in and being leaders of industry, they have ran for the hills and do not want to be able to offer these protections. and it's not just our city. we are asking san francisco, our board of supervisors, to be able to have a resolution on being able to offer these, guarantee these protections at every industry. only then can we really reassure that workers can come back to work safely, that they won't have to be able to kiss their babies and not sure if they can come back. thank you. >> thank you. thank you, president miranda. our next speaker is going to be mr. jim araby from ucfw local 5. you're on mute. >> there you go. thank you. can you hear me? >> yes. >> thank you, supervisors, supervisor safai, mandelman, stven and walton for holding this important hearing. it's hard to follow what -- what olga just laid out for the workers that she represents. i think she made a very compelling case of what all essential workers represent, so we represent grocery workers and cannabis workers who have been on the front lines of this pandemic since the very beginning, and just to give a little taste nationally, about 13,000 grocery workers have died, have contracted the virus and died inside of grocery stores across this country. within our jurisdiction, we've had over 200 members that have contracted the virus and five members that have passed away, and i will break it down into three markets. one is the health and safety of the workers. two is how are they rewarded with, they are putting themselves on the front lines, and the third thing is how the business is actually changed because of the covid crisis, especially in the grocery industry. and what has happened is primarily 95% of our employers have provided p.p.e. and proper sanitation procedures, but within that 95%, about half of our members report that these procedures, they do not have proper training on, that they do not quite understand how to actually implement some of these procedures, and then they struggle with customers coming in to stores and fighting with them to put masks on, even in the liberal bay area there have been many instances where customers have gotten into fights with our members. we have had many members actually get into physical altercations in front of the store trying to enforce mask policies, and most stores ask the 17, 18 and 19-year-old members to try and enforce these mask policies for customers, and you know, for the most part there is compliance, but there are instances in which, you know, a 40-year-old man will come in and will deny the imposition of the mask and feel like we're putting them -- like we're impacting their freedom to choose to come in or not. and so that's been a real serious issue for a lot of our members. you know, the other big thing that has happened is within the grocery industries, there's been a lot of issues of mental health. we have a lot of our members who have reported high levels of anxiety and mental -- and depression as it relates to sort of coming in and putting themselves at risk on a day-to-day basis, and worried about coming home to their families and have it passing on, passing on the disease to their older relatives that they may live with. so these have been real big issues within the grocery industry that our members have faced. that being said, we have appreciated the responsiveness from both the local counties, such as san francisco and the state, that have passed multiple levels of measures of protection, including extending paid sick days for workers. we now have through our union-represented trust funds and state-wide, grocery workers have access to 14 days of paid sick time. if they contract the disease or if they have a family member or loved one that has contracted the disease that they need to take care of. even though those laws have been passed, over 70% of our members report that they didn't even understand that they had the access to these laws and to these benefits, and that's only union members, and so the union, we're able to go out and talk to our members about these protections, but there are over 70% of grocery workers in the state of california are actually non-union, and so they don't even have an organization for themselves to advocate, and so it's really important i think for policy-makers such as yourselves to sort of understand how we not only pass these great pieces of legislation but how we implement them and how we educate workers on what their rights are at work as it relates to benefits that you all actually helped pass to protect workers, and it's a big issue. as we think about moving ahead, i think there's a real need for a real public education program as it relates to the benefits workers currently have. [ alarm ]. i would say the other thing that's really important to understand is when workers contract this disease at work, notification of all the other workers is really critical, and for a long time employers were keeping it under wraps and when notifying workers in the immediate area and vicinity, we had a very inconsistent approach with employers as it relates to if someone were to contract the virus at the workplace. we had some employees that were -- out of the entire store and some of the department. because of that, we worked at the state level to pass a law that was just signed into law 685 sponsored, and that requires every employer to notify all employees who worked on a shift to notify if someone had contracted the virus while at work, as well as notifying public departments of local health and also calosha. it gives calosha the ability to shut down non-compliant employers that don't do this. we feel like we're continuing to advocate on these issues, but we always could use more cooperation and collaboration with both local government agencies as well as state agencies in working with our employers. and i would just say there's two last things to think about, not only the working conditions inside of the work, when the covid crisis first hit, many employers paid what was called hazard pay or appreciation pay. that would give workers, you know, $2 additional, minimum an hour when they work because they are putting their families at risk. well, when we started to reopen the economy back in july. [ alarm ]. a lot of employers cut that, and when they cut that, our workers decided why are we still going to work? only one employer still pays that, and that's lucky state part in the area. they are continuing to pay in addition to their hourly rate, and i think that's an important thing. the final thing i would say is it's also the impact on the business models that the covid crisis has had. more and more people, it's interesting to hear last agenda item, because it relates. more and more people are relying on grocery delivery because they don't want to go into these stores, so delivery has gone up quite astronomically over the last months. albertsons has reported a 267% increase in the utilization of delivery service. in the sector, these jobs, the retail clerks jobs, some of the highest, they get paid an average of $24 an hour. the delivery drivers on average don't make that and don't have the benefits. that's the other thing we have to contend with as we think about the change in behavior as it relates to this covid crisis. that's sort of a general idea of what's going on in the grocery stores, and i am thankful for you having us here. >> thanks, jim. just before we go to the next speaker, i just wanted to underscore what you just said, how many grocery store clerks have died? >> over 13,000. >> wow. >> in the bay area we haven't had as many, but across the country there have been a lot. just to put that in context, there's about 2.5 to 3 million grocery workers nationwide. >> okay. all right. if you want to hang around, i know you have to go, but appreciate your presentation. we're going to call the next speaker. the next speaker we have is vice-president of sciu local 1021, ms. theresa rutherford. >> okay. thank you, asha, for doing this. i also want to thank supervisor mandelman for taking this on. you know, it's a righteous cause. it's a just cause. essential workers, you know, whether you're in the private sector or the public sector, are actually the workers and the people, the human beings who are protecting our community, who are, as olga has highlighted, and i think jim also highlighted, you know, we are the workers in health care. we are the workers at the super-markets, we are the workers at mcdonald's. we are the workers at uber. we are the workers who are keeping this economy going, and we're the answer to reopening this economy. and so as we look at this, also let's remember that as we talk about racism and we talk about systemic disparages, let's realize that these very essential workers, myself and my brothers and sisters, in the private sector, in the public sector, many of them not even unionized, are the demographic of people who have been experiencing the systemic racism, black, brown, immigrants, yes, we are the uns who are doing the most essential work in this country. it is very sad to realize that, you know, as we are here we come to work, we go home every day, not sure if we're going to bring that virus home to harm our families, and it's sad that uber spends millions of dollars, is spending millions of dollars right now, you know, fighting a basic requirement to give health care and basic protections to workers, that they are spending millions of dollars doing that but have a problem in doing the basic thing. so what we're seeing, what covid has shown us is that we already knew, that there are major disparities, that there are basically two me, or three americas, that the workers, ordinary workers who go to work every day, or two, and then there is the 1% who live off the services and the benefits of everybody and treat us as if we're disposable. well, we are not disposable. every worker deserves proper protection as they go to work. no one should go to work and be struggling to get something as basic as a mask, a glove. those are basic things that should be happening. olga's team should not have to be fighting with an employer for that. that's just basic humanity. let's also remember that when an essential worker has no protection or has very little protection and gets covid, the entire community is exposed. when a mcdonald's workers doesn't have p.p.e. and is serving food, you -- every person who comes in contact with that mcdonald worker is also vulnerable. so no matter what our economic status is, no matter who we think we are, if we don't protect the people who do the work, we are all going to go down the same path. it's just like the person in the white house right now. he is walking around without mask and this and that and exposing the very essential workers who are in the white house. [indiscernible] board of supervisors, thank you. you know better. let's [indiscernible] make sure that whether workers are in the private sector or the public sector that they are treated with dignity, with respect, and let's treat every worker with value. if we are fighting racism, let's fight -- [ alarm ]. let's start the basic thing of just treating workers with respect, giving them the pay that they deserve to be able to take care of their family and giving them the protections they need to do their job and go home and take their -- we all have the same goals, take care of our family and to live and succeed and let the next generations be better. san francisco, board of supervisors, we know better, do better. champion this cause and bring it to an ultimate productive resolution for all. let this be a country for all, not just some. thank you. >> thank you, theresa. really appreciate it. the next person we're going to call is ms. kayla samborn hums. she's going to read the system of a mcdonald's worker and leader in the fight for this team. >> hi. good morning. yes, my name is kayla samborn hum, and i actually just wanted to update that. i'll be delivering remarks on behalf of -- and thank you very much for this opportunity. >> can you say her name one more time? >> yes, her name is kristabelle ayala. >> just for the record, thank you. >> hello, i am a leader in the fight for 15 in the union and i work at the carl's jr. at halladay plaza in the tenderloin. thank you for taking the time to hear me and san francisco essential workers today. for workers in fast food, covid-19 has presented us with two parallel crises. one, a pandemic that is disproportionately affecting the same communities of color reflected in our workforce, and two, rampant corporate irresponsibility that places profits over workers and customer safety. on monday i filed a complaint with san francisco department of health detailing the workplace conditions many fast-forward workers in our country face today. our store is staffed by workers of color and immigrants and managers tries to divide us along racial and cultural lines. the manager has learned enough spanish that if we call in stick she calls us stupid and says you are trash, do you understand? you are trash. carl's jr. has also created a culture of abuse and retaliation that has forced my co-workers to stay silent about having to work sick, work unpaid through breaks and being too afraid to request sick pay. while many of my co-workers have been too afraid to speak up about these issues in our store, i am here today to give you a clear picture of what fast food workers like us are going through. workers are afraid to speak up about problems like being forced to work sick, a lack of [indiscernible] a lack of social distancing and extreme heat waves where co-workers pull down their masks to breathe. this puts us, our families and vulnerable populations, including our homeless customers, at increased risk for covid-19. in my health department complaint i shared how during the heat waves and increasing covid numbers of the past few months the air condition systems did not work, making the kitchen and restaurant so unbearably hot that my co-workers and i felt like we were going to pass out. i also share how throughout the pandemic carl's jr. has failed to provide us with masks. we have to pay for our own. and how it is impossible to safely distance from one another in a tiny, tight kitchen. the conditions in my store are not unique and, frankly, we are lucky we have not yet had positive cases in our store. early in the pandemic mcdonald's workers in san francisco reported being told to use coffee filters as masks. managers tried to intimidate workers who tested positive for the virus to not notify their fellow crew members of their illness. and after san francisco fast food workers spoke out about the issues in their stores, some faced retaliation in the form of cut hours or managers even telling other workers to file complaints against them. these are not the conditions that essential workers should have to face as we continue to rest our health and the health of our families to feed our neighbors and communities. no matter who you are, how much you make or what you do, everyone deserves safety and dignity in the workplace. across san francisco, fast food workers remain at risk for covid-19 because the companies we work for don't feel like they have to follow the rules. together we can hold large employers, like carl's jr. and mcdonald's, accountable. i hope that our work today doesn't end at just hearing our stories but that the supervisors and health officials continue to invite workers to the table to help shape the policies that will ensure dignity and safety for workers across san francisco. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. the next person we are going to have present is ms. daisy mcarthur. in-home support service worker. >> okay. good morning. >> good morning, miss daisy. >> first of all, supervisor, i want to thank you for coming to our office a couple months back, helping us hand out the p.p.e.s. >> you're welcome. >> okay, thank you very much. has everybody knows, my name is miss daisy, thank you. i am a home care provider. also i am a member of the e-board of local 2015, and also i'm on the board of directors of public authority. okay, we as home care workers, we take care of seniors with disabilities so that they can live independently in their homes. we take care of the handicapped. our jobs are essential, very essential. we need p.p.e.s for both providers and clients. i want to thank public authority for getting us p.p.e., but we need more. we just can't depend on public authority. we need other easy access so we can get p.p.e. we put our lives in danger every day when we go to and fro to work. also some of our workers have to walk. as you know, there is hardly any transportation. i come before this board today to ask you all three things. they need a way to get to work, like cab vouchers. i see them walking all the time to the tenderloin. we talk, they call me, they have to take their clients to the doctor. also they have to go shopping for their clients. also we need easier access to the covid-19 test. there are places, but they have to work because if they don't they can't make a living and take care of their family. it is not easy for us as home care workers because we are out there on the front line. i must use up half a box of gloves or masks a day because i have a high-risk client. he is 99 years old. i know other workers that are taking care of very high-risk clients. i know workers that have to go way far away to take the covid-19 test. we need easy access to those tests. i'm not jumping on you all today, but as you know, we are at high risk. we are. i pray for the workers every day, the city officials every day. i look out my window early in the morning when someone is on their way to work, up the street to the hospital, or down the hill to the tenderloin, or to the mission, out mission, and they are walking. they are walking. i see them when they are coming back. we need help, so i come before you all today because my heart is aching for these workers. they call me up all the time. i help them all i can. i call the unions. they do all they can, and most of our clients live in apartment buildings in this areas. [ alarm ]. we need stronger protections when we go to and fro to their homes every day. [ alarm ]. we need easy access to p.p.e., public authority's doing a great job. you have to make an appointment. we go tuesdays or fridays. some of them can't get there on time. so i'm asking you all to reach out to the health care providers and make our jobs a little easier for us because we are at risk. >> thank you, miss daisy. thank you for taking the time to present today. we appreciate it, and thank you for all if you work youall provide for our seniors and those who need in-home health care support. okay, the next person we're going to hear from is from michaela edwards, and she is a gig driver. >> hi. hello. good afternoon, everyone. thank you for having me today. my name is michaela edwards, and i am a driver for uber. >> sorry, i messed the name up. >> that's okay. >> my name is messed up all the time. i'm sorry. >> safai. >> close. >> please start her time now. thank you. >> so my name, again, my name is michaela edwards and i'm a driver for uber. i've been driving for over a year and a half, and i'm also a leader with the driver advocacy group. we drive progress. gig workers like me have played a crucial role during the pandemic. we bring medical professionals and bay area residents to hospitals. we take our fellow essential workers where they need to go. we deliver food and groceries to some of our most vulnerable neighbors when there are no public transportation options available. this pandemic and our upcoming election has revealed that gig drivers, what gig drivers have known all along, and that is that gig companies are getting rich from exploiting drivers and violating our rights for years now. once the pandemic hit, it became painfully obvious just how dangerous their greed truly is. i first heard about the virus in january with no direction or support from uber and lyft i started disinfecting and cleaning my car every few hours. weeks later uber finally said they'd provide cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer for drivers, but within hours they closed their green light hub. these are supposed to be -- the green light hubs are supposed to be a resource to their drivers, but they remain closed while drivers continue to pay out of their pockets for cleaning supplies and protection during this crisis. time and time again these corporations have turned their backs on us, even during a global pandemic. when we went to shelter in place in the bay area, i continued to drive. i didn't know how at-risk i was until i told my doctor that i was still working. and she was floored. she told me that if i was to be exposed to covid-19, i had a 15% chance of dying. i am now in self-isolation and unable to work. i've been out of work for over six months now, and i and countless other drivers have been faced with an impossible choice. we either keep driving to make ends meet and we put ourselves at risk for getting sick or even dying or we stop driving. and now while we are barely getting by, uber and lyft and other gig companies are throwing $180 million at their ballot initiative, proposition 22. i want to take some time to set the record straight about gig drivers, because i'm sure you all have seen the ads paid by uber and lyft that try to downplay what drivers are going through. so according to research conducted by uc santa cruz, the majority of gig workers work full-time. 71% work more than 30 hours a week. 50% actually work more than 40 hours a week, and 30% work more than 50 hours a week. gig work is work that is predominantly done by colors, black, brown and immigrant workers who communities have been especially hard hit by this pandemic because so many of us have tried to continue working during the pandemic. [ alarm ]. 20% of its workers earn zero dollars after the insurance and maintenance for our car. 15% gig workers have to rely on assistance to make ends meet. uber and lyft claim that proposition 22 will make things better for drivers, and let's be clear about one thing, proposition 22 wasn't written for the well-being of drivers, and proposition 22 is for companies, for the companies that are making a power grab to get themselves out of a law that will give their gig drivers employee status. -- did the right thing in passing legislation that protects workers, but now gig corporations are trying to undermine that the proposition 22. i googled the word "technology" and what it says is that technology can be broadly defined as the entities both material and materiale. they are created to -- they create the application of mental and physical effort in order to achieve some value, and in this usage technology refers to two of the machines that may be used to solve real world problems. [ alarm ]. but there is nothing new and innovative about worker exploitation. there is nothing of value for workers in this proposition. they have simply copied and paste the same old policies that they are currently peddling and pasted it into a $180 million campaign to delete themselves from the following law. three workers should have access to basic labor protections such as paid sick leave, employment insurance, overtime, but drivers like me don't have access to these protections because uber, lyft and others think they are above the law. 78% of uber and lyft drivers are people of color. if uber and lyft really cared about the drivers, who we are, they would do the one thing that they are supposed to be doing, which is to follow the law. it wouldn't be spending millions trying to take away our rights. gig workers are essential workers, and we deserve to earn a living safely and to have access to benefits that will allow us to care for ourselves and our families if we get sick. or if we get hurt. we drivers are hard-working mothers, fathers, sons, daughters who are all trying to make a living out here. [ alarm ]. we are essential workers. we are doing our part to keep california working. we are struggling while gig companies are getting rich off our hard work and misinforming voters about proposition 22. thank you for listening to at base drivers and to my fellow essential workers and thank you for having me today. >> thank you so much. okay, so we're going to go to questions now. i have a few questions that i would like to start out with, mr. chair, and then if any members of the committee would like to ask some questions, i'm happy to. mr. mulligan, director mulligan? >> yes, supervisor. >> thank you. so i have some questions here. so one of the kind of the consistent themes, you know, we passed the legislation to ensure that the companies would have to provide sick leave to their employees, private sector companies operating in san francisco would have to provide sick leave, 80 hours of sick leave to their employees. i know that we're pushing for protections in the workplace, but can you talk a little bit about that in terms of any other calls that your office might have received in terms of the requirements of companies informing their employees of their rights? and what kind of calls and follow -- i know that you're a -- you are a complaint-driven department. that is the main function of the office of labor standards enforcement. you don't -- do not go out and seek enforcement, but you respond to enforcement requests. so i would like to know if you can clarify some of that information for us. >> certainly, supervisor. and thank you for the opportunity and also for all the speakers for bringing this important measure or this important issue to attention. so with regard to the use of personal protective equipment, much of it is required under public health orders. there are some areas of legislation, like specifically the employee protection ordinance, which expanded it to on-demand delivery services and ride share employment and kind of redefined the nature of employment under that ordinance. even though our enforcement is complaint-based for private sector laws, we do proactive outreach in terms of information to the public. we did send out notice to all affected employers under the changes in that legislation, and we did receive some complaints about two gig-based employers, you know, without getting into the details around the corrective action, but we had corrective action with two employers, and it was a systemic problem for both of them. it had to do with reimbursement for personal protective equipment and also compensation for cleaning vehicles, say, after ride shares or after delivery services. >> so let me ask this question. so are employers required to provide personal protective equipment such as gloves and masks? is that a requirement in our health orders? >> whatever is necessary to -- yes, so gloves, as needed, face masks as needed, any essential personal protective equipment also depending on the nature of your engagement with the public. so for instance, individuals who telecommute, there's no such requirement. >> no, right, i'm talking about -- we have pretty clear rules when it comes to our public employees. even then we've had to push hard to make sure that everything is appropriately delivered and provided, and i think we've done a pretty good job of that here in san francisco. there's always room for improvement. but what i've heard today from janitors, from grocery store clerks, from gig drivers, from in-home health care providers, from a whole broad range of private sector workers, they do not feel that they are having personal protective equipment fully provided to them and they are having to advocate for that. that's one thing. the second thing is access to sick leave and then employees not being informed of their rights of access to sick leave, so we want to ensure that, one, employers are informing their employees of their rights, and then when they do have those rights, that they have access to that. [please stand by] >> that's what i was referring to. >> yeah. they should not be denied for any reason. i think the terms are very generous around how they can be used. they're not required to provide a doctor's notice or formal justification. it could be used for matters of taking care of a child who can't attend or school or a family member affected by this in some other manner. >> right. i'm aware of that. i was one of the original co-sponsors on that. what i'm asking is what calls or complaints have you done around sick leave or personal protective equipment? >> much of that sits with the department of public health. >> okay. >> we work collaboratively with them, especially with the employee protection ordinance, where we were involved specifically on that was mostly for gig-based employers, around restitution and compensation for any expenses associated with individuals we did provide. >> how about sick leave? what kind of calls have come in, any enforcement that you've done, any follow-up that you've had to do, can you talk about what kind of access sick leave has looked like in your office? >> well, sick leave is, you know, something we're constantly enforcing. and it just changes. now it's a paramount enforcement, as is the health care security ordinance, access to health care. with the sick leave i will say we've had literally thousands of calls coming in regarding public health emergency leave ordinance. mostly because it is new and as an emergency ordinance, it was passed on i think approximately ten days. so we did concerted outreach. i think mail communications to the public was 40,000 different employers. i'll add that 15% of our budget is dedicated to community-based organizations, solely for the purposes of worker outreach, with a focus on non-english-speaking, multi-lingual and immigrant workers in san francisco. with regards to the actions, i don't have the total case log around that. i will say a lot of it has been managed solutions. the is such that there needs to be some clarity. you have administrative guidance in the form of i think 50f.a.q.s, of which we do revisit every few weeks, affecting a lot of employers. >> supervisor safai: okay. so what i would say then to the individual representative groups that are here today, if their members are being denied access to sick leave, if they're having problems with accessing some of the rights that have been afforded to them by emergency order or previous legislation that we've done, they should contact your office, is that correct, with regard to sick leave? >> right. thank you, supervisor. we have a dedicated phone line and a dedicated email address for each of the labor laws, including sick leave. and we are aware of the specific case that was mentioned before you. we received notice of that two days ago and are actively investigating. >> supervisor safai: is that the one at mcdonald's? >> no. that was carl's jr. >> supervisor safai: oh, got it. okay. thank you. maybe we can ask d.p.h. the question about personal protective equipment then. i'll come back to you, director mulligan. >> thank you, supervisor. i don't know who wants -- >> can you clarify the question about p.p.e. >> supervisor safai: the question is we heard from a number of speakers today that said that they have not been always given access to personal protective equipment. you heard from the janitors' union, you heard from a number of the different representative groups here. and i wanted to know what action d.p.h. is empowered to take and what these groups should do to work with your department to ensure that these employers are providing what's required by law. who wants to take this? >> the community exposure hubs are -- function as technical assistance providers. and enforcement is more so under environmental health. so maybe i'll let karen speak to that. >> supervisor safai: okay. great. >> so usually, supervisor, when we go there we -- people usually have masks or putting masks on, because like jessica noted, we are the enforcement branch. so they want to comply. but we know the flip side of creating these two ordinances. one was, of course, citywide that was 2020 -- i'm sorry, c1912. and then for the workers, they all have to have it as well. the flip side of that we also offer masks. so there's a group within d.p.h. i can provide you with that -- their email address. i don't have it at my fingertips. if anyone in san francisco doesn't have the resources to provide the p.p.e., especially face coverings for their workers, i think there's a huge stockpile that the city does control, the mwere musconi center. that's accessible to any small business in san francisco. >> supervisor safai: here's my question. okay. i think that what i heard is some of them are providing p.p.e., some of them are not. and when they don't, you know, we need to have what the proper channel is if they're not doing it or they're making it a cumbersome to access or they're not providing enough. you know, we're talking about front-line janitors, we're talking about front-line grocery store clerks. we are talking about people who are front line. they should not worry about coming into work and thinking am i going to have a mask, do i have to buy my own mask. do i have to buy my own gloves, my own cleaning supplies. those are the kind of things we're talking about. has your office gotten complaints, have people contacted you from the respective industries? if they haven't, it's probably a matter of them knowing how to contact with complaints, so that you all can follow up. >> sure. i think there's probably two routes that they can go. so the traditional route would be, you know, cal osha, that protects workers' safety. we can also do it in terms of an ip direct route. i want to be honest about that saying that. the focus for us would be to make sure that the public is wearing the masks there, the management staff is wearing the masks there, and also the essential workers. if we go there and they're not provided the proper p.p.e., it's a violation on the agency. so in that way, the indirect way we can play a role and call that out, whatever small business doesn't -- isn't providing enough or sufficient masks for the workers. >> supervisor safai: i think most of the people today are not working for small businesses. they're working for large corporations and large businesses. has your office received any complaints and have you followed up on any of those complaints? >> yes. the vast majority of our complaints are public not wearing masks. we've had a minority of complaints with the workers. they said they weren't provided p.p.e. when we show up, like i said, in every case we showed up, they had masks. but if there's a violation -- only that it wasn't being donned properly. so we started dialogue with the operator, who was in management. we said do you provide masks. and if we see that everyone is wearing a mask and they say, yes, we do, you know, we're trying to build partnerships with the people who control the business, be it big business or small business. >> supervisor safai: right. >> there's some trust there. what we see is what we see when we arrive on site. >> supervisor safai: i would imagine that by the time you all come out for enforcement and folks know that you're coming, that everyone will be provided with something at that point. but usually what you're responding to is something happening prior to you being there. how do you deal with that? >> yeah, i don't disagree with how you depicted it. again our role is indirect. in some ways, you know, the focus of protecting the public, that's why we need everyone in that business to wear a mask. i guess we don't bifurcate the enforcement. to us that's one entity. it is disappointing to hear that there seems to be this back and forth between employer and employee. but when we're going there, we're trying to uplift that whole business in terms of education and the necessary enforcement. but i guess i don't have a good answer for you on how d.p.h. specifically gets in between the employer and the employee. we can again offer them to have a sufficient supply of mask, if that's the issue. >> supervisor safai: do you require them to show you, okay, in this particular building there's -- let's just say, for example, there's 50 janitors or this particular spot there's 50 grocery store retail clerks. show us your supplies, show us how many masks you have, show us how many gloves you have, show us how many supplies you have. prove to us that you have, not that you just show up and everyone has a mask and you're like, okay, great. everyone is wearing a mask. i'm not saying that's what you do. i'm asking you to go a little bit deeper. do you ask them to prove that they're actually able to consistently provide p.p.e.? >> yeah. i think it's somewhere in between the two extremes you depicted. if, for example, you see that there's maybe -- someone could be wearing a mask wrong and you say give them a new mask. that would lead to a second question, where are the mask supplies, can they access them themselves. is there a check-out policy? i want to be honest with you. that doesn't always -- there's a lot of other things we're looking on the check list for covid inspection. but if, in fact, that dialogue leads to, you know, it can be a domino effect. it's not on the check list to have them show us their supply. you know, the same way that i mentioned in the beginning of our presentation, i feel the inspectors are essential workers. we're given masks, but we -- you know, we don't necessarily check our own supply. it is provided for us. so, i mean, if there is an issue, if you run out, then we would definitely follow that kind of a line of logic. >> supervisor safai: i guess what i would say is it seems to me to make sense that if someone files a complaint, they send an email to you and say we've come to work three days a week, they didn't provide us p.p.e. we don't feel safe. they're not giving us access to y, xand z, wouldn't it be make sense when you go out and do a site inspection, that you would say to them, this is what we heard. great. everyone has supplies today. show us where your supplies are. show us where your p.p.e. is. we need to know that you can actually consistently sustain the right amount of p.p.e. for this workforce. >> i think that's a very reasonable suggestion. i think, you know, it's something that we should and probably will incorporate into an investigation of the similar nature in the future. >> supervisor safai: okay. you guys don't get into any of the sick leave conversations, because that's really what olsc does? >> correct. we're not involved in that. >> supervisor safai: what about cleaning supplies or do you ask them to show what their plan is for social distancing in the workplace? >> yeah. so that's even independent of someone -- a confirmed case. so for every restaurant in the city that we go out to, we have a check list and cleaning is definitely one of the, you know, top four, five. social distancing, of course, facial coverings, they have to provide a health and safety plan. and so all of these things are -- for the most part documented, but again not to repeat myself too much, but you do need a physical person to go out there to verify that those plans are being implemented. >> supervisor safai: okay. you just said restaurants. so we're talking about more than just restaurants here today. we're talking about all different types of services. okay. i just want to be clear about that. second thing is what about if you get a call that someone comes in and says, you know, management -- someone contracted covid in the workplace, but management didn't inform the other employees that someone had contracted covid in the workplace. there might have been exposure. >> if we got that call, it would be a red flag. because typically how case comes through is through jessica's group. what we can do or what do and have done is we quickly refer it back to her group. because once in a blue moon, you know, the information comes faster through that route. but 99% of the time, we've always found that it's for the workplace hub is pretty accurate, in terms of getting the testing. i guess a possibility that someone got tested out of san francisco. and then that way we would initiate is back to her group to get the epidemiologist information first. because that's key in terms of educating the entire facility, and then play role in the physical site inspection. >> supervisor safai: what about the issue about people having access or being able to take time to go get tested, if they feel as though they've been exposed? have you had any complaints about people not feeling as though that they can take the time to go get tested or even have access to testing? i mean, i know we've done a phenomenal job in the city. we need to do better, obviously always. we've done a good job of making testing accessible. but can you talk about the access to testing and those that -- again we're talking about, you know, someone that has to be up to a 9:00 until 5:00, someone that's coming into the workplace, franciscan -- front-line essential worker. we did the mandatory 80 hours of sick leave. they have the ability. but then they're like, well, i don't know where to get tested. how can i get tested. is there any requirement on the employer to facilitate access to testing? >> it's always mentioned as part of the dialogue. i think that, you know, just as a slight tangent, i think because the protocols are based off time restrictions, whether we're talking about isolation or quarantine, based off science, we don't want people to only rely on tests. we totally encourage and san francisco is pretty good advertising in all of the multiple languages in very social media, all of the different platforms that people have access to. so we're pretty comfortable that people know about the various places they can get tested. but when we're there and we're having the dialogue with the operator, a lot of times we're talking about the time restrictions. we just don't want them to get confused, meaning they're cleared. they have got a passing test. we want them to be informed of the safety requirements, based off time. >> supervisor safai: okay. i don't have any particular -- any additional questions right now. colleagues, do you have any additional questions? right now? >> well, i guess i might have one or two. i'm curious what d.p.h. is seeing in terms of changes in workplace since -- if different types of workplaces seem to have been a focus for transmission at different times over the last eight months? and that graph -- i mean, all of our numbers are encouraging now, it seems like transmission is going down and parallel in whatever graph you showed about workplace transmission. but what are -- i mean, what's going on? are employers and employees getting it? or what are you thinking is happening? are you -- what are you sort of primarily concerned about going into the fall? >> well, when we look at areas of where we see cases and the location of their employment, it parallels where we're seeing cases in the city overall. so it's not a shocking map to look at, because it's the same neighborhoods with cases. these are the most densely populated areas in the city. more businesses and more construction sites downtown san francisco. as i mentioned, construction is an industry that started opening up in july. and since then we've seen large numbers cases likely due to that being one of the primary front-line industries that opened up after food service workers. and i anticipate, as more industries open up, we'll see diversity as different types of workers that are testing positive. i think as you saw on summary of case exposures, we have actually seen numbers of exposure events at work going down. which i think is a positive department. , given we continue to open up. and i think it's been mentioned that many of the front-line workers, who test positive, have multiple reasons to be at risk. so there is a higher proportion of essential workers who live in housing with five or more people in their household. higher proportion of front-line workers from latinx community and other communities with higher rates of test positivity. and so i think it's intersectional risk as well that we see. and it really requires an intersectional response, which i think we're doing at d.p.h., where there's a neighborhood response plan. there's outreach to different communities. and there's outreach to the general public, because essential workers are not only working, they're getting exposed at home and in their communities potentially as well. so hopefully that answers your question. >> yeah. and i guess you're not -- i mean, what you didn't answer, but you may not have an answer, if there are trends, if there are some industries that have seem to have gotten better or worse over the last eight months, become more or less problematic? >> i mean, i checked with environmental health. the restaurant and food preparation industry overall has become more proactive i would say. it's one of the areas where we get more proactive reporting, even though it's not required by the health order. and more voluntary shutdowns of restaurants to enable workers to test voluntarily. so that they can protect their workers. and i hope that's a trend that, you know, as industries open up, employers learn more and become more proactive in their mitigation response. that's what the hubs are all about, is helping provide guidance and technical assistance to do that. >> i guess my last question is about our contact tracking and tracing. because our numbers are now down to a very -- they're fairly -- they're really low. and yet we're still kind of low 80%, you know, contact and then low 80%, you know, following up with county kas of the people -- with contacts of the people we talk to. all together, i don't know, i see the numbers together and you get something in the 60s, low 70s. 2 seems like we're still like missing a whole lot of -- we're not -- we're not running everything aground and getting into contact with everybody after, you know, after transmission. i guess i'm wondering like how -- you know, what's that going to look like? that's more problematic if our cases start surging again. i mean, now would be the moment -- >> and that's better than most other jurisdictions in the bay y area. recently a study that came out, i believe in n.c., and they were reaching about 50% of people who test positive. given the challenges of reaching every single person, every day we're getting closer to the 90% metric. >> but i think that that -- you know, that regime of tracking and tracing was sort of set up to -- i mean, there are other countries that have been seemingly far more effective and are really able to kind of push down, sort of identify a pocket and then follow up on it and control the pocket. and it doesn't seem like our numbers are vast. it seems like our numbers are -- we will mitigate a surge when it happens somewhat. but we aren't doing tracking and tracing. i'm not a doctor. you guys tell me. it doesn't seem like we're doing tracking and tracing at a level where we're going to be able to snuff out little fires if they pop up. >> do you want to comment on that? >> sure, if that's all right, supervisor mandelman, i'll try to answer that question. you are right. there are other countries, particularly asian countries, that have really -- have really been able to get very high proportions, 90 plus percent of people. they have utilized some technology, some tracking mechanisms that may not generally be acceptable in this country and in this city. and so we are also trying to navigate around what is -- what is acceptable to people's privacy and other things like that. as dr. blum was saying, the numbers that we have are equivalent or better than other jurisdictions. as supervisor safai was just saying, we can always get better at everything we're doing. we are as a team trying to be tests of changes, should having the -- shifting the hours we reach people, recognizing people work during the day and things that enable us -- to get to that number. there have been modeling studies as well and the medical journal lancet said that 80% is in general what is modeled to have an impact on bringing numbers down. we have tried as well, as you know, to focus our efforts primarily in the communities at highest risk, which include people who were potentially exposed, because they're essential workers. it is a combination of things. as dr. blum says, it's a continual process to get better. as you said, now is our time to train the staff that we have. >> supervisor mandelman: all right. thank you. >> mr. chair, just in case there's any additional callers that wanted to public comment, can we go to public comment and come back to this discussion? we should have a few more questions for d.p.h. >> clerk: yes. public comment. thank you, mr. chair. operations will check to see if we have callers in the queue. mr. coup, please let us know. for those who connected to the meeting via phone, please press star followed by 3. if you wish to speak for this item. for those already on hold in the queue, please continue to wait until you're prompted to begin. you will hear the system inform you that your line has been unmuted. for those who are watching our meeting on cable 26 or via streaming link or through sfgovtv.org, if you wish to speak on this item, please call in by following the instructions which should be displaying on your screen right now. that would be by dialing (415)655-0001. then by entering the meeting i.d. of 146, 932 8582 and pressing the pound symbol twice. you'll be connected to the meeting. following that press star followed by three to enter the queue to speak to this item. mr. coup, do you connect us -- could you connect us to the first caller, please? >> supervisor safai: while you're doing that, i'll reiterate more rules. speakers will have two minutes. we ask you to state your first and last name clearly and speak into the phone. if you have prepared a written statement, send to the committee clerk for inclusion in the file. in the interest of time, avoid repetition of previous comments. >> clerk: do we have a public speaker? >> my name is francis acosta. and i'm very interested on this topic. and i'm going to be writing about this topic because when you write, then, you know, nobody can tell you how many minutes to talk or not to talk. so i heard the essential workers. and essentially they're not going to get any help from people who are just like -- they listen to them, but they do nothing to them. we have three people from the san francisco general hospital. i think they shouldn't be called to ask the questions. you should call people who are involved with logistics. in your district, we should have four hubs. four centers to provide the masks. and they cannot do that, then i can do that for them. i was talking to -- [indiscernible], our state treasurer provided me with 500 masks. she came right where i live and provided me with 500 masks. here we have three people from the general hospital who say, oh, you know, we have access. i know you have access to them. you do not know anything about logistics. they have to be distributed. because i have time to go and call somebody to do it. they have to be distributed. there should be a mechanism with non-profits and others to do the communication so that everybody -- every essential worker gets a mask. i don't have to educate you here on public television. thank you very much. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> that completes the queue. >> supervisor safai: that completes the queue? you got cut off a little bit? >> mr. chair, that completes the queue. >> supervisor safai: okay. well, then public comment is now closed. >> that completes the queue. >> supervisor safai: public comment is really closed. and back to you, safai. >> supervisor safai: thank you. i appreciate your question, chair mandelman. i think that what i heard today so far is that what surprises me is that, you know, we have two sides of a coin. one side of the coin are the front-line workers saying they're having problems in the workplace. and they've been battling with their employers. and the other side of the coin from public health saying that they really haven't heard that much. they've had a few cases of complaints coming in. so i think we need to do a better job of ensuring that that information is out there for people to have access. i also think that there's a difference between the beginning of this pandemic and where we are today. i heard dr. d.p.h. in terms of the contact tracing. and we all have the app that we can follow and they're only at 80% follow-up. around the globe is higher as we said. we've expanded, and every single one of of us today as working with the mayor and public health, have done everything we can to access. one thing that we didn't get a lot of conversation about, but it was kind of undertone, was some of the racial disparities in terms of how treatment in the workplace, in terms of how there's access to sick leave, informing folks of how to access protective equipment, people being encouraged to come into work sick, in some cases, and/or others not notified when others are exposed. i don't have further questions. i think it was important to have this conversation. i think that we're going to -- my office is committed to working more with public health to ensure that when there are complaints, that they do come in, one of the things that they should be looking for is to ensure that people actually have on site the appropriate protective equipment. and second -- secondarily we're working with the representative groups to let their members and their employees know that they have access to mandatory sick leave, as we work hard to pass. so that's it for me. chair mandelman, unless anyone else has questions or comments. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, supervisor safai. is your desire that we file this or continue it? >> supervisor safai: can you continue it to the call of the chair. we can come back and hear from these groups and we will follow up with each of the representative groups here today. and let's see what kind of progress we've been able to make, in terms of the many of the things that we talked about. >> supervisor mandelman: okay. i will move that we continue this meeting to the call of the chair. >> clerk: the motion offered by chair mandelman that the hearing be continued to the call of the chair. vice chair stefani. >> supervisor stefani: aye. >> clerk: member walton. >> supervisor walton: aye. >> clerk: chair mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: aye. mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> supervisor mandelman: the motion passes. mr. clerk, can you please call our next item. >> clerk: agenda item 5, is an ordinance amending the police and transportation codes to establish a city policy to protect the health and safety of residents by enforcing state laws prohibiting reckless driving, motor vehicle speed contests, and exhibitions involving stunts and tricks with vehicles and to provide that vehicles that are removed for violation of such laws shall be impounded for no less than 14 days, for the first incident, no less than 15 days for the second, and no less than 29 days for the third, with no impoundment lasting more than 30 days. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this ordinance should call the public comment number now. it is still (415)655-0001. enter today's meeting i.d. to connect meeting, that is 146 932 8582. press the found symbol twice to connect to the meeting. and then press the star key followed by the number 3 to raise your hand to speak. the system prompt will indicate you raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. mr. chair. >> supervisor mandelman: supervisor safai, this is your legislation. the floor is yours. >> supervisor safai: thank you. thank you, chief scott and diana for joining us today. i want to say, first and foremost, i want to thank chief scott for working with me on this legislation, along with mayor breed. and i want to mamie co-sponsor -- my cosponsors supervisor walton and peskin for supporting us on this. this is an extremely important issue for our community, but we find it to be pretty straightforward. i really don't -- you know, often times we can get into conversations about how we work in the margins and the grey area. but at the end of the day, when people are doing stunt driving, they're putting their own lives at risk and they're putting the lives of others at risk. and as we saw in sacramento, not too far ago, there were individuals that were hit by vehicles and injured by vehicles when these things are happening. and then in the workplace scenario, what happened in our community a couple of -- about a month ago, an individual was killed. not yet clear if the individual was killed as a direct result of the stunt driving, it's something that's bock plague many neighborhoods in san francisco, not just the excelsior or outer mission. i believe that's why my co-sponsors supervisor walton and supervisor peskin signed on so quickly. because this is something that has seen a major increase in covid. many people call she's sideshows. and there are some that have said potentially let's look for a way to make these safe. and i'm just reiterate that i said the day we introduced this legislation. this is not skateboarding. this is not something where we can create a skateboard park, where people can go and practice and learn how to skateboard. these are things that people in hollywood, professional race car drivers have all the training and protective equipment to ensure that their lives are not lost. this is not something that we can tolerate. and it's something that has begun to disturb the peace and well being of so many people in my community. it compels me to introduce this legislation. in the end, what we've done is we've looked at the state vehicle code. there's some existing laws that are on the books. and we've asked that they be enhanced, because we need to send a message that this is not something that san francisco -- that should happen in san francisco. it's also not a coincidence that some of the stunt driving has shifted from other parts of the bay area to san francisco, because i think some other areas in the bay have also sent a message that this is not something that's safe or will be tolerated in their communities. so i'll just say that. in this legislation, essentially what we do is we say that we're going to, for the first offense, mandatory that a car, anyone that's involved in aiding or abetting, basically setting up and facilitating the event, they would have their car seized for a minimum of 14 days. i think we make some allowances for the second day. i know the chief and i have talked about potentially saying that the second incident would be going up to 29 days. the way it's written right now, no less than 15 days. i want to paint a picture. this is this is when 30 to 50 cars show up an intersection. sometimes between 100 and 200 spectators will congregate. and then at the end of the day, people begin to do their stunt driving in the middle of the intersection, essentially shut down traffic and shut down the ability for those to pass by. and often times it's in the wee hours of the night. often times it's at midnight, 1:00 and imagine being in your home and all of a sudden there's 20, 30, 40, for one hour you hear tires screeching at a very high decibel and people putting their lives at risk. so for the residents of district 11, i'm here to say that this is not something that will be tolerated. we're moving forward. i want to thank chief scott for joining me on this. and i will hand it over to him to say a few words. hopefully he'll have evidence for us that maybe and taken some vehicles. >> i believe supervisor walton has some comments. >> supervisor safai: sorry about that. walton thank you, chair mandelman. i want to thank supervisor safai taking the lead on this legislation. district 11, district 10, district 3 and other parts of san francisco have really seen an influx in increase of sideshows over the past few months. i and i just want to let everyone know in the community, that these are dangerous. these are activities that have less to loss of life and can really be harmful and hurtful to people who are around sideshows. and so i just want to make sure that everyone in district 10 and across the city knows that we take this seriously and we're going to do everything we can to stop these sideshows. we've been having conversations with m.t.a. about traffic-calming strategies we can use and other things that we can do. but this legislation is definitely a big step in doing everything we can to seize vehicles, trach them away longer within the law, because of the dangers sideshows. i want communities to know we're going to do everything we can to stop the illegal activity. it may seem fun to young people and exciting to young people. but these sideshows are very dangerous. and we take this seriously. and we want this to be a public announcement to everyone out there, who may participate or who may think that these are fun activities, that these are, in fact, very dangerous. they need to stop and we'll do everything we can as lawmakers in san francisco to end this really violent act of dragging cars, driving crazy in the communities. and people live in these communities. people walk and cycle in these communities. we can't have them -- [indiscernible] thank you. >> thank you, supervisor walton. vice chair stefani. >> supervisor stefani: thank you, chair mandelman and thank you, supervisor safai, for bringing this forward. thinking a lot about this. i know as a city we have always fallen short when it comes to our vision zero goals. recent increase in reckless driving coming right at a time when we need the outdoor spaces more than ever. i, too, have heard from my constituents about wildly reckless driving along high-traffic corridor, marina boulevard, a sideshow there at goth and geary. where mark burman was killed while walking in his neighborhood by a reckless driver. and i mentioned mark burman's death, because it's incredibly important to talk about the influence that social media is having on this uptick in reckless driving, including the side shows. the driver who killed mark burman was driving at an extreme speed, to entertain his hundreds of followers on social media. and, in fact, he was recording his driving on august 11th, the night he killed mark burman. so i know this incident isn't the only one done for the benefit of those gawking on social media, that many of the sideshows we see are recorded and shared in the same way. and what social media followers don't see is what has just been mentioned by supervisor walton and supervisor safai is the damage that comes after. the destroyed property, injuries and death as we saw in supervisor safai's district, that results from these incidents. and i hope that we combine efforts in this legislation with increased investment in building out safe street infrastructure, like speed cameras, timed traffic lights and speed lights on crosswalks forcing driver to decrease speed. i'm trying to work with the sfmta on. but this legislation is an important first step to curtailing the harm that this totally unnecessary activity has brought. and i think san francisco absolutely has to send a message that this will not be tolerated in san francisco. and again supervisor safai, thank you for this legislation. i would like to add my name as a co-sponsor. >> supervisor safai: thank you, vice chair, stefani. all right, chief scott. >> thank you, chair mandelman. and i also want to thank supervisor safai for his leadership and supervisor walton and supervisor, stefani, thank you for adding your name to sponsor this legislation and for your leadership. i do want to highlight a couple of other incidents, just for the viewing public. about how dangerous these events and the stunt driving can be. as supervisor safai and walton and stefani now have mentioned, incidents have resulted in tragedy. i have some specific examples to let people know how dangerous these events are and the reckless behavior is. as supervisor safai mentioned, on september 7th, on a late night event, there were approximately 50 vehicles in the excelsior neighborhood, which resulted in over 100 calls from concerned residents about the activity that was taking place. when the officers were dispatched, unfortunately there were three victims among that crowd who were suffering from gunshot wounds. one of the victims a 21-year-old male suffered fatal gunshot wounds to his head, while the others were transported to the hospital, local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. the day before this homicide occurred, on september 6th, there were several events in the same area in the bayview district. and what is referred to as roving exhibitions of stunt driving. however, there were no reports of gunfire on september 6th. on september 20th, more recently at 1:04 a.m. in the morning, an event where bayview drew over 100 vehicles. and during this event, numerous people, that were assembled to watch this reckless and dangerous activity, began firing guns. when the officers responded, over 70 casings were discovered. it was really fortunate that nobody was shot or killed in this incident, including innocent bystanders and people in their homes, minding their own business. the following night, over 100 vehicles participated in another event in the area of russia and paris in the ingleside district. the crowds dispersed, luckily with no gunfire erupting. but again another dangerous event that could have been fat fatal. stunt driving exhibition with large crowds of people. and it resulted in a shooting. the types of events that these cause, confrontation and often gunfire. on august 24th event, at one point a participating driver lost control of the vehicle and forced spectators to quickly jump out of the way to prevent another tragedy. and again we narrowly escaped a tragedy in that. there were spectators all around the intersection that actually blocked the access of entry to officers responding or anybody else that wanted to get to that intersection. so these events are very difficult to police and respond to. and they take up a lot of our polices resources, that really could be going to other things. but we have to divert resources to deal with this activity. the driving is a risk of death. and this is a violation as mentioned by all of the supervisors -- [indiscernible] really no place for that in our community. it has to stop. and we have to hold people accountable. i really want to thank supervisor safai for his leadership. and reiterate that we support this proposed ordinance and we'll do everything in our power to protect the health and safety and reinforcing state laws to prohibit this type of behavior. i also want to point out, we've had to step up our game. because our response, the san francisco police department has not been at times met with public approval because of the amount of resources and coordination and all of the things that it really takes to police these events and prevent from happening. we have reached out to neighboring agencies. it's been said that these events are happening all over the bay area actually. we've learned some lessons from other jurisdictions and cities that have had to deal with this. we want to incorporate those into our response. and we've done that. we've actually put together a training with our officers and we refined that training. we believe we have a much better response now. we have officers that are stepping up our game to really support this. we've done that and resulted in citations and impounds. it's also resulted in open-source social media, some of these participants saying,. >> commissioner haney:, san francisco is now responded to these much more effectively and much quicker. that's a good thing. we believe that will discourage this activity. for those who choose to do it, this legislation will help us hold people accountable. i think to thank the supervisors sponsoring this legislation. and thank you, chair mandelman, for giving me a few minutes to express our support for this. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, chief scott. supervisor safai, shall we go to public comment? >> supervisor safai: yeah. i think i'll come back to the chief then. i had a couple of things. yeah, let's go to public comment. that's fine. >> supervisor mandelman: mr. clerk, shall we see if we have ? >> clerk: thank you, mr. their. mr. coup, please let us know if any callers are ready. for those already connected, please press star followed by 3 if you wish to be added to the queue to speak for this ordinance. for those already on hold in the queue, please continue to wait until you are prompted to begin. you'll hear a prompt that informs you that your line has been unmuted. for those who are watching our meeting on cable channel 26 or via streaming link or through sfgovtv.org, if you wish to speak on this item, please call in now. you would do that by dialing (415)655-0001. enter the meeting i.d. 164 932 8582. press the pound symbol twice and press star followed by 3 to enter the queue to speak. mr. coup, do we have any callers for agenda item? >> operator: yes, i will cue the first caller. >> speakers have two minutes. we ask you to state your first and last name clearly and speak directly into the phone. if you have prepared a written statement, we encourage you to send a copy to the clerk for inclusion in the file. please begin. >> caller: hello, supervisors. my name is keegan and i live in district 10. and i'm calling to ask that you do not recommend the ordinance to the board of supervisors. calling for more policing, more criminalization and more targeting of san francisco's black, brown and working class communities. stunt driving has been a part of the bay area and oakland's culture for decade. there's a an article quoted as a thriving place, part improv performance and the only place to catch this. the targeting of these sideshow is coincided with gentrification and even more criminalization. for months now, san franciscans have taken to the streets and in meeting after meeting, hour after hour of public comment stated their opposition to policing. the demand was to disarm, disband. instead the city is treating things like they are business as usual. by creating legislation that further polices and further criminalizes people. the exact opposite of what we want. this legislation to further police and criminalize is another example of the broken tough on crime policy over the last few decades. these policies do not work and serve to destroy communities and families and make us all unsafe. this legislation does nothing to respond to the demand san franciscans to end policing. it does nothing to reduce motor vehicle stunt driving, nothing to create alternatives for motor vehicle stunt driving. and it does nothing to protect the safety of people participating or not participating in the events. this feels like a policy founded on the next-door app and not on how to be better next-door neighbors. again i'm asking that you please do not recommendation this for the full board. we do not more policing, criminalization or more target of our communities. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker. >> caller: thank you. my name is willan martin. i reside in district 11. i completely disagree with the previous speaker. i support the legislation to help the police gain better control over illegal and dangerous sideshow events. the recent sideshows that impacted me directly and personally. i have not been able to leave my home in district 11 and safely travel on city streets, due to these events. if there were a fire or medical emergency at or near my home, first responders would have been subject to dangerous conditions, potentially leading to loss of life because of illegal and dangerous sideshows. the proposed legislation is a reasonable step in the right direction, just passing it will send a message to the perpetrators that san francisco is serious about stopping these events. the proposed legislation can be amended, if in the future we find that additional legislation is needed or what was passed needs to be changed, we can do that. the point is to get moving on solving this problem before more people die. the one area that could be improved in the monitoring of how the law is applied and what we can see from it. the police department needs to report to this committee and the police thank you very much. [ please stand by ] guilty. due process be damned. if you need it for anything, too bad, so sad. a cop decided you were guilty and that is all that is required. we can send public safety messages and encourage safer alternative activity without passing redundant laws granting unconstitutional police powers. please reject this unconstitutional overreaching are proposal. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> i strongly agree with what the last speaker said. why aren't the existing laws already being enforced? why do you need this extra law? and why -- how broadly is this going to be interpreted that, you know, anybody who helps with a side show is going to also have their cars, you know, taken away. and why does this law talk about, you know, gunshots being fired near sideshow. how is that relevant? when we talk about legalizing cannabis, we're not concerned about whether or not maybe people selling cannabis on the street might have been involved in gang-related activities. you know, the issue is, is cannabis a safe drug? so the issue should be, is this stunt driving safe or not. not whether or not somebody fired gunshots nearby. and so existing laws to enforce this, then we should be using the existing laws and not creating new laws that will -- that seem to be targeted certain populations. especially now during covid-19. especially now that public transportation is a lot worse. these neighborhoods you mentioned, the bayview, public transportation there is not good. so taking somebody's car away in those neighborhoods is a major -- especially if it's somebody who needs to go to work and they don't have a car anymore. now what are they going to do? how is this fixing any problems? it seems like it's creating more problems. >> next speaker. good afternoon. my name is michael garcia. district 11. i would like to speak in strong condemnation of the proposed legislation. this proposal criminalizes young people. it criminalizes brown people. it criminalizes poor people. it's effectively a civil asset forfeiture. and we've seen all over the country how strongly americans have come out against that. as san franciscans we should be leading the way, not following. and we need to think about creative ways of solving these problems that don't just involve more of the same mistakes. as one caller pointed out, this is unconstitutional proposal and it will cost the city a ton of money to defend the lawsuits that will come as a result of it. so i would encourage you to listen to the city of san francisco and reject this proposal. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello. i support the legislation. it's warranted. dangerous activities. we've had three sideshows within our neighborhood. seven within 10 blocks from february to september. one of the problems is when you call 911, you get put over to 553-0123. i certainly hope in the future we'll be able to call and get prompt response. everybody in our neighborhood -- i'm in district 7 -- everybody in the neighborhood wants this legislation. so i thank supervisor safai and the others who have signed on to this. this is definitely warranted legislation. thank you so much. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi, this is judy. i'm in district 11. i want to disagree with the person who spoke before me. not everyone, at least in the district of 11 wants the legislation. i agree with previous callers this is a redundant piece of legislation. as we see in the previous examples already cited, people call 911 and there will be police showing up. if we're trying to send a message, i think the message has already been sent by the call to 911. it doesn't seem very necessary. and it's just another attempt to overcriminalize black and brown people in the district. i feel sorry fort person who doesn't feel comfortable walking around the neighborhood in district 11. i don't believe that the sideshows themselves are the issue. in the end it's the poverty and the little attention paid to the immigrants in the district that is causing the frustration. i staunchly do not recommend this legislation. in the end, it's pushing people unnecessarily in an overreach over wanted manner and i don't think think this is reasonable whatsoever. >> thank you. next speaker. >> i'm theodore, resident of excelsior, and i'm in favor of enforcing laws against sideshows. cars are always deadly and using them for doughnuts and racing is especially dangerous. the sideshows are directly harmful. they're spreading more fumes and particulates that have been exacerbating health issues over the years. they have well over 100 decibels of noise in the neighborhoods. i urge you to move this forward. thank you. >> that completes the queue. >> all right. public comment is closed. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: thank you. i want to say -- i want to say a few words in response to some of the callers. i really appreciate the fact that this is something that has been completely community-driven. i heard from hundreds and hundreds of neighbors, longtime neighbors, people who have lived in district 11. and then after talking to my colleagues, i found out this was something that the same. that they've heard the same. this is nowhere near anything that has to do with gentrification. i just want to be clear on that. this is not displacing anybody. this is not transforming a neighborhood. this is about protecting people's health and safety. i had people call me that have lived, born and raised in the excelsior, saying that people were parked in their driveway, sitting on their doorstep as they watched these events. i had people to say to me -- these are first responders, folks. let's keep that in mind. let's remember what district 11 is all about, lakeview and what my district is about. these are working families. these are first responders. these are essential workers. these are working and middle class families. when somebody tells me they're a nurse coming home from a long shift and they can't get to their house for an hour because someone is doing this sideshow. when i hear someone driving their senior parent home because they're trying to get them drugs at the drugstore or groceries and they can't get into their home or got trapped into one of these. this is not about over-policing. this is not about targeting any one community. this is about restoring peace, safety and health for a neighborhood. these are dangerous. and this is not about targeting anybody. in fact, i think chief scott talked about this earlier. there has to be a preponderance of evidence. they have to have video evidence. they have to have documentation, license plate numbers. they have to have clear evidence that someone has been involved in this. as the caller said, there are already laws on the books that govern the way in which people operate vehicles on the street. we are enhancing this because this is something that has increased dramatically. dramatically in my district. nd i know in other parts of san francisco. so i can tell you, i heard from hundreds and hundreds of people. and this is not hyperbole. there probably have not been one issue in my district that i have heard from more people across the board that said, you need to do something about this. this is something i have never seen happen in the 30, 40 years, or my entire life, these are their words, that i've lived in this neighborhood. we are responding and we're responding with a strong message. as supervisor walton said, we want people to understand this is not okay. this is not safe. we don't want to take anybody's car. we don't want to seize anybody's car for any amount of time, but if you continue to do this -- by the way, people are coming from sacramento, san jose, they're coming from all over the bay area because they've been invited on social media as part of this organizing tool to come conduct this activity in san francisco. so i'm sorry. if you do that, and you participate in that, and you endanger people's safety and your own, if we have the evidence and preponderance of evidence, we're going to seize your vehicle for 14 days on the first offense. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, supervisor safai. supervisor walton. >> supervisor walton: thank you so much. i do just want to reiterate some of the points supervisor safai. i know we had at lot of callers talking about how this may criminalize. i am one of the major leaders of police reform here in san francisco and i will always continue to be. i also live in a black community. the community where we have the most people left. black people are fed up with these sideshows. we want our kids to be able to walk down the streets and play. we want our families walk down the street and not have to be in fear of being hit by people driving reckless. as a black person who talks to black people 24-7 and has had several complaints from black people, this is not an anti-black law. this is a law that protects all. so i love when people try to call in and say they're speaking for us, but if you want to speak for us, first you have to speak to us. and this is definitely -- san franciscans, including black people. we do not want sideshows on our streets. i live on a street where they actually come to my street. they have sideshows. and this is not safe. our community -- and we're going to do what we can to stop them. so i want this to be a message to everyone that this is dangerous. it may look exciting on film. it may look exciting on youtube. it may look exciting on tv, but we've literally had people die from it. this is not one of those pieces of legislation that are encouraging police to attack or do anything outrageous. but if you are caught on video and on camera and you are participating in the side show -- by the way, like stated, a lot of folks -- of course not all, but a lot of folks are coming from other areas, other cities. and making our city more dangerous. we can't tolerate that. so i would appreciate it if you talk for black people, you actually talk to the black people. i live in a black community 24-7, and we don't want this in your neighborhood. i have e-mails, phone calls, that we need to stop this. this is one of the things that -- [inaudible] -- this pandemic and this crisis that i'm hearing a lot of complaints about. so i want again to thank supervisor safai. it is responsible and important. and it is one step toward what we need to keep our streets safe from sideshows. >> thank you, supervisor walton. i will just add, you know, i think back in february, there was a couple of these sideshow events and my constituents were terrified. they are scary. they are life-threatening. and the events that happen in my district i don't believe were anything near what is happening in supervisor walton and safai's district right now. and it strikes me as a little bit rich some of the callers calling in, demanding that the -- some of the less affluent and more diverse parts of the city be required to accommodate themselves to people coming from around the bay area to conduct these events. if that's somehow social justice, that's not social justice. i would like to be added as a cosponsor to this as well. and i will -- unless supervisor safai, you have more to say, i'll move to forward this to the full board. >> supervisor safai: no. thank you for your support. i don't know -- i just want to be respectful. i know the chief had to leave. i don't know if deanna wanted to say anything. i appreciate you being there to listen. and i know that you work with our office as well. so i wanted to recognize you, appreciate that. oh, chief, you're still here. >> still here, yes. >> okay, good. and thank you, supervisor walton, for your comments. that is exactly the kind of thing that i have heard from all sectors of my community, lakeview, excelsior, all different backgrounds as i said. and thank you, supervisor mandelman, for cosigning on. thank you supervisor stefani for sharing the story and you signing on. and thank you, chief, for working with us. and i think that -- i just want to put it out on the record that chief scott was very sensitive to wanting to approach this the right way. wanting to ensure that people aren't being targeted. wanting to ensure that we did this and that it was very clear that there would have to be a preponderance of evidence and that we were very careful in the way we approached this. i just want to thank you for -- i don't know if you want to say anything, chief, if you want to say anything before we close out? >> no further comments. i just want to again, thank you all the supervisors. thank you. >> thank you, chief. thank you, deanna. i will move that we -- looks like our city attorney has something to say. >> what is going on? >> good afternoon, members of the committee, deputy city attorney. in reviewing this legislation during the hearing, i realize there is a small mistake in the font that was used. it's on page -- as you know we use fonts to indicate -- >> how dare you use the wrong font [laughter]? >> my apologiieapologies. but we use fonts to indicate what is changed. they are italicized, but they should be also underlined. if i could ask the committee to make a motion to amend. it's not at all substantive, but i want to make sure we get the right font. >> while i have you, madame city attorney, i do have a question for you. if we were to strike -- make amendments on line 14, 15 and 16, so that the second offense, instead of it saying no less than 15 days, if we changed that to 29 days, would that be a substantive amendment? because we talk about 29 days on the third offense. we don't talk about it on the second offense. we talk about 15 on the second offense. the chief and i had talked about it. we had presented in such a way when we rolled it out that the second offense would be 29 days, but i just want to ask a point of clarification. >> so my recollection is that under state law, the city can for up to 30 days and this established a floor of 14 days for the first offense. and now you're changing the floor from 14 days to 29 -- >> no, no, not on the first. on the second offense. >> on the second offense. >> second offense -- >> so 15 to 29. so it would stiffen that second offense by raising the minimum? i do think that would be substantive? >> okay, all right. i just wanted to ask the committee members. we can leave it the way it is. we talked about it as the second offense being 29 days. if the committee is fine with 15 days, i'm fine with leaving it the way it is, but just wanted to get your feedback. >> any feedback? i would be okay with moving forward with it as it is and revisiting it if it looks like we need more. but i don't know. >> i would agree with that. >> leaving it the way it is? >> yes, and revisiting if we have to. >> got it. okay. that's fine with me, too. okay. so, thank you, mrs. chair. if we can send this to the full board with a positive recommendation, i would greatly appreciate it. and i don't know -- i think -- amendment, right. >> i will do that. mr. clerk, could you call the roll? >> on the motion offered by chair mandelman to enact the clerical amendment on page three? >> supervisor stefani: aye. >> supervisor walton: aye. >> supervisor mandelman: aye. there are three ayes. >> great. i will move the legislation as amended to the -- i'll move that we send the legislation as amended to the full board with positive recommendations. >> on the motion offered by chair mandelman, vice chair stefani? >> supervisor stefani: aye. >> supervisor walton: aye. >> supervisor mandelman: aye. >> mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> the motion passes. congratulations. >> thank you, everyone. thank you for your support. appreciate it and thank you for your strong comments and sharing your own stories from your own districts. i think this is something that is timely and i appreciate you guys moving it quickly. >> thank you. >> mr. clerk, do we have any more items before us today? >> there is no further business. >> well, then we are adjourned. thanks, everybody. >> thank you, chair. lesb ri >> by the time the last show came, i was like whoa, whoa, whoa. i came in kicking and screaming and left out dancing. [♪] >> hello, friends. i'm the deputy superintendent of instruction at san francisco unified school district, but you can call me miss vickie. what you see over the next hour has been created and planned by our san francisco teachers for our students. >> our premise came about for san francisco families that didn't have access to technology, and that's primarily children preschool to second grade. >> when we started doing this distance learning, everything was geared for third grade and up, and we work with the little once, and it's like how were they still processing the information? how were they supposed to keep learning? >> i thought about reaching the student who didn't have internet, who didn't have computers, and i wanted them to be able to see me on the t.v. and at least get some connection with my kids that way. >> thank you, friends. see you next time. >> hi, friend. >> today's tuesday, april 28, 2020. it's me, teacher sharon, and i'm back again. >> i got an e-mail saying that i had an opportunity to be on a show. i'm, like, what? >> i actually got an e-mail from the early education department, saying they were saying of doing a t.v. show, and i was selected to be one of the people on it, if i was interested. i was scared, nervous. i don't like public speaking and all the above. but it worked out. >> talk into a camera, waiting for a response, pretending that oh, yeah, i hear you, it's so very weird. i'm used to having a classroom with 17 students sitting in front of me, where they're all moving around and having to have them, like, oh, sit down, oh, can you hear them? let's listen. >> hi guys. >> i kind of have stage flight when i'm on t.v. because i'm normally quiet? >> she's never quiet. >> no, i'm not quiet. >> my sister was, like, i saw you on t.v. my teacher was, i saw you on youtube. it was exciting, how the community started watching. >> it was a lot of fun. it also pushed me outside of my comfort zone, having to make my own visuals and lesson plans so quickly that ended up being a lot of fun. >> i want to end today with a thank you. thank you for spending time with us. it was a great pleasure, and see you all in the fall. >> i'm so happy to see you today. today is the last day of the school year, yea! >> it really helped me in my teaching. i'm excited to go back teaching my kids, yeah. >> we received a lot of amazing feedback from kiddos, who have seen their own personal teacher on television. >> when we would watch as a family, my younger son, kai, especially during the filipino episodes, like, wow, like, i'm proud to be a filipino. >> being able to connect with someone they know on television has been really, really powerful for them. and as a mom, i can tell you that's so important. the social confidence development of our early learners. [♪] >> announcer: you're watching coping with covid-19. >> hi. i'm chris manus and you're watching "coping with covid-19." today my guest is anastasia klaste and we're going talk about how the pandemic has affected our school community. welcome to the show. >> hi! thank you. >> i understand that our students and teachers have adopted video conference as distance learning tools to be able to continue studying remotely and this is clearly new for everyone. do you have some suggestions to students and perhaps their parents that could help them manage this new approach? >> i think the best advice i can give students and parents is to really be gentle on yourselves during this time. the thing we don't really want to do is increase stress and anxiety amongst our students because they know it is a scary, uncertain time aside from the work. so, we are engaging in distance learning and providing work for students to engage in. the mental health of students and their well-being and safety is really at the forefront of our minds and so we're asking parents to keep an eye on their kids and also asking kids to speak up and let us know if they're having trouble f they need to talk to someone, if they need to take a break or they need more time to do work. because that is really what's most important for us. >> right. and what would you say to teachers having a hard time adjusting as well? >> i think our faculty is really lucky in that we were already utilizing google classroom in all of our classes. so the switch from in-person to online is not as extreme as it may have been to some other faculties in other schools. that said, most of us had never engaged in video conferencing or done any sort of daily online lesson planning. so, i think the same thing i say to parents and students i say to teachers is to just be gentle and give yourself space and know it's ok to make mistakes and it's ok if you're not perfect and we're all sort of learning and doing at the same time. so, that can also be anxiety provoking and that can be hard for taoefers that are used to being really good at what they do and knowing what exactly to say and how to do it every day are grappling with new technology and they're finding that students [inaudible] what they do in person. >> are there concerns about college admissions for high school seniors and juniors? >> i think at first there was a lot of sort of confusion and anxiety for juniors and seniors about colleges. and now that the system has come out with some guidance and we understand that, you know, the s.a.t. and a.c.t. tests won't be required for the next year, we know that universities have only agreed to accept credit or no credit or pass-no pass grades and looking at students across the country knowing that we're in unprecedented situation now that we've got guidance of clarity around that. students are feeling a lot more comfort. -- comfortable. for our current seniors, most of them got their college acceptances in february and march so those things shouldn't be changing that much. for juniors, you know, now that they know that they have to step it up for the next year because the grades that they're getting this semester may not be letter grades, it might be a pass-no pass, credit-no credit. but it seems from everything that i read or hear, they're working really closely with school districts to make sure that no student is, you know, adversely affected by the pandemic because of this sort of universal experience for all students. >> indeed. i heard that some kids are worried that they may have to make up the work or retake the whole year? how likely are those scenarios and how will grades be assigned for this semester? >> well, san francisco unified has made a decision through the board of ed that there will be a signing. credit-no credit for 6 through 12th graders and that means that basically they will either full credit for the glass or won't receive credit for class, based on the work that they do and that goes into a gaap of neutral so it shouldn't raise or lower any specific student's g.p.a., but just give them credit toward graduation. from what i can tell, california has been pretty clear that no student will have to retake this year. as educators, we do acknowledge that thereby a little bit of catchup happening in the fall. >> right. have your students had a variety of different experiences during this pandemic? >> yes. i would say definitely. our school serves a big at-risk group of kids. we have students from every zip code and city, basically. and students from all sorts of backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses so on one hand they have their high speed wi-fi and it's no problem for them to hop on a zoom call or get their google docs turned in and then we have a lot of situations where they may not have wi-fi so they're delivering hotspots or they have a device but it is shared among several siblings or the parents are using it during the day and the kids have only a certain amount of time that they can engage. so, you know, something that the teachers have talked about being mindful of and i'm definitely being mindful, as a principal, is that our students are in various situations and we can't assume anything about their access in their ability to [inaudible] right now. for some of them, they're caring for siblings or grandma, living at home. many of them have family members affected by covid and so they're in a space where they're really just trying to take care of those around them. and academics are sort of on the backburner and for right now that's ok. you know, we sort of support them in whatever way they need. >> i understand. have you been able to provide any technical assistance to your students or faculty? >> yes. the school district had hotspots so i personally delivered about 50 chrome books to students and now we're getting hotspots, which are wi-fi devices that utilize cell phone coverage in an area so homes that don't have wi-fi or homes that have spotty wi-fi can use these hotspots and the kids are saying that they work really well and now the district just got a bunch of them so we're able to list them. so any family that needs them right now, which is really great. now all of our faculties have access to high speed wi-fi and technology at home. we are providing them with the technology that they need to be engaged in this. >> i see. and finally s there any news about summer school? >> there is. sort of. it's happening. in some way, shape or form. but we don't really know how or where. i'm assuming it will be online and, as usual, seniors or kids about to graduate will be prioritized so there'll definitely be some summer school, i'm just not sure where or what at this point. but they're going to share information about that pretty soon. unfortunately all the fun summer programs and jobs, the arts programs and language programs, the acceleration programs are probably not happening. but there will be some sort of credit recovery option for kids who need it. >> right. well, thank you for coming ton show. i really appreciate the time you've given us today. >> yeah. great talking with you. thank you so much for having me. >> that is it for this episode. we'll be back with more covid-19 related information shortly. you've been watching "coping with covid-19." i'm chris manus. san francisco is surrounded on three sides by water, the fire boat station is intergal to maritime rescue and preparedness, not only for san francisco, but for all of the bay area. [sirens] >> fire station 35 was built in 1915. so it is over 100 years old. and helped it, we're going to build fire boat station 35. >> so the finished capital planning committee, i think about three years ago, issued a guidance that all city facilities must exist on sea level rise. >> the station 35, construction cost is approximately $30 million. and the schedule was complicated because of what you call a float. it is being fabricated in china, and will be brought to treasure island, where the building site efficient will be constructed on top of it, and then brought to pier 22 and a half for installation. >> we're looking at late 2020 for final completion of the fire boat float. the historic firehouse will remain on the embarcadero, and we will still respond out of the historic firehouse with our fire engine, and respond to medical calls and other incidences in the district. >> this totally has to incorporate between three to six feet of sea level rise over the next 100 years. that's what the city's guidance is requiring. it is built on the float, that can move up and down as the water level rises, and sits on four fixed guide piles. so if the seas go up, it can move up and down with that. >> it does have a full range of travel, from low tide to high tide of about 16 feet. so that allows for current tidal movements and sea lisle rises in the coming decades. >> the fire boat station float will also incorporate a ramp for ambulance deployment and access. >> the access ramp is rigidly connected to the land side, with more of a pivot or hinge connection, and then it is sliding over the top of the float. in that way the ramp can flex up and down like a hinge, and also allow for a slight few inches of lateral motion of the float. both the access ramps, which there is two, and the utility's only flexible connection connecting from the float to the back of the building. so electrical power, water, sewage, it all has flexible connection to the boat. >> high boat station number 35 will provide mooring for three fire boats and one rescue boat. >> currently we're staffed with seven members per day, but the fire department would like to establish a new dedicated marine unit that would be able to respond to multiple incidences. looking into the future, we have not only at&t park, where we have a lot of kayakers, but we have a lot of developments in the southeast side, including the stadium, and we want to have the ability to respond to any marine or maritime incident along these new developments. >> there are very few designs for people sleeping on the water. we're looking at cruiseships, which are larger structures, several times the size of harbor station 35, but they're the only good reference point. we look to the cruiseship industry who has kind of an index for how much acceleration they were accommodate. >> it is very unique. i don't know that any other fire station built on the water is in the united states. >> the fire boat is a regionalesset tharegional assete used for water rescue, but we also do environmental cleanup. we have special rigging that we carry that will contain oil spills until an environmental unit can come out. this is a job for us, but it is also a way of life and a lifestyle. we're proud to serve our community. and we're willing to help people in any way we can. [♪] >> i am the supervisor of district one. i am sandra lee fewer. [♪] >> i moved to the richmond district in 1950 mine. i was two years old. i moved from chinatown and we were one of the first asian families to move out here. [♪] >> when my mother decided to buy that house, nobody knew where it was. it seems so far away. for a long time, we were the only chinese family there but we started to see the areas of growth to serve a larger chinese population. the stress was storage of the birthplace of that. my father would have to go to chinatown for dim sum and i remember one day he came home and said, there is one here now. it just started to grow very organically. it is the same thing with the russian population, which is another very large ethnic group in the richmond district. as russia started to move in, we saw more russian stores. so parts of the richmond is very concentrated with the russian community and immigrant russian community, and also a chinese immigrant community. [♪] >> i think as living here in the richmond, we really appreciate the fact that we are surrounded three natural barriers. they are beautiful barriers. the presidio which gives us so many trails to walk through, ocean beach, for families to just go to the beach and be in the pacific ocean. we also also have a national park service. we boarded the golden gate national recreation area so there is a lot of activity to do in the summer time you see people with bonfires. but really families enjoying the beach and the pacific ocean during the rest of the time of year. [♪] >> and golden gate park where we have so many of our treasures here. we have the tea garden, the museum and the academy of sciences. not to mention the wonderful playgrounds that we have here in richmond. this is why i say the richmond is a great place for families. the theatre is a treasure in our neighborhood. it has been around for a very long time. is one of our two neighborhood theatres that we have here. i moved here when i was 1959 when i was two years old. we would always go here. i love these neighborhood theatres. it is one of the places that has not only a landmark in the richmond district, but also in san francisco. small theatres showing one or two films. a unique -- they are unique also to the neighborhood and san francisco. >> where we are today is the heart of the richmond district. with what is unique is that it is also small businesses. there is a different retail here it is mom and pop opening up businesses. and providing for the neighborhood. this is what we love about the streets. the cora door starts on clement street and goes all the way down to the end of clement where you will see small businesses even towards 32nd. at the core of it is right here between here and 20 -- tenth avenue. when we see this variety of stores offered here, it is very unique then of the -- any other part of san francisco. there is traditional irish music which you don't get hardly anywhere in san francisco. some places have this long legacy of serving ice cream and being a hangout for families to have a sunday afternoon ice cream. and then also, we see grocery stores. and also these restaurants that are just new here, but also thriving. [♪] >> we are seeing restaurants being switched over by hand, new owners, but what we are seeing is a vibrancy of clement street still being recaptured within new businesses that are coming in. that is a really great thing to see. i don't know when i started to shop here, but it was probably a very, very long time ago. i like to cook a lot but i like to cook chinese food. the market is the place i like to come to once a year. once i like about the market as it is very affordable. it has fresh produce and fresh meat. also, seafood. but they also offer a large selection of condiments and sauces and noodles. a variety of rice that they have is tremendous. i don't thank you can find a variety like that anywhere else. >> hi. i am kevin wong. i am the manager. in 1989 we move from chinatown to richmond district. we have opened for a bit, over 29 years. we carry products from thailand, japan, indonesia, vietnam, singapore and india. we try to keep everything fresh daily. so a customer can get the best out a bit. >> normally during crab season in november, this is the first place i hit. because they have really just really fresh crab. this is something my family really likes for me to make. also, from my traditional chinese food, i love to make a kale soup. they cut it to the size they really want. i am probably here once a week. i'm very familiar with the aisles and they know everyone who is a cashier -- cashier here i know when people come into a market such as this, it looks like an asian supermarkets, which it is and sometimes it can be intimidating. we don't speak the language and many of the labels are in chinese, you may not know what to buy or if it is the proper ingredients for the recipe are trying to make. i do see a lot of people here with a recipe card or sometimes with a magazine and they are looking for specific items. the staff here is very helpful. i speak very little chinese here myself. thinks that i'm not sure about, i asked the clerk his and i say is this what i need? is this what i should be making? and they actually really helped me. they will bring me to the aisle and say this is battery. they are very knowledgeable. very friendly. i think they are here to serve not only the asian community but to serve all communities in the richmond district and in san francisco. [♪] >> what is wonderful about living here is that even though our july is a very foggy and overcast, best neighborhood, the sleepy part outside on the west side is so rich with history, but also with all the amenities that are offered. [♪] >> it is 1:00 p.m. and this is the regular meeting for the commission of investment and infrastructure. i would like to welcome the members of the public who are following the live stream as well as

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